‘Did Dodenho reclaim it?’ wondered Bartholomew. ‘It was his to start with.’
Spryngheuse did not understand the question, but nor did he care. ‘Will you help me?’ he asked desperately. ‘I do not think I can stand the anticipation much longer.’
‘I cannot predict when you will die,’ said Bartholomew gently. ‘No one can, not even with the best astrolabe in the world.’
‘I visited a wise woman yesterday, and she said it would be soon, but refused to tell me the exact day. She said there is a black shadow following me – Death in the guise of a Benedictine.’
‘She was guessing. You look like a man at the end of his tether, and she used it to make her so-called prediction. Fight this, Spryngheuse. Or leave Cambridge and go to some remote village where you can use a different name and no one will know who you are.’
‘Yes,’ said Spryngheuse wearily. ‘That is what I should do. The only problem is finding the courage to ride off alone, to somewhere the monk will never find me.’
‘Enough!’ roared Michael suddenly. The merchants’ quarrel had reached screeching proportions. ‘You have lied to me and misled me, and nothing can change that. But I do not want to talk about Gonerby today. I want to talk about Okehamptone, who was also foully murdered.’
There was a tense silence, as the party from Oxford digested this information. Bartholomew watched them carefully, but their faces told him nothing he could not have predicted: Spryngheuse, Duraunt and Abergavenny were shocked, Polmorva and Eu were unreadable, and Wormynghalle was incensed, seeing the statement as an accusation that somehow besmirched his personal integrity.
‘Okehamptone died of a fever, Brother,’ said Duraunt eventually. ‘You said so yourself.’
‘I have reconsidered in the light of new evidence,’ replied Michael. ‘So, what have you to say?’
‘There is nothing to say,’ said Polmorva. ‘Okehamptone was hired as the merchants’ scribe, and he died when we arrived in Cambridge. Fever deaths are not uncommon after long journeys.’
‘England’s roads are dangerous, Brother,’ Abergavenny pointed out. ‘It is not just outlaws who present a risk, but sicknesses caused by rotten food, cloudy ale, dangerous animals, filthy beds . . .’
‘Strange whores,’ added Eu. ‘My father always taught me never to romp with harlots I do not know personally. Of course, getting acquainted with them first is not always-’
‘Bad water killed Okehamptone,’ declared Wormynghalle. ‘He drank from streams and wells, when the rest of us took ale. I warned him it was foolish, but he would not listen.’
‘Where did he drink this tainted water?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘How long before he died?’
‘He was always doing it,’ replied Wormynghalle. ‘He disliked the flavour of ale, although he adored wine. He gulped a vast quantity of well-water in a village called Girton, and was feverish that same night. It is obvious what killed him.’
‘Not Girton’s well,’ said Bartholomew immediately. ‘It is good-’
‘Did Okehamptone have enemies?’ asked Michael, before his friend could hold forth on the topic of water.
‘No,’ said Eu, surprised by the question. ‘We have already told you: we hired him because he was likeable. He had a habit of gabbling Latin with Chesterfelde, which was annoying . . .’
‘And he sang,’ added Polmorva. ‘All the time. Now that was really irritating. He was always a tone below where he should have been, and it was hard on the ear.’
‘Anything else? Was he quarrelsome? Aggressive?’ Michael fixed Eu with a stare. ‘Pompous?’
‘He was a scholar-scribe,’ said Abergavenny before Eu could respond. ‘So, of course he was pompous. But, as Eu said, he was a pleasant fellow – not wealthy, but his clothes were of a decent quality and he was clean.’
‘And that cannot always be said of scholars,’ added Eu, determined to have his say. He did not look at anyone, but Bartholomew assumed he was thinking of Tynkell.
‘You say he was murdered,’ said Duraunt when Michael looked indignant. ‘How do you know?’
‘That is a good question,’ said Polmorva. ‘What have you done? Been to the church and dragged the poor man from his coffin?’
Duraunt turned appalled eyes on Bartholomew. ‘Please tell me you did not disturb a man’s mortal remains. I know there are universities in Italy that condone that sort of unchristian behaviour, but I thought English schools were above such barbarism – especially scholars I once taught.’
‘Of course they have been in Okehamptone’s grave,’ said Eu. ‘How else could they have “new evidence”? They cannot solve Chesterfelde’s murder, so they have turned to Okehamptone instead, in an attempt to prevent us from finding Gonerby’s killer – to muddy the waters.’
‘Okehamptone died from an injury to his throat,’ stated Michael baldly.
‘His throat?’ breathed Duraunt, shocked. ‘I did not see anything amiss with his throat.’
‘Did you look?’ Michael pounced.
‘Well, no, but-’
‘Then someone must have invaded Merton Hall during the night and killed him,’ said Polmorva with a shrug, to indicate he considered the matter of scant importance. ‘He was alive when we went to bed, but dead by dawn.’
‘Wormynghalle provided us with a casket of wine the night Okehamptone died,’ recalled Duraunt. ‘He drank some of that, but we all did. Besides, wine does not wound a throat.’
‘It was our first night here, and I felt we should celebrate our safe arrival,’ said Wormynghalle, a little defensively. ‘Duraunt will accept no coins for our board, so I decided to repay his hospitality in time-honoured fashion.’
‘Just like the night Chesterfelde died,’ said Michael pointedly. ‘You provided wine, then, too.’
‘That was claret,’ said Duraunt, as if such a detail made all the difference. ‘We had white wine when Okehamptone was …taken to God.’
‘Did anyone see blood on his body?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘There would have been a lot of it.’
‘He was wrapped in a blanket and he wore Wormynghalle’s liripipe for warmth against his fever,’ said Abergavenny thoughtfully. ‘We did not notice blood, because we did not unwrap him. All we did was cover his face and summon the appropriate authorities.’
‘Wormynghalle’s liripipe?’ asked Michael, turning to the tanner with questioning eyes.
‘He did not ask to borrow it,’ said Wormynghalle, a little angrily. ‘But once he had died in it, I did not want it back. I do not wear clothes that have been donned by corpses.’ He gazed at Eu in a way that suggested he would not put such grotesque behaviour past him.
‘And none of you touched the body?’ Michael asked, cutting across Eu’s angry retort. ‘No one anointed it with holy water, dressed it in clean clothes?’
‘We did what was required of us,’ replied Polmorva coolly. ‘No more, but no less, either.’
‘You are a friar,’ said Bartholomew to Duraunt. ‘Surely you gave him last rites?’
‘He was dead,’ replied Duraunt. ‘I know some clerics believe a soul lingers after death, but I am not among them. I feel it is wrong to place holy things near corpses, and Okehamptone had been dead for some time before we found him. He was stiff and cold.’
‘Since the pestilence, we are all wary of cadavers,’ added Wormynghalle. ‘There are rumours that it originated when an earthquake burst open graves, and I, for one, refuse to touch them. We had Okehamptone removed as soon as your other Corpse Examiner had finished his business.’
‘Wormynghalle is right,’ agreed Abergavenny. ‘You cannot be too careful these days, and we were only too happy to let others deal with Okehamptone’s remains. None of us knew him well, but we attended his requiem mass and prayed for his soul. We did all that was expected of us.’
‘Except notice that his throat had been cut,’ said Bartholomew in disgust.
* * *
That afternoon, Bartholomew concentrated on his teaching, grateful to relegate the Oxford murders to the back of his mind for a while. Since the plague, physicians had been in desperately short supply, and there was a huge demand for qualified men to fill empty posts. Bartholomew felt it was his duty to train as many students as he could, and was hard-pressed to supervise them all, even when he was not helping Michael. He was more than happy to spend time in Michaelhouse, his apprentice medics perched on wooden benches in front of him, as he vied to make himself heard over the other lessons that were taking place. William was a particular nuisance, with his loud voice and bigoted opinions, and it was invariably a challenge to keep the students’ attention once the Franciscan was in full swing. That morning, William had taken it upon himself to hold forth about the Dominicans again.