shock. They had believed themselves to be alone and that Bingham had taken all his scholars with him when he had left. Out of the deep shadows, Father Eligius emerged, his pallid features startlingly white above his black gown.
‘Eligius!’ exclaimed Michael, peering at the Dominican in the gloom. ‘I thought you had returned to Valence Marie with the others.’
‘I thought as much,’ said Eligius coolly, ‘or you would not have been discussing the murder of poor Grene so candidly. So, Matthew, you believe our new Master dispatched his hated rival with poison?’
‘He does not,’ intervened Michael quickly, before Bartholomew could respond. ‘He has no evidence to justify such an accusation. A student seems to have been killed with a similar potion – as you no doubt overheard – and since Master Bingham is unlikely to have a motive for murdering a Franciscan novice, it seems he is also unlikely to have killed Grene. Regardless of what Matt might speculate.’
‘Indeed,’ said Eligius, moving closer to look at the sheeted body. He lifted a corner of the cloth and gazed down at Grene’s face, eyes half open despite Bartholomew’s attempts to force them closed. An expression of remorse flickered over Eligius’s own features so quickly that Bartholomew thought he might have imagined it, before the sheet fell and Grene was covered once more.
‘I do not find Master Bingham’s guilt such an unlikely proposition,’ said the Dominican, looking at Michael.
Michael spread his hands. ‘How could Master Bingham have killed Grene at the feast?’ he reasoned. ‘There were dozens of guests present. The matter of the contest between him and Grene was public knowledge, and I am sure I was not the only person watching Grene closely to see how he was taking his defeat. Grene and Bingham did not so much as utter a word to each other all evening, let alone one give the other poison. And anyway, imagine how difficult Bingham’s position will be if there is so much as a whiff of rumour that he has harmed his rival. He would find making a success of his Mastership impossible.’
Eligius considered, watching Michael with unfathomable eyes, and tapping his pursed lips with a long forefinger. He was one of Cambridge’s leading logicians and had taken part in debates in universities all over Europe. Bartholomew had always thought the Dominican philosopher looked every bit a man of learning: he had a head that was too big for his body, an impression accentuated by the way his dark brown hair was chopped short at the forehead and sides but straggled long at the back. He was a tall man, topping Bartholomew by the length of a hand, but was unnaturally thin.
‘Master Bingham will find his Mastership difficult regardless,’ Eligius said finally. ‘Grene alive would have opposed anything he tried to do; there are still those loyal to the previous Master – Robert Thorpe – who consider his dismissal a grave miscarriage of justice; and now Grene conveniently dead will arouse suspicions regarding whether Bingham had a hand in it or not. Had Bingham used the few brains he was born with, he would have foreseen the impossible situation in which he was placing himself and declined the Mastership. Or, if he was wholly unable to resist the lure of power, he should have devised a more discreet way of dispensing with Grene’s presence.’
Michael eyed him speculatively. ‘And which of the two men did you vote for?’
Eligius’s thin lips curved into a humourless smile. ‘I was an avid supporter of neither candidate because I was impressed with the qualities of neither. But Grene had an edge over Bingham and I declined Bingham’s offer of a rise in salary to shift my allegiance.’
‘He bribed you to vote for him?’ asked Bartholomew with distaste.
‘The word “bribe” implies that he offered me something and that I took it,’ said Eligius reproachfully. ‘He might have offered, but I can assure you I took nothing. But while I was content to watch Bingham struggle to rule with Grene alive, I am certainly not prepared to see him in power with Grene murdered. You see, Grene confided to me only last night that he was in fear of his life from Bingham. Naturally, I dismissed his claim as the bitter rambling of a thwarted man. Now I am not so sure.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Bartholomew, aghast. ‘Grene claimed that Bingham might kill him? Are you certain? Could you have mistaken his meaning?’
Eligius shook his head slowly. ‘Poor Grene made his point most clearly. There is no possibility that I could have misunderstood what he was saying. And then, of course, there is the Valence Marie relic.’ He crossed himself reverently.
‘Not that again, Eligius,’ said Michael wearily. ‘The Valence Marie bones were a hoax perpetrated by an evil man. It was
‘Not everyone believes that to be true,’ remonstrated Eligius. ‘I saw that relic and I felt the holiness emanating from it like heat from a fire. Chancellor Tynkell has promised to reinstate it to us so that we can revere it as it deserves.’
‘Has he?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘I thought it had been destroyed.’
‘It is in the University chest in St Mary’s Church,’ explained Michael. ‘It cannot be destroyed until the question of its legal ownership has been resolved. Wretched thing!’
‘It is a gift from God,’ said Eligius, his eyes gleaming with the same fanaticism Bartholomew had seen in Father William’s from time to time. ‘And I am not the only Fellow of Valence Marie to be convinced of its authenticity – Grene believed it, too, although Bingham does not.’
‘I hope you are not suggesting Bingham murdered Grene because of the relic,’ said Michael.
Eligius said nothing.
‘But do you honestly see Bingham poisoning Grene in front of all the guests at the feast?’ asked Bartholomew, simultaneously bewildered and unconvinced by the Dominican’s suppositions. ‘You know him better than I, but it seems to me that he does not possess such presence of mind.’
Eligius sighed. ‘You are probably right,’ he said, his tone of voice making it perfectly clear he did not believe so for an instant. ‘But if Bingham did not kill Grene, who did?’
Michael and Bartholomew had no answer, and all three scholars looked down at the body lying under its dirty sheet on the table. A breath of wind gusted suddenly, making the candle flames flutter and lunge and splattering heavy drops of rain onto the stone floor to echo eerily around the otherwise silent church.
‘There is something about Father Eligius I find disconcerting,’ said Bartholomew, shivering as he watched Michael try to poke some life into the dull embers of the kitchen fire.
Michaelhouse, despite its fine buildings and formidable gateway, was not wealthy, and firewood had been expensive since the plague. Usually, Master Kenyngham allowed a fire in the hall during winter so that the scholars had some warmth for lectures, but the wet weather was mild and, at a meeting of the Fellows in December, it was mooted that a fire was an unnecessary extravagance. Bartholomew had argued that dampness was as chilling as winter snow, and that the students needed somewhere to dry their clothes. Kenyngham had wavered, since he took Bartholomew’s concerns about health seriously, but Langelee, backed by Alcote – who was sufficiently affluent to afford a fire in his own chambers anyway – argued that such luxuries were needless, and that was that. The only fire in Michaelhouse was in the kitchen; Kenyngham had been forced to declare that out of bounds when Agatha, the College laundress, had claimed so many students were vying to sit near it, that the servants could not reach it to do the cooking.
By the time Bartholomew and Michael had returned from the feast, Michaelhouse was silent. Here and there, lights flickered in windows, suggesting that there were a few scholars who could afford a candle to render the long winter nights more endurable with reading or illicit games of cards, but most were asleep, rolled up in their blankets in a vain attempt to keep the iciness of the stone-built rooms at bay. The kitchen, too, was deserted, the cook and his assistants having retired to their own quarters above the laundry for the night. Agatha often sat in her great wooden chair by the fire in the evenings, straining her eyes to sew, or holding forth about all manner of subjects to anyone who would listen. But it was late, and the barely glowing embers suggested that Agatha had long since gone to her bed.
On the table, wrapped in a piece of old blanket from the laundry, were the bottles of poisoned wine – three from the novices at St Bernard’s Hostel and the one that had killed Grene. All four were identical, so that it was clear they had come from the same source. The Valence Marie porter, back at his post with his hand swathed in a huge and inexpertly tied bandage that bore the hallmarks of Robin of Grantchester’s work, had regarded the containers fearfully, as though he imagined their contents might leap out and pour themselves down his throat. Bartholomew had tried to question him about his burned hand, but the porter declined to incriminate himself, and
