Bartholomew led the still-spluttering de Wetherset outside to where Cynric was waiting, his face a cool mask of disapproval.
‘You lingered a long time,’ he said, accusingly. ‘I expected you to follow my example sooner.’
‘She … she touched me,’ stammered de Wetherset, outraged. ‘And I am absolutely certain it was deliberate. She must have been trying to seduce me!’
‘Do you see yourself as irresistible to lovely women, then?’ asked Suttone sullenly. He had not been touched and seduced enough.
‘Of course I am!’ snapped de Wetherset. ‘Powerful men are irresistible to people of either sex, but that is no excuse for her to make herself familiar with my person. We are in the sacred confines of a Cathedral Close! I certainly shall not visit that den of iniquity again.’
Agnes had followed them outside. ‘Ravenser said you forgot this,’ she said, passing the cloak de Wetherset had abandoned in his agitation. ‘It is cold, and you will not want to walk home without it.’
Ungraciously, de Wetherset snatched it from her hand and strode away, Suttone hurrying after him when he saw him head in entirely the wrong direction in his agitation. While the monk watched Suttone herd the ex-Chancellor towards the right gate, Bartholomew made a grab for the folds of Agnes’s unfashionably voluminous skirts. She started to screech, but stopped abruptly when he located a linen bag hidden among the pleats. It was suspended by a ribbon, and clanked in a way that suggested several items were contained within.
‘That is mine,’ snapped Agnes, trying to wriggle away from him. ‘The men here sometimes do not have coins, so they pay with other items instead.’
Bartholomew tugged the bag, breaking the ribbon. Agnes hastened to snatch it back, but he fended her off with one hand and emptied its contents on to the ground with the other.
‘This,’ he said, grabbing a gold cup to wave at her, ‘belongs to Adam Miller. It is one of a set of four, although the dean has ensured that Miller is now the perplexed owner of a set of three.’
‘I will give it to the bishop tomorrow,’ she said sulkily. ‘There is a special box for anything from the dean, and Gynewell always makes sure it gets to its rightful owner. It is part of the arrangement of working here: anything from Bresley goes to the bishop, and the rest we can keep.’
‘How odd,’ said Michael, bemused.
‘Bresley is ill,’ explained Agnes. ‘He does not know what he is doing. The bishop says he is a good dean, and does not want to find a replacement, although it means he is obliged to spend an hour of each morning returning borrowed property. That cup will be back with Miller by noon tomorrow.’
‘And what is this?’ asked Cynric, picking up another item. ‘Did the dean give you this, too?’
Michael gazed at it in shock. ‘That is the Hugh Chalice!’
‘So is this,’ said Cynric, producing the one he had taken from Miller’s house.
‘Lord!’ exclaimed Michael, placing them side by side and inspecting them in the dim light of the lamp that burned above the tavern’s door. ‘They are identical. Which is the real one?’
‘The one in the Gilbertine Priory presumably,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Unless all three are fakes.’
‘Where did you get this?’ demanded Michael of Agnes. ‘Who gave it to you?’
‘Tetford,’ said Agnes reluctantly. ‘After he had decided to close his tavern. He gave one to each of his favourite girls, and said we could sell them to keep us from poverty. He said they were the cups St Hugh used for his wild – but generally respectable – parties.’
‘And how did Tetford come by them?’ asked Michael, his face creased in confusion.
‘He did not say. Why? Was he wrong about their value? The others will not be pleased, because they have already made arrangements with some of the city’s convents. Lincoln’s religious foundations are always eager to buy St Hugh’s relics.’
‘How many of these cups are there?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily.
‘He gave one each to me, Belle, Jane and Rosanna,’ said Agnes. Her expression was hard and angry. ‘He said there are no others like them anywhere in the world, but now I see he was lying as usual. God rot his filthy soul!’
It was past eight o’clock by the time Bartholomew, Michael, Suttone, de Wetherset and Cynric started to walk back to the Gilbertine Priory. Michael carried Agnes’s bag, and in it were the four chalices Tetford had given to his ladies, along with the one Cynric had found in Miller’s home.
‘I do not understand,’ said Bartholomew, speaking in a low voice because it was late and people in the houses they passed were asleep. Hard little pellets of snow swirled in all directions. They bounced across the frozen ground, where the wind blew them into dry, shifting heaps. ‘These cups look similar – if not identical – to the one Shirlok was accused of stealing in Cambridge. What is happening?’
Michael was thoughtful. ‘Someone has obviously been making copies of the real one in an attempt to make his fortune.’
‘If there is a real one,’ said de Wetherset. ‘But regardless, local convents will jump at an opportunity to buy a relic of St Hugh, especially if it is made of silver.’
‘I doubt these are silver,’ said Bartholomew. ‘There is a spotting on them that suggests they are forged from some base metal.’
‘Well, they look silver to me,’ said de Wetherset, ‘so they will look silver to potential buyers. I was right to be sceptical of Simon’s chalice – the poor man was as deceived as those impertinent women. I always knew he did not possess my abilities.’
‘What abilities?’ asked Suttone sulkily. He had been enjoying himself in Ravenser’s House of Pleasure, and held de Wetherset responsible for bringing a pleasant evening to a premature end.
‘My talent for distinguishing genuine relics from false ones. It is a gift from God.’
Bartholomew was relieved when they reached the Gilbertine Priory, and even more relieved when there was someone waiting to let them in. Prior Roger had not liked the notion that his guests – especially Suttone – might abandon him, and was ready to do all in his power to keep them. He was so determined they should not be obliged to go through his garden a second night, that he had waited in the porter’s lodge himself, to make sure the guard did not fall victim to another flask of drugged wine.
‘There you are,’ he said, leaping to his feet to usher them inside. ‘I was beginning to be worried.’
‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘It is a dangerous–’
‘Well, you are here now, thank the Lord!’ Roger beamed. ‘I hope you had a good evening. Is it snowing yet? I think we shall have a heavy fall before the night is out.’
‘It is just starting again,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Is Father Simon in the guest-hall?’
Roger shook his head. ‘Hamo saw him with you at Flaxfleete’s funeral. Did you separate afterwards? That was unwise, given the number of villains arriving for Miller’s Market.’
‘Hamo saw us?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily. He had not spotted the wet-lipped Gilbertine, and he disliked the notion that someone had been watching him without his knowledge.
‘Simon has not returned?’ asked Michael, equally unsettled. ‘He left us hours ago, and said he was going to walk straight home. I hope he has not come to any harm.’
Eager to impress them with his level of concern for absent guests, Roger organised a hunt, sending his brethren out to make a thorough search of first the convent’s buildings, and then its grounds. There was no sign of the priest, so Bartholomew offered to walk back to the city, following the route Simon would have taken. Cynric, Michael and three burly lay-brothers accompanied him, but they met with no success.
‘His belongings are here,’ said de Wetherset, when they returned, cold and tired. ‘I have been through them, but there is nothing to suggest he intended to spend the night away. And Suttone and I have spoken to everyone here, and no one has any idea where else he might be.’
‘He is local,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps he has gone to stay with friends.’