‘Have you two fallen out?’ asked Matilde, regarding him with concern.
‘We had a misunderstanding over this information about the smugglers Dame Pelagia has,’ replied Bartholomew shortly.
‘I suppose he told you he had passed it to the Sheriff when he had not,’ said Dame Pelagia, fixing her bright green eyes on him astutely. She gave the physician a sudden grin, revealing sharp brown teeth. ‘I suspected Michael had some plot in action when he did not return immediately with Sheriff Tulyet as he said he would. This smuggling is such a sensitive business and involves such cunning people, that I simply assumed Michael needed time to spring a trap before the Sheriff was made aware of the identities of those involved. The secular law can be very crude, you know.’
‘Michael told me he gave Dick Tulyet some other names – ones discovered by my sister from a student she was helping,’ said Bartholomew, still not certain that Michael had been completely honest.
‘That was clever of him,’ said Dame Pelagia admiringly. ‘In that way he could provide the Sheriff with enough information to keep him happy, but did not need to visit me to reveal my whereabouts to anyone watching him.’
‘But you had plenty of time to talk on that long journey from Denny,’ Matilde pointed out. ‘Did you tell him nothing then?’
‘Of course not!’ said Dame Pelagia. ‘First of all, poor Michael needed all his breath for walking – he is not fit and spry like me – and second, it would have been extremely foolish to discuss such matters on the open road. Who knows who might have overheard?’
‘So you told him nothing?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘I was expecting him to come back to talk to me as soon as he had completed reporting the attack to the Vice-Chancellor,’ said Dame Pelagia. ‘I did not think he would take days to return.’
‘But you knew Harling was behind all this?’ persisted Bartholomew. ‘And you let Michael go to report to him, knowing that he might be signing his own death warrant? Someone tried to knife him that morning, you know.’
‘I did not know,’ said Dame Pelagia sharply. ‘And I did not know the villain was Harling, either. I knew Katherine Mortimer was involved, along with her pathetic son, Edward. My information, for what it was worth, was simply that: that the Sheriff should devise a plot to use Edward and Katherine to uncover the identity of these outlaws. I knew the real genius behind all this was some influential official, but I had not managed to discover who. I would have stayed longer at Denny to try to find out, but Michael was insistent I left with him that night. And, to be honest, Matthew, I have grown weary of subterfuge.’
Her bright eyes and the air of suppressed anticipation about her suggested that she was anything but weary of the subterfuge she had uncovered. Matilde had been listening to the exchange with such interest that she had forgotten all about tying the old lady’s shoes. Impatiently, Dame Pelagia pulled her foot away from the young prostitute, and tied the lace herself with strong, steady fingers. She stood and grinned at Bartholomew, looking far better equipped to deal with whatever the night might throw at them than was the physician.
‘Matilde says we are to be the bait in a trap,’ she said in a cheerful voice. ‘I wondered whether you might resort to that. I wish Michael had passed word to me sooner, because then I would have arranged for Matilde to be away.’
‘I lead a dull life, Pelagia,’ protested Matilde, flashing the old lady a radiant smile. ‘This will add a little much-needed excitement.’
Dame Pelagia laughed and patted Matilde’s hand. ‘Come then, my young friend. Let us look this wolf in the jaws together!’
Together they went back down the stairs. Bartholomew looked around the neat room, wondering if he were the only person to be feeling trepidation over the events that were about to unfold. Michael was hiding any fears he might have under a veil of calm, while Dame Pelagia and Matilde seemed to be looking forward to the coming confrontation with confidence and excitement.
He went to the window shutter and peered out. Shadows glided here and there, directed by a man in a long cloak: the outlaws springing their attack. It would not be long now, he thought. Before following Matilde and Dame Pelagia downstairs, he glanced around the neat bedchamber. He had never been in the room where he supposed Matilde entertained her customers, and was curious. There was a small bed in a corner with a straw mattress at its foot, both heavily laden with blankets of fine wool. A low table stood under one window, bearing a matching water-jug and bowl, and the stools to either side of it were handsomely carved. Matilde’s collection of expensive dresses hung in a line near the other window, so that the air could pass through them and keep them fresh.
He heard a voice outside, and ran down the steps to where the others stood uncertainly in the middle of the room.
‘They are here,’ he whispered. He drew a surgical blade from his bag, pushed Matilde and Dame Pelagia behind him, and waited.
The door was kicked open with such violence that one of the hinges was torn from the wood, and a blast of cold air gusted around the room. Then the powerful Michaelhouse philosopher, Ralph de Langelee, stood aside and gestured for Edward Mortimer to enter in front of him.
‘I knew he had to be involved!’ muttered Michael, eyeing Langelee with disdain as the philosopher followed Edward into Matilde’s house. ‘I have never liked him and his grasp of Plato is deplorable!’
Behind Edward were one of Tulyet’s sergeants and the lay sister from Denny Abbey who had brought them their meals. Bartholomew realised that it must have been she who had been listening outside the attic door when Julianna had revealed her suspicions to Bartholomew and Dame Pelagia had pretended to sleep. She made a polite curtsey of greeting to the elderly nun, which was acknowledged, but not returned. Outside, others, whose faces Bartholomew could not see, milled around. The sergeant stepped inside and brandished his loaded crossbow, and then a fourth person stepped into the room. Harling regarded the scene with some amusement.
‘So,’ he said to Bartholomew. ‘We meet again!’
For a moment no one spoke. Ralph de Langelee regarded Bartholomew and Michael with a gloating smile, while Edward Mortimer was clearly uncomfortable with the situation and licked his lips anxiously. The sergeant was unreadable, and stood like a statue with his crossbow aimed at Michael’s chest and the lay sister at his side. But the only person Bartholomew was aware of was Vice-Chancellor Harling. He stood just inside the door, dressed in his scholar’s tabard of black, and his hair, as usual, plastered into place with liberal handfuls of animal grease. There was a faint bruise on his chin, but other than that he appeared to be in perfect health.
‘Do drop that ridiculous weapon,’ he said, as he saw Bartholomew’s surgical knife. ‘If you try to use it, my friend here will be obliged to shoot Brother Michael with his crossbow.’
Bartholomew let the little blade clatter to the floor, where Langelee kicked it out of reach under a table.
‘I see you did not anticipate meeting me again,’ said Harling, smoothly gloating. ‘At least, not in this world.’
‘Then you are wrong,’ said Bartholomew coldly, hating the man for his smug arrogance. ‘I knew you had escaped when the beadles did not find you drowned. How did you do it?’
Harling shrugged. ‘Besides my skill with knives, growing up in the Fens equipped me with skills in the water. I am an excellent swimmer, and it was an easy matter to allow myself to be swept out of sight and then strike out for the nearest river bank.’
He lost interest in Bartholomew, and his glittering black eyes took in the room’s handsome furnishings, the defiant Dame Pelagia, the stunned Michael and, finally, Matilde.