The Mark of a Murderer (31 page)

‘True. But why are they skulking over there, rather than standing in the nave with the rest of us?’

‘They are not skulking. I imagine they are keeping their distance because Wormynghalle does not want another awkward encounter
with his unmannerly namesake.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Spryngheuse, relieved. He rubbed his mouth with shaking fingers, while Bartholomew raised his hand
in greeting and the King’s Hall men returned his
salute with friendly smiles. ‘But what shall I do? How can I be rid of this spectre that is so determined to drive me from
my wits?’

‘Stay with Duraunt,’ suggested Bartholomew, wondering whether Spryngheuse might benefit from a sojourn with Brother Paul and
Clippesby at Stourbridge. ‘He will not—’

‘Why would Duraunt protect me? He lost loved friends in the riot, too. But you are a physician. Will you calculate my horoscope
and tell me when the Black Monk plans to strike? I have my dates written out, and you can borrow the tanner’s astrolabe .
. . no, you cannot. It is missing.’

‘Someone has stolen it?’

‘For its metal, presumably. But it is no great loss, scientifically speaking. Astrolabes are better made of brass than silver,
and this one is hopelessly inaccurate – made for display, rather than use.’

‘Did Dodenho reclaim it?’ wondered Bartholomew. ‘It was his to start with.’

Spryngheuse did not understand the question, but nor did he care. ‘Will you help me?’ he asked desperately. ‘I do not think
I can stand the anticipation much longer.’

‘I cannot predict when you will die,’ said Bartholomew gently. ‘No one can, not even with the best astrolabe in the world.’

‘I visited a wise woman yesterday, and
she
said it would be soon, but refused to tell me the exact day. She said there is a black shadow following me – Death in the
guise of a Benedictine.’

‘She was guessing. You look like a man at the end of his tether, and she used it to make her so-called prediction. Fight this,
Spryngheuse. Or leave Cambridge and go to some remote village where you can use a different name and no one will know who
you are.’

‘Yes,’ said Spryngheuse wearily. ‘That is what I should
do. The only problem is finding the courage to ride off alone, to somewhere the monk will never find me.’

‘Enough!’ roared Michael suddenly. The merchants’ quarrel had reached screeching proportions. ‘You have lied to me and misled
me, and nothing can change that. But I do not want to talk about Gonerby today. I want to talk about Okehamptone, who was
also foully murdered.’

There was a tense silence, as the party from Oxford digested this information. Bartholomew watched them carefully, but their
faces told him nothing he could not have predicted: Spryngheuse, Duraunt and Abergavenny were shocked, Polmorva and Eu were
unreadable, and Wormynghalle was incensed, seeing the statement as an accusation that somehow besmirched his personal integrity.

‘Okehamptone died of a fever, Brother,’ said Duraunt eventually. ‘You said so yourself.’

‘I have reconsidered in the light of new evidence,’ replied Michael. ‘So, what have you to say?’

‘There is nothing
to
say,’ said Polmorva. ‘Okehamptone was hired as the merchants’ scribe, and he died when we arrived in Cambridge. Fever deaths
are not uncommon after long journeys.’

‘England’s roads
are
dangerous, Brother,’ Abergavenny pointed out. ‘It is not just outlaws who present a risk, but sicknesses caused by rotten
food, cloudy ale, dangerous animals, filthy beds . . .’

‘Strange whores,’ added Eu. ‘My father always taught me never to romp with harlots I do not know personally. Of course, getting
acquainted with them first is not always—’

‘Bad water killed Okehamptone,’ declared Wormynghalle. ‘He drank from streams and wells, when the rest of us took ale. I warned
him it was foolish, but he would not listen.’

‘Where did he drink this tainted water?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘How long before he died?’

‘He was always doing it,’ replied Wormynghalle. ‘He disliked the flavour of ale, although he adored wine. He gulped a vast
quantity of well-water in a village called Girton, and was feverish that same night. It is obvious what killed him.’

‘Not Girton’s well,’ said Bartholomew immediately. ‘It is good—’

‘Did Okehamptone have enemies?’ asked Michael, before his friend could hold forth on the topic of water.

‘No,’ said Eu, surprised by the question. ‘We have already told you: we hired him because he was likeable. He had a habit
of gabbling Latin with Chesterfelde, which was annoying . . .’

‘And he sang,’ added Polmorva. ‘All the time. Now
that
was really irritating. He was always a tone below where he should have been, and it was hard on the ear.’

‘Anything else? Was he quarrelsome? Aggressive?’ Michael fixed Eu with a stare. ‘Pompous?’

‘He was a scholar-scribe,’ said Abergavenny before Eu could respond. ‘So, of course he was pompous. But, as Eu said, he was
a pleasant fellow – not wealthy, but his clothes were of a decent quality and he was clean.’

‘And that cannot always be said of scholars,’ added Eu, determined to have his say. He did not look at anyone, but Bartholomew
assumed he was thinking of Tynkell.

‘You say he was murdered,’ said Duraunt when Michael looked indignant. ‘How do you know?’

‘That is a good question,’ said Polmorva. ‘What have you done? Been to the church and dragged the poor man from his coffin?’

Duraunt turned appalled eyes on Bartholomew. ‘Please tell me you did not disturb a man’s mortal remains. I know there are
universities in Italy that condone that sort of
unchristian behaviour, but I thought English schools were above such barbarism – especially scholars I once taught.’

‘Of course they have been in Okehamptone’s grave,’ said Eu. ‘How else could they have “new evidence”? They cannot solve Chesterfelde’s
murder, so they have turned to Okehamptone instead, in an attempt to prevent us from finding Gonerby’s killer – to muddy the
waters.’

‘Okehamptone died from an injury to his throat,’ stated Michael baldly.

‘His throat?’ breathed Duraunt, shocked. ‘I did not see anything amiss with his throat.’

‘Did you look?’ Michael pounced.

‘Well, no, but—’

‘Then someone must have invaded Merton Hall during the night and killed him,’ said Polmorva with a shrug, to indicate he considered
the matter of scant importance. ‘He was alive when we went to bed, but dead by dawn.’

‘Wormynghalle provided us with a casket of wine the night Okehamptone died,’ recalled Duraunt. ‘He drank some of that, but
we all did. Besides, wine does not wound a throat.’

‘It was our first night here, and I felt we should celebrate our safe arrival,’ said Wormynghalle, a little defensively. ‘Duraunt
will accept no coins for our board, so I decided to repay his hospitality in time-honoured fashion.’

‘Just like the night Chesterfelde died,’ said Michael pointedly. ‘You provided wine, then, too.’

‘That was claret,’ said Duraunt, as if such a detail made all the difference. ‘We had
white
wine when Okehamptone was …taken to God.’

‘Did anyone see blood on his body?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘There would have been a lot of it.’

‘He was wrapped in a blanket and he wore Wormynghalle’s liripipe for warmth against his fever,’ said Abergavenny thoughtfully.
‘We did not notice blood,
because we did not unwrap him. All we did was cover his face and summon the appropriate authorities.’

‘Wormynghalle’s liripipe?’ asked Michael, turning to the tanner with questioning eyes.

‘He did not ask to borrow it,’ said Wormynghalle, a little angrily. ‘But once he had died in it, I did not want it back. I
do not wear clothes that have been donned by corpses.’ He gazed at Eu in a way that suggested he would not put such grotesque
behaviour past him.

‘And none of you touched the body?’ Michael asked, cutting across Eu’s angry retort. ‘No one anointed it with holy water,
dressed it in clean clothes?’

‘We did what was required of us,’ replied Polmorva coolly. ‘No more, but no less, either.’

‘You are a friar,’ said Bartholomew to Duraunt. ‘Surely you gave him last rites?’

‘He was dead,’ replied Duraunt. ‘I know some clerics believe a soul lingers after death, but I am not among them. I feel it
is wrong to place holy things near corpses, and Okehamptone had been dead for some time before we found him. He was stiff
and cold.’

‘Since the pestilence, we are all wary of cadavers,’ added Wormynghalle. ‘There are rumours that it originated when an earthquake
burst open graves, and I, for one, refuse to touch them. We had Okehamptone removed as soon as your other Corpse Examiner
had finished his business.’

‘Wormynghalle is right,’ agreed Abergavenny. ‘You cannot be too careful these days, and we were only too happy to let others
deal with Okehamptone’s remains. None of us knew him well, but we attended his requiem mass and prayed for his soul. We did
all that was expected of us.’

‘Except notice that his throat had been cut,’ said Bartholomew in disgust.

* * *

That afternoon, Bartholomew concentrated on his teaching, grateful to relegate the Oxford murders to the back of his mind
for a while. Since the plague, physicians had been in desperately short supply, and there was a huge demand for qualified
men to fill empty posts. Bartholomew felt it was his duty to train as many students as he could, and was hard-pressed to supervise
them all, even when he was not helping Michael. He was more than happy to spend time in Michaelhouse, his apprentice medics
perched on wooden benches in front of him, as he vied to make himself heard over the other lessons that were taking place.
William was a particular nuisance, with his loud voice and bigoted opinions, and it was invariably a challenge to keep the
students’ attention once the Franciscan was in full swing. That morning, William had taken it upon himself to hold forth about
the Dominicans again.

‘Dominican,’ he announced in a bellow, as soon as the bell had rung to announce the lectures’ start. Michael and his quiet
theologians jumped in alarm at the sudden yell, while Bartholomew’s lively youngsters nudged each other and grinned, anticipating
that they were going to be in for a treat. Langelee raised his eyes heavenward, while Wynewyk sighed in irritation.

‘Yesterday, you were read Galen’s theories relating to black bile,’ said Bartholomew, to regain his class’s attention. He
spotted a number of guilty glances, and was not pleased to think that some had evidently been less attentive to their studies
than they should have been. ‘What are they?’

A pregnant silence greeted his question, and Bartholomew saw several lads bow their heads to write on scraps of parchment.
Since he had not yet said anything worthy of being noted, he assumed it was a ruse to avoid catching his eye.

‘Domini. Can,’ bawled William. ‘From the Latin
Domini
,
meaning our Lord, and
canna
, meaning dog.’ The sinister emphasis he gave to the last noun indicated that he did not consider it a flattering term. Bartholomew
regarded him uncertainly, not sure whether he had used the wrong Latin intentionally, to test whether his students were paying
attention, or whether he had made a mistake. One eager Franciscan immediately raised a hand, and the fact that William ignored
him suggested the error was a genuine one, and that he did not want to be side-tracked by linguistic niceties.

‘Flies do not like it,’ said Deynman brightly from the front of Bartholomew’s class.

The physician dragged his attention away from William. ‘What?’

‘Flies do not like black bile,’ repeated Deynman patiently. ‘They think it tastes like the Dead Sea.’

‘And we all know about dogs!’ boomed William in a voice loud enough to make the windows shake. ‘Disgusting creatures!’

‘Lord!’ muttered Langelee, looking up from where he was writing something on a wax tablet for some of the younger scholars.

Bartholomew glared at his best student, Falmeresham, who was laughing in a way that made others smile, too. He could not tell
whether the lad was finding William or Deynman more amusing.

‘Galen said most creatures avoid black bile, just as they do saturated brine,’ Bartholomew explained, to correct Deynman’s
misinterpretation before the other students could write it down as fact. ‘Excessive salt is poisonous to life, and—’

‘I do not think the sea tastes of black bile,’ said Falmeresham to Deynman, puzzled. ‘I have tasted seawater myself, and it
is nothing like it.’

‘You should not drink bile!’ exclaimed Deynman in horror. ‘Did you not listen to the reading yesterday? It is
a deadly poison and an excess of it causes all manner of ills. Besides, I referred to the
Dead
Sea, not any old ocean. You have not tasted the Dead Sea, so you cannot know whether it has the same flavour as black bile
or not.’

‘Dogs push their noses into the groins of passers-by and fornicate whenever the mood takes them,’ ranted William, causing
Michael’s Benedictines to exchange shocked glances and Wynewyk to falter in his pedantic analysis of Roman law. Bartholomew
saw he was losing the attention of his own students again: Deynman frowned as he absorbed the friar’s statement with the same
seriousness that he applied to all his lessons, while Falmeresham began to snigger a second time. So did Michael.

‘Name one of the diseases caused by an excess of black bile,’ Bartholomew said quickly.

‘Melancholy,’ said Deynman. Bartholomew gaped at him. ‘What is the matter? Am I wrong?’

‘You are right,’ said Bartholomew, trying to regain his composure. He did not add that it was one of the few correct answers
Deynman had ever given, and felt a sudden lifting of his spirits. His jubilation was not to last.

‘And they eat the excrement of other animals,’ raved William, pacing back and forth as he worked himself into a frenzy.

‘They do not!’ objected Falmeresham. He kept a hound himself, and was fond of it. ‘Dogs just like the smell.’

‘Pay attention to your own lesson,’ snapped William. ‘We are discussing theology here, not medicine, and it is too lofty a
discipline for your feeble mind to comprehend. Besides, I am not talking about dogs, I am talking about Dominicans.’