Michael grinned. ‘I think you probably already have your answer to that. William has just told us that it was not for love that Alcote took these two beauties, but for their money.’
‘I still do not believe it,’ said Bartholomew.
‘You might if you heard his views on the plague,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘He thinks it will come again, unless men give up all relations with women. He told me only yesterday that the Devil would claim as his own anyone who was not celibate.’
‘And why should he mention that to you, Brother?’ asked Bartholomew, raising his eyebrows.
‘What in God’s name is he doing?’ said William, watching as Eltisley took a large saw to the leather hinges on the door, still firmly barred and with Alcote safe from Mistress Eltisley on the other side of it. The saw slipped, leaving a long, pale scar across the lovingly polished wood. Eltisley raised it again, hacking vigorously at the hinges, while his sullen customers stood around him, and watched in disbelief as the landlord inflicted as much damage on the saw as he did on the door in his bungling attempts to enter.
‘Master Eltisley,’ called Bartholomew, watching his efforts with amusement. ‘Would it not be easier to go through the entrance at the back of the tavern, and then unlock the front door from the inside?’
Eltisley regarded him uncertainly, but his wife gave an exasperated sigh before disappearing round the side of the house. Moments later, she emerged through the door Eltisley had savaged, and stood to one side to let her husband in, giving him a clout on the ear as he did so.
Alcote had locked the door to the upper chamber, too, and it took some smooth talking on Michael’s part to persuade him to open it. Casting anxious looks this way and that, Alcote hauled his colleagues inside and barred the door again.
‘I do not want her near me,’ he announced, returning to a small table piled high with parchments, pens, and sand-shakers for drying wet ink. ‘Women are agents of the Devil. I became a scholar at Michaelhouse to escape their evil clutches, and all I want to do is return there. Not only does one of them attempt to seduce me, but I am attacked by a band of ruffians, armed with ferocious scimitars, in the middle of the night.’
‘A band?’ asked Bartholomew. Tuddenham told me there were only two of them.’
‘So there were last night,’ said Michael. ‘Their number, like their weapons, seem to have grown in the telling.’
Alcote regarded him coldly. ‘Are you accusing me of lying?’
‘I am merely curious to know how an unarmed cleric bested a band of determined, sword-wielding villains,’ said Michael, unruffled by Alcote’s indignation.
‘I was protected by God. He knows I am doing His work with this advowson.’ Alcote rubbed his stomach. ‘This place disagrees with me. I have not felt well since we arrived.’
‘That is because you are eating enough raisins to feed half of Suffolk,’ said Bartholomew. ‘They are not good for the digestion in such vast quantities.’
‘How is the advowson going?’ asked Michael, as Alcote glowered at the physician. ‘Tuddenham is afraid that the attack on you may delay matters.’
‘Fortunately, it will not,’ said Alcote, ‘although I must stress that writing this deed has been extremely difficult, because of the complexities of the arrangements made by Sir Thomas’s grandfather. It has taken me a long time to ensure that the advowson is his to give.’
‘I checked all that in the abbey at St Edmundsbury,’ said Michael. ‘It is his.’
‘But I had to ensure he had the documents to prove it.’ Alcote leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘However, there were one or two items that muddied the waters, which therefore needed to be consigned to the fire.’
‘You burned Tuddenham’s writs because you did not like their contents?’ asked Bartholomew, aghast.
‘You make it sound so underhand,’ grumbled Alcote, flinging down his pen, and scrubbing tiredly at his thin hair.
‘Well, so it is,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Tuddenham trusts you with these documents, and what you have done is worse than underhand: it is dishonest and illegal!’
‘Believe me, I am only doing what is best for the College. You would not want Michaelhouse associated with some of the shady dealings I have uncovered since we arrived here.’
‘What kind of shady dealings?’ asked Bartholomew nervously. ‘If you suspect this advowson is tainted, then we must not accept it at all.’
‘Do not be so finicky, Matthew. I have destroyed what I do not want people to see, and so it is all perfectly above board. Anyway, a few more hours should see the whole thing completed, and we can be on our way.’
‘Then we can leave tomorrow?’ asked Bartholomew with relief. ‘Thank God!’
‘For once we are in complete agreement,’ sniffed Alcote. ‘I do not like this place, and I want to be away from it before we all follow Unwin to his grave. I will have this thing written today.’
Bartholomew had wondered whether Alcote had been dragging his heels over the advowson, making the whole thing seem more complex than it was. His sudden announcement that he was in a position to complete the document within hours made Bartholomew realise his suspicions had been well founded, and that it had taken a physical attack on Alcote to frighten him into finishing it.
‘Why were you ambushed, do you think?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘For your gold cross?’
‘Or because you consigned Tuddenham’s documents to the fire?’ asked Michael, amused.
‘Or because the villagers resent our presence here?’ asked William. He glanced around him and shuddered. ‘Hanged men wearing stolen clothes, who disappear only to be found half burned in some shepherd’s hovel; ghostly dogs that terrify people in the night; friars murdered by pardoners for their paltry possessions; women with their throats slit in their own homes; and scholars attacked viciously and without provocation. You are right, Roger! The sooner we are away from this place, the better.’
‘Will you join me for something to eat?’ enquired Michael of no one in particular.
‘I will not leave this chamber until I am on my way home,’ announced Alcote firmly. ‘Arrange for my meals to be served here, Michael – and not by that woman, if you please. Eltisley can do it.’
‘I will pray for Unwin’s soul,’ said William, his voice holding a note of censure that they should be considering food when there was praying to be done. ‘I shall forgo the pleasures of the flesh in order to shorten his time in Purgatory with a mass.’
‘I heard that Eltisley was cooking fish-giblet stew today,’ said Michael wickedly. ‘Shall I tell him you do not want any?’
There was little the Franciscan enjoyed more than the rank flavour of fish-giblet stew, and he hesitated, deeply tempted.
‘Tell him to keep some for me,’ he said after a brief internal struggle between duty and greed, from which greed emerged the victor. ‘I will have it later to fortify my frail body for more prayers.’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Michael, looking down at his own ample girth.
Downstairs again, Michael shouted for Eltisley to bring them food. He regarded Bartholomew’s muddy clothes disapprovingly, and complained that he smelled of burning. Bartholomew was not the only one: there was a strong odour of burning when Eltisley brought the meal.
‘Problem with one of your theories?’ Bartholomew asked, noting the blisters on Eltisley’s hands and his singed clothes. ‘I saw you almost destroy your workshop last night.’
‘None of your business,’ snapped the landlord shiftily. ‘When one works on things no other man can comprehend, one must anticipate a degree of error and miscalculation.’