Bartholomew was lost. Swynford the murderer? He looked desperately towards the stable door, but Stephen guessed what was in his mind, and prodded him hard with the knife. 'You should have gone to see Edith,' he said, edging Bartholomew towards the end of the stable.
'Oswald and Richard went, and they will be safely out of the way until our meeting has finished.'
Stephen shoved Bartholomew against the back wall, while Swynford cleared some straw from the floor, and indicated that Bartholomew should pull up the trap-door he had uncovered. Bartholomew did not move. Stephen moved towards him, brandishing the knife threateningly, but Bartholomew still did not move.
'Open it,' said Swynford impatiently.
'Open it yourself,' said Bartholomew. If they did not want Oswald Stanmore to find blood on his stable floor, what did he have to fear from Stephen's knife?
'I do not want to kill you here,' Swynford said, as his cold, hard eyes flashed, 'but I will if necessary. Blood can be cleaned away, and a knife wound can always be hidden with other injuries, as you have probably guessed was the case with Sir John. Now, unless you wish your death to be long and painful, open the door.'
Bartholomew slowly bent to pull open the trap-door.
Stanmore had shown him the small storerooms and passages under the stables when he had been a boy. They had been built by a previous merchant to hide goods from the King's tax-collectors. As far as Bartholomew knew, Stanmore had never used the underground rooms, and they had lain empty for years.
The door was made of stone, and was heavy.
Bartholomew hauled at it and stood back as he let it fall backwards with a crash that echoed all over the yard. Stephen and Swynford looked at each other.
'That was rash,' said Swynford. 'One more trick like that and I will kill you myself.'
Swynford took a lamp from a shelf, and lit it. He held out a hand for Bartholomew to precede him down the wooden stairs that disappeared into the darkness below.
Bartholomew climbed down cautiously, wondering if this were to be his last journey. Swynford followed him, and Stephen brought up the rear.
Bartholomew was prodded along one of the musty corridors and told to open the door to the largest chamber. To his surprise, it was already lit with candles and filled with people. A hard shove in the small of his back sent him stumbling into the middle of the room.
'We have something of a problem, gentlemen,' said Swynford calmly.
'Why did you bring him here?' It was no surprise to Bartholomew to see Burwell and Yaxley there, standing shoulder to shoulder with Neville Stayne from Mary's Hostel. Jocelyn of Ripon, too, was present, his face creased into its perpetual scowl.
'What did you expect us to do?' snapped Stephen.
'Send him home? We did our best to make sure he was out of the way. It is not our fault he failed to answer a call of mercy from his own sister!'
'What do we do with him now?' asked Burwell.
'We will keep him here until I think of a way to get rid of him that cannot be traced back to us,' said Swynford.
'We have done it before, and we can do it again.'
'Then it was you who killed Sir John and poisoned Aelfrith!' exclaimed Bartholomew.
'No. That was me.' It was the voice he had heard at Bene't's but could not identify. Bartholomew spun round and looked into the face of Gregory Colet.
Bartholomew was rendered speechless, and could only gaze dumbly as Colet sauntered round the room and perched himself on the edge of the table. He saw Bartholomew's expression of disbelief, and laughed.
'I was convincing as the drooling fool, wasn't I?' he said, crossing his legs and looking at Bartholomew.
You were quite a nuisance, though. You would insist on visiting me when I had a great many other things to do. And I had to keep wearing these,' he said, pulling distastefully at his filthy clothes. 'You were supposed to have given up on me and left me to my own devices.'
'Why?' whispered Bartholomew, looking at his friend. 'What brought you to this?'
Swynford snapped his fingers impatiently. 'Enough of this! We have better things to do than to satisfy the curiosity of this meddling fool.'
Bartholomew was bundled out of the room and into a long chamber down the corridor by Yaxley, Jocelyn, and a man he had seen at Garret Hostel. They made him sit down on the floor at the far end and backed out of the room, slamming the door behind them. Bartholomew heard bolts shooting across on the other side. He sat in the darkness trying to comprehend what had happened to him. Stephen and Colet, whom he had believed to be friends, were so deeply embroiled in whatever foul plans were afoot, that they were prepared to kill him for them. And Colet had killed Sir John and Aelfrith!
He leaned his head back against the wall, and tried to think rationally. But it would do him no good to speculate. What he needed to do was to think of a way out. There was no window in the chamber and it was pitch black. Bartholomew felt his way along the walls, searching for other possible exits or even a weapon.
There was nothing. He discovered there were several large crates in the room, but other than that the room was empty. He pushed against the door with all his strength, but it was made of thick oak bound with iron, and he knew from his childhood visits to the cellars that there were two huge bolts and a stout bar on the outside.
He sat down again despondently. Unbidden, an image of Philippa came into his mind. Was she involved too? Would she be the one to offer to make his death look like an accident? He leaned back against the wall again and closed his eyes. He could hear raised voices from the room down the corridor. He was glad they were arguing with each other: such an unholy alliance should not be free from dissent and strife. The meeting did not last long, and it was no more than half an hour later when it finished and he could hear people leaving.
The heavy stone trap-door was dropped into place with a hollow thump, and Bartholomew's prison was as dark and silent as the grave. He found it strange at first, and then disconcerting. Michaelhouse was usually noisy during the day, with scholars coming and going, and at night there was always some sound — students debating in low voices, someone's snoring through open window shutters, or footsteps on cobbled paths leading to the kitchens or the latrines. Bartholomew was aware that he could not even hear the bells that called parishioners to church or scholars to lectures and meals. In a sudden panic, he crashed towards the door and hammered on it until his fists were bruised and his voice was hoarse from yelling. he forced himself to pace out the room in an effort to calm himself, counting the number of steps, and then exploring every unevenness in the earthen walls. In one of the crates he found some bales of cloth and wrapped them round him against the chill of the room. When he felt as though he had mastered his panic, he perched on a chest, tucked his feet up underneath him, and began to review what he had learned. At least he would not go to his death confused and demanding answers.
He knew the men involved: Colet, Burwell, Yaxley, Stayne, Jocelyn, the man from Garret Hostel, Stephen, and Swynford. Swynford was clearly in charge: even Colet had obeyed his instructions. Jocelyn obviously had no intention of founding a grammar school in Ripon, but had been imported by his kinsman into Michaelhouse to help him in his plotting. Stephen's role was probably to encourage Stanmore and the other merchants to maintain their support of the bogus hostels group, while the money they invested was pocketed by Swynford. With a start he remembered Burwell telling him that he had heard of Philippa's flight from Stephen, although there was no reason why they should have known each other well enough to exchange gossip. And Colet? Colet, by his own admission, had been the one to murder Sir John and Aelfrith. Did he also kill Paul and Augustus, and drug the commoners? And how far was the Abbess of St Radegund's involved? While Abigny's story had a ring of truth to it, the blacksmith had been paid to warn Bartholomew in a purse from Bene't Hostel.
Bartholomew wrapped his arms around his body more tightly for warmth, and pressed on with his reasoning. It would probably have been easy to kill Sir John. Cynric had seen him leaving the College after he had eaten dinner with Aelfrith and Bartholomew, probably called to a meeting connected with the alleged Oxford plot. Bartholomew and Stanmore had received false messages from Swynford and his clan, and Colet had probably sent a similar one to Sir John. Sir John had suspected something was amiss, however, because he had taken the precaution of leaving the seal behind. He had gone to the meeting by the mill, a place where few went after dark, where he was murdered by Colet. Swynford had indicated that the fatal wound had been hidden by the injuries sustained when Sir John was crushed by the water-wheel. Colet had been unable to find the seal, and so had exchanged Sir John's clothes for another set probably the ones he had worn himself as a disguise when he went to meet Sir John with the intention of killing him.
