‘Will you show us the way?’ Bartholomew called to Bernarde, wanting someone to take them directly to the scene of the crime. He did not want to waste time blundering around a building he did not know in search of some undefined ‘incident’.
‘Look near the wheel,’ recommended Morice, making no move to comply. ‘We will stay here and wait for the Sheriff.’
‘I will lead you,’ said Bernarde unhappily, pushing past the Mayor to enter his domain. ‘Seeing them will serve to remind me to take care when I work among the wheels and cogs.’
With considerable misgivings, Bartholomew and Michael followed him to the room that housed the machinery. Then the physician understood exactly why the others had been reluctant to accompany him. Two men lay tangled among the gears, both dead. It was not a pleasant sight, with skin split like overripe fruit and bones protruding from where they should not have been. Bartholomew heard Michael’s sharp intake of breath as he backed away.
‘That one is stuck between the pit wheel and the wallower,’ said Bernarde, pointing to the man caught near the shaft that connected the waterwheel to the mill’s internal workings. He indicated the other, who was trapped next to one of the two pairs of millstones. ‘And he is between that timber pinion and the bed-stone. God knows how it happened. I always disengage the machinery at night – I disconnect the wheel from the wallower. That means the wheel continues to turn, but the machinery itself does not operate. I never forget to do it, so someone must have re-engaged it later. It is not difficult to do, and requires no special skills – although inexperience cost these poor fellows their lives. However, while I can understand one man’s clothes becoming snagged and it dragging him in, two at the same time is almost impossible. I disengaged the machinery and stopped the wheel as soon as I heard it.’
‘Heard what?’ asked Michael. He moved back and sat on a pile of grain sacks, his face pale in the torchlight. ‘One killing the other?’
‘The difference in sounds,’ explained Bernarde. ‘There was a change in pitch as the wheel turned, which made me sure someone had engaged the machinery. And there were two odd thuds. I hurried from my house to investigate and I found them here, like this.’
‘Who are they?’ asked Michael.
‘I have not looked,’ replied Bernarde with a shudder. ‘No one should have been in here without my permission. Mills are delicate, and are not for anyone to wander around as they please.’
‘It does not look very delicate to me,’ said Michael, looking at the heavy stones and robust timbers.
‘It is very delicate,’ countered Bernarde firmly. ‘That is why it takes a miller with experience and skill to keep one functional. Not everyone can do it – you only need to see the inferior flour many others produce to know that!’ He shook his head and gave the corpses an angry stare. ‘Who knows what damage they have done to my wallower and pinions with their blood and guts!’
‘So, what happened?’ asked Michael hurriedly, declining to hear more on that particular topic. ‘There are two victims, so I suppose one killed the other, and then was dragged into the machinery as he gloated over his crime?’
‘That seems likely,’ agreed Bernarde. ‘Mills can be dangerous places for those who do not understand them. It is not unknown for a piece of clothing to be caught, and its owner pulled–’
‘I suppose the cause of death is obvious, at least,’ interrupted Michael hastily, taking a piece of linen from his scrip and wiping his face. ‘I do not need a Corpse Examiner to tell me that mill machinery and the human body do not make good bedfellows.’
‘Actually,’ said Bartholomew, leaning over the first body and trying to keep his tabard from trailing in the gore, ‘the cause of death is not obvious at all.’
Michael sighed. ‘I know you have a penchant for grisly details, Matt, but I really do not need to know which part was crushed first. It will be irrelevant to my enquiries, and will provide me with information I would rather not have. I shall be haunted by this sight for nights to come as it is.’
‘I am not sure either died from crushing,’ said Bartholomew, clambering over a pile of empty sacks to reach the second body. ‘They may have been killed by this.’
He held the head of the second corpse so that Michael could see what he had found. Protruding from the roof of the mouth was a long, thin nail, which had penetrated the palate and been driven deep into the brain above.
Michael stared at Bartholomew, his eyes huge in the gloom of the mill. Bernarde pushed forward to see, too, then stood back, scratching his head in puzzlement.
‘Are you sure this is what killed them?’ asked Michael, eyeing the nail protruding from the first corpse’s mouth and then going to inspect the similar injury on the second.
‘The crushing wounds you see are mostly to limbs and, despite how they look, would not have been quickly fatal. You say you came as soon as you heard the change in the noise the wheel made, Bernarde, which suggests you were very quickly on the scene. If they had suffered these injuries alone – without the nail – you would have seen at least one of them alive.’
‘They were both dead,’ said Bernarde firmly.
‘So, what happened?’ asked Michael of Bartholomew. ‘Are you saying they died from stabbing, and fell into the machinery after?’
‘That would be my guess,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It could not have been the other way around, because the moving parts would have made it difficult for the killer to put the nail in the right place.’ He knelt next to the nearest corpse to assess how deep the metal pin had gone. It was embedded very firmly, and he supposed it had been applied with considerable force. ‘I have never seen anything like this before.’
‘Nasty,’ said Michael, looking away as Bartholomew tugged the nail clear. It was long and sharp, and there were several others just like it on a shelf near the door, so it was clear the killer had used whatever weapon was easily to hand. The monk indicated one of the bodies with the toe of his boot. ‘He is wearing the habit of a Carmelite. Do you recognise him?’
Bartholomew took a torch from the wall and held it closely to the man’s face, to be certain before he spoke. There was a good deal of blood, and it was difficult to make out the features of either victim. ‘I thought so,’ he said sadly. There was only one man he knew who had taken holy orders so recently that his habit was new and unstained. ‘It is Nicholas Bottisham of Gonville Hall.’
‘No!’ exclaimed Michael, white-faced. ‘Bottisham? Are you sure? There must be some mistake!’
‘There is not, Brother,’ said Bartholomew quietly.
Michael swallowed hard. ‘I liked him, despite the fact that his arguments were largely responsible for our defeat in yesterday’s Disputatio. I hope Gonville does not assume we killed him because we lost. I do not want a riot and more blood spilled. Who is the other?’
‘Deschalers,’ said Bartholomew, after a few moments with water and a cloth. ‘The grocer.’
‘Thomas Deschalers is a member of the Millers’ Society,’ said Bernarde, shocked. ‘But neither he nor the others ever come here. All our meetings are held in the Brazen George, because they dislike flour on their fine clothes – as you will find out tomorrow when you look at your own garments. I cannot imagine why Deschalers should be here.’ He rubbed his hand across his mouth, unsettled and distressed. ‘He has not been well recently. Perhaps sickness addled his mind.’
Bartholomew recalled how ill the grocer had looked the previous day. ‘Rougham was his physician,’ he said, thinking about what Deschalers himself had told him. ‘I can ask whether the sickness was one that might lead a man to do odd things, but I doubt it was. It sounded more like a canker – agonising and debilitating, but unlikely to cause a loss of wits.’
‘The Mortimer clan are rough men, especially now Edward is back,’ said Bernarde uneasily. ‘You know we have written to the King, to complain about them diverting our water? Perhaps they have decided to use force to take what they want, instead of relying on the King to make a decision. Perhaps they killed Deschalers.’