An Order for Death (5 page)

His green eyes were cold and hard, and even the towering Lincolne apparently decided Michael was not a man to be easily intimidated.
The Prior knelt again and began to straighten and arrange the folds of Faricius’s habit, to hide his temper.

‘Now, I need to ask you some questions,’ said Michael, seeing that Lincolne seemed to have conceded the argument. ‘You say
Faricius was a gentle man, but did he have any enemies? Did he beat anyone in a debate, for example?’

Lincolne glowered at the sarcasm in Michael’s voice. ‘I am aware of no enemies, Brother. You can come to the friary and ask
his colleagues if you wish, but you will find that Faricius was a peaceable and studious young man, as I have already told
you.’

‘As soon as I heard that the Dominicans had taken exception to your proclamation, I sent Beadle Meadowman to tell you to keep
all your students indoors until tempers had cooled,’ Michael went on. ‘So why was Faricius out?’

Lincolne glared at him. ‘We have as much right to walk the streets as anyone – but we did comply with your request. I instructed
all my students to remain indoors, even though it is Saturday and teaching finishes at noon.’

‘Then why did they not obey you?’ pressed Michael.

Lincolne seemed surprised. ‘But they did obey me. None of them left the premises. It was not easy to keep them in, actually,
given that the forty days of Lent have seemed very
long this year, and everyone is looking forward to Easter next week. The students are excited and difficult to control.’

‘So I gather,’ said Michael wryly. ‘But you have not answered my question. Faricius was found lying in a doorway on Milne
Street. He was clearly
outside
the friary, not inside it. If none of your students left the premises, how did he come to be out?’

Lincolne frowned as he shook his head. ‘When your beadle arrived to tell me that we should lock ourselves away when the Dominicans
came, I rounded up
all
my students and took them home. Faricius was definitely inside when the front gates were closed. He could not have gone out
again without asking me to open them – and he did not.’

‘Did he sprout wings and fly over the walls, then?’ demanded Michael impatiently. ‘I repeat: he was found on Milne Street.
Perhaps he did not leave through the front gate, but he was outside nevertheless.’

Lincolne’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘You are taking a very biased approach to this, Brother. It is not Faricius’s actions
that are on trial here: it is those of the Dominicans. They killed Faricius. Interrogate them, not me.’

‘Oh, I will,’ said Michael softly. ‘I will certainly get to the bottom of this sorry little tale.’

When Prior Lincolne had completed his prayers over Faricius’s body, two Carmelite students arrived to keep vigil. It was nearing
dusk, and one had brought thick beeswax candles to light at his friend’s head; the other carried perfumed oil to rub into
Faricius’s hands and feet, and held a clean robe, so that his dead colleague would not go to his grave wearing clothes that
were stained with blood. One student was self-righteously outraged that the Dominicans had dared to strike one of their number,
and complained vociferously about it to Michael; the second merely twisted the clean robe in his hands and said nothing. Michael
homed in on the latter.

‘What is your name?’ he demanded.

The student-friar jumped nervously. He was about the same age as Faricius, and had a mop of red-brown hair that was worn overly
long. A smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose gave him a curiously adolescent appearance, and his grubby fingers
had nails that had been chewed almost to the quick. There was nothing distinctive or unusual about him, and he looked just
like any other young man whose family had decided that a career in the Church would provide him with a secure future.

‘Simon Lynne,’ he replied in a low voice, casting an anxious glance at the other student.

‘What can you tell us about Faricius, Simon?’ asked Bartholomew, in a kinder tone of voice than Michael had used.

‘He was a peace-loving man,’ stated the other student hotly. He was a thickset lad who was missing two of his front teeth.
‘He would never have started a fight with the Dominicans.’

‘We were not talking to you,’ said Michael, silencing him with a cool gaze. ‘We were speaking to Lynne.’

Lynne swallowed, his eyes flicking anxiously to Faricius’s body. ‘Horneby is right. Faricius was not a violent man. He came
to Cambridge last September, and was only interested in his lessons and his prayers.’

‘Do you know why he happened to be out of the friary when your Prior and I expressly instructed that everyone should remain
inside?’ asked Michael. ‘Was he given to breaking orders?’

‘No, never. He always did as he was told,’ said Lynne.

‘Then why was he out?’ pressed Michael.

‘He was not,’ said Lynne unsteadily. ‘He remained in the friary to read when the rest of us went with Prior Lincolne to pin
that proclamation to the church door. After that, you ordered the gates closed and they did not open again until Prior Lincolne
was summoned here.’

Michael was growing impatient. ‘But if Faricius had been safely inside, he would not be lying here now, dead. At some
point, he left the friary and was attacked. How? Is it possible to scale the walls? Is there a back gate? Are the porters
bribable, and willing to open the gates for a price?’

‘No,’ said Lincolne immediately. ‘All our porters are commoners – men who have retired from teaching and live in the friary
at our expense. They are not bribable, because they would not risk being ejected from their comfortable posts by breaking
our rules.’

‘The walls, then?’ pressed Michael irritably. ‘Did Faricius climb over the walls?’

‘Impossible,’ said Lincolne. ‘They are twice the height of a man and are plastered, so there are no footholds. And anyway,
he was not a monkey, Brother.’

Michael sighed in exasperation. ‘You are telling me that it was impossible for Faricius to have left your friary – more precisely,
you are telling me that he did
not
leave your friary. But he was found in Milne Street at the height of the skirmish with the Dominicans. How do you explain
that?’

‘It seems we cannot,’ said Lincolne, with a shrug that made him appear uncharacteristically helpless. ‘You will have to ask
the Dominicans.’

‘You want me to enquire of the Dominicans how a Carmelite friar escaped from within your own walls without any of you knowing
how he did it?’ asked Michael incredulously. ‘That would certainly provide them with a tale with which to amuse themselves
at your expense!’

Lincolne grimaced, uncomfortable with that notion. ‘Unpleasant though this may be for us, that is where your answer will lie,
Brother.’

Michael closed his eyes, and Bartholomew expected the monk to show a sudden display of temper, to try to frighten the Carmelites
into telling him the truth. It was patently obvious that Lynne was hiding something, and that even if he had not actually
lied, he had certainly not told the complete truth. Whether Lincolne and Horneby were also lying was unclear, although Bartholomew
found he had taken a dislike to the fanatical Prior and his gap-toothed
novice for their uncompromising belligerence. Their reaction to Faricius’s death seemed more akin to outrage that a crime
had been committed against their Order, than grief for a man reputedly scholarly and peaceable.

But Michael had had enough of the Carmelites. He nodded curtly, and left them to the business of laying out their colleague
and of saying prayers for him. Bartholomew followed him out of the church, and then stood with him in the grassy churchyard,
where the monk took several deep breaths to calm himself. Walcote, who came to report that the Dominicans were all safely
locked in their friary, joined them and listened to Michael’s terse summary.

‘One of their number has been murdered,’ said Michael angrily. ‘You would think they would be only too happy to co-operate
and provide us with the information we need to solve the crime.’

‘They probably thought they did, Brother,’ said Walcote soothingly.

‘They were hiding something,’ snapped Michael. ‘In the case of Lynne, I have never seen a more uncomfortable liar.’

Bartholomew agreed. ‘Lynne was about as furtive a lad as I have ever encountered, but that does not mean to say he was concealing
anything to do with Faricius’s curious absence from the friary.’

‘What do you think?’ demanded Michael of his Junior Proctor. ‘Why do you think the Carmelites would withhold information from
me?’

Walcote shrugged. ‘Something to do with this nominalism–realism debate, perhaps. It is possible that they intend to write
further proclamations, and do not want the proctors to prevent them from doing so. It is also possible that
Lincolne
is telling the truth, but that Faricius’s
classmates
were prevaricating because they do not wish to speak ill of the dead.’

Michael rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I suppose Faricius may have broken the rules and slipped out, and Lynne and Horneby
do not want their Prior to think badly of him now
that he is dead. But I am not convinced. Having spoken to Lynne, I think there is more to Faricius’s stabbing than a case
of a lone Carmelite being stupid enough to walk into a gang of brawling Dominicans.’

Bartholomew nodded slowly. ‘So, we agree that Lynne was lying – although we cannot be sure about Lincolne and Horneby.
Ergo
, there are two possibilities: either Lynne was lying of his own accord and was uncomfortable doing so in the presence of
his Prior; or all three constructed some tale between them that Lynne was uneasy in telling.’

‘I am tempted to march right back in there and shake the truth out of them,’ said Michael testily. ‘But that would only convince
Lincolne that I am determined to divert blame from the Dominicans. I shall have to catch Lynne alone, and then we shall see
how his lies stand up to some serious prodding.’

‘Was Faricius really the scholarly man they would have us believe?’ mused Bartholomew. ‘Or was he just like the rest of them
– a lout in a habit spoiling for a fight?’

‘He was scholarly, right enough,’ said Walcote. ‘I told you earlier that he attended lectures and that I admired his thinking.’

‘You need to decide whether Faricius really did remain in the friary to read when the others went to watch Lincolne pin his
proclamation to the church door, or whether Lynne has just been told to say he did,’ said Bartholomew to Michael.

Michael smiled craftily. ‘I am glad you seem interested in this crime, Matt. You can help me solve it, as you have done before.’

Bartholomew balked at this. ‘No, Brother! I am too busy to spend my time chasing murderers with you. And anyway, that is why
you have a Junior Proctor.’

Walcote shook his head. ‘The last week of Lent is always busy for us. The students are restless, and we are anticipating more
trouble. It will be difficult for us to solve murders
and
keep peace in the town.’

‘And you are not busy at all, Matt,’ added Michael. ‘The first signs of spring have heartened people, so fewer of them are
sick; it is coming up to Easter week, so we only teach in the mornings; and your treatise on fevers will never be finished.
It is already longer than virtually everything written by Galen and you claim you are only just beginning.’

‘And you
did
find the body,’ Walcote pointed out.

‘I found an injured man,’ corrected Bartholomew. ‘But I can tell you nothing relevant. I asked who had stabbed him, but he
was more concerned with the fact that he had lost his scrip than in telling me who had prematurely ended his life.’

‘Was that because he expected to recover?’ asked Michael. ‘Or because whatever was in his scrip was more important to him
than seeing his killer brought to justice?’

‘I do not know, Brother. Dying people react in different ways. He may have been delirious. He had certainly swallowed a good
deal of the laudanum I give to very ill patients, and that can cause people to say odd or irrelevant things.’

‘Pity,’ said Walcote. ‘If you had learned the name of the killer, you would not now be obliged to help us solve the crime.
And I imagine it will take a while, because there are already questions regarding how it could have happened. I have the feeling
this will transpire to be more complicated than a simple case of a Black Friar stabbing a White Friar during a riot.’

‘I agree,’ said Michael. ‘I feel it in my bones, and I am seldom wrong about such things.’

Bartholomew looked from Michael to his deputy. ‘You two have been in Cambridge too long! You are looking for complex solutions
when there is a very simple one staring you in the face. Have you never heard of Occam’s razor?’

Walcote said approvingly, ‘Occam was a great man – a nominalist, like me.’

‘
You
are a nominalist?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘What has induced you to follow a ridiculous notion like that?’

Walcote swallowed nervously, uncomfortable with Michael’s
disapproval. ‘It makes sense. It is a good way of looking at the universe.’

‘So is realism,’ countered Michael.

Walcote immediately backed down in the way Bartholomew noted he always did when faced with serious opposition. It was an aspect
of the Junior Proctor’s character that Bartholomew thought unappealing and Michael found aggravating. ‘I suppose it is. They
both are.’

‘Actually, to be honest, I do not think one theory has any more to offer than the other,’ Michael went on pompously, also
noting Walcote’s reluctance to stand up for what he believed. ‘They are both pathetic, desperate attempts that try to allow
us to comprehend a world that was never created to be understood. What we
are
meant to understand is people – the lies they tell and the plots they hatch.’

‘As you say, Brother,’ said Walcote, chastened.

‘But we are not supposed to devise complex solutions to what are simple problems,’ said Bartholomew, trying to bring the discussion
back to his original point. ‘That is the basis of Occam’s razor.’