‘That was rash,’ said Michael as Eltisley walked away, satisfied. ‘I would not drink boiled goat urine flavoured with cloves – especially given that Matt advised against it.’
‘You put far too much faith in his medicine,’ said Alcote, regarding Bartholomew coldly. ‘I do not trust his heretic methods at all. He could not save Unwin, and he could not save the criminal at the gibbet on Saturday.’
‘Have some more of this sludge, Roger,’ said Michael, pouring the Senior Fellow another cup of Eltisley’s remedy. ‘With any luck, he might not be able to save you, either.’
Alcote was about to reply with something equally unpleasant, when Deynman’s elbow put an end to the discussion. The bottle tipped to one side and knocked into the cups, spilling all their grisly contents into the rushes on the floor. Michael scuffed the mess into the beaten earth underneath with his foot, and gave the embarrassed student a conspiratorial wink.
‘Best place for it,’ he said. ‘Other than in Alcote, that is.’
‘There is rather a lot of this,’ said Deynman, eyeing the piles of food with trepidation. ‘Will we finish it all, do you think?’
‘Of course we will,’ said Michael, his cheeks bulging with fresh bread. ‘It is a mere mouthful.’
‘We should save some for William,’ said Bartholomew, watching Michael scrape the greens from his portion of hare. Under the cress, the dish swam with grease, and Bartholomew felt queasy as Michael plunged his bread into it and sucked on the sodden crust.
‘William claims not to like elaborate food,’ said Alcote. ‘He will not want any.’
‘He will,’ said Bartholomew, knowing that what William said, and what William did, were not always the same. ‘But this is all very rich. We will be ill if we eat too much of it.’
‘A contradiction in terms, Matt,’ said Michael, spearing a duck’s leg with Bartholomew’s knife. ‘“Food” and “too much” are words that do not belong together, like “fun” and “physician” or “friar” and “intelligent conversation”.’
‘Or “monk” and “moderation”,’ added Bartholomew. ‘Do not eat so fast, Brother. This is not the Pentecost Fair, you know. There is plenty here for all of us and there is no need to gobble.’
’I never gobble,’ said Michael loftily. ‘I merely enjoy the pleasures of this life while I can. And so should we all – after all, as Unwin has just shown, who knows how long we may have to do so?’
It was not long before Michael had reduced the fine meal to a mess of gnawed bones and empty platters. Alcote, always a fussy eater, consumed very little, and Bartholomew and the students had little appetite after seeing Unwin dead in the church. While Michael tried to lift the spirits of his subdued companions by telling some ribald tale about a Cambridge merchant’s wife, Bartholomew stared at the fire and tried to recall whether he had seen any villager acting oddly after the feast, hoping he might remember a furtive look or a nervous manner that would provide some clue as to who killed the student friar.
After Eltisley’s wife had cleared away the greasy dishes, a man from the lively group at one of the other tables came to join them.
‘I am Warin de Stoate,’ he said, bowing low. ‘Grundisburgh’s physician. I wanted to tell you that I was delighted to see you put that charlatan Eltisley in his place – he has been plaguing the village with his worthless cures and concoctions for years.’
Bartholomew rose to introduce himself, pleased to meet another medical man. Stoate was in his late twenties with thin hair, pale brown eyes and a face ravaged by ancient pockmarks, partially concealed by a large moustache. He wore hose and a matching cotte of a deep amber, and a fine white shirt. Bartholomew recalled him as the man who had been tossing – and dropping – the small child on the village green earlier that day. Like Bartholomew, Stoate carried a bag containing the tools of his trade, although his was smaller than Bartholomew’s and of a much better quality.
‘We were all shocked to hear about the death of your colleague,’ said Stoate, gesturing to his friends at the next table. ‘Do you have any idea as to why someone should do such a thing?’
‘No,’ said Michael. ‘But he was almost certainly killed by someone who lives here. Can you think of a reason why anyone might want to murder a Franciscan as he prayed in the church?’
Stoate shook his head. ‘But I saw someone leave the church not long before the alarm was raised by him.’ He pointed at Horsey. ‘I did not think much about it at the time, but now it seems as though it might be important.’
‘It might,’ said Michael, sitting upright. ‘Who was it?’
‘I did not see his face,’ said Stoate, to Michael’s disappointment. ‘I was standing near the ford talking to Mistress Freeman, and I just glimpsed someone leave the building.’
‘Why did you notice him at all?’ asked Bartholomew curiously. ‘I imagine people were in and out of the church all day.’
‘They were, but he caught my eye because he was wearing a long cloak,’ said Stoate. ‘It was warm in the sun today, and I remember thinking how foolish he was to be wearing such a thick garment when he would overheat. We medical men notice that sort of thing.’
‘Do you?’ Michael demanded of Bartholomew.
The physician shrugged and then nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Do you recall anything else?’ he asked Stoate.
‘Not really. He did not look familiar, but there are so many people in this village that I might not immediately recognise someone – particularly swathed in a thick garment with the hood up.’
‘Was this person acting furtively?’ asked Michael. ‘As though he had just done something he should not have done?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Stoate with certainty. ‘He kept looking about him, and then he disappeared off into the trees on the far side of the churchyard. At the time I just assumed it was a lad setting up a prank to play on his fellows – water in a bucket over the door, grease smeared on the doorstep, that kind of thing. But now I realise a practical joke was a long way from that man’s mind.’
‘And it was definitely a man?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Could it have been a woman?’
‘A woman? Why should a woman want to kill Unwin?’ asked Alcote, looking up from where he was trying to read some of Tuddenham’s accounts in the firelight.
‘Why should a man want to kill him?’ countered Bartholomew.
Stoate shook his head, trying to remember. ‘It might have been a woman, I suppose. There was no way of assessing how big he was when there was no one else nearby. I am sorry, I know I have not been of much help. Had I known that this person was leaving the scene of such a terrible crime, I would have been a lot more observant.’
‘Thank you for telling us,’ said Michael. ‘But we are forgetting our manners. Please, sit with us and take some wine. It is apparently the best that insane taverner has to offer.’
Stoate sat at the table next to Bartholomew, and began to enquire about the latest medical theories that were being expounded at Cambridge. Unfortunately, since the plague had killed so many physicians, and the few who were left could earn ten times the amount by practising their trade on the wealthy than they could teaching medical theory to students in a University, Cambridge was not overly endowed with them. Oxford fared little better, although Paris, Salerno and Montpellier were thriving. Stoate said he had studied medicine first in Paris, and later at the University of Bologna.
Sensing that the discussion would soon become unpleasantly spangled with references to grotesque diseases, Alcote slipped away. As he left, Stoate’s companions began to laugh, and nudged and jostled the fair-haired woman in a gently teasing way. Alcote glowered furiously, and scuttled from the room as fast as his spindly legs would carry him.