Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘Alyce?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘How do you know?’

‘Few things happen here without someone telling me – and that includes reports about you. You think you were careful last night, but tongues are still clacking. I warn you again, Matt: stop this dalliance with Matilde, at least for a while.’

‘I cannot,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘I wish I could explain, because I know you would understand. But I cannot stop seeing her, and I cannot tell you why.’

Michael sighed. ‘Then you will lose your Fellowship, and the fine you will be ordered to pay will be so vast that you will spend the rest of your life in debt. Just think about that as you creep along the High Street tonight.’

‘Agatha the laundress,’ breathed William, still thinking about a relationship between Langelee and the only woman permitted to live inside Michaelhouse’s sacred portals. Even the morose Suttone was smirking at the way the Franciscan had so readily accepted Michael’s careless remark, and Suttone rarely smiled about anything. ‘He is a braver man than I thought.’

‘I am concerned about this Merton Hall murder,’ said Suttone, leaving the Franciscan to his musings and stepping forward to speak to Michael. ‘Another College founded in Cambridge would be greatly beneficial, and it would be a pity to lose Islip’s goodwill just because an Oxford man died in our town. Do you have any idea who killed Chesterfelde?’

‘None. But I plan to interview Merton Hall’s servants this morning.’

‘Do not neglect to speak to Eudo and Boltone,’ said William, reluctantly dragging his thoughts away from Agatha and Langelee. ‘They are an unpleasant pair – you may find they are your killers.’

‘What makes you say that?’ asked Michael, surprised the friar should know them at all. They were unlikely to move in similar circles.

‘They came to visit that relic I made available for public veneration earlier this year, and I saw then what kind of men they were. They probably killed Chesterfelde to keep their crimes a secret.’

‘What crimes?’

‘They have been cheating Merton for years,’ replied William, a little impatient that the monk should not know. ‘It is the talk of the whole town. Why do you think Warden Duraunt is here? It is to confront them. But that is not all: they steal from others, too – scholars and townsfolk alike.’

‘Such as whom?’ asked Michael, trying to recall whether he had received complaints in the past.

‘Geoffrey Dodenho at King’s Hall,’ replied William. ‘And if you want a witness from the town, then ask Matthew’s lover: Matilde.’

Michael and Bartholomew did not finish teaching until mid-afternoon. At that point, Michael’s sober Benedictines astonished him by showing they were an entire term ahead with Peter Lombard’s Sentences and were given their leisure for the rest of the day as a reward – they smiled polite thanks and immediately resumed their studies – while Clippesby’s musicians were dispatched to King’s Hall to hear Wormynghalle’s lecture on plainsong. Bartholomew’s medical students had been given a passage in Galen’s De simplicibus medicinis to learn, while the astronomers were to evaluate Ptolemaic epicycles using the mathematical tables constructed by an Arab scholar in the tenth century and translated into Latin by Adelard of Bath. They objected vociferously, and claimed the exercise was too advanced for them, while Bartholomew firmly maintained it was elementary.

‘You need the practice,’ he said, unmoved by their cries of dismay at the mountain of work he had set them. ‘Your calculations yesterday were entirely wrong.’

‘That was not our fault,’ said one, sulkily. ‘Brother Michael ordered Deynman to supervise the lesson, and he got us confused. We were figuring movable feasts, and his formula had Easter taking place the day after Christmas! We do not want him to “help” us again. He has set me back weeks by forcing us to use his convoluted equations.’

Bartholomew knew Deynman had taken a more active role in the class than he had been allocated. He was older than the astronomers, and eager to display his superior knowledge. Instead of merely making sure they kept at their work, and did not wander away before the session was over, he had stepped in to teach, and the result was seven very confused astronomers and an even more bewildered Deynman. That day it was the considerably more intelligent Falmeresham who had been left in charge, while Deynman was told to sit at the back and keep quiet.

‘We should visit Matilde,’ said Michael, who had accompanied the physician when he had tended a patient in nearby St John’s Hospital. The rain had stopped and the sun was out. ‘I want to know what they stole from her.’

‘Not now,’ said Bartholomew absently, still bemused by the students’ indignation at being asked to do some serious thinking. ‘I will ask when I see her tonight.’

‘I would rather talk to her myself,’ said Michael. They were near the Jewry, and he took a couple of steps in that direction.

‘No,’ said Bartholomew, grabbing the monk’s arm and snapping out of his reverie. ‘I said I will speak to her later.’

Michael turned to face him. ‘Why? Are you ensuring she has her rest, so she will be better able to frolic with you tonight?’ He took an involuntary step backwards when he saw the dark expression on his friend’s face, then reached out to touch his shoulder. ‘I am sorry, Matt. I should not have said that. But Matilde is my friend, too, and you have no right to prevent me from seeing her.’

‘I am asking you to leave her alone,’ said Bartholomew, fighting to keep the anger from his voice. He rubbed his head, supposing tiredness was making him prone to losing his temper. ‘Please.’

Michael shook his head slowly. ‘This is an odd state of affairs, Matt. I am not sure Matilde…’ He faltered when he became aware that someone was close behind him, and turned around fast.

The University stationer was standing there, with his wife Alyce on his arm. He was grinning in triumph, and it was clear he had overheard at least part of the conversation and was anticipating the pleasure of repeating it. It was equally obvious that the snippet would be embellished so that soon it would bear little resemblance to what had actually been said. Bartholomew closed his eyes in despair.

‘Weasenham,’ said Michael amiably. ‘You startled me, approaching so softly from behind.’

‘So I imagine,’ said Weasenham with a leer. ‘I startle many folk with my silent-footed tread. I have surprised Doctor Rougham on occasion, too, as he creeps out to dally with his sweetheart.’

‘Not Rougham,’ said Michael immediately. ‘No woman would take him as a lover.’

‘Well, he is obliged to pay her,’ acknowledged Weasenham spitefully. ‘He is away from Gonville at the moment. I am told he sent a letter saying he was in Norfolk, but I do not think that is true.’

‘Why not?’ demanded Bartholomew. He probably disliked Rougham more than anyone, but he still objected to him being the subject of gossip. ‘He does have family there.’

‘He would never willingly leave during term, and especially not with the Archbishop about to visit,’ Weasenham pointed out with impeccable logic and a clear understanding of the man. ‘He would want to be here, to be seen and to curry Islip’s favour.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Michael coldly. ‘Why are you accosting us when we are busy?’

Weasenham ignored his hostility and gestured behind him. ‘My shop is there, gentlemen, and when I saw you chatting, I felt compelled to come out and pay my respects. I am always ready to pass the time of day with Michaelhouse men.’