Susanna Gregory: A Plague On Both Your Houses

'Sir John gave it to me on the night he died,' said Bartholomew, 'although I did not realise it at the time.'

Michael gazed at Bartholomew in stupefaction.

'How?' he managed to ask.

'He must have slipped it into the sleeve of my gown,' said Bartholomew. 'You know how those sleeves are for us non-clerics? They are sewn up at the bottom, with slits for the arms half-way up. The ring was there for quite a while before I thought to look.'

'But what made you look?'

Bartholomew gazed over the meadows, edged with the pale yellow of primrose. 'Sir John did not leave it with Augustus, and it was not found on his body when he was killed. It was with him when we had dinner. I saw it on the cord around his neck. The only logical conclusion was that he must have given it to Swynford or Aelfrith when we parted after dinner. Sir John would not have given it to Aelfrith because Aelfrith was already involved and would be an obvious target, and I know he was always a little wary of Swynford. He often wondered why a man with Swynford's connections and wealth should deign to become a poor University teacher. Then I wondered whether Sir John had passed the seal to me. I searched through all my clothes, and there it was, lying in a corner at the bottom of my sleeve.'

'And Wilson accused you of being a poor logician!' said Michael, shaking his head and smiling. 'Now I think about it, it is the only obvious answer. Sir John trusted you above all the other Fellows, and would have been far more likely to give you the seal than anyone else.

Thank God no one else thought the same, or you may have gone the same way as Augustus!'

'Sir John must have had some misgivings about his meeting that night, and decided to leave the seal behind.'

'Unfortunately, his misgivings were not strong enough,' said Michael sadly. 'If they were, he would never have gone to the meeting, and he most certainly would not have put you at risk by hiding the seal with you. And he would never have visited Augustus if he could have foreseen the consequences. I suppose he intended to recover it from you when he returned.'

Bartholomew scuffed some small stones from the bridge into the water with the toe of his boot and watched as they disappeared with tiny splashes. "I think Sir John may have believed that the purpose of the meeting that night was to entice him out of the College so that his room could be searched, not so that he could be murdered. I think he knew that the person he was meeting would guess he would not wear the seal as usual because of the unusual circumstances of the rendezvous — during the night in a remote place.

I expect he thought he would be able to retrieve it from my sleeve himself before anyone else had had the time to reason where he may have hidden it.'

'When did you work all this out?' asked Michael.

'When Wilson told me to find it,' said Bartholomew.

"I told no one, because I did not know whom I could trust, and I did not want anyone else to die for it. So, I kept my silence.'

Michael started to laugh, looking at the seal in wonder. 'You are a dark horse, Matt! So many people looked for this wretched thing, and all the time it was with you! Why have you chosen now to tell me about it?'

Bartholomew shrugged, watching the sunlight dance on the river. "I have told no one else, not even Philippa.' He turned to Michael. "I suppose I thought you would like to know.'

Michael held the ring between his thumb and forefinger and looked at it intently. 'Who would think that such a tiny thing would cause so much harm?'

'No,' said Bartholomew, 'the ring did not do the harm. The people who used it did.'

Michael was silent for a while, still looking at the small gold ring with its intricate knots and ties. 'So what are you going to do with it?' he asked.

Bartholomew sighed and turned his face up to the sun, his eyes closed. 'Give it to you, for your Bishop.'

'To me?' exclaimed Michael. He looked at it a little longer, then shook Bartholomew's arm to make him open his eyes.

'Watch,' he said. He pulled back his arm, and flung the ring as far as he could down the fast-flowing river.

They saw it flash once in the sunlight before it dropped soundlessly midstream, and was gone from sight. They stood for a while, looking at the place where it had fallen, thinking about the people whose lives it had affected.

Bartholomew gave another huge sigh and looked at Michael. Michael gazed back, the beginnings of a smile twitching the corners of his mouth and twinkling in his eyes.

'Come on, old friend,' he said, tugging Bartholomew's sleeve to make him move, 'or you will make me miss my dinner.'