A small, slight figure stepped from their midst, and Bartholomew recognised the elfin features of the lad Arderne had cured. Motelete looked fit and well, and the grim pallor that had afflicted him the day before had gone. He appeared to have recovered from his ordeal, but Bartholomew looked away, not liking to imagine what would have happened had he been buried.
‘I am to blame, Brother,’ Motelete said shyly. ‘If I had not been cured, no one would be angry. It is a pity Magister Arderne could not heal Ocleye, too.’
‘He said it was because of you, Doctor Bartholomew,’ elaborated Lexham guilelessly. ‘He maintains that physicians who examine cadavers accumulate the taint of death on their hands; this rottenness is then passed to living patients, like a contagion.’
‘Then his logic is flawed,’ said Michael immediately. ‘Matt touched Motelete, too.’
‘Actually, I did not,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘Only the clothes near his neck.’
Michael was never very patient with superstition. He turned to Motelete, ignoring the way the Clare students gave Bartholomew a wide berth. ‘Do you recall what happened the day you …’
‘The day I died?’ asked Motelete with a wry smile. ‘I watched Magister Arderne heal Candelby, but the situation began to turn ugly after they left. Master Kardington ordered us all home, but I tripped over Candelby’s broken cart, and by the time I had picked myself up, the others had gone. Everyone was fighting around me.’
‘It must have been unpleasant,’ said Michael encouragingly when the lad faltered.
Motelete nodded. ‘I do not like violence. Then I saw Falmeresham, lying on the ground and bleeding. I tried to help him up, but he was too weak. Almost immediately, I felt a searing pain in my neck, and blood cascaded everywhere. The next thing I recall was waking up in the church.’
‘Falmeresham was unable to stand on his own?’ asked Bartholomew worriedly. It was the only account he had had of his student after the brawl had started, and it did not sound promising.
Motelete stared at the ground. ‘I think he was dying,’ he said in a choking whisper. ‘I am so sorry.’
Michael gave him time to compose himself. ‘Did you see Ocleye?’ he asked eventually.
‘It might have been him who attacked me,’ said Motelete. He seemed close to tears, and Lexham put a comforting arm around his shoulders. ‘It is all a blur, but I vaguely recall him being close by.’
‘You did not attack him, though,’ pressed Michael.
Motelete was horrified. ‘No, of course not! I was trying to help Falmeresham.’
‘How do you know Falmeresham?’ asked Bartholomew. His stomach was churning, and for the first time he began to think perhaps Falmeresham had not survived the incident. ‘He did not fraternise with scholars from other Colleges.’
‘I fell into a pothole on my first day here,’ said Motelete, flushing scarlet with mortification. ‘He helped me out, then carried my bag to Clare. He said I was too clumsy to be left alone.’
Michael ordered the students home, afraid that Motelete’s presence on the streets might spark more trouble, then he and Bartholomew resumed their walk to St Botolph’s.
‘I think Motelete is telling the truth,’ said the monk. ‘He is gangling and inept, exactly the kind of lad Falmeresham might take pity on. I do not think he harmed Ocleye, either. He would not know what to do with a crossbow – and he did not have one with him on the day of the murders anyway, because his friends would have noticed.’
‘I hope he is mistaken about Falmeresham,’ said Bartholomew. ‘About him being weak …’
Michael patted his shoulder. ‘Motelete is not a physician Matt. He saw blood and assumed a fatal wound. Do not put too much store in the observations of a layman.’
‘Unfortunately, they are the only observations we have been given.’
Many churches located near city gates were dedicated to St Botolph, a saint said to be sympathetic to travellers. His chapels allowed people to ask for his protection before they began their journeys, and recite prayers of deliverance when they came back. Cambridge’s St Botolph’s was a pleasant building, although it suffered from its proximity to the odorous King’s Ditch. It was seldom empty – England’s roads were dangerous, and few folk used them without petitioning the saints first. That morning, a party of wealthy nuns was going to London. They sang psalms in the chancel, while their servants inserted pennies into an oblations box, hoping to encourage Botolph to watch over them until they reached their distant destination.
Robert Florthe was in the cemetery, pulling brambles from the primrose-clad mound that contained those of his parishioners who had died during the plague. He was humming, oblivious to the fact that it was raining, and his priestly robes were stained with mud. He was pleased to see visitors, and insisted they join him in his house for a cup of warmed ale.
‘You should rest,’ advised Bartholomew, palpating the hot, puffy knee with his fingers. ‘It will not mend if you do not keep your weight off it.’
‘So you said last time,’ said Florthe with a grin. ‘But those brambles were annoying me and I like being outside. I was sorry about Kenyngham, by the way – and sorry about Lynton, too. He and I were neighbours, and we saw a lot of each other.’
Michael sipped his ale. ‘I would hardly call Peterhouse a neighbour. It is some distance away.’
‘I mean his Dispensary,’ said Florthe, wincing when Bartholomew’s examination reached a spot that hurt. ‘Where he saw some of his patients.’
‘I thought he saw his patients in his College,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Or visited them at home.’
Florthe pointed through the window, to the smart cottage next to his own modest dwelling. Its main door opened on to the lane that bordered the churchyard, and it looked like the kind of house that would be owned by a moderately wealthy merchant.
‘People came to see him there in the evenings – perhaps his colleagues objected to townsmen and scholars from other foundations descending on them at night. He gave me a key once, to keep in case he ever locked himself out. Would you return it to Peterhouse for me? They probably do not know I have it, and poor Lynton will not be needing it now.’
Michael held out his hand. ‘They will not mind if I look inside first. It might serve as a hostel, and the University needs every building it can lay its hands on at the moment, what with Candelby ousting scholars from places we have occupied for decades.’
Florthe nodded sadly. ‘The students of Rudd’s evacuated this morning – the building is no longer safe, and Candelby refuses to effect repairs. Ovyng has taken them in, although it will be cramped. And Garrett’s lease expired today, so that returns to Candelby, too.’
Michael insisted on inspecting Lynton’s Dispensary before they did anything else, so he could ask the Master and Fellows of Peterhouse – the sole beneficiaries of Lynton’s will – to make it available for homeless scholars. He unlocked the door with Florthe’s key, and he and Bartholomew entered.
The house comprised one room on the ground floor, and a pair of attics above. The lower chamber was substantial, with a hearth, a huge table and a number of cushion-strewn benches. It smelled sweet and clean, but there was not the slightest indication that medical consultations ever took place in it. Bartholomew wondered where Lynton had kept the items he had ‘dispensed’, and climbed the ladder to the upper floor to look for urine flasks, astrological tables, medicines and other equipment. All he found was a large collection of silver goblets.
‘He was never one for physical intervention,’ he said, more to explain to himself the lack of basic tools than to enlighten Michael. ‘And he may have committed essential celestial charts to memory. I consult them when I prepare horoscopes, because they are a waste of time and I cannot be bothered to learn them, but Lynton was a firm believer and probably knew them by heart.’