Bartholomew leaned close to the corpse in a vain attempt to inspect it. The man had not been wealthy: his clothes were frayed, patched and woefully inadequate for the rigours of a Fenland winter. His hands were soft, however, and notably uncalloused, suggesting that his ill fortunes had not forced him into manual labour to earn his bread. One thumb was missing, but the wound had healed long ago, and Bartholomew supposed some ancient accident had robbed him of it.
Satisfied he had learned all he could by looking, he began his physical examination, suspecting this would reveal little more and that he was lingering in the church for nothing. The corpse felt icy cold, but Bartholomew’s own hands were not much warmer, and he decided the temperature of the body would tell him little about when the man had died. Struggling to see, he checked quickly for wounds, then inspected the neck to see whether the man had been strangled. His brief examination revealed nothing. He stood, trying to rub the ache from his knees, and shrugged helplessly at Michael.
‘I do not know what killed him, Brother, but I am guessing it was the cold. I cannot tell you when, though. It is so chilly that the usual methods for estimating time of death – body coolness, stiffness, decay and so on – are useless. He might have crept in here this morning, but could equally as easily have been here for a couple of days.’
Michael grimaced. ‘That is an unpleasant notion, Matt. I do not like the thought of saying my prayers while corpses peer at me from decaying albs.’
‘I imagine there are few who would. But all I can tell you is that this man was poor and that he probably suffered miserably from the weather. There is no injury that I can detect, so I doubt that your friend Harysone had anything to do with his demise.’
‘What about poison?’ suggested Michael hopefully.
‘There are no lesions or bleeding in the mouth. He did not scratch or claw at his throat. I suppose he might have been given something soporific, but I really do not see why anyone would kill a beggar using potions that are usually expensive.’
‘And there is nothing on his body to tell us who he is?’
‘As you see,’ said Bartholomew, indicating the sad remains that lay in front of them. ‘He owned no purse – or none that is with him now.’
‘I will ask my beadles to make some enquiries,’ said Michael. He cocked his head. ‘But the bells are ringing to announce the midday meal. Meadowman can deal with this poor fellow’s remains, and this afternoon I shall set about trying to discover what happened to Norbert.’
‘And what about Harysone?’ asked Bartholomew archly. ‘Has he been granted a reprieve now that you have Norbert’s murder and identifying the beggar to take up your time?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Michael haughtily. ‘Master Harysone has not heard the last of me yet.’
After the midday meal, Bartholomew went to prepare the lecture he was to give that afternoon, while Michael delegated a student to read part of Duns Scotus’s Ordinatio to his small group of sombre, erudite Benedictines. The monk rubbed his chin as he left Michaelhouse, wondering whether to concentrate his attention on the violent murder of Norbert or on discovering the identity of the beggar who had died in the church. Duty told him he should go to Ovyng and speak to Norbert’s classmates, but the unsettled, albeit irrational, feeling he had experienced ever since he had first set eyes on Harysone made him more inclined to look into the death of the beggar, since a nagging suspicion told him that Harysone was involved.
Michael was not normally a man given to wild and unfounded prejudices against people he barely knew, but he liked to think he had developed an ability to single out at least some folk whose intentions were not entirely honourable. And all his instincts screamed at him that Harysone’s presence in the town was one he could do without. Bartholomew might have been unable to prove that the beggar had come to harm at Harysone’s hands, but Michael knew there were ways to kill that defied detection, and some deep, feral instinct convinced him that Harysone had not been tussling with the sticky door merely to admire St Michael’s dented pewter.
He pondered for a moment more before turning left and striding up St Michael’s Lane towards the High Street. Norbert’s murder would be difficult to solve, given that the fellow had so many enemies in the town, and the investigation did not appeal to Michael in the slightest. He decided to leave Norbert until the following day and interview Harysone instead: Norbert was dead and nothing could change that, but Harysone represented crimes to be committed in the future – and they might be prevented.
Harysone, however, was not at his lodgings in the King’s Head, nor was he browsing among the stalls in the Market Square. Michael scratched his head thoughtfully, then began a systematic trawl of the town’s taverns, becoming more determined to find the man with each unsuccessful enquiry. When he met Meadowman near the Brazen George, the beadle informed him that Harysone had been in the Hall of Valence Marie, selling copies of his manuscript.
‘He is doing what?’ spluttered Michael, outraged. ‘Peddling his inferior scholarship to some of the greatest minds in the country?’
‘I do not know about that,’ said Meadowman stoically. ‘But he sold Valence Marie two copies of his treatise, and then went to Bene’t College.’
‘And what would this “treatise” be about?’ demanded Michael archly. ‘Harysone was never a student here, and I doubt even Oxford would accept the likes of him into their midst.’
‘Valence Marie’s porter told me it was about fish,’ said Meadowman. ‘And suchlike.’
‘Fish?’ echoed Michael in astonishment. ‘Harysone told me it was a philosophical tract. And what do you mean by “and suchlike”?’
Meadowman shrugged, glancing up the High Street to where he could see two undergraduates emerging nonchalantly from the Brazen George. If he caught them, he could fine them fourpence, and he itched to be away after them.
‘You will have to read it yourself,’ he said. ‘You know I am not a man for words.’
‘I shall never read it,’ vowed Michael, abandoning his beadle and heading purposefully towards Bene’t, which was all but hidden behind a vast bank of snow. A great mass of icy slush had sloughed from its roof ten days before, and the mound had grown even more when snow shovelled from the street had been added to it by students who were too lazy to haul the stuff away.
But by the time Michael reached Bene’t, Harysone had already left, taking with him four marks from scholars interested in reading the treatise and leaving two copies of his work behind. No one knew where the man intended to go next, and Michael was forced to admit defeat. Midwinter Day was looming, and the few hours between dawn at eight and dusk at four passed far too quickly. Michael was running out of daylight. He decided to return to Michaelhouse for the evening, to sit by the fire and allow a cup of mulled wine to banish the chill from his limbs.
The following morning, Ralph de Langelee, Master of Michaelhouse, made a decision that was very popular with most of his students. Because there were only two days left before Christmas, he declared that lectures would be limited to mornings only, while afternoons were to be spent in preparations for the festivities to come. Some undergraduates were dispatched to gather firewood, so that the scholars could relax in rooms that had at least had the chill taken out of them, while others were sent to barter for special foods in the Market Square. Most were delighted by the unexpected reprieve, and Langelee was generally declared to be the best Master since Michaelhouse’s foundation.
Bartholomew was both pleased and frustrated by the enforced break. The two free afternoons would allow him to work on his treatise on fevers and visit his family, but there was a huge amount that his students needed to know if they wanted to be decent physicians, and he hated wasting time. Ever since the plague, there had been a chronic shortage of trained medical men, and Bartholomew was working hard to redress the balance. Teaching was suspended altogether during the Twelve Days, and he fretted that his students were being deprived of too much valuable learning time.