He sighed. The more he thought about it, the more queries rattled about in his head. He was tired and he was worried about Cynric, afraid that Eltisley might try to ‘cure’ him of his gloom with some potion of his own making. He walked slowly across the village green in the dying light, and headed for the Half Moon. Michael was in the main chamber, eating again, and accompanied by Horsey and Deynman. The sullen men were, as usual, hunched over their ale at the table nearest the door, while Stoate joked with some of his young companions near the fire. It was a contented scene that signalled cosiness and normality. Michael beckoned him over for supper, but Bartholomew had no appetite for the rich food over which the monk was drooling, and said he was going to bed.
In the chamber upstairs, Cynric sat at the window and watched the dusk with unseeing eyes. He was pale, and his usually neat clothes were dishevelled and dirty. He did not even look up as Bartholomew entered, and jumped nervously when the physician spoke, claiming he had not heard him. Such inattention was unprecedented in the wary Welshman, and Bartholomew appreciated, yet again, quite how seriously his book-bearer took Padfoot’s threat to his life.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked kindly, sitting next to him on the windowsill.
‘How do I look?’ asked Cynric anxiously. ‘Do I seem to have a contagion? You must think so, or you would not have asked after my health.’
‘You look like a man who needs a good sleep and a decent meal,’ said Bartholomew practically. He made a decision: Cynric’s well-being was more important than trying to prove the innocence of a man who had sensibly fled Grundisburgh, and who probably had no intention of returning. ‘I am taking you back to Cambridge tomorrow – whether the advowson is completed or not.’
Cynric smiled sadly. ‘That will not prevent the inevitable, boy. I am doomed, and there is nothing you can do about it.’
‘This is insane,’ said Bartholomew, standing and pacing in agitation. ‘You are willing yourself to die, because of some silly fairy tale.’
Cynric turned his morose gaze to the dusk again, and declined to reply. Through the window, Bartholomew could see that the door to Eltisley’s workshop was open, and a series of smashing sounds indicated that the landlord was in it. As he watched, a huge tongue of flame shot out of the entrance with a dull roar. Almost as quickly, it had gone. Alarmed for Eltisley’s safety, Bartholomew was about to run down the stairs when the landlord staggered out, soot covering his face and his clothes smoking. Hacking and wheezing, he brushed himself down, and regarded his workshop with a puzzled expression, as though he considered it, and not himself, responsible for the mishap.
‘You are in far more danger from that maniac than from your spectral hound,’ said Bartholomew, sitting down again. ‘He will have his tavern in flames if he is not careful.’
Cynric gave a wan smile. ‘You do not think much of Eltisley and his inventions, do you?’
‘No,’ said Bartholomew shortly. ‘He believes he has an intellect superior to everyone else’s, and that this gives him the right to test his theories on the unsuspecting. He might have killed you with that dog mercury he tried to give you last night.’
‘He told me it would make me sleep.’
‘It would have done, although whether you would have woken again is another matter. Apparently, he gave Tuddenham a poultice made from death-cap mushrooms for his bunions last winter. Thank God Tuddenham had the sense not to use it.’
‘Medicine is not the only profession he likes to dabble in,’ said Cynric, casting a mournful glance out of the window to Eltisley, still standing outside his workshop. ‘He took my bow and said he was going to treat it with a special oil that would make the string more taut, so that my arrows would fly faster.’
‘Did you let him? I would have thought that the string is already at its optimum tautness for the strength of the bow. If he tampered with it, you might find it does not draw properly.’
‘I told him to leave it alone, but he took it anyway while I was out. I tried to use it when we were attacked in Barchester, but the balance was all wrong – that is why I missed Padfoot.’
‘Damn the man,’ said Bartholomew crossly. ‘Did he take anything else of ours to “improve”? I am only grateful I never leave my medicine bag behind, or I might find half my salves had been replaced with something toxic.’
‘I have no idea,’ sighed Cynric. ‘Can I close this window? I do not want to die of a chill from the night air.’
‘I thought you liked sleeping under the stars,’ said Bartholomew, reluctant to shut the window when the room was so stuffy and hot.
‘That was before,’ said Cynric, pulling it closed firmly.
After a while, as the room grew steadily darker, Deynman entered, bringing apples and a piece of cheese for Cynric, who stared at them as though they might choke him. Bartholomew was reading by candlelight, scanning a list of remedies for gout that Stoate had lent him. The candle was one of Eltisley’s creations – a shapeless lump of tallow studded with cloves, which he assured his guests would give off a pleasant scent as it burned. The cloves either dropped into the pool of melted tallow long before the flame came anywhere near them, or they popped and crackled nastily before emitting a foul odour of scorching.
‘I know how to break this curse of Padfoot,’ said Deynman, flopping nonchalantly on to Bartholomew’s mattress. ‘Mother Goodman told me.’
‘And how is that?’ asked Bartholomew absently, more interested in Stoate’s cures.
‘You steal a piece of beef at midnight, and bury it under an ash tree in a piece of white cloth. Then, at sunrise the following day, someone must stand on the exact spot where you saw Padfoot, and recite the Paternoster in Latin as fast as he can. And then you will be free of the curse.’
‘There you are then, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew, smiling at the ludicrous nature of the charm. ‘You are saved.’
‘And this will work?’ asked Cynric. Bartholomew looked up sharply when he heard the note of hope in the book-bearer’s voice.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Deynman confidently. ‘Mother Goodman was positive. I wrote it all down and then read it back to her to make sure I had it right. You know how I can get muddled sometimes.’ This understatement almost made Bartholomew laugh. ‘She said the charm had to be done exactly right or it would not work. That is why it failed to save those two villagers.’
‘Alice Quy and James Freeman?’ asked Cynric. ‘The two who died after seeing Padfoot?’
Deynman nodded. ‘One used pork instead of beef, and the other recited Psalm Twenty-Three instead of the Paternoster. So, when will you do it, Cynric? Tonight?’
The book-bearer’s face changed abrupdy from hope to resignation. ‘I can never do it, boy. I cannot recite the Paternoster in Latin. I can barely recite it in Welsh.’
‘But Doctor Bartholomew can,’ said Deynman, beaming at his teacher. ‘He knows everything like that. He will do it for you.’
‘Thank you, lad,’ said Cynric, clutching Bartholomew’s hand in a grip that was painfully tight. ‘I will never forget this.’