The Mark of a Murderer (4 page)

‘You would starve,’ said Michael brutally. ‘Your Fellowship provides you with a roof over your head, regular meals and funds
to squander at the apothecary’s shop. Most of your patients are too poor to pay for their own medicines, and without Michaelhouse
you would not be able to help them. So, think of
them
as you brazenly stride away each night to frolic with Matilde.’

Bartholomew thought of the care he had taken on his nocturnal forays. ‘I am not brazen . . .’

Michael gave a snort of laughter. ‘Your students know what you do and they are beginning to follow your example. I caught
Deynman and Falmeresham with a whore two nights ago. I have told you before: enjoy Matilde if you must, but do it with at
least a modicum of discretion.’

‘I have never—’

‘Do not argue, Matt: you know I am right. And if you do not care about yourself or your patients, then think of me. I am the
Senior Proctor. Imagine how it looks for me to have a Corpse Examiner who flouts the rules night after night, and I do nothing
about it.’

Bartholomew rubbed his forehead tiredly. ‘But what can I do? She needs me.’

‘I am sure she does,’ replied Michael primly. ‘But that is beside the point. I am giving you some friendly advice, and you
would do well to listen. Practise discretion.’

‘I will bear it in mind,’ replied Bartholomew, thinking that if sneaking out quietly when no one was awake, always waiting
for total darkness, and making sure no one watched when he entered the Jewry was not discreet, then he was defeated. He had
been as careful as he could, and was horrified that so many people seemed to know what he had been about.

‘We are going to Merton Hall,’ said Michael, changing the subject. He saw Bartholomew’s blank expression, and
added in exasperation, ‘To see this corpse we have been asked to inspect, man!’

‘Oh,’ said Bartholomew without much interest. ‘That.’

‘My beadles say the victim is a visiting scholar from Oxford.’ Michael glanced at his friend when he received no response.
‘Matilde must be wearing you out, because you have not asked a single question about the body and the circumstances of the
man’s death, and you are normally full of them.’

‘Merton Hall,’ mused Bartholomew, trying to make an effort. ‘That is the house over the river, which is owned by the College
I once attended in Oxford.’

‘I forgot you have connections to the Other Place,’ said Michael, not entirely approvingly. England had two universities –
in Cambridge and Oxford – which were rivals for students and benefactors. Cambridge was newer and smaller, and its scholars
invariably regarded its larger, more influential sister with rank distrust. ‘Merton is one of its biggest and richest Colleges,
I understand?’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘Its founder, Walter de Merton, was afraid his scholars might eventually be driven out of Oxford by rioting
townsfolk, so he purchased a house and several parcels of land in Cambridge for them – a refuge should they ever be obliged
to flee.’

‘Well, they
have
flown,’ said Michael. He saw Bartholomew’s puzzled expression, and elaborated. ‘Surely you remember the news? On St Scholastica’s
Day – four months ago now – there were violent disturbances in their city that ended in the murder of sixty scholars. Several
Oxford men have arrived here recently, although one evidently learned last night that we are not the safe haven he anticipated.’

‘A Merton man is dead?’ asked Bartholomew, feigning an interest he did not feel. His years as an undergraduate in Oxford seemed
a long time ago, especially that morning, after his tenth night of interrupted sleep.

‘Not Merton. Balliol. Perhaps you knew him: his name is Roger de Chesterfelde.’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘I studied there two decades ago, and my contemporaries will have moved on to other things by
now.’

‘Then what about Henry Okehamptone?’ asked Michael. ‘Is that name familiar?’

Bartholomew shook his head again. ‘Why?’

‘Because Chesterfelde is not the first Oxford man to have died in Cambridge recently. That honour went to Okehamptone, who
passed away ten days ago – on Ascension Day – the morning after this large party from Oxford arrived. His friends said he
had been unwell the previous night, probably from drinking bad water along the way, and he perished in his sleep. These things
happen, and catching a contagion is just one of the many dangers associated with gratuitous travel.’

Bartholomew smiled. Michael disliked lengthy journeys, and always believed he took his life in his hands when he embarked
on one. However, he had a point about the perils of drinking in strange places: it was not unknown for travellers to arrive
and immediately fall prey to some ailment they had contracted
en route
. As a physician, Bartholomew encountered such cases regularly.

‘Was Okehamptone old?’ he asked. ‘Frail and more susceptible than his companions?’

‘He was a young man. I saw his corpse myself.’

‘Did you?’ asked Bartholomew, surprised he had not been summoned, too.

Michael shot him a nasty look. ‘I wanted
you
to do it, but you were nowhere to be found. You have become very elusive over the last two weeks.’

Bartholomew ignored the comment. ‘Why were you called? Merton Hall is not
our
University’s property, and Oxford scholars do not come under your jurisdiction.’

‘I beg to differ – they can hardly be investigated by the secular authority invested in the Sheriff, so of course they fall
to me. However, there was nothing to suggest Okehamptone’s companions were lying about his fever.’ Michael cast Bartholomew
another resentful glance. ‘My Corpse Examiner should have confirmed their diagnosis, but he was mysteriously unavailable.’

‘Ascension Day,’ mused Bartholomew, refusing to acknowledge the barrage of recriminations. The festival was a favourite of
Michael’s and, after a solemn mass, the monk had furnished plenty of food and wine so that Michaelhouse could celebrate in
style. Bartholomew recalled the occasion clearly, unlike some of his less abstemious colleagues. ‘I was obliged to tend Master
Weasenham that morning. For a toothache.’

‘Then it is no wonder I could not find you,’ remarked Michael testily. ‘I did not think to look for you at Weasenham’s house,
because he is not your patient: he is Doctor Rougham’s. You should take care, Matt. The University stationer is a rich man,
and Rougham will not approve of you poaching one of his best sources of income.’

‘Rougham was unavailable, and Weasenham said he could not wait,’ replied Bartholomew, thinking it was ironic that he had treated
the stationer out of compassion, and yet it was probably Weasenham who had been spreading the rumours about him and Matilde.

‘I did not need you anyway,’ Michael went on airily. ‘I met Paxtone of King’s Hall on the way, and he agreed to do the examination
in your stead. He confirmed what Okehamptone’s friends said about a fever.’

Bartholomew frowned. ‘And now there is a second death at Merton Hall. Are you sure you cannot pass this to the Sheriff, on
the grounds that these scholars are aliens in our town? If Chesterfelde has been murdered, then any investigation is likely
to be time consuming.’ He was uneasy
with the notion that helping Michael solve an unlawful killing might impinge on his understanding with Matilde.

‘Dick Tulyet is busy at the moment, supervising arrangements for the prelatical Visitation.’

‘You are busy, too,’ Bartholomew pointed out.

Michael was one of the most powerful men in the University, and holding on to such authority entailed a good deal of work;
it was generally known that the monk made the most important decisions and that Chancellor Tynkell just did what he was told.
Michael also had students to teach and, like Bartholomew, had been obliged to undertake extra classes because of Clippesby’s
indisposition. In addition, he was heavily involved with preparations for the Archbishop’s Visitation – it fell to him to
ensure that England’s highest-ranking churchman would be impressed by what he saw of Cambridge’s
studium generale
. Since there were rumours claiming that Islip intended to found a new College at one of the two universities, impressing
him was particularly important.

Michael grinned in a predatory manner. ‘This will provide a challenging diversion from my usual routines – Tynkell is so malleable
that he is no fun to manipulate any longer, while my students virtually teach themselves – and it will be interesting to probe
the affairs of our sister University.’

‘What about the challenge associated with teaching Clippesby’s musicians?’

Michael did not dignify the question with an answer. He was resentful that he had been saddled with the class; although he
was proud of his achievements with the Michaelhouse choir, being able to sing was a long way from understanding the discipline’s
theoretical framework, and he was hopelessly out of his depth. Clippesby’s astronomers had been inflicted on Bartholomew,
because physicians were obliged to maintain a working knowledge of the celestial
bodies in order to treat their patients, but at least the field was not a complete mystery to him, as academic music was to
Michael.

The two scholars turned on to Bridge Street. The sun shed a golden glow across the fields behind St John’s Hospital, catching
in the thin mist that rose from the river. The air was balmy and smelled of new crops, with only a slight odour from the marshes
that lay to the north, and the sky was light blue with a delicate membrane of high-scattered clouds. Birds sang loud and shrill
and, in the distance, sheep bleated in water meadows that were carpeted with buttercups.

Bridge Street was busy, as people made their way to and from their Sunday devotions. There were orderly processions of scholars
led by the masters of the Colleges and halls, there were friars in black, white or grey habits and cloaks, and there were
townsfolk in their best clothes. Bells rang in a jubilant jangle, with the bass of St Mary the Great providing a rumbling
accompaniment to the clanking trebles of Holy Trinity and All-Saints-in-the-Jewry.

Bartholomew and Michael reached the Great Bridge and started to cross it. Bartholomew gripped the handrail uneasily; the bridge
was notoriously unstable, and comprised a gravity-defying mess of teetering stone arches, rotting wooden spars and a good
deal of scaffolding. Funds were desperately needed for its repair – or, better still, for its complete replacement – but moneys
raised by the burgesses always seemed to be diverted to some more pressing cause at the last moment. Bartholomew supposed
the situation was set to continue until the whole thing toppled into the river; he only hoped no one would be on it when it
did.

When he was halfway across, he glanced up to see someone standing near a section that was particularly afflicted with broken
planking and crumbling masonry.
The river was deep and fast at that point, and anyone jumping into it might well drown if he were not a strong swimmer. The
man looked like a scholar; he wore dark, sober clothes and a cloak with a fringe of grey fur, but Bartholomew did not recognise
him. He supposed he was a member of one of the many hostels that were scattered around the town. The fellow’s face was pale
and shiny, as though he had been crying, and the physician watched in horror as he took a deep breath, then stepped hard on
to one of the most precarious parts of the bridge.

Bartholomew darted forward as the plank bowed under the man’s weight. The fellow stumbled to his hands and knees, but the
wood held just long enough for Bartholomew to reach out and drag him away by his hood. The man put up a feeble struggle, as
several lumps of rotten timber splashed into the river below, but his heart was not in a serious escape. After a few moments,
he went limp in Bartholomew’s restraining arms, and stared at the water rushing past below.

‘This is too public a place for self-murder,’ said Michael gently. One or two people stared, but there were better things
to do than watching three scholars murmur in voices too low to be heard, and they soon moved on. ‘What brought you to this?
Your studies? Love of a woman?’

‘It was an accident,’ mumbled the man, looking away. ‘I was not going to kill myself.’

‘No?’ asked Michael. ‘Surely you can see this side of the bridge is not safe.’

‘I am a stranger,’ said the man miserably. ‘I do not know your town and its buildings.’

‘You do not need to be local to tell which bits of
this
structure to avoid,’ retorted Michael. ‘What is your name? Which hostel are you from?’

‘I would rather not say,’ replied the man in a whisper.
‘You will report me for trying to break the Church’s laws against suicide, and I was not . . .’

‘I will do no such thing,’ said Michael firmly. ‘And if you say it was a mistake, then I shall believe you, although I will
not allow you to linger here. Do you have friends who—?’

The man suddenly pulled free of Bartholomew and raced away, heading for the centre of the town. The monk raised his eyebrows
in surprise, then shook his head helplessly.

‘He is probably pining over a woman. It is a pity he dashed off without giving us his name – I could have warned his principal
to watch over him. But there is nothing I can do if he will not confide in me. Come on, Matt. If we do not visit Merton Hall
soon, they will think we are never coming.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ asked Bartholomew archly, brushing splinters from his clothes. ‘We should not have eaten breakfast
first.’

They reached the crossroads near St Giles’s Church, and turned along the road known as Merton Lane. Merton Hall was to the
left, set amid its own neat strip-fields. Bartholomew had been inside it only rarely, usually when it was rented to the University
as a venue for debates or public lectures. Most of the time it was a private dwelling, owned by a distant landlord and leased
to a tenant who farmed the land. He and Michael followed a narrow path that wound pleasantly through an orchard, and approached
the house.