'After everyone else had gone to bed, I seized the opportunity to glance at one or two documents in the Peterhouse muniments chest — the Chancellor often stores some of his sensitive papers there in order to keep them from certain members of his staff.'
'Such as you?' asked Bartholomew.
'Of course; not such as me!' said Michael, offended. 'I am one of his most trusted advisers.'
'Then why did he not tell you about Heppel?'
'I imagine he knew I would find out anyway,' said Michael airily. 'Perhaps he thought it might provide me with an intellectual challenge.'
Bartholomew gave him a sidelong glance, wondering whether he would ever understand the peculiarities of the University administration.
Michael continued. 'It was all there in black and white.
Heppel is here as an agent of the King and his mission is to detect why the town is so uneasy this year.'
'I would have credited the King with more common sense than to plant a spy who stands out like a diseased limb,' said Bartholomew. 'Heppel wears his cowardice like a banner — hardly a trait to make him a suitable Junior Proctor.'
'It is not your place to question the King, Matthew,' said Michael firmly. 'Again, I tell you, watch your words or you will be accused of treason as well as heresy. Ah!
Here we are.'
Godwinsson's once-fine building had been reduced to little more than a shell. Its strong timbers were blackened and charred and fire had blown the expensive glass out of the windows. It littered the street below, causing considerable risk to those who walked barefoot. One of Tulyet's sergeants waited for them and directed them to the solar.
Inside the hostel the fine tapestries had gone — those not burned had been ripped from the walls by looters.
Chests lay overturned, and anything not considered worth taking had been left strewn across the floor. Even the woollen rugs had been stolen so that Bartholomew's footsteps echoed eerily in the room where sound had once been muffled by the richness of its furnishings.
Lydgate was sprawled on the floor. One arm was draped across his stomach and a thin trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. Bartholomew grabbed a partly burned rug and eased it under the man's head, trying to straighten his limbs to make him more comfortable.
Michael began to drone prayers for the dying, his alert eyes darting around the room suggesting that he was more concerned with clues to find Lydgate's killer than with his eternal rest.
Lydgate started to speak, and Michael leaned towards him, expecting a confession. Bartholomew, respecting his privacy, moved away and went to fetch a jug of water with which he might moisten the man's parched lips.
When he returned, Michael was kneeling on the floor.
'Master Lydgate maintains he has been poisoned,' he said.
Bartholomew stared at him. 'How? By whom?'
Michael flapped a hand towards a cup that lay on the floor. Bartholomew picked it up and inspected it carefully.
It had held wine, but there was a bitter smell to it and a grittiness in the dregs. He would need to test it, but Bartholomew thought it was probably henbane. The cup was sticky, which meant that there had been enough time since Lydgate had drunk the wine for it to dry, leaving the tacky residue. Therefore, it was not the same powerful poison that had killed Edred, or Lydgate would never have finished his wine without beginning to feel ill.
'I have things I must say,' Lydgate whispered hoarsely.
'Before I die. I must reveal my killer, bitter though that might be, and I must set certain things straight.'
'Can you give him an antidote?' asked Michael, sensing that Lydgate had a good deal to say, and afraid the man might die before he finished.
Bartholomew shook his head. 'There is nothing I can do. It is too late and there is no antidote that I know.'
'Poisons aren't your strong point, are they?' said Michael, somewhat maliciously.
Bartholomew winced, thinking of Edred. 'Do you know who did this to you?' he asked Lydgate, slipping off his tabard to cover the dying man. 'Was it Norbert?'
'I wish it had been,' breathed Lydgate. 'I wish to God it had been. But, for my sins, it was Dominica.'
'Dominica?' exclaimed Michael. 'I thought she was supposed to be the decent member of the family! Now we find out that she is a poisoner?'
Bartholomew thought quickly. Dominica was certainly alive — John's story proved that — and, if she had been driven to living in the hostel of her dead lover disguised as a servant, then she may very well feel bitter towards the father whose domineering nature had forced her there in the first place. But was she bitter enough to kill him? 'Dominica,' said Lydgate softly. He waved away the potion Bartholomew had made for him to ease his discomfort.
'I feel no pain, only a coldness and a tingling in my limbs. I must make my confession now, before this poison takes my voice. Stay, Bartholomew. You might as well listen, too. My only problem is that I do not know where to start.'
'Try the beginning,' said Michael. He sensed he was in for a lengthy session with the dying Principal, and glanced anxiously out of the window at the sky. He had a great deal to do and knew he should not spend too much time listening to the ramblings of the mortally ill — especially since Lydgate had already named his killer. Bartholomew also had patients waiting who had been injured during the night's upheavals, and he needed to be with people he could help, not those with one foot and four toes already in the grave.
'Shall I start at the very beginning?' asked Lydgate huskily.
'Well, start at the onset of events that led to your…'
Michael paused, uncertain which word to use.
'Then I must take you back twenty-five years,' said Lydgate. Michael stifled a sigh, reluctant to sit through another tedious dive into local history, but obliged to do so since the man was making his final confession.
Oblivious or uncaring, Lydgate continued. 'I was not entirely honest with you last night. You see, I did not burn the tithe barn, Simon d'Ambrey did.'
Bartholomew had thought he was beyond being surprised by Lydgate, but this latest statement truly confounded him. He wondered whether Lydgate was still in command of all his faculties, that perhaps the henbane had affected his mind.
'But half the town witnessed Simon d'Ambrey's death the day before the barn burned,' he protested. 'Myself included.'
'Then half the town, yourself included, was mistaken,' said Lydgate, a waspish edge to his voice. 'I also witnessed what I thought to be d'Ambrey's death, but we were all wrong. It was not Simon d'Ambrey who died that night at the hands of the King's soldiers, but his brother — the cause of d'Ambrey's downfall. D'Ambrey dedicated his life to preventing injustice, but his brother proved to be dishonest and stole the money intended for the poor.
D'Ambrey himself was accused of the thefts and the townspeople were quick to believe the accusations. But it was d'Ambrey's brother who died in the King's Ditch.'
This news will put a different slant on Thorpe's relic business,' said Michael, inappropriately gleeful given he was hearing a death-bed confession. 'He has the thieving hand of d'Ambrey's brother, a pretty criminal!'
'D'Ambrey went from being adored by the townspeople, to being despised as a thief within a few hours,'
Lydgate continued softly. 'But he was clever. He led the soldiers to his house and told his brother — the root of all his problems — that the soldiers were coming not for him, but for his brother, and that he should run. He lent him his own cloak as a disguise and then sent him off.
Everyone knew d'Ambrey's green and gold cloak and the soldiers spotted it in an instant. They chased after his brother like a pack of dogs. You know the rest of the story. He reached the Ditch, an arrow took him in the throat and he drowned. His body was never found.'
He stopped speaking, and Michael began to fidget restlessly, casting anxious glances at the sun and keen to be about his business.
'Butwhat of Simon?' asked Bartholomew. He wondered how much of Lydgate's story could be true. He, with
