‘She does not approve of me going out each night trying to catch Hamon digging on my land for the golden calf,’ said Deblunville. ‘She says I should leave that to you, while I enjoy the pleasures of the wedding bed. She does not understand that I want to catch Hamon personally.’
‘Perhaps she has a point,’ said the toothless man with a lecherous grin. ‘It has only been a few days since Walter Wauncy married you, and I do not think you can have tired of her this soon.’
‘When you wed, you should hire Wauncy,’ said Deblunville. ‘He is cheaper than our own priest by three pennies. That was Janelle’s doing – she is always on the alert for a bargain.’
‘It would be like being wed by a corpse,’ said the archer with a dramatic shudder. ‘I would not want his skull-like features presiding over the happiest day of my life, three pennies cheaper or not.’
They moved on, leaving Cynric reeling with relief that they had not been spotted and Bartholomew laughing softly to himself. So, Tuddenham’s priest had slipped away from his own flock to poach a little trade from his neighbour. Bardolf had said that the priests of the manors fought as much as their masters – and now it seemed as though they even stole each other’s business by offering competitive rates for weddings. No wonder the skeletal priest had stressed to Tuddenham that the union was a good thing, and had been so keen to know from Bartholomew what Deblunville and Janelle had said about their wedding – he probably feared Tuddenham’s displeasure if the knight discovered what he had done.
The woods grew silent again, although Cynric claimed he could hear sounds of digging in the distance. So that he could see to gamble with Deynman, Cynric lit a candle, and Bartholomew spotted a patch of sea wormwood, a plant that did not usually grow so far from the coast. Delighted, he gave Deynman, who was far more interested in his game, an impromptu lecture on the benefits of the herb to rid small children of worms. Afterwards, lulled by the click of ivory and the occasional victorious snigger from Deynman, Bartholomew dozed again, waking damp and chilled later, when Cynric stood and stretched.
‘It is almost dawn, boy. You need to be in place to start reciting when the sun comes up.’
Bartholomew glanced at the sky. Large thunderclouds had gathered, a deep, menacing grey in the faint glow of early morning. ‘Sunrise will be difficult to gauge. It is going to pour soon.’
They left their hiding place and started to walk along the path that led to the deserted village. They had not gone far when Cynric stopped and put a finger to his lips, listening intently. Before Bartholomew could recommend that they use another route to Barchester, Deblunville’s archer came hurtling along the track and almost bowled into them. He recognised the physician and grabbed the front of his shirt, not seeming to care that it was an unusual place to meet.
‘It is Master Deblunville!’ he gasped, his eyes wide with terror. ‘There has been an accident!’
Without waiting for a response, he hauled Bartholomew along the path. Disengaging himself so that they could move more quickly, Bartholomew followed, while Cynric muttered nervously about the passing time. They did not have far to go. After a few moments, they entered a glade in the woods, a pleasant place fringed with trees and with a moss-banked brook trickling through the centre. Deblunville’s archers stood in an uncertain circle with their hats in their hands, all looking at a figure that lay unmoving in the grass.
‘We just found him like this,’ said the toothless man, turning a white, shocked face to Bartholomew. ‘He died because he saw Padfoot!’
Bartholomew glanced at Cynric, who was gazing at the figure in horror.
‘He said he saw a white wolf, but all the Grundisburgh folk said it was Padfoot,’ the archer added fearfully. ‘None of us believed them – we thought it was a story Tuddenham made up so that Hamon could dig for the golden calf on our land, but now it is clear that the story of Padfoot is true.’
Bartholomew knelt in the dew-laden grass, and leaned down to inspect the figure on the ground. Deblunville’s eyes were closed as though he were sleeping. At first Bartholomew thought he might have had a seizure, but then he felt behind his head and his hand came away dark with blood. He turned the body over. The back of the skull was smashed, so that it was soft and soggy under his fingers. Deblunville would have died instantly, and was far beyond anything Bartholomew could do for him.
Under Deblunville’s head was a stone, which had contours and edges that seemed to match the wound. When Bartholomew tugged at it, it came loose, but the deep, sharp impression in the earth suggested that it had been there for some time. So, unless someone had selected the stone, hit Deblunville with it, and then returned it to exactly the same place, it seemed the lord of Burgh had simply slipped on the wet grass, and had had the misfortune to crack his skull on an unfortunately positioned rock.
‘I will never doubt again,’ wailed the archer, watching the proceedings with a fear so intense that it was beginning to unnerve Bartholomew. ‘It was said Padfoot would come for him, and he has!’
‘Time is running on,’ muttered Cynric anxiously, glancing up at the sky. ‘We will miss sunrise if we do not hurry, and then this will be me!’
‘What happened?’ asked Bartholomew of Deblunville’s men. ‘Did any of you see?’
‘He went off alone into the trees,’ said the toothless man. ‘Too much ale at dinner. When he did not come back, we went looking for him, and found him like this.’
‘Did you see anyone else?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking uncomfortably that Hamon and his cronies were probably not far away.
‘No,’ said the toothless man. He gave a grim, gummy smile. ‘Believe me, nothing would give us greater pleasure than to blame Master Deblunville’s death on Hamon, but it is obvious it was an accident: he fell and hit his head. There are the torn weeds where his foot slipped, and you can see that stone is buried in the ground, and has been for years. If someone had killed him, it would be lying on top of the grass, not half hidden in the soil.’
‘It was Padfoot,’ said the archer in a whisper. ‘Why did we not listen? Why did we ever come out here? Maybe Padfoot is the calf's guardian, and he does not want the thing dug up.’
All the men and Cynric crossed themselves hastily, looking about them as though the white dog might appear at any moment and drag them off to hell. Bartholomew stood up. There was nothing more he could do, and Cynric was becoming increasingly agitated about the time. Everything pointed to the fact that Deblunville’s death was simply a tragic accident, although coming so soon after the others, there was a nagging doubt at the back of Bartholomew’s mind.
‘Take him home,’ he instructed the waiting men. He thought about Janelle and her unborn child. ‘And you will have to inform his wife that she is now a widow. Be sure to do it gently – shocks like this will not be good for her.’
‘She will not be overly distressed,’ said one of the men, a skinny fellow with strangely pale eyes. He shrugged at his friends’ reaction to his indiscretion. ‘Well, it is true! I would say it took them about two nights to realise what a dreadful mistake they had made, and after ten days they are already at the point where they loathe each other.’
‘It was because of that Walter Wauncy,’ said the archer sagely. ‘I said it was not good luck to be married by a walking corpse, but Janelle insisted because of the saving of three pennies.’
‘She said last night that she was afraid she might go the same way as his first wife, Pernel,’ said the pale-eyed man, his expression knowing. The others nodded agreement, and looked expectantly at Bartholomew, who wondered what they wanted him to say.
‘I see,’ he replied noncommittally, aware of Cynric’s impatience to be away.