‘I know!’ said Michael fiercely. ‘That is why I wanted to leave in the morning.’
‘But why bring her at all?’
Michael lunged at Bartholomew suddenly, catching him by a handful of his tabard. ‘That is my affair and none of yours! Keep your questions to yourself!’
He thrust Bartholomew from him with such force that the physician lost his footing on the frozen soil and tumbled inelegantly to the ground. In an instant, Michael was kneeling next to him.
‘Oh, Lord, Matt! I am sorry! I did not mean … sometimes I do not know my own strength,’ he said apologetically, anxiety written all over his face.
‘What is wrong with you?’ demanded Bartholomew crossly, rubbing his leg. ‘If there is something distressing you, tell me. Do not just push me around!’
The fat monk let out a great sigh and looked up at the stars. ‘Dame Pelagia,’ he said in a low voice, ‘is my grandmother.’
‘So? That is no reason for belligerence.’ Bartholomew started to climb to his feet.
‘You do not understand,’ said Michael, grabbing his shoulder and hauling him up with ease. For all his obesity and lack of fitness, Michael was still a powerful man. ‘You see, like me, Dame Pelagia is an agent for the Bishop of Ely.’
Bartholomew shook his head slowly, trying to work some sense into Michael’s piecemeal revelations. ‘Are you telling me that spying runs in your family, or just that your Bishop is prepared to use anyone to further his own ends – even an old lady?’
Michael sighed again. ‘She is officially retired now. She was in all this business long before I was born, and was not always a nun.’
‘Evidently not,’ said Bartholomew, ‘if she is your grandmother. But why the secrecy? It is not such a terrible thing to have grandparents. Even I had some once.’
‘Because I know the Bishop would want me to leave her here to discover more about what is happening. But she is old and frail, and I am about to defy the Bishop and take her away,’ said Michael. ‘It is becoming too dangerous for her here.’
‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, understanding. That Michael was about to incur the Bishop’s ire might have serious consequences for the advancement of the ambitious monk’s career. The Bishop would not be pleased that Michael had taken matters into his own hands and removed a potentially valuable spy: he was possessive about people who provided him with information, as his insistence that Michael was to remain Proctor and not become Master of Valence Marie attested.
‘But what makes you think she will not be safe here?’ Bartholomew asked eventually. ‘And why could you not have told me all this earlier?’
‘No one knows Dame Pelagia is my grandmother except the Bishop,’ said Michael. ‘He decided it would be safer for everyone concerned if only he and I know that.’
‘Dame Pelagia knows, I take it?’ asked Bartholomew facetiously.
‘Do not be flippant, Matt!’ snapped Michael. ‘This is no laughing matter!’
‘I am sorry,’ said Bartholomew, with a sigh of resignation. ‘But I do not see why you deem all this secrecy so necessary.’
‘Although my grandmother came to Denny to enjoy a well-earned retirement, old habits die hard. She told me yesterday that she has suspected for several months that something untoward has been going on in the area and, like Julianna, has observed strange comings and goings in the night. She has known since she arrived that Denny Abbey lies on a smuggling route. Goods are brought down the Fenland waterways from the coast, because the dry land around here is ideal for storing the contraband until it is sent on.’
‘Smuggling?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘Are you suggesting the Abbess is a smuggler?’
‘Of course not!’ snapped Michael. ‘How could she be? The smugglers are the Fenfolk, some of whom have kin among the lay sisters at the abbey. It was these men whom that silly Julianna heard in the kitchens last night. My grandmother knows the identities of some of them, and she wants me to pass their names to either the Bishop or the Sheriff. I was also hoping to learn something from the Abbess earlier today, but I could tell she is innocent and knows nothing of all this.’
‘Oh,’ said Bartholomew, thinking guiltily of his conviction that Michael’s intentions for the Abbess that afternoon had been rather different.
‘Oh, indeed,’ said Michael sardonically. ‘You assumed I was trying to seduce the woman. You have a nasty imagination, Matthew! My intention was only to discover whether she might have heard or seen anything odd without raising her suspicions, or telling her why I wanted to know. I had to be subtle: I did not want her to endanger herself by beginning an investigation of her own, and so needed to be careful not to let slip that her abbey is the scene of untoward happenings.’
‘The oranges!’ said Bartholomew suddenly. ‘And the lemons Deschalers sold Mortimer.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Michael testily.
‘Smuggled fruit,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The oranges we ate earlier tonight were probably smuggled through this route across the Fens.’
Michael considered. ‘You are doubtless right. But, oranges aside, I feel that it is no longer safe for my grandmother to remain here. She has been asking questions in the kitchens all afternoon, so that she could provide me with information when we met tonight, and I am afraid her actions will have aroused the suspicions of the smugglers. I suppose your Julianna is equally vulnerable.’
‘Not my Julianna,’ said Bartholomew quickly. ‘But you did not speak to your grandmother between the time we left the Abbess and the time you persuaded us to wait until tomorrow to leave. How did you know to meet her here tonight?’
‘The Countess of Pembroke is a powerful lady,’ said Michael, apparently changing the subject, ‘and, like all ladies, she confides her secrets to her most trusted ladies in waiting. She is careful, but she often overlooks the presence of an old nun dozing on a bench, or doddering feebly around the cloisters. I have met my grandmother here, under this tree, many times since I undertook to act as the Bishop’s agent. She often has vital information, which I then pass to him. My grandmother and I know each other well enough to arrange to meet without speaking.’
Bartholomew shuddered, appalled at the implications of Michael’s words. The Bishop even had a spy in the Countess of Pembroke’s bedchamber, and was using a frail old lady to obtain information that would enable him to manipulate his domain and maintain political power. But then, if Dame Pelagia acted in the way Michael described, she was anything but a frail old lady: she was a cunning manipulator – just like Michael himself – except that she seemed to have years of experience behind her. He was suddenly absolutely certain that she had not been asleep when Julianna spoke to him in the attic, and that the younger woman’s intelligence of curious happenings might well have prompted her to go ferreting for further information to pass to Michael. He remembered the soft creak outside the attic door: someone else had heard what Julianna had to say, too.
A low hiss told him that Cynric was back. Dame Pelagia was with him, leaning on his arm, and Bartholomew wondered how Michael thought they were going to get her back to Cambridge. Behind them was Julianna, her face aglow with vindication.
‘I told you so!’ she whispered to Bartholomew, raising her eyebrows arrogantly. ‘It is a good thing you heeded my advice, or you might now be dead.’
Bartholomew did not say that he and Michael had discounted her advice, and that it had been by chance they were away from the guesthall when the attack was made. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked. ‘Do you have a cloak? It will be a long, cold walk.’
‘Walk?’ exclaimed Julianna in disbelief. ‘I cannot walk! Where are your horses?’
‘His is at the bottom of a bog,’ said Michael archly, nodding at Bartholomew. ‘And so will you be if you cause us trouble. This is no jaunt we are undertaking, madam, but a flight for our lives.’