‘This is not too bad,’ he said, rinsing away dried blood with water from a bowl on the table. ‘I have a salve of garlic and marsh-mallow that will ease the pain and encourage healing. You should have called me earlier, though. Bites have a nasty habit of festering unless treated quickly.’
‘I have never been bitten by a horse before,’ came the muffled voice. ‘And our herbalist confessed he was uncertain about which of his potions to use.’
‘Not his rat poison,’ said Bartholomew, in a feeble attempt at levity. ‘Did you know that particular poison is famed from here to Peterborough?’
Pechem chuckled appreciatively. ‘I am gratified. Rats can be a serious problem.’
He was silent while Bartholomew continued to clean the wound, and the only sign that the physician was tending a whole person and not merely an arm was when he touched a tender part, and the hand flinched.
‘Your book-bearer, Cynric, came to us earlier today,’ said Pechem, after a while, evidently deciding he needed something to take his mind away from the uncomfortable operation that was taking place outside his line of vision. ‘He wanted to know how a curse might be lifted. I was inclined to dismiss him, because we are not in the habit of dabbling in that sort of thing, but then he told me who the cure was for.’
‘Richard,’ said Bartholomew.
‘Richard,’ agreed Pechem. ‘I told him to burn the feathers of a pheasant with mint and garlic, say three Ave Marias and then give a groat to the church of his choice. That should see Richard restored to his former likeable disposition.’
‘Do the feathers need to belong to a pheasant?’ asked Bartholomew recalling Langelee’s bemusement when Clippesby – evidently under Cynric’s instructions – had caught the porter’s bird. ‘Or will a cockerel do?’
‘I really have no idea,’ said Pechem. ‘It was something I saw written in one of our more secular books once. Let me know what happens, will you? If it is effective, there are others I would like to see rendered a little more agreeable.’
Personally, Bartholomew thought that a good part of Cambridge would benefit from being treated to such a potion, but he held his peace. He hoped the stench of burning feathers would not make his arrogant nephew ill.
‘Kenyngham informed me today that you attended certain meetings in St Radegund’s Convent,’ he said, not entirely truthfully, as he worked. The fingers that had been wiggling in a tentative trial of movement, stopped abruptly.
‘He should not have said that,’ said Pechem sharply. ‘I told Brother Michael when he questioned me earlier this evening that I did not know what he was talking about.’
‘You lied to him,’ said Bartholomew flatly.
‘We all swore an oath. We vowed never to reveal the subjects that were discussed.’
‘Did you make that vow to Walcote?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Because if you did, then I suggest that the time has come for openness. Walcote is dead, and Michael is certain that whatever was discussed at the meetings has a bearing on the case.’
‘Michael would think that,’ said Pechem. ‘But what we discussed had nothing to do with him.’
‘You should let Michael be the judge of that,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And now it seems his life may be in danger. You should tell him what you know before more lives are lost – especially his. He is my friend, and I do not want to see him come to harm.’
Pechem’s eyes appeared from beneath the bed-covers, small and black in a face that was flushed from the warmth of the furs. ‘But we discussed nothing that will endanger Brother Michael.’
‘Then what did you talk about?’
‘The fact that the nominalism – realism debate seems to be gaining more importance than it warrants. Walcote, to give him his due, tried to suggest that both sides should meet and battle out the issue in the debating hall, but none of us thought that was a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, because we realists might have lost the argument, for a start,’ said Pechem. ‘Some of those nominalists are clever men – especially the Benedictines and the Austin canons. The Dominicans would have presented us with no problem, since they have no good scholars to speak of.’
‘Is that the only reason you did not want an open debate?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking that it was a poor theory if its proponents declined to expound it in the lecture halls lest they lost.
‘It was the biggest one. The other was that we did not want a riot on our hands. The Carmelites and the Dominicans, in particular, were on the verge of a fight, and we did not want a public occasion to provide the spark to set them on fire.’
‘And what else was discussed?’ asked Bartholomew.
Pechem sighed. ‘I suppose now that Kenyngham has revealed what he knows it makes no difference whether I keep my silence or not. We had plans to donate money anonymously to the town for the Great Bridge to be repaired.’
‘Why does that call for secrecy?’ asked Bartholomew, who already knew from Adam that repairs to the bridge were discussed.
‘Have you used the Great Bridge recently?’ asked Pechem, answering with a question of his own.
There had been a bridge over the River Cam since at least the ninth century, and William the Conqueror had raised another to link his newly built castle with the rest of the town. Gradually, the Conqueror’s bridge had fallen into disrepair, and in the 1270s a tax had been imposed on the town to build another. The money had promptly been pocketed by the Sheriff, who then declined to produce a new bridge and made superficial repairs to the old one instead. Since then, stone piers had been built, but the wooden planking was soft and rotten with age. The long wet winter had not helped, and the few remaining sound timbers had been stolen by soldiers from the Castle, who wanted to charge people for being rowed across the river in their boats. Anyone using the bridge therefore did so at considerable peril.
‘Well?’ demanded Pechem, still waiting for his reply. ‘Have you crossed the Great Bridge of late? Most sane men have not.’
‘I avoid it, if I can,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘But the townsfolk would be deeply indebted to the religious Orders for repairing it. Why should you keep such charity secret?’
‘Because we do not want the town thinking we have so much money that we can afford to scatter it in all directions,’ snapped Pechem. ‘If we did mend the thing, it would have to be funded discreetly.’
‘Is that all you talked about at these meetings? Repairing the Great Bridge and how to avoid a proper debate with the nominalists?’
Pechem sighed and gnawed at his bottom lip. ‘We discussed a theft from one of the University chests,’ he said reluctantly.
‘What theft?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘What was stolen?’
‘Deeds, books, all sorts of things,’ said Pechem. ‘The main University Chest is a large box stored in the tower of St Mary’s Church. Since an attempt was made to steal it some years ago, a duplicate chest has been stored at the Carmelite Friary.’
‘I know all this,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But when did this recent theft happen? I always understood that St Mary’s tower was virtually impregnable these days, and that it was impossible to gain access to it without the right keys.’