Bartholomew laughed. ‘I should say. He had the tail off Stoate’s horse, and cooked it with garlic as a cure for leprosy. But Norys is right – we often only notice the things that interest us. I saw a fascinating case of leprosy of the mouth today, but I could not tell you what that person wore, or what was the colour of his – or her – hair.’
‘Do you know, Matt, if someone had told me ten years ago that my closest friend would be a man whose chief sources of pleasure in life are poking about with leprous sores and telling people about sewage in drinking water, I would never have accepted the Fellowship at Michaelhouse.’
‘Really?’ asked Bartholomew, intrigued. ‘What would you have done instead? I should have thought nothing could suit you as well as all the subterfuge and intrigue at the University, not to mention the enjoyment you get from working as the Bishop of Ely’s spy.’
‘True,’ admitted Michael. ‘Politics and affairs of state pale by comparison.’
They sat in comfortable silence, listening to the agitated twitter of a wren as a cat slunk past its territory, and the hypnotic coo of a dove in the churchyard elms. As the sun sank lower in the sky, people began to return from the fields, their tools carried over their shoulders, and their clothes caked in dust. They looked bone weary, all of them with sweat-stained faces and skin that was burned a deep red-brown. A few stopped at the Dog for ale to wash away the grit that stuck in their throats, but most went home to where smoke issued from the roofs of their houses, indicating that something was cooking on the hearth. Why they would then want to walk a mile to Wergen Hall to hear a debate about the rotation of the Earth was beyond Bartholomew.
‘Father Peter, who cares for the lepers, keeps a diary of his observations,’ he said conversationally, turning his mind from the tired labourers to his visit to the hospital.
‘A diary of leprosy! That must make fascinating reading,’ said Michael caustically. ‘In fact, it probably equals the preliminary draft of the advowson Alcote wrote today.’
‘These long-term observations have made a number of things clear to me about the progress of the disease,’ began Bartholomew. ‘First, when the lesions appear initially–’
‘Perhaps you can tell me about leprous sores when I have finished eating,’ said Michael, quickly snatching up a piece of chicken. Once the physician started to discuss some aspect of medicine that interested him, he was difficult to stop, and Michael was not in the mood to be regaled with lurid descriptions of nasty diseases.
‘Hurry up, then,’ said Bartholomew, looking at the mountain of food that still waited to be packed away inside the monk’s ample girth. ‘Or we will be late for the debate.’
‘As I was saying, before you so cunningly changed the subject, that pardoner is as guilty as sin. Did you see his face when I pointed out how he would be unable to see a person’s belt if he wore a cloak? That trapped the little weasel!’
‘Actually, I think he raised that point himself,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You have no reason to accuse him of anything.’
‘Your midwife thinks he is guilty. She suggested we interrogate him.’
‘She suggested we ask him whether anyone had tried to sell the stolen relic,’ said Bartholomew patiently. ‘She was not presenting him as a suspect, but as someone who might be able to help us solve the crime. And Norys did not have to tell us what he saw; he did so because he wants the killer caught as much as we do.’
‘Rubbish!’ snapped Michael. ‘He made all that up. What better way to divert suspicion from himself – and he only admitted he was in the churchyard because he knows someone probably saw him there, and he does not want to be caught out in a lie – than to invent some mysterious character running from the church at the precise time that the murder was committed? It is brilliant! It is like something I would have thought up myself.’
‘But Stoate also saw a person running from the church,’ Bartholomew pointed out again. ‘Or is he lying, too?’
‘Of course not, but Norys and Stoate have not given us the same description. The man Stoate saw wore a long dark cloak, which led him to think that a prank was being played and made him concerned that the wearer would faint from overheating. Of course, our esteemed pardoner owns a long cloak, as do all vermin of his trade, so the cloak Norys’s man wore is short, and conveniently caught on a tree to reveal his studded belt. Stoate mentions no studded belt or over-small shoes…’
‘But Norys explained why he noticed those: because he was trained as a tanner, and so tends to observe leather. Similarly, Stoate noticed the person rubbed his eyes, because he is a physician.’
‘But Norys did not mention the rubbed eyes, did he? Something as obvious as that, and he did not mention it. Did you look at his eyes, Matt? Did they look as though they had been rubbed?’
‘Something as obvious as that, and you did not notice it?’ asked Bartholomew in a very plausible imitation of Michael. The monk narrowed his eyes, not amused. ‘But you see my point, Brother? You do not recall whether Norys’s eyes were sore, and neither, necessarily, would anyone else, unless they happened to have a special reason for doing so.’
‘So were his eyes red or not?’ snapped Michael irritably.
‘They were not. Mind you, that is not to say that they were not red when Unwin died.’
‘Aha!’ pounced Michael. ‘You think he is guilty, too.’
‘God’s teeth, Brother!’ cried Bartholomew in exasperation. ‘You are like the Inquisition, twisting words in a way that Father William could only dream of! What is the matter with you? Will you allow a mere pardoner to ruffle your immaculate composure in a way that crooked merchants, cunning murderers and deceitful academics can never do?’
Michael leaned back against the wall and eyed him narrowly, breathing heavily as he fought to bring his temper under control. Eventually, he gave a wan smile.
‘Forgive me, Matt. You are right. I will never prove this pardoner’s guilt if I allow him to make me too angry to see reason.’
‘And you will not see reason if you are too fixed on this man’s guilt,’ said Bartholomew.
Michael gnawed on his lip. ‘I do not know why I listen to you telling me how unreasonable I am in my dislikes, when you have developed an irrational hatred of our poor landlord, Eltisley.’ He took a gulp of wine and sighed. ‘And you can say what you like, but there are inconsistencies in the tale Norys told us, and the one Stoate did. Mistress Freeman, for a start.’
‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew, considering. ‘Norys maintains he was with her all afternoon, until after Unwin was killed, while Stoate says he was talking to her when this mysterious person came running from the church.’
‘We will ask her about it first thing tomorrow,’ said Michael, picking listlessly at his chicken. He flung down his knife in disgust. ‘That odious pardoner has made me lose my appetite!’
‘You are not hungry because you have not stopped eating all day,’ said Bartholomew, laughing.
‘I do not suppose Master Stoate furnished you with any more details about the man he saw running from the church?’ asked Michael, ignoring the comment.
‘No,’ said Bartholomew, ‘although we twice went over what he saw as we rode to the leper hospital. I thought if he told the story more than once he might add a detail that he had previously forgotten, but he had nothing new to say.’
‘And the cloak he saw this person wearing was definitely a long one?’ asked Michael.
‘Yes, down to the ankles. I asked whether it might have concealed a suit of black clothes, but he said no. He thinks the person he saw was not big enough to be Grosnold.’
‘Well, that is something,’ said Michael. ‘Can we eliminate the bald lord from Otley, then?’