‘He should have remained with us,’ said Suttone, annoyed by the trouble the priest was causing.
‘Perhaps he has less cause to be worried about being ambushed than the rest of us,’ said Michael thoughtfully. He turned to de Wetherset. ‘I want to know about his alibi for Aylmer’s stabbing. Why did you lie about it? No, do not look shocked: this is important. You must tell me the truth.’
De Wetherset’s expression was furious. ‘I did tell you the truth. How dare you!’
‘One on occasion you told me – rather smugly – that you had not attended the Gilbertines’ prime since your first morning here. However, when we asked after Simon’s whereabouts when Aylmer was murdered, you said you heard him singing in the chapel. You cannot have it both ways.’
De Wetherset sighed angrily. ‘You always were a pedant, picking at details. As it happens, I was in the chapel that morning – I was speaking figuratively when I said I avoided every office after my first day. However, since you love irrelevancies, you should bear in mind my exact words when I answered that question: I said Simon had a loud voice. I did not say I had heard it, and the truth is that I cannot remember. Perhaps I heard him that day, perhaps I did not. I am afraid dawn offices tend to run together in my mind. However, he offered me a roof over my head at a very reasonable price when I first arrived in the city, and I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He is no killer.’
‘I think he might be an arsonist, though,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He set his own home alight to hurry along the offer of a prebendal stall. It was not his house – it belonged to Holy Cross. Now the parish will have to pay for a new one.’
‘I suspected at the time that he had had a hand in the conflagration,’ admitted de Wetherset. ‘We could have doused it when he woke me, but he told me to save my belongings first. By the time we had done that, the blaze had taken too firm a hold. Having said that, he intends to pay for a new building himself, out of his prebend, and it will be bigger and better than he one he burned. His only real crime was impatience – he wanted the promised stall sooner rather than later.’
‘What shall we do?’ asked Prior Roger unhappily, when he came a few moments later to see if Simon had been found. ‘We cannot sit by the fire when the poor man is missing.’
‘We have no choice,’ said Michael. ‘There is nothing we can do until daylight, and we-’
‘We shall pray for his safety,’ announced Roger. ‘Ring the bells, Hamo. Rouse the brethren from their beds. We shall make sure all the saints hear our petitions.’
‘Amen to that!’ cried Hamo.
Not liking to sleep when everyone else was obliged to attend the impromptu service, Bartholomew trailed after Michael. Then, while Roger assembled his flock and the organ started to wheeze, he walked to the altar and looked for the Hugh Chalice. It was not there.
‘Where is it?’ he asked of Roger, breaking into the prior’s first alleluia.
Roger gazed at the empty spot in horror. ‘It was here this afternoon. I saw it myself.’
‘Do you think Simon found out he had been cheated?’ asked Michael. ‘And tackled the culprit?’
‘You mean Chapman?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘He is too ill for visitors, and I doubt Miller would have let Simon see him.’
‘He might,’ whispered Cynric. ‘Why should he refuse the request of his own brother?’
‘We can ask tomorrow, when I change the dressing on Chapman’s arm,’ said Bartholomew.
‘Will they answer you honestly?’ asked Roger worriedly. ‘Why would they, if they murdered Father Simon themselves?’
Simon did not appear for prime the following morning, and the Gilbertines declared they missed his booming voice. Candles were lit in St Katherine’s Chapel, more prayers were howled and, at first light, Bartholomew went out again to see if he could find him. The promised snow had not materialised in any significant way, although there was a nip in the air that suggested the threat was far from over. He walked all the way to the Bail, asking everyone he met whether they had seen the priest, and returned via the frozen-edged Braytheford Pool and Simon’s old church, Holy Cross.
The priest’s successor, a fresh-faced youth proud of the fact that he had spent a term at the University in Oxford, said Simon had been kind to him, and had spent a lot of time making sure he understood his duties. The lad was staying with a kinsman until the burned house could be rebuilt, but claimed he had seen nothing of Simon for days.
‘I am worried,’ said de Wetherset, when Bartholomew reported his lack of success to the prior in his solar. Roger, Michael and Suttone sat in a row near the window; Dame Eleanor and Christiana were in chairs near the fire; and Hamo, de Wetherset and Bartholomew stood, because there were no more seats. Hamo kept rubbing his arm, as though it pained him. ‘An attack on Simon is an attack on the cathedral.’
‘How have you reached that conclusion?’ asked Suttone, startled.
