‘This particular cup has undergone some very sinister travels,’ said Michael, deciding not to address Suttone’s peculiar rationale. ‘Ever since it was stolen twenty years ago.’
‘Perhaps, but its movements cannot be relevant to its sanctity,’ argued Suttone. ‘The bishop and Simon are right: it does have an aura. I feel in my heart that it is the genuine article.’
‘People said the same thing about the Cambridge relic – the one dubbed the Hand of Justice,’ said Michael. ‘And I learned then that men’s beliefs are something quite different from the truth.’
‘You should see to your friend,’ said de Wetherset, after a few moments during which the debate became quite heated. ‘You are virtually yelling and still he sleeps.’
Concerned, Michael went to the physician’s bed and touched his shoulder. When nothing happened, he prodded him hard with a forefinger, relieved when he stirred and sat up.
‘What is the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Michael. ‘I was just making sure you have not been poisoned. There seems to be a lot of it about these days.’
‘Poisoned with what? We have had nothing to eat or drink since we left the Bishop’s Palace.’
‘Ignore me, Matt. My nerves are all afire this morning. Lord! There go the Gilbertines’ bells. I am tempted to ask Cynric to steal their clappers. That would stop them in their tracks.’
Michael was unwilling to leave the convent before it was light, so was obliged to attend prime in St Katherine’s Chapel. Bartholomew stood at the back until he was sure Prior Roger had noted his presence, then slipped away to read in the refectory instead. After a breakfast in which the Michaelhouse men were served smoked pork and boiled eggs but everyone else had oatmeal pottage, he and Michael went to look at the chalice again. Michael stared at it for a long time, shaking his head.
‘I am not the best of monks, but I should be able to tell a brazen fraud from something sacred. I suspect I could gaze at this thing until Judgement Day and be none the wiser. What do you think?’
Bartholomew inspected it closely. ‘St Hugh died about a hundred and fifty years ago; this cup is thin, battered and tarnished, and might well be that old.’
‘Is that a yes or a no to its authenticity?’
‘It is an “I have no idea”. I do not feel the urge to fall to my knees, but I do not want to pick it up and toss it out of the window, either.’
‘St Hugh really did own a chalice with a carving of the Baby Jesus on it – it was recorded by his chronicler. So perhaps we should give it the benefit of the doubt.’
‘You did not come, Michael,’ came a soft voice from behind them. The monk jumped in alarm and spun around. ‘You said we should meet last night after vespers. I waited an hour, but you never came.’
Christiana looked especially lovely that morning, her cheeks pale in the flickering light of the candles. She wore a cote-hardie of gentian blue, which almost exactly matched the colour of her eyes. Uneasily, Bartholomew wondered whether she had abandoned the Gilbertine habit she usually favoured in order to remind Michael that she had not yet taken monastic vows, and all they entailed.
‘Lord!’ exclaimed Michael in horror. ‘It slipped my mind.’
Her expression was incredulous, and Bartholomew saw she found it hard to believe that she could ‘slip’ anyone’s mind. He imagined it would be a stunning blow to her ego. ‘You forgot about me?’
‘Not forgot,’ hedged Michael uncomfortably. ‘My attention was snagged by another matter. Someone tried to kill me last night.’
Her jaw dropped in shock. ‘I heard a commotion, but no one told me what it was about.’
She gasped in horror when Michael told her what had happened and she learned how close the attack had come to succeeding. With a sense of unease, Bartholomew saw she had definitely developed a soft spot for the fat Benedictine.
‘This is terrible!’ she cried, aghast. ‘You must hurry to the Shrine of Little Hugh immediately, and ask him to watch over you. I shall do the same. And tell the bishop to appoint someone else to do his dirty work. Giving him answers about Aylmer’s death cannot be worth your life.’
‘No,’ agreed the monk. ‘However, I shall be on my guard now, and will not be easy to dispatch. Of course, it may not have been me these villains wanted.’
Christiana regarded Bartholomew doubtfully. ‘Why should you be a target?’
‘Spayne knows he would like to find Matilde,’ explained Michael, keeping his suspicions about Miller to himself, ‘but he refused to help, even though he may have some idea as to where she might have gone. Perhaps he decided that killing Matt was the best way to ensure the hunt for her ends.’
‘That does not sound like Spayne,’ said Christiana. Her expression became wistful. ‘Dear Matilde. I shall never forget her kindness to me when my mother died. Perhaps it was my grief that prompted her to persecute poor Ursula so vigorously. I never did tell her my contention that my mother determined her own destiny. I intended to, but she was gone before I had the chance.’
