Heltisle sneered. ‘Do not accuse me of fouling my hands with his filthy blood. And before you ask, I did not kill the spicer or that drunken nobody on the Chesterton road either.’
‘Wyse was not a nobody,’ said Bartholomew, amazed to discover that he was capable of disliking the arrogant Master of Bene’t even more than he did already. ‘The Franciscans were fond of him, he was one of my patients, and he was a member of the Michaelhouse Choir.’
‘The Marian Singers,’ corrected Michael.
‘Clippesby’s treatise is selling very well, by the way,’ said Heltisle, moving to another matter in which he felt victorious. ‘What a pity your College will not reap the profits.’
Michael thought it best to stay off that subject, lest he or Bartholomew inadvertently said something to make Heltisle smell a rat. ‘You have not answered my first question. Why are you so busily nosing through my private correspondence?’
‘And what is it doing in here anyway?’ put in Bartholomew.
Heltisle leaned back in the chair, his expression so gloating that Bartholomew did not know how Michael refrained from punching him.
‘Forgive me, Brother,’ he drawled. ‘I was just passing the time until you deigned to appear. This is now your office. It was inappropriate for the Senior Proctor to have a grander realm than the Chancellor, so I told de Wetherset to put matters right.’
‘So that is why lights burned in the church all night,’ mused Michael. ‘While I was busy preventing our University from going up in flames, you two were playing power games.’
Heltisle’s smirk slipped. ‘We were setting all to rights after your farce of a reign.’
‘If the room was so important, why did you not just ask for it?’ Michael was all bemused innocence. ‘I would have moved. There was no need for you to demean yourselves with this sort of pettiness.’
‘You would have refused,’ said Heltisle, wrong-footed by the monk’s response.
‘I assure you, Heltisle, I have far more important matters to occupy my mind than offices. But you still have not explained why you see fit to paw through my correspondence.’
Heltisle glared at him. ‘It is not your correspondence – it is the University’s. And of course the Chancellor’s deputy should know what it contains.’
Michael stepped forward and swept all the documents into a box. ‘Then take it. I am glad to be rid of it, to be frank. It represents a lot of very tedious work, which I now willingly hand to you, Vice-Chancellor.’
‘Now wait a moment,’ objected Heltisle. ‘I cannot waste my time with–’
‘No, no,’ said Michael, pulling him to his feet, shoving the box into his hands and propelling him towards the door. ‘You wanted it, so it is yours. I shall tell the Bishop to correspond with you about these matters in future. However, a word of warning – he does not tolerate incompetence, so learn fast. It would be a pity to see a promising career in ruins.’
‘But none of these missives make sense to me,’ snapped Heltisle, peering angrily over the top of the teetering pile. ‘You will need to explain the background behind–’
‘I am sure you can work it out.’ Michael smiled serenely. ‘A clever man like you.’
‘No! I am too busy for this sort of nonsense. I am–’
‘I suggest you make a start immediately. Some of it is urgent, and you do not want the Bishop vexed with you for tardiness. Perhaps you can do it instead of spreading silly lies about the Mayor. Oh, yes, I know where those tales originated, and I am shocked that you should stoop so low.’
Heltisle’s face was a combination of dismay, anger and chagrin. ‘You cannot berate me like an errant schoolboy. I am–’
‘Go, go,’ said Michael, pushing him through the door. ‘I am needed to save the University from the crisis your puerile capers has triggered. I cannot stand here bandying words with you all day.’
‘You might dismiss me, but you had better make time for de Wetherset,’ said Heltisle in a final attempt to save face. ‘He wants to see you at once.’
‘Of course,’ said Michael. ‘I would have been there already, but I trod in something nasty on my way. I shall attend him as soon as I have scraped the ordure from my boot.’
When Heltisle had gone, Michael looked thoughtfully around the tiny space that was now his, while Bartholomew waited in silence, waiting for the explosion. It did not come.
Michael saw what he was thinking and laughed. ‘Do not look dismayed on my account, Matt. I shall be back in my own quarters within a week.’
‘Then what about the documents? Do you really not mind him nosing through them?’
Michael laughed again. ‘I would have been vexed if he had not, given all the time I spent picking out the ones that would cause him the greatest problems.’
Bartholomew blinked. ‘So you predicted this would happen and prepared for it?’
Michael raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
De Wetherset looked supremely uncomfortable in Michael’s chair, behind Michael’s desk and with Michael’s rugs under his plump feet. Aynton was behind him, beaming as usual. The Commissary was immaculately dressed, right down to a fresh white bandage on his wrist – not one of Bartholomew’s, which meant he had gone to a different physician for his follow-up appointment. His boots gleamed, although not even the herculean efforts of his servant could disguise their ugliness or the marks caused by his fall at the Spital.
‘I knew you would understand,’ said de Wetherset in relief, when the monk wished him well in his new domain, although Heltisle, who had followed, glowered furiously. ‘A Chancellor cannot expect to be taken seriously if he operates from a cupboard at the back of the church while his Senior Proctor sits in splendour at the front.’
Michael grinned wolfishly. ‘It does not matter to me who works where. Now, why did you want to see me, Chancellor? Or would you rather have your consultation with Matt first?’
‘My stomach, Bartholomew,’ said de Wetherset piteously. ‘It roils again, and I need more of the remedy you gave me last time.’
‘Nerves,’ Bartholomew said, pulling some from his bag and handing it over. ‘Arising from fear of how the Senior Proctor might react at being displaced.’
‘Almost certainly,’ agreed de Wetherset with a wry smile. ‘But to business. How are the wounded in the friary? Should we expect more deaths?’
Bartholomew kept his reply brief when he saw that neither the Chancellor nor his deputy were very interested. Only Aynton was concerned, and announced his intention to visit the injured in their sickbeds, where he would caution them against future bad behaviour.
‘Of course, none of it would have happened if the town had stayed away from the butts,’ said de Wetherset, when the Commissary had finished babbling. ‘It was our turn to use them, and they should have respected that.’
‘They did it because you invaded their practice the night before,’ said Bartholomew tartly.
‘I hope you do not suggest that the skirmish was our fault,’ said Heltisle indignantly. ‘We are innocent victims in this unseemly affair.’
‘We are,’ agreed de Wetherset. ‘However, I am sure Michael and I can work together to ensure it does not happen again. We want no more trouble with the town.’
‘The best way to achieve that is to present culprits for some of the crimes that have been committed against us,’ said Heltisle curtly. ‘Unfortunately, the Senior Proctor is incapable of catching them.’
‘Because I was ordered to leave it to Aynton,’ Michael reminded him. ‘Ergo, the failure cannot be laid at my feet. However, I have continued to mull the matter over in my mind, and I was on my way to confront one culprit when you dragged me here.’