‘You have invited my sister and her husband,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You hope they will donate some of their money to the College.’
‘Obviously,’ said Langelee. ‘Oswald Stanmore is a rich man, and it does no harm to remind him that Michaelhouse has deep but empty coffers. But I was not thinking about him.’
‘Sheriff Morice,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘You told us a week ago that he was coming. None of us relish the prospect of his company, but we have all agreed to behave and not tell him that he is a corrupt manipulator who took office only to further his own ambition.’
‘Ambition is why most men become sheriffs,’ said Langelee, puzzled that Bartholomew should imagine otherwise. ‘But I am not referring to Morice, either. I have invited Walter Turke. He is a wealthy merchant, and I thought I might persuade him to become a Michaelhouse benefactor. I can assure you I had no idea you were once betrothed to the woman who is now his wife. All that happened a long time before I came here.’
‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, his thoughts whirling. He wondered whether he might still be able to hire a horse, so that he could ride away into the snow and avoid what would doubtless be a wretchedly awkward experience. A noisy public feast was certainly not the venue he had envisaged for his impending reunion with Philippa.
‘I am sorry,’ said Langelee, sounding genuinely contrite. ‘I would not have invited him had I known your predicament. When Stanmore told me he had a rich fishmonger staying with him, it just seemed natural to invite him to our feast.’
‘Philippa married a fishmonger?’ asked Bartholomew, startled.
‘I thought you knew,’ said Langelee, embarrassed.
‘I knew Turke was a merchant, but I assumed he was something more …’ Bartholomew cast around for the right word ‘… more distinguished than a peddler of fish.’
‘Distinguished be damned! The Fraternity of Fishmongers is a powerful force in London, and Turke is its Prime Warden. But just because he made his fortune in fish does not mean to say that he deals with it directly. He will have apprentices for beheading and gutting, and that sort of thing.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Bartholomew, knowing that merchants at the top of their professions concentrated on the commerical, rather than the more menial, aspects of their work. It was likely Turke had not touched a scaly body in years, and the image of Philippa living in a house that reeked of haddock and sprats, which had sprung unbidden into his mind, was almost certainly wrong.
‘Never mind Turke,’ said Michael, entering into their conversation. ‘What about Philippa? She is the one Matt is itching to see. Did you invite her?’
‘I hardly think that–’ began Bartholomew indignantly.
‘She accepted the invitation,’ interrupted Langelee. ‘I have not met her yet, and it will be interesting to see the woman who captured Bartholomew’s heart.’ He clapped a sympathetic hand on the physician’s shoulder. ‘But I appreciate this might be difficult for you – unrequited love and all that. If you would rather absent yourself, then I shall grant you dispensation to do so. It is only fair, since it is my fault that you are faced with this awkward situation.’
‘I would like to absent myself,’ said Suttone in a gloomy voice behind them. ‘I do not want to spend all day watching the antics of acrobats.’ The last word was spoken with such distaste that Michael started to laugh. It was as though the Carmelite regarded entertainers in the same light as the town’s Frail Sisters.
‘All Fellows are obliged to attend College feasts, and malingering is not permitted,’ reprimanded Langelee sharply. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘But I can tell her you are indisposed – that you ate something that set a fire in your bowels, and that you cannot stray far from the latrines.’
‘That image should reawaken her romantic feelings for you,’ said Michael gleefully.
‘No,’ said Bartholomew, although Langelee’s offer was tempting. ‘I have to meet her sooner or later, and today is as good a time as any. You can keep the fiery bowel excuse for another occasion. Who knows when I may need it?’
Michaelhouse was a whirlwind of activity for the rest of the morning, and Bartholomew offered his services to Agatha, hopeful that keeping himself occupied would take his mind off the impending meeting with Philippa. He carried tables and benches from the storerooms, rolled casks of wine from the cellar to the hall, and even lent his skilful hands and eye for detail to repairing a marchpane castle that had suffered a mishap in the kitchens. But he was wrong: the chores Agatha set him occupied his body, but left his mind free to ponder all it liked. Meanwhile, Michael went to pursue his enquiries into the death of Norbert, although his glum expression when he returned indicated that he had not met with success.
‘Well?’ asked Bartholomew, as he joined the monk in the middle of the freshly swept yard. ‘Is Norbert’s killer in your cells?’
Michael gave a disheartened sigh. ‘My beadles have been unable to trace anyone who will admit to dicing with Norbert in the King’s Head and, although Meadowman dug through all that snow outside Ovyng, he has not found the weapon that killed Norbert.’
‘I imagine not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Knives are not only expensive, but can often be traced back to their owners. I doubt the killer would just have dropped one near his victim. It would be tantamount to leaving a note with his name on it.’
‘That is not always true,’ said Michael. ‘But it would have given me a starting point. I spent much of the morning searching the room where Norbert slept, hoping that one of these notes from Dympna might be there.’
‘I take it you found nothing?’
Michael grimaced in disgust. ‘Godric insists that Dympna sent Norbert several messages over the last few days, but not one was among his possessions. Meanwhile, Ailred confided that Godric is a romantic soul, who probably made a mistake when he took vows of celibacy, and that Dympna might be a figment of a lustful imagination.’
‘I thought all Ovyng’s students had seen these letters. They must have been real.’
Michael’s expression was weary. ‘Ovyng’s friars are relatively well mannered, and tended not pry into Norbert’s affairs. They knew he had missives, and one or two – like Godric – glimpsed the name Dympna and a few numbers scrawled on to a parchment. But no one ever took the opportunity to study the things properly.’
Bartholomew was thoughtful. ‘If Norbert received several messages, you would think that at least one would still exist. Do you think the killer destroyed them?’
Michael frowned. ‘I imagine Dympna would have been noticed if she had entered Ovyng and started to rifle through Norbert’s belongings.’
‘Dympna might have nothing to do with his death,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘Just because Norbert went to meet her that night does not mean she killed him.’
‘The lost hour might be more significant than I first believed,’ mused Michael thoughtfully. He saw Bartholomew’s puzzled look, and reminded him, ‘There was an hour unaccounted for between the time Norbert left Ovyng and when he arrived at the King’s Head. Since he received one of these mysterious notes before he went, I am inclined to accept Godric’s suggestion that Norbert had a tryst with Dympna.’
‘And then went to the King’s Head and spent a good part of the night gambling in company with another woman?’ asked Bartholomew doubtfully.
‘I now know – Meadowman told me after Shepherd’s Mass – that the woman in the tavern was a Frail Sister. Una, to be precise. So, I deduce that Dympna met Norbert earlier, at a more respectable time in the evening. Can we conclude that Dympna went home after the tryst, and was asleep when Norbert reeled from the King’s Head? Or was she lying in wait, and stabbed him for having a dalliance with Una? Is that why none of these letters survive? She demanded them back before she killed him, so that we would be unable to trace her?’
‘If Dympna was Norbert’s lover, then the fact that she sent obtuse messages indicates she was not a sweetheart who could be openly acknowledged. He might have been protecting her by destroying her notes.’