‘No, no,’ said Paul quickly. ‘Nothing like that. But he seems recovered one moment, and mad the next. I cannot make him out. I trust him completely to help with the others – he is patient and gentle with even the most vicious and ungrateful of them – but he seems unable to follow orders about his own well-being. And he will insist on quitting the hospital, when he knows he must stay. He left us again on Tuesday evening – he was gone when I looked in his room after dusk, but was back for prime on Wednesday morning. I beg him not to wander off in the dark, but he cannot seem to help himself.’
Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a glance: so, it could have been Clippesby who had attacked Bartholomew with the spade. Nervously, Bartholomew wondered what else he might have done.
‘Did you ask where he had been?’ asked Michael.
‘He does not know,’ said Paul tiredly. ‘He is not lying – he really does have no idea. There is not much more I can do for him, Matt, other than offer company, a little recreational work and a safe haven – which will not be very safe if he continues to escape.’
‘How does he get out?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I thought you locked his door at night, and his window has mullions that are impossible to squeeze through.’
‘I forgot to bar the door,’ said Paul apologetically. ‘I was busy. Ned Tucker was dying and Clippesby slipped my mind. It was my fault, but I am sorry he took advantage of my lapse. Speak to him, and explain again that he is here for his own good.’
While Paul turned his attention to the unresponsive woman, Bartholomew and Michael looked for Clippesby. He was not in the peaceful little chapel, saying prayers for Ned Tucker like many other inmates, nor was he in the kitchen helping to prepare the next meal. Next to the church was a large dormitory that contained the beds of those who required constant care; the fitter residents slept in smaller buildings, some of which could be locked to ensure they did not escape to harm themselves or others. It was in the hall that they found Clippesby, reading to a patient who was in the last stages of a disease that had ravaged his face. He raised his finger to his lips when Bartholomew and Michael entered, and continued speaking. It was only when the man slept that Clippesby left him.
He looked healthy and cheerful, and his eyes had lost the wild expression that had so unnerved Bartholomew the day after Rougham had been attacked. He had combed his hair, so it lay flat and even across his tonsured pate, his face was shaved to a rosy pinkness, and his habit was scrupulously clean. It was difficult to see him as a deranged lunatic who bit the necks of his victims and wielded spades in dark churches. He smiled at Bartholomew, then clasped Michael’s hand.
‘It is good to see Michaelhouse men,’ he said, leading them to his own room so that their voices would not disturb the sleeping leper. ‘It is dull here, with no one of any intelligence to speak to. Paul is always too busy or too tired, and most of the others are beyond caring about decent conversation.’
‘I am sorry you have to be here,’ said Bartholomew sincerely. ‘But Paul tells me you made a bid for freedom on Tuesday night and were gone until dawn the following day. Why?’
Clippesby shrugged. ‘Why do you think? I have been here fifteen days now, and I am bored. I went for a walk, although I cannot tell you where. I just followed a mouse.’
‘A mouse,’ said Michael flatly.
‘Well, a field mouse, naturally,’ elaborated Clippesby. ‘But you would know that, of course. One is hardly likely to find a dormouse with time on her hands at this time of year!’ He laughed, to indicate he considered the notion preposterous.
‘Did this mouse eventually lead you to Cambridge?’ asked Michael. ‘To St Michael’s?’
‘I do not recall,’ replied Clippesby. ‘I was too absorbed in what she had to tell me.’
‘And what was that?’ asked Michael suspiciously. ‘It was nothing to do with the gnawing of throats, was it? Or the wielding of spades?’
‘Hardly!’ said Clippesby, startled. ‘Her conversation was rather more genteel, and involved a discussion between St Benedict and his holy sister St Scholastica three days before her death.’
‘Scholastica?’ echoed Michael immediately. ‘Did this mouse mention riots, by any chance? On Scholastica’s feast day in Oxford?’
‘She did, but those are of scant importance when compared to the dialogue between the two mystics. I am sure you are aware, Brother, that no one knows exactly what was discussed the night Scholastica summoned a great storm to keep her brother from returning to his monastery – so he would stay with her. But the mouse knew.’
‘This mouse must be a considerable age,’ said Bartholomew, amused. ‘This alleged conversation is said to have taken place eight hundred years ago.’
‘She did not hear it herself,’ said Clippesby, irritated by the lack of understanding. ‘It was witnessed by an ancestor, and the information has been passed through the family from century to century. The same sort of thing happens with humans. Generations of first-born Clippesbys have been called John, to name but one example.’
‘Well?’ asked Michael. ‘What did St Benedict and his sister talk about that stormy night? What they were going to have for breakfast?’
‘That would no doubt be your choice of subject,’ replied Clippesby crisply. ‘But pious folk are not obsessed with such earthly matters. Benedict and Scholastica talked about the power of creation, and how one life is so small and insignificant compared to the living universe.’
‘Well, that very much depends on whose life we are talking about,’ said Michael, smarting over the accusation that he was venally minded. ‘For example, I would not consider Matt’s unimportant, and someone tried to take it before dawn on Wednesday morning.’
‘Really?’ asked Clippesby, his eyes wide. ‘How terrible! But you are unharmed, so whoever tried to rob you was unsuccessful.’
‘How do you know it was a robber?’
‘Why else would anyone attack him?’
‘Have you encountered two men called Boltone and Eudo?’ asked Bartholomew, seeing Clippesby was not going to admit to being in St Michael’s at the time of the attack – if he even knew. But the mention of robbers had brought to mind the dishonest residents of Merton Hall.
‘The Merton Hall chickens detest Boltone,’ replied Clippesby. ‘They say he has been cheating his masters for years. Meanwhile, Edwardus Rex, the dog with whom Yolande de Blaston lives, tells me that Eudo may have stolen the silver statue I gave to Matilde.’
Michael nodded. ‘It seems he took it when he visited her to get a remedy for women’s pains – for the wife he does not have.’
‘Many men do that,’ said Clippesby. ‘Matilde is good and generous, and people trust her. You should marry her, Matt, before someone else steals her heart.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Bartholomew, aware that Clippesby was regarding him expectantly. He hesitated, on the verge of confiding his decision to make her his wife, but then Clippesby’s attention was snatched by a flock of pigeons landing in the yard, and the moment was lost.
‘Do your chickens know anything about an astrolabe owned by Geoffrey Dodenho?’ asked Michael hopefully. ‘It was sold to someone at Merton Hall.’
Clippesby shook his head. ‘No, but the King’s Hall rats told me that Dodenho claimed it had been stolen by another Fellow – probably by his room-mate, who is called Wolf – but that he suddenly went quiet about it. They think he later found it again, but because he had made such a fuss about its “theft”, he was obliged to sell it – so he would not have to apologise for making unfounded accusations. The rats say that is why Wolf ran away: he did not like being considered a felon.’
‘When you say “King’s Hall rats” are you referring to small furry rodents or to men in tabards?’ asked Michael cautiously.
‘Rodents, of course,’ said Clippesby, annoyed. ‘I do not insult rats by likening them to people.’