'Michael, look,' said Bartholomew, bending to examine a small smear on the creamy stone. 'What is it?' asked Michael, looking, and not finding the brown mark especially enlightening.
'Blood,' said Bartholomew. He pointed to where the grass was less trampled to one side, and several blades of grass were stained. He straightened up and he and Michael exchanged a look of puzzlement.
'Well, at least we have something to report to the Chancellor,' said Michael.
5
The Chancellor was not impressed with the information they had gleaned, and he agreed only reluctantly to send one of his clerks to bring the lay-brother to them so that he could be questioned. He was also unsympathetic about Bartholomew's experience in the alleyway behind the church and denied that there was a short cut there through the shrubs in the churchyard.
'Why would there be such a thing?' he snapped. 'None of those people would deign to set foot in a church.'
Bartholomew wanted to tell him that it might be a short cut to the river that just happened to be through the churchyard, but could see no advantage in antagonising the Chancellor.
'Gilbert stuck that blade on the poisoned lock into a rat,' said de Wetherset. 'It died in moments. I also sent him to the Dominican Friary, but you were correct in your assumption that the dead man was not one of them. "The Prior came to look at the body and said he had never seen the man before.'
Bartholomew felt guilty that the Chancellor had more to report to them than they had to him. He wished he would have a sudden insight to tie all the loose threads together, so that they could be done with it all and he could concentrate on his students' disputations.
'What do you plan to do next?' de Wetherset asked, picking up a piece of vellum covered with minute writing and studying it. Bartholomew rose to leave.
"The Chancellor clearly was not interested in how they went about getting the information, only in what they discovered. Michael remained seated.
"I would like to read Nicholas's book,' he said.
"The Chancellor was momentarily taken off-guard.
'What for?' he asked suspiciously.
'When we first saw the body of the friar, you were more concerned with the book than anything else in the chest. Therefore, it is likely that the friar wanted to read or steal it more than any other document. If I were to read it, I might gain a better notion of why someone might want to kill for it,' he said, folding his large arms across his chest.
'Very well,' said de Wetherset, after a moment's deliberation. 'You have until Sext. Then I have business at Barnwell Priory and I want the book locked in the chest before I leave.'
Michael inclined his head, and the Chancellor conducted them to the small chamber in the tower of the church, where he donned thick leather gloves and undid the locks on the chest. Bartholomew saw that the three locks gleamed bright and new: the Chancellor was taking no chances.
As the last lock sprang open, de Wetherset straightened, and Bartholomew saw his face was beaded with perspiration.
'Poisoned locks!' he muttered. 'Whatever next? A puff of poison in the rugs to kill those who trample on them?
Arsenic soaked into the documents themselves?'
Michael's hand had been half in the chest after the mysterious book, but now he withdrew it hastily. The Chancellor gave an unpleasant smile and tossed him his gloves.
"I will return before Sext. Please bar the door after I leave. I do not want anyone else in the chamber. Should anyone knock, tell them to go away.'
Bartholomew shot a sturdy bar across the door after he had gone and wandered around the small chamber restlessly. Michael took the book from the chest and placed it on the table. "The leaves of the text were thick and there was no problem turning them while wearing the gloves.
'Can you get the spare set of keys from the Bishop?'
Bartholomew asked suddenly.
Michael looked surprised.
"I could ask him. Why?'
'Because then we could try them on the old locks. If they do not fit the poisoned one, we would know that not only must a new lock have been put on the chest, but that someone had exchanged de Wetherset's keys.
Since de Wetherset said the keys are never out of his sight, it would mean that Buckley, the only other person with access to them, must have exchanged them by some sleight of hand when he undid the chest. If the key does fit, then we know that either the lock was tampered with and the poisonous blade fitted, or that it was there all the time.'
Michael nodded slowly. '"The keys will be of no use to the Bishop now there are new locks on the chest. I see no reason why he should not let me have them.'
Bartholomew went to the window and looked across the High Street. By leaning out, he could see Michaelhouse, and remembered his students. He left the window and went to a wall cupboard, opening the wooden doors to peer inside. Michael shot him an irritable glance as he closed the doors again noisily. Bartholomew bent down to look at the rug on which the friar must have knelt when he picked the locks, but there was nothing to see.
"I should be with my students. Some of them have already failed their disputations once,' he said. 'And I should visit Mistress Bocher's baby. It gets colic'
' I will never get through this if you keep distracting me,' said Michael, exasperated. 'Go and see your students.
Come back for me before Sext.'
Bartholomew was apprehensive about leaving Michael alone in a room where the friar had died by such sinister means, but could see no benefit in wasting the day in idleness. He waited until he was certain that Michael had barred the door from the inside and began to walk down the stairs. When he was almost at the bottom, he stopped as a thought occurred to him, and turned to climb them again.
He passed the chest room and continued upwards.
As he climbed higher, the stairs became dirty and were covered in feathers and dry pigeon-droppings, and Bartholomew guessed they were seldom used. There was an unpleasant smell, too, and Bartholomew noted the decaying corpses of several birds that had flown in and had been unable to get out.
He reached the bell chamber and walked in. The bells stood silent among crooning pigeons and scraps of discarded rope and wood. "The spiral stair ended, but a vertical wooden ladder led from the bell chamber to a trap-door in the ceiling above. Bartholomew tested it carefully, not trusting the cracked wood, nor the way in which the ladder leaned away from the wall as he prepared to climb.
"The ladder was stronger than it looked, and he reached the trap-door without the rungs falling out or the ladder tearing away from the wall to deposit him on the bells below. He unbolted the trap-door and gingerly pushed it open, ducking as he disturbed a flurry of birds on the roof. "The sunlight streamed down on his head, making him blink after the darkness of the tower. He hauled himself up and stood on the roof.
He surveyed the view in awe. "The day was clear, not yet spoiled by the stinking mists that blew in from the Fens, and he thought he could see the distant towers of Ely Cathedral. He could certainly see the glitter of the maze of waterways snaking through the flat Fens, as they stretched off towards the sea. He leaned against one of the corner turrets and traced the silvery line of the river as far as he could, surprised that he could see a barge hauling in about two miles distant. He wondered that his brother-in-law did not post one of his informants on the roof permanently so he could have early warning of the arrival of trading vessels.
He peered directly down, intrigued at how the streets and buildings appeared from above. He saw the market stalls, looking brighter and prettier than they ever did in the market itself. Then he searched for the alley where he had been attacked the day before. He looked harder, leaning precariously over the edge as he screwed up his eyes to see. "There was a gap between the rows of shacks, and following the line of it towards the church he saw a very distinct thinning of the undergrowth running towards the churchyard. "There was his hidden pathway: he knew he would be able to see it from above!