An Order for Death (27 page)

‘Not here, Brother,’ said Bartholomew quietly. ‘I recommend we take Kyrkeby to St Michael’s Church, where I can examine him
properly. Then we can have him cleaned before returning him to the Dominicans.’

‘Why?’ demanded Horneby aggressively. ‘Let them clean their own dead. They did not treat Faricius so kindly.’

‘Because if you hand Kyrkeby back to his colleagues looking like this, you will have angry Dominicans massing outside your
gates demanding vengeance,’ said Bartholomew. ‘We will break the news to them when we can show them a corpse that does not
look as though it has been treated with disrespect.’

‘Very sensible,’ said Lincolne approvingly. ‘I do not want a horde of nominalists yelling at me all night when I am trying
to sleep.’

‘Perhaps a prayer for this poor man’s soul might not go amiss,’ said Michael coldly. ‘Whatever you might think of Dominicans,
you might at least do that.’

‘Very well,’ said Lincolne with a sigh. He gestured to his students to kneel in a circle, and drew himself up to his full
height to begin a mass that sounded impressive, even if it
was probably not sincere. His flask of holy water emerged, and was splashed around with its customary vigour, splattering
the students and the ground as well as Kyrkeby.

‘Fetch Cynric,’ said Michael in a low voice to Bartholomew. ‘Ask him to summon my beadles to carry Kyrkeby to the church.
I will remain here with the body, and ensure they do not tamper with the evidence.’

‘Will you be all right alone?’ asked Bartholomew, reluctant to leave the monk in a graveyard where the killer might be kneeling
in the praying circle around his victim.

‘Of course I will. Timothy will be with me, and anyway, even the most desperate of killers is unlikely to attack me in full
view of the rest of his friary.’

‘Do you think any of them will stop him?’ asked Bartholomew nervously. ‘They might decide it is better for you to die, rather
than the killer be exposed.’

‘They would find it difficult to explain my corpse and Timothy’s, as well as Kyrkeby’s, when you return with the beadles,’
said Michael, smiling wanly. ‘Go, Matt. Now that Cynric lives with his wife and not in Michaelhouse, he is not far away. You
can be back within moments.’

Bartholomew glanced behind him as he left, and saw the lamplight gleaming around the edges of Lincolne’s funnel of hair, like
a halo. The Prior’s prayers carried on the still air as the physician hurried out of the convent and into Milne Street, where
his book-bearer occupied a pleasant room in Oswald Stanmore’s business premises.

Cynric answered the urgent knocking almost immediately, and Bartholomew was surprised to see the small Welshman cloaked and
fully armed, as though he had anticipated being summoned on University business.

‘Have you been out?’ asked Bartholomew, as Cynric closed the door behind him so that their voices would not disturb his wife.

Cynric shook his head. ‘Not yet. Rachel and I have been going to the Holy Week vigils at St Mary’s Church. There is no point
undressing when you have to put it all back on
again in a few hours, so we sleep in our clothes. Anyway, it is warmer. But what is the problem? It would not be another
murder, would it?’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Bartholomew warily.

Cynric grinned, his teeth gleaming white in the dim light from the candle he held. ‘What other business is there that brings
you to me after dusk?’

‘I occasionally need you to go with me to see a patient,’ said Bartholomew.

‘But not often,’ said Cynric. ‘And anyway, you tend to use your students for that. No, boy. When I hear your soft tap on the
door after the curfew bell has sounded, I know it only means one thing: the University has itself another killing.’

‘Well, that was an unpleasant day,’ said Michael, flopping into a comfortable chair in Michaelhouse’s kitchen much later that
evening. He closed his eyes and willed himself to relax, aided by the large goblet of mulled ale that was pressed into his
ready hand by Agatha the laundress.

It was very late, and most scholars were in bed, huddled under their blankets in an attempt to keep warm, even if they were
not sleeping. It had been a long winter, and Michaelhouse had already spent the money allocated to firewood for the year.
Langelee, juggling the College’s finances with a skill that surprised everyone who knew him, had managed to provide funds
for fuel to warm the hall during breakfast and dinner, but the remainder of the day was spent in chilly misery. At nine o’clock
that evening, the hall was abandoned, and lay dark, icy and silent.

The kitchen was a different matter. It was not possible to cook without a fire, and so it was always the warmest place in
the College. Also, Agatha the laundress, who unofficially supervised the domestic side of Michaelhouse, was not the kind of
woman to freeze while there was kindling in the woods and all kinds of ‘kinsfolk’ to acquire it for her. There was a cosy
fire blazing, even at that late hour, with a cauldron
of spiced ale bubbling over it and fresh oatcakes heating on a griddle to one side.

Agatha was a formidable figure, whose personal opinions rivalled those of Father William for bigotry and ignorance. She had
been laundress at Michaelhouse for years – how many years no one could remember – although she did not look any different
to Bartholomew than she had done when he had arrived to take up his appointment as master of medicine some ten years before.
She was a big woman, although Bartholomew would not have called her fat, and had a large, open face with a bristly chin that
was the envy of some of Bartholomew’s younger, beardless undergraduates.

‘Terrible business about Walcote,’ said Agatha, passing Michael the platter of oatcakes before settling herself in her large
wicker throne near the fire. ‘I was sorry to hear about him. He seemed a nice man.’

‘He was,’ agreed Michael. ‘You have not heard any rumours about his death, have you? My beadles said you were in the King’s
Head the night he died, and that is often a good place to pick up snippets of information about such matters.’

‘It was certainly discussed,’ replied Agatha. ‘Sergeant Orwelle from the Castle came into the King’s Head for a drink to steady
his nerves after he found poor Walcote hanging by the neck like some felon on a gibbet.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Michael, hastily suppressing the unpleasant image she had created in his mind. ‘I spoke to Orwelle
myself, but people often say more to their drinking companions than they do to the forces of law and order.’

‘Only that Walcote was hanging from the drainage pipe outside the Dominican Friary,’ said Agatha. ‘And that someone had stolen
his purse.’

‘His purse?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘I did not know about that, and no one mentioned it at Barnwell Priory. How did Orwelle
come to notice such a thing?’

‘People do notice things like missing purses,’ said Agatha,
surprised by the question. ‘These are hard times, Brother, and no one is paid what he deserves. The dead have no use for
earthly wealth, and so it is only fitting that whoever finds a corpse and raises the alarm should have what is left.’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Bartholomew, astonished by the assertion. ‘That Tulyet’s soldiers regularly engage in corpse-robbing?’

‘You cannot rob a corpse,’ stated Agatha authoritatively. ‘A corpse cannot own anything, and so it stands to reason that you
cannot steal from it.’

‘Well argued,’ said Michael. ‘Although I am not sure I concur. A corpse might not own anything, but his next of kin are entitled
to what he leaves. But never mind the ethics of all this. Tell me more about the purse.’

‘Sergeant Orwelle noticed the purse was gone, because he was going to put it in a safe place for Walcote’s next of kin,’ said
Agatha, unashamedly changing her story to protect Orwelle’s reputation. ‘We all asked him who might have killed poor Walcote,
but he did not know. We all believe it was a scholar, though.’

‘Really?’ asked Michael, raising his eyebrows laconically. ‘And why would that be, pray?’

‘The proctors keep the scholars in order,’ said Agatha. ‘We townsfolk
like
proctors, but we do not always like the rest of you. You are always engaging in stupid squabbles. I heard in the King’s Head
that the latest argument is about whether things that do not have names are real. It is all a lot of nonsense, if you ask
me.’

‘Put like that, it sounds like a lot of nonsense to me, too,’ said Michael, smiling at Agatha’s terse summary of the nominalism–realism
debate. ‘Still, you show a better understanding of the issues at stake than Father William does.’

‘Dear William,’ said Agatha fondly. ‘
He
does not indulge in all this subtle plotting and cunning quarrelling.’

‘I should say,’ agreed Michael wholeheartedly. ‘No one could ever accuse William of being subtle or cunning.’

‘It is Thursday tomorrow,’ said Agatha, easing her bulk
from her chair. ‘Only three days left of Lent. I had better go to bed, because I have Easter supplies to buy, baking to supervise,
and doubtless you will all want your albs washed for the celebrations; Matthew’s will almost certainly need mending.’

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew, puzzled. ‘It is not torn.’

‘Everything you give me to launder is torn,’ Agatha admonished him. ‘Just look at you now. The hem on your tabard is down,
your shirt cuffs are frayed, and you have ripped the knee out of your hose.’

‘That was from grovelling in the mud trying to pull Dominicans out of other men’s graves,’ muttered Bartholomew, noticing
for the first time that thick, silty dirt still clung to him.

‘Brother Michael was also pulling dead men from the ground, but he is not in such a state. You need to improve yourself,’
instructed Agatha. ‘I am a laundress, not a muck-collector, and I do not want to be up to my elbows in filth every time you
give me a bundle of clothes to clean.’

Having said her piece and expecting no argument, Agatha banked the fire and made her way to her quarters above the service
rooms behind the kitchens. As the only female member of the College, she had more space and a better room than Master Langelee.
She was proud of the sway she held in the College, and expected to be treated with deference.

When she had gone, Bartholomew took her place, settling himself down among the cushions that still held her warmth and that
smelled of wood-smoke and cooked food. In pride of place was one that was blue with a gold fringe. It had been used to smother
Langelee’s predecessor while the man had counted his money. Although Agatha swore it had been carefully cleaned, Bartholomew
remained convinced that he could still detect a dark patch where the victim’s saliva had stained it. Picking it up between
thumb and forefinger, he flung it to the other side of the room, where it was gratefully received by the College cat.

‘Pity about Kyrkeby,’ said Michael, taking another oatcake for himself and throwing one to Bartholomew, so hard that the physician
found himself with a lap full of crumbs. ‘I confess I had not expected to find him dead when he was reported missing.’

‘And I had not anticipated finding his body stuffed inside an old tomb,’ said Bartholomew. ‘As you saw, he was not easy to
extricate.’

‘He was not,’ agreed Michael. ‘How did he come to be thrust in it so tightly? I know it was growing dark, and that the Carmelites
were fussing and flapping around us like bees at a honey pot, but what could you determine?’

‘Not much,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The body was in such a mess that it was difficult to tell what had happened to it.’

‘We will have a hard job cleaning it up,’ said Michael. ‘Will you do it? I will not.’

‘I did not imagine you would,’ said Bartholomew, sipping more of his ale, and relishing the warmth as it reached his stomach.
‘But perhaps Agatha will help. She had a lot of experience laying out bodies during the plague.’

‘You were right to suggest that we clean Kyrkeby before handing him to the Dominicans,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘I do not
think I have ever seen a body in such a state. I know you said it was too dark to conduct a proper investigation until morning,
but what are your first impressions?’

Bartholomew shrugged. ‘There was enough light for me to see that there was a serious wound to the head that would have killed
him had he been alive when it was inflicted. It was also light enough for me to tell that his neck had been broken.’

‘So?’ asked Michael. ‘Are you saying that someone hit him on the head so hard that it broke his neck?’

‘Lord, no!’ said Bartholomew with a shudder. ‘At least, I sincerely hope not. That kind of strength would mean that we have
some kind of monster on the loose.’

‘What then?’ asked Michael impatiently. ‘That someone
broke his neck and he damaged his head when he fell to the ground?’

‘I cannot tell. And then, of course, there was his weak heart. I have been physicking him over several months for that complaint
– and he was quite ill with it on Monday afternoon.’

‘But you must be able to tell how he died,’ pressed Michael, determined to have an answer. ‘And what about the tunnel? Did
it collapse naturally? Or did someone tamper with it?’

‘I have no idea, although I cannot see that a body would be so firmly stuck just from someone pushing it inside.’

‘The body was swollen,’ suggested Michael. ‘Maybe it just got bigger, as corpses are wont to do after death – gasses, you
once told me.’

‘It is possible, I suppose,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He has been missing for two days – since Monday evening – although the weather
is cold, which tends to slow that sort of thing down. But if someone did use the tunnel as a hiding place, he did not do a
very good job by leaving a foot sticking out. And if the tunnel were used fairly frequently, which was the impression I gained
from Horneby and his friends, then it was not a very permanent hiding place, either.’

‘Perhaps it was not intended to be permanent. Perhaps it was intended to hide the body long enough until somewhere better
could be found.’ Michael groaned suddenly. ‘What a mess, Matt! We do not know whether Kyrkeby was hit over the head, his neck
broken, rammed down a hole that collapsed on him, or died naturally. And we do not even know
when
it happened.’