The Mark of a Murderer (32 page)

‘They do not eat excrement, either,’ argued Falmeresham.

‘People are always melancholic when they have an excess of black bile,’ elaborated Deynman, pleased he had
his teacher’s approval. Bartholomew struggled to ignore the burgeoning debate between Falmeresham and William, to concentrate
on what his student was saying. ‘And that is because they are distressed over the loss of their haemorrhoids.’

Bartholomew closed his eyes. Deynman’s brief foray into accurate understanding had been too good to be true. Once again, certain
points had stuck in his mind, but had then rearranged themselves in a way that allowed him to draw some very bizarre conclusions.

‘Dominicans are afflicted with haemorrhoids,’ declared William matter-of-factly, indicating that he was listening to other
lectures, too, as he cut across Falmeresham’s spirited defence of dogs and Dominicans alike. ‘It comes from sitting in cold,
dark places while they plot their satanic acts. And
that
is what makes them morose and melancholy.’

‘Galen says that the removal of organs that contain blood – such as veins and haemorrhoids – might cause black bile to get
the upper hand in the balance of the humours and bring about melancholy,’ said Falmeresham, deciding that taking issue with
William was a lost cause. ‘He is referring to a loss of
vessels
causing the imbalance; he is not saying patients become depressed because they are sorry to see their haemorrhoids go.’

‘Dominicans are proud of these marks,’ William went on. ‘It is the communal suffering they endure that makes their brotherhood
so powerful. After all, what more shameful secret can you share than intimate knowledge of each other’s haemorrhoids?’

‘I cannot teach in here,’ said Bartholomew abruptly, gathering his books and heading for the door, indicating that his students
were to follow. ‘I am going to the orchard. It may be cold and it may even rain, but at least I will not have to do battle
with this kind of rubbish.’

‘Dominicans such as Clippesby,’ said William loudly,
‘who lounges comfortably in his hospital, while his hapless colleagues are compelled to do his work.’

‘Is that the reason for Clippesby’s absence?’ asked Deynman, wide eyed. ‘Haemorrhoids? I thought it was insanity.’

‘I will come with you, Matthew,’ announced William, preparing to follow the physician outside. ‘It is too hot in here. Besides,
I will be able to speak properly in the orchard – I am tired of being forced to whisper all the time.’

Langelee gave a startled gulp of laughter, which encouraged his students to join in, and the hall was soon filled with hoots
and guffaws, while William’s face expressed his total bemusement.

‘He really has no idea,’ said Wynewyk to Bartholomew in wonderment. ‘Is he quite normal, do you think? He accuses Clippesby
of madness, but there are times when I think he is worse.’

‘You go,’ said Langelee to William, stepping forward to take control and wiping tears from his eyes. ‘You are right, Father.
It is stuffy in here, and it is a shame you are obliged to speak softly. Sit in the orchard and expound your theories so they
can be properly heard.’

‘They will be heard in Ely,’ said Michael in alarm, as the friar left with his reluctant students in tow. ‘And worse, at the
Dominican convent! We will have enraged Black Friars at our gates within an hour, and you know how keen I am to keep the peace
until the Visitation is over.’

‘The Dominicans are perfectly aware that William’s opinions do not represent our own,’ said Langelee, relieved to have the
Franciscan gone. ‘Besides, would you really object if they silenced him by force? I would not. He is becoming a liability
with his stupid ideas and braying voice. Perhaps we
should
summon a few Dominicans to shut him up – preferably before he has an opportunity to regale the Archbishop with his nasty
theories.’

Michael sighed, unable to answer. It was a good deal quieter in the hall without William, and Bartholomew made rapid progress
on Galen and black bile. Even Deynman seemed to have improved by the end of the lesson, and the physician was encouraged.
He spent the second half of the afternoon teaching a combined class of his own students and Clippesby’s how to calculate the
speed of the planets through the sky using different geometrical techniques. Afterwards, leaving the students reeling from
their mental exertions, he visited Rougham, and was pleased to find him sleeping peacefully.

Matilde was sleeping peacefully, too, so he crept out of the house so as not to disturb her, knowing that neither patient
nor nurse would require his services that night. Rougham would soon be gone from her life and at that point, Bartholomew decided,
they would discuss the future, and whether it would be one they might share. He returned to Michaelhouse, read until he started
to feel drowsy, then went to bed, where he slept deeply and well.

Michael cornered Langelee the following morning, and confided that he was now seriously worried about the Oxford murders and
the damaging effect they might have when the Archbishop arrived in three days’ time. Unlike Bartholomew, he had slept fitfully,
and Gonerby, Okehamptone and Chesterfelde had paraded through his mind like lost souls. His beadles informed him that the
merchants had been at the Cardinal’s Cap the previous evening, and had befriended a number of locals with their deep purses:
the resulting discussion had included the notion that the University might be harbouring a killer. Rougham’s medical students
had overheard, and there had been an unpleasant exchange of words before the beadles were able to remove the scholars and
fine them for drinking in a tavern.

Langelee was a practical man, ambitious for his University, and he desperately wanted Islip to found his new College in Cambridge.
He understood perfectly that three tradesmen hunting a scholar for murder would not make for peaceful relations, and was willing
to do whatever was necessary to help. He immediately agreed to release Michael and Bartholomew from their teaching until the
Visitation was over. Bartholomew was not pleased to be informed that his classes were to be suspended while he chased killers,
but appreciated the now urgent need to solve the case before the Visitation. Langelee ordered the fiscally talented Wynewyk
to manipulate the College finances so that two postgraduates could be paid to stand in for the absent masters, and Bartholomew
set his students an unreasonable amount of work, hoping they would become alarmed by the number of texts they would eventually
need to master and would settle down to some serious study.

First, Bartholomew and Michael decided to see Clippesby at Stourbridge. The physician wanted to assess whether it was he who
had attacked him in St Michael’s Church, while Michael was keen to question him about the deaths of Okehamptone and Gonerby.
When Langelee urged Bartholomew to bring Clippesby back, sane or otherwise, Michael confided that he was a suspect, although
he prudently kept Rougham’s name out of the explanation.

Langelee was appalled. ‘But I was under the impression you had him locked away for his own sake, so he could enjoy a little
peace, away from the strains of academic life.’

‘I wish that were true,’ said Bartholomew unhappily.

‘Then I hope you are wrong,’ said Langelee fervently. ‘We all know he is insane, but it has always been a charming kind of
madness, not the kind that makes him rip out men’s throats like a wild beast. But it makes sense, I suppose. He has always
claimed an affinity with animals,
and it is not such a great leap from that to imagining he
is
one – the kind that likes to savage its prey.’

Michael complained bitterly that there were no horses available for hire – they had all been put to pasture until after the
Visitation, so they would not make a mess on the newly cleaned streets – and that he was obliged to waddle the mile or so
to the ramshackle collection of huts that comprised the hospital at Stourbridge. His temper did not improve when they were
obliged to battle with a powerful headwind that drove rain straight into their faces. It snatched the wide-brimmed hat from
his head and deposited it in a boggy meadow that was difficult to traverse. Bartholomew’s boots were full of muddy water by
the time they had retrieved it, and Michael’s normally pristine habit was streaked with filth.

‘Damn Clippesby,’ the monk muttered venomously when the thatched roofs of Stourbridge finally came into sight. ‘Why has he
so suddenly taken it into his head to chew necks? He has never shown cannibalistic tendencies before.’

‘He may be innocent,’ said Bartholomew, although he could see the monk was unconvinced. ‘But you should put your question
to Brother Paul, who has much more experience of insanity than I. He may tell you that this kind of violence is not a factor
in Clippesby’s particular condition, and that we should be looking to another madman for our culprit.’

Michael knocked at the hospital’s gate, then looked around with interest as they were ushered inside. He did not visit Stourbridge
often, and always forgot how impressed he was by its orderly cleanliness. ‘We shall see Paul first, and then …what in
God’s name is he doing?’

‘That patient has acute lethargy, so Paul is attempting to cure her by setting her feet in salt water, ringing bells in her
ears, and placing feathers under her nose to make her sneeze.’

Michael regarded him askance. ‘Will it work?’

Bartholomew shrugged. ‘Such a course of treatment has sound classical antecedents, although I am sure there must be gentler
ways to treat her, as yet undiscovered. In a moment, he will put the feather in her throat to induce retching, then he will
bleed her, to rid her of excessive humours.’

‘We should talk to him before he starts, then,’ said Michael hastily. ‘I am already covered in mud, and I do not want to be
sprayed with blood and vomit, too.’

‘What do you think?’ asked Brother Paul worriedly, when he saw Bartholomew approaching. ‘Does she seem any better to you?’

Bartholomew considered. ‘No. She seems more listless than ever. But intensive humoral therapy is exhausting, so perhaps you
should allow her more rest between sessions.’

Paul regarded his charge with sad eyes. ‘We can try, I suppose, since nothing else seems to be working. What about electuaries
and embrocations? Can you recommend any that might help?’

Bartholomew shook his head slowly. ‘Ailments of the mind are a complete mystery to me, and all my training and experience
seem to count for nothing when I meet cases like these. You are far wiser about them than I, and you should trust what your
own instincts tell you to do.’

‘My instincts are failing me dismally at the moment.’ Paul nodded at the drooping woman who sat disconsolately, with her legs
in a bucket and a down scarf around her neck. ‘I make no headway with her, while Clippesby is entirely beyond my skills. I
misjudge him at every turn.’

Bartholomew regarded him in alarm. ‘What is the matter? Has he harmed someone? Or himself?’

‘No, no,’ said Paul quickly. ‘Nothing like that. But he seems recovered one moment, and mad the next. I cannot make him out.
I trust him completely to help with the
others – he is patient and gentle with even the most vicious and ungrateful of them – but he seems unable to follow orders
about his own well-being. And he will insist on quitting the hospital, when he knows he must stay. He left us again on Tuesday
evening – he was gone when I looked in his room after dusk, but was back for prime on Wednesday morning. I beg him not to
wander off in the dark, but he cannot seem to help himself.’

Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a glance: so, it could have been Clippesby who had attacked Bartholomew with the spade.
Nervously, Bartholomew wondered what else he might have done.

‘Did you ask where he had been?’ asked Michael.

‘He does not know,’ said Paul tiredly. ‘He is not lying – he really does have no idea. There is not much more I can do for
him, Matt, other than offer company, a little recreational work and a safe haven – which will not be very safe if he continues
to escape.’

‘How does he get out?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I thought you locked his door at night, and his window has mullions that are impossible
to squeeze through.’

‘I forgot to bar the door,’ said Paul apologetically. ‘I was busy. Ned Tucker was dying and Clippesby slipped my mind. It
was my fault, but I am sorry he took advantage of my lapse. Speak to him, and explain again that he is here for his own good.’

While Paul turned his attention to the unresponsive woman, Bartholomew and Michael looked for Clippesby. He was not in the
peaceful little chapel, saying prayers for Ned Tucker like many other inmates, nor was he in the kitchen helping to prepare
the next meal. Next to the church was a large dormitory that contained the beds of those who required constant care; the fitter
residents slept in smaller buildings, some of which could be locked to ensure they
did not escape to harm themselves or others. It was in the hall that they found Clippesby, reading to a patient who was in
the last stages of a disease that had ravaged his face. He raised his finger to his lips when Bartholomew and Michael entered,
and continued speaking. It was only when the man slept that Clippesby left him.

He looked healthy and cheerful, and his eyes had lost the wild expression that had so unnerved Bartholomew the day after Rougham
had been attacked. He had combed his hair, so it lay flat and even across his tonsured pate, his face was shaved to a rosy
pinkness, and his habit was scrupulously clean. It was difficult to see him as a deranged lunatic who bit the necks of his
victims and wielded spades in dark churches. He smiled at Bartholomew, then clasped Michael’s hand.

‘It is good to see Michaelhouse men,’ he said, leading them to his own room so that their voices would not disturb the sleeping
leper. ‘It is dull here, with no one of any intelligence to speak to. Paul is always too busy or too tired, and most of the
others are beyond caring about decent conversation.’