wondered if the man realised that he had bitten off more than he could chew with his impending lecture, and had left the town before he could make a fool of himself. Perhaps his attack of illness on Monday had frightened him so much that he had decided not to risk his health further by going through what promised to be a tense and unpleasant occasion. He had certainly been agitated and out of sorts that day.
‘Does anyone know whether there is anything missing?’ asked Michael, becoming frustrated by the passing of time and the lack of progress. ‘Are all his clothes here, for instance?’
‘As far as we can tell,’ said Ringstead. ‘One of his cloaks has gone, but that tells us nothing, since he would wear it even if he were only going to the nearest church.’
‘He owns a lot of jewellery,’ added Bulmer irrelevantly. ‘Rings, crosses and so on.’
‘Does he?’ asked Michael. ‘And why would a Dominican have “rings, crosses and so on”?’
‘He has no more than anyone else,’ said Ringstead briskly, so that Bartholomew had the impression that Bulmer had just been told to shut up. Ringstead was in a difficult position, with his Prior and Precentor absent, and the reputation of the friary in his inexperienced hands.
‘And is any of this jewellery missing?’ asked Michael.
Ringstead opened a small drawer that was partly concealed under the table. In it were several rings, a jewelled hair comb and a fine selection of silver crosses.
Michael’s eyes were wide as he inspected them. ‘This is an impressive collection to be owned by a priest sworn to poverty. But you have not answered my question: is any of it missing?’
Ringstead shrugged. ‘I have no idea. You will have to ask Prior Morden that. He knows Kyrkeby better than I do.’
‘I expect Kyrkeby will turn up,’ said Michael, rubbing his hands together as though he imagined that was the end of the matter. ‘I will instruct my beadles to pay special attention to the churches tonight, and if he is in one, then they will find him. Perhaps he was so disappointed with the behaviour of his novices on Saturday that he wants nothing to do with you all.’
Since Morden was absent, Michael quizzed Ringstead about the characters of the six Dominican students he had arrested – and released – in connection with the death of Faricius. But Ringstead was a poor source of information: he was not inclined to regale Michael with any illuminating gossip about the six, and was reluctant to answer any meaningful questions while his Prior was absent. Bartholomew did not blame him. Michael was a clever man, adept at latching on to seemingly insignificant sentences and reading into them whole chapters of information. Quite understandably, Ringstead did not want to be the cause of further arrests and suspicions.
With a sigh of exasperation, Michael curtly instructed Ringstead to keep the students inside the friary until further notice, and took his leave. Rain still fell, and everything dripped. The eaves of houses, the leaves of trees and bushes, and even the signs that swung over the doors of merchants’ shops released a steady tattoo of droplets that drummed, splattered, clicked and tapped on to the mud on the ground. Thatches were soaked through, and the plaster walls of the houses along the High Street were stained a deep, dreary grey. Everything stank of dampness and mould.
Michael was keen to visit the Franciscans, to ask their Prior why he had been among those attending Walcote’s meetings, but Bartholomew remembered that Faricius was due to be buried that day, and recommended that they go to the Carmelite Friary first.
Reluctantly, Michael trudged after Bartholomew along Milne Street. They arrived to see the massive form of Lincolne, with its curiously short habit, leading the way from the friary to St Botolph’s Church, where a requiem mass was to be said. Immediately behind Lincolne was a crude wooden coffin, which had such large gaps in it that the dead man’s fingers poked through one. Bartholomew supposed Faricius was lucky to have a coffin at all: since the plague, wood and carpenters were expensive, and most people hired a parish coffin, reclaimed when the funeral was over. Horneby was among the pall-bearers, while behind them trailed the other Carmelite masters and students.
‘We need to talk, Brother,’ said Lincolne in a low voice as he passed. He continued to walk, so Michael and Bartholomew fell into step next to him.
‘Very well,’ said Michael. ‘We have more questions to ask anyway, but they will wait until you have finished your sorry task here.’
‘My business is more urgent than yours,’ said Lincolne presumptuously. ‘I am worried about Simon Lynne: he has not been seen since Monday and his friends say they do not know where he is. I should have realised something was amiss yesterday, when you asked to speak to him and he could not be found.’
‘Why are you concerned now?’ asked Michael, seeing an opportunity to solicit information before telling Lincolne that he had seen Lynne himself only the previous day. ‘Do you think he might have come to some harm? Or is it that his disappearance has something to do with the fact that he is clearly hiding something relating to the death of Faricius?’
Lincolne shot him an unpleasant look. ‘It is far more likely that the Dominicans have threatened him in some way. It would be typical behaviour for men who profess to be nominalists.’
‘The Dominicans’ philosophical beliefs are hardly the issue here–’ began Michael.
‘Of course they are the issue,’ snapped Lincolne, cutting him off. ‘They are heresy!’
Michael refused to be drawn into a debate. ‘I do not care. I am only interested in who killed Faricius. You claim that Lynne might be in danger from the Dominicans. Why? Has he done something to wrong them?’
‘You seem very willing to believe the worst of us, Brother,’ said Lincolne coldly. ‘It is most unjust. The Dominicans march on our friary, Faricius is murdered and Lynne is missing, yet you seem to hold
‘When did
‘He attended the evening mass in St Mary’s on Monday, but I have not set eyes on him since then. I assumed he was walking in our grounds – to be alone with his grief for Faricius – but when we searched, there was no sign of him.’
‘Monday night,’ mused Bartholomew softly. ‘It seems a lot happened on Monday night: Kyrkeby and Lynne went missing, and poor Walcote was murdered.’
‘Well, you have no cause to worry,’ said Michael to Lincolne. ‘I saw Lynne myself only yesterday, enjoying the dubious hospitality of the nuns at St Radegund’s Convent.’
‘St Radegund’s?’ echoed Lincolne in disbelief, stopping abruptly and stumbling when the coffin thumped into the back of him. He glared at the pall-bearers, who shifted uneasily, and then turned his attention back to Michael. ‘What was he doing there?’
‘What many other young men do, I imagine,’ said Michael blithely. ‘Confessing his sins to the Mother Superior.’
‘That Tysilia is at the heart of this,’ said Lincolne bitterly. ‘She is poison. Why she was not strangled at birth, I cannot imagine.’
‘That is not a very friarly attitude,’ said Michael, amused. ‘What do you have against her?’
‘She is a danger to men,’ said Lincolne uncompromisingly. ‘She uses her womanly wiles to seduce them into breaking their vows of chastity, and then, when they have betrayed themselves and God, she moves on to her next victim, leaving them with nothing.’
‘She has made herself available to other Carmelites, then, has she?’ asked Michael astutely.
Lincolne nodded. ‘My friars do their best, but they are young men when all is said and done, with young men’s desires.’
‘You cannot blame Tysilia because your friars cannot control their passions,’ said Bartholomew. ‘That is unfair.’
He recalled a suicide just before Yuletide, when a Carmelite student-friar had thrown himself into the King’s Ditch. The note the young man left Lincolne indicated that the source of his deep unhappiness was the unrequited affection of a nun. The sad little letter had not mentioned Tysilia by name, but clearly Lincolne had drawn his own conclusions.
