‘Your University has something I want,’ said Gosse. He spoke softly, so no one else would hear. ‘And I shall have it, no matter what it takes. It will be easier for everyone if you just give it to me.’
Bartholomew wrenched free. He had no idea what the man was talking about, but he was not about to engage in a discussion when there were people who needed his help. He took a step away, but a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and spun him around. This time, it was Idoma manhandling him.
‘How dare you walk away!’ Her eyes were cold and hard, and Bartholomew did not think he had ever seen a more malevolent expression. ‘My brother is talking, so you will listen.’
‘Tell your colleagues,’ ordered Gosse, leaning close and treating the physician to a waft of bad breath, ‘I will have what is rightfully mine, or the streets of your fine town will run with blood.’
More irritated than intimidated, Bartholomew pushed Gosse away from him. The man’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment that someone should dare fight back. Then Cynric managed to dodge around Idoma and stood next to his master, hand on the hilt of his long Welsh hunting knife. Idoma started to reach for Bartholomew again, but stopped when Cynric’s blade began to emerge from its scabbard.
‘I do not like you, physician,’ she whispered, pointing a finger at Bartholomew in a way he supposed was meant to be menacing. Then she turned and began to shoulder a path through the onlookers. Most people moved before she reached them.
‘That is unfortunate for you,’ said Gosse with a sneer, before turning to follow her. ‘Because bad things happen to people my sister does not like.’
‘You want to watch that scum, boy,’ said Cynric uneasily, once the pair had gone. ‘She is a witch, while he is a vicious devil, who would think nothing of slipping a dagger between your ribs.’
‘Cynric is right,’ gasped Paxtone, who had finally caught up. ‘They are not folk you should have as enemies, Matthew. It would have been better to give them whatever it was they wanted.’
‘But I do not know what they wanted. Other than for me to be frightened of them – which I am not.’
‘Really?’ asked Paxtone, impressed. ‘Because they terrify me. However, if you go out on errands of mercy during the night from now on, I recommend you carry a sword. It is common knowledge that you are a skilled and deadly warrior, so you should be able to fend them off.’
Bartholomew gaped at him, not liking the notion that he, a man of healing, should have acquired a reputation for the military arts. He had certainly done nothing to warrant it. ‘I am not a–’
‘He was not very good before we went to France last year,’ said Cynric, pleased by what he saw as a compliment. ‘But then we fought in the battle of Poitiers, and he got a lot of practice.’
‘Matt!’ came Michael’s urgent voice. ‘What are you doing? I need you here.’
Bartholomew broke away from Paxtone and Cynric, and hurried to where Michael was waiting. The monk’s latest deputy, Junior Proctor Cleydon, was there, too, a competent but nervous man who was anxiously counting the days until his term of office expired. He had told Bartholomew on several occasions that he did not think he would survive that long, given that the post was dangerous – and the arrival of Gosse and his formidable sister had done nothing to quell his unease.
It took Bartholomew no more than a moment to assess what had happened: a knife fight between two men. One lay on the ground with the weapon still embedded in his middle, while the other perched uncomfortably on an upturned crate and clutched his left arm with his right hand. Blood flowed between his fingers. Seeing immediately that the prone man was more in need of a priest than a physician, Bartholomew went to the one who was sitting. Michael’s beadles – the men who kept order in the University – seemed to be more interested in the corpse than the survivor, so the body was well lit, but the injured man sat in shadows.
‘I need a torch,’ Bartholomew said, cutting away the victim’s sleeve. When the lamp arrived, he focused on his work, aware that he needed to stem the bleeding as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, Paxtone crouched next to the second victim, although his examination was confined to what he could see: he disliked handling corpses, and went to considerable lengths to avoid doing it. His aversion was based on the superstitious notion that touching bodies enabled poisonous miasmas to pass from the dead to the living. The belief reminded Bartholomew of the ‘healing stones’ in Paxtone’s room, and his colleague’s strange insistence that knives sharpened magically when they were left pointing north. Still, he supposed, what else could he expect from a man who thought the movements of remote planets had an impact on the health of an individual?
‘There is nothing I can do here,’ Paxtone announced after a moment. ‘The fellow is quite dead, and there can be no dispute about the cause: a dagger in the stomach.’
‘In the liver,’ muttered Bartholomew, wishing anatomy was not forbidden in England. He was sure even Paxtone would benefit from knowing the precise locations of various organs.
‘It is Carbo,’ said Michael.
Bartholomew spared a brief glance at the body, and saw it was indeed the half-mad Dominican friar.
‘Did you speak to Prior Morden about him?’ he asked, not surprised Carbo had met an untimely end. He had seemed incapable of looking after himself, and the fact that he had seen Langelee attacked attested to the fact that he wandered about after the curfew had sounded.
‘Morden was out when I visited the Dominican Friary,’ said Michael. Then his voice became bitter. ‘I was supposed to go back there this evening, but I let other matters distract me.’
Bartholomew could only surmise that the monk had not enjoyed his time with the College accounts.
‘It hurts,’ whispered the injured man weakly. Bartholomew looked up sharply, because the voice was familiar. As usual, it took him a moment to recognise the nondescript features, but his astonishment at the man’s identity was nothing compared to Paxtone’s.
‘Shropham?’ gasped the King’s Hall physician. ‘What in God’s name are you doing here?’
‘He is here murdering Dominican priests,’ replied Cleydon when Shropham made no reply. ‘He stabbed Carbo.’
There was a stunned silence when Cleydon made his announcement, the only sound being the crackle of torches and the low-voiced grumbles of onlookers as they tried to resist being moved on by beadles. The reek of burnt pitch filled the air, along with the stench of rotting vegetables from a nearby costermongery. The rain carried its own aroma, too, of fallen leaves, frost-touched grass and the swollen river; it reminded Bartholomew that winter was approaching with all its inherent miseries – cold feet, leaking roofs, ice in the latrines, and the kind of fevers that claimed the old and the weak.
‘No!’ exclaimed Paxtone, when he had recovered from his shock. ‘Fellows of King’s Hall do not go around murdering Dominican priests or anyone else.’
‘I thought it was–’ began Shropham. He swayed, and Bartholomew indicated that Paxtone and Cynric were to support him.
Fortunately, the injury was clean, and should heal quickly; Shropham would experience some pain and stiffness, but the prognosis was good. Then he glanced at the man’s haunted face, and wondered whether it would matter. Shropham, like all scholars, had taken religious orders that would protect him from the full rigours of secular law, but the murder of a priest was a serious matter, and the Dominicans might call for him to be hanged.
‘You had better tell me what happened, Shropham,’ said Michael, when he saw Bartholomew had finished suturing, and only bandaging remained. ‘If you feel well enough.’