‘The spats between town and University are escalating,’ said Tulyet grimly, hurrying to greet his visitors. ‘And I have the sense that we are heading for some major trouble. But that is not why I summoned you here. Come this way, please, Matt, and hurry. Dickon has had an accident.’
‘What kind of accident?’ asked Bartholomew warily. ‘One that has injured someone else?’
Tulyet was already halfway to his office in the Great Tower, but he turned to shoot the physician a reproachful look. ‘I do not know why you hold such a miserable opinion of my son. His scrapes and adventures arise from the fact that he has an enquiring mind.’
Bartholomew knew better than to embark on that sort of argument with a doting parent. They climbed the spiral staircase in silence, but when they reached the top, where two knights were standing guard, Tulyet turned to regard him and Michael bleakly.
‘You will be stunned by what you see, so be warned.’
He opened the door and ushered the scholars in, closing it quickly to prevent his warriors from following. Bartholomew thought he heard suppressed laughter before it clicked shut.
Dickon was standing by the hearth, and there were two things that were notable about him. The first was that the child had poured himself a very large cup of wine; he held it in one hand, while the other rested on the hilt of his sword, so that he appeared like a miniature version of the beefy, hard-drinking warriors Bartholomew had encountered during his sojourn with the English army in France. The second was that his face was a bright and startling shade of scarlet.
‘God’s blood!’ gulped Michael, crossing himself. He rarely swore, so the oath was a testament to the depth of his shock.
Bartholomew simply stared, wondering if the brat had also sprouted horns or a forked tail.
‘It is your sister’s fault, Matt,’ said Tulyet, angry and defensive at the same time. ‘We had a report that she was dumping waste in the river again, and when we went to investigate … well, suffice to say that Dickon accidentally submerged his face in one of her vats.’
‘It is dye?’ breathed Michael. He crossed himself again. ‘Thank God! I thought it was …’
‘Yes, it is dye,’ said Tulyet coldly. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘You must find a way to scour it off, because I cannot have him looking like that.’
‘I like it,’ said Dickon, whose small, bright eyes looked more malevolent than ever in his crimson skin. ‘People will be more ready to obey me if I frighten them – which I will, if they think I am a denizen of Hell.’
‘You do not need a red face for them to think that,’ muttered Michael.
‘It is coming off,’ said Tulyet shortly. ‘Today. And if it hurts, that is too bad, because your poor mother will be beside herself if she sees you in such a state.’
Bartholomew advanced cautiously. Dickon had a habit of punching, biting, kicking, clawing and scratching those who went too close, and the physician would have refused to tend him had he not been friends with his father. He stopped dead in his tracks when Dickon’s fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword.
‘Draw that, and I will never train you to be a knight – you will go to a monastery instead,’ said Tulyet sharply. It was the voice that had instilled fear into the hearts of many seasoned criminals, and even Dickon knew better than to challenge it. The hand dropped away.
Bartholomew inspected the damage, and drew the conclusion that Dickon’s ‘accidental submersion’ had been nothing of the kind: the dye had been carefully applied, neatly following his hairline and ending tidily under his chin.
‘Nothing will remove this,’ he told the horrified Sheriff. ‘Well, nothing that will not harm him. I am afraid it will have to fade naturally.’
Dickon grinned, and the sight of large slightly jagged teeth in the red face was distinctly disconcerting. ‘Good,’ he said gleefully.
Tulyet scowled at him. ‘No, not good! How can I teach you how to run a large and turbulent shire when you look like one of Satan’s imps? People will laugh at you, and you cannot command respect if you are a source of mockery.’
‘No one will laugh,’ said Dickon with a determined menace that was disturbing from a child of ten. ‘And if they try, I will spear them with my sword.’
Tulyet regarded him uncertainly for a moment, then turned to Bartholomew. ‘How long will it take to disappear?’
‘A few days. Longer, if he does not wash.’
‘He will wash,’ vowed Tulyet. He glared at his son, an expression that softened when the lad favoured him with a smile of great sweetness. He rubbed a weary hand over his eyes. ‘Fetch us some wine, Dickon. Show our guests the pretty skills you have learned as my squire.’
Dickon obliged, slopping claret in Michael’s lap when his father was not looking, and contriving to bang Bartholomew’s shins with his sheathed sword. Once again, the physician marvelled that Tulyet, who was nobody’s fool, should be so blind when it came to his son.
‘Is this Shirwynk’s apple wine?’ he asked, taking a small sip and then placing the cup on the table in the hope that Michael would finish the stuff.
Tulyet nodded. ‘Dickon and my wife like it, although I prefer a drier vintage. It is potent, though, and I am sure it is the reason why so many men are drunk these days.’
‘It is expensive,’ said Michael. ‘Few will be able to afford it, especially townsfolk.’
‘Actually, I was referring to scholars. Wealthy Colleges and hostels have laid in great stores of it for Hallow-tide, and I believe it has turned some of them unusually belligerent.’
‘It is not just scholars who are aggressive,’ objected Michael. ‘The town is just as bad. Look at Frenge – invading King’s Hall and the Austin Priory. And when we went to tell Shirwynk that Frenge was dead, he was unreasonably hostile.’
Tulyet was thoughtful. ‘In my experience, people are hostile if they have something to hide – and Shirwynk lost his wife and business partner in the same day. Perhaps we need look no further for the killer. He would have a willing accomplice in Peyn – the lad is a monster.’
Without thinking, Bartholomew’s eyes strayed to Dickon. Worn out by excitement, the boy had curled up in a window seat and gone to sleep. Even in repose, he looked dangerous, not only for the weapons he carried – two knives and a cudgel in addition to the sword – but because he still scowled and it was not a pleasant expression.
‘It would be a convenient solution,’ Michael was saying. ‘But we have other suspects, too. Frenge made a cuckold of Anne de Rumburgh’s husband and, although I hate to say it, there are three men from King’s Hall with no satisfactory alibi – Wayt, Dodenho and the lunatic Cew.’
Tulyet listened carefully while Michael outlined all he had learned, although it was pitifully little. When he had finished, Bartholomew stood to leave, feeling it was time to do their share of the preparations for the disceptatio, but Tulyet began to hold forth about sucura.
‘The import taxes are so high – ninety per cent – that no Cambridge grocer is willing to trade in it,’ he grumbled. ‘Yet the town is awash with the stuff, which means that every grain has been brought here illegally. If the King knew the full extent of the problem, he would have my head.’
‘Perhaps His Majesty should lower his levies, then,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘Ninety per cent is downright greedy.’
‘I shall let him know you think so,’ said Tulyet acidly, then winced. ‘Even my wife bought some. Luckily, I was able to dispose of it before the servants saw. How does she expect me to confiscate it from others when it is in our own larder?’
‘It would be hypocritical,’ agreed Michael. ‘But time is passing and we–’
‘Of course, the best way to deal with the problem would be to arrest the smugglers – who must be rolling in money, given the amount of sucura they have sold – but I have no idea who they are. Or how they sneak their wares into my town.’