‘Because he was poor and friendless, and no one will invest too much time or energy in hunting his killers,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘It is entirely possible that Bosel was an experiment – to see what would happen when they committed their first new murder. All their alibi from Tulyet does is tell us they were not present when Bosel actually ingested the poison.’
Michael sighed. ‘Dick thinks they may have persuaded that madwoman to give it to him, but I disagree. She seems too witless to entrust with such a task.’
‘I have heard so many rumours about that pair that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction,’ said Wynewyk, beginning to walk again. ‘What really happened? Are they the Devil’s spawn, as Agatha the laundress claims? Or are they poor misguided children, as Master Kenyngham would have me believe?’
‘Neither,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘They are just men who killed without remorse or hesitation, solely to realise their own plans for revenge and riches.’
‘They were caught – thanks to some clever investigating by me – and confessed to their crimes,’ elaborated Michael rather smugly. ‘Did you know that Thorpe’s father is Master of the Hall of Valence Marie? It is hard to believe: a high-ranking scholar spawning a murderer.’
‘Master Thorpe is the man who first found the sacred Hand of Valence Marie,’ mused Wynewyk, changing the subject. ‘I heard the Hand came from a local saint, and is imbued with great power.’
‘The Hand was hacked from the corpse of a simpleton,’ corrected Bartholomew firmly. ‘It is not imbued with any kind of power, sacred or otherwise.’
‘That is not what most folk believe,’ argued Wynewyk. ‘It is stored in the University Chest in the tower of St Mary the Great, and people petition it all the time. Many of them have had their prayers answered. To my mind – and theirs – that makes it a genuine relic.’
Bartholomew was exasperated when he turned to Michael. ‘I told you to destroy the thing three years ago, Brother. You had the chance: you could easily have tossed it into the marshes. But you insisted on keeping it, and now it is too late. It has become an object of veneration – again.’
‘Again?’ asked Wynewyk. ‘It has been worshipped before?’
‘Briefly,’ said Bartholomew. ‘When it was first dredged from the ditch outside Valence Marie. But we proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was hacked from Peterkin Starre – because his corpse happened to be available at the time – and it is not and never has been sacred.’
‘The fascination with it will not last,’ insisted Michael, although he sounded uneasy. ‘These things come and go, and what is popular today is forgotten tomorrow. And anyway, it is not my business to decide what should and should not be destroyed. I pass that responsibility to the Chancellor.’
Bartholomew laughed in disbelief. ‘I am not a complete innocent, Brother! Everyone knows Chancellor Tynkell does exactly what you say, and there is only one man who determines what happens in the University these days: you. If you wanted these bones destroyed, they would have vanished by now.’
Michael grinned, unabashed by the reprimand and amused that his friend had so accurately described his relationship with the Chancellor. Tynkell was indeed becoming a figurehead, with Michael holding the real power. Tynkell had expressed a desire to resign and allow Michael to take the reins, since he was already making most of the important decisions, but the monk demurred. He liked things the way they were – it was useful to have someone to blame when anything went wrong.
‘Tynkell does listen to my advice,’ he confessed modestly. ‘But destroying the Hand would have been an extreme reaction – and one that could never be reversed. I thought it might come in useful one day, and that it would be safely anonymous in the University Chest.’
‘Not safely anonymous enough, apparently,’ grumbled Bartholomew, unappeased. ‘Wynewyk is right: there are always pilgrims around the tower these days. It will not be long before we have a wave of religious zeal to quell, and there is no reasoning with folk once they have decided upon issues of faith. The Hand has always been dangerous. Look what happened to Thorpe’s father over the thing.’
‘What?’ asked Wynewyk, intrigued. ‘Anything to do with his son?’
‘No, nothing like that,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘But, as you just said, Master Thorpe was the one who found the Hand in the ditch outside his College. The King and the Bishop of Ely were so angry with him for starting what might have become a powerful cult that they forced him to leave Valence Marie and take a post at a grammar school in York.’
‘York,’ said Wynewyk with distaste. ‘I have heard it smells of lard. But Master Thorpe is not in York. He is here, in Cambridge.’
‘He was reinstated after a series of appeals to the King,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Apparently, his successor was not gentlemanly enough, and kept wiping his teeth on the tablecloth during meals.’
‘Nasty,’ said Wynewyk with a fastidious shudder. ‘The Bishop of Norwich does that, too.’
‘Since then, Master Thorpe has impressed everyone with his diligence and scholarship,’ continued Michael. ‘He is a changed man, but, unlike his son, he has changed for the better.’
Wynewyk became aware of the passing time with sudden alarm. ‘We should not be reviewing ancient history now, my friends. We should be debating with the scholars of Gonville and, unless we hurry, they will assume we are too frightened to meet them. The honour of Michaelhouse is at stake – we must run.’
St Mary the Great was the town’s largest and most impressive church. Its chancel had recently been rebuilt, replacing the narrow pointed lancet holes of an earlier age with great windows full of delicate tracery. These fabulous arches, so vast and open that it seemed they would be incapable of supporting the weight of the roof above them, allowed sunlight to flood in and bathe the building with light and warmth. The coloured glass that had been used in places caught the sun’s brilliance and accentuated the scarlets, golds and emeralds of the wall paintings.
Over the last few weeks Bartholomew had noticed more and more people praying outside the church, and there were often folk kneeling on the roughly paved ground by the tower. There were three there that morning, busily petitioning the Hand that languished in the University Chest just above their heads. One was John of Ufford, a son of the Earl of Suffolk, who was learning law so he could forge himself a career at Court. He was a pleasant enough fellow, with a perfectly straight fringe of dark hair over his eyes. He nodded a greeting as the Michaelhouse men passed, raising one hand to touch a sore on his mouth as he did so.
‘If you leave it alone, it will heal more quickly,’ said Bartholomew, unable to help himself. The lesion looked as though it was played with constantly, and he knew it would only disappear if it was granted a reprieve from the sufferer’s probing fingers.
‘I am praying to the Hand of Valence Marie,’ said Ufford. He looked frightened. ‘This sore might be the first sign of leprosy, and I need the intervention of a powerful saint to help me.’
‘It is not leprosy,’ said Bartholomew, wondering whether Rougham had been talking to him. The Gonville physician had a nasty habit of diagnosing overly serious ailments in his patients so that he could charge them more for their ‘cures’.
‘No?’ asked Ufford with sudden hope. ‘Are you sure?’
‘If you keep your fingers away from it, and do not smother it with salves, you will notice a difference in a week. It needs clean air and time to heal, nothing more.’
He followed Michael and Wynewyk inside the church. It was packed to overflowing. Public debates were important occasions – particularly the end-of-term Disputatio de quodlibet – and representatives were present from every College and hostel, many wearing the uniform of their institutions. There was the black of Michaelhouse and the dark blue of Bene’t, mixed with paler blues and greens from places like King’s Hall, Valence Marie and Peterhouse. Among them were the blacks, browns, greys and whites of the religious Orders, and the whole church rang with the sound of voices – some arguing amiably, others more hostile. Although debates were designed to bring scholars together in an atmosphere of learning and scholasticism, they were also often used as excuses to re-ignite ancient feuds and hatreds, and Bartholomew noticed that Michael had arranged for a large contingent of beadles to be present, too.