A Deadly Brew

fact, when she caught that water-seller using the well near the river after you had told people not to drink from it. She had the man terrified out of his meagre wits. What you have not seen, Matt, is her ire directed towards you. Now you know how the rest of us feel when your beloved sister goes on the rampage.’

‘You make her sound like a tyrant,’ said Bartholomew resentfully. ‘She is not.’

‘She has a quick temper,’ said Michael. ‘And you rashly attacked one of her charges. But her wrath is always short-lived, and all will be well again tomorrow. Now, we both have duties to perform that we have been neglecting while we have been here – you should ascertain what caused Gray to put on such a disgraceful performance at his disputation, and give Bulbeck his medicine. Then, at noon you should come to dine with me in the Brazen George. It is time we treated ourselves to a little decent refreshment, and we need to talk undisturbed. Cynric?’

The small Welshman appeared behind him.

‘Watch Master Stanmore’s gates and tell us when Rob Thorpe emerges. If we are not teaching in College, we will be in the chapel. You know which one I mean.’ He winked meaningfully.

Cynric gave him a knowing grin and trotted away, leaving Bartholomew bewildered. He tried to make Michael tell him what was happening, but the fat monk would say nothing.

Several hours later, they were comfortably settled in a pleasant chamber at the rear of the Brazen George, with a plateful of lamb and boiled onions. The room was one of Michael’s favourite haunts when inclement weather rendered the garden impractical. The taverner kept it free for the exclusive use of ranking scholars who should not have been there, and there was a small door that led directly out into an alley that ran perpendicular to the High Street, thus allowing discreet exits to be made should an occasion arise when it became necessary. It was a comfortable place – small and cosy, with a fire burning cheerfully in a brazier and colourful tapestries hanging on the walls. The beaten-earth floor was liberally scattered with reeds collected daily from the river bank, while bowls of herbs on the window sill made the chamber smell clean and fragrant.

‘I call this the chapel,’ said Michael, gesturing around him with a grin. ‘It is an excellent place for uninterrupted contemplation, where the troubled spirit can be restored with a good meal and a goblet or two of fine wine.’

Bartholomew was about to speak, when the landlord entered, bringing a dish of dried figs, which he presented with a flourish.

‘Try these, Brother,’ he said ingratiatingly to Michael. ‘They are quite delicious.’

‘What are they?’ asked Michael suspiciously, poking at the wizened brown objects with the handle of his spoon, as if he imagined they might leap up and devour him.

‘I have no idea,’ admitted the taverner. ‘My wife bought them yesterday, but she says they are quite the fashion at the King’s table.’

‘The King can keep them!’ muttered Michael ungraciously. ‘I would rather have some tart, if you have it. And not one made of these things! Apple. Or sugared pears. Something normal.’

The landlord left, crestfallen, while Michael regarded the figs with a shudder.

‘They look as though someone has eaten them already,’ he said, pushing them away.

Bartholomew frowned. ‘Lemons at the feast at Valence Marie; pomegranates at Michaelhouse; sugared almonds at Deschalers’s house; oranges at Denny Abbey. The whole town seems flooded with unusual foods. Deschalers must be making a fortune. Winter is usually a time when only apples left over from the summer are available. Now every house in Cambridge is attempting to dine like the King. Even Agatha was persuaded to buy a pomegranate and she did not even know what to do with it!’

‘You will be having problems with people’s digestions if they go round eating this kind of thing,’ said Michael, pushing the figs further away from him.

Bartholomew stared at him, a notion beginning to unfold in his mind.

But Michael was speaking. ‘You were right about that snivelling apprentice Rob Thorpe, Matt,’ he said. ‘He was at the installation. I saw him too.’

Chapter 9

‘But why did you not say you saw Rob Thorpe at the installation ceremony?’ cried Bartholomew angrily, leaping to his feet and sending the figs scattering over the table in the little room at the back of the Brazen George. ‘You might have saved me that ugly scene with Edith!’

‘Your family is in fine form today,’ said Michael with irritating calm. ‘This morning Oswald and Edith holler at you and now you yell at me. Sit down and drink some ale. I will explain if you let me.’

‘I do not want any ale!’ snapped Bartholomew. ‘Just tell me what game you are playing now.’

‘No game,’ said Michael, suddenly serious. ‘Lives are at stake here, Matt: Bingham’s for one. As soon as you had collared that young rat Thorpe, I knew you were right: it was him at the installation behind Grene, and he did indeed help you carry Grene’s body to the chapel. Yet he was different – his hair was black, not light brown, and his eyebrows were darker and heavier. He had disguised himself. And Edith was wrong when she said she would have noticed him at the installation – she was not expecting him to be there and so she had no reason to look. The hall at Valence Marie is huge and with all those people crushed into it, it is not surprising that she failed to notice a single servant at a table a long way from her own.’

‘Could you not have pointed this out to her?’ asked Bartholomew bitterly. ‘It might have gone some way to making her believe I am not an ogre blaming a murder on an innocent child.’

Michael took a hearty mouthful of meat and swallowed it with the most superficial of chews. Bartholomew watched in distaste as the monk wiped the grease from his mouth on his sleeve and turned his attentions to the onions bobbing around in the thick gravy.

‘I tried to stop you from continuing with your accusations, Matt,’ he said, in the same maddeningly tranquil voice. ‘I knew Edith and Oswald would never believe ill of one of their apprentices: they treat them like their own children. But you insisted in blundering on.’

Bartholomew wanted to grab him by the front of his habit and yell at him to stop being so infuriatingly smug. He chewed at his lip and wondered about the number of times he had recently felt moved to violence – towards Julianna for her attitude to Egil; towards Langelee for goading him about Matilde; towards Rob Thorpe for his gloating smile; and now even towards Michael.

‘It was better that I said nothing,’ Michael continued placidly. ‘Rob Thorpe would simply have continued to deny the accusations, and had I told Edith that I, too, had seen him at the installation, she would have assumed I was lying to support you. Nothing I could have said would have made any difference.’

‘So what do we do now?’ demanded Bartholomew. He sat down with an exhausted sigh. ‘What a mess!’

‘We wait,’ said Michael, taking another mouthful of boiled onions and smiling at his friend.

‘Wait for what?’ asked Bartholomew, putting his elbows on the table and resting his chin in his hands. ‘For Thorpe to deliver us a bottle of poisoned wine? I might be tempted to drink it: I have had my fill of all this subterfuge.’

‘Now, now,’ said Michael, gently chiding. ‘What would Matilde do without you?’ He favoured Bartholomew with one of his leering winks and coaxed the ghost of a smile from his morose friend. ‘But, meanwhile, we will wait for Rob Thorpe to go running off to the person who led him into all this murder and mayhem in the first place – his accomplice!’

Bartholomew lifted his head. ‘And what makes you so sure there is such a person?’

‘As your sister pointed out, Thorpe is seventeen years old. He would hardly be able to get himself into Valence Marie for the night without help.’

‘So you do think he killed Grene?’

‘Without a doubt,’ said Michael, waving a greasy hand in the air. ‘Although I cannot believe he did so alone. Gray and his cronies claim they saw an apprentice buying wine from Sacks on a Saturday night about a month ago. Philius was summoned to Stanmore’s house later that night because someone there was stricken by an