Agatha gave Bartholomew a heavy tap – more of a thump – on the shoulder. ‘Do as you are told, Matthew. Poor Michael is ill, and cannot do it himself.’
‘You are a good woman, Agatha,’ said Michael, leaning back in his bed and closing his eyes. ‘At least there is one person in Michaelhouse I can trust to put personal convenience second to honour and justice.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Bartholomew wearily, feeling powerless under their dual assault on his sense of obligation and friendship. ‘I will visit Ovyng later today.’
‘Good,’ said Agatha approvingly, treating him to another eye-watering slap on the back. ‘Justice will be served.’
When Agatha left, Bartholomew finished working on Michael, piling him high with bedclothes and feeding him water and potions that he hoped would break the fever. By mid-morning the monk seemed slightly better, although he claimed he was not. Reluctantly, Bartholomew left Michaelhouse to visit Ovyng Hostel, to enquire whether anything new had been discovered about the murder of Brother Patrick.
Ovyng stood opposite Michaelhouse, at the junction of Milne Street and St Michael’s Lane. It was a large building that housed about fifteen students, all of them Franciscan friars. By the standards of most hostels it was comfortable, with a pleasant chamber on the upper floor for sleeping, and a hall on the ground floor that served as lecture room and refectory. It was located in a large garden, which was still producing scraggy end-of-season vegetables for its scholars’ meals.
Bartholomew knocked at the door and asked to see the Principal. He was shown to a tiny room at the back of the house where the Principal had his office, and given a cup of the splendid malty ale that was brewed in the nearby Carmelite Friary. The Principal, a solemn, humourless man with neat white hair, sighed sadly, and told Bartholomew what he had already told Michaeclass="underline" that Brother Patrick’s body had been discovered the previous Friday morning in the garden, and that he had been stabbed. There were no witnesses to the murder, and no one at Ovyng had the faintest idea why anyone should have taken against Patrick.
‘How long had Patrick been at Ovyng?’ asked Bartholomew, sipping the ale.
‘Since September,’ said the Principal. ‘He was not among the most popular of our students, but he was not unduly disliked.’
‘Unduly?’ asked Bartholomew, surprised. ‘You mean he was disliked, then?’
The Principal grimaced, as if annoyed with himself for the inadvertent slip. He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. ‘Patrick was a gossip, and enjoyed spreading spiteful tales about the others. It is not a pleasant pastime, but not one that warranted his death.’
Bartholomew rubbed his chin. Matilde had mentioned that Brother Patrick was a gossip, and had even suggested that his loose tongue was the reason for his death. ‘What kind of tales did he tell?’
The Principal raised his eyebrows, grimly amused. ‘If I were to tell you that, I would be no better than him, would I?’
‘I am not asking you so that I can tell everyone I meet; I am asking you because these tales may be connected to his death.’
‘I doubt it,’ said the Principal. ‘But the kind of thing he seemed to ferret out were matters like our Bursar’s occasional illicit visits to the Brazen George for a drink, or the fact that our philosophy tutor hides the fact that he cannot see to read these days, or that one of the students once stole a pie from a baker. His stories contained nothing very damning, but they were irritating and sometimes embarrassing for those concerned.’
‘Do you think it is possible that Patrick discovered something really incriminating, and was killed to ensure he did not tell anyone else?’
The Principal gave a smile that was more sad than happy. ‘I do not think anyone at Ovyng has a secret of that magnitude. Feel free to ask all the questions you like, but remember that my scholars are all friars – not novices, but men who have taken their final vows. Ovyng is not like Michaelhouse, where the secular sits uneasily with the religious, and we do not involve ourselves in the squabbles and fights that the rest of the University seems to enjoy.’
‘Except the ones with the Dominicans,’ remarked Bartholomew wryly.
The Principal’s grave smile did not falter. ‘That is different, Doctor. We are Franciscans: it is our sacred duty to expose the lies and deceits of the Dominican Order.’
‘Then perhaps Brother Patrick was killed by a Dominican,’ suggested Bartholomew.
‘It would not surprise me,’ said the Principal. ‘But if that is the case, then Patrick’s love of gossip has nothing to do with it, and his death was an act of simple savagery by a rival Order.’
‘You are not planning to take revenge, are you?’ asked Bartholomew, slightly anxiously.
The Principal sighed. ‘It was a course of action we considered in the distressing moments immediately following the discovery of Patrick’s body. But we are friars, not town louts. We unanimously decided that any vengeance should be left to the Senior Proctor and his men. Instead, we have hired an additional porter to guard our gates at night and ensure all our doors are locked.’
Bartholomew stood. ‘Thank you for your time, Father. I hope Brother Michael will find the person who killed your scholar.’
‘So do I,’ said the Principal sincerely. ‘But Patrick’s body lies in St Mary’s Church and will be buried tomorrow. I understand you have some skill in examining corpses. Come with me now, to see if you can uncover some clue that the rest of us might have missed.’
Bartholomew felt he could not easily refuse such a request, so he walked with the Principal to St Mary’s, where he spent some time examining the body of the young friar. The case was as straightforward as he could imagine: there was a small, circular hole in Patrick’s back, where something had been driven into it, and that was all. The wound was deep and certainly would have been almost instantly fatal, and there was no other mark on the body, suggesting that the attack had been quick and decisive, and the friar had not been given a chance to do anything to defend himself.
The only puzzling thing was the shape of the injury. Most knife wounds were slit-shaped or ovoid, but the one in Patrick was an almost perfect circle. Bartholomew could not imagine what could have made it. He could only assume it was some kind of spike, like an awl, rather than a blade. The injury was clean, and there were no splinters or fragments of dust that Bartholomew could see, so he assumed the weapon must have been made of metal.
Eventually he straightened up, put Patrick back the way he had found him, and made his farewells to the Principal, knowing that he had found nothing that would help uncover the killer of the gossiping friar; he had probably wasted the Principal’s time as well as his own. As always when he encountered violent and futile death, he was aware of an odd combination of helplessness and gloomy resignation, and did not feel at all like teaching. Instead, he sat in Michael’s room while the monk slept, thinking about what little he had learned from Brother Patrick’s death.
In the late afternoon Runham came, wanting to see for himself why two of his Fellows had missed all three meals that day after he had expressly ruled that attendance was no longer optional. He relented when he saw Michael’s illness was genuine, but stated that Bartholomew would not be excused the following day. Bartholomew agreed, just to be rid of the man, although he had no intention of leaving Michael’s side if the fever became worse.
‘My fourpence, please,’ said Runham, thrusting out his hand.