and colleagues.'
Bartholomew saw Stephen turn white, while Richard's mouth dropped open. Stanmore took a step towards him. 'Matt! What are you talking about?'
Bartholomew's eyes blazed. 'Enough lies! Where are they, Oswald? Where are the documents that show how much it cost to buy you?'
Stanmore froze in his tracks, and looked unsteadily at Bartholomew as realisation began to dawn on his face.
'I do not know what you mean,' he said, but his voice lacked conviction.
Bartholomew advanced towards him menacingly.
'I thought your rescue was timely two nights ago. You knew, because your Bene't Hostel associates planned it with the Abbess of St Radegund's! Why did you bother, Oswald? Or does your conscience balk at the murder of relatives?'
The door was flung open, and Hugh stood there, brandishing his crossbow. He saw Bartholomew moving threateningly towards Stanmore, saw his face dark with anger, and fired without a moment's hesitation. Simultaneously, Richard screamed and Stanmore lunged forward and knocked into Hugh so that the bolt thudded harmlessly into the ceiling. Hugh started to reload while Bartholomew gazed open-mouthed in shock. He had known Hugh since he was a child, and yet Hugh had not given a second thought to shooting him. Had the plague and the University business changed their lives so much? 'This is not necessary, Hugh,' said Stanmore in an attempt to sound in control. 'Please leave us.'
Hugh looked as if to demur, but Stephen took him roughly by the shoulder and pushed him from the room, closing the door behind him. Richard stared at the quarrel that was embedded, still quivering, in the wooden ceiling. Stanmore lost his usual, confident bearing, and slumped into a chair, where Richard and Stephen came to stand behind him. Bartholomew suddenly noticed the similarity between the three of them.
Oswald and Stephen had always been alike, and Richard was beginning to look like a younger version, without the silver beard.
Bartholomew eyed Stanmore sitting in his chair with his head bowed, and moved cautiously to the other side of the room, where he could see all three of them at once.
It was Richard who broke the silence.
'You are wrong,' he said, his voice unsteady. 'My father would never let them harm you. He always made sure they understood that.'
Stanmore seemed to pull himself together. He gestured that Bartholomew should sit next to him.
Bartholomew declined, and stood waiting, tense and wary. Stanmore took a deep breath and began to speak, his voice sometimes so low that Bartholomew had to strain to hear it.
'It started about a year ago,' he said. 'You know I maintain my own network of informants about the town?
Well, word came to me that there were moves by Oxford scholars to try to undermine the University here, but I assumed that it was merely overpaid scholars with too much time on their hands playing games. Perhaps it started like that, but last year the business seemed to escalate. There were all sorts of rumours of spies, secret messages, and the like. Then people began to die: there were the two lads who had eaten bad oysters, and the Master of King's Hall, to name but three. Anyway, it became clear that there was a plot afoot to strike at the University through some of its most powerful members — the Fellows and Masters of the Colleges.'
He paused and studied his fingernails. Bartholomew waited impatiently.
'Last spring, Burwell came to me and told me that the hostels had set up a secret committee to look into the matter. Deaths were occurring in the Colleges, and there was speculation by the hostels that the Colleges were riddled with spies from Oxford. The hostel group believed that Oxford, by striking at the Colleges, might force prospective benefactors like the Bishop of Norwich and Edmund Gonville to withhold money from Cambridge, because the Colleges appeared to be rank with corruption. The hostel group did not include anyone from the Colleges because they could not be sure who was honest and who was a spy. Are you following me?'
Bartholomew nodded restlessly.
'The hostel group also decided to include some trustworthy citizens from the town. The hostels are poor, unlike the Colleges that have their endowments and support from the King, and it takes money to set up a system of spies. They included me and five others because we conduct a lot of business with the University, and it is in our interests to ensure that the University does not flounder. So, we provided them with money, and they ensured that we had custom. A harmless relationship.'
'It was not harmless for Augustus, Sir John, or Aelfrith,' said Bartholomew coldly.
Stanmore looked up sharply. 'Father Aelfrith? He died of the plague.'
'He was poisoned,' said Bartholomew bluntly.
Stanmore stared at Bartholomew in disbelief. 'I did not know,' he said eventually. 'But I have not finished, Matt. For a while, it seemed as if the hostels' system of spies was having some success, for the deaths ceased.
Then, without warning, they started again. Two Fellows from the Hall of Valence Marie died, Sir John committed suicide, and then there were all those rumours about the commoners being killed for his seal. We have been meeting regularly and secretly to try to find out what is happening. In the last few months, most of the trouble has been at Michaelhouse. There is something going on there that none of us understand. Perhaps the entire conspiracy against the University is coming from Michaelhouse.'
He glanced up at Stephen, who nodded agreement Bartholomew kept his expression neutral, although his mind was teeming. Aelfrith had told him that there were deaths at King's Hall, Clare, and Peterhouse, and then a long gap before those at Valence Marie and Michaelhouse. Bartholomew wondered, since Stanmore's information coincided with Aelfrith's, if Stanmore's motives were pure after all.
'The University buys cloth from me rather than from other merchants,' Stanmore continued. 'In turn, I give them money to help them maintain their network of informants. But I have most certainly not been involved in murder, and I have never done anything that would harm you. That was one of the conditions on which I joined the hostels' group — that if there was anything that would affect you, I would be told first so that I could keep you out of it.'
'And what about the plan to dispose of Alcote?' asked Bartholomew.
Stanmore looked at him in shock. 'How do you know about that?' He put his head back in his hands again. 'Oh, God, no! We have a spy in our midst, too! Do not tell me our group is known of in Michaelhouse. If that is so,' he said, looking up at Bartholomew, 'then all our lives could be in danger.' He turned to Richard. 'Why did I involve you in this?' he cried, suddenly desolate.
Richard met his eyes with a level stare. 'You did not, Father. I was approached independently of you.'
He looked at Bartholomew. 'At Oxford, I can listen and learn, and I, too, can send back information that may help to put an end to this silly plot.'
Bartholomew ignored him. 'You did not answer my question,' he said to Stanmore. 'What about the plan… how was it put?… to take Alcote out of the equation?'
'It was you!' said Stephen suddenly. 'That noise we heard outside the window. It was you listening!'
Bartholomew continued to hold Stanmore's eyes.
'Well?' he said.
'Not what you think,' he said wearily. 'Our group does not condone murder. There are other ways. A word to the Chancellor to say that women have been seen coming out of his room early in the morning. Or even boys. A rumour that he has been drinking too much, or that his College has become riotous. It is not necessary to kill to remove a man from office. And if Alcote is a spy for Oxford, as our intelligence suggests, then he should not be in a position to run your College anyway, would you not agree?'
'But who are you to judge?' Bartholomew said quietly. He glanced round at the three men, and was suddenly sick of it all. He wanted to make for the door.
Richard barred his way. Bartholomew did not want to manhandle him and stopped in his tracks.
'We have done nothing wrong,' Richard said with dignity, 'except to try to sort out this mess, to stop more people from dying. I would do the same again. And I also want you to know that Father has been using the hostels' spies to try to find out about Philippa for you.
He has paid a good deal of money and spent a lot of his time following false leads and asking questions on
