‘I know nothing about Alcote or any hanged men,’ said Stoate, glancing up at the sky for the last time. ‘Now, gentlemen, pleasant though your company has been, it is time for me to be on my way.’
Before Bartholomew could grab the knife, Stoate had pulled the trigger on the crossbow, aiming at Michael. There was a click that sounded sickeningly loud. With a sharp intake of breath, Bartholomew gazed at Michael in horror. Michael stared at Stoate, then gave a bellow of anger, struggling to stand while Stoate looked stupidly at the jammed mechanism on his weapon. Bartholomew snatched up his knife and hurled it before Stoate could recover his wits. The wicked little blade sliced cleanly through one of Stoate’s flowing sleeves, and impaled itself in the door jamb, vibrating with the force of the throw.
Startled into action, Stoate heaved the crossbow at Michael. There was a whir and a snap as the mechanism unfouled, and the bolt was loosed. Michael dropped to the floor with a howl of pain. Seeing the monk fall, Stoate darted out of the door, and Bartholomew heard something thump against it as it was blocked from the outside. Stomach churning, Bartholomew scrambled to Michael, who lay clutching his chest.
‘I am hit, Matt!’ he groaned. ‘Murdered by a physician!’
‘Where?’ shouted Bartholomew, searching frantically for a wound, but finding none. He heard a clatter of hooves outside as Stoate mounted his horse.
Michael’s hand fluttered weakly over his side, but Bartholomew could still see nothing, not even a tear in his habit where the quarrel had sliced through it. Then his shaking hands encountered something hard, and Michael gave a gasp. He pushed his hand down the front of Michael’s gown, anticipating some dreadful injury, but then saw the crossbow bolt embedded in the wall above his head. With a sigh of relief, he sat back on his heels, and rubbed a trembling hand through his hair. Michael regarded him with frightened eyes.
‘Is it a mortal wound?’ he whispered.
‘You fell on your purse,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The quarrel missed you altogether. You are only bruised. That will teach you to carry so much gold.’
Michael sat up and prodded himself carefully. ‘Stoate is escaping!’ he exclaimed, when a quick examination convinced him he was unharmed.
He scrambled to his feet and joined Bartholomew at the barred door, jostling the physician out of the way to hit it with a tremendous crash that ripped the entire frame from the wall. Bartholomew raced out into the road to see Stoate disappearing round the corner in a thunder of hooves.
‘You will never catch him!’ yelled Michael as Bartholomew began to give chase. I am going to Tuddenham.’
In the distance Michael spotted Cynric, who had been searching for them. He shouted for the Welshman to follow Bartholomew, while he ran in the opposite direction to fetch help.
Bartholomew tore down the path Stoate had taken, running as hard as he could. As he rounded the corner, he could see the horse in front of him, galloping down the narrow track with its saddle bags bouncing behind it, and Stoate clinging on for dear life. Bartholomew ran harder, feeling the blood pound in his head and his lungs pump as though they would burst. Stoate turned another bend, and Bartholomew shot after him, hurling his medicine bag away when it threatened to slow him down. When he rounded the next corner, Stoate was out of sight. It was hopeless – he could never catch a horse on foot. Gradually, he stopped, breath sobbing in his chest as he fought for air.
‘He is long gone,’ said Cynric, appearing beside him, panting hard. ‘He will be in Ipswich before we can organise a chase, and then he will be on a ship bound for France or the Low Countries.’ He kicked at the ground furiously. ‘That damned Eltisley! Stoate would not have escaped if he had not damaged my bow.’
‘What has Stoate done to warrant shooting him down in cold blood?’ came Eltisley’s smooth voice from behind them. Bartholomew and Cynric spun round, and saw the landlord standing there with a bow of his own, flanked by three of his sullen customers, who looked a good deal more proficient with their weapons than he did.
‘You will not catch him on foot,’ said Bartholomew, thinking that Eltisley meant to help arrest a killer and a desecrator of corpses.
‘I have no intention of catching him at all,’ said Eltisley softly. ‘It is you I want.’
Chapter 12
Eltisley scratched his blistered face – still smeared with Stoate’s paste of crushed snails and mint in cat grease – with his free hand, and jabbed his sword into the small of Bartholomew’s back to make him walk faster. It was still not fully light, and Eltisley and three friends – those Bartholomew had seen hunched sullenly over their ale in the Half Moon – had directed Bartholomew and Cynric away from the village on a path that led west. Cynric had been stripped of his arsenal, and Bartholomew had no weapons anyway, not even the surgical knives that he carried in his medicine bag, which was now lying in the bushes on the Ipswich road. Eltisley bragged to his men about how he had the foresight to damage Cynric’s bow with one of his potions.
‘Do you have any of your medicine for blisters?’ he queried, scrubbing vigorously at a cheek that was red and running. ‘That remedy Stoate suggested does not seem to be working.’
‘You can ask him for another,’ said Bartholomew, ‘when you meet your partner in crime later.’
‘I do not know what you are talking about,’ said Eltisley. ‘I have no partner – and if I did, I would not choose a physician. Whatever caused Stoate to flee the village has nothing to do with me.’
‘He killed Unwin,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He opened a vein and allowed him to bleed to death.’
‘That was careless,’ said Eltisley. ‘So Norys did not kill the friar, as everyone believes? It was Stoate? Well, I never! But do you have any of your lotion or not? My burns are itching and driving me to distraction.’
‘No, but I imagined you would have a remedy of your own,’ Bartholomew said, hoping that Eltisley would use one of his evil concoctions and make himself ill.
‘All my potions were destroyed with the Half Moon. It is a dreadful loss to the village.’
‘How did you manage to blow up your tavern without killing yourself?’ asked Bartholomew, stumbling as Eltisley poked him again. ‘Lay a trail of inflammable powder on the ground, so that you could light it from a safe distance?’
‘I experimented with that the other night, but it did not work. So, I invented another way – I soaked a piece of twine in saltpetre and lit it. Saltpetre is one of the ingredients I used to create my little bang – along with charcoal and sulphur, as you surmised. It was all rather more dramatic than I intended, however. I did not mean it to destroy my entire tavern.’
‘Just poor Alcote on the upper floor?’ asked Bartholomew coldly.
‘Now that was a waste. If I had to lose my tavern, I would have preferred that all you Michaelhouse scholars had gone with it, not just one. You were beginning to make nuisances of yourselves, with your near-completed advowsons and your meddling in village affairs. Still, I have you now.’
‘What is this all about?’ demanded Bartholomew, stopping and turning to face him. ‘I do not see why we should make killing us easier for you by walking somewhere conveniently secluded.’
‘At the moment, I am prepared to allow that dreadful friar to go free – he is not intelligent enough to pose a threat to me and my affairs. But if you make life difficult, I shall change my mind. The choice is yours.’
Bartholomew turned and began to trudge along the path again, Cynric following. He was thankful he had sent Deynman and Horsey away to safety, and only wished he had done the same for the others.