‘What did it look like?’ asked Deynman with ghoulish curiosity.
‘Large, knobbly and green,’ replied Falmeresham.
There was an awed gasp from his listeners. Bartholomew frowned, recalling from dissections he had attended at the universities in Salerno and Montpellier that human livers were never ‘knobbly and green’. However, because anatomy was forbidden to English scholars, it was not something he could tell anyone. He wondered whether Falmeresham had been fed a potion that had made his wits reel during what must have been a serious undertaking. He knew from personal experience that it was better to have patients insensible during surgery, rather than thrashing around and fighting back.
‘How did you come to be in Arderne’s care?’ asked Carton, pouring Falmeresham more wine. ‘I asked virtually everyone in Cambridge, but no one recalls you being carried away.’
‘And Arderne was busy with Candelby and Maud after the accident, anyway,’ added Michael. ‘He took them in his cart, because theirs was wrecked.’
‘That brutish Blankpayn laid hold of me,’ said Falmeresham resentfully. ‘I thought at first that he was going to haul me off to a quiet place and finish me. But he believed I was dead already, and his chief concern was to hide the body before he could be accused of murder. He took me to the Angel, because it was closer than his own inn, and his plan was to drop me down the well.’
‘People drink from that,’ said Bartholomew in distaste. ‘He might have poisoned the–’
‘But I was not dead, and Candelby refused to let him do it anyway,’ interrupted Falmeresham, eager to finish his tale. ‘Magister Arderne happened to be in the Angel, seeing to Candelby’s arm, and he ordered me taken to his own house on the High Street.’
‘You mean you were held captive by townsfolk?’ asked Michael. ‘First Blankpayn, then Candelby, and finally Arderne?’
‘Magister Arderne was helping me,’ said Falmeresham firmly. ‘Candelby was not all bad, either. He would not let Blankpayn drop me down the well, and he was angry with him for knifing me in the first place.’
‘And you are completely recovered?’ asked Langelee.
‘Completely,’ said Falmeresham with a bright, pleased grin. ‘Magister Arderne gave me some medicine that he said would facilitate good healing, and it has worked. He recommended that I return to you as soon as I was able to walk – which was tonight. So, here I am.’
‘I am pleased to see you safe,’ said Bartholomew, wishing the healer had told him what he had done. It had been unkind to keep him – and Falmeresham’s friends – in an agony of worry for four long days. ‘There has been rather too much death of late.’
Falmeresham nodded. ‘But Magister Arderne is fighting death wherever he can. He and I talked for hours, and he knows so much. He invited me to study with him, and it was a tempting offer, but I decided my place was here.’
‘It is,’ said William. ‘You have already paid next term’s fees, and they are non-refundable.’
‘But it was a hard choice,’ said Falmeresham wistfully. ‘Magister Arderne has such exciting ideas. You once told me that it was impossible to mend a split liver, Doctor Bartholomew.’
‘I thought it was. I have seen surgeons try it on three separate occasions, but the patient died in each case. What did Arderne do that was different?’
‘He applied his feather,’ said Falmeresham, quite seriously. ‘It is very effective. Patients were coming to his house all day, and I could see him curing them through the door he left ajar. Magister Arderne is a wise and learned man.’
‘Magister Arderne this, Magister Arderne that,’ grumbled Michael to Bartholomew, when the others had gone. ‘I am tired of hearing the name. Do you think Falmeresham is telling the truth?’
‘The truth as he knows it,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘However, the scar on his side is too small for a liver to have been pulled through it, and it is in the wrong place. He was probably in pain from his cut, and drowsy from strong medicine – not in a position to know what was really happening.’
‘He is beginning to worship the man,’ said Michael. ‘We are lucky he came back.’
‘Why did Arderne let him?’ mused Bartholomew. ‘It sounded as though he wanted an apprentice. And why not? Falmeresham is intelligent, quick witted and he learns fast.’
‘Perhaps he is an unwitting spy. We shall have to be careful what we say around him.’
‘Why would he spy on us?’
‘Spy on you. I am not saying Falmeresham would deliberately hurt you – he would not – but Arderne is quite capable of manipulating him. Our healer is a dangerous man, who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And he wants you gone, so we shall have to be careful. I, for one, do not want to see him succeed.’
CHAPTER 8
Although William and Wynewyk were scheduled to preside over the mock disputations that Friday morning, Langelee decided the new Fellows should earn their keep, and had informed them at breakfast that they were free to choose any topic they pleased. Honynge sighed heavily, and muttered something about using the free days outside term to conduct his own research, although Tyrington was more amenable.
‘Anything for Michaelhouse,’ he said, rubbing his hands and leering at Langelee in a way that made the Master clench his fists. Langelee disliked sycophantic men, and was not overly pleased to be decorated with the remnants of Tyrington’s breakfast either.
‘Do not debate Blood Relics, though,’ said William, standing with his hand covering the top of his breakfast ale to prevent Tyrington from adding to it. It was a defensive gesture that all the Fellows had employed the previous evening, and one Wynewyk had already dubbed ‘the Michaelhouse Manoeuvre.’ Bartholomew suspected it would not be long before they did it without thinking, and rival foundations would laugh at them for it. ‘We had enough of that last night.’
Tyrington nodded. ‘You are right – the College does not seem ready for such weighty theology, so we should stick to simpler issues. How about whether counterfactuals – natural impossibilities, as they are also known – can overthrow the fundamental principles of an Aristotelian world view?’
‘I think I will stay here this morning,’ said Bartholomew to Michael. A debate on theoretical physics sounded a good deal more appealing than investigating the murder of a colleague.
‘Now just a moment,’ said William, offended by the slur on his colleagues’ collective intellect. ‘I resent your implications, Tyrington. Michaelhouse owns some of the best minds in the University.’
‘Actually, it does not,’ countered Honynge. ‘Tyrington and I will redress the balance, but it will take time. He is also correct in saying that we should debate simple topics to start with, which means the subject he has proposed is too advanced. We must select something even more basic, and build up to more complicated issues as term progresses.’
‘I wonder what he has in mind,’ said Michael, watching the servants dismantle the trestle tables in the hall and stack them behind the screen at the far end. William might splutter indignation at the new members’ comments, but the monk knew there was truth in them. He and Bartholomew were well-regarded in academic circles, but Wynewyk was more interested in College administration than in honing his mind, and Langelee had never made any pretence at scholarship. The two absent Fellows were solid but not outstanding, and he was perfectly aware that standards had slipped below foundations like Gonville, Clare and Trinity Hall.
‘Of course,’ Honynge muttered under his breath, ‘an inflated view of their worth is to be expected from men who put dog in their breakfast pottage.’