‘What?’ exclaimed Bartholomew, aghast. ‘Grene claimed that Bingham might kill him? Are you certain? Could you have mistaken his meaning?’
Eligius shook his head slowly. ‘Poor Grene made his point most clearly. There is no possibility that I could have misunderstood what he was saying. And then, of course, there is the Valence Marie relic.’ He crossed himself reverently.
‘Not that again, Eligius,’ said Michael wearily. ‘The Valence Marie bones were a hoax perpetrated by an evil man. It was not the hand of a saint.’
‘Not everyone believes that to be true,’ remonstrated Eligius. ‘I saw that relic and I felt the holiness emanating from it like heat from a fire. Chancellor Tynkell has promised to reinstate it to us so that we can revere it as it deserves.’
‘Has he?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘I thought it had been destroyed.’
‘It is in the University chest in St Mary’s Church,’ explained Michael. ‘It cannot be destroyed until the question of its legal ownership has been resolved. Wretched thing!’
‘It is a gift from God,’ said Eligius, his eyes gleaming with the same fanaticism Bartholomew had seen in Father William’s from time to time. ‘And I am not the only Fellow of Valence Marie to be convinced of its authenticity – Grene believed it, too, although Bingham does not.’
‘I hope you are not suggesting Bingham murdered Grene because of the relic,’ said Michael.
Eligius said nothing.
‘But do you honestly see Bingham poisoning Grene in front of all the guests at the feast?’ asked Bartholomew, simultaneously bewildered and unconvinced by the Dominican’s suppositions. ‘You know him better than I, but it seems to me that he does not possess such presence of mind.’
Eligius sighed. ‘You are probably right,’ he said, his tone of voice making it perfectly clear he did not believe so for an instant. ‘But if Bingham did not kill Grene, who did?’
Michael and Bartholomew had no answer, and all three scholars looked down at the body lying under its dirty sheet on the table. A breath of wind gusted suddenly, making the candle flames flutter and lunge and splattering heavy drops of rain onto the stone floor to echo eerily around the otherwise silent church.
‘There is something about Father Eligius I find disconcerting,’ said Bartholomew, shivering as he watched Michael try to poke some life into the dull embers of the kitchen fire.
Michaelhouse, despite its fine buildings and formidable gateway, was not wealthy, and firewood had been expensive since the plague. Usually, Master Kenyngham allowed a fire in the hall during winter so that the scholars had some warmth for lectures, but the wet weather was mild and, at a meeting of the Fellows in December, it was mooted that a fire was an unnecessary extravagance. Bartholomew had argued that dampness was as chilling as winter snow, and that the students needed somewhere to dry their clothes. Kenyngham had wavered, since he took Bartholomew’s concerns about health seriously, but Langelee, backed by Alcote – who was sufficiently affluent to afford a fire in his own chambers anyway – argued that such luxuries were needless, and that was that. The only fire in Michaelhouse was in the kitchen; Kenyngham had been forced to declare that out of bounds when Agatha, the College laundress, had claimed so many students were vying to sit near it, that the servants could not reach it to do the cooking.
By the time Bartholomew and Michael had returned from the feast, Michaelhouse was silent. Here and there, lights flickered in windows, suggesting that there were a few scholars who could afford a candle to render the long winter nights more endurable with reading or illicit games of cards, but most were asleep, rolled up in their blankets in a vain attempt to keep the iciness of the stone-built rooms at bay. The kitchen, too, was deserted, the cook and his assistants having retired to their own quarters above the laundry for the night. Agatha often sat in her great wooden chair by the fire in the evenings, straining her eyes to sew, or holding forth about all manner of subjects to anyone who would listen. But it was late, and the barely glowing embers suggested that Agatha had long since gone to her bed.
On the table, wrapped in a piece of old blanket from the laundry, were the bottles of poisoned wine – three from the novices at St Bernard’s Hostel and the one that had killed Grene. All four were identical, so that it was clear they had come from the same source. The Valence Marie porter, back at his post with his hand swathed in a huge and inexpertly tied bandage that bore the hallmarks of Robin of Grantchester’s work, had regarded the containers fearfully, as though he imagined their contents might leap out and pour themselves down his throat. Bartholomew had tried to question him about his burned hand, but the porter declined to incriminate himself, and continued to insist that he had merely been moving them to a safer place. Exasperated, Bartholomew recommended that the wine Grene had spilled in his death throes was treated with appropriate caution, and had carried the other bottles back to Michaelhouse.
‘This is a waste of time,’ snapped Michael, glaring at the feeble glow of the fire. ‘I am the University’s Senior Proctor and one of the finest theologians in the country – do not look like that, Matt, it is true – and here I am reduced to blowing on ashes to warm my frozen feet. I have had enough of this!’
He stormed from the kitchen, leaving the startled physician alone in the chilly kitchen wondering whether he was coming back. A few moments later, Michael returned, his arms full of logs.
‘There,’ he said, setting them in the hearth and watching the flames take hold. ‘That is better. Now, all that aggravation has given me an appetite. Fetch some ale to mull, Matt, and I will see what can be salvaged from that miserable hole Agatha sees fit to call her pantry.’
He returned with several slices of fat bacon, some cheese and half a venison pie that Bartholomew knew was the personal property of Roger Alcote. The physician set the ale to mull over the now merry fire and watched Michael eat, wondering how he could, given the quantity of food he had put away at the installation feast.
‘You were giving me your impressions of Father Eligius,’ said Michael, barely understandable through a mouthful of pie. His eyes watered, and he began to cough as crumbs caught at the back of his throat from trying to eat and talk at the same time.
‘Only that I find him disconcerting,’ said Bartholomew, giving him a hefty thump on the back.
‘Father Eligius is a fine scholar,’ said Michael, swallowing the pie and jamming a sizeable chunk of bacon in his mouth. ‘He has disconcerted some of the finest minds in the western world with his logic and theories.’
‘I was not referring to his intellect,’ said Bartholomew, pulling his stool as close to the fire as possible and holding his frozen hands near the dancing flames. ‘I find his attitude to Grene’s death unsettling.’
‘Why?’ asked Michael, surprised. ‘His reaction seemed perfectly reasonable to me, given what Grene had confided the day before.’
Bartholomew pondered as he watched Michael sit in Agatha’s chair, accompanied by a medley of grunts and sighs as he settled himself comfortably. ‘I suppose it was the casual way he revealed that Grene was in fear of his life. Had you confided to me that you were afraid someone would kill you, and you were poisoned within a day, I would be a little more vocal about it.’
‘With Bingham there?’ asked Michael, stretching his sandalled feet towards the fire. ‘That probably would have caused exactly the kind of confrontation Valence Marie needs to avoid. Bingham would have denied the accusation vehemently – perhaps even violently.’
Bartholomew was silent, thinking. ‘The same kind of poisoned wine was used to kill both Armel and Grene. We know Armel bought his from a man in a tavern, but how could Bingham have acquired some – today of all days, when his every moment would have been filled with preparations for the installation? Surely Eligius, as a logician, can see that is unlikely.’