your behalf. We all have. Father and I spent all of the night before last in that seedy King's Head because someone had told us that a traveller would be there who may have seen Abigny on the London Road.'
A memory flashed into Bartholomew's mind. He had thought he had seen Stanmore coming out of the King's Head after he had met his well-wisher by the plague pit.
So, his eyes had not deceived him after all.
'I am sorry,' Stanmore said. 'We found the traveller, but he could tell us nothing about Abigny.'
Bartholomew suddenly felt ashamed and bewildered.
He had become so confused by all the lies and deceit, and so accustomed to suspecting his colleagues of intrigues, that he had applied the same rules to his family. Perhaps he had also misjudged Philippa and Abigny. Stanmore's neat office was in total disarray, with scrolls scattered everywhere and a crossbow quarrel in the ceiling. Bartholomew sank down onto a stool, uncertain whether his weariness came from the fact that his family's apparent involvement appeared to be harmless after all, or from the battering his senses had taken in the past few hours.
In an unsteady voice, Stanmore said, 'I dread to think what Edith will say if she ever learns that her beloved brother was shot at in her husband's office.'
'Your steward seems somewhat trigger-happy,' said Bartholomew, also shakily, when he recalled how Stanmore's quick reaction had saved his life. 'Remind me never to haggle over cloth prices in your office.'
'It is a dangerous game we play, Matt,' Stanmore said. 'You were attacked by the river; Giles Abigny pursues some strange business of his own under my very roof; and Richard and I were ambushed by footpads the other night. Hugh saved our lives, as he saved yours down by the river, and doubtless the responsibility is beginning to tell on him. He had never, in thirty years of service, been called upon to use his crossbow, and then, in a matter of days, he is required to use it three times.'
Bartholomew looked from Richard to Stanmore, bewildered. 'Ambushed?'
Richard nodded vigorously. 'When we left the King's Head. Four men ambushed us just outside the gates here.
Hugh shot one of them and captured another.'
'They were farmers from out Shelford way,' said Stanmore. 'They heard how easy it was to steal in Cambridge with so many dead of the plague, and thought to try it for themselves. Of course, it is easy to steal from the dead and dying, but these four fellows felt that was unethical, and decided to steal from the living instead.'
'The Sheriff should shoot anyone seen out after the curfew,' said Stephen. 'His laxity is the cause of all this villainy.'
'And what if he had seen you out last night as you returned from Bene't's?' retorted Bartholomew. 'I am often called out to patients at night, and would not relish being shot at before I had a chance to explain myself.'
'We would not have been able to explain our business last night, Stephen,' Stanmore agreed. 'We swore an oath of secrecy, and we could hardly tell the watch where we had been and what we had been discussing.'
Stephen acquiesced with a sideways tilt of his head, and there was silence. As if it were a magnet, the gaze of all four lit upon the crossbow bolt.
'What will mother say?' Richard said, echoing his father's words.
'Why would she find out?' asked Bartholomew with a weak smile.
'Well, thank the Lord we have resolved all that!' said Richard heartily, his natural cheerfulness bubbling to the surface again. 'I hated having secrets from you, Uncle Matt. We all wanted to tell you, but we were afraid it might put you in danger, being at Michaelhouse and all. We have tried hard to keep you away from it as much as we could, but I suppose it is your home.'
Bartholomew smiled at him. Richard was at an age where he could make astonishingly adult observations, but could still make things childishly simple.
Bartholomew could see that Richard considered that no lasting damage had been done by the scene in his father's study, and was quite happy to continue his life exactly the same way as before.
'I will tell the cook to make us some breakfast,' he said, marching out of the room.
'You really let him spy in Oxford?' asked Bartholomew, after he had gone.
Stanmore looked askance at him. 'Of course not, Matt.
What do you think I am? He is a bright boy, and he is good at listening, but the information he sends us is nothing. It pleases him to think he is helping, and I would not hurt his feelings by telling him otherwise.' 'I believe I owe you an apology,' said Bartholomew, 'And we owe you one. We should have told you. We wanted to, but we honestly believed you would be safer not knowing. I had decided I would tell you everything if you ever asked, but you never mentioned anything to me. I also did not want to distress you by telling you I thought Sir John had been murdered. Especially since there was nothing you could have done, and I was afraid you would start on some investigation of your own that might lead you into danger.'
He laughed softly. 'We involve a child like Richard, and we keep you in the dark. How stupid we must seem to you!' 'I am sorry,' said Bartholomew. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. 'All this intrigue, with the plague on top of it, must be addling my mind, like Colet. I misjudged you.'
The Stanmores dismissed his words with impatient shakes of their heads. Stephen suddenly gave him a hard poke in the chest. 'You lose my best horse, and now you tear our offices apart. Just stay away from my hounds and my falcons,' he said, feigning severity. Bartholomew smiled and followed Stephen down the stairs, where Richard was shouting that breakfast was ready. Hugh slouched in the inglenook in the fireplace, and looked uneasily at Bartholomew. Stanmore whispered in his ear, and he gave Bartholomew a grin before leaving the room.
'What did you say to him?' Bartholomew asked.
'Oh, I just told him you had spent the night sampling Master Wilson's best wine,' said Stanmore.
'You told him I was drunk?' asked Bartholomew incredulously.
Stanmore nodded casually. 'He loathed Wilson, and it will give him great pleasure to think you have been drinking his wine. His collection of fine wines is quite the envy of the town, you know.'
Bartholomew did not, and sat for a while, talking to the Stanmores before they were obliged to attend to their business. Bartholomew fell asleep in the parlour, and only awoke when a clatter of horses' hooves echoed in the yard. He sat up and stretched, scrubbing at his face with his hands, and thinking about what he should do that day. He glanced out of the window, and stared morosely at the raindrops that pattered in the mud. He wondered why he felt so gloomy when Philippa was safe, and his family had exonerated themselves from the evil doings of the University.
But the University was still at the heart of the matter.
Despite all that he had learned over the last few hours, there were questions that remained unanswered. Such as who had killed Sir John. He knew why, but he was no further forward in discovering who. Did the same person murder Sir John, poison Aelfrith, and take Augustus's body? Bartholomew rubbed his chin. Whoever killed Sir John for the seal must also have killed Augustus and desecrated his body — also for the seal. But why had Aelfrith spoken Wilson's name on his deathbed?
Bartholomew knew that Wilson had not killed Augustus, and if not Augustus, then probably not Sir John.
Could it have been Alcote? He was the spy in their midst, according to the hostels' information. Was he also the murderer? Wilson had said that Alcote had been so drunk that he had not known when Wilson had left their room to search Augustus's room for the seal. But supposing Alcote had not been drunk, and had been pretending? Then he too could have been up and sneaking around the College. But Wilson had said that Augustus had already gone from the room when he got there, and Wilson and Alcote had been together until then.
Of course, Bartholomew thought, all this was assuming everyone was telling the truth. Alcote and Wilson may have been in this together, each lying to protect the other. Bartholomew wondered if Alcote knew of Wilson's nocturnal visits to the Abbess, and whether he approved. He wondered whether he should warn Alcote that his information had been intercepted.
Bartholomew had no doubt that the Stanmores believed that Alcote would merely be discredited to remove him from his position of power, but Bartholomew thought of Sir John, Augustus, Paul, Montfitchet, and Aelfrith, and was not so sure.
He thought of Alcote — small, fussy, and petty. Could he have had the strength to drive the knife so deeply into Paul's body? Could he have overpowered Sir John?
Bartholomew thought of Wilson hauling himself through the trap-door, and of Michael' s strong arm in hauling
