greetings from where he had been working in the solar, and came to join them. The kitchen was full of delicious smells, as meats roasted on spits in the fireplace. Edith had been picking rhubarb, and great mounds of it sat at one end of the kitchen table ready to be bottled.
Edith, with many interludes for helpless laughter, told him about how the ploughman's geese had escaped and trapped the rector in his church for an entire afternoon.
He told her about Michael's prank the night before, and she laughed until the tears rolled down her face.
'Oh, Matt! To think you were frightened by such a trick! I used to make those shadows for you when you were a boy. Do you not remember?'
Bartholomew had not told her about finding the goat mask in the coffin with the murdered woman, and was sure that she would not have been so dismissive of his gullibility had she known. She ruffled his hair as she had done when he was young and went to tend to her rhubarb, still smiling.
He played a game of chess with Stanmore, which Stanmore won easily because Bartholomew became impatient and failed to concentrate, and then he strummed Edith's lute in the solar until the daylight began to fade. Stanmore offered to walk part of the way back with him, and they set off as the shadows lay long and dark across the Cambridge road, and the last red glow of the sun disappeared beyond the horizon.
'Any news of who killed Will?' asked Bartholomew.
Stan more shook his head angrily. 'Nothing! And Tulyet is worse than useless. I discovered that the attack was being discussed by men in the King's Head and, like a good citizen, I passed my information to Tulyet, who has refused to investigate.'
'Refused?' said Bartholomew. 'Or merely did not initiate enquiries.'
Stanmore shrugged. 'Pedant,' he said. 'He said he would consider the information, but my man in the King's Head said there have been no soldiers asking questions. For Will's sake, I regret bitterly sending the silk to London for dyeing. Now I have little choice but to use de Belem. Since his wife died of the plague, his work has become shoddy.'
'I suppose lately Master de Belem has had other things to worn' about,' said Bartholomew.
'Has anything further been discovered about the killer of his daughter?' asked Stanmore, picking up a stone and tossing it at a tree stump that rose out of a boggy meadow at the side of the road.
Bartholomew told him about the dead woman in the grave of Nicholas of York, and that she had been wearing a mask depicting the head of a goat.
Stanmore looked appalled, and shook his head slowly.
'Since the Death ravaged the land, men have turned from God,' he said. 'Who knows what evil stalks the land!' 'I wish I knew why Frances was killed at Michaelhouse,' said Bartholomew.
'Did you follow up on that information I gave you about the guilds?'
'I am not sure I know where to begin,' said Bartholomew. He told his brother-in-law what he had overheard Harling telling de Wetherset. Stanmore frowned and pulled at his neat grey beard thoughtfully.
'I asked one of my men to make enquiries about which two covens were using the decommissionedchurches that Brother Alban told you about. They are the Cuild of Purification, which uses St John Zachary, and the Cuild of the Coming, which uses All Saints'. 'Purification' apparently means purification from God, rather than by Him, while the 'Coming' refers to the coming of Lucifer, not the Messiah. The Cuild of Purification met last night at St John Zachary's Church, as you heard Harling say it would, and my man posted a guard outside. As the guild members came out of the church, he saw each one make the sign of a small circle on the ground with their forefingers.'
'A circle?' said Bartholomew, staring at Stanmore and thinking of the feet of the dead girls.
Stanmore nodded. 'So, it does mean something to you. My man could not be absolutely certain because he, rather sensibly, had placed himself a good distance away. He also said that people wore black hoods, and did not linger to be recognised. What does the circle mean to you?'
Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair. 'A small circle was drawn on the sole of the foot of three of the dead women I saw. I do not know if Tulyet saw the marks or not.
He reacted oddly when I tried to ask him whether there was a similar mark on the foot of the first victim.'
'What do you mean, 'acted oddly'?'
'He became angry and then dismissive. It was after I mentioned the possibility of all the victims bearing a similar mark that he threatened to arrest me.'
'Arrest you?' said Stanmore, horrified. 'Be careful, Matt! Even though Richard Tulyet the elder is no longer Mayor, he is still an influential man. If you anger the son, you will also anger the father.'
'Do you think the older Tulyet is in a guild other than the Guild of the Annunciation?' asked Bartholomew.
'Fie is certainly in his trade guild, the Tailors,' answered Stanmore. 'I suppose it is possible that he could also be in one of these covens, although he would be hard pushed if ever his loyalty to one were tested over the others.' 'I think there could be some connection between the dead women and the Tulyets,' said Bartholomew, 'based on the Sheriffs reaction to me, and the fact that he seems to be doing nothing to investigate their deaths.'
Stanmore frowned. 'If there were, it would have to be through one of these covens. The Guild of the Coming probably has the edge over the Guild of Purification in terms of power. I suspect that some highly influential person might be a member of the Coming. It is possible that person could be one of the Tulyet clan.'
Bartholomew sighed. It was all becoming very complicated.
Stanmore slapped him on the back. 'I will put a man on it and see what I can find out for you.'
Bartholomew gave him a brief smile. 'Thank you. How many people were thereat this coven at St John Zachan?' he asked.
'My man counted five people, but I suspect there are more members than this.'
'Do you know the name of anyone who is in one of these covens?'
Stanmore screwed up his face and looked away. 'Not for certain,' he said.
'Who?' persisted Bartholomew, studying Stanmore closely.
'I do not know for certain,' Stanmore repeated. He stared back at Bartholomew. 'But I think de Belem might be a member of the Guild of the Purification.'
'De Belem?' said Bartholomew incredulously. 'Reginald de Belem?'
Stanmore nodded, and grabbed Bartholomew by his tabard. 'I am not certain, so please be careful how you use that information. Sir Reginald has been through enough with the death of his daughter, and I would not want to be the cause of further grief should I be mistaken.'
Bartholomew looked away and stared down the darkening path, his mind working fast. If there was rivalry between the two covens as Stanmore suggested, did this mean that someone in the Guild of the Coming was killing the women and leaving the secret sign of the rival coven on the bodies as some kind of insult? Or was it simply the work of the Guild of Purification? He thought about the incident in the orchard where at least three people had trespassed in Michaelhouse. Was an entire guild involved? Was he taking on dozens of people in this business? Was de Beiem's daughter killed by the Guild of the Coming and marked as a warning to him, or had she been murdered by his own guild as punishment for some perceived misdemeanour?
He chewed absently on a stalk of grass. The woman in Nicholas's tomb had been wearing the goat mask. Was a goat the symbol of the Guild of the Coming? He knew goats were associated with the Devil, as attested by the painting in the church. Was the woman killed by the Guild of the Coming and buried with a goat mask to claim the murder as their work? It seemed rather extreme.
And how was Nicholas of York involved? Bartholomew thought about de Beiem's insistence that he investigate Frances's murder. Did he suspect that Tulyet might be involved with the Guild of the Coming, his rival guild, and would therefore do nothing to help? And what of the third guild, the Guild of the Holy Trinity, which de Wetherset had told him about, and of which Nicholas was a member? Were they involved in this? Were they using the sacred symbol of one of the covens so that it would be blamed for the murders? 'Matt.' Stanmore's voice cut across his thoughts, i do not like any of this, and I do not like the idea of you becoming involved in the doings of evil men. You must take care!'
Bartholomew turned to Stanmore and seized his arm.
'Do not bring Edith into the town until all this is over.'
'You can have no fear on that score,' said Stanmore fervently. 'And tomorrow I will bring my brother's widow and her children here, too. That will keep her safe and Edith busy.'
