speech.
'That cannot be so,' objected Michael. 'Dominica is too young. Kenzie, her lover, was only eighteen or twenty.'
'Dominica was born the same year that Lydgate married Cecily — about six months after d'Ambrey died,' said Bartholomew, his mind working fast. 'Her early birth was the subject of speculation among the villagers for weeks. Dominica is about twenty-four.'
'But she cannot be that old,' said Michael. 'She would have been married off by now.'
'Master Lydgate is wealthy, and so it is unlikely that there will be a shortage of suitors for her hand — regardless of her age,' said Bartholomew. 'John of Stirling said Norbert was sixteen or seventeen. I imagine a young woman covered in dirt to disguise the lack of whiskers, might pass for a lad.'
'How could this oaf ever imagine he was the father of my Dominica?' asked Cecily spitefully. 'Dominica is clever — she fooled us over the matter of her death, and she helped Ivo and Saul Potter plan this riot so that we could be avenged on the man who destroyed our lives.'
'Destroyed your lives?' asked Michael. 'But you have just admitted that you grieved for d'Ambrey for a few weeks only and Dominica, with her secret lovers, has scarcely led a hard life.'
'It was a shame about poor Master Radbeche, though,' said Cecily, ignoring him. 'He was a kindly man.'
'What do you mean?' asked Michael suspiciously. 'You did not kill him, surely? What would you have been doing in David's Hostel in the middle of the riot?'
'Not Cecily,' said Bartholomew wearily. 'Dominica.
Poor Radbeche must have caught her without her disguise at David's and so she killed him to ensure his silence.'
'That was my husband's fault, too,' said Cecily, her eyes narrowed spitefully. 'If he had not forced Dominica to take refuge at David's in order to escape from him, then Dominica would not have been forced to kill Radbeche to make certain he did not tell anyone who she really was.'
'I see,' said Michael. 'John told us that poor Radbeche was supposed to have taken a trip last night, but I suppose he heard rumours that there might be rioting and he, like a responsible Principal, returned to take care of his hostel. Of course, by this time, Father Andrew had gone for bread, the students had sneaked out and the hostel was bare — except, unfortunately for Radbeche, for Dominica.'
'And then,' said Bartholomew, easing Lydgate's head to one side as his breathing became more laboured.
'Dominica attacked John of Stirling because he almost caught her in the act of killing Radbeche.'
He saw that Lydgate's last reservoirs of strength were failing fast. Two tears slid from under the dying man's evelids, and coursed down his cheeks. Michael pressed his hands together and began the words of the final absolution. Outside in the street, there were howls of merriment and smashing sounds, as children realised that throwing the shards of glass against the wall could be fun. The sergeant's voice cut over their laughter, but his tone was friendly, and he obviously thought they were doing no harm. While Michael prayed and Bartholomew bent to tend Lydgate, Cecily slipped away down the stairs and was gone. Michael looked up briefly, but let her go. Bartholomew was grateful, revolted by the malice and bitterness that seemed to taint all members of the Lydgate household.
When Michael had finished his prayers and Lydgate lay dead, Bartholomew followed the monk down the stairs.
Instead of turning right to return to the street, they turned left to the kitchens in an unspoken agreement to take some time to think. All was deserted. Bartholomew opened a shutter and surveyed the yard. Against the wall lay a pile of wood — the remains of the shed that had been made to look as though Werbergh had died under it. And it had been Huw and Saul Potter — proven rioters and attackers of Bartholomew in the High Street — who had insisted that they had seen him enter it.
'Why did you let Cecily go?' asked Bartholomew. 'She might have been able to tell us where Dominica is.'
'I do not think so,' said Michael. 'It seems to me that while Dominica is central to this grand plan, Cecily is wholly unimportant. I think she knows nothing that she has not already told us, and I am not inclined to want to speak any further to someone who is so twisted with bitterness and hatred; such people see the truth through warped eyes. Anyway, Matt, the woman is not quick-witted like your Tyler daughters — she will probably head straight back for her bottle-dungeon at Chesterton, imagining that we will not guess where she is hiding.'
He looked around for a place to sit, but every stool and bench that could be carried away had gone. All that remained was a large table littered with broken pots and jars. He settled for elbowing Bartholomew to one side and perching on the window-sill. Bartholomew opened another shutter and followed suit, gazing gloomily at the looted kitchen.
'You know, we have allowed Lydgate's suspicions to mislead us, Matt,' said Michael, after a moment. 'It is not Norbert we are seeking, but Simon d'Ambrey himself.'
'And how have you reasoned that out?' asked Bartholomew, startled.
'I think he did not die in the barn, as Lydgate said, and that he escaped. He has bided his time, and he has returned to Cambridge to wreak revenge on the town that was so quick to believe ill of him after all his charity. It is he who is behind the riots; it is he who has brought about the death of Lydgate and the destruction of Godwinsson Hostel; and it is he who put the ring — Cecily's ring — on the hand of the skeleton that the town believes is his! That explains why the attacks against the University resulted in little destruction, except at David's and Godwinsson. The attacks appear to be aimed at the University, but they will ultimately damage the town far more.'
'That cannot be right,' said Bartholomew, wearily. 'We have one too many corpses belonging to the d'Ambreys as it is-We have the man who was shot with an arrow on the King's Ditch, the corpse in the burning barn, and the body brought back with the rest of d'Ambrey's household from Dover that I saw displayed in the Market Square years ago. Three corpses for two d'Ambreys — Simon and his brother.'
'No one ever saw this corpse reputedly burned in the barn,' persisted Michael. 'And regardless of what Lydgate said, I am sure he searched for it in the wreckage. I certainly would have done. And Lydgate's suspicions and unfounded conclusions are not the only ones to have misled us. Yours have, too.'
'Mine?' asked Bartholomew cautiously.
'Yes, yours!' said Michael, pursing his lips. 'Tell me again what you saw the day the tithe barn burned all those years ago.'
Bartholomew sighed. 'I saw Lydgate enter the barn while Norbert and I were swimming nearby. A brief while later, I saw smoke issuing from the barn, and Lydgate came tearing out. We followed him through the trees and saw him watch the barn burn for a few moments before he left to raise the alarm.'
'But that is not what you told me a few days ago,' said Michael. 'You said you saw someone run from the barn, you followed him, and then you saw Lydgate. What if the person you saw running from the barn was not Lydgate at all? Just because you came upon Lydgate moments later does not mean that he was the man you saw running.
You have made the same assumption that misled Lydgate, Cecily and Edred over Dominica — you saw what you expected to see and not what was actually there.'
Bartholomew stared at him. 'But Lydgate's clothes were singed and he had been running hard.'
'Of course,' said Michael. 'He had just fled a fire. What would you expect? But Lydgate told us he left almost as soon as the lamp was knocked over and the straw caught fire. You saw a man running away after smoke had started seeping from the building. It would have been a couple of minutes at least before the fire had caught hold sufficiently for smoke to start pouring out.
And by then, Lydgate was well away. The man you saw was Simon d'Ambrey.'
'But surely Lydgate would have seen him, too,' said Bartholomew, bewildered by the sudden turn in Michael's deductions.
'Not necessarily, not if he were concentrating on his own escape and was in a state of shock over what he had done. And we know Lydgate has never had good eyesight — he told us that himself in St Andrew's Church.'
'And Father Andrew, of course, is about the same age as Simon d'Ambrey would be,' said Bartholomew, rubbing his temples tiredly. 'There is our killer.'
