was about to expose me as a common thief. Damn Walcote for his suspicious mind!’
Bartholomew shot him a sidelong glance. ‘I have no doubts about your innocence. We will have to work to prove it to those who do.’
Michael gave a tired grin. ‘You are a good friend, Matt. I do not deserve such unquestioning loyalty. It makes me feel guilty.’
Bartholomew gazed at him in alarm. ‘What are you saying, Brother?’
Michael shrugged. ‘I see I have disappointed you.’
‘No!’ said Bartholomew, still staring. ‘Are you telling me that Kenyngham and Pechem are right? That you really did break into the friary and make off with some of the University’s most valuable documents?’
‘Yes and no,’ said Michael. ‘I removed documents, but I was hardly “breaking in”. I had arranged for doors and gates to be left unlocked and the porter to be drinking ale in the kitchens with a servant who owed me a favour. It was a pity I did not know about the baker’s problematic oven sooner, because obviously I would not have used buying bread as my excuse for being caught red-handed on my way home. That was poor planning on my part.’
Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair, his thoughts tumbling in confusion. ‘But why did you not tell me this sooner? It may be important.’
‘It is not,’ said Michael dismissively. ‘However, I understand why Walcote thought so. He must have wondered why the Senior Proctor was raiding friaries in the middle of the night.’
‘He was not the only one,’ said Bartholomew, horrified. ‘So do the heads of half the religious Orders in Cambridge.’
‘It is unfortunate Walcote did not confront me about it, though,’ continued Michael pensively. ‘Then I could have taken him into my confidence, and he would not have felt the need to chatter about it at his secret meetings with people who had no right to know my business.’
‘And what was this business?’ asked Bartholomew warily.
Michael glanced at him. ‘I can assure you it was nothing sinister. The truth is that Prior Lincolne had become somewhat fanatical in his beliefs by Christmas, and I did not like the idea of storing sensitive information at his friary. Because he is radically opposed to nominalism, I did not want him to see any of the documents pertaining to the arrangements I am making with Heytesbury – who is a nominalist.’
‘You took the deeds relating to the Oxford proposal?’ asked Bartholomew in sudden understanding.
Michael nodded. ‘I took the property deeds of the church and farms I propose to pass to Heytesbury, along with the information telling us how profitable they are. Plus, I took priceless books written by other great nominalists, like John Dumbleton and Richard Swineshead. Lincolne is the kind of man to consign that sort of text to the flames, and I do not approve of book-burning.’
Bartholomew knew Michael was right on that score. When Heytesbury’s
‘That was all?’ he asked. ‘You committed the theft only to remove sensitive items from the Carmelite Friary?’
‘Yes,’ Michael confirmed. ‘But I wish you would not insist on calling it a theft. It was nothing of the kind. It was merely me taking documents from one place and securing them in another. If I were a serious thief, I would have had the gold that was stored in the chest, too, not just the texts.’
‘True,’ acknowledged Bartholomew, recalling the scrap of parchment he had found in Michael’s room when he had been writing an account of Faricius’s murder. Walcote’s list of stolen items had mentioned no missing gold.
‘I could hardly be open about what I was doing, could I?’ Michael continued. ‘How do you think Lincolne would have reacted if I had told him he was no longer to be trusted with some of the University’s business?’
‘He would have been offended,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And he might even have been vindictive.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Michael. ‘This arrangement with Oxford is important, and, after losing the Mastership of Michaelhouse to it, I did not want all my work to come to nothing because an old bigot like Lincolne got wind of it by rummaging through the documents stored in his friary.’
‘Where did you put these books and deeds?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘You could not store duplicate copies in St Mary’s tower – what would be the point of keeping two sets in the same place? – and you always claim that you never keep anything valuable in your office or in your room at Michaelhouse.’
‘Right,’ said Michael. ‘But I
‘So you had good reason to assume that last night’s intruders did not find what they wanted: you knew that whatever it was would have been in the cellar?’
Michael rubbed his chin, the bristles rasping under his fingernails. ‘I have already considered the possibility that last night’s raid was related to the documents I “stole”, and discounted it. I suppose it is remotely possible that someone was desperate to get his hands on an annotated copy of Dumbleton’s
‘How can you be sure?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I imagine Heytesbury would love to see the finances of the properties he plans to take from you. Has it occurred to you that he has a very good reason to search your room?’
‘Heytesbury?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘I do not think so, Matt! The man is a scholar, for God’s sake, not a burglar!’
‘He is also a cunning negotiator who is determined to do his best for Oxford,’ argued Bartholomew, declining to mention that Michael himself was also a scholar, but that did not stop him from removing what he wanted from the Carmelite Friary. ‘You cannot be sure that he was not one of the intruders.’
‘Heytesbury and Morden?’ asked Michael, amused. ‘They would make odd bedfellows.’
‘Heytesbury might have hired someone else to commit the burglary,’ pressed Bartholomew. ‘He is not stupid, and would not risk being caught stealing from the Senior Proctor’s room himself.’
‘We will put these questions to Morden later today,’ said Michael. ‘But I think you are wrong. And anyway, the person in Cambridge whom Heytesbury seems to like best is your nephew Richard. The lad has taken to carrying ornate daggers and riding black war-horses around the town. Perhaps he has also taken to burglary.’
‘No!’ said Bartholomew firmly. ‘Not Richard. He may be a fool, but he is not a criminal.’
Michael shrugged. ‘As I said, we will ask Morden.’
‘Several important issues were discussed at Walcote’s meetings,’ said Bartholomew, dragging his thoughts away from the unpleasant possibility that Richard might have been the man who attacked him on the darkened stairwell. ‘Besides repairing the Great Bridge and discussing philosophy, they talked about the plot to murder you and the theft from the friary. I wonder whether Walcote thought the two subjects were connected.’
‘You think he believed that someone wanted me dead, because I am seen as a thief?’ asked Michael. He blew out his cheeks in a sigh. ‘It is possible, I suppose.’
‘Some people believe that Walcote’s investigation of the theft led him too close to the culprit,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘Pechem and Kenyngham saw an association between his death and the theft you committed.’
Michael’s face was sombre. ‘I can accept that people see me as the kind of man to steal, but I cannot imagine how they could see me –
‘What shall we do about it?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘It was my original intention to prove you innocent of the theft, so that you would be absolved of the murder. Your confession just now has put paid to that plan.’
‘Then we shall just have to go one step further, and find Walcote’s killer instead. That will prove me innocent beyond any shadow of a doubt.’
They were silent for a while, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
‘Did you know that Walcote made a list of the documents you took from the Carmelite Friary?’ asked Bartholomew eventually.
Michael nodded. ‘He jotted down his initial report in rough, then scribed it more neatly for the Chancellor –
