Bartholomew 06 - A Masterly Murder

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘Where did you hear this?’ demanded Michael. ‘The Master of Bene’t told me that the Fellows are all good friends who rub along extremely well.’

  ‘Perhaps Wymundham was confused,’ said Bartholomew, growing confused himself. ‘He was deeply shocked by the death of his friend; it may have unbalanced him and made him say things that are not true.’

  ‘Or perhaps Master Heltisle was lying to me,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘I suspected there was something odd going on in that place – there was an atmosphere of goodwill and cheer that struck me as forced and painful. So, what exactly did Wymundham tell you?’

  William gave a hearty sigh to register his disapproval of the muttered discussion that was taking place during the reading of the statutes. None of the other Fellows seemed to care. Father Paul and Runham were engaged in a discussion of their own, while Langelee seemed well on the way to drinking himself into oblivion. Clippesby and Suttone were listening intently, but after all it was the first time they had heard the statutes read.

  ‘Did Wymundham tell you nothing about Raysoun’s last words?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘What last words? I was kneeling next to him, giving him last rites, and I heard no last words. I saw Wymundham leaning over him, but although Raysoun’s eyes were open, he did not look aware to me.’

  ‘But did you speak to Wymundham?’ pressed Bartholomew.

  Michael shook his head. ‘It took rather a long time to have the body removed from the High Street because the parish coffin had been loaned to St Botolph’s Church, and we had to wait for it to be retrieved. By the time I was ready to interview Wymundham, the man had disappeared. Rather than wait indefinitely for him to return, I decided to see him later.’

  ‘So, did you?’

  ‘No. I have been too busy. The stabbed friar in Ovyng Hostel – which is a murder – has taken all my time. I thought Raysoun’s death was accidental, and so did not consider its investigation urgent.’

  ‘I saw Wymundham going into Holy Trinity Church on Thursday afternoon,’ said Bartholomew thoughtfully. ‘It was not long after I had left him at Bene’t, and he was looking quite furtive – furtive enough to make me notice him.’

  ‘So, was he furtive because he had lied to you about these so-called dying words of Raysoun’s?’ mused Michael, resuming his scratching. ‘Or because he really does have a secret to tell, and he is afraid someone might not like it?’

  ‘You two might at least make a pretence at paying attention to the ceremony,’ hissed Father William in a voice loud enough to carry to the other end of the hall. Bartholomew saw Deynman’s shoulders quaking with laughter.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Are you talking about the Bene’t Fellow who fell off his College scaffolding the day before yesterday?’ William asked, apparently not objecting to the discussion if he were included. ‘I ask because I know the Junior Proctor is in Ely this week, and I thought you might need a little help during his absence. I have a good deal of experience of these matters, following the events in Suffolk earlier this year.’

  ‘Your help with that was very much appreciated,’ said Michael smoothly. ‘We would never have managed without you.’

  ‘I know,’ said William. ‘So, did you tell the Chancellor about me? I hope you said I would make a splendid Junior Proctor. I know a vacancy will arise soon, and I would like to be considered.’

  ‘I told him everything,’ said Michael, favouring the friar with an ambiguous wink.

  ‘Did you?’ asked William, not certain whether this was a good thing or a bad. ‘But of course, if you do not need me to assist you with this affair at Bene’t, perhaps I can look into the terrible crime that was perpetrated at Ovyng yesterday – the vicious, wicked murder of an innocent Franciscan by Dominican devils.’

  ‘No,’ said Michael firmly. ‘Leave that well alone, please. I do not want you charging into the Dominican Friary and accusing people of murder.’

  ‘But I would be justified in doing so,’ argued William hotly.

  ‘Very possibly, but we have no evidence to support such a claim, and I do not want any more friars murdered in tit-for-tat killings – including you, Father.’

  William grumbled to himself as Michael turned his back on the friar and gave his attention to Bartholomew. ‘So what else did Wymundham say to you?’

  ‘Just that Raysoun whispered with his dying breath that someone had stabbed him with an awl and then pushed him from the scaffolding, and that Bene’t’s Fellows fight among themselves.’

  ‘Really?’ mused Michael. He tapped his knife thoughtfully on the table, drawing an irritable glance from Runham. ‘I will speak to Wymundham first thing tomorrow morning – it is too late to go tonight. And I will want you to look at Raysoun’s body for me, too. Now that you have raised suspicions about the nature of his death, we need to know whether Raysoun fell on this metal spike as Lynton claimed, or whether he was stabbed, as Wymundham believes.’

  ‘I will not be able to tell you that,’ said Bartholomew in alarm. ‘How can I? A stab wound looks the same whether it was inflicted by a person or whether it was the result of falling on a sharp implement.’

  ‘You will find a way,’ said Michael complacently.

  Chapter 3

  ‘AND EACH NEW FELLOW SHALL PAY DUE RESPECT to every senior, and by senior is understood to mean any Fellow admitted before him,’ concluded Kenyngham, reading the last of the statutes with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ agreed Michael, banging on the table with the handle of his knife, and waking at least one bored scholar that Bartholomew could see. He wondered if it had in fact been the monk’s intention to waken Langelee, who jumped and gazed around him blearily.

  ‘Do you swear to observe all these rules, in the sight of God and the Holy Spirit?’ asked Kenyngham of Clippesby and Suttone, who were now standing in front of him.

  The two swore, and then watched as Kenyngham took a quill and wrote their names in the great book of the Fellows of the Society of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Michael. When he had finished, and the wet ink had been sprinkled with sand to dry it, Clippesby and Suttone each bent to kiss its red leather cover.

  ‘Now comes the unpleasant part of the ceremony,’ muttered Michael, as all the Fellows stood, and prepared to receive the kiss of peace from the newcomers. ‘The only people I will kiss all day transpire to be a red-faced Carmelite with whiskers like a donkey, and a Dominican fanatic with the eyes of a madman. It would be a good deal more enjoyable if they were women.’

  ‘Women will never be admitted to a Cambridge college,’ announced Father William, exercising his annoying habit of overhearing certain parts of conversations not intended for his ears. ‘It would open the door to the Devil – the sort of thing they would do at Oxford.’

  ‘Perhaps that is why Michael is soliciting the good graces of the Oxford men,’ suggested Runham. ‘I cannot imagine why else he should deign to associate himself with that rabble.’

  ‘I can see I will never be allowed to forget this,’ muttered Michael bitterly.

  ‘It would be nice to have women in the College,’ said Bartholomew absently, leaning forward to kiss Clippesby, who favoured him with an odd look at the comment. ‘Some of the midwives I have met are highly intelligent, and—’

  ‘You meet altogether too many women,’ interrupted Father William sanctimoniously. ‘And your obsession with them exceeds the bounds of normality.’

  He grabbed Clippesby roughly by the front of his habit and jerked him forward to plant a heavy kiss on either cheek. Scrubbing his face in distaste, Clippesby moved on to Michael, who favoured him with the most perfunctory of welcomes before sitting down again.

  ‘Let the feast begin,’ announced Kenyngham, clapping his hands to attract the attention of the servants who hovered at the back of the hall.

  ‘Why not tell us who is to be the new Master first?’ asked Gray. His comment had been intended only for Deynman and Bulbeck
, but his voice was loud enough to carry, and other students nodded their agreement. Bartholomew strongly suspected that Kenyngham had chosen to delay his announcement so that everyone could have the opportunity to enjoy themselves before the axe fell.

  The out-going Master pretended not to have heard Gray, and the feast commenced, accompanied by some hastily learned songs from a reduced version of the College choir. The feast’s short notice meant that only the best singers were invited to perform, which therefore excluded most of them.

  The cooks had not managed too badly, considering the lack of preparation time. First, there was a dish of hare cooked with white grease. Michael mopped up the warm lard remaining in the serving bowl with generous helpings of the soft bread baked specially for the occasion, making Bartholomew feel queasy. When he remarked that too much of the fat would make the monk sick, Michael merely replied that it was to make up for the fact that he would not be eating any of the leeks and sops in wine, on the grounds that they were green and that he did not allow green foods to pass his lips.

  It was a familiar refrain, and one that Bartholomew no longer tried to argue against. When Michael had retrieved the last globules of grease from under the rim of the dish, the next course arrived, comprising whole pikes poached in ale, parsley, cinnamon and vinegar: these looked impressive, but were difficult to eat because of the bones. William, who had a penchant for fish giblets, was presented with a large dish of the pikes’ steamed entrails from a cook who believed the Franciscan would be Michaelhouse’s next Master, and was keen to curry favour. With Michael scoffing his grease-impregnated bread on the one side, and William gorging fish intestines on the other, Bartholomew began to wish he were somewhere else.

  Finally, there were fried fig pastries – small rolls of light pastry filled with a mixture of minced figs, saffron, eggs, ginger and cloves cooked in a hot skillet that spat with yet more white grease. Michael ate four and then complained that his innards hurt. Bartholomew ate one, and found it heavy, sticky and overly rich.

  The College’s wine cellar had been broached to ensure there was plenty of liquid with which to wash the food down. Most of it was a dark, tarry brew that Bartholomew thought tasted more like medicine than wine. The first sip made him wince, and when he had finished the whole cup his head spun and his stomach felt acidic. But the oily meal had made him thirsty, and he did not object when Cynric refilled his goblet.

  The powerful drink had its customary impact on the Fellows. Kenyngham’s head began to nod as he listened to some dull monologue by Runham, and Bartholomew saw it would not be long before the gentle Gilbertine fell asleep. Michael, red-faced and sweaty, was sharing detailed knowledge of the town’s whores with a startled Suttone. To Bartholomew’s right, Father William was slapping Clippesby on the shoulders in a comradely manner and regaling him with tales of his happy days in the Inquisition. Clippesby’s expression turned from indignant to appalled, and then to hunted. Bartholomew studied the Dominican, who sat twitching uneasily under William’s heavy arm, and wondered yet again whether he was wholly in control of his wits.

  The student, Sam Gray, reeled towards Bartholomew, with the dull-witted Rob Deynman, equally intoxicated, at his heels.

  ‘I hope it is you,’ he slurred. ‘You and Brother Michael are the only two Fellows who would make Michaelhouse any kind of Master. Any of the rest would be disastrous.’

  ‘Quiet, Sam!’ said Bartholomew, casting an anxious glance down the table to where his colleagues sat. ‘You will need to be a lot more prudent than that if you want a future here.’

  Gray gazed at him in horror, his eyes suddenly focused and clear. ‘Do not tell me you did not stand!’ he breathed. ‘Do not tell me you would let your College go to the Devil, rather than take its reins yourself! You swore a sacred oath to do all you could for it.’

  ‘I think you had better sit down before you say something you might regret,’ said Bartholomew quickly, sensing Gray’s indiscreet opinions were about to land them both in trouble. ‘And take Deynman with you – he is about to pass out.’

  Gray caught the staggering Deynman, and together they weaved their way back to their places. Gray dumped Deynman on the bench and sat talking in a low voice to Tom Bulbeck, who kept shooting nervous glances towards Runham, William and Langelee. Bartholomew knew they had good cause to be concerned: everyone would find Michaelhouse a different place once the lax rule of Kenyngham came to an end.

  He rubbed his temples, feeling the onset of a dull headache from the wine he had consumed – not much by anyone else’s standards, but it was powerful stuff, and he was not used to it. Cynric slopped yet more of it in his master’s cup, his uncharacteristic clumsiness indicating that the servants had also availed themselves of the brew that flowed so freely from the cellars.

  In the Master’s chair, Kenyngham was sound asleep, the fingers of one hand curled around his beloved psalter, and the fingers of the other clutching an empty goblet. Bartholomew stood unsteadily and went to wake him, because no one was permitted to leave the feast before the Master, and the Master looked set to sleep until the following morning. He wanted Kenyngham to announce his successor and quit the hall, so that Bartholomew could go to bed and leave the merrymaking to those with more robust constitutions.

  Kenyngham opened bleary eyes and pulled himself together. A vague hush came over the hall as he stood, although not even his announcement was sufficient to rouse Deynman from his drunken slumber.

  ‘And now I am sure you are all keen to know who will be your next Master,’ said Kenyngham sleepily. Gradually the murmur of voices subsided, and even the servants clattering the dishes behind the screen at the back of the hall were quiet.

  ‘It was not an easy decision,’ said Kenyngham. ‘We had three excellent candidates who were prepared to stand – namely Father William, Master Runham and Master Langelee. Since the statutes say that a Fellow is not permitted to vote if he is a candidate, and Thomas Suttone decided to abstain, we were left with five Fellows eligible to vote.’

  He stopped speaking for a moment, and leaned down to take a gulp from his goblet of wine. He was not the only one. Scholars all around the hall fortified themselves for the bad news they sensed was coming – how could there be good news with those three candidates up for selection? The atmosphere of tense anticipation was oppressive.

  ‘Brother Michael and Doctor Bartholomew voted for William; Father Paul voted for Langelee; and Master Clippesby and I voted for Runham.’

  ‘Paul should have voted for me,’ muttered William bitterly. ‘We are brother Franciscans.’

  ‘The statutes say that the candidate with the fewest votes should stand down and select one of the others. So, Langelee withdrew and voted for Runham. And Paul, freed from his first choice, selected William. But that meant a deadlock, with Runham and William having three votes each, so I was compelled to insist that Suttone make his choice.’

  ‘Then the new Master was effectively chosen by a man who does not know either candidate from Adam?’ whispered Gray, drink making him incautious. ‘That is a bad precedent!’

  ‘Suttone voted for Runham,’ said Kenyngham. ‘And so I declare that John Runham is now duly elected as the next Master of Michaelhouse, effective immediately.’

  In the hall of Michaelhouse, the silence continued after Kenyngham had made his announcement. There was no cheering or exchange of pleased glances. Runham was a good teacher, but he was not liked, and his arrogance and smugness had alienated almost as many people as had his cousin’s before him. Runham either did not notice or did not care. He stood as Master Kenyngham sat, and produced a sheaf of notes. Bartholomew gaped, astonished that the man could be so confident of his success that he had prepared a speech.

  ‘That Dominican – Clippesby – will be sorry he voted for him,’ muttered William furiously in Bartholomew’s ear. ‘He will not enjoy being in Michaelhouse under the Mastership of a lawyer.’

  He would have enjoyed it even less under a Franciscan, Bartholomew tho
ught. William did not like Dominicans, and Dominicans usually did not like him. The physician rubbed his head again as the strong wine made the room reel and tip.

  ‘I do not think I can stand this,’ said Michael, eyeing Runham’s bundle of papers with dismay. ‘After what Langelee did to me, being forced to listen to Runham gloating over his success is more than any mortal should be forced to bear. If I pretend to faint, will you catch me?’

  ‘And then Father William can carry us both out insensible,’ said Bartholomew, smiling. ‘You fainted and me crushed.’

  ‘Get ready then,’ said Michael, raising a hand to his forehead. With a shock, Bartholomew saw he was serious.

  ‘I cannot catch you, Brother,’ he whispered urgently. ‘You are far too heavy, and you will hurt yourself – and me.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Michael. ‘Here I go.’

  He started to raise his ponderous bulk from his chair, clutching at his head dramatically as he did so. Runham was clearing his throat and shuffling his parchments as he prepared to make his first official speech as Master of Michaelhouse. Michael had just opened his mouth to emit a groan, when there was a commotion at the far end of the hall. A porter was gesticulating urgently towards Cynric. The book-bearer listened to his message, and then pushed his way past the rows of students to the high table. Michael sat again, waiting with interest to see what was of sufficient import for Cynric to risk incurring the wrath of a Master about to make his inaugural speech.

  ‘One of your beadles is here,’ the Welshman whispered to Michael.

  ‘Now that I am Master, there will be no interruptions of meals,’ said Runham sharply. ‘And that goes for you, too, Bartholomew. You were late twice yesterday because you put other demands above your College responsibilities. Meals at Michaelhouse will be sacrosanct from now on – they are occasions when the Bible Scholar will read to us for the good of our souls, and when we will reflect in silence on our lives and how we must strive to make them better.’