doubtful about thrusting the two women together. Despite her dubious past, Dame Pelagia was still a nun, and Matilde, for all her courtliness and grace, was still a prostitute.
Matilde recovered her poise and her customary charm returned. ‘Of course,’ she said, holding out a welcoming hand towards Dame Pelagia. ‘Please come in. May I offer you some ale?’ She looked appraisingly at the old nun. ‘Or perhaps you would prefer strong French wine?’
Dame Pelagia’s beatific features broke into a acquisitive grin, looking so much like her grandson that the effect was disconcerting. She elbowed Michael out of the way and followed Matilde into the house. While Michael solicitously helped her to a chair, Bartholomew perched on a stool and edged closer to the fire. The biting Fen wind had chilled him just from walking the short distance from Stanmore’s house to Matilde’s, and he wondered again how he would manage the rest of the winter without his cloak.
While Michael gave a brief, and not wholly truthful, explanation as to why an elderly nun was seeking refuge in the house of a prostitute, Bartholomew reconsidered the matter of the poisoned wine and the smugglers. He could see that the two might well be related, but since Michael had barely started to investigate the deaths of Armel, Grene and Isaac, he did not understand why someone should try to kill them because of it. He wondered whether they should interpret the incident in the Fens as a warning, and abandon the investigation altogether. But then, as Michael had pointed out to Stanmore, they would constantly be looking over their shoulders, waiting for the next attack. Bartholomew would not even be able to answer summonses from his patients without his suspicions being aroused.
‘Julianna, did you say?’ Matilde was asking. ‘The niece of Deschalers the grocer?’
Bartholomew dragged himself away from his thoughts, and concentrated on the conversation between Matilde and Michael.
‘The very same,’ said the monk. ‘How do you know her?’
‘Through the usual means,’ said Matilde, referring to the way in which she and the other prostitutes provided each other with information, so that they were almost as well informed of events in the town as was Stanmore from his spies. ‘I have heard she is a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it.’
‘That is certainly true,’ muttered Bartholomew. ‘She knew how to wrangle herself an escape from Denny Abbey, although I suspect she did not enjoy the journey.’
Matilde seemed amused. ‘You do not like her, do you?’
‘Am I so transparent?’ he asked, unsettled that she should read his feelings with such ease.
‘Sometimes,’ said Matilde, regarding him with eyes that twinkled with mischief.
‘Like most men,’ put in Dame Pelagia with a wink, and the two women laughed uproariously together. Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a look of incomprehension. When he had first thought of leaving Dame Pelagia with Matilde, Bartholomew’s concerns had been whether the elderly nun would find Matilde’s occupation offensive. But now he felt more anxious that Dame Pelagia might have a corrupting influence on Matilde. He regarded the nun again, impressed at the way she was gulping the potent claret without grimacing – as he had done – and reappraising her sharp green eyes and intelligent face.
‘How long have you been a nun, Dame Pelagia?’ he asked.
Matilde and Michael seemed startled at his question from out of the blue, but Dame Pelagia did not seem surprised at all. She looked him up and down shamelessly.
‘Since before you were born,’ she said, deliberately vague. ‘I led a somewhat different life before that.’
‘Really?’ asked Matilde with interest. ‘Do tell.’
‘Not now,’ said Michael quickly. ‘Matilde, what do you know about Julianna?’
Matilde looked disappointed, but the old nun gave her a glance that indicated Matilde was in store for quite a story once Bartholomew and Michael had left. Matilde gave her a quick smile, and began to answer Michael’s question. ‘She is betrothed to Edward Mortimer.’
‘To Edward Mortimer – son of the baker who was greedy with his lemons?’ asked Michael, scratching at a spot on his face. ‘No wonder Deschalers is taking such an interest in him! Poor Julianna! Edward Mortimer is a pathetic specimen of manhood – there is no backbone to him.’
‘Apparently she feels the same way,’ replied Matilde. ‘Rumour has it that she prefers the attentions of another who lives in Cambridge.’
‘I suppose that is why she was so keen to escape from the abbey,’ said Michael. ‘To return to the arms of her paramour. Do you know the name of this fortunate fellow?’
‘Not for sure,’ said Matilde. She would not meet Michael’s eyes.
‘It would be helpful to know,’ pressed Michael. ‘It might help us with our investigation.’
‘I am not sufficiently certain to tell you,’ protested Matilde, uncharacteristically indecisive.
‘Please Matilde,’ said Bartholomew wearily. ‘We will be discreet.’
She leaned forward and touched him on the knee. ‘I know you will,’ she said. ‘I am only reluctant to tell you because it may lead you down a false trail, and make you waste time, when it seems to be important that you solve this business quickly. I could not bear it if anything were to happen to you.’
Bartholomew looked up sharply, but Matilde was staring down at her hands, long and graceful, which were folded demurely in her lap.
‘The rumour is that it was Ralph de Langelee, Michaelhouse’s new Fellow of philosophy, who took her fancy before she was sent away to Denny,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Langelee?’ exclaimed Michael in disbelief. ‘That great, stupid brute?’
‘He is a handsome man,’ said Matilde, fixing him with her steady gaze. ‘And he has not yet taken any vows of chastity that might put him out of a woman’s reach.’
She and Michael exchanged a look that Bartholomew found impossible to interpret. Surely the monk would not have availed himself of Matilde’s services, he thought suddenly. For some reason, the notion disturbed him.
‘But Langelee is aggressive and arrogant,’ he said, forcing the unpleasant image of Matilde and Michael dishabille from his mind.
‘So is Julianna,’ Matilde pointed out. ‘I imagine they would be rather well suited.’
‘But you said she was betrothed to Edward Mortimer,’ said Michael, ‘so there can be no future in her yearnings for our loutish philosopher.’
‘Yearnings are not so easily cast aside,’ said Matilde. ‘Especially when one is young.’
‘Why does she not like Edward?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘He seems comely enough to me.’
‘But you are not a young woman of twenty-two, Matthew,’ said Matilde. ‘Edward is three years younger than Julianna, and probably seems like a baby to her. Given the choice, I would take Ralph de Langelee over Edward: Edward has not seen enough of the world to make him interesting, and he had been too long under the thumb of his father. Julianna doubtless wants to cast her net wider.’
Did Matilde know Edward and Langelee so well? Bartholomew wondered, regarding her with renewed curiosity. Matilde’s customers were a subject that, by mutual consent, they did not discuss. He doubted she would have told him even if he asked. Not for the first time in their friendship, he found himself wishing she had chosen another profession, and that she was someone he might ask to walk with him in the meadows by the river, or take to the mystery plays in St Mary’s Church.
The last time he had invited her to spend some time with him, she had felt obliged to disguise herself as an old woman to protect both their reputations. Despite the fact that they had laughed about it since, Bartholomew regretted that he had been unable to enjoy her company without her resorting to subterfuge and heavy cosmetics. He wondered what his sister would say if he took Matilde to Trumpington, so that they might see the early-born lambs together, or she might sit with him in the kitchen stealing hot cakes from the griddle.
Reluctantly, he forced his thoughts away from Matilde, and began to consider Julianna. She was evidently not all she seemed. Could
‘Deschalers might have made a worse match for Julianna than Edward,’ he said, standing and placing his unfinished wine on the table. ‘Old Master Cheney has been looking for a young wife ever since his own died during the plague. Julianna is lucky her uncle does not press Cheney on her.’
‘But Cheney knows about her past,’ said Matilde, rising to see him to the door. ‘Julianna was sent to Denny
