Susanna Gregory: An Unholy Alliance

The locks on the chest were askew and the lid was not closed properly. Gilbert opened the chest and inside was the body of a man.'

'Gilbert has already told us as much,' said Bartholomew.

'But how did the body come to be in the chest?'

The Chancellor gave the grimmest of smiles. 'That, gentlemen, is why I have asked you to come. I cannot imagine how anyone could have entered the tower, let alone open the locks on the chest. And I certainly have no idea how the corpse of a man could appear there.'

'Where is the chest?' asked Michael. 'Not up more stairs I hope.'

The Chancellor looked Michael up and down scathingly, and left the room. They heard his footsteps echoing further up the stairs, and Michael groaned.

The room on the next floor was more comfortable than the first. A table covered with writing equipment stood in the window, and several benches with cushions lined the walls. In the middle of the floor, standing on a once-splendid, but now shabby, woollen rug, was the University chest. It was a long box made of ancient black oak and strengthened with iron bands, darkened with age. It reminded Bartholomew of the elaborate coffin he had seen the Bishop of Peterborough buried in years before. Guarding the chest and the room was the Junior Proctor, Alric Jonstan, standing with his sword drawn and his saucer-like blue eyes round with horror. Bartholomew smiled at him as they waited for the others. Jonstan was far more popular than Harling, and was seemingly a kinder man who, although he took his duties seriously, did not enforce them with the same kind of inflexible rigour as did Harling.

De Wetherset stood to one side as Michael and Cuthbert finally arrived, and then indicated that Bartholomew should approach the chest. Bartholomew bent to inspect the wool rug, but there was nothing there, no blood or other marks. He walked around the chest looking for signs of tampering, but the stout leather hinges were pristine and well-oiled, and there was no indication that the lid had been prised open.

Taking a deep, but silent, breath, he lifted the lid. He looked down at the body of a man in a Dominican habit, lying face down on the University's precious documents and scrolls. Jonstan took a hissing breath and crossed himself.

'Poor man!' he muttered. 'It is a friar. Poor man!'

'Have you touched him?' asked Bartholomew of the Chancellor.

De Wetherset shook his head. 'We opened the chest, as I told you, but, when I saw what was inside, I lowered the lid and sent Gilbert to fetch you.'

Bartholomew knelt and put his hand on the man's neck. There was no life beat, and it was cold. He took the body by the shoulders while Michael grabbed the feet. Carefully, they lifted it out and laid it on the rug next to the chest. The Chancellor came to peer in at the documents. He heaved a sigh of relief.

'Well, at least they are not all covered in blood,' he announced fervently. He began searching among the papers and held up a sheaf triumphantly. 'The history!

I think it is all here, although I will check, of course.'

He began to rifle through the ream of parchments at the table in the window, muttering to himself.

Bartholomew turned his attention back to the body on the floor. It was a man in his fifties with a neatly cut tonsure. His friar's robe was threadbare and stained.

Bartholomew began to try to establish why he had died.

He could see no obvious signs, no blows to the head or stab wounds. He sat back perplexed. Had the man committed suicide somehow after lying in the chest? 'Do you know him?' he asked, looking around at the others.

Jonstan shook his head. 'No. We can check at the Friary, though. The poor devils were so decimated by the Death that one of their number missing will be very apparent'

Bartholomew frowned. "I do not think he was at the Friary,' he said. 'His appearance and robes are dirty, and the new Prior seems very particular about that. I think he may have been sleeping rough for a few days before he died.'

'Well, who is he then? And what did he want from the chest? And how did he die?' demanded the Chancellor from across the room.

Bartholomew shrugged. "I have no idea. I need more time. Do you want me to examine him here or in the chapel? I will need to remove his robes.'

The Chancellor looked at Bartholomew in disgust.

'Will it make a mess?'

'No,' Bartholomew replied, startled. "I do not believe so.'

'Then do it here, away from prying eyes. I will post Gilbert at the bottom of the stairs to make sure you are not disturbed. Father Cuthbert, perhaps you would assist him?' He turned to Bartholomew and Michael. 'If you have no objections, I will not stay to watch.' De Wetherset brandished the handful of documents. "I must put these in another secure place.'

'Another secure place?' quizzed Michael under his breath to Bartholomew.

De Wetherset narrowed his eyes, detecting Michael's tone, if not his words. 'Please report to me the moment you have finished,' he said. He beckoned for Harling and Jonstan to follow him, and left, closing the door firmly behind him.

Bartholomew ran a hand through his unruly hair.

'Not again!' he said to Michael. "I want to teach and to heal my patients. I do not want to become embroiled in University politics!'

Michael's face softened, and he patted his friend on the shoulder. 'You are the University's most senior physician since the Death. The fact that you have been asked here to help means no more than that. You are not being recruited into the University's secret service!' "I should hope not,' said Bartholomew with feeling.

'If I thought that were the case, I would leave Cambridge immediately, and set up practice somewhere I would never be found. Come on. Help me get this over with.

Then we can report to de Wetherset and that will be an end to it.'

He began to remove the dead man's robe. The stiffness meant that he was forced to cut it with a knife. Once the robe lay in a bundle on the floor, Bartholomew began to conduct a more rigorous examination of the body.

There was no sign of violence, no bruises or cuts, and no puncture marks except for a cut on the left hand that was so small that Bartholomew almost missed it. He inspected the fingernails to see if there were any fibres trapped there, but there was only a layer of black dirt. The hands were soft, which implied that the man had been unused to physical labour, and a small ink-stain on his right thumb suggested that he could write. Bartholomew turned the hand to catch the light from the window, and the small callus on the thumb confirmed that the man had been a habitual scribe.

Bartholomew leaned close to the man's mouth and carefully smelled it, ignoring Michael's snort of disgust.

There was nothing to suggest he had taken poison. He prised the man's mouth open and peered in, looking for discoloration of the tongue or gums, or other signs of damage. There was nothing. The man had several small ulcers on one side of his tongue, but Bartholomew thought that they were probably more likely caused by a period of poor nutrition than by any subtle poisons.

He turned his attention to the man's throat, but there was nothing to imply strangulation and no neck bones were broken. He looked at one of the man's hands again.

If he had died because his heart had seized up, his fingernails, nose and mouth should show some blueness.

The man's fingernails were an unhealthy waxy-white, but certainly not blue. His lips, too, were white.

Eventually, Bartholomew sat back on his heels. "I have no idea why he died,' he said, perplexed. 'Perhaps he came here to steal and the excitement burst some vital organ. Perhaps he was already ill when he came here.

Perhaps he was already dead.'

'What?' said Michael, his eyes wide with disbelief. 'Are you suggesting that someone brought a corpse up here in the middle of the night and left it?'