could truthfully be applied to the resourceful, independent Tyler women.
'How can you be sure of that?' snapped Lydgate. 'The night was dark and it was difficult to be certain who was who in the darkness with all those fires burning.'
'So you were out, too,' said Michael. It was a statement and not a question. Bartholomew could almost see Lydgate spluttering with indignation at having been so deftly fooled into admitting as much.
'My whereabouts are none of your concern!' Lydgate managed to grate finally. 'But for your information, I have people who can say where I was, whose word is beyond doubt.'
'But not in Godwinsson, Master Lydgate? To protect your family and students?' Michael continued smoothly.
'I was out!' Lydgate almost shouted.
'As were your students without you here to control them, it seems.'
Bartholomew heard the creak of floorboards and guessed that Lydgate was pacing to try to control his temper. 'All Godwinsson students were here. The other masters will testify to that.'
'I am sure they will,' said Michael, his tone ambiguous.
'Now, I would like to speak with these French students.'
As he spoke, the kitchen door opened again, and two students were ushered out by Huw the steward and the scullion. Speaking in low voices, and taking care to stay close to the walls where they would not be observed from the solar window, the students made for the alleyway that led to the road. Bartholomew pressed back into the shadows as they passed, although they were so intent on leaving that they did not so much as glance at the open shed door. Bartholomew was not surprised to hear them speaking French.
He watched them disappear up the alley before opening the door to follow. As the sunlight flooded into the gloomy lean-to, something glinted on the ground.
Bending quickly to retrieve it, Bartholomew found a small, silver ring. Although there was no blue-green stone, there were clasps to show where such a gem might once have been. The ring was dirty, and its irregular shape indicated that it had been crushed, perhaps by someone stamping on it. He looked around quickly to see if he could see the stone, but there was no sign of it on the hard, trampled earth that formed the floor.
Slipping the ring into his pocket, Bartholomew left the shed and made his way quickly up the alley. As he emerged, he glimpsed the two students disappearing round the corner into the High Street. He ran after them, oblivious to the startled face of Huw the steward, who had come to the front of the hostel to watch their escape. Huw's surprise changed to artifice, and he rubbed at his whiskers, eyes glittering.
Bartholomew followed the two Frenchmen along the High Street towards the Market Square. It was more drab than usual: the colourful canopies that usually shielded the traders' wares from sun or rain had been burned during the riot. Here and there, skeletal frameworks had been hastily erected to replace those that had been lost, a few of them crudely covered with rough canvas, but for the most part, the traders were reduced to piling their goods on the ground. Ash and cinders had been trampled into the beaten earth, and, to one side of the Square, a great mound of partially incinerated wood still loomed up where it had been piled the day before, waiting for someone to remove it and dump it all in the river.
It was nearing the end of the day, and, with the curfew fast approaching, the tradesmen's battle to sell the last of their wares was becoming frantic. Stories about how Cambridge had erupted in a welter of flame and violence had spread through the surrounding countryside, and many rural folk had elected not to risk coming to the town to buy supplies. Trade was poor so that potential customers were not permitted to escape easily; hands grabbed and pulled at Bartholomew as he tried to pass. Suddenly he could not see his quarry. Impatiently shrugging off a persistent baker, he dived down one narrow line of stalls, emerging at the opposite end of the Square. There was no sign of the French students.
Bartholomew sagged in defeat, sweat stinging his eyes from the late-afternoon heat.
Suddenly, he spotted them again, surfacing from a parallel line of stalls eating apples. They walked at a nonchalant pace towards Hadstock Way. Bartholomew followed them a little further, although he now knew exactly where they were going. Without knocking, and with an ease born of a long familiarity, the two students casually strolled into Maud's Hostel.
There was nothing more Bartholomew could do without Michael's authority as Proctor, so he retraced his steps back to Godwinsson. He stopped to buy something to drink from a water-seller, but the larvae of some marsh insects wriggling about in the buckets gave him second thoughts. He remembered the foul wine he had shared with Michael and Tulyet, and went into the booth of a wine-merchant to buy a replacement. He purchased the first one that caught his eye, opened it, and took a large mouthful in the street.
'Not the best way to enjoy good wine,' came Michael's voice at his shoulder. 'But then again, judging from the wine you keep, what would you know of such things?
Where have you been?'
He took the bottle from Bartholomew and took a hearty swig himself, nodding appreciatively at its coolness, if not its flavour.
Bartholomew told him what had happened, while Michael listened with narrowed eyes.
'Lydgate told me that the French students were at church,' he said. 'I thought it was a likely story. I learned little, I am afraid. Brothers Edred and Werbergh are taking part in a theological debate at the School of Pythagorus, and so were not available to talk to me.
Since Lydgate knows I can check that excuse easily, he is probably telling the truth about that, at least. I will have to come back and speak to them later.'
Valence Marie was nearby, so they went there next, although Michael was reluctant. There was no porter on the door, no one answered their knocking, and they were forced to go inside to find someone to answer their questions. But the College appeared to be deserted.
Putting his head round the door to the hall, the thought crossed Bartholomew's mind that, had he been a thief, he could have made off with all the College silver, which lay carelessly abandoned on the high table.
He shouted, but there was no reply. They left the hall and went to the Ditch at the side of Valence Marie where the skeleton had been found, but there was no one there either. Bartholomew flapped irritably at the haze of flies that buzzed around his head, disturbed from where they had been feasting on the foul-smelling muck that lined both sides of the near-empty canal. At the very bottom of the Ditch was a murky trickle that would turn into a raging torrent when the next heavy rains came. With a sigh of resignation, Bartholomew saw some unidentifiable piece of offal move gently downstream. Despite the cost and inconvenience of the dredging operations, people were still disposing of their waste in the waterways. They had learned nothing from the last time the Ditch had been blocked with rubbish and then flooded, causing some to lose their homes.
'We will have to return tomorrow,' said Michael, breaking into a trot in a vain attempt to escape the haze of flies that flicked around his head. 'The place is abandoned.'
The King's Ditch ran under the High Street and emerged the other side. Bartholomew always felt that, despite the distinct elevation in the road, the High Street did not have a bridge as much as the King's Ditch had a tunnel: its fetid, black waters slid through a small, dark hole, and oozed out into a pool on the other side. He crossed to the opposite side of the High Street, and stood on tiptoe to look over the wall that screened the western arm of the Ditch from the road. Here was a different story: the bank was alive with activity, but it was all conducted in total silence.
A dozen or so students stood in a line looking down into the Ditch, the monotony of their black tabards broken by the occasional grey or white of a friar's habit.
A gaggle of scruffy children had also gathered to watch the proceedings; even their customary cheekiness had been subdued by the distinct aura of gravity that pervaded the scene.
'What are they doing?' Bartholomew whispered to Michael.
They edged closer, and saw Will and Henry, the Valence Marie servants, poking about in the vile trickle of water, watched intently by Thorpe, who stood with his Fellows clustered about him. Thorpe looked up and saw Bartholomew and Michael.
'Ah!' he announced, his voice almost sacrilegious in the self-imposed silence of the scholars. 'Here are the Senior Proctor and the physician. I am impressed with your speed, gentlemen. It has only been moments since I dispatched a messenger to the Chancellor's office to ask you to come.'
'Oh Lord, Michael I ' exclaimed Bartholomew under his breath. 'Thorpe has found himself some more bones!'
