‘We would never leave Suffolk alive,’ said Cynric. ‘Keep it hidden until we reach St Edmundsbury Abbey, and then give it to the monks. Tuddenham can come to sign it at his leisure, and it can be forwarded to us later.’
Michael nodded approvingly. ‘That is a good plan. It puts no one at risk and, if Tuddenham is behind all this, we will know when he fails to set his seal to the deed that will make the living ours. But at least we now have the answers to some of our questions: we know for certain that Alcote was murdered, and we know that his death relates to the advowson.’
‘Do you think Alcote destroyed the tavern in an attempt to fake his own death?’ asked Cynric.
‘Deynman thinks so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He cannot believe that we will never see him again. I know how he feels. Roger Alcote has been a part of Michaelhouse for so long that I cannot imagine the place without him.’
Michael sighed. ‘Alcote is… was… a clever man, and all we have to prove that the corpse in the Half Moon was his is a melted cross. It would not surprise me in the slightest if he later appeared unharmed, having left us to deal with this dangerous business without him.’ He was about to add more when there was a stricken cry from the church. It was Hamon’s voice. Moments later, Siric raced out, looking for Bartholomew.
‘Sir Thomas is took sick,’ he gasped. ‘Go to him, and I will fetch Master Stoate.’
Sir Thomas was indeed ‘took sick’. He sat doubled over on one of the benches in the chancel, and clutched at his stomach, while Hamon knelt next to him anxiously and Isilia patted one of his hands. Dame Eva stood behind him, murmuring soothing words in his ear, although Wauncy was chanting the words of the mass for the dying, and was probably already calculating how many fourpences he would be able to claim from the bereaved family over the next few years.
‘That will not be necessary,’ said Bartholomew sharply, to the priest’s clear disappointment. ‘Sir Thomas is not going to die quite yet.’
‘Leave us,’ groaned Tuddenham to his family. ‘All of you. Arrange for a litter to take me home. You go, too, Brother. I want only Bartholomew with me.’
When the door had thumped shut behind them, Tuddenham looked up at the physician with pain-filled eyes. ‘Were you lying to my family as Stoate would have done?’ he asked in a feeble voice. ‘Am I to die now?’
‘No,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I told you to rest, and this is what happens when you ignore good advice. You are not fit enough to pore over desecrated graves in the middle of the night.’
Tuddenham gave a wan smile. ‘I would just as soon be in my bed. But did you keep your word? Have you told my household about my weakness?’
‘Of course not,’ said Bartholomew, offended that he should ask. ‘But if you are taken ill like this again, your family will guess you are not as healthy as you would have them believe.’
‘I will keep it from them a little longer,’ said Tuddenham weakly. ‘What excuse will you make for my sickness tonight? Stoate said he would claim I had an excess of bile in the innards if I was ill before I made the state of my health known – unpleasant, painful, frightening, but not fatal.’
Lying was not something Bartholomew did well, and he was sure he would be unable to convince a horde of anxious relatives that there was nothing wrong with Tuddenham, while knowing he would soon die – especially the astute Dame Eva. She would home in on his falsehood like an owl on a mouse, and she would know instantly that there was something he was not telling her.
‘Stoate can tell them, then,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He is here now.’
Stoate raced up the nave. Dawn was still some way off, and the church was in total darkness except for the candles that stood around Alcote’s coffin. In his haste to be at his patient’s side, Stoate tripped up the chancel steps, and went sprawling. Bartholomew went to help him up.
‘How clumsy,’ said Stoate, embarrassed as he nodded his thanks to Bartholomew. He had dropped his medicine bag, and phials and charts rolled across the floor. Bartholomew collected them, replaced them in the bag, and handed it back to Stoate, who gave him a brief smile.
Wincing at a bruised knee, Stoate knelt next to Tuddenham, who had watched the physician’s dramatic arrival with a weary expression. Bartholomew appreciated how he must feeclass="underline" it was not a comforting thought that the man who was to nurse you through your final illness was unable to run through a church without falling over.
‘The litter is coming,’ said Stoate. He glanced at Bartholomew. ‘Excess bile in the innards?’
‘Apparently,’ said Bartholomew, preparing a strong painkiller. ‘He should be taken back to bed, so he can rest. It is not advisable to allow him to be disturbed in the middle of the night.’
‘Fortunately, we do not usually have guests in the village who dig up corpses at the witching hour,’ said Stoate, not entirely pleasantly. ‘I doubt this kind of thing will happen once you leave.’
‘I hope not, for Sir Thomas’s sake,’ said Bartholomew, crouching to help Tuddenham sip the potion he had made.
‘Will you bleed him?’ asked Stoate. ‘The evil humours in his body should be released.’
‘They should not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He should drink this, then rest.’
‘He must be bled,’ insisted Stoate. ‘You dabble in surgery; you must bleed him.’
‘I do not practise phlebotomy,’ said Bartholomew firmly. ‘And I think that in Sir Thomas’s case, bleeding will simply cause him unnecessary discomfort.’
‘But you must! The bad humours will build up in his body, and he will never be well.’
‘You do it, then, if you deem it so vital,’ said Bartholomew, watching Tuddenham drain the last few drops of the potion. ‘I will not.’
Stoate shook his head. ‘I do not let blood, either.’
‘You do,’ said Bartholomew, surprised at this assertion. ‘Several people have told me that you prescribe blood-letting three times a year. Including yourself.’
‘You must have misunderstood,’ said Stoate. ‘I do recommend blood-letting thrice yearly, but I do not offer to provide the service myself.’
‘And which one of you am I supposed to believe?’ asked Tuddenham, in a low voice heavy with irony. ‘One says I should be bled, the other says I should not.’
‘You should,’ insisted Stoate.
‘It is your decision,’ said Bartholomew, refusing to argue any further. ‘It will not kill you, but it will not make you better.’
‘Well,’ said Tuddenham with a faint smile, ‘if it makes no difference, I think I will forgo the pleasure. But I am sure you bled my wife, Stoate, when she was first with child? She said you did.’
‘I recommended that she be bled,’ corrected Stoate. ‘I did not do it myself. Mother Goodman probably did it. She has some skill in those matters.’
Bartholomew went to summon the litter-bearers, and saw Sir Thomas carried out of the church and back to Wergen Hall. The knight was already beginning to drowse from the strong potion Bartholomew had given him, and his face had regained some of its colour. Stoate went with him, holding Tuddenham’s wrist as he made a show of testing the strength of his life-beat, although how he could do it with the litter bouncing up and down, Bartholomew could not begin to imagine.
‘This has been quite a night,’ said Michael, walking slowly into the church. ‘We have been attacked by men wielding swords, found the body of a murder suspect, been searched most intimately for the advowson, and seen Tuddenham taken ill in his church. What was wrong with him? Guilty conscience for ordering the death of Alcote?’
‘The night is not over yet, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, crouching down to retrieve something from under the trestle table on which Norys lay. ‘Here is Unwin’s stolen relic.’