‘You heard Robert goading him the other day,’ said Bartholomew wearily. ‘Thomas is virtually illiterate. I suggested he wrote down what he wanted to say as soon as we discovered he could not speak, and I tried very hard to make sense of his scrawl. I thought paralysis was causing the problem, but Henry told me that he barely knows his alphabet.’
‘I forgot about his lack of skills in that direction,’ said Michael, disappointed. ‘It has always been something of a scandal, actually – that a man should rise so high in our Order and the Church without being able to spell his name. Damn it all! I thought for a moment that we might have had our solution.’
‘Not from Thomas. But perhaps we can show him these objects, and see from his reaction whether they are his or William’s.’
‘Very well,’ said Michael. ‘At least we do not have to walk along the river today. It will be too late by the time we finish with Thomas.’
‘What is in the parcel?’
Michael opened it carefully. It was tied with fine twine and sealed with a line of red wax. It was not large, perhaps the size of a small book. And once Michael had carefully removed the wrapping from the package, he saw that was exactly what it was.
‘It is a book of hours,’ he said, puzzled. ‘Is that all? I expected a letter from the King, or something far more interesting.’
Bartholomew took it from him, and flicked quickly through it to see whether any passages had been marked that might be significant. But there was nothing.
‘It seems very old,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Perhaps it is valuable.’
‘It may be, I suppose,’ said Michael, regarding it disparagingly. ‘It is a little gaudy for my taste. I do not like bright colours in my books. That is for men who cannot read, like Thomas.’
But when they returned to the infirmary, Thomas was sleeping, and Bartholomew would not allow Michael to wake him. Still troubled by the notion that he was responsible for the man’s condition, Michael deferred to his friend’s opinion, and wandered away to spend the evening with Prior Alan. Bartholomew offered to spend the second half of the night watching over Thomas. Reluctantly, Henry acknowledged that he could not tend Thomas all night and his elderly patients during the day, and agreed to wake the physician at two o’clock. When he took Bartholomew’s shoulder and shook it, the bell was ringing for nocturns. Henry’s eyes were heavy and he seemed grateful to be going to his own bed.
Bartholomew went into the hall and lit a candle, intending to pass the night by reading Philaretus’s De Pulsibus. The infirmary was as silent as the grave. One of the old men occasionally cried out, and Roger and Ynys were sleepless and gazed into the darkness, lost in their memories. Thomas’s sleep was unnaturally deep, but his breathing was little more than a whisper, not even enough to vibrate the mounds of fat that billowed around him. Bartholomew studied the grey, exhausted face and wondered whether the sub-prior would see another morning.
When dawn came, it was with a blaze of colour. The sky lightened gradually, then distant clouds were painted grey, orange and pink, and finally gold. Henry awoke and came hurrying to Thomas’s bedside, smiling a prayer when he saw the fat sub-prior still lived. There were lines under Henry’s eyes that suggested he had slept badly, but he was still cheerful and patient with the old men. Bartholomew offered to sit with Thomas while Henry attended prime, not at all disappointed to miss another volume competition in the cathedral.
When Henry returned, Julian and Welles were with him, carrying the dishes and baskets that contained the old men’s breakfasts. There was a large pot of warm oatmeal, enriched with cream and enough salt to make an ocean envious, the inevitable wheat-bread, some tiny cubes of boiled chicken and a bowl of candied fruits thick with honey from the priory’s beehives. Bartholomew saw Julian slide a slice of peach into his own mouth when he thought no one was looking.
‘Your own meal will be ready soon,’ he remarked, suspecting that the sickly fruits were the most popular item with the old men.
Julian treated him to a hostile sneer. ‘These are wasted on those old corpses in there! You might as well give them dung – they would never know the difference.’
‘Julian!’ exclaimed Welles, his normally smiling face dismayed. He was busy spearing chicken with the masonry nail Bartholomew had seen him use in the refectory before Thomas was taken ill, arranging the cubes in an appetising pile on one side of a platter. ‘That is a vile thing to say.’
‘But I would know the difference,’ said Henry sternly, as he ladled oatmeal into wooden bowls. ‘And if I catch you trying to feed my old friends anything unpleasant, you will have me to answer to.’
‘He would not really try to feed them dung,’ began Welles, loyally defensive of his classmate. His words petered out when he saw from the expression on Julian’s face that he might.
A loud thumping from the library above made them all glance upward.
‘Goodness!’ exclaimed Henry in astonishment. ‘Symon is at work already, and the sun has only just risen. That is unusual.’
‘I expect one of the priory’s guests has demanded to use the books, and he feels obliged to make at least some pretence at caring for them,’ said Welles.
Bartholomew was unimpressed to see that even the novices knew about and condemned the appalling state of the library, and yet Prior Alan was still not prepared to replace the man with someone competent.
‘Bishop Northburgh, actually,’ came a voice from behind them. They were all startled to see Symon framed in the doorway. ‘And I will thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, Welles, or I shall tell the Prior about your insolence.’
‘Why does Northburgh want to use the library?’ asked Henry. ‘He is supposed to be dedicating his time to solving these murders.’
‘I imagine he wants to scour the medical texts to learn about elixirs that will make him young again,’ said Bartholomew. ‘In case you fail to provide him with one.’
Henry grimaced. ‘Prior Alan should never have agreed to those terms. He has put me in an impossible situation.’
‘You should let me try a few things on him,’ offered Julian, selecting a knife used for paring fruit and fingering the blade meaningfully. ‘I am prepared to use more imaginative methods than you are.’
‘Perhaps so, but Northburgh wants to survive the treatment intact,’ said Henry wryly. ‘He does not want to lose his wrinkles by having his skin pared from his bones.’ He glanced upward as another thump sounded from above. ‘Is that him now?’
‘That is Bukton,’ said Symon, insinuating himself into the infirmary and choosing one of the candied fruits to eat. ‘I do not perform menial tasks like cleaning. That is why we have novices.’
Welles and Julian exchanged a glance, then turned back to their preparations wordlessly. Bartholomew was suddenly aware that the paring knife had disappeared.
‘Where is that blade?’ he demanded, looking hard at Julian. ‘It was here a moment ago.’
Julian stared back at him insolently, and did not reply.
Henry sighed. ‘Put it back, Julian. You know you are not allowed knives.’
‘I do not have it,’ said Julian, in a way that made Bartholomew sure that he did. ‘I finished using it and I replaced it on the table. You can search me if you like.’ He raised his arms above his head, inviting any interested parties to run their hands down his person. No one took him up on the offer.
‘I expect it will reappear after breakfast,’ said Henry, eyeing Julian minutely. ‘And then we shall say no more about it. But we must give my old friends their food, before it goes completely cold.’ He watched Julian and Welles carry the bowls of oatmeal to the hall, and then turned to Symon. ‘Did you want anything in particular, Brother, or are you here to avoid watching Bukton labouring in the library, lest you feel compelled to help him?’
Bartholomew glanced at the infirmarian in surprise. Henry was not usually sharp-tongued. Indeed, he had the patience of a saint when dealing with people Bartholomew regarded as unworthy of such courtesy. Symon did not appear to notice the insult, however.