Free A Wicked Deed by Susanna Gregory Page A

continued good health from the movements of the heavenly bodies was a time-consuming and tedious business if it were to be done accurately, and Bartholomew was determined not to waste his time on it.
    Isilia seemed as though she would insist, but Michael interrupted with a spiteful chuckle. ‘Here comes Alcote at last. I was beginning to think we had succeeded in losing him completely.’
    ‘Is that
him?’
Isilia asked with sudden hope in her voice, astrology and Bartholomew instantly forgotten as a tall student-friar strode towards them. ‘Is that Unwin, our next priest?’ ‘That is John de Horsey, madam,’ said Michael, trying to hide his amusement at the yearning in her voice. ‘Unwin is behind him.’
    There was no mistaking the bitter disappointment on Isilia’s face when she saw that the comely John de Horsey was not the long-awaited Unwin. To her credit, she rose and went to meet the unprepossessing friar with good grace, offering him wine and a seat in the shade, although Bartholomew noticed that Horsey was given the better place and the larger cup. Scurrying behind the students came Alcote, who contemptuously brushed aside Isilia’s polite greeting, and made straight for Tuddenham.
    ‘Someone should tell Alcote that spurning the lovely wife of our benefactor is not the best way to gain that benefactor’s good auspices,’ remarked Michael, unimpressed by Alcote’s display of poor manners. ‘That man’s dislike of women is unnatural.’
    ‘He is a monk, Brother,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘He is supposed to be uninterested in women. As are you.’
    ‘As a monk, I love all my fellow men and women with equal fervour, although I find women far easier to love than men.’ Michael nudged Bartholomew in the ribs, and nodded to where Isilia was listening with rapt attention to something Horsey was saying. ‘Handsome John de Horsey is her first choice, but she would settle for you, with your black curls and vile stories of childbirth, over the dull Unwin. He does not interest her at all.’ He took another gulp of Bartholomew’s wine.
    ‘You do talk nonsense sometimes, Brother,’ said Bartholomew. He yawned. Even the small amount of wine he had managed to drink before Michael took it all was making him sleepy again.
    ‘Isilia is a very attractive lady,’ Michael continued. ‘Although I can see I do not need to tell you that. You spilled half my wine while you were ogling her.’ ‘I did not,’ said Bartholomew, wishing the monk was less worldly in his observations.
    ‘I expected to find you hanged,’ muttered Alcote unpleasantly to Bartholomew, apparently having decided that a cup of wine was more urgent than toadying to Tuddenham. He flopped on to the grass next to them. ‘And Michael, William and Cynric with you. Next time you want to rescue cut-throatsx, do it when you cannot drag other Michaelhouse scholars into the mire, too.’
    ‘Keep your voice down,’ warned Michael irritably. ‘Or it will be
you
responsible for having us all clapped in irons for tampering with gibbets. And where have you been? You should have been here hours ago.’
    ‘No thanks to you,’ snapped Alcote. ‘You let me take the wrong road on purpose. But it all worked out rather well, as it happened. I met a group of travellers who had been attacked by robbers, and one of them lay dying. He paid me a shilling for writing his will, and another two to say masses for him at the shrine of St Botolph at St Edmundsbury on our way home.’
    Bartholomew regarded him in disgust. ‘You took money from a dying man?’
    Alcote shrugged. ‘Why not? And do not be sanctimonious with me, young man. Physicians make their living by charging dying men for their services.’
    ‘It is not the same,’ objected Bartholomew.
    Alcote overrode him. ‘If God had not wanted me to make a profit today, he would not have let me take the wrong road. Now, what about this felon you freed from the noose? Did you save the man? Can we all sleep