‘You can still escape,’ he said in a reasonable voice. ‘Abandon what you are doing and leave. You will find another property to run, given the number left vacant by the plague, and you can begin your lives again somewhere else.’
‘Why should we?’ demanded Eudo. ‘I will not be driven away by lies. This is my home.’
‘They are not lies,’ said Michael. ‘You have stolen – from people like Matilde, and from Merton – and you have been found out. Personally, I would rather see you hang, but my colleague is offering you a chance. Take it, before you end up with a rope around your necks.’
‘No!’ shouted Eudo. ‘None of it is true – except for the accounting, and that was Boltone. I have stolen nothing! I am the victim of a University plot, which blames me for its own crimes. But I have a plan. I will exonerate myself, and everything will return to normal.’
‘These will not exonerate you,’ said Michael, picking up one of the proclamations. ‘Lies can be written just as easily as they can be spoken, and putting pen to parchment does not produce a truth.’
‘You see?’ said Boltone. ‘I told you it would not work.’
‘People will believe what is written,’ insisted Eudo stubbornly. ‘Especially clerks. They will read what I dictated, and see that the real villains are scholars – Polmorva, Dodenho and men like them.’
‘Chesterfelde visited Cambridge regularly,’ said Bartholomew, turning over what he had deduced. ‘I think it was he who helped keep your deception from Merton for so long – for a price, I imagine. What was it? A third of the profits?’
‘How do you know that?’ demanded Boltone, aghast. ‘He said he never told anyone.’
Bartholomew did not want to admit that it had been a guess. ‘You two and Chesterfelde met last Saturday night, to discuss what to do about Duraunt’s inspection. You formulated a plan to evade exposure, and to demonstrate the depth of your commitment, you decided to sign it with blood.’
‘To mingle blood,’ corrected Boltone, glowering at Eudo. ‘As a sign of undying brotherhood. It was a stupid idea.’
‘A stupid idea devised by men in their cups,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘Eudo had been drinking at the King’s Head, while Chesterfelde was drunk on wine provided by the merchants.’
‘The mixing of blood was symbolic of our loyalty,’ protested Eudo. ‘Knights do it all the time.’
‘But Chesterfelde cut himself too deeply – or you did it for him.’ Bartholomew considered. ‘No, he did it himself. The wound was on his left wrist, and I know he was right-handed because I saw writing calluses on his fingers: he used his right hand to slice his left arm. Blood pumped from him as he stood by the cistern, and none of you could stop it.’
‘We did not know how,’ said Eudo resentfully. ‘We tried holding the limb in the air, we hunted for leeches in the cistern, but nothing worked. Meanwhile, Tulyet’s brat was watching everything.’
‘Dickon,’ mused Michael. ‘So, it was Chesterfelde’s death he saw – the splashing he mentioned was you searching for leeches, not the sound of Hamecotes’s corpse being dropped down the well. He identified you as the killer, but was vague about the victim.’
‘He shot me later,’ said Eudo resentfully. ‘Evil little tyke. I will put an end to his violent antics when I am reinstated as tenant of Merton Hall. He will not spy on me again.’
‘I was not drunk,’ said Boltone. ‘Well, not very, and the brat cannot have me blamed for what happened to Chesterfelde.’
‘And what was that?’ asked Michael. ‘Exactly.’
‘Eudo frightened Chesterfelde with his fury over Duraunt’s inspection. It made him cut himself over-vigorously – to demonstrate the extent of his kinship with us.’
‘He should not have used such a large dagger,’ said Eudo, sounding more indignant than sorry. ‘It was unwieldy and he was clumsy from wine. He should have used my little knife instead.’
‘And then you tried to make the accident look like murder, by dumping his body in the hall with the dagger in his back,’ surmised Michael. ‘His Oxford companions were all drunk, too, so they slept through the racket you must have made.’
‘Except Polmorva,’ said Eudo. ‘The others were all snoring but he saw what we were doing. He promised to say nothing, in return for certain favours.’
‘It was Eudo’s idea,’ said Boltone bitterly, before Michael could ask what favours the sly scholar had demanded. ‘He said if we left Chesterfelde’s body in their midst, the Oxford men would be blamed for his death, and we would not.’
‘Your only crimes are dishonesty and stupidity,’ said the monk, disgusted with them both. ‘You are innocent of murder, and it was just unfortunate coincidence that someone used your cistern as a grave for Hamecotes, not knowing it was where you kept your hoard.’
‘We have no hoard,’ insisted Eudo. ‘I keep telling you: we had nothing to do with that.’
‘You stole Matilde’s silver dog.’
‘I visited her for a remedy – my woman will not lie with me as long as she has female pains; I gave Alyce the cure, but she still only has eyes for Ralph de Langelee – but I stole nothing from Matilde.’
Michael glanced at Weasenham, who sat scratching out his proclamations and weeping softly. ‘Go,’ the monk said to Eudo and Boltone, pointing to the door. ‘Leave Cambridge while you can.’
‘I will not, and I will kill anyone who tries to make me,’ Eudo shouted, brandishing the crossbow in a way that made his prisoners flinch in alarm. ‘No one saw you coming here – I watched you sneaking down the lane myself – and no one saw us, either. Therefore, no one will know it was us who killed you.’ He looked pleased with his logic.
‘Weasenham will know,’ Michael pointed out. He rested a heavy forearm on one of the shelves and gave it a nudge to test its stability. Bartholomew saw what he intended to do, and started to edge slowly along the bench towards him.
‘He will die, too,’ said Eudo coldly. ‘He has almost finished what he is writing, and we have no further need of his services.’
‘No!’ shrieked Weasenham. ‘You said I would live if I did what you asked. You promised!’
‘That was before they arrived,’ snapped Eudo. ‘I cannot release a witness to their deaths.’
‘I can keep secrets!’ howled Weasenham. ‘I have kept the one about Bartholomew visiting Matilde. Ask Brother Michael. I have not breathed a word about that to anyone.’
‘Finish that document, and let us bring an end to this,’ said Eudo, unbarring the door to glance outside. Bartholomew saw the streets were becoming busy, as people flocked towards the Market Square, and there was an atmosphere of excitement in the rattle of many footsteps. He eased closer towards the shelves, gradually slipping down the slick surface of the bench, and trying not to let Eudo see what he was doing. ‘We have one of those proclamations for every scholar, priest and clerk in the town, and a copy is sure to reach the Archbishop. He will recognise the truth and will take our case before the King.’
‘He will not,’ said Michael scornfully. ‘And it will be obvious who killed Weasenham, since this parchment – covered in his writing – is to be distributed throughout the town. It is a ludicrous plan.’
‘You see?’ demanded Boltone of Eudo. ‘I told you it would not work.’
‘It would have done, if these scholars had not spoiled it,’ snarled Eudo. A thought occurred to him, and a wicked smile crossed his face. ‘We will shoot them first, then set the shop alight. All anyone will find is charred corpses, and no one will ever know what really happened.’