Tulyet eyed the heavy gold cross Michael had worn since the installation. ‘Are you, Brother? Then where did that handsome bauble come from? It is not the work of any local smith.’
‘That is none of your affair,’ said Michael haughtily. ‘But since you ask, I acquired it perfectly legally from Haralda the Dane, who occasionally works with gold.’
Tulyet smiled and Bartholomew saw he did not believe a word Michael had said. ‘To continue: Jonas the Apothecary has ordered a feather bed for his wife’s bad back; Constantine Mortimer has been selling fine leather gloves from France to boost the profits he makes by selling bread.’ He gave Bartholomew’s hands a hard look. ‘But you already know that.’
‘These?’ asked Bartholomew, looking down at his gloves, aghast. ‘Mortimer gave me smuggled goods?’
Tulyet nodded. ‘Do not feign shock with me, Matt. Mortimer is a baker. How do you imagine he came by gloves to sell?’
‘But I did not know,’ objected Bartholomew. He sounded feeble, even to his own ears, and had clearly not convinced Tulyet. Michael simply regarded him with sceptically raised eyebrows. ‘I did not buy them. Mortimer gave them to me.’
‘Of course he did,’ said Tulyet flatly. Michael still said nothing and the Sheriff continued. ‘Do you want to hear more? There is not a merchant, and scarcely a scholar, in the town who has not taken advantage of what the mild weather has to offer – except, it would seem, Thomas Deschalers.’
‘Deschalers?’ asked Michael, surprised. ‘He must be involved – there are lemons wherever you look in the town.’
The Sheriff gave a short bark of mirthless laughter. ‘Deschalers really
‘Deschalers was the one who set us thinking about smuggling in the first place,’ said Michael, shaking his head slowly. ‘How ironic!’
‘Father Yvo of Bernard’s Hostel has been making money to repair a leaking roof by hawking fine quality parchment, would you believe!’ Tulyet leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. ‘He thinks the constant damp is the cause of melancholia in one of his students, and he wanted to mend it to make the young man feel better.’
‘Paul gave me half the money he made from his contraband cloaks for the victims stricken with winter fever,’ said Bartholomew, remembering the gold the friar had given him, ‘and he sent the rest to the Leper Hospital.’
Tulyet groaned. ‘It is one thing arresting half of Cambridge for committing crimes for their own gain; it is entirely another when they do it to help the sick and the poor. What in heaven’s name am I going to do? Seal off the town and present the entire population to the King? What a mess!’
‘Your position is not so impossible,’ said Michael thoughtfully. Tulyet looked at him hopefully. ‘The King will not want his prisons full of the town’s leading citizens – or scholars. Go to arrest your miscreants, but do not be discreet about it. You cannot arrest anyone unless you find smuggled goods in their possession, yes?’ Tulyet nodded and sat up straight. ‘Inform all your sergeants what you plan to do, and make sure everyone hears what you say. Then have a leisurely meal and go about your business. Anyone who does not have the sense to take the necessary precautions within the next hour or so deserves to be arrested anyway.’
‘You are right,’ said Tulyet, standing abruptly. ‘The King will impose new taxes on the merchants when he hears of this, and they will be too grateful that they have escaped imprisonment – or worse – to complain. It is a perfect compromise!’
Michael sat back, his arms folded and a self-satisfied smile on his face. Bartholomew looked out of the window, wondering whether the town possessed a single honest citizen other than Kenyngham, Langelee and Deschalers – who was not involved only because he was doing rather better than usual legally.
‘Right,’ said Tulyet, rubbing his hands together. ‘After I have been home for something to eat and played a while with my young son, I will visit Constantine Mortimer. I have never liked him – he is hard on his wife Katherine and she is a kindly soul. Then I will see Oswald Stanmore and then Father Paul. Hopefully, by then the word will have spread.’
He gave the scholars an absent grin and went to make his announcement to the soldiers in the bailey. Bartholomew and Michael left him to make a conspicuous show of organising his surprise raids and began to walk back towards Michaelhouse. On the way they met Cynric and dispatched him to tell Father Paul to dispose of his smuggled cloaks, while Bartholomew went with Michael to warn Stanmore.
It was nearing dusk, and the apprentices were busy taking bales of cloth into the storerooms and tidying their tools away. Bartholomew sensed a light-heartedness that had been lacking before: Stanmore and Edith might grieve for Thorpe, but their apprentices certainly did not. Francis darted up to Michael and flashed him a grateful grin full of missing teeth, before racing off to help another boy close the storehouse doors. Stanmore emerged from his house, straining to read some jottings on a scrap of parchment. He stopped when he saw Bartholomew and Michael.
‘What has he done now?’ he asked with a weary sigh. ‘Has he accused me of ordering him to kill the Countess? Or Edith?’
‘We have not come about Rob Thorpe,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Tulyet is arresting people who are thought to be involved in smuggling.’
Stanmore met his eyes levelly. ‘So I have heard. Are you implying I might be a smuggler?’
Bartholomew sighed. ‘I am implying nothing, Oswald. I am merely passing you information. Tulyet says he can arrest offenders only if he finds evidence of smuggled goods in their possession.’
Stanmore stroked his beard and watched the high-spirited apprentices jostling and pushing at each other as they finished their chores. ‘I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I assure you it is unnecessary.’
Bartholomew nodded. He had delivered his message, and if Stanmore chose to ignore it then that was his business.
‘You misunderstand me,’ said Stanmore, reading Bartholomew’s thoughts with the ghost of a smile. ‘I am not trying to tell you I am not guilty: I would have been foolish to pass up a business opportunity such as has been presented this winter – there is barely a merchant in the town who has declined the trade that has come our way, and honesty would have forced a man out of business – but I am not so unwise as to leave evidence of it lying around in my own storerooms.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘I can provide legal documentation for every fibre of cloth here and at my premises at Ely. And as for elsewhere, who knows where to look?’
Bartholomew was astounded. He had never entertained any doubts about his brother-in-law’s ruthless efficiency in business, but he had not realised his talents extended to calm and skilful evasion of the King’s taxes. Stanmore made the other merchants, whose apprentices scurried here and there carrying hastily wrapped bundles, look like amateurs.
Edith emerged from the kitchens, wiping her floury hands on her apron. Her eyes were red and Bartholomew knew she had been crying.
‘Matt has been telling me that Sheriff Tulyet is rounding up all those merchants who have been acquiring illicit goods through smuggling this winter,’ said Stanmore.
Edith shook her head. ‘Silly men! If they are so greedy, they deserve to be arrested!’
Behind her back, Stanmore winked at Bartholomew. Edith invited them for some cakes and mulled wine and, anxious to begin to heal the rift that still yawned between them, Bartholomew accepted. They sat for some time in Stanmore’s solar discussing the mild weather, the problems Michael faced in finding appropriate music for his choir, and the poor quality of the wool shipment Stanmore had recently received from Flanders – anything, in fact, except smuggling and the nasty affair of the murderous Rob Thorpe.
‘We should go,’ said Michael, taking the last cake and cramming it in his mouth. ‘It is almost supper time.’
They made their farewells, Bartholomew relieved to escape the somewhat strained conversation. He sensed Edith was ambiguous in her feelings about his role in exposing Thorpe, but supposed she would come to accept it, given time. At least, he hoped so.
In Milne Street the scene was chaotic, with people running here and there in uncontrolled mayhem. Dogs barked, men swore and panted under heavy burdens, and furious arguments took place as merchants squabbled
