He knelt next to Faricius and began to recite the last rites in a loud, indignant voice that was probably audible back at his friary. He produced a flask of holy water from his scrip and began to splash it around liberally, so that some of it fell on the floor.
‘Do you have any idea what happened?’ asked Michael, watching the proceedings with sombre green eyes.
‘What happened is that the Dominicans murdered Faricius,’ Lincolne replied, glaring up at Michael. Holy water dribbled from the flask on to Faricius’s habit. ‘Faricius was one of my best scholars and hated violence and fighting. I will have vengeance, Brother. I will not stand by while you allow the Black Friars to get away with this.’
‘I would never do such a thing,’ objected Michael, offended. ‘I am the University’s Senior Proctor, appointed by the Bishop of Ely himself to ensure that justice is done in cases like this.’
‘I have been at the Carmelite Friary in Cambridge since I was a child,’ Lincolne went on, as if Michael had not spoken. ‘Yet, in all that time, I have never witnessed such an act of evil as this.’
‘An act of evil?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking it an odd phrase to use to describe a murder.
‘Heresy,’ hissed Lincolne, spraying holy water liberally over himself as well as over the dead student. ‘Nominalism.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘What does nominalism have to do with anything?’
Lincolne pursed his lips in rank disapproval. ‘It is a doctrine that came from the Devil’s own lips. It denies the very existence of God.’
‘I do not think so,’ said Bartholomew, surprised by the Carmelite’s assertion. ‘Nominalism is a philosophical doctrine that…’
He trailed off as Lincolne fixed him with the gaze of the fanatic. ‘Nominalist thinking will destroy all that is good and holy in the world and allow the Devil to rule. It was because people were nominalists that God sent the Great Pestilence five years ago.’
‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, who had heard many reasons for why the devastating sickness had ravaged the world, taking one in three people, but never one that claimed a philosophical theory was responsible. ‘So, you are saying that the plague took only nominalists as its victims? Not realists?’
‘I think God sent the Death to warn us all against sinful thoughts – like nominalism,’ declared Lincolne in the tone of voice that suggested disagreement was futile. ‘And that wicked man, William of Occam, who was the leading proponent of nominalism in Oxford, was one of the first to die.’
‘But so were a number of scholars who follow realism,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘The plague took scholars from both sides of the debate. That suggests a certain even-handedness to me.’
‘Gentlemen, please,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘This is neither the time nor the place to be discussing philosophy. We have a dead student here. Our duty is to discover who murdered him, not to assess the relative virtues of realism and nominalism.’
‘Then tell the Dominicans that,’ snapped Lincolne. ‘They are nominalists – every last one of them – and now a Carmelite lies dead.’ He rammed the stopper into the flask’s neck and heaved himself to his feet. He towered over Michael, and Bartholomew could not help but notice how the curious topknot quivered as if reflecting the rage of its owner.
‘It was the proclamation you wrote and pinned to the door of St Mary’s Church that precipitated this sorry incident,’ said Michael sharply. ‘And Faricius paid the price.’
‘That is grossly unfair–’ began Lincolne indignantly.
Michael cut through his objections. ‘I sincerely doubt whether the student-friars – Dominican or Carmelite – genuinely feel strongly enough about a philosophical debate to kill each other: your notice was merely the excuse they needed to fight. And I will have no more of it. The next person who nails a proclamation to any door in the town will spend the night in the proctors’ cells.’
‘The Carmelites are a powerful force in Cambridge, Brother,’ said Lincolne hotly. ‘We have forty friars studying here; the Dominicans only have thirty-three. You should think very carefully before you decide to take the side of the nominalists.’
‘I am not taking any side,’ said Michael firmly. ‘Personally, I am not much interested in philosophy. And numbers mean nothing anyway. At least half a dozen of your forty are old men, who will be no use at all if you intend to take on the Dominicans in a pitched battle. They will, however, be valiant in the debating halls, which is where I recommend you resolve this disagreement.’
His green eyes were cold and hard, and even the towering Lincolne apparently decided Michael was not a man to be easily intimidated. The Prior knelt again and began to straighten and arrange the folds of Faricius’s habit, to hide his temper.
‘Now, I need to ask you some questions,’ said Michael, seeing that Lincolne seemed to have conceded the argument. ‘You say Faricius was a gentle man, but did he have any enemies? Did he beat anyone in a debate, for example?’
Lincolne glowered at the sarcasm in Michael’s voice. ‘I am aware of no enemies, Brother. You can come to the friary and ask his colleagues if you wish, but you will find that Faricius was a peaceable and studious young man, as I have already told you.’
‘As soon as I heard that the Dominicans had taken exception to your proclamation, I sent Beadle Meadowman to tell you to keep all your students indoors until tempers had cooled,’ Michael went on. ‘So why was Faricius out?’
Lincolne glared at him. ‘We have as much right to walk the streets as anyone – but we did comply with your request. I instructed all my students to remain indoors, even though it is Saturday and teaching finishes at noon.’
‘Then why did they not obey you?’ pressed Michael.
Lincolne seemed surprised. ‘But they did obey me. None of them left the premises. It was not easy to keep them in, actually, given that the forty days of Lent have seemed very long this year, and everyone is looking forward to Easter next week. The students are excited and difficult to control.’
‘So I gather,’ said Michael wryly. ‘But you have not answered my question. Faricius was found lying in a doorway on Milne Street. He was clearly outside the friary, not inside it. If none of your students left the premises, how did he come to be out?’
Lincolne frowned as he shook his head. ‘When your beadle arrived to tell me that we should lock ourselves away when the Dominicans came, I rounded up all my students and took them home. Faricius was definitely inside when the front gates were closed. He could not have gone out again without asking me to open them – and he did not.’
‘Did he sprout wings and fly over the walls, then?’ demanded Michael impatiently. ‘I repeat: he was found on Milne Street. Perhaps he did not leave through the front gate, but he was outside nevertheless.’
Lincolne’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘You are taking a very biased approach to this, Brother. It is not Faricius’s actions that are on trial here: it is those of the Dominicans. They killed Faricius. Interrogate them, not me.’
‘Oh, I will,’ said Michael softly. ‘I will certainly get to the bottom of this sorry little tale.’
When Prior Lincolne had completed his prayers over Faricius’s body, two Carmelite students arrived to keep vigil. It was nearing dusk, and one had brought thick beeswax candles to light at his friend’s head; the other carried perfumed oil to rub into Faricius’s hands and feet, and held a clean robe, so that his dead colleague would not go to his grave wearing clothes that were stained with blood. One student was self-righteously outraged that the Dominicans had dared to strike one of their number, and complained vociferously about it to Michael; the second merely twisted the clean robe in his hands and said nothing. Michael homed in on the latter.