Tulyet who had turned to supervise his men. Bartholomew hurled himself forward. He crashed into d'Ambrey, his weight bearing them both to the ground. D'Ambrey began to fight like a madman and, despite his superior size and strength, Bartholomew felt himself loosing ground.
Tulyet and his men rushed to help, but it took several of them to drag the spitting, struggling man away, and to secure him in a cart.
'He would have killed me!' exclaimed Tulyet in horror.
'The man is possessed! Is he mad, do you think?'
Bartholomew shivered and not only from the cold. 'It would be convenient to think so,' he said ambiguously.
Tulyet looked uneasily at where d'Ambrey glowered at him. 'Well, I will only be happy when we have him well secured in the Castle prison.'
The too!' said Heppel with feeling. 'That man is extremely dangerous and so are his associates!'
'Be careful,' Bartholomew warned Tulyet. 'There are people who consider d'Ambrey a martyr. If it becomes known that you have him in your prison cart, you might well have a riot to free him.'
'Heaven forbid,' said Tulyet with a shudder. 'I hope we have rounded up all the ringleaders of these riots now.
With them gone the people will grow peaceful again in time. I plan to send the prisoners to London for trial. We need no more local martyrs here.'
He turned his attention back to his captives, while Bartholomew went to Cecily. She was past anything he could do, and her breath was little more than a thready whisper.
Thinking to make her more comfortable, Bartholomew loosened the tight bodice of her dress, recoiling in shock at what tumbled out into his hands.
There, still with the blue-green ring on its little finger was the hand from Valence Marie. It was warm from being in Cecily's gown and sticky with blood. Bartholomew flung it from him in disgust.
'So, it was you who took it from Valence Marie,' he said softly. 'You slipped into the College when that greedy Thorpe and his scholars were off hoping to find more relics.'
But she was past confirming or denying him. He stared up at the leafy branches of trees that swayed and dripped above his head. When he looked again she was dead, a grimace fixed on her face and her eyes turning glassy.
Tulyet's men came to take her away, while Michael retrieved the hand from the grass. 'I expect the Chancellor would like this,' he said, turning it over in his hand.
'Each to his own,' said Bartholomew, climbing to his feet. He handed Michael the rings from his sleeve.
'Give him these, too. I imagine he will destroy them all together.'
'I cannot think why he would keep them,' said Michael.
'Simon d'Ambrey returning from the dead twenty-five years after half the town saw him die is enough to make him a martyr all over again. The Chancellor will not want bits of him around the town acting as a focus for gatherings.'
'Make sure Thorpe understands that,' said Bartholomew.
'I had news from the King this morning,' said Heppel, pulling his cloak more closely around his neck. 'Thorpe, although he does not know it yet, is going to be offered a position as master of a grammar school in York.'
'A grammar school?' echoed Bartholomew. 'That is something of a step down from Master of Valence Marie.
Will he accept?'
'Oh, he will accept,' said Heppel. 'One does not decline an offer from the King, you know. Thorpe is too unsubtle to be Master of a College.' He exchanged a knowing glance with Michael, and moved away to talk to Tulyet.
'Is he saying that if Thorpe had managed the matter of the hand with more tact and less zeal, he might still be in office?' asked Bartholomew.
Michael laughed at his shocked expression. 'Undoubtedly,' he said airily. 'And do not look surprised, my friend.
You have listened to a most appalling tale over the last hour. You cannot raise your eyebrows at the King or the Chancellor for that matter — when you have just heard the confessions of the Devil Incarnate.' He began to laugh, and draped an arm over Bartholomew's shoulders. Bartholomew shrugged it off quickly when he saw that it was the one that held the hand.
'What a revolting affair,' he said, moving away from the monk. 'D'Ambrey was supposed to have been saintly, and look how many people have died because of him — Kenzie, Werbergh, Edred, Lydgate, Cecily, Radbechejoanna, the riot-dead, not to mention his entire household and a good part of the population of Dover twenty-five years ago.'
'I always said Cambridge used d'Ambrey badly,' said Michael. 'It is a shame he decided to use violence to avenge himself. Had he elected to resume his charitable acts, I think many people might have flocked to him, perhaps even me. He could have been a saint had he chosen to be.'
'I do not think so, Brother,' said Bartholomew. 'Saints do not harbour murderous intentions for twenty-five years, help wives conceal the killings of their husbands, or assist scholars to rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies.'
Michael yawned. 'So you have solved the mystery surrounding Joanna — she was killed to allow Dominica to be free of her parents. But it seems your Tyler women did not know what d 'Ambrey intended — at least, not betцre it happened. They guessed afterwards because they must have found all that blood in their house.'
'I hope they are well away by now,' said Bartholomew.
'But by killing her first husband, Mistress Tyler is as much a murderer as is d'Ambrey!'
'I know, but Mistress Tyler is a good woman. She could have left me to the Frenchmen on the night of the riot, but she chose to stay and help, risking her life and the lives of her daughters. She also invited us in when we were attacked on the High Street without even knowing who we were. It was an act of selfless charity. I hope she reaches London safely and starts a new life.'
But what of Eleanor? he thought. Would her escape from justice encourage her to use murderous means the next time someone did something of which she did not approve? That she had gone so abruptly from being friendly to attempting to kill him left him oddly disoriented. The more he thought about it, the more he hoped their paths would never cross again, and realised that Matilde had definitely been correct when she had accused him of knowing nothing of women. He decided that he would most definitely not embark on any more friendships with them until he had devoted more time to understanding them. Had he done as much years ago, he would not have been jilted by Philippa, and would not have allowed himself to become embroiled in the uncomfortable business at the Feast. Michael's vast yawn interrupted his morose thoughts.
'We were right about the riots,' said Michael, yawning again. 'We thought there was more to them than random violence and we were correct.'
'All the clues that we uncovered piecemeal now fit together,' said Bartholomew, smothering a yawn of his own, brought on by watching Michael. 'I did not think they would ever match up.'
'If you are honest, some do not,' said Michael. 'It was pure chance that Norbert and Kenzie were both killed by wounds to the back of the head, and we saw a connection where there was none. Well, not a direct one anyway. We also thought Bigod was at the centre of the whole business, since you heard him when we were attacked on the High Street. And you heard him discussing the second riot at Chesterton. But he was just following orders.'
They began to walk back through the dripping trees towards Cambridge. Ahead of them was Tulyet's convoy with its prisoners, the wheels of the carts groaning and creaking and the low voices of Tulyet's men drifting on the breeze as they talked among themselves.
'What will happen to d'Ambrey and his associates?' asked Bartholomew.
'Tulyet will send them to London for trial,' said Michael with a shrug, 'but no one will be in any hurry for the facts to emerge. Years will pass, people will die, and one day there will be no records that any such prisoners ever arrived.'
'And the legends of d'Ambrey?'
'Oh, they will fade away in time,' said Michael. 'Have you considered that it may have been people like Will, Dominica and Huw that kept them alive all these years?
