‘Has anyone seen Mackerell?’ he asked.
What happened next was a blur. One of the figures turned slowly, then swung out viciously with what appeared to be a hammer. Michael jerked backwards, so that it missed his face, but he lost his balance and, after a few moments of violently whirling arms, toppled backward to land heavily among a pile of crates. With an almighty clatter, the crates fell and crashed around him, while the monk covered his head with his hands.
Bartholomew darted to his aid, but found himself confronted by three men, who seemed convinced that he was in their way. They rushed him in a body before he could reach into his medicine bag and draw one of the knives he carried. All four went thudding to the ground, and Bartholomew laid blindly about him with his fists, not really able to see and only knowing that anyone near him was not a friend. He grazed his knuckles several times, although whether his blows landed on a person or on the sacks of grain over which they struggled he could not tell.
The first of his assailants broke free and ran. The others followed, and Bartholomew leapt spectacularly on to the back of one in an attempt to prevent him from escaping. The man was larger than Bartholomew had anticipated; all at once he started spinning around, so that the physician lost his grip and went flying to land on Michael. He heard a hammering of receding footsteps as the last of them fled.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Bartholomew, climbing off the monk and peering into the darkness. There was little point in giving chase: he could not see, and he did not know the area well enough to guess where the three men might have gone.
‘No thanks to you,’ muttered Michael ungraciously, reaching out and using Bartholomew to haul himself to his feet. His weight was enormous, and the physician almost fell a second time. ‘You should have landed on those bags of wheat or the crates. You did not have to aim for me. You are heavy, Matt!’
‘I needed something soft to fall on,’ said Bartholomew, smiling at the monk’s vehemence. ‘But did you see their faces? They were not the gypsies, because I saw them only a few moments ago, heading in the opposite direction.’
‘They could have doubled back,’ said Michael. ‘Are you sure it was not them?’
‘No,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘But Rosel has a cut head, and I do not think any of our attackers were swathed in bandages.’
‘He could have taken it off since you last saw him,’ Michael pointed out. ‘And then they could have followed you here. There are three brothers, and three men attacked us.’
‘But these people fought us because we disturbed them at something,’ Bartholomew reasoned. ‘They were not lying in wait for us.’
‘They did not really fight, either,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘They pushed and struggled. No weapons were drawn, or you would have been a dead man. And they had all been drinking.’
Bartholomew stared at him. ‘How do you know that?’
Michael tapped his nose. ‘The smell, Matt. They had beer on their breath. They may not have been drunk, but they had certainly enjoyed a jug of ale.’
‘That does not help,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Virtually every man in the city seems to have been in a tavern this evening. I even saw Almoner Robert and Symon the librarian in a secluded alcove of the Bell. Mackerell, you and I are probably the only ones to have abstained tonight.’
‘So what were that trio doing among the reeds to have warranted all that belligerence?’ asked Michael, walking to where the three men had been working, and peering into the inky darkness of the river. There was nothing to see. One of them had dropped the torch he had been using and it still burned. Bartholomew picked it up and looked around carefully, but there was nothing to suggest why they had been so reluctant to be caught.
‘This may sound ridiculous, but when the first one lunged at me, I half supposed that we had stumbled on Mackerell’s murder taking place,’ said Michael.
Bartholomew stared at him. ‘Why did you think that?’
‘Because so many people know we are meeting him – the pot-boy at the Mermaid, Tysilia, William and the Bishop – that I wondered whether someone might try to reach him first and ensure that he follows in the footsteps of Glovere and the others: floating face-down in the river with a fatal slit in the back of his neck.’
Bartholomew shook his head. ‘You will probably find that Mackerell had no intention of meeting us in the first place. Why should he? He will be safer hiding in the Fens.’
‘I hope you are right,’ said Michael gloomily. ‘I would not like to think that Mackerell lies dead because we spoke to him.’
‘He is not dead, Brother. If I raise this torch, you can see clear across to the other side of the river. There is no corpse floating here.’
‘I have no idea what is going on in this town, Matt,’ said Michael tiredly. ‘But I intend to find out. No one gets the better of the Senior Proctor and his trusted associate. We shall solve this mess, Matt. You mark my words!’
Chapter 6
Thursdays were market day in Ely, and work started early. The hum of voices, the rattle of carts along the streets and the whinnying of horses could be heard long before it was light, and Bartholomew had the sense that the city had barely slept the night before. He certainly felt as though he had not: old Roger in the infirmary had had a difficult night, and Bartholomew and Brother Henry had managed to sleep only in fits and starts. By the time the first glimmerings of dawn appeared, the infirmarian looked as heavy-eyed and weary as Bartholomew felt. With dawn came peaceful sleep for Roger, and the two physicians left Julian watching over him while they went for some fresh air. They strolled around the marketplace, watching the frenetic activity taking place in the half-light as stall owners struggled to raise bright awnings over their shops and arrange their offerings in a way that they hoped would prove irresistible to buyers.
Bartholomew looked around him. There were butchers’ stalls with colourfully plumaged waterfowl hanging by their feet, and bloody hunks of meat already beginning to attract flies as well as paying customers. Hares were common at the Cambridge market, but they were rare in the Fens, and there was not one to be seen. There was plenty of fish, though, displayed in neat, glistening rows: the shiny black-skinned eels that were so famous in the area, trout and a grotesquely large pike hanging across one counter, its ugly head dangling just above the mud of the street.
Bakers and pie-sellers provided more sweetly fragrant wares, and baskets of loaves of all qualities and shapes were carefully stacked, along with cakes and pastries for those able to afford more than the basic necessities of life.
Food was not all that was for sale. Ely was a thriving city, and boasted its own pottery and a lucrative rope-making industry. Pots with a beautiful blue glaze were displayed by one proud craftsman, while others sold the unglazed, functional utensils that were present in every kitchen – large jugs for milk, great cauldrons for stews, and dishes for serving meat and fish. The rope-makers’ stalls were piled with huge coils of cord in every thickness imaginable; some of extra strength were used by builders for their pulleys, while others were silky and delicate and were used to lace shirts and bodices.
There was livestock, too. Squealing pigs, frightened calves and milling sheep were locked in pens at one end of the marketplace, while flocks of geese, ducks and squawking chickens weaved in and out of the legs of the busy stall holders. Loud human voices added to the general noise and confusion. In one corner, spices from distant and little-known lands were on sale, and the exotic aroma of cinnamon and cloves almost, but not quite, dispelled the overpowering smell of warm manure from the animals. Dogs sniffed the soft mat of rotting straw and dung underfoot, occasionally excavating something they deemed edible.
Bartholomew bought some ink from a parchment seller in anticipation of the work he planned to do on his treatise on fevers, and then Brother Henry purchased some of the weak breakfast beer that was being sold by the priory’s brewer. It was exactly how Bartholomew liked his morning ale: cool, sweet, pleasantly nutty and so clear that he could see the bottom of the jug. The ale served at Michaelhouse tended to be a brew that had been bought cheaply; it was already past its best, and invariably cloudy.