Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘Archbishop Islip will be fêted with sewage-free streets, newly decorated houses, clean churches, and roads devoid of anything with four legs. He cannot expect the river to smell nice, too.’

‘I was more concerned with the fact that at some point he will want to wash, and it will be unfortunate if he catches a disease because he dabbles his hands in polluted water.’

‘He will be with Chancellor Tynkell for much of the time. And you know what he thinks about cleanliness, so I shall make sure he tells Islip just how dangerous it can be. Besides, he is only staying a week – not long enough for his hands to get dirty.’

Bartholomew gaped, then saw the monk was laughing at him. He smiled, then turned his thoughts to what Wormynghalle the tanner had said about Okehamptone’s death: that bad water had induced a fatal fever. ‘Okehamptone must have made some complaint about his health that night, because I do not think Duraunt, Polmorva, Spryngheuse, Chesterfelde and the three merchants would lie about it, and they all said he had retired to bed unwell.’

‘They did,’ agreed Michael. He was thoughtful. ‘Chesterfelde was snuffling and sneezing the morning I was summoned to deal with Okehamptone’s death, so perhaps Okehamptone had caught something from him. To some men, a summer ague is a minor inconvenience, but to others it is akin to having the plague. Okehamptone may have been one of the latter, and unwittingly provided a way for his killer to conceal his murder.’

‘Some people do exaggerate the severity of their afflictions. I helped Paxtone devise a remedy for Dodenho’s constipation last week, and he demanded last rites before he would let us begin.’

‘There is something distinctly odd about Dodenho. I find it hard to believe he is so dire a theorist, yet considers himself brilliant. I do not like this affair of the astrolabe, either – his “stolen” property ending up in Eudo’s hoard. Nor do I like the fact that he knew Chesterfelde, but initially denied it.’

‘Norton worries me – he reacted peculiarly when we examined Hamecotes. Since he is not here for his education – he cannot attend lectures, because he knows no Latin – I cannot help but wonder what is his real purpose.’

‘It may be ensuring that our University does not gain Islip’s patronage,’ said Michael worriedly. ‘Then there is Polmorva, who witnessed Gonerby’s murder but agreed to travel to Cambridge despite knowing that his own life might be in danger if the killer found out about him. I want to know why he refused to let Rougham see Okehamptone, too. And there is John Wormynghalle to consider.’

‘There is nothing odd about her,’ said Bartholomew, and immediately winced. Mercifully, Michael did not notice his slip.

‘There is ,’ he declared. ‘He sometimes misses meals because he is reading.’

‘How singular.’

‘It is curious that he studied in Oxford, yet only made the acquaintance of his namesake here. That tanner stands out, with his ill-fitting clothes and his garish jewellery, and I imagine he would be highly visible in a small place like Oxford. It makes me wonder whether the merchant is as rich and influential as he pretends. Perhaps you were right to be suspicious of him at our first meeting.’

‘He is very recently wealthy, and he is not yet comfortable with it. Not like Eu.’

‘Or Abergavenny. I am certain there is more to his smiling diplomacy than meets the eye. But here comes a contingent of King’s Hall men, all sewn into their best clothes in readiness for the Visitation: boastful Dodenho, bookish Wormynghalle and that reprobate Norton.’

‘I have just been reading Ockham’s distinction between kinematic and dynamic problems in relation to inertia,’ said Wormynghalle excitedly when she met Bartholomew. ‘But I think he is wrong: where there is resistance, then surely a purely kinematic treatment will suffice?’

Bartholomew considered. ‘Ockham was saying that he saw a way – although he does not explain what – of reconciling the law of ratios with movement in a finite time under zero resistance, and–’

‘I have already ascertained that in my latest thesis,’ interrupted Dodenho. ‘It is a work containing dynamical considerations.’

‘I read it,’ said Wormynghalle shortly. ‘It bears an uncanny resemblance to Bradwardine’s Tractatus de proportionibus velocitatum in motibus .’

‘Boring!’ sighed Norton. ‘You scholars are so dull, discussing such nonsense in the street. Why can you not talk about horses, like normal men? Come to the butts with me, Wormynghalle. You have a free afternoon, and I wager you a shilling you will not beat me again.’

‘Another time,’ said Wormynghalle, barely glancing at him as she turned her attention back to Bartholomew, the only man present she considered a worthy adversary. ‘But resistance–’

‘I would have done better if someone had lent me an astrolabe,’ interrupted Dodenho, resentful that his work should be so summarily dismissed.

‘An astrolabe,’ mused Michael. ‘There is a curious thing. You claimed yours was stolen, but later found it and sold it. Then it appears at Merton Hall, where it is owned by Polmorva and then by the tanner. And then it appears among the stolen treasure accrued by Eudo.’ He did not add that it had completed the circle by being offered back to Dodenho by Weasenham, as part of the arrangement for his silence on the whereabouts of the hoard.

‘So?’ asked Dodenho furtively. ‘I cannot be held responsible for what happened when it was out of my possession.’

‘I have a confession to make about that,’ said Wormynghalle, rather guiltily. ‘I am sorry, Dodenho: I am afraid it just slipped out.’

‘What slipped out of where?’ asked Dodenho uneasily.

‘Sheriff Tulyet was bemoaning the fact that he had not found evidence to prove Eudo and Boltone were thieves, and before I knew what I was saying, I had mentioned the fact that Weasenham had found a cache in the cistern, and that your astrolabe was among its treasures. I apologise, but my mind was so full of Ockham that I was not concentrating on the conversation. I did not mean to expose Weasenham, and I should have known better than to hold a discussion with a clever man like Tulyet when half my wits were occupied with kinematic inertia.’

‘Damn!’ cried Dodenho, annoyed. ‘Now I will have to pay full price for parchment!’

Wormynghalle continued. ‘Once the secret was out, Tulyet plied me with all manner of questions. However, I did stress to him that you categorically declined to purchase the astrolabe at Weasenham’s much-reduced price, and I think he believed me. He said he was going to interrogate Weasenham, and I have the feeling that our stationer may think you told him what happened.’

Dodenho grimaced. ‘Curse you and your loose tongue! You are worse than a woman, for chattering like a magpie.’

‘I shall pretend I have not heard this conversation,’ said Michael. ‘Blackmail and concealing stolen goods are criminal offences, but I am presently concerned with more serious matters. Dodenho, your astrolabe links you to a place where two men have been murdered – three, if we include Spryngheuse. You are also a Fellow of King’s Hall, where Hamecotes was found with a fatal wound similar to that of Okehamptone and perhaps Gonerby, and you were friends with Chesterfelde.’

‘What of it?’ snapped Dodenho, unsettled by the direction the discussion was taking. ‘It is coincidence, and you cannot use it to tie me to these deaths. What about Wormynghalle? It was his room-mate who was killed.’

‘But Wormynghalle did not know Chesterfelde, did he?’ asked Michael coolly.