A Masterly Murder (24 page)

‘I do not think so,’ said Bartholomew doubtfully. ‘Wymundham could not have stabbed Raysoun with half the town watching, and
anyway, Raysoun was not a corpse when Master Lynton pulled the awl out of him.’

‘Well, the Fellows of Bene’t are altogether odd,’ said Robin firmly. ‘The Master, Heltisle, is too ambitious for his own good;
his second-in-command Caumpes likes to play with boats in his spare time, because he comes from the Fens; while de Walton
has a fancy for Mayor Horwoode’s massive wife. And the last of them, Simekyn Simeon, is the Duke of Lancaster’s spy!’

‘Did Osmun tell you all this?’ asked Bartholomew curiously.

‘Lord, no!’ said Robin. ‘He is too fond of that foul place to utter seditious thoughts about it. What I tell you about the
Fellows of Bene’t is general town knowledge.’

Bartholomew realised that Osmun was merely trying to shift any suspicion on to Wymundham, who was hardly in a position to
defend himself, because he was dead. Perhaps Osmun had been the murderer, climbing the scaffolding to shove Raysoun to his
death. And in that case, Osmun must have killed Wymundham, too, to silence him regarding the identity of Raysoun’s killer.
Bartholomew decided he should pass the gossip to Michael, so that the Senior Proctor could decide what was truth and what
was lies in the mess of charge and counter-charge. He was thankful that the affair was not his to solve.

Bartholomew was with his students in the conclave later that morning, in the midst of a long and involved explanation about
a diagram of a neck in Mondino dei Liuzzi’s illustrated
Anatomy
, when there was a colossal crash.
Anatomy forgotten, students and master rushed to the window to see that a pulley hauling slates to the roof had snapped,
littering the yard below with smashed tiles.

For several moments there was a shocked silence, both in the hall and in the courtyard, and then the workmen began shouting
in alarm. Afraid that someone might have been crushed, Bartholomew ran outside, pushing through the gathering crowd to see
if there was anyone who needed his expertise.

They had been lucky: no one had been standing underneath the pulley when it had broken. With relief, Bartholomew heard the
workmen’s shouts of alarm give way to laughter and bantering; evidently they considered the fall more of a matter for humour
than anger or recrimination, although it seemed to Bartholomew that they were working too fast, and were abandoning safety
for speed. He sprinted up the stairs to Michael’s room to find the monk standing at the window watching the chaotic scene
below in disapproval. He shook his head as Bartholomew entered.

‘That could have killed someone. What is the hurry with this building? Why are the workmen so desperate to finish a task they
have barely begun? Is it the prospect of being under Runham’s direction that makes them so keen to have the job done?’

‘If so, then I cannot blame them,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘Are you feeling better? You look better.’

Michael nodded. ‘I feel dizzy if I stand too long and I tire easily, but I am well enough.’ He gestured at his table, which
was piled high with scrolls and parchments. ‘I am making good use of the fact that I am confined to my room, though. I have
resumed my dealings with Master Heytesbury of Merton College in Oxford, and I have been sifting through the reports from my
beadles about these murders.’

‘Have they learned anything?’

Michael shook his head gloomily, and not even the fragments of gossip from Robin of Grantchester and Suttone seemed to lessen
his despondency about the slow pace of the investigation. Bartholomew left him sitting at his table, muttering obscenities
about the fact that the reports his beadles dictated to the University’s scribes in St Mary’s Church were so ambiguous that
he was obliged to send for most of them anyway, so that they could clarify what they had intended to say.

By the time Bartholomew quit Michael’s chamber he had lost his students, who were enjoying the spectacle of the workmen picking
through the smashed tiles, and it was almost time for teaching to end anyway. He returned to the hall where he carefully secured
the colourfully illustrated anatomy book to its chain in the wall, straightened the benches, and replaced the ink stands,
spare parchment and pens in the aumbry in the corner of the conclave. When he had finished, Suttone came to stand next to
him at the window, staring into the yard below.

‘That is what happens when corners are cut,’ he said, looking down at the mess with a resigned sigh. ‘Master Runham is forcing
the pace of this building work to the point where it is dangerous.’

‘Then tell him,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘We do not want someone injured because Runham wants a new College instantly.’

‘He will not listen. He does not care if a workman is killed, anyway. I reminded him that Master Raysoun of Bene’t College
died because he fell from unstable scaffolding, but Runham merely thanked me for my advice, and assured me that
he
would take care not to climb on any of ours.’

‘He said that?’ asked Bartholomew, not sure whether
to be indignant or amused by the Master’s brazen self-interest.

Suttone frowned. ‘There he is. What is he doing now?’

Runham was staggering under the weight of a small chest. It was one
of the College ‘hutches’ – a box containing money that benefactors had provided so that scholars could borrow from it if they
found themselves short of cash. The Master would give the student money, while the student exchanged a
caucio
or pledge of comparable value. So, for example, when Gray had needed two marks to pay for his tuition fees, he had deposited
a gold ring in the chest that he would redeem as soon as he had saved enough money. Similarly, Deynman had left his beautiful
copy of Galen’s
Tegni
in the chest when he wanted money for pens and ink. If Gray or Deynman were unable or unwilling to repay their loan, the
College would then be the proud owner of a gold ring and a book for the library. The College’s hutches, containing varying
amounts of money, were stored in a heavily barred room in a cellar under the hall.

‘He must be going to do an inventory of the contents,’ said Bartholomew, watching Runham sweating under his load. ‘Some of
our hutches contain a lot of money – or its equivalent.’

‘Are all the hutches for the students’ use?’ asked Suttone.

‘No. Some of our eight or nine hutches are for Fellows, too. They are useful if we need money to pay some fine or other.’

‘I owe no fines,’ said Suttone. He gave a sudden, wicked grin. ‘Although I might well be fined for being insubordinate to
Runham before too long. But I do need money to buy the alb I will need to conduct masses in the church. I shall see Runham
about it this morning.’

He wandered away, and Bartholomew went to visit a
patient near the river before the bell announced the midday meal. His patient had been bitten by a rat, so Bartholomew cleaned
the wound and then rummaged in his bag for the betony plaster that would help prevent festering. It was missing and he suspected
it had been borrowed by Gray, who had then forgotten to replace it. He remembered that the last time he used it was when he
had treated Michael in the lane the night Runham had been elected. He paid an urchin a penny to fetch some more from the apothecary,
and talked with the man’s family while he waited.

It was not long before they were joined by the old brothers Dunstan and Aethelbald, who always came to see what was happening
if a stranger visited the row of hovels that crouched near the seedy wharves on the river where they had lived all their lives.

‘We are going to Bene’t College today,’ announced Dunstan without preamble. ‘Now that Wymundham and Raysoun are dead, their
choir is depleted, so we thought we would offer our services.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, wondering whether Bene’t knew what it was letting itself in for if it accepted the rivermen’s reedy
tenors.

‘They will have to give us bread and ale, though,’ added Aethelbald. ‘We do not sing for nothing.’

‘Isnard the bargeman tried to join the Peterhouse choir,’ said Dunstan. ‘Peterhouse gives its singers wine after each mass,
you see. But the music master told Isnard he should take pity on the world and swear a sacred oath that he would never utter
another note as long as he lived. Now why should the man say a rude thing like that, Doctor?’

‘I cannot imagine,’ said Bartholomew, deliberately not looking at the old man, who sounded genuinely surprised.

‘Bene’t will be glad to have us,’ said Aethelbald with conviction. ‘And when Michaelhouse hears us singing like angels, it
will be sorry that it allowed us to leave.’

‘You could be right,’ said Bartholomew, sure he was not.

‘We heard one of your lot came to a nasty end,’ said Dunstan suddenly, with inappropriate salaciousness.

‘Who?’ asked Bartholomew absently, thinking about Raysoun, Wymundham and Brother Patrick.

‘One of your lot – that miserable Justus, Runham’s book-bearer. His body is in St Michael’s Church porch.’

Bartholomew sighed. It was already a week since the book-bearer’s body had been found, and it was clear that Runham had no
intention of arranging a burial. Bartholomew saw he would have to do it himself if he did not want the corpse to remain in
the church until it decomposed completely.

He was angry: Justus had served Runham for almost a year, and paying a few pennies for a shroud should not have been an insurmountable
problem, even to a miser like Runham. Compared to the efforts Runham had made to beautify the tomb of his loathsome cousin,
Bartholomew found the new Master’s attitude to the dead perplexing and inconsistent. Justus had not been a likeable man, but
that was no reason to treat his body with such disrespect.

‘It is disgraceful,’ added Aethelbald gleefully. ‘Still, given what Runham did to our choir, I cannot say I am surprised.
And then there was Brother Patrick – another victim of that University.’

‘I know,’ said Dunstan, shaking his head. ‘Stabbed through the heart, I heard.’

‘Stabbed in the back,’ corrected Aethelbald. ‘A coward’s blow.’

‘Who told you all this?’ asked Bartholomew, amazed
at the speed at which gossip seemed to rip through the town.

‘Everyone knows,’ said Aethelbald dismissively. ‘It is no secret. And everyone knows who killed this Brother Patrick, too.’

‘They do?’ asked Bartholomew hopefully.

Dunstan nodded vehemently. ‘Another scholar. It could not have been a townsman because it was on University property.’

‘That does not necessarily follow,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is not unknown for townsmen to trespass on University land.’

‘I would like to trespass on Michaelhouse,’ said Aethelbald with feeling. ‘No offence, Doctor, but I would like to see it
burn to the ground for what it did to our choir. And I would like to see every one of its fat, grasping scholars strung up
like the common criminals they are – not you, of course, Doctor, and not that sainted Brother Michael.’

‘If I were twenty years younger, I would do it,’ announced Dunstan.

‘Forty years younger might see you in with a chance,’ cackled Aethelbald. ‘I tell you, Doctor, that College is destined for
a great fall. And when it comes, not a soul in the town will raise a finger to save it.’

For some unaccountable reason, their words unnerved Bartholomew. When the betony plaster arrived, he slapped it on his patient’s
leg with almost indecent haste, and strode quickly back up the lane, his head bowed in thought, wondering what he could do
to prevent the ever-widening rift between his College and the townsfolk.

Since it was a lenten day, fried herring giblets were on the menu at Michaelhouse. Bartholomew thought about William as he
toyed with the unappetising mess, because
any kind of fish organs were a favourite with the friar. Bartholomew hoped William would be getting his share of them in
the Franciscan Friary.

The entrails were served on thick slabs of stale bread made from rye flour, which served as platters. Although scholars were
not usually expected to consume their trenchers, Bartholomew ate most of his that day because he was hungry and he did not
fancy the oily, fishy guts that were heaped in front of him. Glancing down the table, he saw that none of the other Fellows
were devouring them with much enthusiasm, either, and Runham had gone so far as to hire a personal cook to provide
him
with something else.

As well as giblets and stale bread, there was a thick, brown-green paste made from dried peas. It was bland and contained
some crunchy parts that Bartholomew imagined it was better not to try to examine too carefully. The last time he had investigated
a foreign body in his food it had transpired to be a toenail, although none of the cooks would admit to being its owner. The
Bible Scholar droned on, skimming through the text quickly and without any indication that he had the slightest understanding
of what he read.

When Runham rose to say grace, Bartholomew escaped with relief from the oppressive atmosphere of the hall and went to his
own room. The College was still in a chaos of noise following the collapse of scaffolding, and Runham had announced that the
rest of the day’s lectures were cancelled. The students were delighted although Bartholomew fretted that so much lost time
would mean poor results at the end-of-year disputations.

He was about to go inside when he saw Beadle Meadowman hurrying across the yard towards him, and so escorted him to Michael’s
room. In tones of barely concealed pride, Meadowman informed the monk that
he had persuaded his brother-in-law, Robert de Blaston the carpenter, to hire him to work alongside the men who had been
building Bene’t College the day Raysoun had died. Meadowman hoped to gain the confidence of his fellow workmen, and see whether
he could ascertain if any of them had given Raysoun a timely shove.

Meadowman also reported that the other beadles had been diligent in their enquiries around the taverns, but although the townsmen
professed to be delighted by the deaths of scholars of the much-hated University, no one seemed to be taking the credit for
killing them. Michael instructed him to ensure the enquiries continued, and then sent him away to begin mixing mortar with
his new colleagues.