‘This is madness,’ snapped Michael, grabbing Bartholomew’s arm to wrench him to a standstill. ‘Even if we do manage to reach Hoo Hall, we will not get out again – the flood is rising by the moment, and the only way to escape will be by boat.’
Bartholomew knew the monk was right, because he could feel the tug of a current around his legs – more water was flowing into Coe Fen with every minute that passed. But a sort of madness had seized him at the prospect of a solution, so he shook off the monk’s restraining hand and forged ahead. He would not give up now!
They waded on. Michael was silent and Bartholomew knew he was worried – the monk could not swim, and had always been afraid of drowning.
‘Thank God!’ he breathed, when they finally reached the house. He stretched unsteady hands to touch the wall in relief. ‘We made it.’
They ploughed towards the door to find water pouring through it – Bartholomew had forgotten that the bottom floor was below ground level. He raised the lamp and saw tables and benches floating around inside, some still piled with the food that had been stored there. Then he almost lost his footing as the force of the water increased all of a sudden, almost certainly as a result of some blockage breaking free upstream. For the first time, he appreciated the danger his reckless single-mindedness had put them in.
‘We should abandon this foolery and go back,’ said Michael unsteadily, more alarmed than ever. ‘Narboro must wait.’
‘We cannot,’ said Bartholomew, staggering again as the water surged faster still. ‘It is too late. You were right – we should not have come.’
Michael’s face was white in the lamplight. ‘Then I sincerely hope you have a plan to keep us safe, because if I drown, I shall haunt you for eternity.’
Bartholomew nodded towards the stairs on the far side of the hall. ‘We have to reach those and go up to the dormitory. We should be safe there, and Narboro can answer questions while we wait for rescue.’
‘You mean swim?’ gulped Michael in horror. ‘But you know I cannot!’
‘It is not very deep yet,’ said Bartholomew. ‘We can wade. Come on.’
He climbed down the steps into icy water that covered his knees, then his thighs, then his waist. By the time he was on the floor, it was up to his chest, although the gushing flow from the door suggested it would not stay that way for long.
‘Quickly,’ he ordered Michael. ‘Just follow me.’
He held the lantern high with one hand, and shoved aside the furniture that bobbed in their way with the other. The water was agonisingly cold, and yet again, he realised that his frantic desire for answers had been stupid. Then something flashed ahead of him – another lantern. Narboro was coming down the dormitory stairs. He carried a saddlebag and wore a travelling cloak.
‘You are not going anywhere,’ called Bartholomew. ‘You are a murderer!’
For a moment, the only sounds in Hoo Hall were the hiss of the flood rushing through the door and Michael’s agitated breathing. The water now reached their shoulders, and if it rose by more than the length of a man’s hand, the monk would drown, because he would no longer be able to touch the floor with his feet. Bartholomew continued to plough towards the stairs, pulling Michael with him.
‘We know you killed Morys,’ he told Narboro as he went. ‘We found part of your mirror in his body. You used a piece of it to saw off his head. Lyonnes’, too.’
‘I never did,’ shouted Narboro, although he drew a dagger, which did nothing to convince them of his innocence. ‘But come any closer and I will stab you.’
‘Hoo Hall is surrounded by water,’ said Bartholomew, aware that behind him, Michael was beginning to panic. ‘You cannot escape, so you may as well confess.’
‘Stop!’ snarled Narboro, drawing a second blade. ‘One more step and I will lob these – one for each of you. Now back away, against the far wall, at once!’
With alarm, Bartholomew saw he meant it. Reluctantly, he began to do as he was told, although the water was now up to his chin, and it was easier to swim than to walk. His arm ached from holding the lamp, but he dared not drop it, because if Narboro retreated back to the dormitory, he and Michael would be trapped in a flooded room in the dark, an outcome that did not bear thinking about.
‘Keep moving!’ shouted Narboro. ‘Right across to the hearth.’
Bartholomew was loath to comply, because that would leave him too far away to launch any kind of attack, but Narboro took aim with his blade, so he quickly did as he was told. He helped Michael to a place where the monk could cling to the top of the fireplace, then turned his attention back to Narboro.
‘You lied about your reason for paying Morys,’ he called, as his teeth started to chatter from the cold. ‘It was to buy his silence about you beheading Lyonnes. I suppose he kept demanding more, so you killed him, too.’
Narboro peered towards the main door, gauging the distance. ‘What reason could I possibly have had for dispatching Lyonnes?’ he asked, although he sounded distant, his mind on escape. ‘I barely knew the man.’
Bartholomew had no answer, but was not about to admit it. ‘The shards of your mirror were sharp – you showed them to me – but it still must have taken some serious hacking to decapitate him. You got the idea from Dickon, who had threatened to cleave Lyonnes’ head from his shoulders after a row. You knew everyone would think he did it, thus deflecting the blame from you.’
‘What nonsense!’ cried Narboro, most of his attention still on the door.
‘Dickon is a child,’ said Bartholomew accusingly. ‘What sort of man lets a boy suffer for a crime he has committed himself?’
Narboro sneered. ‘He may be young, but the Devil sired him, and no one other than his father was sorry when he was arrested.’
Bartholomew was painfully aware that Michael was beginning to run out of handholds as the water lifted them ever higher. His own legs ached from staying afloat, while his arms burned with the effort of holding the lamp aloft.
‘You are a liar,’ he went on, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. ‘You do know what Aynton wrote in the letter that saw Huntyngdon murdered. And that led you to dispatch Lyonnes and Morys.’
‘He did not kill them,’ came a voice from the door. ‘I did.’
Lucy Brampton was in the doorway, paddling a coracle.
Chapter 19
Bartholomew was so stunned by Lucy’s arrival that the lamp slid from his fingers and almost fell in the water, while Michael lost his grip on the wall and was forced to scrabble wildly until he found another handhold. Both were too astonished to speak, although a distant part of Bartholomew’s mind reminded him that Narboro had been sick at the sight of Elsham’s relatively unscathed corpse, so sawing off heads would likely be well beyond him. Lucy, on the other hand, had not baulked at preparing Martyn’s decomposing body for the grave.
‘You took your time,’ Narboro told her sourly. ‘And how could you be so careless as to leave a piece of my mirror in Morys’s corpse?’
‘A proper man would have had a knife to hand,’ Lucy flashed back at him, ‘but all you could provide was a bit of glass. But never mind this. The river is flooding fast, so if you do not want to drown, jump in and swim to my boat.’