reminded, yet again, what a dangerous position they were in.
A student was waiting outside Gonville Hall to conduct them to Father Philius’s room. In it, Master Colton paced back and forth, pulling at his beard in agitation, while Bartholomew stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Philius’s room looked as though a fierce wind had blown through it. Parchments were scattered everywhere, and the table and several stools had been overturned. The collection of fine crucifixes had gone, too – the hooks where they had hung were empty. As Bartholomew recovered himself, and walked towards the body that lay on the bed, glass and pottery crunched under his feet from the bottles and cups that had been shattered.
He knelt on the floor, and eased the dead scholar over onto his back. Philius’s eyes were wide open, there were traces of blood around his white lips, and his face revealed an expression of profound shock. Tulyet leaned over Bartholomew’s shoulder to look, and crossed himself hurriedly.
‘It seems to me that the evil humours, for which you treated Philius recently, must have burst from him,’ said Colton from the doorway as he watched. He gestured around the room. ‘He must have done all this in his death throes. We decided we should leave everything as we found it, so that you could be certain it was these evil humours that killed him. I cannot have lies circulating that Philius died in suspicious circumstances, not so soon after the rumours that he was poisoned by his own book-bearer. What will people think of us?’
Bartholomew stood up, and turned to face Colton.
‘But I think Father Philius has been murdered,’ he said quietly. He looked around the room. ‘And it seems he put up quite a fight.’
‘Murdered?’ echoed Colton nervously. ‘But that cannot be so! The porter heard and saw nothing, and these days – with the outlaws at large – we keep our gates locked during the day as well as the night.’
‘But he must have heard something,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Surely the sound of that table falling would have been audible from the porter’s lodge?’
‘Send for him,’ ordered Tulyet. ‘We shall see.’
With a long-suffering sigh, Colton hailed a passing student, and instructed him to fetch the porter.
‘We might know what happened for certain once I have looked more closely at Philius’s body,’ said Bartholomew. He crouched next to the dead Franciscan, and inspected his face. Colton reached past him and hauled the bed-cover up, so that it covered the body. Bartholomew twisted round to gaze at the Master of Gonville Hall in astonishment.
Colton shook his head firmly. ‘I am sorry, Bartholomew, but I cannot permit this. I will not have it put about that a murder has taken place in my College in the wake of this nasty affair of the poisoned wine. If I had thought you would try to prove Philius had been murdered, I would never have allowed you to come here. I expected you simply to confirm that Philius died as a result of his earlier affliction.’
‘Did you ask me to come because you want to know what really happened, or because you want me to say what you hope to be true?’ asked Bartholomew quietly. ‘Because I will not lie for you.’
Colton looked angry. ‘Philius could not have been murdered! I ate breakfast with him this morning! He had been very careful about his personal safety after Isaac’s death: he locked his room at all times, even when he was in it. You are mistaken if you suspect foul play. I tell you, poor Philius had an attack of the same evil humours that struck him before.’
Bartholomew disagreed. ‘He seemed to have recovered from that.’
‘Seemed, yes,’ insisted Colton. ‘But you know diseases appear to be healed and then return with greater vigour. You must have seen how that happened with the Death?’
That was true. Bartholomew had seen many plague victims who seemed to be mending, but promptly died just as their family and friends were giving thanks for their deliverance. But he was certain that was not what had happened to Philius. He looked reappraisingly at Gonville Hall’s Master. Did he have something more to hide than a desire to suppress rumours that might damage his College’s reputation? Colton had been present in his College when Isaac was murdered and now, it seemed, he had seen Philius at breakfast – a matter of hours before the man had been dispatched. And Colton had been at the feast where Grene had died.
‘If the humours had burst forth from his body as you suggest,’ said Bartholomew, ‘then we would see signs of it. He would have vomited, or had some other kind of flux, and there would be a recurrence of the small blisters I saw earlier.’
‘What are you saying, Matt? That someone forced his way in and killed him?’ asked Tulyet.
Bartholomew nodded slowly.
‘That is ridiculous!’ snapped Colton dismissively. ‘I have told you already that Philius has been careful since Isaac’s death. He kept his door locked at all times, and allowed few people in. And you are asking me to believe that someone entered the College, and killed him in broad daylight? As I told you, I saw him fit and well at breakfast when I joined him here, in this very room, this morning.’
‘If he had been fit and well at breakfast, why should he suddenly die a couple of hours later?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘If his humours were unbalanced, he would have complained about it then.’
‘Perhaps it came upon him all of a sudden,’ said Colton, exasperated. ‘And how could a murderer gain access to his room? The door was locked.’
‘Was it locked when you found his body?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘With him dead inside?’
Colton considered. ‘Well, no. It was unlocked when I found him like this, but he might have opened it as these evil humours burst forth in an attempt to call for help.’
‘Then why did he not die outside in the yard?’ persisted Bartholomew. ‘Unless you moved the body?’
‘I have touched nothing!’ said Colton angrily, enunciating each word. ‘And the reason I have touched nothing is so that we might quell any vicious rumours that Philius’s death was anything but natural. I did not want you claiming that I have tampered with evidence. And, anyway, see reason, man! You are reading far too much into all this. Philius died, purely and simply, of a surplus of the evil humours that sickened him a few days ago.’
‘Why do you keep saying Philius’s last illness was caused by evil humours?’ demanded Bartholomew. ‘We both know very well that he was poisoned with the same substance that killed Grene and Armel.’
‘
Bartholomew stared at Colton in disbelief. ‘Really? And I suppose this new diagnosis has nothing to do with the fact that you do not want your College associated with the murder of University scholars? Did you and Philius sit down together and discuss how you might best protect Gonville Hall from unseemly rumours?’
Or, he thought, perhaps it was more sinister than that, and Colton had ensured Philius would not live to spread tales of tainted purges and slain book-bearers.
Colton flushed furiously. ‘I resent that implication, Bartholomew. You are accusing me, and one of your own medical colleagues, of plotting to tell the most atrocious lies!’
Bartholomew sighed, weary of argument. ‘But even you must see there are problems with your conviction that Philius’s illness and subsequent death were natural, Master Colton – such as why did Philius display the same symptoms of poisoning as did Armel and Grene, if his ailment was caused by an excess of bad humours? And why was Philius so careful to lock his door, if he had nothing to fear?’
Colton said nothing, but glowered at Bartholomew, clenching and unclenching his fists.
‘You said Philius secured his door,’ Bartholomew continued relentlessly, ‘but why was his room unlocked when you discovered his body? The answer to that is because his killer did not latch it when he left.’
‘That is dangerous, unfounded speculation!’ hissed Colton. ‘How can all this be true? Philius would hardly unlock the door and allow a killer in his room!’
‘He probably did not know this person was a killer when he admitted him,’ said Bartholomew, with more patience than he felt Colton deserved, ‘but it is clear from the state of the room that they struggled.’
Colton shook his head angrily, and gestured at Philius. ‘There is no blood to suggest a wound, and his head is not caved in. There are no marks on his corpse at all. You should have evidence before you make such horrible assertions.’
‘Give me a few moments to inspect the body, and I might be able to provide you with some,’ said Bartholomew, fighting not to lose his temper. He felt vulnerable in the room where Philius had probably been murdered, even with Tulyet standing behind him, and Colton’s unsettling attitude was not making him feel any better. He considered giving in to Colton’s demands, just to ensure measures were not taken to ensure
