An Order for Death

he trying to come in?’

Bartholomew began to pull on Kyrkeby’s foot, and succeeded in freeing one leg. But the body was stuck fast, as if something was pinning it inside its gloomy resting place.

‘Or has someone just used the tunnel as a convenient place to hide his corpse?’ mused Michael, looking away from the body and studying the faces of the Carmelite students who stood in an uncertain circle around him. The dull grey light made their expressions difficult to read.

‘But why would anyone do that?’ cried Lincolne. ‘We Carmelites are not in the business of hiding the corpses of members of rival Orders in dirty holes in the ground!’

‘Neither are most people,’ said Michael. ‘But you have not taken into account the possibility that whoever hid Kyrkeby’s body might also have killed him.’

He gazed at the student-friars a second time, but could gauge nothing from their reactions. The younger lads seemed frightened by the sudden appearance of death in their midst, while the faces of the older students, like Horneby, were virtually expressionless, and the monk could not tell what they thought about the fact that the Dominican Precentor was dead in their graveyard.

‘I cannot get him out,’ muttered Bartholomew, as he knelt next to the tunnel. ‘He is stuck.’

‘No one killed him,’ said Lincolne uncertainly, ignoring Bartholomew as, like Michael, he began looking around at his assembled scholars, as if not absolutely certain that he could make such a claim.

‘Is that true?’ demanded Michael of Bartholomew. ‘Has Kyrkeby been murdered, or did he die in the tunnel by accident or from natural causes?’

Bartholomew pointed to the white leg that protruded obscenely from the dirty hole. ‘How can I tell that from a foot, Brother? I need to look at the whole body.’

‘Hurry up, then,’ ordered Michael, oblivious or uncaring of the weary look Bartholomew shot him. ‘If Kyrkeby has been murdered, I want to know as soon as possible.’ The expression on his face made it clear that he would start looking for suspects among the Carmelites.

‘But why would any of us kill him?’ asked Lincolne, in what Bartholomew imagined he thought were reasonable tones.

‘Because someone murdered Faricius, and many of you believe that a Dominican was responsible,’ replied Michael promptly. ‘Or perhaps because one of you caught him trespassing on Carmelite property, and decided to kill him before he reported to his Prior all that he had learned from his illicit visit.’

‘What could he report, Brother?’ asked Lincolne in the same measured voice. ‘You are assuming that we have something to hide. We do not.’

‘But you do,’ Michael pointed out. ‘For a start, your students had very successfully hidden the fact that Faricius was writing an essay in defence of nominalism.’

‘No!’ objected Lincolne. ‘That was different–’

‘It was not,’ interrupted Michael brusquely. ‘And secondly, you have only just been told about this tunnel that is supposed to have been here for years. Perhaps Kyrkeby found it, and someone was afraid that if he told his brother Dominicans, you Carmelites would be vulnerable to attack.’

‘None of my students would kill for such paltry reasons,’ said Lincolne, although he continued to glance uneasily at his charges.

‘No?’ asked Michael. ‘Then perhaps there are other reasons why someone here would want Kyrkeby dead. I have just seen two nasty secrets surface in the last few moments – three if we can count the presence of an extra corpse in the tomb of the illustrious Humphrey de Lecton – so perhaps there are yet more for me to uncover.’

Lincolne was finally silent.

‘I really cannot move him,’ said Bartholomew, in the brief lull in the accusations and counter-accusations. ‘I cannot seem to get a good grip. His skin is too slippery.’

‘We did not kill him,’ said Horneby, taking up the defence of his Order where his Prior had left off. Neither he nor anyone else took any notice of Bartholomew, more interested in convincing Michael of their innocence than in retrieving the body that lay in the hole. ‘We have no idea how he came to be here. I swear it.’

‘And who do you mean by “we” exactly?’ asked Michael archly. ‘You Carmelites have at least thirty student- friars. Do you speak for them all? What about the masters? How can you know that no one has taken matters into his own hands and avenged Faricius by killing a Dominican?’

Horneby shook his head slowly. ‘How can we have killed him? We have all been confined to the convent since Faricius was murdered. No one has left except to go to church, and then Prior Lincolne was watching us.’

‘That is true,’ said Lincolne.

‘No,’ said Timothy softly. ‘That is not true. Horneby just told us that he and Simon Lynne went to look for Faricius’s essay in the Church of St John Zachary on Monday. Obviously that was after Faricius had died, and so Horneby is lying when he says no one went out.’

‘And we saw a whole pack of you lurking outside the Dominican Friary on Sunday intent on mischief,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘We followed you home, remember?’

Michael indicated the tunnel. ‘Anyone could have slipped through this whenever he liked. You cannot prove otherwise.’

‘However, no one would have been using it as long as Kyrkeby was here,’ said Bartholomew, turning his attention back to the body. ‘He is blocking it completely. And he will remain blocking it unless someone helps me. I cannot move him on my own.’

‘A visit to St John Zachary counts as going to church,’ said Horneby insolently. ‘We just made a slight detour for a few moments to check Faricius’s hiding place.’

‘And what about your sally to the Dominican Friary?’ asked Michael coolly. ‘Does that count as going to church, too?’

Horneby sneered. ‘We were only there for a short while. It was not worth mentioning.’

‘I will help you, Matthew,’ said Timothy, crouching next to Bartholomew and reaching into the hole to grab a handful of Kyrkeby’s habit. His face was pale and his hands unsteady, and the physician saw yet again that dealing with corpses would not be part of a Junior Proctor’s obligations that Timothy would enjoy.

‘It is all right,’ said Bartholomew, not wanting Timothy to do something that so obviously unsettled him. ‘I can probably manage.’

Timothy gave a wan smile. ‘You cannot. And no one else seems willing to assist.’

‘When was the last time any of you used the tunnel?’ asked Michael, glancing briefly at Bartholomew’s struggle with Kyrkeby before returning to the more interesting matter of interrogating the Carmelites.

‘Last Saturday,’ replied Horneby immediately. ‘It was used just before the riot in which those evil Dominicans murdered Faricius.’

‘Horneby, Horneby,’ said Lincolne, pretending to be shocked by his student’s accusation, even though he had made the same ones several times himself. ‘That attitude will get us nowhere. What will Brother Michael think when he hears words like that?’

‘He will think that you decided to avenge Faricius’s death and kill yourself a Dominican,’ said Michael flatly. ‘Even the most dull-witted of you must see that this is how it appears. And this sudden display of quiet reason does you no good, Prior Lincolne. Until a few moments ago, you, too, were claiming that Dominicans murdered Faricius.’

‘That was then,’ said Lincolne, unabashed. ‘We were the wronged party. But now it will look as though we took justice into our own hands, and I can assure you we did not. If we are not careful, the Dominicans will march on us again, and more people might die.’ He looked alarmed as a sudden thought crossed his mind. ‘And they may even damage the friary!’

‘Then we shall have to ensure that both Orders behave themselves,’ said Michael. ‘You are not the only one who does not want more bloodshed.’

‘The Dominicans will not be so amenable,’ said Lincolne bitterly. ‘They will deny murdering Faricius and demand another death to pay for Kyrkeby. They may even secure the help of the Austin canons and the Benedictines, who seem to be on friendly terms with them at the moment.’

‘But then we will call upon the Franciscans and the Gilbertines, who are not,’ said Horneby defiantly. ‘We can raise an army that will match the one any Dominicans can muster.’

Bartholomew glanced up in alarm as Horneby’s friends began to voice their agreement in voices that were a