Michael sighed. ‘I do not like this one. But go ahead. We have heard one insane idea today. Another cannot harm us.’
‘Walcote was also a nominalist, who knew Faricius and admired his work. Walcote may even have known about the essay. He was with us when we interviewed the Dominicans the day after Faricius’s murder, when Ringstead told us about the sudden improvement in Kyrkeby’s lecture. Walcote also knew about Faricius’s stolen scrip. He may have deduced that the essay was in it, and therefore reasoned that the missing essay and Kyrkeby’s sudden improvement were more than coincidence.’
‘Why should he have reasoned that?’ demanded Michael. ‘We did not.’
‘Because at the time we did not know that Faricius’s missing scrip probably contained his essay – we did not know the essay even existed.’
‘Are you suggesting that Walcote killed Kyrkeby for stealing Faricius’s essay?’ asked Timothy, exchanging another uncertain glance with Michael.
‘Walcote killed Kyrkeby for stabbing a man he knew and admired. Horneby told us that Walcote knew about the tunnel, because he had caught him using it and had ordered it to be sealed. What a perfect hiding place for a corpse! Even if the Carmelite students did find Kyrkeby’s body, they would never be able to report it without admitting that they knew secret ways in and out of their friary.’
‘I do not know about this, Matt,’ warned Michael. ‘I can see a lot of holes in your arguments.’
‘Such as what?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘Such as the fact that Walcote was not the kind of man to kill, for a start,’ said Michael. ‘I complained to you many times about his gentleness and his annoying habit of looking for the good in people. Such men do not murder others.’
‘That is not true,’ said Bartholomew. ‘We have seen gentler men than Walcote commit all manner of crimes.’
Michael disagreed. ‘Your reasoning has a Dominican Precentor killing a Carmelite student-friar, and my Austin Junior Proctor murdering the Dominican. Such men do not go around slaughtering each other, Matt. And anyway, Faricius, Kyrkeby and Walcote himself were dead long before Arbury was murdered and Nigel was stabbed. How many killers do you imagine there are stalking the streets of Cambridge?’
Bartholomew regarded him sombrely. ‘I have no idea, Brother. But I suggest we should find out before anyone else dies.’
Michael wanted to go straight to the Franciscan Friary, to ask Father Paul whether he had Simon Lynne secreted away, and then question the lad about the mysterious death of Kyrkeby. They were approaching the Barnwell Gate when they became aware of a commotion taking place just outside it. A small crowd had gathered, and was standing around a prostrate body on the ground. Thinking it was probably someone in need of a physician, Bartholomew hurried forward to see if he could help. Sighing irritably at the delay, Michael followed.
Bartholomew pushed through the ring of spectators, then stopped in horror when he saw that the person lying flat on his back in the town’s filth was his nephew.
‘I want a word with him,’ muttered Michael, eyeing Richard dispassionately. ‘I want to know why he conspired against me at St Radegund’s Convent with the leaders of the religious Orders.’
‘Not now, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, unlooping the medicine bag from around his shoulder and kneeling in the mud next to his stricken relative.
‘I can do nothing here,’ said Timothy to Michael. ‘You and Matthew can visit Paul when you have carried Richard home to his mother. Meanwhile, I am worried about the plight of the lepers Matthew told us about. With your leave, I would like to tell Matilde about them, so that she can arrange for supplies to be sent today.’
Michael knew that his Junior Proctor regularly distributed alms to the poor and sick, and that he had a good deal of compassion for the unfortunates who lived in the leper hospital. ‘Go ahead. I do not like to think of them starving either, and Matilde can be relied upon to help,’ he told him.
‘I will not be long,’ said Timothy, beginning to stride away. ‘As soon as I have spoken to Matilde, I shall return to help you at the Franciscan Friary.’
Bartholomew was pleased Timothy would urge Matilde to leave the convent; he knew she would not linger if there were people who had need of her charity. She would return home immediately, and then she would be safe. He turned his attention to Richard, whose white face and bruised temple suggested that he had swooned and toppled from his monstrous black horse.
‘I was here first,’ came a petulant voice. Bartholomew glanced up to see Robin of Grantchester. The town’s surgeon held a fearsome array of rusty, bloodstained knives, and was busily deciding which one he would use to slice through the veins in Richard’s arms.
‘Leave him, Robin,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘This is my nephew and I do not want you shoving your filthy instruments into him.’
‘He needs to be bled,’ protested Robin. ‘I will do it now, and he can pay me sixpence when he revives. He will not mind paying above the odds for an operation performed in the street.’
Bartholomew ignored him. ‘What happened?’ he asked, addressing the watching crowd.
‘I found him first,’ repeated Robin angrily. ‘With those expensive clothes and that fine black horse, he can afford to pay me what I ask. I will not stand by why you take the bread from my mouth. Go away.’
‘What happened?’ Bartholomew asked again, while the crowd, anticipating a fight between the surgeon and the physician, looked on expectantly.
‘Robin did find him first,’ offered Bosel the beggar, who had been relieved of a hand for persistent stealing and who now worked on the High Street, demanding money on the fraudulent claim that he had lost an arm fighting in France. He was not a man Bartholomew liked.
‘But Doctor Bartholomew has a right to him,’ replied Isnard the bargeman, who sang bass in Michael’s choir, and who was in debt to Bartholomew for once setting his broken leg, free of charge. ‘He is kin.’
‘Did anyone see what happened to Richard?’ pressed Bartholomew loudly, before the argument could escalate and everyone started to take sides.
‘He fell off his horse,’ said Bosel, gloating. ‘One moment he was riding along, trampling us under his hoofs and pretending to be a great man, and the next he was on the ground in the muck.’
‘He just fell?’ asked Bartholomew, pushing Robin’s hands away as the surgeon made a grab for Richard’s arm. ‘No one threw anything at him or pushed him off?’
There was a chorus of denials, although several of the crowd muttered that they wished they had.
‘The horse was prancing and waving its front feet around,’ explained Isnard. ‘But it always does that. It is the most badly behaved animal in the town.’
‘Let me bleed him,’ pleaded Robin, trying again to lay hold of one of Richard’s wrists. ‘If you wait until he regains his senses, he will refuse my services and I will have lost sixpence.’
‘I will give you sixpence if you leave him alone,’ said Bartholomew, covering his nephew with his tabard. He tapped the young man’s cheeks until Richard opened his eyes, squinting against the white brightness of the sky.
A grubby hand was thrust under Bartholomew’s nose. ‘All right, then,’ said Robin ungraciously. ‘Give.’
Seeing that the hand was likely to remain where it was until he paid, Bartholomew rummaged in his scrip for six pennies. He could find only three, even with the one Matilde had given him, and Michael was obliged to provide the rest.
‘What is wrong with him?’ asked the monk, crouching next to Bartholomew and peering at Richard’s pale face. ‘Has he swooned?’
Bartholomew nodded. ‘And then the horse threw him. That thing is far too powerful for a man of his meagre riding abilities.’
With Michael’s help, Bartholomew raised the dazed Richard from the ground, put a supporting arm around the young man, and walked him towards Milne Street, where he could be deposited at his father’s business premises. Michael paid Isnard a penny to find the escaped Black Bishop of Bedminster and bring it back before it ate someone, and then followed them.
Oswald Stanmore stared expressionlessly when he saw Richard helped across the courtyard, but did not offer to assist when the physician lowered the invalid gently on to a bench.
‘Has he been drinking with that Heytesbury again?’ Stanmore asked folding his arms and regarding his son
