Bartholomew sat with Michael in Langelee’s room, sipping near-boiling ale that he knew nevertheless would not drive out the chilly sensation that still sat in the pit of his stomach.
‘And you say young Arbury was alive when you returned from tending Pechem at the Franciscan Friary?’ asked Langelee of Bartholomew again. ‘He opened the gate for you?’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘He had been reading Heytesbury’s Regulae Solvendi Sophismata, and he asked me a question about it.’
‘Then you went to the kitchens, and on the way back the bells were chiming for the midnight vigil and you heard him groan,’ Langelee went on.
‘Not quite,’ said Bartholomew. He did not want to tell Michael about Kenyngham’s accusation in front of Langelee, who had demonstrated in the past that he was not averse to using such information to suit his own ends. He would speak to the monk later, when they were alone. ‘I heard a groan, but I thought it was Suttone or his students making noises in their sleep. I realise now that it may have been Arbury. I wish I had checked.’
‘But Clippesby knew what was happening,’ said Michael. ‘Damn the man! If he was not so habitually strange, you would have known to take him seriously.’
‘Arbury’s injury was serious; you would not have been able to save him anyway,’ said Langelee kindly. ‘I am no physician, but I have seen my share of knife wounds. I think it would have made no difference whether you had found him three hours earlier or not.’
‘We could have asked who attacked him, though,’ said Michael. ‘And we might have caught his murderers, who then spent half the night rummaging in my room.’
‘But more important yet, I might have been able to make his last moments more comfortable,’ snapped Bartholomew, nettled by Michael’s pragmatic approach to the student’s death. ‘He would not have bled to death all alone and in the bitter chill of a March night.’
Michael’s large face became gentle. ‘I am sorry, Matt. I did not mean to sound callous. It is just that I now have four murders to investigate – Faricius, Kyrkeby, Walcote and Arbury – and I have no idea what to do about any of them.’
‘At least you know the motive for Arbury’s death,’ said Langelee. ‘He was killed because someone wanted to search your room. Either they stabbed him as soon as he opened the gate, or they killed him when he would not let them in.’
‘The former, probably,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘And if Matt is right, then they spent at least three hours searching my room – from the beginning of the midnight vigil, by which time Arbury had been stabbed, until he heard the bells chime for nocturns, when they were just leaving.’
‘What do you possess – or what do they think you possess – that would warrant such an exhaustive search?’ asked Langelee. He gestured around his own quarters. ‘It would not take anyone long to rifle through my belongings, even including all the College muniments.’
‘I really cannot imagine what they wanted,’ said Michael. ‘As I told you, I leave the most sensitive documents in the University chests.’
‘All of them?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Are you sure there is nothing that you might have brought home? And Langelee has a good point – perhaps we should consider what they may have thought you had, rather than what you actually do have.’
‘What about the deed signing the two farms and the church to Oxford?’ asked Langelee. ‘Where do you keep that? Presumably there is only one copy, because Heytesbury has not signed it yet – there would be no point in copying it until he has agreed to its contents.’
Michael dropped his hand to his scrip. ‘I have that in here. I do not know when Heytesbury will agree to sign, and so I have been carrying it about with me recently, so I can be ready the moment he relents. But why would anyone want to steal that?’
‘Because they do not want you to pass this property to Oxford?’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘Thanks to Langelee, a lot of people know you have some kind of arrangement in progress, and not everyone is sufficiently far sighted to see that you have the ultimate good of Cambridge in mind.’
‘I have apologised for that ad nauseam,’ protested Langelee wearily. ‘How much longer will you hold it against me?’
‘I suppose someone may think that the best way to prevent Oxford from getting what is perceived to be valuable property is to steal the deed of transfer,’ said Michael, ignoring Langelee’s objections and addressing Bartholomew. ‘But we are forgetting that one of the culprits seems to have been Prior Morden. I did not know he felt so strongly about it.’
‘We have never discussed it with him,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps he does. He is certainly the kind of man to latch on to an idea like a limpet and follow it doggedly. He seems to have done exactly that by championing the cause of nominalism.’
Langelee sighed. ‘I am a philosopher by training, but I find this nominalism – realism debate immensely dull. Am I alone in this? Is there not another living soul who would rather talk about something else?’
‘Not among the religious Orders at the moment,’ said Michael. ‘They are using it as an excuse to rekindle ancient hatreds of each other. But I did not know that Morden was against passing property to Oxford. After all, Heytesbury is a nominalist, so Morden should approve.’
‘That is not logical,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Just because Morden is a nominalist does not mean that he is willing to share his worldly goods – or those of his University – with other nominalists.’
‘You have not explained how you happened to be outside Michael’s room at that hour of the night, Bartholomew,’ said Langelee, moving on to other questions. ‘Did you hear a sound that roused you from your sleep?’
‘The only sounds I heard were you and Michael finishing that barrel of wine,’ said Bartholomew evasively, so that Langelee would not ask him what it was that he had considered so pressing that it could not wait until the morning. ‘Doubtless the killers heard it, too, and they knew that they were safe from discovery as long as Michael was enjoying your wine.’
‘Damn!’ swore Michael softly. ‘If ever there were a moral to a tale condemning the sin of gluttony, it is this. And poor Arbury paid the price.’
‘Arbury would have died anyway,’ said Langelee. ‘And so might you, had you been asleep in your room and not here with me.’
With a shock, Bartholomew realised that was true, and that Michael’s escape might have been as narrow as his own. He considered Arbury, and how the intruders – determined to search Michael’s room whether the monk was in it or not – might have gained access to Michaelhouse. It was obvious, once he thought about it.
‘I have a bad feeling that the killers watched me when I returned from the Franciscan Friary, and then did the same,’ he said.
‘Meaning?’ asked Michael.
‘Meaning that I did what we all do: hammered on the door and demanded to be let in. Arbury opened the wicket gate, I stepped inside and then pushed back my hood so that he could see who I was. If the killers were watching from the bushes opposite, it would have been easy to do the same, and then stab the lad before he saw that he should have been more careful.’
‘But the only people who have leave to be outside the College after curfew are you two,’ said Langelee. ‘Arbury should have been more careful – especially since he had already admitted Bartholomew, and he probably could hear Michael with me.’