Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (5 page)

Donald said nothing and neither did I. I, at least, was grateful Phillip had not been taken to Oxford Castle for questioning. And Donald looked uncomfortable. Perhaps he would begin to learn some restraint.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“He is closeted with Master Clarkson,” Crispin replied. “They have been in the master’s chamber for some time now, since the sheriff’s men left.”

Just then we saw Phillip emerge from the hall and walk quickly to the other building that served as the dormitory for most of the scholars at Balliol.

“I wonder what has happened,” Crispin mused. “Come, Anthony, let us go and speak with him.” The boys left.

“You see what your meddling has accomplished,” I hissed at Donald. “I am sure he is not involved in Jonetta’s disappearance.”

Donald looked somewhat subdued, and we left the college and walked back to Widow Tanner’s.

“Now, you’d best get busy scrubbing some of those parchments you left soaking before dinner. You can do it inside here, at this desk.”

Donald sat down to the laborious task. I remembered days of doing this as a young boy, at the Priory, and sympathized somewhat with him. It was a boring job, scrubbing old parchments with a mixture of bran and milk.

Mariota was still sewing and I did not quite know what to do with myself. I felt hungry, but it lacked some time yet until dinner. I approached Donald’s desk. He was working with alacrity.

“It’s dull work,” I said to him.

“No,” Donald said, “It’s no so dull. This is strange parchment. Look you, Muirteach.”

I looked at it. Most old parchments are covered with lists—old court chronicles, records, and such things. But as this parchment had soaked, the original markings were revealed. It seemed covered with drawings of figures. One began to emerge—a drawing of a naked woman. We looked at more of the parchment and other figures became apparent, faintly visible on the surface.

“These are strange, Muirteach.”

“Aye. But you’re enjoying the task. I wonder what they’re from?”

There was little writing on the folio, just the odd pictures. It looked to be a bathhouse or something. Naked women, all blonde, bathing in a strange apparatus, different pipes and vessels.

“Look at the other parchments we bought. Are they all from the same source?”

“They seem to be,” Donald replied.

“It will be interesting to see if the other sheets are the same. Come, I’ll give you a hand.”

Donald and I examined the sheets in silence for a time, and uncovered more of the strange drawings on another sheet.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I muttered, “certainly not in the manuscripts at the Priory.”

“What is it keeping you two so quiet in here?” asked Mariota, entering the chamber.

“Look.” I showed her the pictures.

Her brow wrinkled in that way I loved so much, the way it did when she was bemused. “I’ve never seen anything of the like. It could almost be a medical text of some sort, but there is no writing, no explanations, and it makes no sense.”

“Well, it is strange. If nothing else, it will make a dull job more interesting.”

Donald smirked a bit, but said nothing. Just then the widow called us for dinner, and we did not discuss it at table.

The next morning Donald rose early to attend the lecture. I was somewhat surprised at his industry, but did not dissuade him. His father had sent him here to be educated, after all. We heard chapel bells tolling the early hour, and he left. I did not accompany him. It was a short distance to the lecture halls on School Street, and Mariota and I dallied in our chamber until the light grew stronger. Then I left her to attend upon Donald and to see what had transpired with Phillip Woode.

“He’s on sufferance,” Donald announced to me when he emerged out of the hall into the backlands. “He’s still here, but it is said that Master Clarkson nearly expelled him. They’re not on good terms.”

“Aye, he was saying something of the sort to me, just yesterday morning it was,” I said, remembering our conversation of the day before. “And how was the lecture?”

Donald shrugged. As his father had said, he was not overly studious.

“Is Brother Eusebius an able lecturer?”

Donald shrugged again.

“Did you stay awake?”

“Of course. Well, most of the time.”

That seemed fair enough. There were no other lectures that morning and so we returned to our lodgings and found Mariota fuming. She was seated in the solar, but threw her sewing down in disgust on the bench when she saw us enter the room.

“Had I known it would be like this, Muirteach, I swear I would not have come.”

“What is it? Mariota, what has happened?”

“There are schools here lecturing on medicine, the town is full of them, but I cannot attend, as a woman. It is so frustrating.”

“Did you ask?”

“I visited one, on School Street. I went this morning, after you left. The master barely acknowledged me. He said only men could attend the lectures. They are closed to women.”

“I am so sorry,
mo chridhe
.”

“I showed him the letter of introduction from my father, but he paid it no attention. It seems they’ve not heard of the Beatons here, my father’s reputation counts for naught. As do I. While these great louts of students spend all their time in the taverns, and care nothing for their books! It is so unfair!
Och
, I wish I was a man!”

“For myself, I am very glad that you are not.” I put my arms around her and pressed my cheek against her hair, inhaling her sweet scent. Mariota relaxed against me for a moment and I felt her breathing quiet a bit. But she could not leave it yet.

“Muirteach, it is maddening, just. To be here and not be able to listen—and what a chance it would be to learn.”

“
Mo chridhe
, you might find, were you able to attend, that you know more than the masters. You are a fine healer, with experience. And you’ve had your father to teach you.”

She moved away, irritated. “That’s just it, Muirteach. How will I even know? I won’t have the chance to find out. It is just so unfair!”

I agreed with her that it was, but it seemed I could say nothing to mollify her.

“It’s all well for you to sympathize, Muirteach, but you’ve never had to forgo something due to the mischance of being born a woman.”

“No, I was not born a woman,” I agreed. But nothing I said improved her mood, and after a time I retreated, with the excuse that I needed to help Donald with his Latin, leaving Mariota to her sewing.

Donald had left us to our discussion and was in his chamber, strumming at his lute. He glanced up as I entered. “Do you think they’ve found Jonetta?” he asked.

“I am sure we would have heard something, had she been found.” I was worried for the lass myself, a nagging fear that nibbled at me like a mouse gnawing at a crust when it thought no one watched. There had been far too many times in my past experience where someone going missing led to a bad end. “Perhaps she just ran off with someone she met at the tavern. She is a comely girl. But Grymbaud and his men are searching for her. They’ll find her soon enough,” I reassured Donald, although my words did not reassure me.

The next morning Mariota remained in a foul mood, and I thought to improve it by asking her about the strange parchments we had found. Donald went again to the morning lecture, and while he was gone I began to examine the parchments again. The second sheet seemed to have writing on it, not so many drawings, but try as I might I could not make out the faint ink of the words. I called Mariota to examine it. Her brow furrowed as she studied the sheet.

“It’s no language I’ve ever seen, Muirteach. It is not Greek, nor Latin.”

“Aye, and for sure it is not the Gaelic. Could it be French?”

“I’m not thinking it is. Perhaps it is Hebrew. Or Arabic.” Mariota shrugged her shoulders. She was wrapped in her plaid, as the day was rainy and damp and the morning was chill. “I wonder if the bookseller knows anything of it? I’ve been wanting to return to his shop. It might be interesting to see if he had other sheets of it. Perhaps we should go visit him, Muirteach. Donald will be busy at the school for some time.”

Hoping to improve her mood, I agreed. We took one of the parchments with us and made our way into the town through the drizzle, to the stationer’s shop. It was still early, and Master Bookman was just opening the shutters in front of the store, pushing up the wooden awning and setting a few of his wares out on the wooden shelf that faced the street. He greeted us, his stocky face smiling at his first customers of the day.

“And what could I be showing you today? A romance for the lady, perhaps? I have something quite new,
The Book of the Duchess
. A man named Chaucer has just written it. A sad story, the poor lady died so young. Or she might enjoy
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
, if she enjoys tales of chivalry.”

“What of your medical texts?” Mariota demanded.

“What does a lady such as yourself need with medical texts?” Adam Bookman retorted.

“Her father is a physician,” I interjected. “She has some interest in the topic as well.”

“And she can read?” asked the bookseller, as if Mariota was not there.

“Of course,” Mariota bristled as she answered. “Latin, Greek, Gaelic and some French.”

“And I will look at
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
,” I added, hoping to calm the situation, and my wife.

Master Bookman shrugged his shoulders and gave me a complacent smile. “Oh, very well, in that case.” He handed me the copy of
Sir Gawain
. “We do have some medical texts. I have a rare copy of the
Tacuinum Sanitatis
that might be of interest. And another treatise on urine. Also several of Galen’s, and Ptolemy:
On Complexions
, and the
Quadripartitum
. There may be several here, just let me go and fetch them from the back room.”

We stood in the street, huddled under the shop awning to stay out of the drizzle, and examined the books. As a raindrop dripped down my neck, I looked up and saw Master Clarkson approaching the bookstall. I greeted him, but he seemed somewhat preoccupied and stood impatiently, folding his arms and tapping his fingers against his forearm as he waited for the bookseller to reappear.

“Master Bookman, you and I must speak,” he said, his lean face impatient.

“Oh yes, Master Clarkson. I am at your service,” Adam Bookman said, as he deposited several books in front of us. “Just give me leave a few moments, good folk, and examine these books while I speak with this gentleman.”

Master Clarkson and the bookseller withdrew to the back of the shop, but I could hear snatches of their conversation while Mariota pored over the medical texts. Clarkson seemed to be wanting to redeem a pledge but the bookseller was reluctant, saying that Clarkson owed him money still. I wondered a little at their talk, but it was none of my business, for all that. Mariota meanwhile seemed entranced by the medical texts. At length I opened
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
and lost myself in the story, struggling some with the unfamiliar English.

The door of the shop slammed open and Master Clarkson left abruptly, walking down the High Street as quickly as he had come.

“He did not seem to be in good humor,” Mariota observed. “He is the master of the college?”

Just then the bookseller reappeared. “Excuse me, just a matter of business that needed attending to. Did any of these texts seem as though they would interest your father?”

Mariota ignored the implication and picked out two books, the treatise on the examination of urine and another text by Galen on the complexions and what they revealed of a patient’s humors. At the last moment I added
Sir Gawain
to the pile. The tale had captured my fancy, and I justified the purchase thinking that reading it would improve my English. We had the funds to pay for the volumes, as his lordship had made sure we were well supplied with money for the time we were in Oxford.

I asked the bookseller about the parchment and if he had others from the same source.

“Those were just some old parchments that were sold by one of the schools. I do not think I have any others, someone just brought in a few sheets to sell.”

We thanked him, took our purchases and left. Mariota wanted to walk up School Street. The narrow street was crowded with houses and halls and jammed with students jostling each other as they left the lecture halls or waited outside other buildings until the last moment before going in. There was a babble of voices as many of them attempted to remember the lessons they had just heard.

We paused before one of the halls. “There,” said Mariota, “that is where many of the medical lectures are given. It is said that Master Rudolfo, from Salerno, is a very fine lecturer. I would love to hear him,” she said, and looked so wistful that my heart hurt sharply to see the expression on her face.

“There’s nothing for it, white love,” I said, “you know women cannot attend the lectures.”

Mariota nodded, and we continued down High Street, although she did make one more stop at the cloth merchant’s as we passed by his stall, picking out some blue wool of stout weave.