Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘Just like the night Chesterfelde died,’ said Michael pointedly. ‘You provided wine, then, too.’

‘That was claret,’ said Duraunt, as if such a detail made all the difference. ‘We had white wine when Okehamptone was …taken to God.’

‘Did anyone see blood on his body?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘There would have been a lot of it.’

‘He was wrapped in a blanket and he wore Wormynghalle’s liripipe for warmth against his fever,’ said Abergavenny thoughtfully. ‘We did not notice blood, because we did not unwrap him. All we did was cover his face and summon the appropriate authorities.’

‘Wormynghalle’s liripipe?’ asked Michael, turning to the tanner with questioning eyes.

‘He did not ask to borrow it,’ said Wormynghalle, a little angrily. ‘But once he had died in it, I did not want it back. I do not wear clothes that have been donned by corpses.’ He gazed at Eu in a way that suggested he would not put such grotesque behaviour past him.

‘And none of you touched the body?’ Michael asked, cutting across Eu’s angry retort. ‘No one anointed it with holy water, dressed it in clean clothes?’

‘We did what was required of us,’ replied Polmorva coolly. ‘No more, but no less, either.’

‘You are a friar,’ said Bartholomew to Duraunt. ‘Surely you gave him last rites?’

‘He was dead,’ replied Duraunt. ‘I know some clerics believe a soul lingers after death, but I am not among them. I feel it is wrong to place holy things near corpses, and Okehamptone had been dead for some time before we found him. He was stiff and cold.’

‘Since the pestilence, we are all wary of cadavers,’ added Wormynghalle. ‘There are rumours that it originated when an earthquake burst open graves, and I, for one, refuse to touch them. We had Okehamptone removed as soon as your other Corpse Examiner had finished his business.’

‘Wormynghalle is right,’ agreed Abergavenny. ‘You cannot be too careful these days, and we were only too happy to let others deal with Okehamptone’s remains. None of us knew him well, but we attended his requiem mass and prayed for his soul. We did all that was expected of us.’

‘Except notice that his throat had been cut,’ said Bartholomew in disgust.

That afternoon, Bartholomew concentrated on his teaching, grateful to relegate the Oxford murders to the back of his mind for a while. Since the plague, physicians had been in desperately short supply, and there was a huge demand for qualified men to fill empty posts. Bartholomew felt it was his duty to train as many students as he could, and was hard-pressed to supervise them all, even when he was not helping Michael. He was more than happy to spend time in Michaelhouse, his apprentice medics perched on wooden benches in front of him, as he vied to make himself heard over the other lessons that were taking place. William was a particular nuisance, with his loud voice and bigoted opinions, and it was invariably a challenge to keep the students’ attention once the Franciscan was in full swing. That morning, William had taken it upon himself to hold forth about the Dominicans again.

‘Dominican,’ he announced in a bellow, as soon as the bell had rung to announce the lectures’ start. Michael and his quiet theologians jumped in alarm at the sudden yell, while Bartholomew’s lively youngsters nudged each other and grinned, anticipating that they were going to be in for a treat. Langelee raised his eyes heavenward, while Wynewyk sighed in irritation.

‘Yesterday, you were read Galen’s theories relating to black bile,’ said Bartholomew, to regain his class’s attention. He spotted a number of guilty glances, and was not pleased to think that some had evidently been less attentive to their studies than they should have been. ‘What are they?’

A pregnant silence greeted his question, and Bartholomew saw several lads bow their heads to write on scraps of parchment. Since he had not yet said anything worthy of being noted, he assumed it was a ruse to avoid catching his eye.

‘Domini. Can,’ bawled William. ‘From the Latin Domini , meaning our Lord, and canna , meaning dog.’ The sinister emphasis he gave to the last noun indicated that he did not consider it a flattering term. Bartholomew regarded him uncertainly, not sure whether he had used the wrong Latin intentionally, to test whether his students were paying attention, or whether he had made a mistake. One eager Franciscan immediately raised a hand, and the fact that William ignored him suggested the error was a genuine one, and that he did not want to be side-tracked by linguistic niceties.

‘Flies do not like it,’ said Deynman brightly from the front of Bartholomew’s class.

The physician dragged his attention away from William. ‘What?’

‘Flies do not like black bile,’ repeated Deynman patiently. ‘They think it tastes like the Dead Sea.’

‘And we all know about dogs!’ boomed William in a voice loud enough to make the windows shake. ‘Disgusting creatures!’

‘Lord!’ muttered Langelee, looking up from where he was writing something on a wax tablet for some of the younger scholars.

Bartholomew glared at his best student, Falmeresham, who was laughing in a way that made others smile, too. He could not tell whether the lad was finding William or Deynman more amusing.

‘Galen said most creatures avoid black bile, just as they do saturated brine,’ Bartholomew explained, to correct Deynman’s misinterpretation before the other students could write it down as fact. ‘Excessive salt is poisonous to life, and–’

‘I do not think the sea tastes of black bile,’ said Falmeresham to Deynman, puzzled. ‘I have tasted seawater myself, and it is nothing like it.’

‘You should not drink bile!’ exclaimed Deynman in horror. ‘Did you not listen to the reading yesterday? It is a deadly poison and an excess of it causes all manner of ills. Besides, I referred to the Dead Sea, not any old ocean. You have not tasted the Dead Sea, so you cannot know whether it has the same flavour as black bile or not.’

‘Dogs push their noses into the groins of passers-by and fornicate whenever the mood takes them,’ ranted William, causing Michael’s Benedictines to exchange shocked glances and Wynewyk to falter in his pedantic analysis of Roman law. Bartholomew saw he was losing the attention of his own students again: Deynman frowned as he absorbed the friar’s statement with the same seriousness that he applied to all his lessons, while Falmeresham began to snigger a second time. So did Michael.

‘Name one of the diseases caused by an excess of black bile,’ Bartholomew said quickly.

‘Melancholy,’ said Deynman. Bartholomew gaped at him. ‘What is the matter? Am I wrong?’

‘You are right,’ said Bartholomew, trying to regain his composure. He did not add that it was one of the few correct answers Deynman had ever given, and felt a sudden lifting of his spirits. His jubilation was not to last.

‘And they eat the excrement of other animals,’ raved William, pacing back and forth as he worked himself into a frenzy.

‘They do not!’ objected Falmeresham. He kept a hound himself, and was fond of it. ‘Dogs just like the smell.’

‘Pay attention to your own lesson,’ snapped William. ‘We are discussing theology here, not medicine, and it is too lofty a discipline for your feeble mind to comprehend. Besides, I am not talking about dogs, I am talking about Dominicans.’

‘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.’