Michael scratched his chin, fingernails rasping on two days’ growth of bristles. ‘It is odd. On the one hand, we have Prior and friends certain that an exit from the friary was impossible and that Faricius was inside; on the other we have the very real evidence of his corpse outside it. I cannot decide what the truth is.’
‘Either they really believe what they say is true – even though it clearly is not – or they want to hide the real truth and have decided to do it by confusing you.’
‘Well, it is working,’ said Michael irritably. ‘I am confused.’
‘So, what will you do? Where will you start?’
Michael sighed. ‘I can do no more to solve Faricius’s murder today. I worked hard questioning those Dominicans and I am tired. I feel like doing something pleasant this evening – and I do not mean sitting in a freezing conclave with Michaelhouse’s eccentric collection of Fellows after an inadequate meal.’
‘Lent is almost over,’ said Bartholomew, knowing that the miserable food was the real cause of the monk’s discontent. Michael was usually perfectly happy to relax in the company of his colleagues, despite their peculiarities.
‘And not a moment too soon,’ said Michael bitterly. ‘Lent is a miserable time of year. No meat to be had; church services held at ungodly hours; gloomy music sung at masses; everyone talking about abstention and fasting and other such nonsense.’ He watched the physician swing the medicine bag he always carried over his shoulder as he prepared to leave. ‘Going out alone when you have an offer of company is madness, Matt. Let me escort you to Trumpington.’
‘I do not need an escort,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I walk to Trumpington quite regularly, and you have never expressed any concern before.’
Michael gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘You are being remarkably insensitive, Matt. Edith told us what she planned to cook tonight, to celebrate Richard’s return to Cambridge. However, the offerings at Michaelhouse are more of that revolting fish-giblet stew and bread I saw Agatha sawing the green bits from this morning. If you were any kind of friend, you would see my predicament and invite me to dine with Edith.’
‘I wondered what was behind all this uncharacteristic concern for my safety. It is not my well-being that preoccupies you: it is Edith’s trout with almonds, raisin bread and pastries.’
‘You have convinced me to come,’ said Michael, reaching for his cloak. ‘I took the precaution of hiring a couple of horses yesterday. We will ride. It will leave more time for eating.’
‘And what do you think Edith will say when she sees you have invited yourself to her family reunion?’ asked Bartholomew, sure that his sister would not be pleased to see Michael on her doorstep determined to make short work of her cooking.
Michael gave a smug grin. ‘She will thank me for my devotion to you – for accompanying the brother she adores along a dangerous road so that he can spend an evening in her company. And anyway, I want to meet your nephew again. It is five years since last I saw him.’
‘He has changed,’ said Bartholomew, walking with the monk across the courtyard to where Walter, the surly porter, was holding the reins of the two horses Michael had hired. ‘He abandoned medicine to study law and it has made him pompous and arrogant. Perhaps he has just spent too much time with lawyers.’
‘Or perhaps he has just spent too much time with that band of mongrels at Oxford who call themselves scholars,’ said Michael with an unpleasant snigger.
‘Brother Michael!’ exclaimed Oswald Stanmore, as the Benedictine and Bartholomew walked into his manor house at the small village of Trumpington. ‘What are you doing here?’ His eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. ‘You have not come about the murder of that Carmelite, have you? Matt was wrong to have brought him to my property.’
Edith sighed crossly. ‘Really, Oswald! What was Matt supposed to do? He could hardly carry Faricius all the way back to Michaelhouse.’
‘But by taking him to my house, he endangered the lives of you and my apprentices,’ said Stanmore sternly. ‘It was a thoughtless thing to do.’
‘I am sorry, Oswald,’ began Bartholomew, knowing the merchant had a point. ‘I did not–’
Edith raised a hand to silence him. ‘Matt was right to do what he did, Oswald, and any decent man would have done the same. Those louts murdered a priest right outside our door. Would you rather he turned a blind eye to such an outrage?’
‘From what I hear, the killers were priests, too,’ retorted Stanmore. ‘And so I imagine that turning a blind eye would have been a very prudent thing to do. But prudence is not something that runs in your side of the family, it seems. Thank God Richard does not take after you two.’
‘No one could ever accuse me of imprudence,’ said Richard lazily from his position in the best chair in the house – a cushion-filled seat that was placed so close to the fire that Bartholomew was surprised his nephew did not singe himself.
Bartholomew saw Michael regard Richard with interest. Richard had indeed changed from the gangling seventeen-year-old who had marched away to Oxford University some five years before with dreams of studying medicine. He possessed the same unruly black curls and dark eyes as Bartholomew, and had grown tall. But there the likeness ended. Richard’s face was plumper than it should have been for a man of his age, and there were bulges above his hips that testified to too much good living. His hands were pale and soft, as though he scorned any sort of activity that would harden them, and there was a decadent air about him that certainly had not been there when he had lived in Cambridge.
His clothes presented a stark contrast to those of his uncle, too. Whereas the physician’s shirt and tabard were frayed and patched, Richard’s were new and the height of fashion. He wore blue hose made from the finest wool, a white shirt of crisp linen, and a red jerkin with flowing sleeves that were delicately embroidered with silver thread. On his feet were red shoes with the ridiculously impractical curling toes that were currently popular at the King’s court, and in his ear was the gold ear-ring to which Edith had taken such exception. His beard was in the peculiar style that covered the chin and upper lip, but left the sides of the face clean shaven, and was so heavily impregnated with scented oil that Bartholomew could smell it from the door. The physician resisted the urge to comment on it.
‘Well,’ said Michael, wrinkling his nose and smothering a sneeze. ‘You are not the awkward youth I remember from the black days of the plague.’
‘And you are not the slender monk I once knew, either,’ retorted Richard promptly, his insolent eyes taking in Michael’s considerable bulk.
Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. ‘If you recall a slender monk, Richard, then your memory is not all it should be. Michael has never been slender.’
‘When I was a child, I was so thin that my mother was convinced I was heading for an early grave,’ said Michael. ‘She took me to see a physician, who bled me and dosed me with all manner of vile potions. I have spent the rest of my life ensuring that I never warrant such treatment again.’
‘Most physicians are charlatans,’ agreed Richard, throwing Bartholomew a challenging stare. ‘They claim they can cure you, but their powdered earthworms and their lead powder and their paste of sparrows’ brains no more heal the sick than do the expensive horoscopes they insist on working out.’
‘You are right,’ said Bartholomew, wondering why his nephew was trying to goad him into an argument when it would only spoil Edith’s evening. ‘I have long believed that horoscopes make no difference to a patient’s health. However, I have also learned that a patient’s state of mind is important to his recovery – if he believes a horoscope will provide a more effective cure, then he is more likely to get well if I use one.’