While Cynric went to rouse William to continue the vigil for the charred remains in the church – feeling, no doubt, that the slippery Alcote needed all the prayers he could get – Bartholomew and Michael took the path back to the village, and made their way to Stoate’s house. His horse, still tailless thanks to Deynman, was saddled, and weighted down with two hefty bags.
‘It looks as though Stoate knows the game is up,’ Michael whispered to Bartholomew. ‘He is about to leave.’
There was a sharp click and both men swung round. Stoate stood behind them holding a loaded crossbow.
‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered sharply. ‘I will use this if I have to.’
For a moment, no one said a word. Bartholomew and Michael gaped at Stoate’s crossbow, while Stoate glared back challengingly. A gleam of desperation in his eyes suggested to Bartholomew that Stoate would indeed use the weapon if necessary – and perhaps even if it were not. Michael stepped forward.
‘You might hit one of us,’ he said calmly, ‘but you will not have the time to reload before the other attacks. Michaelhouse men do not approve of charlatan physicians who kill with their ignorance and greed – you would not stand a chance.’
‘Greed?’ asked Stoate, startled.
‘Yes, greed,’ said Michael. ‘Making a few extra pennies by bleeding poor villagers who do not know that you are no more a physician than I am.’
Stoate’s finger tightened on the trigger of his crossbow. ‘I studied in Paris and Bologna,’ he said angrily. ‘Ask anyone around here.’
‘How would they know?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘They, like us, only have your word for it.’ He began to move away from Michael, making it impossible for Stoate to point his weapon at both of them at the same time.
‘Stay where you are,’ said Stoate, understanding what he was doing immediately. He waved the weapon at his house, and glanced up at the sky. ‘Go inside and close the door.’
‘Which do you want us to do?’ asked Michael, deliberately aggravating. ‘Stay where we are, or enter your charming home?’
‘Move!’ snapped Stoate. He glanced anxiously at the sky again. Rutted roads and recent rain meant that riding fast while it was still dark would be tantamount to suicide, yet he knew he needed to be away before people awoke and clogged the paths as they walked to the fields. Bartholomew took several steps and then hesitated, wondering how he might delay Stoate’s departure until either he was prevented from making a speedy escape by the labourers on the roads, or Cynric realised that something was amiss and came to look for them.
‘Do not try my patience, Bartholomew,’ hissed Stoate. ‘It will not be you I shoot, it will be your fat friend. I know you would never leave him while he is mortally wounded, and that will allow me to make a clean escape. Or you can move into my house, and no one need be hurt.’
Michael pushed open the door, and Bartholomew followed him inside. Stoate stood in the entrance, watching them minutely, his finger never leaving the trigger of his weapon.
‘Now sit against that wall, and put your legs out in front of you.’
It was a position that would make any sudden lunge at Stoate virtually impossible – unless the lunger had no objection to being impaled by a crossbow quarrel. Stoate looked at the sky again.
‘All this started with Unwin, did it not?’ said Michael, trying to make himself comfortable on the floor. ‘You bled him – at his request, probably – but you were careless, and he bled to death.’
‘It was an accident,’ said Stoate harshly. ‘These things happen in medicine. I suppose I should not have left him once I had made the incision, but I had not wanted to attend him in the first place. Grosnold had found Unwin sick and shaking, and was concerned. He ordered me to bleed him, and Grosnold is not a man easily refused.’
‘You made an incision in Unwin, and then left him unattended?’ asked Bartholomew, appalled. ‘What were you thinking of? That is one of the grossest cases of negligence I have ever heard!’
‘He said he would be all right,’ protested Stoate uneasily. ‘When I came back – only moments later – he was stone dead and there was blood all over the ground. What else could I do but try to disguise his death? I moved him into the church – fortunately for me, most of the blood in his body had already leaked out, and so it was not as messy as it could have been – and made his death appear to be a murder by stabbing him and taking his purse.’
‘Grosnold ordered you to bleed Unwin?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘What was he doing back in Grundisburgh after his spectacular departure across the village green?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Stoate, casting yet another anxious glance at the sky. ‘I try not to become involved in the sinister affairs of the lords of the manor around here. They are not men to be trusted.’
‘Unlike the physicians,’ muttered Michael. He shook his head in wonderment. ‘So, Eltisley really did see Grosnold with Unwin in the churchyard. But he was not holding Unwin’s arm in a threatening manner as we all assumed; he was being solicitous, because Unwin’s nervousness was making him unwell. Grosnold even sent for a physician to bleed him, and was doubtless “surreptitious” because Unwin told him Matt would not approve of phlebotomy.’
Stoate nodded. ‘I was summoned because Unwin told him that Bartholomew would refuse. If only I had refused, too! Then none of this would have happened.’
‘But why did Grosnold deny speaking to Unwin if he had nothing to hide?’ asked Bartholomew.
Stoate shrugged. ‘All I know is that he instructed me to say nothing about his meeting with Unwin. He gave me five marks for my silence. It seemed a good deaclass="underline" I would say nothing about his role, therefore he would say nothing about mine.’
‘So, what happened to Mistress Freeman?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘She did not die of a slit throat; she died from eating the mussels that were scattered all over her floor. As did Norys.’
‘The mussels killed her?’ asked Stoate in astonishment. ‘They were tainted?’
‘Were they a gift from you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘To ensure she was at home when you came to kill her, and make it appear as though Norys had done it?’
Stoate gave a humourless laugh. ‘Yes, they were a gift from me, and yes, they were to ensure she was home when I called. The plan was to share them with her, and then to convince her that it had been Norys we had seen together, running from the church.’
‘But you saw no one running from the church,’ said Michael. ‘The cloaked figure was you.’
‘I did see someone,’ said Stoate earnestly. ‘Everything I have told you is the truth, except the length of the cloak. I did speak to Mistress Freeman by the ford – Norys was not with her, and she told me that he had gone to fetch her shawl, because the evening was turning chilly – and we did see someone running out of the church. And whoever it was was rubbing his eyes.’
‘Why lie about the length of the cloak?’
‘Because the one I wore that night was short, very like that which I saw on the person running from the church. I realised that I needed to create confusion, if I did not want other witnesses to say the short-cloaked figure was me. So, I said he wore a long one.’
‘So the cloaked figure you saw with Mistress Freeman was just someone who had innocently stumbled on the body you had deposited in the church, and who had fled lest he be accused of a murder he did not commit?’ asked Michael. ‘Two people ran from the church that day wearing cloaks – you and this other person?’
‘So it would appear. But neither of us fled unnoticed: several people saw us – as your colleague Father William discovered when he practised his nasty Inquisition techniques on the village – and some may well have seen me, not the other person.’