Vandeleur and McAllister ran, panic-stricken, back towards the safety of the college. For a moment, James felt he should stay and explain that what had happened was an unfortunate accident. But who would believe him? Instead, he backed away quickly, slipped into a laneway and walked back towards the college, making sure no one noticed him.
Vandeleur and McAllister had run down Dame Street and hadn’t dared stop until the night porter had admitted them into the college. They’d run on towards Library Square and only when they had gained it did they come to a standstill.
‘I think we’re safe,’ Vandeleur said, his breath coming in desperate gasps. ‘No one there knew us’.
McAllister nodded, out of breath. His face was white, the horror of what they had done only now beginning to dawn on him. ‘Is he dead, do you think?’
‘Indubitably,’ Vandeleur replied, not entirely without satisfaction.
McAllister groaned. ‘If only we hadn’t brought these damned swords!’ He looked down and found that his coat was spattered with bloodstains.
‘Quickly,’ he shouted at Vandeleur. ‘We must hurry!’
They ran to McAllister’s room, where the young student immediately began to wipe at the stains on his clothes. Vandeleur, now that the initial excitement had abated, was less hurried; he seemed to want to contemplate the fruit of his actions a bit longer. When James arrived, he was dispatched to fetch hot water to try to remove the blood from their clothes. When he came back, Vandeleur still had made no attempt to clean his weapon. James looked at it with horror. He couldn’t quite believe what had happened.
‘My dear fellow,’ Vandeleur was drawling to McAllister. ‘I’m sure he was a man of no account. I don’t know why you’re troubling yourself.’
‘He was a man!’ McAllister shouted at him. ‘Isn’t that enough? We have taken a man’s life?’
Vandeleur shrugged.
James asked leave to speak.
Vandeleur glared at him. ‘Why do you keep this wretch?’
‘Oh shut up, Vandeleur. Yes, James, speak up.’
‘Did you meet anyone in the tavern? Did you talk to anyone?’
‘I can’t remember,’ McAllister said.
‘Did anyone see you leave?’
‘Only the dead man,’ McAllister said.
‘And he won’t be giving evidence to anyone,’ Vandeleur said, a smile on his face.
As he said this, the blood drained suddenly even farther from McAllister’s already pale face.
‘Oh my God!’
‘What is it?’ Vandeleur looked up.
‘Quis separabit! Quis separabit!’ McAllister’s words came out in a near-shriek.
‘Ah,’ Vandeleur said. He looked slightly less composed now. ‘Our names on the table, carved for all to see.’
James saw at once how serious the situation was.
‘There’s no time to lose,’ he said. ‘Once anyone remembers you were there and sees your names, this is the first place they’ll come looking. Who else but students would carve their names like that?’
‘With a Latin inscription to boot,’ McAllister acknowledged. ‘We’re doomed, then.’ He sagged visibly, all animation banished from his features.
‘You should go now,’ James said. ‘You should both go. And you shouldn’t be seen together.’
‘Go where?’ Vandeleur snarled at James, but before James had a chance to reply there was a sudden commotion on the cobbles below. James rushed to the window. He saw four sheriff’s men in the square outside, the college porter with them. They were making for the entrance to the building where Vandeleur’s rooms were.
‘They’re here,’ he said.
Vandeleur ran to the window and when he saw where they had gone his habitual composure seemed to desert him. ‘Damn it,’ he said, ‘this is very inconvenient. Why on earth are they taking such trouble?’ He became agitated as he furiously tried to work out the best course of action.
For a moment, James thought he might brazen it out and march up to them, but Vandeleur clearly wasn’t as foolish as he sometimes seemed.
‘I think a spell away from college is called for,’ he said and, after the briefest of farewells, disappeared down the stairs.
James gathered up the two swords that were still on the floor.
‘I’ll put these in the attic, but in the meantime, sir, you will have to conceal yourself. I’ll tell them you have not returned.’
With that, James raced upstairs to the attics and hid the swords in a roll of old carpet in a dusty corner, then raced back down. As he reached the landing outside McAllister’s room he heard footsteps on the stairs below. He rushed into the room. McAllister stood frozen by the bed, an abject statue, rooted to the spot by fear. James had already chosen him a hiding place in his mind’s eye as he was hiding the swords. On the wall beside McAllister’s bed hung a large tapestry from his father’s estate, a hunting scene, perhaps intended to remind him of home as he fell asleep. James had helped McAllister put it up. There was an alcove set in the wall, where the student had kept books and various personal effects, but there had been nowhere else to put the tapestry, so in the end McAllister had cleared out the alcove and they’d hung the tapestry over it.
‘You never know,’ James had said with a grin, ‘You might need a secret place to store things.’ He hadn’t thought that the secret thing would be McAllister himself.
‘Quickly,’ he said now, pulling the tapestry aside. ‘Get in and squeeze yourself as far back as you are able.’
McAllister mutely obeyed and climbed into the narrow space, and James smoothed over the tapestry as best he could, praying that the searchers’ curiosity wouldn’t extend to it.
The door burst open and the sheriff’s men came thumping in, swords at the ready, followed by the porter.
‘Where is he?’ the first of the sheriff’s men panted. He was quite out of breath from all his running, and the others weren’t much better.
‘Who are you?’ one of the men asked, pointing his blade at James’s chest, but James remained calm.
‘Do you mean Master McAllister? He went out about an hour ago. He said he wouldn’t be back until late this evening. He said he wanted to see the puppets in the Capel Street playhouse. I am his skivvy.’
‘Puppets? Did you say puppets?’ This information seemed to enrage the four swordsmen. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea.
‘I’ll give him puppets when I see him!’ the first said. With that, he lunged at the bed with his sword and ran the blade through the mattress, then ran the pillow through for good measure, scattering feathers all over the room. The other men began to search every corner, running the curtains through, emptying the clothes chest and spilling out McAllister’s waistcoats, hose, smallclothes, wig, a hat, and various papers on the floor. They examined the papers. ‘Poetry!’ one of them said in disgust.
They lifted the rug from the floor and examined the floorboards; they scanned the ceiling, opened books and flung them to the ground.
James could feel the sweat sticking to the back of his shirt. He forced himself to stay calm in the maelstrom of searching and destruction. He kept his eyes away from the wall where the tapestry hung, terrified that even a glance might lead them to the hiding place.
‘Nice picture,’ he heard one of the men say suddenly, and his blood ran cold.
‘Hunting,’ another said. ‘Very fitting. We’ll run him to ground and no mistake, and someone can make a picture of that.’
‘Does your master carry a sword?’ one of the men asked abruptly.
As the sheriff’s men turned their attention away from the tapestry, James nearly wept with relief.
‘The carrying of swords is forbidden by the provost,’ the porter said, speaking for the first time. James noted that he was eyeing the sheriff’s men with some distaste. He looked James straight in the eye, and James saw something he couldn’t quite interpret, a slight narrowing of the eyes, enough to indicate that whatever might happen in the city, the college was a separate jurisdiction, and the officers of the city had no business floundering around and cutting up its bedlinen. Did the porter suspect McAllister’s whereabouts? James hardly dared to return the man’s gaze.
In the meantime, the sheriff’s men had tired of their ransacking.
‘We’re wasting time,’ one said, ‘we should seek him out at the playhouse.’
The others seemed to think that this was a sensible suggestion, and the men began to leave. As they were doing so, their leader suddenly lunged at James and caught him by the neck so that the boy gasped for breath.
‘If we don’t find him, we’ll be back for you. Mark my words, you’re not too young to swing for murder yourself.’
The sheriff’s man flung James back on the bed, where he lay until they had all left. Getting to his feet, James watched from the window until he saw the men crossing the square, and only then did he beckon to McAllister to come out from behind the tapestry.