‘Death seems to follow you around, Bartholomew.’ Bartholomew jumped at the proximity of Hamon’s voice. ‘It is a curious trait for one who claims to heal the sick.’
Bartholomew studied him hard, trying to ascertain whether he was injured or sore from a recent tussle over Unwin’s grave. Or whether he had a bruise on his face from the violently hurled coffin ring. But it was too dark to tell, and Hamon’s step appeared steady enough. He seemed about to add something else, but Tuddenham called him, and the younger knight strode away to add his contribution to the indignant clamour of voices in the churchyard, as Michael explained where Norys had been found. After a while, Michael escaped and came to sit next to Bartholomew on the river bank.
‘Your support would have been nice,’ he said reproachfully. ‘Tuddenham and his clan asked questions that made me wonder whether they suspect me of killing Norys and burying him in Unwin’s grave.’
‘Well, you have always been somewhat fanatical about the fact that Norys was Unwin’s killer,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘What do you expect them to think?’
‘But I am not a killer myself,’ Michael pointed out indignantly. ‘I am a man of God, who has taken a vow to forswear violence wherever possible.’
‘“Wherever possible”?’ echoed Bartholomew, laughing softly. ‘Do the Benedictines put such convenient clauses in their vows, then? Have you sworn to avoid physical relations with women “unless the occasion arises”, or live a life free of material possessions “unless they happen to be available”?’
Michael gave him an unpleasant look in the darkness. ‘My sacred vows are not something for you to mock,’ he said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where raised voices still issued from the church. ‘Just listen to them! Quarrelling like a pack of dogs over what happened to Norys.’
‘What are they saying?’
‘Tuddenham and Wauncy believe that someone killed Norys to prevent him from revealing who really murdered Unwin; Isilia and Dame Eva think Norys committed suicide and hired the three louts to bury him over his victim because of some peculiar satanic ritual; and Hamon and Siric are convinced Deblunville’s household is responsible, as some sort of revenge for their lord’s death.’
They sat in silence for a while and eventually the voices died away. The church door was opened once and then closed, and then opened a second time a little later. Shadowy figures moved around the churchyard as Unwin’s grave was inspected. Michael clambered inelegantly to his feet and went toward them while Bartholomew remained sitting on the river bank, disinclined to speak to Tuddenham or his family while suspicion and accusation seemed to be the order of the day.
Michael’s sudden yell split the air like a crack of lightning. Bartholomew almost leapt out of his skin, and his feet skidded on the damp grass in his haste to run to Michael’s rescue. By the time he arrived, the monk was sitting on the ground with his fat legs splayed in front of him and his habit rucked up to his thighs, looking more outraged than Bartholomew had ever seen him. Dame Eva and Isilia stood uncertainly together, while Hamon and Siric tried to help the monk to his feet. Tuddenham and Wauncy hurried from the thick yew trees at the rear of the churchyard.
‘What happened?’ asked Bartholomew, offering Michael his hand. Michael took it, brushing Hamon and Siric aside, and almost hauling Bartholomew on top of him as he proved more heavy than the physician had anticipated.
‘Someone searched me!’ said Michael, barely able to speak from the extent of his indignation. ‘Someone ran their hands all over my body! Me! A man of the cloth!’
Bartholomew bent to brush leaves from the monk’s habit to hide his amusement. ‘Why did you do nothing to prevent this affront to your dignity, Brother?’ he asked.
‘Because whoever did it knocked me from my feet first,’ spat Michael. ‘While I lay helpless with my arms pinned underneath me, someone searched my person.’
‘Searched you for what?’ asked Bartholomew. He supposed he should not find the situation amusing, given that someone might well have plans to kill each and every one of the scholars from Michaelhouse.
‘I do not know,’ said Michael stiffly. ‘My purse, I suppose. But, being a poor monk with no earthly vices, I do not carry one.’
He most certainly did carry one, and it was heavier than any purse Bartholomew had ever owned. But Michael was not foolish enough to wear it where it could be seen: it was tucked out of sight among the voluminous folds of his habit, and the equally voluminous folds of his body.
‘It was someone here,’ said Michael, glaring accusingly at the assembled members of Tuddenham’s household. ‘It could not have been a passing vagrant, because he would not have been so rash as to attack a man of God while the churchyard was full of people.’
‘But neither would we,’ said Hamon, a smile plucking at the corners of his mouth. ‘And I can assure you, Brother, that none of us would have derived any pleasure from running our hands over you, if that is what you are suggesting.’
‘Well, one of you did,’ snapped Michael. ‘You were all very quick to reach me as soon as I was able to yell.’
‘That is because we were all nearby,’ protested Isilia. ‘Dame Eva and I were examining Unwin’s desecrated grave over there. Of course we came running as soon as we heard you shout.’
‘I heard you from the church,’ said Hamon. ‘I was there looking at Norys’s body with Siric.’
Siric nodded vigorously.
‘Well, that just leaves me and Wauncy,’ said Tuddenham. ‘And we were inspecting the place where this swordsman is supposed to have attacked you, to see whether he had dropped anything that might identify him.’
‘Then you would have seen your mother and your wife at Unwin’s grave?’ asked Bartholomew, wanting to be certain that everyone was telling the truth.
Tuddenham shrugged. ‘I did not notice what they were doing. It is dark and shadowy, and difficult to see anything at all.’
‘Then did you see your husband?’ asked Bartholomew of Isilia.
She shook her head. ‘As he said, it is dark, and, since I was not expecting to be asked to provide him with an alibi to prove he did not molest a monk under the elm trees, I did not watch what he and Wauncy were doing – or Hamon and Siric.’
‘I did not notice, either,’ said Dame Eva. ‘I was concentrating on poor Unwin’s grave.’
‘I am afraid Siric’s and my only witnesses are Norys and Master Alcote,’ said Hamon in a serious voice, although Siric was forced to turn away to hide the humour that glinted in his eyes. ‘And I fear they will not be quick to prove we were with them while someone manhandled Brother Michael.’
Seeing Michael was unharmed, and more amused than alarmed by the incident, they began to drift away. Cynric slipped up behind Bartholomew to mutter that he had seen no one else enter or leave the churchyard.
‘So, unless your molester escaped across the fields behind the church, we must assume it is one of the six people here,’ said Bartholomew, still smiling at the vision of Michael helpless on the ground while someone groped him, despite his best attempts to keep a straight face. ‘Would you rather imagine yourself searched by Dame Eva or Walter Wauncy?’
‘What would you say if I told you that whoever robbed me got what they wanted?’ asked Michael coldly.
Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. ‘A chance to see whether all that fat underneath your habit is actually real?’
‘No,’ said Michael shortly. ‘The final draft of the advowson.’
Bartholomew gazed at Michael with a churning stomach, his amusement gone in a flash. Was it the advowson that lay at the heart of the matter after all? Was that why Alcote had been killed – to prevent it from being completed? His mind worked rapidly. Everyone in Tuddenham’s household had been present at Wergen Hall when Michael had announced he could salvage Alcote’s work: Tuddenham, Hamon, Dame Eva, Isilia, Wauncy and Siric. Any one of them could have given Michael a shove in the back to send him flying and then stolen the deed from him.