Hours later, when Bartholomew’s arms were so tired he could barely lift them, Hamon shouted that he thought the fire was out. Bartholomew glanced up at the sky. It was afternoon and a slight drizzle was falling, depositing yet more water on the saturated remains of Eltisley’s tavern. The villagers gave a feeble cheer, then flopped to the ground or sat in small groups in silence, too weary even to discuss what would be one of the most memorable events of their lives. Some nursed burns, many had inflamed eyes from the smoke, and everyone’s clothes had been singed from the cinders that had rained down from the sky, like hail from hell.
‘We need to look through the rubble for Alcote,’ said Michael hoarsely, coming to stand next to Bartholomew. He walked stiffly, unused to so much exercise, and water and dust had made his habit appear as if it were smeared all over with mud.
Bartholomew joined Hamon, Stoate, William and Deynman, who were prising away some of the charred wood and plaster to begin the search. Eltisley lay on his back in the wet grass with his hands over his face, and Bartholomew saw that he was weeping. His wife, her white apron black with soot, sat near Dame Eva and Isilia, who seemed to be sharing a skin of wine with her. But Dame Eva was a practical, as well as a sympathetic, woman and Bartholomew saw that Mistress Eltisley already wore a cloak he knew belonged to the old lady, and her shaking hands clasped a small silver cross that he had seen Dame Eva wear.
Watched by the silent villagers, Bartholomew and the others levered and hauled at the hot embers. After a while, Deynman gave a cry and started backward, dropping the stick he had been using, as his hands flew to his mouth. Bartholomew scrambled toward him, and pulled away sooty plaster to reveal a body underneath.
‘Is it him?’ asked Deynman, looking everywhere but at the charred form Bartholomew exposed.
Bartholomew did not know: there was not enough left to be able to tell. Unlike the body of the hanged man, set alight to smoulder gently in the shepherd’s hut, the tavern had been an inferno, and had burned with a heat sufficiently intense to destroy most of whoever had been trapped in the building, and certainly to obliterate any distinguishing features. Something scorched Bartholomew’s finger, and he saw it was a blob of gold, turned molten and then re-set in an uneven disk.
‘Alcote’s cross,’ whispered Michael, leaning down to pick it up and dropping it immediately when he found it was too hot to hold. ‘He always wore a gold cross.’
‘Is that all there is?’ asked Hamon, gazing down at the body. ‘Where is the rest of him?’
‘Burned away,’ said Bartholomew, taking the blanket proffered by Stoate to cover the body. He did not want to move it while it was still so hot: it would be better to wait until it had cooled a little.
‘That is not him,’ said Deynman with sudden certainty. ‘It cannot be. Master Alcote is in Wergen Hall, or in the church praying. I will find him.’
Bartholomew caught his arm as he made to run away. ‘If Master Alcote were alive, he would have come to see what was happening here,’ he said gently. ‘You will not find him elsewhere.’
Deynman started to cry, perhaps the only one who would ever do so, since Alcote had not been popular with his colleagues or the Michaelhouse students. While he stood awkwardly, with Deynman sobbing on his shoulder, Bartholomew called to Eltisley to ask if there had been anyone other than Alcote in the tavern when it had ignited.
Eltisley shook his head slowly, his eyes dull, answering that the tavern had been empty except for the scholars in the upper chamber.
‘Thank God the rest of us were out,’ said William, crossing himself vigorously.
‘Norys warned us about this,’ said Michael softly. ‘He advised us to sleep with the windows open, in case Eltisley set the tavern alight with some mad experiment. It seems he was right.’
Bartholomew looked over to where Eltisley stood, and was seized with a sudden rage. Jostling Deynman out of the way, he jumped off the rubble and grabbed the landlord by the front of his apron, shaking him as hard as he could.
‘You did this!’ he shouted furiously. ‘There were no gasses! You were playing around with one of your dangerous concoctions and now Alcote is dead.’
‘I swear to you it was not me!’ shrieked Eltisley in terror, as he struggled to free himself from the physician’s powerful grip. ‘I was in the kitchen cooking your meal.’
‘Then you left something burning in your workshop,’ accused Bartholomew, not relinquishing his hold on the landlord’s apron. ‘You ignited the tavern because you were careless.’
‘Matt, let him go,’ said Michael tiredly, trying to prise the physician’s fingers loose. ‘Eltisley has just lost his home, his livelihood and all his possessions. Have some compassion.’
‘And Alcote has just lost his life!’ Bartholomew yelled. He thrust Eltisley against the garden wall, further enraged by the landlord’s pathetic fear of him. ‘You are so arrogant, you think you can meddle with whatever you like, and you care nothing for the safety and well-being of others.’
‘You are strangling him,’ protested Stoate, joining in Michael’s attempts to make Bartholomew release the terrified landlord.
Seeing their patron in trouble, some of Eltisley’s surly customers uncoiled themselves from the grass near the stream, and advanced menacingly. Cynric unsheathed a wicked little sword from its scabbard and tensed, ready to act should they threaten Bartholomew.
‘Matthew!’ snapped William, sensing an unseemly brawl was in the making. ‘Is it not enough that poor Alcote lies dead without compounding the tragedy by slaying the landlord? It was an accident, man!’
Eltisley’s customers eyed Cynric uncertainly, not convinced that they could best the man who wielded his sword with such practised ease. Hamon stepped forward, trying to place himself between Cynric and the surly men, while Isilia, seeing her kinsman place himself in such dire danger simply to prevent a fight, gave a shrill shriek that brought her husband running from where he had been talking to Wauncy.
Bartholomew gave Eltisley another shake. ‘How did you do it? What dangerous potions were you playing with in that workshop of yours? Saltpetre, sulphur and powdered charcoal?’
Eltisley gaped at him. ‘How do you know of such things? You are just a physician!’
Bartholomew’s temper finally snapped. He thumped Eltisley up against the wall again, intending to smash the superior, arrogant face to a pulp with his fists. He did not have the chance: Tuddenham had arrived. Eltisley’s sullen customers slunk away to sit on the grass again, Cynric sheathed his sword, and William and Michael dragged Bartholomew away from Eltisley before the physician could land more than two ill-placed punches that did little harm.
‘You are insane!’ howled Bartholomew, as he struggled in the powerful grip of his colleagues, aware, even in the heat of his anger, that most of the village was probably thinking the same about him. ‘You play with potions and substances about which you understand nothing! You are a feeble-minded lunatic, who should be locked away before you kill anyone else with your stupid, half-considered theories. You are a heretic!’
Bartholomew had never charged anyone with heresy before, although he had certainly been on the receiving end of more than one such accusation himself. He was surprised to find that hurling such a charge at someone was immensely satisfying – although not quite as much as pounding him into the ground would have been. William nodded approvingly, although Bartholomew did not for a moment consider William’s support to mean much, given that the friar’s definition of heresy was anything that did not conform to his own rigid beliefs.