where I might find the lay-brother who locked the church on the night of the friar's death?' he asked finally.
She sighed. 'So you will not heed my warning?'
Bartholomew did not reply, but waited for her to answer his question. She sighed again. The lay-brother you were chasing in our lane? No. That was the last any of us saw of him. You frightened him clean off the face of the earth.'
Bartholomew stood to leave. It was dark, and, although he would not have admitted it to Janetta, he did not feel safe with her in the churchyard. He wondered why she had picked this time and place to meet him, and felt uneasy. Was she watching his every move? Had she taken the arsenic from his bag and substituted it with white sugar? Was it Janetta who had left the goat's head on Michael's bed to warn him as she was warning Bartholomew now? 'You have been most helpful, Mistress Janetta,' he said. 'But please remember next time that it should not be necessary for your friends to sit on me to make me stay.'
A spark of anger glinted in her eyes so fast that Bartholomew thought he had imagined it, before it was masked by her enigmatic smile. He smiled, bowed, and walked purposefully away. His nerves tingled as he waited for figures looming out of the bushes that would block his escape. But there was nothing. He walked unmolested to the High Street and home to Michaelhouse.
When the sturdy gates of the College were barred behind him, he went straight to find Michael. The monk had just gone to bed, but was uncomplaining when Bartholomew dragged him from his sleep. They went to Bartholomew's room, where they would not disturb Michael's room-mates. Once Michael had settled himself comfortably on a stool, Bartholomew related the details of his meeting with Janetta.
'Oh Lord, Matt! I do not like that woman.'
He listened without further interruption until Bartholomew had finished his story and then sat thinking in silence.
'I think your other whore friend is right. I feel this Janetta is untrustworthy. Why did you not ask her about her scars?'
That would not have been polite,' said Bartholomew.
'Why should I question her about a crime for which she had already paid?'
'You are too gentle,' said Michael. 'I suppose that and your curly black hair are the reasons you seem to have half the whores in Cambridge demanding your company. Janetta, Sybilla, 'Lady' Matilde. What would the Franciscans say if they were to find out?'
'Michael, please,' said Bartholomew irritably. Think about what Janetta told me instead of troubling your monkish brain with unmonkish thoughts of prostitutes.
Tulyet said Janetta was a witness to murder; she says she is not and has never spoken to him. It is black and white. They both cannot be right, so one of them is lying. Which? Is it Tulyet, who seems to be dragging his feet over the investigation, perhaps because of his family's involvement with the Guild of the Coming? Or is it Janetta, who holds sway over ruffians, and appears and disappears at will?'
'Or are they both lying?' asked Michael. 'Janetta saw the murder, but Tulyet never asked her. What about Froissart? You say you gave her no reason to assume that Froissart was dead? She has no idea he lies cold and stinking in St Mary's crypt?'
'Tulyet does not know of Froissart's death either.
Janetta says the townspeople believe that Froissart is the killer and that Tulyet lost him. Tulyet says that Froissart does not have the intelligence to carry out the murders.
Janetta says Froissart was violent.'
'They do not sound like the same man to me,' said Michael. 'Either Froissart was a clever and vicious killer or he did not have the intelligence to plan such things.
Which Froissart was the real one?' 'I suppose it does not matter much,' said Bartholomew, leaning back with a yawn, 'since we know he is not in a position to do much about anything.'
Michael yawned too. 'I cannot make any sense out of this tonight. The Chancellor is burying Froissart and the woman tomorrow. Let us see what their funerals might bring to light.'
They both started suddenly, aware that someone else had entered the room and was standing silently in the shadows.
'Boniface!' said Bartholomew, leaning back against the wall again. 'You made me jump!' 'I am leaving, Master Bartholomew,' he said.
Bartholomew twisted around to look at him. 'Leaving?
But your disputation is in two days. I have already told you that if you can put heresy to the back of your mind for a couple of hours, you should pass.' 'I do not want to become a physician,' said Boniface.
He stood stiffly in the doorway. 'And I do not want to be a friar.'
'Boniface!' said Michael kindly. Think about what you are saying. You have taken vows. At least talk to Father William first/ 'I have,' said Boniface. 'He told me I should take some time to consider before I act.'
That is good advice,' said Bartholomew gently. 'But do not consider tonight. It is late. Come to see me tomorrow and we will talk when our minds are fresh.'
Boniface was silent.
'Frances de Belem!' he blurted out suddenly. 'She was coming to see me the day she died. We usually met before dawn under the willows by the fish-ponds.
I unbarred the gate and waited, but she did not come.
All the time she was dying in the orchard.'
Bartholomew remembered Alban claiming that Frances had a lover, and even her father had known she was meeting someone at dawn. Poor Boniface! A murdered lover was hardly something for which a young friar could claim sympathy from his fellows.
'I thought you might have killed her,' he said, swallowing and looking at Bartholomew.
'Me?' said Bartholomew, appalled. 'What on earth could have given you that idea?'
'Well, you are often out of the College at night, and I thought you must have seen her and killed her to keep your comings and goings secret,' said Boniface, 'especially if you were involved in all this business with witchcraft that Brother Alban was telling us about.'
'Brother Alban is a dangerous old gossip,' said Michael firmly. 'And Matt is not the only one to slip in and out of College at night. I do, I have seen Hesselwell and Aidan do so, and now you say you did.' 'I know,' said Boniface, 'but I was distraught, and I had no one to tell. I did not know what to do. She told me she had something important to tell me, and I waited but she never came.'
Bartholomew could not meet his eyes. If Boniface was Frances's lover, then he must have been the father of her child. No wonder Frances had said that the father could not marry her. He decided nothing would be gained by telling Boniface that Frances was carrying his child when she died. The student was in enough turmoil already.
'She was almost hysterical,' Boniface reflected. 'I asked her to tell me then, but she said she needed to tell me privately. Against my better judgement, I agreed to meet her in the orchard.'
'Did you not wait at the gate for her?' asked Michael.
Boniface shot him a bitter look. 'I waited for her by the fish-ponds. I was afraid of being seen, and there are reeds and willows in which to hide around the ponds.'
Bartholomew could think of nothing to say. He tried to remember the times he had broken the rules to meet a woman in the night while a student in Oxford, but the memories were dim, and he could not recall his feelings.
Boniface hurried on.
'When I heard she had been dying while I hid among the reeds, I felt wretched. I took the arsenic from your bag, and put the sugar in its place because I was going to swallow it. Then you gave your lecture on dosages and I realised there was not enough to kill me. Here.'
He pushed a packet at Bartholomew.
'I never carry enough to kill in case anyone steals it, or it falls from my bag by accident,' said Bartholomew, staring at the small packet in his hands.
'I am glad you are cautious,' said Boniface with a faint smile. 'At least now I have not compounded one sin with another by committing suicide/ He stood to leave.
Bartholomew rummaged in his bag and handed him a twist of cloth. This is camomile,' he said. 'Mix it with some wine, and it will help you sleep. Tomorrow we can talk again.'
Boniface looked as if he would refuse, but then leaned forward and snatched it from him. He gave a sudden
