‘What?’ demanded the monk crossly. ‘I was sleeping.’
‘I know what Leycestre has been doing,’ declared Bartholomew, reaching for his jug of ale and taking a deep draught. ‘His rebellion is more than wishful thinking. He is preparing to make it into a reality with funds stolen from the merchants.’
Michael listened to the explanation with wide eyes, saying nothing until he had finished. ‘And you woke me to tell me this?’ he demanded. ‘I have never heard such nonsense! Where is your evidence? You do not have a scrap of it.’
‘I do not,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘But it makes sense.’
‘It does not,’ snapped Michael, rubbing his eyes wearily. ‘I thought you had a headache. You would have done better to take a nap, rather than make it worse with all this false reasoning.’
‘I feel better,’ said Bartholomew, standing and stretching. ‘The after-effects of Henry’s tonic are not so serious after all. No wonder he keeps it locked away. If the general populace learns there is a substance that can make you happy and give you energy to work, and that the only negative is a slight headache and a little queasiness, then we would have no peace from demands for it, as Henry has discovered from Northburgh and Stretton.’
‘Leycestre is not a burglar,’ said Michael, eating a crust of bread he had missed earlier. ‘He is too old for that sort of thing.’
‘It was you who pointed out that he was walking stiffly this morning. It is probably because he had to climb the outside of the Lamb to reach Barbour’s attic, and he is not used to it.’
‘Well, even if you are right, this speculation does not help us. The burglaries and the murders have nothing to do with each other.’
But Bartholomew was certain he had solved at least one of the mysteries that besieged the little Fenland city. He finished his ale and followed Michael outside the inn to the bright sunshine.
The walk back to Ely was brutally hot. The sun was as fierce as Bartholomew had ever known it, and he was reminded of his travels in southern Italy and France, where the sun burned all the greenness out of the landscape. The river looked cool and inviting – if he did not think about what might be floating in it – and they had walked only a short distance before he removed his shirt and waded into the shallows to dive into the cool blackness of the deeper water.
Michael watched enviously from the bank, while Bartholomew urged him to jump in, expounding the virtues of a cool dip on a hot day. Michael demurred, and sat miserably in his heavy habit and wide black hat. His face was red, and he complained that the heat was making his skin itch. Eventually, the temptation became too great, and the monk removed his habit to reveal voluminous underclothes and monstrous white limbs. It was not a pleasant sight, and Bartholomew was glad they were not inflicting it on any passers-by.
Michael wallowed around like a vast sea creature, scowling and looking as if he were not enjoying the experience at all. He grumbled about the mud under his feet, and did not like the smell of the peaty water. After a while, when he had cooled down, he claimed he had had enough and was going home. He headed for a patch of sedge.
‘You will never get out that way,’ Bartholomew warned. ‘It will be too boggy.’
Michael ignored him, then gave a sudden howl of alarm, splashing furiously in an attempt to push away from whatever had startled him. Water slapped into his mouth, and he began to choke, which increased his agitation. Afraid that the monk might have hurt himself on a sharp stone or a stick, Bartholomew went to his assistance. But it was not sticks and stones that had unnerved the monk.
Among the reeds, bobbing obscenely in the waves that Michael created, was a dead white hand. Bartholomew parted the stems to look at its owner, before turning to face Michael, who was treading water and gasping like a drowning man.
‘It is William,’ Bartholomew said softly, gesturing to the distinctive bob of grey hair, now sadly soiled and bedraggled. ‘His body must have been caught in the vegetation, rather than washing downstream like the others’.’
Michael began to gag. His face was bright red, and he snatched at Bartholomew in panic when the physician went to his aid. It was not easy to haul him to the safety of the shore, and both were panting and exhausted by the time they had scrambled up the bank.
‘Horrible!’ exclaimed Michael, rubbing himself down with his habit. Water gushed from his massive underclothes, and ran down the flabby white flesh of his legs. ‘I shall never swim in a river again. It is vile to share it with corpses – especially bloated and stinking ones like that.’
‘William has not been dead that long,’ said Bartholomew, pushing his way through the undergrowth that fringed the water to reach the body from the shore. He found it, and hauled it backward until it lay on the grass like a landed fish.
‘How long?’ demanded Michael, rubbing his habit across his hair, so that the thin locks stood in needle-sharp spikes across his head.
‘I do not know. No more than three days – he went missing on Wednesday night, if you recall, and it is now Saturday.’
‘And how did he die?’ asked Michael. ‘Is there a cut in his neck?’
‘No.’ Bartholomew knelt to examine the hosteller. ‘But there is a serious dent in his head.’
‘What are you saying? Was William murdered by the man who killed the others, or not?’
‘I do not know,’ said Bartholomew, turning the body as he assessed it in more detail. ‘The method was not the same, but that does not tell us anything conclusive. From the damage to his hands, it seems that he struggled with his attacker. We saw the same thing on Robert, remember?’
Michael nodded. ‘Robert knew there was a killer on the loose and fought with whoever grabbed him. Perhaps William was so afraid that he decided to leave the priory before he went the same way – he ran away, but the murderer found him anyway.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Where are his possessions?’
‘The killer stole them, I imagine,’ said Michael, as though it were obvious. ‘If you have murdered someone, you may as well recompense yourself for your pains and make off with a couple of saddlebags of good robes and gold coins.’
‘So, now we are looking for someone with a bruised back, who is wearing finest quality Benedictine robes and has a lot of money to spare,’ said Bartholomew facetiously. ‘He should not be too difficult to track down.’
Michael ignored him, and nodded instead to the dead man’s hands. ‘His nails are broken, and there are cuts on his arms. I assume the killer will also have scratches on him.’
Bartholomew shook his head. ‘These are injuries caused while William tried to defend himself; there is nothing to indicate that he managed to inflict any harm on his assailant. The cuts show where he fended off a knife or another blade of some kind, and the broken fingernails could have been caused by his clawing at anything in his desperation to escape, even the ground.’
‘But then his nails would be full of mud. And they are not.’
‘He has also been in the river for an undetermined amount of time, and it may have been washed away.’
‘His death was definitely a result of this blow to his head? There are no other fatal injuries? He did not drown?’
‘I cannot really tell,’ said Bartholomew. ‘If I lean hard against his chest, some bubbles seep from his mouth, suggesting he breathed water into his lungs, but it is irrelevant anyway. What is important is that we know he fought against his attacker, and that at some point he was hit on the head – or perhaps he fell. He probably drowned while he was unconscious – his death was a result of the tussle, regardless.’
‘So, now we have six corpses to avenge,’ said Michael grimly. ‘And Mackerell is still missing. Perhaps he is the killer.’
‘William was not.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Michael tiredly, trying to keep an open mind. ‘It is possible that someone else discovered the identity of the murderer and took justice into his own hands. What we have here may be an execution, not a murder.’