Pangs of guilt assailed him when he remembered thinking that Gray might have taken it. He replaced it on the shelf, wondering who had moved it in the first place. Cynric, perhaps, when he was cleaning.
Michael stood, too. 'I am going to talk to Tulyet about your notion of persuading Lydgate to look at the ring on Thorpe's skeleton,' he said. He raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. 'We have Kenzie murdered; a recently dead hand claimed to be a relic; riots possible every night and we do not know why; your raped and murdered prostitute; the attack against you in the night; and the child's skeleton. All unsolved mysteries, and I can think of no way forward with any of them. Tulyet will help us because he is as baffled as we are and I can think of nothing else to do.'
Bartholomew picked up his bag. 'I had planned to sit with Mistress Fletcher and watch Godwinsson at the same time. The French students were bound to go in or out sooner or later and I was going to follow them and question them about Joanna.'
'Forget them for now,' said Michael. 'We know where to find them.' He hesitated, then sat again, fiddling with the wooden cross that hung round his neck. Bartholomew waited, sensing the monk had something to say. He put the Galen in his bag, then perched on the edge of the table. Michael gave a heavy sigh.
'Two days ago, when you were indisposed, I went to see Master Bigod of Maud's Hostel. He denies totally the charge that it was he who attacked us in the street. I asked to see Will at Valence Marie but was told he was visiting a sick sister in Fen Ditton, and had been gone since the night the relic was found. Then I went to Godwinsson and, in the company of Guy Heppel, put the fear of God into Huw, their steward, and that scullion Saul Potter who you said kicked you. Do you know what I discovered?'
Bartholomew shook his head, setting his bag down on the table while he listened to Michael.
'Nothing!' spat Michael in disgust. 'Not even the tiniest scrap of information. Huw and Saul Potter claim they spent the evening cleaning silver, and went to bed by eight o'clock. I collared other Godwinsson servants, and they confirmed that the hostel was locked up and everyone was asleep long before the church clock struck nine. It was past midnight before we were attacked.' He turned to the physician. 'Are you certain that it was Will, Huw, Saul Potter and Bigod you recognised?'
Bartholomew thought back to the attack: Huw swearing at him in Welsh, Saul Potter's piggy eyes glittering as Bartholomew had torn away his hood, and Bigod demanding to know where something was.
'I injured one as we fell — his hand broke,' he said, the memory dim. 'Did any of the men you spoke to have injuries? What about Will from Valence Marie?
Perhaps he left Cambridge to hide the fact that he was wounded.'
Michael looked pained. 'Damn! Your memory has played us false! You told me originally that the man had broken his arm, not his hand, and you said Will had been holding me down, not fighting with you. I inflicted no broken bones — although I certainly bit someone fairly hard — and so Will cannot be in hiding to cover his wounds.'
He banged his fist on the table in frustration. 'I wondered at the time whether you might not have been rambling. You were weaving all over the road like a drunk.
When I went haring off to confront Bigod and the others, I had no idea your injury was so serious. Gray warned us you might lose some memory after he consulted your stars. I should have waited.'
'Stars!' spat Bartholomew in disgust. 'I do remember Bigod, Huw, Saul Potter and Will there. Others too. The lightning lit up their faces.'
Michael looked sceptical. 'How many were there?'
Bartholomew thought, struggling with the blurred images that played in his mind. 'Will and two others fought with you, while Huw, Saul Potter and Bigod fought with me.'
One of the Benedictines in the room above began to sing softly as Michael shook his head. 'Wrong again, Matt. Only two had been allocated to me; one sat on my back, while the other held my gown over my face and almost smothered me. But there were five men fighting you. I saw them. I had been taken by surprise and was knocked to the ground before I could react. You had more time to defend yourself and were able to fight harder. Do you remember any words they spoke?'
For a brief moment, Bartholomew considered not answering, feeling foolish and vulnerable at his lapse in memory. 'I heard Huw speak in Welsh, and Bigod asked me where something was,' he said reluctantly.
'I heard no Welsh,' said Michael, 'and I heard every word that was spoken, lying as I was immobilised. Damn!
Should I apologise to Bigod for accusing him wrongly?
The servants I do not care about but the Principal of a hostel is another matter.'
'I am certain I saw those four,' persisted Bartholomew.
'And I heard and felt the sharp crack of a bone breaking…'
He stopped, aware that Michael was regarding him unconvinced.
'I suspect I saw a good deal more than you, since I was pinned helplessly on the ground for several minutes while you fought,' said the monk. 'The faces of our attackers were very carefully concealed — I saw nothing.
And I am sure they would not have left us alive had they the slightest suspicion that they might have been identified. Yet you claim to have recognised four of the seven. It must have been your imagination that led you to name Bigod, Will, Saul Potter and Huw. I can come up with no other explanation than that these were professional outlaws hired to collect something from you.'
'But what?' asked Bartholomew, uncomfortable at the way in which Michael was so blithely dismissing his recollections. 'And why me, not you? You are just as deeply involved in all this business as me — perhaps more so, since you are the Senior Proctor.'
'Perhaps it has nothing to do with 'this business', as you put it,' said Michael. 'I have given the matter considerable thought. The attack was most definitely aimed at you, since you were the one who was lured out on the pretext of a medical emergency; I was merely incidental. No one knows you have that ring you found at Godwinsson, except me, so it cannot be that — unless you were seen picking it up. The only answer I can come up with is that these men were hired by a patient of yours to get something…'
'Such as what?' interrupted Bartholomew in disbelief.
'Medicine? Most people know I prescribe medicine perfectly willingly and do not need to be ambushed for it.' 'Perhaps you took something in lieu of payment that someone wants back,' suggested Michael. 'You are often given all manner of oddments when people have no money.'
'Exactly! ' said Bartholomew. ' 'Have no money.' Which means that they also would not be able to afford to pay outlaws to get whatever it was back again. And I hardly think seedcakes, candle-stubs and the occasional pot of ink warrant such an elaborate attack. Anyway, as Gray will attest, I often overlook payment when a patient is in dire need.'
'Yes, yes,' said Michael testily. 'But I can think of no other reason why you alone should be enticed out of college and searched for something. You have some rich patients — they are not all beggars.'
'But they pay me with money,' said Bartholomew. 'And the motive for the attack was not theft, because neither of us was robbed.'
Michael was becoming impatient. 'Perhaps your misaligned stars have led you to forget something obvious.
Some transaction with a patient?'
'I have not!' said Bartholomew angrily. 'And my stars are not misaligned!'
A distant screech of raucous laughter from the kitchens spoke of the presence of Agatha. For a frightening instant, Bartholomew, who had heard the laugh often, thought that it sounded alien to him. Gray's physical diagnosis had been right: it was only to be expected that some of his faculties might be temporarily awry following a hefty blow to the head. Perhaps a clearer memory of the fight would emerge in time. Then again, perhaps it would not.
But Bartholomew knew that his stars had nothing to do with the fact that his memories were dim. Ironically, it seemed as though his reluctant adherence to teaching traditional medicine would backfire on him, if Gray was telling all and sundry that his master's stars augured ill. People would treat anything he said with scepticism until he, or better yet, Gray, showed that his stars were back in a favourable position. He almost wished he had been discussing trepanation rather than astrology, after all.
Bartholomew was torn between doubt and frustration for Michael's dilemma. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain that the men he had named were their attackers, but the details remained hazy. He
