‘So,’ said Deblunville, passing him a goblet of wine. ‘A dog from Barchester attacked you, your servant drove it off, and you ran away as fast as you could to end up on our land.’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘I felt a person’s hand grabbing my foot, although I did not see him. Cynric saw only the dog.’
‘And you think the motive was theft?’ pressed Deblunville.
Bartholomew shrugged, sipping the wine. ‘Half the men in Otley saw Grosnold give me that gold coin, and any one of them could have slipped out and followed us.’
However, since no attempt had been made to search him for it, Bartholomew was far from certain that the purpose of the ambush had been to steal. He thought it far more likely that Grosnold or Ned had followed them, seeking to silence him over the matter of the knight’s meeting with Unwin just before his murder, or perhaps to ensure he did not expose Grosnold’s lies about the acquisition of his manor. But he kept his suspicions to himself. The last thing he wanted was to be drawn deeper into the murky affairs of the squabbling Suffolk manors.
‘But no Otley villager owns a big white dog,’ said Deblunville, reaching out to pluck one of the pale hairs from Bartholomew’s cloak, set to dry by the fire. ‘All theirs are small, yellow mongrels with bad eyesight. Grosnold is bitterly envious of my fine hunting hounds, and would do anything to acquire one of the pups that has just been born.’
‘Perhaps it was a stray,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Unwin claimed to have seen a big white dog in Barchester, two days before he died.’
‘So I understand.’ Deblunville smiled at Bartholomew’s surprise. ‘This is the country. Rumours and stories spread faster here than rats through a granary.’
‘Then you should know there is also a rumour that you set eyes on the thing.’
Deblunville shook his head, amused. ‘I saw a wolf that scurried off when I tried to shoot it. I expect one of my archers mentioned the episode to some kinsmen in Grundisburgh – for all our bickering and fighting, nearly all Burgh folk have relatives there – and the story was put out that I had encountered Padfoot.’
‘So, you do not believe Padfoot exists?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘I believe someone has resurrected a silly tale that dates back to pagan times, and that Tuddenham and Grosnold have capitalised on it to provide an excuse for their spies being found on my land. I also believe that the two Grundisburgh villagers, who died after supposedly seeing Padfoot, were killed by Tuddenham as a punishment, because they were caught red-handed by me trespassing on my manor. And I believe that someone in his cups heard I saw a wolf, and started the rumour that what I really saw was Padfoot.’
‘Do you honestly think that James Freeman and Alice Quy were sent to spy on you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘A butcher and a woman with a new baby?’
‘I know they were,’ said Deblunville firmly.
‘Well, at least you have not completely taken leave of your senses,’ grumbled Bardolf, flopping down next to them. Bartholomew inspected the older man’s clothes covertly, and saw that they were almost as shabby and old as were his own. ‘I thought maybe you would accept that these scholars were on your land to pick wild flowers, or to watch the stars, or some other such nonsense.’
‘You are irritable today,’ said Deblunville mildly. ‘Take some wine to soothe your temper.’
‘Take some laudanum to soothe your back,’ said Bartholomew.
‘Do you have some?’ asked Bardolf eagerly. ‘Give it to me!’
Bartholomew mixed some of the powder with the wine in his goblet and handed it to Bardolf, who almost snatched it in his desperation.
‘If this kills me, I will kill you,’ he warned.
‘Drink it slowly,’ instructed Bartholomew, ignoring the odd logic. ‘Or it will make you dizzy.’
‘Dizziness would be a blessing,’ muttered Bardolf. ‘I have no relief from this pain. My father was the same and his father before him. Stoate bleeds me each full moon, but it makes no difference.’
Bartholomew could well believe it. ‘So, why are you so sure that Tuddenham wants to spy on you?’ he asked, still not certain that he understood all the twisted facts and reasoning behind the Padfoot legend.
‘Well, I suppose it is not really spying,’ said Deblunville, watching Bardolf sip Bartholomew’s potion with exaggerated care. ‘It is really searching.’
‘Searching for what?’ asked Bartholomew. He sat back, and gave a sudden laugh of disbelief, recalling Tuddenham’s unpleasant questioning of Cynric at Unwin’s graveside. ‘The golden calf! He is looking for the golden calf! Is that what Janelle said you should tell us earlier tonight, so that we would understand why you do not want spies on your land?’
It was Deblunville’s turn to look surprised. ‘Tuddenham told you about the calf?’
‘Of course he did,’ spat Bardolf. ‘That is what they were doing on our land – looking for it.’
‘I read about it at St Edmundsbury,’ said Bartholomew, ignoring the old man. ‘But it is a myth, a legend that is entertaining but that has no base in fact.’
‘That is not what Tuddenham believes,’ said Deblunville. ‘The lords of Grundisburgh have been hunting for the golden calf for as long as anyone can remember. They think it was hidden when the monks stole the bones of St Botolph, and that all they need to do is to dig until it is found.’
‘But no one knows where this chapel was supposed to be,’ said Bartholomew. ‘How can Tuddenham hope to find it by random digging?’
‘You are a scholar; your mind is too logical,’ said Deblunville. ‘Each time a tree is felled, Tuddenham or Hamon goes to pore over the roots; when a grave is dug, they sift through the soil; when foundations for a new building are laid, they pay men to dig a little deeper.’
‘But Tuddenham has decided that the chapel might not have been on his land after all,’ said Bardolf, drowsy from the laudanum. ‘So he is widening his search to Burgh, Clopton and Otley.’
‘Virtually every night, people from Grundisburgh slip out to poke around on their neighbours’ land to see what they can find,’ said Deblunville. ‘Grosnold does not object – he knows Tuddenham will share the profits with him if it is found on his manor – but Bardolf and I do not want our precious crops damaged by futile treasure-hunting.’
‘Sheep, man, sheep,’ said Bardolf. ‘You have crops, but I have sheep. I do not want my poor animals terrified in the middle of the night because some greed-crazed lunatics are digging in my pens. Nor do I want my beasts worried by the mongrels that always accompany them.’
‘His people are edging ever nearer my manor house,’ said Deblunville. ‘He invented the tale of Padfoot so that any of his villagers who are caught on our land will have an excuse for being there – they can say they were being chased by this ghostly hound.’
‘Perhaps Tuddenham owns a white dog,’ said Bardolf, yawning. ‘Perhaps he lets it loose at night to frighten people, so that they will not go out. And then no one will see his diggers at work.’
‘That is possible,’ said Deblunville, nodding. ‘The animal is definitely real. Ghosts do not leave hairs behind them, and there are enough hairs on the doctor’s cloak to stuff a mattress.’
‘So, all this is about a mythical golden idol,’ mused Bartholomew, almost to himself. ‘I suppose poor Unwin was killed because of it, too.’
‘How?’ asked Deblunville. ‘He was stabbed in the church, not on someone else’s land, and anyway, he had not been in the village long enough to have been recruited for gold-digging.’
Bartholomew did not care to speculate, although the obvious answer was that Grosnold had told Unwin about it, and then killed him when he declined to have anything to do with it. And Unwin was not killed in the church, but outside it, where his blood still stained the grass and grey stones of the buttress. He stood, and prepared to take his leave.