‘Do you think this half-mad landlord will bring you your husband back?’ Michael was asking Dame Eva incredulously. ‘Is that what all this is about?’
Hands shaking, Bartholomew began to unravel Eltisley’s twine, hoping it, unlike most of the landlord’s devices, would work properly. One of the men who leaned against the wall ambled toward the screen, and began to pick idly at the peeling paint. Bartholomew ducked back into the chancel door, willing the man to go away. He could not light the fuse with him there – it would hiss and splutter and attract his attention, at which point Eltisley could extinguish it by stepping on it. Bored, the man blew out his cheeks in a sigh, and gazed at the patches of yellow-grey powder on the chancel floor that Bartholomew had accidentally spilled.
‘Eltisley will succeed,’ said Dame Eva, as though failure was not an option. ‘And then all will be as it was when we were lord and lady of the manor. Hamon and my son will be dispatched to the wars in France, and our heir will be the child Isilia carries.’
‘But you do not know who the father of that child is,’ Michael pointed out, jerking his head away as Eltisley made a grab for him. He tried to stand, but two of the men stepped forward, and held him down. Cynric was similarly secured. There was nothing for the man near the chancel to do, so he stayed where he was, watching the scene without interest, still picking at the peeling paint, while Bartholomew fretted.
‘You are lying to worm your way out of this,’ said Dame Eva. Isilia carries Thomas’s child.’
Isilia looked distinctly uneasy, although Dame Eva did not seem to notice. She continued.
‘And he will be better than Thomas or Hamon with their squeamish principles, and their silly notion of giving lucrative livings away to greedy men in distant Colleges.’
‘Thomas believes Michaelhouse will pay for a mass-priest to pray for his soul,’ said Isilia scornfully, glad to change the subject from that of the father of her child.
‘He thinks their clever minds will prevent my grandson from inheriting what he wants Hamon to have,’ said the old lady. ‘The deed Alcote wrote had a clause saying that a Michaelhouse Fellow was to be the executor of his will. Thomas expects you to outwit any lawyers we can hire to act on behalf of the child. He is probably right. And I have recently come to think that he is not so healthy as he would have us believe. Since his will stipulates that no child of Isilia’s born after his death will inherit, I cannot allow it to be written.’
‘But there will be no advowson now,’ said Isilia with satisfaction. ‘Michaelhouse will take nothing from the village that killed every last member of its scholarly deputation.’
‘You are wrong there, madam,’ said Michael, struggling furiously. ‘Michaelhouse will take anything it can get its hands on.’
The man near the screen finally moved away, and went to help his friends hold Michael. Bartholomew darted out from his doorway, and finished uncoiling the twine. Now what? he thought. How could he distract everyone from the hissing long enough to allow the powder in the piscina to ignite? He had deliberately cut a short fuse, but it would still take several moments to burn.
Meanwhile, Eltisley had succeeded in pinning Michael down, and was tipping the green potion toward his mouth.
‘I will not drink that,’ gasped Michael defiantly, through clenched teeth. ‘I do not allow things that are green to pass my lips.’
‘You have no choice,’ said Eltisley, swearing under his breath as some of the liquid spilled on to his own tunic. Smoke appeared as the stuff burned through the fabric.
It was too late for caution. Bartholomew crouched down and struck Cynric’s tinder over a small pile of dried leaves and reeds from the roof.
‘What was that?’ demanded Dame Eva sharply, glancing towards the chancel.
Bartholomew struck the tinder again, but it was damp and refused to ignite. Sweat broke out on his forehead in oily beads.
‘Someone else is in here,’ said Dame Eva, pointing at the screen. ‘Eltisley!’
‘No!’ yelled Michael, as Eltisley tipped his flask towards his face. Green liquid slopped from it.
Bartholomew’s tinder finally struck, and the spark ignited the pile of grass. He blew on it, and hurled the burning handful on to Eltisley’s twine. There was a hiss like a furious cat, and nothing happened. Dame Eva glared in the direction of the chancel, and began to walk purposefully toward it herself. In desperation, Bartholomew grabbed a pot and hurled it as hard as he could at the fragile ceiling. It smacked into the rotting thatch, and fell to the ground in a shower of reeds and dust, landing just behind Eltisley, and making the landlord jump in alarm. Dame Eva changed direction, peering toward the back of the church.
‘I tell you, there is someone in here!’ she shouted. ‘Do not just stand there. Go and look.’
Bartholomew lit the fuse a second time, filling the chancel with a sharp hissing and the stench of burning. And then it went out again. Bartholomew gazed at it in dismay, cursing Eltisley for his dismal inventions. Dame Eva swung back toward it, eyes narrowed.
‘No, not there,’ she yelled at Eltisley’s men, who were busily searching the back of the church. ‘In the chancel!’
She began to hobble towards it, moving faster than Bartholomew would have thought possible for someone who had always seemed so frail.
‘Bartholomew!’ she exclaimed, seeing him kneeling on the ground.
Behind her, two men stepped forward to seize him.
Bartholomew gazed at the fuse in resigned disgust, realising that he had come very close to foiling the women’s attempts to kill him and his friends. But, with two of Eltisley’s sullen customers already pushing their way past Dame Eva to get at him, he saw that his feeble rebellion was finally over.
Suddenly, the twine fizzed into life again. Startled, Bartholomew scrambled to his feet, and flung himself into the passage that led down to the vault. There was an insane whistling sound, and then the loudest bang Bartholomew had ever heard as the powder sought to expand in the confined hollow in the wall. One moment he was on his feet, the next he was flat on his back, surrounded by swirling smoke. Dust and pieces of plaster crashed down from the ceiling, and he sensed the whole thing was about to fall. He picked himself up, and raced into what remained of the chancel. Dame Eva and the two men were nowhere to be seen. The screen had gone completely, and where there had been a roof of sorts, was now grey sky. The remains of the rotten thatch in the chancel had caught fire, and were burning furiously.
‘Michael!’ he yelled, clambering over the rubble into the nave. A cold fear gripped him. Had he used too much of the powder when Michael and Cynric were sitting so close? Had he done exactly what he had accused Eltisley of doing with Alcote, and used a mallet to crush a snail?
The nave roof had collapsed, and he could see nothing moving. Frantically, he began to tear the smouldering thatch away, trying to remember exactly where it was that his friends had been seated. He saw a leg in the rubble, and hauled it free, half-relieved and half-disappointed to see it was not Michael. It was Eltisley, his eyes wide and sightless, and a piece of wood piercing him clean through. He looked surprised, as if death was not something he imagined would ever happen to him. Beside him was one of his surly cronies, also dead, while to one side lay the severed foot of another.