Moth led them silently into the parlour, which was a comfortable, cosy chamber. Tripham and Lady Mathilda were sitting in box chairs before the fire. Moth, helped by a servant, brought stools for Corbett and his companions. Greetings were stiffly exchanged, the offer of wine and small portions of toasted cheese made and taken. Tripham must have caught Ranulf’s sardonic glance at the luxuries round the room: the tapestries, Turkish rugs, pewter and silver pots glistening on shelves; the small, metal coffers and three long chests standing under a table in one corner.
‘Sir Hugh,’ Tripham apologised, sipping from his wine, ‘I appreciate that the hostelry is, perhaps, not the best or most luxurious of quarters.’
Corbett quietly kicked Ranulf before he could reply.
‘I’ve slept in worse,’ Corbett retorted. ‘Master Norreys does his best!’
‘You see,’ Lady Mathilda spoke up, ‘the statutes of Sparrow Hall make it very clear. My brother, God bless his memory, decreed this was a house of study and, apart from myself, no other visitors can be lodged here.’
‘You are not a visitor,’ Tripham declared tactfully.
Lady Mathilda just sniffed and looked away.
‘How long has the college been founded?’ Corbett asked.
‘Thirty years,’ Lady Mathilda replied. ‘The year after King Edward’s coronation. My brother — ’ her eyes brightened ‘- wanted a place of scholarship, of books and manuscripts. Sparrow Hall has produced clerks, scholars, priests and bishops,’ she continued proudly. ‘My brother would have been pleased, though,’ she added darkly, ‘perhaps his contribution to the hall and its founding have not been fully recognised.’
‘Lady Mathilda,’ Tripham sighed. ‘We have been down this path many a time. Our resources are few.’
‘I still believe,’ Lady Mathilda sniffed, ‘that the Hall could find new resources to found a Chair in the University in my brother’s name.’ She pulled at the skin of her throat. ‘Soon all those who knew my brother will be dead and his great achievements forgotten.’ She glanced at Corbett. ‘The King, too, is ungratefuclass="underline" a grant of monies…’
‘His Grace cannot grant,’ Corbett replied, ‘what he has not got.’
‘Ah yes,’ Lady Mathilda agreed. ‘The war in Scotland. It’s a pity.’ She picked up her wine cup and stared at the fire. ‘It’s a pity Edward has forgotten my brother and the day he defended the royal standard at Evesham when de Montfort fell.’
‘No one forgets,’ Tripham interrupted tactfully.
‘No, and neither do I,’ Lady Mathilda retorted. ‘Perhaps the Hall’s accounts should be examined more carefully.’
‘What are you implying?’ Tripham’s scraggy neck tensed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork in a pond.
Ranulf and Maltote sat bemused at the rancour between two of their hosts. Corbett, embarrassed, stared at the sparrow carved above the motto on the stone mantelpiece. He translated the Latin, a quotation from the Gospel, ‘Are you not worth more than many sparrows?’ Lady Mathilda must have noticed Corbett’s distraction for she sighed, gesturing at Tripham that these matters would have to wait.
‘Sir Hugh, do you make any sense of Passerel’s death? Could he have been the Bellman?’ Tripham asked. ‘I mean, the attack by the students was unforgiveable. But-’ He pulled a face. ‘Ascham was a well-loved master, child-like in his innocence. He did scrawl most of Passerel’s name on a piece of parchment before he died.’
‘It would be tempting,’ Corbett replied, ‘to claim Passerel as the Bellman; to think that he murdered Ascham because the librarian had discovered his secret identity and that Passerel later fled to St Michael’s where he was murdered out of revenge.’ Corbett put his cup down on the floor. ‘If that was the truth, and I could prove it, the King would dismiss Passerel’s death as a mere nothing. He’d declare that the Bellman had been silenced, that justice had been done and I could leave Oxford.’ Corbett shrugged. ‘Who knows, we could even build a case that Passerel may be behind the deaths of these old beggars who have been found in the woods outside the city.’
‘But would your logic be so flawed?’ a voice called out from behind him.
Corbett turned as Master Leonard Appleston picked up a stool and came across to join them. He introduced himself, giving Corbett and his companions a vigorous shake of the hands.
‘You are skilled in logic?’ Corbett asked.
Appleston’s square, sunburnt face creased into a smile; his eyes took on a rather shy look. He scratched at an angry sore on the corner of his mouth, like some schoolboy wondering whether he should be praised or not.
‘Leonard is a master in logic,’ Lady Mathilda spoke up. ‘His lectures in the schools are most popular.’
‘I heard what you said,’ Appleston declared. ‘It would be neat and tidy if poor Passerel was cast as the assassin, the “fons et origo” of all our troubles.’
‘Do you believe that?’ Corbett asked.
‘If a problem exists,’ Appleston said, smiling at Ranulf and making more room, ‘then a solution must exist.’
‘Aye, and that’s the problem,’ Corbett replied. ‘But what happens if the problem is complex but the solution so simple that you wonder if a problem existed in the first place?’
‘What do you mean?’ Appleston asked, taking a goblet from Master Moth.
Corbett paused to collect his thoughts.
‘Master Appleston, you lecture in the schools on the existence of God?’
‘Yes, my lectures are based on Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.’
‘And you comment on his proofs of God’s existence?’
‘Of course.’
‘In which case,’ Corbett replied, ‘wouldn’t you agree that, if I could prove God exists, God would cease to exist?’
Appleston narrowed his eyes.
‘I mean,’ Corbett continued. ‘If I, who am finite and mortal, can prove, beyond a doubt, that an infinite and immortal being exists, then either I am also infinite and immortal, or that which I am proving can’t exist in the first place. In other words, such slight proof for the existence of God is too simple, and is, therefore, not logical. It’s a bit like me saying I can put a gallon of water into a pint tankard: if I could then it is either not a gallon or the tankard can hold more than a pint.’
‘Concedo,’ Appleston said grudgingly. ‘Though I would have to think about what you said, Sir Hugh.’
‘The same applies to Passerel,’ Corbett added quickly. ‘If he is the Bellman, the assassin of Robert Ascham and John Copsale, not to mention the old beggars, then I would say the solution is simple, too tidy, too neat and, therefore, totally illogical.’
‘I agree,’ Ranulf declared, pulling a face at Maltote.
‘So, who did kill Ascham?’ Tripham asked quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ Corbett replied. ‘That’s why I am here.’ He turned to Tripham. ‘I would like to visit the library tonight, perhaps after dinner?’
‘Of course,’ the Vice-Regent replied. ‘We can take our sweet wine down there: it’s a comfortable chamber.’