with sadness in his face.
'Is this the way scholars treat their books? Would you do this, eh, Ruthven?'
Ruthven came to peer over d'Ambrey's shoulder, look-. ing at the torn cover. 'Was this where the documents were hidden?' he asked.
D'Ambrey nodded. 'I tried several times to get this '‹ back,' he said to Bartholomew. 'But if I sent someone | to search your room, you would have it in your bag, and ' when I waylaid you on the High Street, you had left it in ^ your room. And then, when I simply asked you for it, you ^ offered to return it immediately!' v› 'My father wrote that book,' said Ruthven with pride.*| 'What was his name?' asked Michael. ^ 'No one you would know, Brother,' said d'Ambrey. 'Just a scholar I helped many years ago. You should empathise, Doctor, for he was a man whose revolutionary medical ideas gave rise to an accusation of heresy. I gave him ' money to flee to Scotland to safety. He remembered me, unlike so many, and told his son, already a student here, to help me in my revenge against the town.'
'It seems you have engineered quite a plot against the; town, Master d'Ambrey,' said Michael, knowing that as soon as d'Ambrey grew tired of them, he and Bartholomew would go the same way as Cecily. They had to try to keep him talking until Tulyet arrived. 'Perhaps you would care to entertain us with the details.'
D'Ambrey looked pleased. 'Shall I start at the beginning, then?' he asked sweetly. At Michael's nod, he settled himself comfortably and beamed around at his audience. 'Well, to take you back twenty-five years, I fled the burning barn and sought safety near the river. I was not the only abandoned soul that night. A lad named Norbert was also fleeing that horrible little village. We joined forces and lived rough for several days. He told me what you had done for him and it did much to cheer me, Bartholomew. We exchanged our plans of revenge me on the town, him on the village — and he confided his plans to become an archer at Dover Castle.'
'Oh, no!' said Bartholomew suddenly, an uneasy feeling uncoiling in his stomach. 'It was you! You killed Norbert!
It was his skeleton we found in the Ditch after all!'
He gazed, horrified, at d'Ambrey, who smiled back at him, unperturbed by his distress. 'I am afraid you are right. But it was all a dreadful mistake. You see, one night, Norbert disappeared, and I assumed that he had gone to fetch soldiers. I was desperate to stop him and caught him near the Ditch where my brother had died. I slipped up behind him and stoved in his skull with a stone.
He hadjust enough breath, before he died, to tell me that he was going to burgle a house to steal me a new cloak for our journey south together. I have been sorry about Norbert ever since,' he finished, looking wistfully at the crushed grass at his feet.
Bartholomew felt sick. The messages he had received had been forged by d'Ambrey, and the copies in the back of the book kept so he would not forget the lies told.
Bartholomew had released Norbert from Trumpington, only for him to fall into the hands of a murderer.
D'Ambrey's eyes were guilelessly wide. 'I sent Bartholomew letters — signed with the name of Norbert's sister so as not to get him into trouble with his family so that he would not fret about the welfare of his young friend. It was a simple act of kindness.'
Bartholomew gazed at him with renewed awe. Such dishonesty surely could not be considered kindness? He wondered afresh at d'Ambrey's sanity. The man sat, still dressed in his friar's habit, smiling benevolently down at them like a beloved old grandfather. Yet he had ordered Cecily's brutal murder without a moment's hesitation.
'And you needed somewhere to hide these letters,' said Michael. 'Where better than the Galen? The book was never used by David's students because none of them were studying medicine. It would have been difficult to hide them otherwise — hostels are notorious for their lack of privacy.'
D'Ambrey nodded. 'You have it, Brother. Scholars are naturally curious and I did not want them poking about in my belongings and finding the letters. The Galen was a perfect hiding place until Radbeche lent it to you!
But we digress.' He gave a huge sigh, and continued.
'It was my intention that Norbert's skeleton should be dredged from the Ditch and revered as mine at Valence Marie, assuming it had not washed away. But, ironically, it was you who prevented that, Doctor, by saying it was too small.'
'How could you know your brother's skeleton would not be dredged up?' asked Michael. 'Or his and Norbert's?'
'The Ditch was in flood the night my brother died,' said d'Ambrey. 'His body was washed a long way downstream.
When I killed Norbert, the Ditch was low. The water did not cover him, and so I buried him in the mud at the bottom.'
'And then you went to Dover,' said Bartholomew, unsteadily.
'I did indeed,' said d'Ambrey, 'I went in pursuit of my fleeing household — as did the three burgesses from the town. It was easy to follow them, and I disguised myself as a travelling priest.'
Bartholomew closed his eyes in despair. 'And I suppose it was you who started the fire in which all those people died, your household included.'
D'Ambrey smiled. 'It was nothing,' he said modestly.
'An oven left burning in a baker's shop when it should have been doused for the night; a specially prepared pie that would ensure my household slept through any alarms that might have been raised before the fire was underway. '
'Dozens of innocent people died in that blaze,' said Bartholomew, appalled, 'not just members of your household.'
'It could not be helped,' said d'Ambrey. 'And I am sure you will understand my need for revenge after what had happened to me.'
'But how did you manage to make the burgesses believe that your brother was among the casualties?' asked Michael. 'His body was never recovered.'
'Never recovered?' queried d'Ambrey. 'On what grounds do you base such an assumption? Believe me, my brother's body lies in the grave that is marked with his name. I could not allow it to be found when all believed it was me who had died in the Ditch that day. Norbert helped me search for it and, when I assumed my disguise as a priest, I hid it in the portable altar I carried on my cart.'
'And then you left his body for the burgesses to find after the fire,' said Bartholomew.
'Exactly. I had to disguise the wound in his throat, but that was easy enough with all that falling timber.
The whole affair was expertly brought to a satisfactory conclusion. I even heard later that the worthy burgesses were suspected of starting the fire themselves,' he added with a chuckle.
'But how could you know that the Ditch would be dredged at such an opportune time?' asked Michael, shifting uncomfortably on the sodden ground.
'Think!' said d'Ambrey with chiding patience. 'It was mainly Thorpe who set the scheme in motion in the first place: Will mentioned the money that might be made if the relics of Simon d'Ambrey were to be found by Valence Marie. Thorpe needed little encouragement once that seed was sown. I wonder what happened to that hand…'
He thought for a moment before resuming. 'I returned here two months ago and secured myself a place at David's. Ruthven's father sent a letter of recommendation, along with the name of a friar — recently deceased — whose identity I could assume. It was an excellent idea.
After all, who would suspect an elderly Scottish friar? Any lapses in my theological knowledge would merely be put down to my nationality.'
Ruthven looked at him sharply and fingered his crossbow.
But d'Ambrey was oblivious to Ruthven's patriotic ire and continued with his tale.
'I had settled in nicely by the time term had started; I had secured the help of people who owed me favours Will, Henry and Jacob, who now work at Valence Marie;
Huw and Saul Potter of Godwinsson; even Master Bigod of Maud's owes me a small favour — you see, I once loaned him the money to pay a hag to rid one of his mistresses of an unwanted child. Bigod was always one for the women, as Cecily will attest.'
He flung a disparaging glance at the writhing woman on the ground.
'You were right, Matt!' whispered Michael, as d'Ambrey stood to peer through the trees for signs of Huw returning with news of the lost relic. 'Cecily and Bigod were lovers!
