Death of a Scholar (20 page)

‘I am not sure what to think,’ said Suttone miserably. ‘The evidence suggests … yet…’

‘So Bartholomew, Michael, Clippesby and William deem Hemmysby innocent, Thelnetham and I judge him guilty, and Suttone wavers,’ summarised Langelee. ‘What shall we do? Go to St Mary the Great and demand some answers?’

‘Lord, no! That would set tongues wagging.’ Thelnetham stood. ‘We shall await his return, and while we do, I suggest we visit his lair, and see what else he has secreted there.’

Hemmysby’s quarters were in the south wing, where the rooms were larger, newer and in better repair than the ones where Bartholomew lived. Its ceiling did not leak, and there were thick rugs on the floor and books on a shelf above the hearth. The bed was loaded with blankets, and the students’ mattresses were stacked neatly beneath it. It smelled pleasantly of the spices that hung above the door to ward off agues, and of the lavender that was heaped in a silver bowl on the windowsill.

Bartholomew watched Langelee and Thelnetham rummage in the iron-bound box that held Hemmysby’s personal belongings. Spare habit, underclothes and shoes were tossed out with callous indifference, along with a lovingly embroidered blanket from the priest’s mother. Bartholomew picked it up and folded it carefully, deeply uncomfortable with what they were doing.

‘Someone else left the Stanton Cup here,’ he continued to insist. ‘William cannot have kept watch all day, so the real thief waited until he was not looking.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Clippesby. ‘Of course that is what happened.’

Thelnetham regarded them both in distaste. ‘Clippesby is mad, so can be excused asinine remarks, but you should know better, Matthew.’

‘Here are the deeds that prove we own our churches and manors!’ exclaimed Suttone, seizing a pile of documents that lay openly on the bed. ‘How did you miss them when you were here earlier, Master?’

‘I did not linger – I just grabbed the cup and hurried to the conclave to talk to you,’ replied Langelee. ‘Are they all there?’

Michael rifled through them quickly. ‘Yes, thank God! What about the money? Is there any sign of that?’

‘And my bestiary,’ added Thelnetham.

A more detailed search revealed no more. It was now very late and Bartholomew was worried, fearing that Hemmysby might have learned what was happening and be afraid to return lest his explanations were rejected. Cynric was sent to find him, but returned alone.

‘St Mary the Great is empty,’ he reported. ‘And I do not know where else to look.’

It was decided that he might be in the College church, so Bartholomew and Michael went to see. As they walked there, the physician reiterated his certainty of Hemmysby’s innocence.

‘I agree,’ said Michael. ‘He has plenty of money, and his needs are modest. He has no reason to steal. Besides, the placement of the cup and the deeds in his room had a contrived feel about them. I seriously doubt he put them there himself.’

They entered St Michael’s graveyard and approached the porch, where Michael began the laborious business of jiggling the awkward latch – more difficult in the dark than in daylight.

‘Hemmysby will never mend this if he learns that Thelnetham and Langelee have declared him a felon,’ he said. ‘And it would serve them right. Lord! The wretched thing is stickier than ever tonight. It must be the damp. You try.’ He stepped back to give the physician room, then released a yelp of surprise as he toppled backwards.

‘Are you hurt, Brother?’ asked Bartholomew, struggling to keep the amusement from his voice. It was not often that Michael lost his dignity.

The monk replied with some pithy obscenities that made Bartholomew laugh aloud.

‘I tripped over a … Oh, Christ!’ While Michael was not averse to swearing, he rarely blasphemed, and the exclamation put an abrupt end to Bartholomew’s mirth. ‘Help me, Matt! Quickly! I am sitting on someone. A
dead
someone!’

Bartholomew groped about in the blackness, locating a chest and then a face. There was no breath, and the skin was cold. Michael was right: it was a corpse. He felt something else, too – a familiar pectoral cross and a head of wildly bushy hair.

It was Hemmysby.

It was a dismal night for Bartholomew. He carried Hemmysby into the church, while Michael fetched the other Fellows. All watched in shocked silence while he inspected the body just carefully enough to say that the priest had not been shot, stabbed or battered. He would conduct a more thorough examination the following morning, when he could see what he was doing.

As a mark of respect, they decided to keep vigil for the rest of the night. Bartholomew took the first shift, standing over his dead colleague until Langelee relieved him at midnight. He returned to Michaelhouse and fell into an exhausted drowse, but woke two hours later and could not go back to sleep, so when a summons came to tend a case of fever, he was relieved to turn out. Medical matters kept him busy until six o’clock, after which he went to visit Edith, because he saw a light burning in her solar.

Sleep had eluded her, too, and he spent an hour listening to her repeat her conviction that Potmoor had murdered Oswald. Prudently, he did not add fuel to the fire by saying that Marjory Starre and Agatha thought she might be right. She had also discovered two more documents proving that Oswald had overcharged trusting customers, although Richard had declared they did no such thing, and they had quarrelled about it.

‘Where is he?’ Bartholomew asked, coming angrily to his feet. ‘Upstairs in bed?’

Edith rolled her eyes. ‘Of course not. He is out with his friends, as usual.’

Richard was still out when Bartholomew left. The physician walked slowly through the lightening streets, and arrived at the church just in time for morning prayers. Although Hemmysby was invisible to view – Langelee had moved him to the Stanton Chapel, the small chamber next to the high altar – everyone was acutely aware of his presence. The students cast frequent glances at the chapel door, and some of the younger ones had clearly been crying.

‘Langelee found the Stanton Cup in Hemmysby’s room yesterday,’ Bartholomew heard Goodwyn whisper to Aungel. ‘He was a thief, so do not mourn him. And he is not the only Fellow with an unsavoury reputation: our own tutor raises criminals from the dead and consults with the Devil on his more difficult cases, while Brother Michael arranged for his deputy to be shot.’

‘Then you should watch I do not “arrange” for the same thing to happen to you,’ said Michael, making Goodwyn jump in alarm by speaking in his ear. ‘But this time I shall settle for threepence, which is the price of brawling in the Griffin last night.’

‘It was not my fault!’ Goodwyn pointed accusingly at Bartholomew. ‘It was his nephew who took us there. And poor Uyten from Winwick Hall lost three teeth in that skirmish.’

‘Then my fine will remind you not to be so foolishly gullible again,’ said Michael sweetly. ‘And later, you can help Agatha wash the jugs we used at choir practice last night.’

‘Clean up after peasants?’ But Goodwyn reached for his purse when a steely expression suffused the monk’s face. However, it did not stop him from muttering, ‘It was choir practice that sent us in search of strong drink in the first place. That rendition of Wycombe’s
Alleluia
…’

‘I assume you were going to furnish us with a compliment,’ said the monk tightly. ‘If not, you will pay two shillings for gross impudence.’

‘You cannot…’ began Goodwyn, then forced a smile. ‘Your choir is unique, Brother, and I can honestly say that I have never heard anything like it. I cannot wait for the next rehearsal.’

‘I must browse the statutes for a way to eject him,’ said Michael through gritted teeth as Goodwyn slunk away. ‘I do not want him in Michaelhouse.’

Nor did Bartholomew. He joined the procession to return to the College for breakfast, but Langelee had other ideas.

‘Inspect Hemmysby properly, then come back and tell me what you find,’ he instructed. ‘I imagine he took his own life. He must have felt guilty about stealing the hutch, so he left the deeds and the cup where he knew they would be found, and took the easy way out.’

Bartholomew disagreed. ‘Why would he commit suicide outside a church? Moreover, he was at the debate all day yesterday. People do not attend those sorts of events and then kill themselves.’

‘I might, if
I
had been obliged to listen to that claptrap for so many hours,’ said Langelee. ‘But his death is a bitter blow on two counts. First, because now we cannot ask him to give us back our money. And second, because he was a good teacher, who will be difficult to replace.’

Bartholomew waited for everyone except Michael to leave, and locked the door behind them. He did not do anything overtly gruesome when inspecting corpses, but Goodwyn’s remark made him wary of exacerbating the tales of his association with the Devil.

‘Ignore him,’ said Michael, guessing the reason for his caution. ‘He has a poisonous tongue, as evidenced by his gossip about me.’

‘Edith heard that particular rumour, too.’

Michael waved dismissively. ‘I can think of far more creative ways of dealing with upstart minions than hiring archers to shoot them, and anyone who matters knows it. Still, it is galling to think that I am the subject of tittle-tattle by the likes of Goodwyn.’

‘Have your beadles found Fulbut yet?’

‘No, and I am beginning to suspect that whoever employed him has taken steps to ensure that he will never spill his secrets.’

‘You mean he might be murdered himself?’

Michael nodded. ‘There must be some reason why he has disappeared so completely.’

‘Do you think de Stannell is right to accuse him of setting light to St Clement’s? After all, I saw him skulking near the back of it shortly afterwards, and its vicar freely admits to giving a damning sermon with thinly disguised references to Potmoor’s “resurrection”.’

‘It is possible – Heyford is his own worst enemy with his nasty orations. But you had better make a start. We cannot stay locked in here too long, or people will wonder what you are doing.’

Bartholomew made no move to oblige. ‘These rumours about the Devil and necromancy would not be so galling if I had not tried so hard to conform – keeping my opinions to myself, never discussing the teachings of my Arab master, bowing to traditionalism at every turn…’

‘Then just imagine what folk would be saying if you had not taken steps to toe the line. Be thankful for small mercies. Now are you going to begin or not?’

Bartholomew was thorough, but there was no sign of violence, self-inflicted or otherwise, and everything indicated that Hemmysby had just fallen over dead in the churchyard.

‘He must have been taken ill after the debate,’ he said eventually. ‘And came here as the nearest refuge, but the sticky latch defeated him and he died outside.’

‘Died of what?’

Bartholomew shrugged. ‘Some failure of the vital organs, I suppose. Heart, brain or liver.’

‘Natural causes?’ asked Michael sceptically. ‘That is very convenient, given what we found in his room. Are you sure he has not been poisoned?’

‘No. Some toxic substances leave obvious marks – discoloration, rashes, swelling and so forth – but many are untraceable.’ Bartholomew leaned against the wall. ‘I witnessed a dissection at Salerno once, where poisoning was suspected. There were no external signs, but the anatomist discovered plenty internally. His diligence allowed a killer to be brought to justice.’

‘How did he do it? By slitting the victim open from chin to toes?’

‘Hardly! He made an incision in the neck, and the lesions were immediately apparent. He could have stopped there, but he removed the stomach, liver and intestines as well, to show us that damage had occurred in those, too.’

Michael was silent for a long time, staring down at their dead colleague. ‘I do not believe Hemmysby died naturally,’ he said at last. ‘And I do not believe he stole the Stanton Hutch either. I think someone is trying to lead us astray.’

‘What are you saying? That he
was
poisoned? Murdered?’

Michael nodded slowly. ‘Yes, because we also have two other untimely “natural” deaths – Knyt and Oswald Stanmore. Like Hemmysby, both were guildsmen.’

‘Rougham said Oswald died of marsh fever…’

‘But Rougham is not a good
medicus
, and you do not trust his opinion,’ finished Michael.

‘I will quiz him about it today. Again.’

‘Do. Meanwhile, I dislike the notion that someone might be using Hemmysby to mislead us, and I will not let him be buried amid rumours of dishonesty and suicide. I want his name cleared.’

‘So do I, but how will you go about it?’

Michael looked up at him very slowly, and the physician was disconcerted by the haunted expression in his eyes. ‘By asking you to look inside him.’

Bartholomew’s jaw dropped. ‘You want me to
dissect
Hemmysby?’

‘Not dissect,’ corrected Michael, distaste clear in his face. ‘Just make a small incision to look for these telltale lesions. I do not expect you to … pull anything out.’

Bartholomew regarded him in alarm. ‘But you have always said you would never permit such a procedure, yet here you are encouraging me to do it on a friend. In a church!’

Michael winced. ‘If there was another way, I would take it, believe me. But I can think of none, and I will not see Hemmysby in a suicide’s grave – which is where he will go unless we prove his innocence. Thelnetham will see to that.’

‘He will. But I cannot do what you ask, Brother. Hemmysby would not have liked it.’

‘I disagree. He said not two days ago that he approved of anatomical studies, and I am sure he would rather suffer a little judicial slicing than lie in unconsecrated ground for eternity.’

‘Looking inside him might –
might
– disclose whether he swallowed poison, but not whether he did it himself or was given it by someone else. Thus a dissection will not provide you with the answers you want, and nor will it save Hemmysby from an anonymous hole outside the town gates.’

‘Perhaps,’ conceded Michael. ‘But it would give us a place to start.’

Bartholomew was surprised by the depth of his disinclination to do what Michael asked, especially as he had always championed dissection as an enlightened way to learn more about the mysteries of the human body. He shook his head. ‘I will not do it, Brother. Not on Hemmysby.’