‘Very nice, Appletre,’ he said briskly and in a manner that suggested it was time for the precentor to leave. ‘It was good of you to come.’
‘It is my pleasure,’ replied the precentor amiably. ‘Although I suspect I did more to send Kirwell to sleep than to entertain him.’
Kirwell lay in bed, wizened, concave-headed and entirely bald. Appletre was right to say that he had fallen asleep, for he snapped into wakefulness at Inges’s interruption, revealing rheumy eyes that were almost white. However, Bartholomew thought that while he might well be ninety, or even a hundred, he was certainly no more.
‘Here is the physician, Kirwell,’ announced Inges. ‘We brought him to you first, so keep him for as long as you like. The rest of us are happy to wait.’
‘I will come back later, then,’ said a figure who had been sitting quietly in the shadows. It was the young chaplain Trentham. He was blinking drowsily, suggesting that Appletre’s singing had had a soporific effect on him, too.
‘Please do,’ said Inges. ‘And then I shall finish telling you about my first day as abbey steward, when I was obliged to confront a vicious killer.’
‘On your first day?’ asked Appletre, wide-eyed. ‘That sounds nasty.’
‘It was,’ agreed Inges. ‘The culprit was a man who discovered his wife in bed with a shepherd. He fastened his hands around her throat and slowly wrung the life out of her.’
‘Oh,’ gulped Appletre, raising a hand to his own neck. ‘I have nightmares about that – someone doing something awful to my throat. Singing is my only skill, and without my voice, I would be useless. In fact, I would rather die than live without music.’
‘If someone strangled me, I would want it done vigorously,’ confided Inges. ‘Not like the man with his wife, which took an age. It is more merciful to grab one’s victim and finish him with one brief but powerful squeeze. There would be no pain and–’
‘Stop!’ cried Appletre, putting his hands over his ears. ‘Such a discussion is hardly appropriate in front of saints, physicians and priests – or precentors, for that matter.’
‘It is only idle chatter,’ shrugged Inges. ‘But we should not waste Doctor Bartholomew’s time, because he has a lot to do today. Thank you for coming, Appletre. You, too, Trentham. Kirwell enjoys these weekly sessions very much.’
Inges accompanied the priest and the precentor out, leaving Bartholomew alone with the patient. Kirwell turned his opaque eyes in the physician’s direction.
‘How much longer?’ he asked in a low voice.
Bartholomew sat next to him. ‘How much longer until what?’
‘Until I die,’ whispered the old man. ‘I am weary of life and want to sleep in my grave.’
‘That is not a question I can answer.’
‘I am tired of lying here while folk prod and gawp at me. The attention was fun to start with, but now I have had enough. So how much longer?’
‘Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?’
‘Yes, you can give me a potion that will ease me painlessly into death.’
‘Other than that,’ said Bartholomew.
Kirwell scowled. ‘Are you following Inges’s orders? Has he instructed you not to rob his hospital of its main source of income?’
‘He did not need to – physicians are not in the habit of dispatching people.’
Kirwell went on bitterly. ‘He sees me as too valuable to die. But I can barely recite my offices these days – I keep falling asleep halfway through them. I am no kind of priest now.’
Bartholomew regarded him thoughtfully. ‘I attended the abbey school here, but I do not recall hearing about you. Yet you would have been ancient then – if you really are a hundred and forty-three, of course.’
‘Well, you should have paid more attention,’ sniffed Kirwell. ‘Because I have been a bedesman ever since Lawrence de Oxforde was hanged, which was long before you would have been learning your letters. Do you not know my story?’
‘I am afraid not.’
‘It began with his execution. I was praying by his grave the following day when there was a brilliant flash of light. It knocked me clean off my feet, and was declared miraculous by all who saw it.’
‘Oh,’ said Bartholomew. It did not sound very miraculous to him.
‘Afterwards, it was decided that I should live here at abbey expense. I was grateful, because my eyes were failing, and what use is a sightless cleric?’
‘What caused the light? The sun?’
Kirwell grimaced. ‘You are a practical man who looks for rational explanations of God’s mysteries. But you are wrong to be sceptical, because my life changed in that moment. Before, I was a frightened man, lonely, poor and going blind. After, I was a bedesman with every comfort at my fingertips. That was a miracle.’
‘Right,’ said Bartholomew, his mind drifting to the people who were waiting to see him below. What manner of ailments would they present? Would any be new to him? Would the town’s apothecary be able to produce the complex remedies he might need to prescribe?
‘Oxforde gave me a prayer,’ Kirwell was saying. ‘One he composed the night before he was executed. I told him it was beautiful in an effort to touch his conscience, although it was actually rather trite. But he believed I was sincere, and he wrote it down for me.’
‘He could write?’ asked Bartholomew, pulling his mind away from medicine. He did not want to offend the old man by being inattentive.
‘Like you, he attended the abbey school. He promised that I would live long and happily, provided I never showed it to anyone else. I did not believe him, of course, and planned to sell it – some folk pay good prices for that sort of thing. But then that light flared over his tomb, so I decided to do as I was told. Within an hour, I was awarded my life of luxury.’
‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, wondering where the story was going.
‘But a month ago, I decided that I had had enough, so I told my story to Abbot Robert. He said that if I gave him the prayer, I would be released from my wearisome life.’
‘Really?’ Bartholomew wondered what Robert had been thinking. It was hardly appropriate for an abbot to encourage superstition, especially in a fellow religious.
Kirwell scowled. ‘I did as he suggested, but he is the one who is dead, while I still linger. It is not fair!’
‘I doubt Oxforde’s prayer is responsible for–’
‘Of course it is,’ declared Kirwell crossly. ‘I passed it to Robert two days before his fateful journey to Aurifabro, and now he is gone. But why him? He promised me death.’
‘I do not know,’ replied Bartholomew, when he saw that Kirwell expected an answer.
‘Damn you, then,’ whispered the old man. ‘Damn you to Hell!’
His head dropped forward, and he began to drowse. Moving carefully, so as not to wake him, Bartholomew left.
Prior Inges was waiting in the hall below. ‘Did he bless you? Or touch you in benediction? He has been a bit remiss in that direction of late, but he has always admired physicians.’
Bartholomew did not like to say that he had been cursed. ‘Not exactly.’
Inges looked disappointed. ‘Perhaps he will oblige you next time. Holy men can be unpredictable, as I am sure you know from your Clippesby.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Bartholomew gestured towards the door, where the line of people seemed to be longer than ever. ‘I should make a start if you want me to see everyone today.’
‘Not before you inspect our well,’ said Inges. ‘We cannot have it said that we provided a Bishop’s Commissioner with an inadequate tour. Especially as Joan went to some trouble to show you everything at St Thomas’s.’
He grabbed Bartholomew’s sleeve and tugged him into the chapel. There were steps in one corner, leading down to a deep, stone-lined pool. The water was green and its surface rippled. Bartholomew put his hand in it, but withdrew it sharply. The spring was icy cold.