A Wicked Deed (31 page)

‘What are you going to do with him?’ demanded Bardolf of his son-in-law. ‘All this talk of midwives and infants is becoming tedious.’

Deblunville turned on him angrily. ‘I will talk about midwives and infants from dawn until dusk in my own home if it so suits me.’

He offered Bartholomew a stool near the fire. The physician sat gratefully, weary from his efforts to save Janelle‘s child, which had lasted through most of the night. Despite his tiredness, he felt more cheerful than he had done since they had arrived at Grundisburgh. He might have lost two battles with death – the hanged man and Unwin – but he was fairly sure he had won the third, and that Janelle would bear a healthy child if she followed his advice.

‘So,’ said Deblunville, passing him a goblet of wine. ‘A dog from Barchester attacked you, your servant drove it off, and you ran away as fast as you could to end up on our land.’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘I felt a person’s hand grabbing my foot, although I did not see him. Cynric saw only the dog.’

‘And you think the motive was theft?’ pressed Deblunville.

Bartholomew shrugged, sipping the wine. ‘Half the men in Otley saw Grosnold give me that gold coin, and any one of them could have slipped out and followed us.’

However, since no attempt had been made to search him for it, Bartholomew was far from certain that the purpose of the ambush had been to steal. He thought it far more likely that Grosnold or Ned had followed them, seeking to silence him over the matter of the knight’s meeting with Unwin just before his murder, or perhaps to ensure he did not expose Grosnold’s lies about the acquisition of his manor. But he kept his suspicions to himself. The last thing he wanted was to be drawn deeper into the murky affairs of the squabbling Suffolk manors.

‘Perhaps it was a stray,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Unwin claimed to have seen a big white dog in Barchester, two days before he died.’

‘So I understand.’ Deblunville smiled at Bartholomew’s surprise. ‘This is the country. Rumours and stories spread faster here than rats through a granary.’

‘Then you should know there is also a rumour that you set eyes on the thing.’

Deblunville shook his head, amused. ‘I saw a wolf that scurried off when I tried to shoot it. I expect one of my archers mentioned the episode to some kinsmen in Grundisburgh – for all our bickering and fighting, nearly all Burgh folk have relatives there – and the story was put out that I had encountered Padfoot.’

‘So, you do not believe Padfoot exists?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘I believe someone has resurrected a silly tale that dates back to pagan times, and that Tuddenham and Grosnold have capitalised on it to provide an excuse for their spies being found on my land. I also believe that the two Grundisburgh villagers, who died after supposedly seeing Padfoot, were killed by Tuddenham as a punishment, because they were caught red-handed by me trespassing on my manor. And I believe that someone in his cups heard I saw a wolf, and started the rumour that what I really saw was Padfoot.’

‘Do you honestly think that James Freeman and Alice Quy were sent to spy on you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘A butcher and a woman with a new baby?’

‘I know they were,’ said Deblunville firmly.

‘You are irritable today,’ said Deblunville mildly. ‘Take some wine to soothe your temper.’

‘Take some laudanum to soothe your back,’ said Bartholomew.

‘Do you have some?’ asked Bardolf eagerly. ‘Give it to me!’

Bartholomew mixed some of the powder with the wine in his goblet and handed it to Bardolf, who almost snatched it in his desperation.

‘If this kills me, I will kill you,’ he warned.

‘Drink it slowly,’ instructed Bartholomew, ignoring the odd logic. ‘Or it will make you dizzy.’

‘Dizziness would be a blessing,’ muttered Bardolf. ‘I have no relief from this pain. My father was the same and his father before him. Stoate bleeds me each full moon, but it makes no difference.’

Bartholomew could well believe it. ‘So, why are you so sure that Tuddenham wants to spy on you?’ he asked, still not certain that he understood all the twisted facts and reasoning behind the Padfoot legend.

‘Well, I suppose it is not really spying,’ said Deblunville, watching Bardolf sip Bartholomew’s potion with exaggerated care. ‘It is really searching.’

‘Searching for what?’ asked Bartholomew. He sat back, and gave a sudden laugh of disbelief, recalling Tuddenham’s unpleasant questioning of Cynric at Unwin’s graveside. ‘The golden calf! He is looking for the golden calf! Is that what Janelle said you should tell us earlier tonight, so that we would understand why you do not want spies on your land?’

It was Deblunville’s turn to look surprised. ‘Tuddenham told you about the calf?’

‘Of course he did,’ spat Bardolf. ‘That is what they were doing on our land – looking for it.’

‘I read about it at St Edmundsbury,’ said Bartholomew, ignoring the old man. ‘But it is a myth, a legend that is entertaining but that has no base in fact.’

‘That is not what Tuddenham believes,’ said Deblunville. ‘The lords of Grundisburgh have been hunting for the golden calf for as long as anyone can remember. They think it was hidden when the monks stole the bones of St Botolph, and that all they need to do is to dig until it is found.’

‘But no one knows where this chapel was supposed to be,’ said Bartholomew. ‘How can Tuddenham hope to find it by random digging?’

‘You are a scholar; your mind is too logical,’ said Deblunville. ‘Each time a tree is felled, Tuddenham or Hamon goes to pore over the roots; when a grave is dug, they sift through the soil; when foundations for a new building are laid, they pay men to dig a little deeper.’

‘But Tuddenham has decided that the chapel might not have been on his land after all,’ said Bardolf, drowsy from the laudanum. ‘So he is widening his search to Burgh, Clopton and Otley.’

‘Virtually every night, people from Grundisburgh slip out to poke around on their neighbours’ land to see what they can find,’ said Deblunville. ‘Grosnold does not object – he knows Tuddenham will share the profits with him if it is found on his manor – but Bardolf and I do not want our precious crops damaged by futile treasure-hunting.’

‘Sheep, man, sheep,’ said Bardolf. ‘You have crops, but I have sheep. I do not want my poor animals terrified in the middle of the night because some greed-crazed lunatics are digging in my pens. Nor do I want my beasts worried by the mongrels that always accompany them.’

‘Perhaps Tuddenham owns a white dog,’ said Bardolf, yawning. ‘Perhaps he lets it loose at night to frighten people, so that they will not go out. And then no one will see his diggers at work.’

‘That is possible,’ said Deblunville, nodding. ‘The animal is definitely real. Ghosts do not leave hairs behind them, and there are enough hairs on the doctor’s cloak to stuff a mattress.’

‘So, all this is about a mythical golden idol,’ mused Bartholomew, almost to himself. ‘I suppose poor Unwin was killed because of it, too.’

‘How?’ asked Deblunville. ‘He was stabbed in the church, not on someone else’s land, and anyway, he had not been in the village long enough to have been recruited for gold-digging.’

Bartholomew did not care to speculate, although the obvious answer was that Grosnold had told Unwin about it, and then killed him when he declined to have anything to do with it. And Unwin was not killed in the church, but outside it, where his blood still stained the grass and grey stones of the buttress. He stood, and prepared to take his leave.

‘All I know is that I would like this wretched deed signed and sealed as soon as possible, so that we can leave this treasure-hunting and intrigue for those that enjoy it. I will come back tomorrow to see your wife, if you like, although I am certain she will recover, if you let her rest.’

‘You can come back to see me, too,’ said Bardolf comfortably. ‘That laudanum is powerful stuff. I can feel my aches draining away.’

‘Good,’ said Deblunville. ‘Perhaps it will improve your temper.’

‘Cheeky whelp!’ muttered Bardolf, shooting his son-in-law a genuinely venomous glower. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘I am only here to ensure he does not do away with Janelle in the first two weeks of his marriage, as he did the poor old widow, Pernel.’

Deblunville laughed carelessly, although Bartholomew was not entirely certain that Bardolf had been jesting. The physician went to help Cynric to his feet, alarmed by the lack-lustre look in his book-bearer’s eyes, and took his leave of Deblunville and Bardolf. As they walked the short distance to Grundisburgh in the pale light that lit the land before dawn, Bartholomew did all he could to convince Cynric that the dog was as mortal as any other animal, but Cynric refused to accept that Padfoot was anything other than a hound from hell, sent to snatch him away in the prime of his life.

‘I should have married before I left Cambridge,’ he mumbled. ‘Then I would have died happy.’

‘So, you have decided then?’ asked Bartholomew encouragingly, to try to take Cynric’s mind off his impending doom. ‘You sounded uncertain whether the married life was for you when we last spoke about this, and now you say it will make you happy?’

Cynric did not answer but pointed down the road. ‘Someone is there,’ he said flatly. ‘Waiting for us in the bushes.’

‘You mean lying in ambush?’ asked Bartholomew, alarmed. ‘Again?’

‘We do not seem to be particularly welcome around here,’ said Cynric morosely.

‘Is your bow ready?’ asked Bartholomew, peering down the still-dark lane to where Cynric had pointed. He could see nothing, but his book-bearer’s intuition in such matters was infallible. ‘We might frighten him off.’

Lethargically, Cynric took his bow from his shoulder and stood with it held loosely in his hands.

‘You will survive it well enough,’ said Cynric gloomily.
‘You
did not see the white dog.’

Bartholomew sighed. ‘Stay here, then, and keep watch. I will cut round behind him and see if I can flush him out.’

Cynric nodded careless acquiescence, and Bartholomew ducked off the path and began to make his way to the back of a thicket, where he assumed the ambusher was hiding. He was concerned, aware that the Welshman would never have allowed him to undertake such a task had he been himself. Wincing as he trod on sticks that cracked loudly, and rustling through leaves like a rampaging boar, he crept steadily forward, wishing he had paid more attention to Cynric’s past advice on stealth.

The would-be attacker knelt behind a bush, peering up the path. In the half-light of early dawn, Bartholomew could see nothing more than a shadow muffled in a cloak. As far as he could tell, the man was alone; no accomplices lurked in the undergrowth. With a yell that made the figure leap to his feet in shock, Bartholomew dashed toward the bush and hurled himself at him. There was a brief struggle, during which Bartholomew shouted to Cynric not to fire, and fists and feet flew wildly on both sides, but neither with any precision. It was not long before Bartholomew, taller and stronger, had the man pinned down on the ground by both wrists.

‘Stoate!’

Bartholomew gazed at Grundisburgh’s physician in confusion, while Warin de Stoate stared back, his eyes huge in the gloom.

‘Bartholomew! What in God’s name are you doing? Let me up!’

‘What were you doing?’ Bartholomew demanded of Stoate. ‘Men with nothing to hide do not skulk around in the bushes first thing in the morning.’

‘I did not want to be seen,’ said Stoate enigmatically, still picking leaves and grass from his cloak. ‘I was going to wait until you passed, and then be on my way.’

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Cynric thought you were going to ambush us.’

‘Why should I do that?’ asked Stoate, genuinely puzzled. ‘You have nothing I want – no offence intended. And I am not the kind of man to commit robbery on the roads – I am a respected member of the community, and people look up to me.’

‘I wanted a word with you, anyway,’ said Bartholomew, still not certain that he believed him. ‘I have just come from Janelle Deblunville. She became ill after drinking a potion you prescribed her, containing betony and pennyroyal.’

Stoate’s jaw dropped. ‘She
drank
it? She
drank
my potion?’

‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew coldly. ‘That is what you instructed her to do, is it not?’

Stoate drew himself up to his full height. ‘I can assure you it was not! She is with child – betony and pennyroyal are abortive agents. The potion I gave her was to be added to vinegar and inhaled as a cure for dizziness – as the great Pliny suggests. She was most certainly not supposed to drink it. Is she all right?’