Two mattresses were still out. A young man tossed feverishly on one, while another student sat anxiously at his side. The other mattress held nothing more than cunningly bundled clothing. Father Andrew clicked his tongue in disapproval.
While Michael conducted his search of the upper floor, Bartholomew went to the ailing student and rested his hand on the boy's forehead. It was burning hot, but the bed was heaped with blankets. The room was stuffy, too, and a quick glance around told Bartholomew that the poor lad was provided with nothing to drink to ease his fever. He sent for fresh water, and set about making him more comfortable. He prescribed a potion to ease the ague, and showed the student's anxious brother how to keep him cool. Dismissing Father Andrew's grateful thanks with a nod, he went to join Michael who was waiting at the door.
'Well, neither of them is the culprit,' said Bartholomew in a low voice, indicating the two lads in the dormitory.
'One would have been too sick, and the other has not left his brother's side.'
'And the mullions on the windows are so close together that I doubt even a slender student could squeeze through,' whispered Michael. 'The other room on the upper floor is where the masters sleep, and has similarly narrow windows. There is no back door: ergo, the only way out is through the front. And Kenzie was the only one who has been absent since last night, if we can believe what we have been told. I would guess they have been honest with us.'
He and Bartholomew left the hostel with relief, still conscious of Stuart Grahame's wails of grief, and the voices of his friends trying to offer him comfort.
'Well?' said Bartholomew. 'What now? It looks as though none of Kenzie's friends killed him. Do we go to see the friars?'
'We do indeed,' said Michael, his expression serious.
'Because, for one thing, I still have not spoken to their Principal about their behaviour in the High Street yesterday, and for another thing, they are members of Godwinsson Hostel, where Kenzie's lover is also the Principal's daughter.'
Godwinsson's door was answered by a gangling Welshman called Huw, who conducted them into a small, but comfortable, solar that glowed red with the last of the setting sun. The windows were glazed, an extravagance that had not been considered necessary for most of the house, which had only shutters to exclude winter winds and summer flies.
Bartholomew began to prowl restlessly as they waited for the Principal to see them. The steward had explained that Principal Lydgate lived with his wife in the adjoining house, while the students and other masters lived at the hostel proper. Godwinsson was a more pleasant house than David's — it was larger, cleaner, and did not smell of burning cabbage.
'It is odd how Lydgate's name has occurred so often of late,' said Michael, speaking mainly to distract Bartholomew, who was becoming impatient. 'First, two of his students are involved in a disturbance of the peace; then you reveal his childhood secret; and finally, it is his daughter who was receiving the attentions of the murdered man.'
'Lydgate was no child when the barn was fired,' said Bartholomew. 'He was at least eighteen: almost as old as Kenzie. But we should not speak of this, especially here.
It will do no good to unturn such a stone, and he would probably deny it anyway.'
'Deny what, Bartholomew?'
Bartholomewjumped at the sound of Lydgate's voice so close behind him. The Principal of Godwinsson had not entered by the same door through which Bartholomew and Michael had been shown, but from a second door in the opposite wall that Bartholomew had assumed was a cupboard. Glancing through it, he could see that it connected Lydgate's family house next door with the hostel. Had this been the route James Kenzie had used to meet Lydgate's daughter: either him to sneak to her room, or her to slip out to him? 'We are here to investigate the death of a student from David's,' said Michael, recovering from his surprise faster than Bartholomew, who was wondering, uncomfortably, how much of their conversation Lydgate had overheard.
'A student of David's is no concern of mine,' said Lydgate, shifting his small, hard blue eyes from Bartholomew and fixing them on Michael.
'The brutal murder of a member of the University should be the concern of every scholar,' Michael retorted superiorly. 'Especially now, in this climate of unease.'
'Who has been murdered?'
Bartholomew thought he had detected a shadow in the interconnecting corridor between the two houses, and so the unannounced entry of Lydgate's wife into their conversation did not startle him as Lydgate's had done.
'A David's student, Mistress,' said Michael, bowing politely to her. 'He was last seen alive yesterday evening at seven o'clock, and was found dead this afternoon.'
'Not one of our boys?' asked Cecily Lydgate. She sniffed dismissively. 'Then this has nothing to do with us.' She went to her husband, placing a proprietary hand on his arm. With undisguised irritation, he shrugged it off.
Bartholomew remembered the marriage of Cecily to Thomas Lydgate some twenty years or more before. It was not a love match, but a union designed to bring together two adjoining manors in Trumpington. When both fathers had died, Lydgate sold the Trumpington land within a week, and bought himself a pair of handsome houses in the town centre.
The physician studied Cecily Lydgate with interest.
Although she had lived in the town for many years, he had seldom seen her. She had servants who did her shopping, and daily trips to church and the occasional outing to a fair or a banquet apparently satisfied any ambitions she had for entertainment outside her home.
Lack of exercise and fresh air, however, were beginning to take their toll, for although her clothes were evidently made of cloth that was expensive, they did little to disguise the plumpness underneath. A fiercely starched wimple kept every hair from her face, making her eyes appear bulbous and her teeth too large.
By contrast, her husband had aged well, and still retained his hulking figure, although it was beginning to turn to fat around his waist. His hair remained jet black, with no traces of grey, and his clean-shaven face made him appear much younger than his wife, although Bartholomew knew they were the same age. Bartholomew had had nothing to do with Lydgate since his own studies had taken him to Peterborough, Oxford, and Paris, but dislike for the man, suppressed for many years, began to resurface, as fresh and crystal clear as when he had wronged Norbert.
Michael, uninvited, sat on the best chair in the room, and indicated, with an insolent flick of his hand, that Lydgate and his wife should sit on a bench opposite him.
Lydgate declined, and went to stand with his back to the last sunlight that streamed in dark gold rays through the window. A clever move, Bartholomew noted, for it was difficult to see his face with the light behind him.
'So, Brother. You have told me a David's scholar is dead. What would you have me do about it?' Lydgate asked coldly.
'Yesterday he was seen quarrelling in the street with two friars who live here,' said Michael, easing himself back comfortably in his chair, and folding his hands across his stomach.
Lydgate's response was aggressive. 'Rubbish,' he said, with a contemptuous toss of his head. 'Whoever claimed to have seen this was lying to you.'
'Really?' said Michael, with a pleasant smile. 'Then you will have no objections to us speaking to Brothers Edred and Werbergh.'
'I most certainly do have objections,' said Lydgate vehemently.
'You have no authority to come here harassing my students on the word of some lying townsman.'
'Oh? And who do you think has been lying to us, Master Lydgate?' probed Michael softly, raising his eyebrows and tapping one hand gently on the other.
'Labourers or guildsmen, they are all the same,' said Lydgate. He walked to the door and hauled it open to indicate that the interview was over. When Michael and Bartholomew did not move, Lydgate made an impatient gesture with his hand. 'I am a busy man. That is all, gentlemen.'
'I do not think so, Master Lydgate,' said Michael, standing to stroll casually across the room and close the door. 'You see, the witnesses you are so certain were lying are Doctor Bartholomew and me.' His tone lost its silkiness. 'I want to speak to Brothers Werbergh and Edred, and I want to do it now. And I can assure you that the authority I own was invested in me by the Chancellor from the King himself. If you do not consider the King's
