‘Then I shall not detain you,’ said Horwoode. ‘Go and inspect your corpses. You will find that I am right, and that Wymundham committed suicide.’
‘I will bear it in mind,’ said Bartholomew noncommittally, wondering why so many people were determined to have poor Wymundham condemned to a suicide’s grave. Could Horwoode be involved in his murder? Bartholomew could not see how, although the Mayor’s insistence that his findings were wrong had the effect of making Bartholomew more determined than ever to uncover the truth behind the Bene’t man’s death.
‘Good,’ said Horwoode flatly. ‘In that case, I will bid you good afternoon.’
‘He came with–’ began Edith, indignant that the Mayor should dismiss her brother so rudely.
‘There is Matilde,’ said Bartholomew quickly, not wanting Edith to inveigle an invitation from a man who clearly did not want to extend his hospitality to scholars. ‘I must pay my respects.’
‘A whore?’ asked Horwoode disapprovingly. ‘Is the University in league with harlots these days?’
‘Not on Fridays,’ retorted Bartholomew, recalling Matilde’s friend telling him about her weekly visits to the Mayor’s house. ‘The prostitutes have civic engagements on Friday nights.’
Leaving Horwoode scarlet with mortification and outrage, Bartholomew bowed to Edith and Stanmore and took his leave.
Matilde was inspecting some brightly coloured ribbons on a pedlar’s cart, stretching long, elegant fingers to touch each one and assess its quality. Bartholomew remembered Langelee telling him that he should buy her some ribbons, although he could not imagine that the loutish philosopher had any advice about women that was worth following; after all, he had just extricated himself from a disastrous marriage.
‘Matthew,’ said Matilde, turning to smile at him as he approached. ‘What are you doing here? Surely Mayor Horwoode would not admit a mere scholar into his home? Or is someone ill?’
‘I did not know there was such a strong dislike of scholars among the great and the good of the town,’ said Bartholomew, still bemused.
‘Then you must be blind,’ said Matilde bluntly. ‘Important men like the Mayor, the burgesses and the merchants no more want poor scholars in their homes than they do the sisters. To both of us, their doors are only open when they think no one else will see.’
‘I am sure it never used to be this bad. Sheriff Tulyet is important, but he is never hostile to me or Michael.’
‘Dick Tulyet is a good man, and your role as physician and your family connections make you less objectionable than most. But you are right – relations between town and University are less friendly since Michaelhouse disbanded the choir. It was an ill-considered act on Runham’s part.’
‘I know.’
Matilde smiled at him. ‘But let us not talk about such things. Which of these ribbons do you prefer? The green or the blue?’
‘Green,’ he said, barely glancing at them. Even in the dull light of a grey November afternoon, Matilde was lovely. Her hair shone with health, and her skin was clean and unblemished. In her cloak of dark blue wool she looked as respectable and affluent as any of the wealthy merchants.
‘Green it is, then,’ she said, holding the ribbon out to the pedlar to fold. She smiled when Bartholomew paid the threepence. ‘Thank you. I seldom carry pennies – they are always so dirty, not to mention heavy. Where are you going now? Home to Michaelhouse?’
‘To Bene’t College, to ask the Master if he will allow me to inspect the bodies of those two scholars again.’
‘I know Raysoun fell from the scaffolding,’ said Matilde, ‘and the word is that Wymundham flung himself from the bank of the King’s Ditch in sorrow at losing his only friend.’
‘That is what Mayor Horwoode thinks, certainly.’
‘Mayor Horwoode,’ mused Matilde. ‘You said it was his garden in which the body was found, so I suppose he would want a verdict of suicide.’
‘Would he?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Why?’
‘Well, no one wants their home to be the scene of a gruesome crime,’ said Matilde. ‘And no one wants their home to be open to the interested scrutiny of the Senior Proctor, whose task it is to investigate the murders of scholars. Also, if it were proven that a scholar was killed on his property, Horwoode might have enraged students storming his house, seeking revenge.’
‘That is true,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But all this suggests that Horwoode suspected that Wymundham was murdered – or even that he had a hand in it – and that he deliberately set out to make Michael believe the death was not suspicious.’
‘It does indeed,’ said Matilde. ‘Although I think you will find that Horwoode is more likely to be guilty of concealing a crime than of committing one. If he had killed Wymundham himself, he would have removed the body from his own property. But what did you think when you examined the corpse that night? Did it look as though Wymundham had killed himself in a fit of grief?’
‘No,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I was a little drunk at the time …’
Matilde laughed. ‘A little? You were reeling like an apprentice with his first wine!’
‘… but it looked to me as though he had been suffocated in some way. There was no injury to his head and I do not think his neck was broken, but the blueness of the face and the damaged fingers suggested that he was prevented from breathing.’
Matilde shuddered, her amusement fading. ‘What nasty business this is, Matt. You should be careful. If Horwoode did try to make Wymundham’s murder appear suicide – perhaps even by calling you in the depths of the night, so that it would be too dark for you to see properly – then he will not take kindly to you investigating it too closely.’
‘I know,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And the Mayor is a powerful man in Cambridge. If ever I need to apply for a licence to practise medicine in the town, I would need his good favour.’
‘Are you thinking of leaving Michaelhouse, then?’ asked Matilde in astonishment. ‘But you cannot, Matthew! You love your teaching too much! You would be unhappy!’
Would he? Bartholomew wondered. If he were no longer affiliated with Michaelhouse, then there would be nothing to stop him from pursuing Matilde in any way he pleased. And, he thought, spending long winter evenings in the presence of so lively and intelligent a mind, not to mention a lovely body, was infinitely more appealing than shivering over candle stubs in the rising damp of his Michaelhouse cell.
‘What about Ovyng Hostel’s Brother Patrick?’ asked Matilde, changing the subject quickly, as if embarrassed by her outburst. ‘Did you learn anything about him? I told you one of the sisters had denounced him as an inveterate gossip. Did you check that? Was she right?’
‘His Principal certainly thought so,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But he also said that Patrick was not privy to the kind of secrets that would warrant someone killing him.’
‘It is quite astonishing what some people object to, and the trouble they take to conceal things,’ said Matilde. ‘You should not dismiss Patrick’s gossiping too lightly as a motive for his murder. But I have a present for you. It has been ready for some days now, but you have not visited me, and so I have been unable to give it to you.’
Bartholomew experienced a resurgence of the guilt he had felt when Edith had accused him of being lax in his brotherly attentions. ‘You should not give–’ he began.
Matilde brushed his objections aside. ‘Actually, it is not really for you, and it is not really from me. But it is waiting to be collected from the blacksmith’s forge.’
‘The blacksmith?’ asked Bartholomew nervously, sincerely hoping it was not a horse.
Matilde smiled mysteriously and slipped her arm through his. They walked briskly to the smelly, filthy, fiery hole in which the blacksmith and his two soot-blackened assistants laboured in the hiss and roar of flames and the deafening clang of metal against metal. The smith glanced up as Matilde entered, then went to fetch something.