An Order for Death

had been wearing when he died, hung on one hook, while a spare habit adorned the other. A simple wooden cross had been nailed to the wall and a psalter lay open on the bed, as though Faricius had been reading it before he took his fateful last journey.

Michael knelt and peered under the bed, reaching out to withdraw a rough chest that was stored there. Inside were several clean shirts, some woollen undergarments, a spare scrip, and several pens and some parchment. There was also a much-fingered copy of William Heytesbury’s Regulae Solvendi Sophismata. Lincolne gave a gasp of horror and snatched it from Michael’s hands.

‘What is this work of the Devil doing in our friary?’ he demanded. The fury in his voice brought the resting friars, including the gap-toothed Horneby, scurrying to see what was happening.

‘Ah, Horneby,’ said Michael with a predatory smile. ‘Just the man I wanted to see. You do not know where I might find young Simon Lynne, do you?’

Horneby looked furtive. ‘He is probably in the garden, praying.’

Even Lincolne looked doubtful. ‘He will be in the friary somewhere,’ he said to Michael. ‘I have been keeping our students in, because I do not want them attacked by violent Dominicans.’

‘Then I want to speak to Lynne,’ said Michael. He flicked his fingers at a youngster with bad skin. ‘Fetch him, if you please.’

‘Never mind Lynne,’ said Lincolne, turning his attention back to the book, away from the student who scrambled to do Michael’s bidding. He held the tome carefully by one corner, as if it were a dead mouse. ‘I want to know what this filth is doing in my friary.’

‘I imagine Faricius was reading it so he could refute Heytesbury’s arguments,’ said Horneby, although he was unable to disguise the doubt in his voice. ‘It is difficult to prove someone wrong if you are unacquainted with the essence of his argument.’

Lincolne thrust the book into Horneby’s hands. ‘Burn it,’ he ordered uncompromisingly.

‘We have just returned from St Radegund’s Convent,’ said Michael, in the silence that followed. Evidently, none of the student-friars was easy with the notion of burning Faricius’s property. Horneby certainly did not hurry away to do his Prior’s bidding; he stayed where he was, cradling the book in his arms, although at the mention of St Radegund’s, he shot Michael one of the most furtive looks Bartholomew had ever seen, so that the physician suspected the student knew exactly where his friend had been. Lincolne merely seemed surprised by the monk’s statement.

‘What were you doing there?’ he asked in distaste. ‘It is not a place frequented by decent men.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Michael innocently. ‘It is a community of Benedictine nuns.’

‘It is a community of loose women who wear Benedictine habits,’ corrected Lincolne. ‘Why the Bishop does not expel them and donate the buildings to the University is quite beyond me.’

‘Have you never been there, to observe the nuns at prayer?’ asked Michael casually, although Bartholomew was aware of the intense interest behind his seemingly careless question.

‘That would be an impossibility,’ said Lincolne, taking Michael quite literally. ‘I hear they do not keep their offices – or rather, they keep their offices at times that suit them, rather than when they are supposed to be.’

‘Do you know this from personal observation?’ pressed Michael, still trying to ascertain whether Lincolne was prepared to admit that he had been to one of Walcote’s nocturnal gatherings.

‘I know from rumours,’ replied Lincolne, frustratingly obtuse. ‘I say all my offices here or in the chapel. But you have not told us what took you to such a place, Brother.’

‘Matt was called there to physick the Prioress,’ lied Michael.

‘What was wrong with her?’ asked Lincolne. ‘Was it anything to do with the fact that she had to be carried through the streets of Cambridge in a drunken stupor just after dawn this morning? What did you recommend, Doctor? A dish of raw eggs and pepper, and that she should be more abstemious in the future?’

‘Is that what the Carmelites use?’ asked Bartholomew, answering with a question because he was reluctant to discuss the Prioress’s medical details with Lincolne.

Lincolne nodded, unabashed by the implication that his colleagues should require such a remedy in the first place. ‘And if we have no pepper, we use salt.’

Michael clearly wanted to press the matter of St Radegund’s further, but was aware that if he pushed it too far, Lincolne would grow suspicious, which might prove unproductive in the long term. He sighed and turned his attention to the open psalter, instead. At that moment, the boy with the bad skin returned to say that he could not find Lynne. Horneby’s unease visibly increased, although Lincolne did not seem particularly concerned.

‘He will be hiding up a tree or in an attic somewhere. He will turn up when he is hungry.’

Bartholomew was watching Horneby, who fidgeted and shuffled under his penetrating gaze. ‘What do you think, Master Horneby?’ he asked, making the young man squirm even more. ‘Will Lynne appear at dinnertime?’

Horneby nodded quickly, casting quick, agitated glances at his friends. Bartholomew was about to pursue the matter when everyone jumped at a loud, startled exclamation from Timothy.

‘What is this?’ demanded the monk, straightening from where he had emptied the contents of Faricius’s spare scrip on to his bed. Everyone craned forward to see what he had found. Between thumb and forefinger, Timothy held a large ring with a heavy stone that looked as if it were a ruby. Lincolne seemed astonished; Horneby, however, lost some of his ruddy colour.

Bartholomew thought back to when Faricius had died: the student-friar had been almost desperate to locate his scrip. Was it because he thought it contained the ruby ring – that he had forgotten he had left it in his chest at home? The strings that attached the scrip to Faricius’s belt had been cut, and Bartholomew had assumed the scrip had been stolen by whoever had killed him. However, although the cut marks appeared recent, there was nothing to say that they had been made at the time of his death. Perhaps it had happened the previous day, or even earlier.

Or was there a simpler, more sinister explanation: that whoever killed Faricius and stole his purse had replaced the scrip, complete with ring, among the dead friar’s personal possessions? Bartholomew supposed it was not impossible that some colleague, overwhelmed by guilt at what he had done, had sought to make amends by putting back what he had stolen. But that meant Faricius’s murderer was a Carmelite, the only ones to have free and unlimited access to the cells in the dormitory.

While the others clustered around to look at the ring, Bartholomew picked up the purse. Its strings were old and worn. There was nothing to suggest they had been cut, and nothing to suggest that the killer had been clever and had replaced the newly cut thongs with old and dirty ones. The leather ties were of an identical colour to the purse, and had frayed in such a way that Bartholomew was fairly certain they were the originals.

He rubbed a hand through his hair. What did this mean? That someone had stolen Faricius’s other purse, and that his personal possessions ran to more than one valuable ring? That Faricius was delirious when he had urged Bartholomew to locate his scrip, and that he had forgotten the one that held the ring was safe in his friary?

‘It is a ring,’ said Lincolne, stating the obvious as he took it from Timothy. ‘We do not encourage our friars to keep this sort of thing for themselves. I imagine he was given it, and that he intended to pass it to the friary’s coffer, but his murder meant that he could not do so.’ He slipped the ring into his own scrip.

‘Do you now?’ said Michael, raising his eyebrows to indicate that he was not so sure. He turned to the students. ‘And who gave this pretty bauble to Faricius for the Carmelite coffer?’

‘We have never seen it before,’ said Horneby immediately. ‘We do not know where it came from.’

‘What about the rest of you?’ asked Michael, glancing around at the assembled students. ‘Does anyone know who might have given Faricius this ring? It looks valuable, and I cannot see that he would have mentioned it to no one.’

The chorus of denials was accompanied by shaken heads. Bartholomew studied the students carefully. Some appeared to be surprised by the find, while others were more difficult to read. Horneby licked nervous lips, and his eyes could only be called shifty. While Bartholomew could not be sure that he was actually lying, it was obvious that there was something about Faricius’s death that was making him anxious and even a little frightened.

‘How remarkable,’ said Michael mildly. ‘Faricius was presented with a valuable gift for the friary, and yet he shared news of his good fortune with none of you. Was he always so secretive?’