‘Winter,’ said Grosnold helpfully. ‘Quite a few years back now.’
It was slow going, and Bartholomew’s head began to ache. In order to relate the celestial calendar to the kind of information Grosnold was giving him, he needed to invent formulae to cope with the degree of error, and it was far more complex than anything he had done before. Cynric was asleep by the hearth, and Grosnold was already thinking about his next meal by the time Bartholomew put down the pen and showed Grosnold his conclusions.
The knight was impressed. He took the scraps of parchment with the tiny figures and equations scribbled all over them, and peered at them from every angle.
‘All these are mine?’ he asked, awed. ‘For my stars?’
Bartholomew nodded and began to tell him what it meant, although he could not imagine that predicting the knight would be vulnerable to rheums in the head when Venus was dominant in three days’ time, or that he should avoid herbs of Saturn while the moon was waxing lest they inflame the liver, could be of remote interest to a hardened warrior like Grosnold. He was wrong. The knight listened intently and then repeated it faithfully to Ned, to be passed on to the cooks in the kitchens, with every intention, apparently, of following it to the letter. When Bartholomew had finished, Grosnold leaned back and smiled.
‘Good,’ he said, clearly relieved. ‘Now I know that I should go to Ipswich next Tuesday, not Wednesday, and that I should decline the invitation from Bardolf to dine with him on Monday. I shall inform him that I will come on Thursday instead. But you took your time with all this, man; Stoate is far quicker at his calculations. Still, I expect you will get better with practice.’
‘I am sure I will,’ said Bartholomew, amused. He stood and stretched. ‘I should leave. It will be dark soon.’
‘You have your servant with you,’ said Grosnold, gesturing to Cynric. ‘He looks like a fellow who knows how to look after himself. Anyway, outlaws will not bother themselves with a physician who is slow with his horoscopes, especially one who is as impoverished as you appear to be.’
Bartholomew was almost out of the door before he realised that he had not attempted to discover what Grosnold had been discussing with Unwin in the bailey, or whether Eltisley really had seen them together in the churchyard before Unwin’s death.
‘I must tell you how much I admire your armour,’ he said as they stood together in the doorway, hoping to appeal to the man’s vanity and start a conversation. ‘It is very splendid.’
‘Modelled after that of the Prince of Wales,’ said Grosnold proudly. ‘He always wears black. I can give you the name of the smith who made it, if you are interested.’
‘I am no fighting man,’ said Bartholomew, wondering what his colleagues would say if he arrived at high table in Michaelhouse wearing a suit of metal. ‘Your destrier is a handsome animal, too.’ Bartholomew actually had no idea whether the stocky beast was a handsome animal or not: he was an abysmal judge of what did or what did not constitute a good horse.
‘He is,’ agreed Grosnold, pleased. ‘He served me well at Crécy. I fought at the side of the young Prince of Wales, you know. Now, there is a fine soldier!’
‘Really?’ said Bartholomew. He began to run out of things to say, since military chit-chat had never been a particular strength of his – especially considering that, in view of his lie about how he had come to own his manor, most of Grosnold’s was probably more wishful thinking than reality. ‘It must take a long time to train a horse like that.’
‘It takes time and patience to train any horse,’ said Grosnold. ‘But you are right: I did take extra care with old Satan.’
‘When you galloped it across Grundisburgh’s green the other day,’ said Bartholomew, choosing his words carefully, ‘were you not afraid that someone might do something to damage it – like lie in its way? I understand those things are expensive.’
‘Good destriers are very expensive. Satan cost me more than you will earn in your lifetime, by the look of you. But I like to give him his head now and then. I raced him right down the banks of the Lark until I reached the Old Road.’
‘Did you go back to Grundisburgh after that?’ asked Bartholomew, knowing it was unsubtle, but not knowing how else to ask.
‘No,’ said Grosnold suspiciously. ‘I did not go back. Why do you ask? Do you imagine you saw the talking to that priest, Unwin, or something?’
‘Of course not,’ said Bartholomew, wholly confused. He could not decide whether Grosnold was a complete buffoon and had just confessed that he had indeed returned to Grundisburgh and spoken to Unwin, or whether his words were a simple, truthful denial, and that he had mentioned Unwin because he knew Unwin’s death was the reason why Bartholomew was asking.
He smiled at the knight in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. ‘I just asked because I thought a fine animal like yours might need more exercise than a mere trot to the Old Road.’
‘Did you?’ asked Grosnold, harshly. ‘Well, after I left Grundisburgh I came home. I sat by the hearth all night with Ned, cleaning my nails. Look.’
His nails were reasonably clean, although thin red crescents under most of them suggested that he should not have used such a sharp knife. There was nothing more to be learned: Grosnold was now on his guard, and had said all he was going to. The physician bowed his farewell and walked over to Cynric who was holding his horse in the rain. He was almost out of the bailey when Grosnold stopped him with a tremendous yell.
Because of the drizzle and the lateness of the day, most of the men Bartholomew had seen earlier were in the outbuildings, with the doors and shutters closed against the evening chill. White smoke from cooking fires seeped from thatched roofs and through windows that had been poorly blocked. Bartholomew could glimpse men inside sitting in the flickering yellow of flames. A range of smells drifted out – stews of peas and beans, baked bread and boiling meat, all mingled with the acrid, comforting aroma of burning wood. At Grosnold’s shout, shutters and doors were eased open as the curious inhabitants came to see what was happening.
‘I did not pay you,’ Grosnold hollered, waving his purse in the air. ‘Here is gold for your troubles. I am pleased with that horoscope. I might have you come back and do me another.’
Not, thought Bartholomew, if it could be avoided. Ned ran across the muddy yard, brandishing the coin aloft like a talisman until he reached Bartholomew and handed it over.
‘I never met a physician who forgot his money before,’ he said with a disbelieving grin. ‘Master Stoate would not.’
Bartholomew thanked him, and turned towards Grundisburgh. The rain had brought an early dusk, and the daylight was fading fast. It was cold, too, and Bartholomew’s cloak, dried in front of the fire at Grosnold’s manor, was soon drenched again. The thick scent of wetness pervaded everything, and the downpour hissed gently among the trees. By the time they reached the Old Road it was gloomy, and Bartholomew would have taken the wrong path had Cynric not been with him. They rode in silence, travelling faster than Bartholomew felt was safe. He kept expecting his horse to stumble and deposit him in the thick, sucking mud through which they squelched.
‘It will be dark before we are back,’ said Cynric, glancing up at the sky. ‘I did not realise it was so late, or I would have hurried you.’
‘We must have taken the wrong turning at that sheep pen, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew, peering ahead through the trees. ‘There is Barchester in front of us. We are on the road that runs through it, rather than the one that passes around the outside.’
‘I suppose it does not matter,’ said Cynric, eyeing the hamlet nervously. ‘They both lead to Grundisburgh, after all.’
‘Is that a light?’ asked Bartholomew, straining his eyes in the gloom. ‘It looks as if someone has lit a lamp in one of the houses.’