‘It is a packet of Lombard slices.’
Ducking his head in cold water had not only expunged the lingering effects of the soporific, it had imbued Bartholomew with new energy. Matilde was a sharply gnawing pain in his heart, but although it was more acute than usual, it was one that had been with him ever since she had left Cambridge and he was used to it. And as he was disinclined to examine his feelings about her, the best way to avoid this was to turn his mind to other matters.
‘Where first?’ he asked briskly, after he and Michael had pushed through the inquisitive throng that still clustered around the hospital door and were walking back to the town.
‘To see Pyk’s wife. I have tried several times, but she is always out.’ Michael shot him a sidelong glance. ‘Perhaps Inges is right to claim his well has healing properties: you seem much happier now than you were an hour ago. Or has mauling the corpse of an old adversary put you in a better mood?’
Bartholomew winced, and hoped no one else would think so. ‘The water was unusually cold – like ice – so a dousing will always be invigorating. However, I am not sure it has healing properties as such and–’
‘I am having second thoughts about being Abbot here,’ interrupted Michael, sensing a lecture on medicine in the offing and hastening to avert it. ‘The monastery is wealthy, attractive and influential, but there are too many disagreeable residents. Of course, unless we find answers soon, we might lose a few more to mysterious circumstances. So tell me what you discovered back there: what really happened to Welbyrn?’
As it transpired, the germ of a solution had started to form at the back of Bartholomew’s mind. He was silent for a moment, struggling to piece it together from what he had observed and learned during his encounters with his old tutor.
‘Welbyrn was unwell. He grew angry when it was mentioned and denied it vigorously, but the fact that he availed himself of St Leonard’s curative waters indicates that he knew something was wrong.’
‘He did not look healthy. What ailed him? Did your examination reveal it?’
‘No. I would need to look inside him for–’
‘Then we shall never know, because I am not condoning that sort of activity. At least, not here, where our every move is being carefully monitored.’
‘I was not suggesting it as an option; I was pointing out that I cannot give you answers with the kind of examination I am allowed to conduct. However, there were no obvious external symptoms, no disturbance to his appetite and no indication that he was in pain.’
‘So what are you saying? That he was not ill?’
‘It is possible. However, he certainly thought he was.’
Michael regarded him balefully. ‘I have no idea what you are trying to tell me.’
‘He was ashamed of whatever he believed was wrong with him – he visited the hospital at night, when the place was empty, and he threatened violence to anyone he feared might reveal his secret. Inges said he had taken to asking after Simon the cowherd recently, demanding to know whether there was any improvement in his condition.’
‘And?’ Michael was growing exasperated. ‘What of it?’
‘I suspect he was terrified that he might be going the same way.’
‘So what Inges said in jest was right – Welbyrn was losing his intellectuals?’
‘He told Ramseye that he kept forgetting things, but although Ramseye does not seem to have paid it much heed, I think Welbyrn actually disclosed something that was a genuine cause of concern to him.’
‘So was he going mad?’
‘The fact that he thought he was is probably an indication that he was not – the genuinely deranged do not see anything amiss with their behaviour, which is part of the problem. But Welbyrn, being proud and stubborn, refused to seek help. His fear gnawed at him, making him more aggressive.’
‘Yes – we have been told that his belligerence had escalated recently.’
‘We will never be able to prove any of this now he is dead. However, if it is true, then I am sorry. No one deserves to think that he is losing his mind.’
‘No,’ conceded Michael. ‘However, he was sane enough to leave the Bishop’s Commissioners a plate of toxic Lombard slices, and then retrieve the evidence. He was not completely witless.’
‘I am surprised he was the culprit,’ said Bartholomew unhappily. ‘I would not have predicted that he would resort to a sly weapon like poison.’
‘Perhaps he had help,’ suggested Michael. ‘From the other members of the Unholy Trinity, for example, who may then have decided to shove him in the well before he gave them away. Men on the verge of insanity do not make for reliable accomplices.’
‘We do not know he was murdered. It may have been an accident. Or suicide.’
‘He was murdered all right,’ stated Michael grimly. ‘Of that I am certain.’
Pyk had occupied an attractive house on the marketplace. Its window shutters were freshly painted, its timbers scrubbed, and it had a clean, wholesome look about it. Bartholomew felt instinctively that he would have been at home there, and wished he had known his fellow medicus.
The door was opened by a maid, who recognised Michael from his previous attempts to interview her mistress. She smiled, said Pernel was in at last, and led them to a solar. Lying on a couch like an indolent Roman emperor was a very fat woman in middle years, whose jaws worked furiously as she finished what appeared to have been a sizeable plate of cakes.
‘You are here about my husband Hugh,’ she said, indicating that they should sit. ‘Aurifabro sent soldiers to hunt for him, but they had no more luck than the abbey’s men.’
‘What about you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Did you search, too?’
‘Me?’ Pernel regarded him askance. ‘How could I succeed where mercenaries and defensores had failed? I am not some bloodhound, trained to sniff out prey.’
‘I meant did you hire people to look on your behalf?’ explained Bartholomew.
‘No, it would have been a waste of money. Besides, these things happen, and there is no point crying over spilt milk.’
Bartholomew frowned. ‘You do not seem very concerned.’
Her eyes were small and hard in her doughy face. ‘Is that a crime? I never wanted to marry a medicus. They are an unpleasant breed, with their urine flasks and astrological charts and boring lectures about diet.’
‘But he was your–’ began Bartholomew.
‘My eating is none of his business. It is my body, and I shall put what I please inside it.’
‘Quite right, too,’ interjected Michael.
‘But he thought that a healer’s wife should set a good example, and he ordered me to lose weight. It was entirely unreasonable.’
‘Indeed it was,’ agreed Michael sincerely. ‘Completely unfair.’
‘You would take his side.’ Pernel rounded angrily on Bartholomew, even though he had not spoken. ‘You are one of them – a physician!’ She spat the last word, as if she wanted it out of her mouth. ‘Of course, he did not interfere with cadavers, which is a point in his favour.’
‘I do not–’ began Bartholomew, not liking the connotations of ‘interfere’.
‘But my dietary regimen is my affair, and none of his,’ Pernel concluded firmly. She glared at Bartholomew. ‘And none of yours, either.’