‘Perhaps,’ said Michael with a faint smile. ‘But we did not come here to discuss our advowson, either. I am relieved to see you fit and well, Master Deblunville, but how do you explain the fact that your clothes and dagger were on a corpse? Have you lost them? Have you missed a member of your household, who might have borrowed them and been killed instead of you?’
‘That is a sobering thought,’ said Deblunville. ‘I noticed the clothes were missing a few days ago, but I merely assumed I had misplaced them.’
‘Do you know of anyone who might have taken them?’ asked Michael.
Deblunville shook his head. ‘No, and I am certain no one is missing from my household. Usually, the people of Burgh are scattered all over my estates, tending the sheep. But we are still celebrating our wedding day, and all the villagers have gathered here to wish me well.’
‘And to drink your wine,’ added Janelle dryly.
Deblunville laughed and, as she smiled back, Bartholomew could well understand what had captured the man’s heart. The harsh lines around her mouth softened and her eyes lost something of their piercing, forceful quality. He wondered how she had stayed unmarried for so long, particularly given that Hamon clearly adored her and the Tuddenhams were a powerful force in the area.
‘What clothes have you missed, exactly?’ Michael asked.
Deblunville tore his attention away from Janelle, and scratched his head. ‘A blue doublet and red hose that belonged to my father. They have always been too big for me, and I seldom wear them. There was also a dagger – purely ornamental and so blunt it would not slice through warm butter. You will understand when I say such a weapon is of no use to me, given that I have neighbours who want me dead. I always carry something a little more practical. It is not real gold, by the way, just gilt. But it looks good, and I know my neighbours are jealous of it, thinking it to be valuable. They are foolish men, Brother, and they covet foolish things – like a dagger with no cutting edge.’
‘When was the last time you could say, with absolute certainty, that these things were in your possession?’
Deblunville shrugged. ‘I really do not know. I missed the doublet when I went to church last Sunday. I wanted to wear it so that I could keep this one clean for my wedding. Before that, I could not say when I last saw it. The same goes for the dagger.’
‘And you have no idea why a man wearing your clothes and knife should be hanged on the gibbet at Bond’s Corner?’ queried Michael.
Deblunville shrugged again. ‘None at all. I can give you a list of a dozen men – all lords of manors and their henchmen – who would dearly love to see me dead. The only thing I can suggest is that someone stole my belongings and was rash enough to wear them. He was then mistaken for me and paid the price.’
‘For a man who has so many enemies, including one who may well believe he has killed you, you seem remarkably calm about all this,’ observed Michael.
Deblunville raised his eyebrows. ‘What else can I do? I am not a man to skulk in his house like a frightened cat, and there is nothing I can do about the way my neighbours feel about me. All I can do is go about my business, and ensure I never travel anywhere alone or unarmed.’
‘Well,’ said Michael, preparing to leave. ‘Please accept my congratulations once more. I am delighted to find you not a corpse but a bridegroom.’
‘Nicely put,’ said Deblunville. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘You are a physician?’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘But I do not conduct astrological consultations,’ he added quickly, before he was invited to provide a horoscope for the bridal couple.
Deblunville looked taken aback. ‘That is a peculiar thing for a physician to say. Your colleagues are usually desperate to get patients alone for an expensive afternoon with their charts.’
‘Well, I am not,’ said Bartholomew shortly.
‘No matter,’ said Deblunville. ‘I had a fairly lengthy consultation last week with Master Stoate, Grundisburgh’s physician. I needed to know whether yesterday was a good time to marry, and Stoate assured me it was, because Jupiter is ascendant. He seems to have been correct.’
‘But, more importantly, yesterday was convenient for me,’ Janelle pointed out. ‘It would not have mattered whether Jupiter had dropped out of the sky, you still would have wed me then.’
Bartholomew gazed at her with open admiration. Here was a woman after his own heart, who cared not a fig for the mysterious movements of the heavenly planets, and was certainly not prepared to allow them to rule her life.
‘Do you need my colleague’s services for anything?’ asked Michael. ‘If not, we had better return to Tuddenham before he tries to attack you. He is becoming increasingly agitated, and I do not want our discussion to jeopardise the advowson.’
‘I am sure you do not,’ said Deblunville, winking at the monk. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘Janelle is with child, and she has been feeling sick in the mornings. Stoate said the feeling would pass when Jupiter became ascendant over Mars, but he miscalculated. She is not feeling better at all.’
‘How long?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘The sickness?’ Deblunville shrugged. ‘Two months.’
‘About three weeks,’ Janelle corrected.
‘Well, it seems like two months,’ grumbled Deblunville.
‘And when did you know you were pregnant?’ asked Bartholomew.
Janelle shot an imperious glance at Michael, and declined to answer until the monk had sauntered out of hearing, pretending to inspect the revetted walls of the embankment. ‘I noticed… matters were not all they should be at the beginning of Lent.’
‘That was when I first tried to marry her,’ announced Deblunville. ‘I thought we might avoid a scandal if we did it straight away. Unfortunately, Tuddenham put an end to that, although how he, of all people, discovered Janelle was pregnant, I cannot imagine.’
‘Mother Goodman, probably,’ said Janelle carelessly. She explained to Bartholomew. ‘She is the only midwife in these parts, and not much escapes her eagle eyes. She has an uncanny talent for spotting a pregnancy – sometimes she knows it before the mother herself.’
‘She sounds as if she knows her business.’
‘She does,’ said Janelle, ‘but she is fiercely loyal to Tuddenham, and I cannot call on her now that I have married Roland. She might slip me some wormwood, and that would be the end of the child.’
‘You had better arrange to have it in Ipswich, then,’ said Bartholomew. He considered, thinking that a woman of her age might well have had children from a previous liaison. ‘This will be your first child, will it?’
‘Of course it will!’ exploded Deblunville angrily. ‘We were only wed yesterday.’
‘Being unmarried does not prevent women from having babies,’ retorted Bartholomew curtly. ‘Unfortunately for most people, including you it seems, it does not work that way.’
Deblunville drew breath to argue, but then conceded the point. ‘The boy will be Janelle’s first child. We will name him Roland, after me.’
‘And what if it is a girl?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘They make appearances from time to time, too, you know.’
Deblunville looked as though that thought had not crossed his mind.
‘It will not be a girl,’ said Janelle firmly. ‘I have already prayed to St Margaret of Antioch about that, and she will see I have what I want.’
‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, wondering whether even a saint would have the audacity to turn a deaf ear to the forceful requests of an expectant mother like Janelle. ‘But about this sickness. Did Master Stoate prescribe anything for you?’
She nodded. ‘He said I was of a choleric disposition, and so I should drink poppy juice and pennyroyal three times a day for as long as Mars remained ascendant, and then switch to betony in mint water when Jupiter became ascendant.’