Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘Can we be sure it is Eudo’s cache?’ asked Michael. ‘Could it belong to someone else?’

‘Such as who?’

Michael shrugged. ‘Dodenho? But he is not the only member of King’s Hall who has aroused my suspicions. Clippesby said Wolf fled because he was accused of theft, but Dodenho claims he was at Stourbridge with the pox, while Norton maintains he disappeared because he could not pay his debts. Who is right?’

Bartholomew had no answer, and he and Michael were silent for a while, each engrossed in his own thoughts. Bartholomew considered the body in the cistern, pondering who might have salvaged it and why – and what might have happened to it later. The easiest way to dispose of an inconvenient corpse was to toss it in the river with a rock attached to its feet, and if that had already happened, then the chances of retrieving it were slim. He suspected Tulyet would not be prepared to dredge any more expanses of water in search of elusive cadavers, especially with the Visitation looming ever closer.

Michael was more concerned with the living, and was considering Wolf and Hamecotes. The gossiping stationer was not a man who allowed truth to interfere with his stories, and Michael was inclined to dismiss his tale about Hamecotes as groundless gossip. But Wolf was a different matter. How ill had his pox made him? Bartholomew had more or less confessed to spotting him at Stourbridge at the beginning of Clippesby’s incarceration, but had not seen him since. Michael frowned. Poxes could be disfiguring, so it was possible the man had taken the scars of his shame to some remote manor until he was fit to be seen, but it was equally possible that he was still somewhere in the town – or even that he was the corpse in the cistern.

‘I think we should revisit Merton Hall before we begin our written analysis,’ said the monk, when no answers were forthcoming. ‘I want to see whether I can catch any of that Oxford rabble in an inconsistency when I ask each one to repeat his story. Will you come and make notes on what they say? Or do you find the prospect of a morning with Polmorva too unappealing?’

At Merton Hall they were shown into the solar by an elderly servant. All the Oxford men were there, with the exception of Spryngheuse, who was in the garden. Bartholomew was surprised, having been under the impression that the soft-spoken Mertonian seldom went out alone, on the grounds that someone might try to kill him. The three merchants were eating nuts, while Duraunt and Polmorva were engaged in a debate. Duraunt was pleased to have visitors. Polmorva was not.

‘What are you discussing?’ asked Michael, sensing the debate had gone further than academic sparring and was moving to the point where feelings might be hurt.

‘Yesterday we attended a lecture by a man named Dodenho,’ said Polmorva. ‘I thought it original and entertaining, while Duraunt maintains the central thesis was purloined from someone else’s work. I believe he is mistaken, and we have been arguing about it ever since.’

‘I attended that event, too,’ said Michael. He explained to Bartholomew. ‘It was about the dispute between Bonaventure and Aquinas on the notion of individuation: if matter is common to all bodies, and forms are objects of concepts, then what gives specific items their individuality?’

‘Bonaventure argued – and I believe him to be correct – that it is the conjunction of matter and form that gives objects their individuality,’ said Polmorva. He gave one of his patronising sneers. ‘Let me give you an example, to help you understand, Bartholomew: imagine a ball of wax, which is then stamped with a seal. The conjunction of wax and seal thus makes an individual object – an imprinted disc – that is separate from either wax or seal, because of its form.’

‘Bonaventure then went on to make an analogous statement,’ said Michael, to show he was perfectly well acquainted with the debate and its issues. ‘That human individuality is assured only in the union of body and soul – and he considered the soul to comprise spiritual matter and spiritual forms.’

‘But Aquinas disagreed,’ said Bartholomew, placing parchment and ink on a table and preparing to take notes. ‘He maintained that although the form of the spirit is shared by other members of the same species, a particular object is unique by virtue of its determinate quantitative extension in space and time. And, in knowing form, the mind knows matter only in general terms. Ergo , reason cannot know singulars directly.’

Duraunt clapped his hands in delight. ‘I see you have not forgotten what I taught you all those years ago, Matthew. But you did not come here to debate the question of corporeal substances.’ His expression was wistful. ‘Or did you? Such a discourse would make an old man very happy.’

‘That is not why we are here,’ said Michael, although whether he referred to academic polemic or to pleasing Duraunt was unclear. ‘We have come – yet again – to unravel the web of lies that has been spun at Merton Hall. First, there were untruths about Chesterfelde, then about Gonerby, then about Okehamptone, and now there is a fourth corpse to consider – one that has mysteriously disappeared.’

‘That had nothing to do with us,’ said Eu. ‘We have been too busy trying to solve Gonerby’s murder. Of course, that would not be an issue if your University was even remotely competent at deciding which of its members slaughters innocent merchants in alien cities.’

‘Then what about you?’ asked Michael, swinging around to Polmorva. ‘You have had plenty of time to drop corpses in cisterns and fish them out again, because you have not had the burden of identifying a killer, like these poor burgesses. Or have you? Since you witnessed Gonerby’s death, you are probably more than eager to see his murderer caught – so he does not try to silence you, too.’

Polmorva gave a tight smile. ‘I saw nothing to identify the culprit, and I can defend myself anyway. Brawling with Bartholomew as a young man allowed me to hone my martial skills.’

‘If you fight as poorly as Matt, then you should consider hiring a bodyguard,’ advised Michael. ‘But the body missing from the cistern is not my only concern today. I have recently learned that Eudo is a thief, and that he has been storing his ill-gotten gains on Merton property.’

‘That is no surprise,’ said Polmorva. ‘The man lived here, for God’s sake. Where else would you expect him to keep his loot? But this does not mean that you can charge us with his crimes.’

‘We shall see,’ replied Michael enigmatically. ‘One of the objects recovered from his hoard was an astrolabe. A silver one.’ He looked hard at Wormynghalle, who sat fiddling with his sheep-head pendant, although whether his restless twisting resulted from boredom, anxiety or a guilty conscience was impossible to tell.

‘That was Polmorva’s,’ said Eu. ‘But, not being brass, it did not work, so he sold it to our tanner.’

‘Why did you sell it, Polmorva?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Are you short of funds?’

Polmorva stared at him with glittering hatred. ‘No, I am not,’ he snarled. ‘How dare you – with your patched tabard and frayed tunic – accuse me of poverty. Do I look poor, when my clothes are the best money can buy, and Queen Philippa herself uses me as her occasional confessor and rewards me accordingly? And how could I buy silver astrolabes, if I were impecunious? Your question is foolish as well as impertinent.’

‘It is also unanswered,’ said Michael. ‘Why did you sell it?’

Polmorva turned his glower on the monk. ‘Because it did not work – the alidade sticks. I should have given it to Bartholomew, who would not know the difference between a good instrument and a bad one, and who will never own such a fine thing unless someone makes him a gift of one.’