An Order for Death хмб-7

by Susanna GREGORY

  Lincolne did not reply. His eyes lit on the spots of blood that splattered the ground, and he pushed past Michael to enter the church. Lincolne was a man of immense proportions. Bartholomew was tall, but Lincolne topped him by at least a head, a height further accentuated by a curious triangular turret of grey hair that sprouted from his scalp in front of his tonsure. The first time Bartholomew had seen it, when Lincolne had arrived in Cambridge to become Prior after the plague had claimed his predecessor, he thought a stray ball of sheep wool had somehow become attached to the man’s head. But closer inspection had revealed that it was human hair, and that it was carefully combed upward in a deliberate attempt to grant its owner a hand’s length more height. Lincolne was broad, too, especially around the middle, and his ill-fitting habit revealed a pair of thin white ankles that looked too fragile to support the weight above them.

  He knelt next to Faricius and began to recite the last rites in a loud, indignant voice that was probably audible back at his friary. He produced a flask of holy water from his scrip and began to splash it around liberally, so that some of it fell on the floor.

  ‘Do you have any idea what happened?’ asked Michael, watching the proceedings with sombre green eyes.

  ‘What happened is that the Dominicans murdered Faricius,’ Lincolne replied, glaring up at Michael. Holy water dribbled from the flask on to Faricius’s habit. ‘Faricius was one of my best scholars and hated violence and fighting. I will have vengeance, Brother. I will not stand by while you allow the Black Friars to get away with this.’

  ‘I would never do such a thing,’ objected Michael, offended. ‘I am the University’s Senior Proctor, appointed by the Bishop of Ely himself to ensure that justice is done in cases like this.’

  ‘I have been at the Carmelite Friary in Cambridge since I was a child,’ Lincolne went on, as if Michael had not spoken. ‘Yet, in all that time, I have never witnessed such an act of evil as this.’

  ‘An act of evil?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking it an odd phrase to use to describe a murder.

  ‘Heresy,’ hissed Lincolne, spraying holy water liberally over himself as well as over the dead student. ‘Nominalism.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘What does nominalism have to do with anything?’

  Lincolne pursed his lips in rank disapproval. ‘It is a doctrine that came from the Devil’s own lips. It denies the very existence of God.’

  ‘I do not think so,’ said Bartholomew, surprised by the Carmelite’s assertion. ‘Nominalism is a philosophical doctrine that…’

  He trailed off as Lincolne fixed him with the gaze of the fanatic. ‘Nominalist thinking will destroy all that is good and holy in the world and allow the Devil to rule. It was because people were nominalists that God sent the Great Pestilence five years ago.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, who had heard many reasons for why the devastating sickness had ravaged the world, taking one in three people, but never one that claimed a philosophical theory was responsible. ‘So, you are saying that the plague took only nominalists as its victims? Not realists?’

  ‘I think God sent the Death to warn us all against sinful thoughts – like nominalism,’ declared Lincolne in the tone of voice that suggested disagreement was futile. ‘And that wicked man, William of Occam, who was the leading proponent of nominalism in Oxford, was one of the first to die.’

  ‘But so were a number of scholars who follow realism,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘The plague took scholars from both sides of the debate. That suggests a certain even-handedness to me.’

  ‘Gentlemen, please,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘This is neither the time nor the place to be discussing philosophy. We have a dead student here. Our duty is to discover who murdered him, not to assess the relative virtues of realism and nominalism.’

  ‘Then tell the Dominicans that,’ snapped Lincolne. ‘They are nominalists – every last one of them – and now a Carmelite lies dead.’ He rammed the stopper into the flask’s neck and heaved himself to his feet. He towered over Michael, and Bartholomew could not help but notice how the curious topknot quivered as if reflecting the rage of its owner.

  ‘It was the proclamation you wrote and pinned to the door of St Mary’s Church that precipitated this sorry incident,’ said Michael sharply. ‘And Faricius paid the price.’

  ‘That is grossly unfair–’ began Lincolne indignantly.

  Michael cut through his objections. ‘I sincerely doubt whether the student-friars – Dominican or Carmelite – genuinely feel strongly enough about a philosophical debate to kill each other: your notice was merely the excuse they needed to fight. And I will have no more of it. The next person who nails a proclamation to any door in the town will spend the night in the proctors’ cells.’

  ‘The Carmelites are a powerful force in Cambridge, Brother,’ said Lincolne hotly. ‘We have forty friars studying here; the Dominicans only have thirty-three. You should think very carefully before you decide to take the side of the nominalists.’

  ‘I am not taking any side,’ said Michael firmly. ‘Personally, I am not much interested in philosophy. And numbers mean nothing anyway. At least half a dozen of your forty are old men, who will be no use at all if you intend to take on the Dominicans in a pitched battle. They will, however, be valiant in the debating halls, which is where I recommend you resolve this disagreement.’

  His green eyes were cold and hard, and even the towering Lincolne apparently decided Michael was not a man to be easily intimidated. The Prior knelt again and began to straighten and arrange the folds of Faricius’s habit, to hide his temper.

  ‘Now, I need to ask you some questions,’ said Michael, seeing that Lincolne seemed to have conceded the argument. ‘You say Faricius was a gentle man, but did he have any enemies? Did he beat anyone in a debate, for example?’

  Lincolne glowered at the sarcasm in Michael’s voice. ‘I am aware of no enemies, Brother. You can come to the friary and ask his colleagues if you wish, but you will find that Faricius was a peaceable and studious young man, as I have already told you.’

  ‘As soon as I heard that the Dominicans had taken exception to your proclamation, I sent Beadle Meadowman to tell you to keep all your students indoors until tempers had cooled,’ Michael went on. ‘So why was Faricius out?’

  Lincolne glared at him. ‘We have as much right to walk the streets as anyone – but we did comply with your request. I instructed all my students to remain indoors, even though it is Saturday and teaching finishes at noon.’

  ‘Then why did they not obey you?’ pressed Michael.

  Lincolne seemed surprised. ‘But they did obey me. None of them left the premises. It was not easy to keep them in, actually, given that the forty days of Lent have seemed very long this year, and everyone is looking forward to Easter next week. The students are excited and difficult to control.’

  ‘So I gather,’ said Michael wryly. ‘But you have not answered my question. Faricius was found lying in a doorway on Milne Street. He was clearly outside the friary, not inside it. If none of your students left the premises, how did he come to be out?’

  Lincolne frowned as he shook his head. ‘When your beadle arrived to tell me that we should lock ourselves away when the Dominicans came, I rounded up all my students and took them home. Faricius was definitely inside when the front gates were closed. He could not have gone out again without asking me to open them – and he did not.’

  ‘Did he sprout wings and fly over the walls, then?’ demanded Michael impatiently. ‘I repeat: he was found on Milne Street. Perhaps he did not leave through the front gate, but he was outside nevertheless.’

  Lincolne’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘You are taking a very biased approach to this, Brother. It is not Faricius’s actions that are on trial here: it is those of the Dominicans. They killed Faricius. Interrogate them, not me.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ said Michael softly. ‘I will certainly get to the bottom of this sorry little tale.’
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  When Prior Lincolne had completed his prayers over Faricius’s body, two Carmelite students arrived to keep vigil. It was nearing dusk, and one had brought thick beeswax candles to light at his friend’s head; the other carried perfumed oil to rub into Faricius’s hands and feet, and held a clean robe, so that his dead colleague would not go to his grave wearing clothes that were stained with blood. One student was self-righteously outraged that the Dominicans had dared to strike one of their number, and complained vociferously about it to Michael; the second merely twisted the clean robe in his hands and said nothing. Michael homed in on the latter.

  ‘What is your name?’ he demanded.

  The student-friar jumped nervously. He was about the same age as Faricius, and had a mop of red-brown hair that was worn overly long. A smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose gave him a curiously adolescent appearance, and his grubby fingers had nails that had been chewed almost to the quick. There was nothing distinctive or unusual about him, and he looked just like any other young man whose family had decided that a career in the Church would provide him with a secure future.

  ‘Simon Lynne,’ he replied in a low voice, casting an anxious glance at the other student.

  ‘What can you tell us about Faricius, Simon?’ asked Bartholomew, in a kinder tone of voice than Michael had used.

  ‘He was a peace-loving man,’ stated the other student hotly. He was a thickset lad who was missing two of his front teeth. ‘He would never have started a fight with the Dominicans.’

  ‘We were not talking to you,’ said Michael, silencing him with a cool gaze. ‘We were speaking to Lynne.’

  Lynne swallowed, his eyes flicking anxiously to Faricius’s body. ‘Horneby is right. Faricius was not a violent man. He came to Cambridge last September, and was only interested in his lessons and his prayers.’

  ‘Do you know why he happened to be out of the friary when your Prior and I expressly instructed that everyone should remain inside?’ asked Michael. ‘Was he given to breaking orders?’

  ‘No, never. He always did as he was told,’ said Lynne.

  ‘Then why was he out?’ pressed Michael.

  ‘He was not,’ said Lynne unsteadily. ‘He remained in the friary to read when the rest of us went with Prior Lincolne to pin that proclamation to the church door. After that, you ordered the gates closed and they did not open again until Prior Lincolne was summoned here.’

  Michael was growing impatient. ‘But if Faricius had been safely inside, he would not be lying here now, dead. At some point, he left the friary and was attacked. How? Is it possible to scale the walls? Is there a back gate? Are the porters bribable, and willing to open the gates for a price?’

  ‘No,’ said Lincolne immediately. ‘All our porters are commoners – men who have retired from teaching and live in the friary at our expense. They are not bribable, because they would not risk being ejected from their comfortable posts by breaking our rules.’

  ‘The walls, then?’ pressed Michael irritably. ‘Did Faricius climb over the walls?’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Lincolne. ‘They are twice the height of a man and are plastered, so there are no footholds. And anyway, he was not a monkey, Brother.’

  Michael sighed in exasperation. ‘You are telling me that it was impossible for Faricius to have left your friary – more precisely, you are telling me that he did not leave your friary. But he was found in Milne Street at the height of the skirmish with the Dominicans. How do you explain that?’

  ‘It seems we cannot,’ said Lincolne, with a shrug that made him appear uncharacteristically helpless. ‘You will have to ask the Dominicans.’

  ‘You want me to enquire of the Dominicans how a Carmelite friar escaped from within your own walls without any of you knowing how he did it?’ asked Michael incredulously. ‘That would certainly provide them with a tale with which to amuse themselves at your expense!’

  Lincolne grimaced, uncomfortable with that notion. ‘Unpleasant though this may be for us, that is where your answer will lie, Brother.’

  Michael closed his eyes, and Bartholomew expected the monk to show a sudden display of temper, to try to frighten the Carmelites into telling him the truth. It was patently obvious that Lynne was hiding something, and that even if he had not actually lied, he had certainly not told the complete truth. Whether Lincolne and Horneby were also lying was unclear, although Bartholomew found he had taken a dislike to the fanatical Prior and his gap-toothed novice for their uncompromising belligerence. Their reaction to Faricius’s death seemed more akin to outrage that a crime had been committed against their Order, than grief for a man reputedly scholarly and peaceable.

  But Michael had had enough of the Carmelites. He nodded curtly, and left them to the business of laying out their colleague and of saying prayers for him. Bartholomew followed him out of the church, and then stood with him in the grassy churchyard, where the monk took several deep breaths to calm himself. Walcote, who came to report that the Dominicans were all safely locked in their friary, joined them and listened to Michael’s terse summary.

  ‘One of their number has been murdered,’ said Michael angrily. ‘You would think they would be only too happy to co-operate and provide us with the information we need to solve the crime.’

  ‘They probably thought they did, Brother,’ said Walcote soothingly.

  ‘They were hiding something,’ snapped Michael. ‘In the case of Lynne, I have never seen a more uncomfortable liar.’

  Bartholomew agreed. ‘Lynne was about as furtive a lad as I have ever encountered, but that does not mean to say he was concealing anything to do with Faricius’s curious absence from the friary.’

  ‘What do you think?’ demanded Michael of his Junior Proctor. ‘Why do you think the Carmelites would withhold information from me?’

  Walcote shrugged. ‘Something to do with this nominalism – realism debate, perhaps. It is possible that they intend to write further proclamations, and do not want the proctors to prevent them from doing so. It is also possible that Lincolne is telling the truth, but that Faricius’s classmates were prevaricating because they do not wish to speak ill of the dead.’

  Michael rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I suppose Faricius may have broken the rules and slipped out, and Lynne and Horneby do not want their Prior to think badly of him now that he is dead. But I am not convinced. Having spoken to Lynne, I think there is more to Faricius’s stabbing than a case of a lone Carmelite being stupid enough to walk into a gang of brawling Dominicans.’

  Bartholomew nodded slowly. ‘So, we agree that Lynne was lying – although we cannot be sure about Lincolne and Horneby. Ergo, there are two possibilities: either Lynne was lying of his own accord and was uncomfortable doing so in the presence of his Prior; or all three constructed some tale between them that Lynne was uneasy in telling.’

  ‘I am tempted to march right back in there and shake the truth out of them,’ said Michael testily. ‘But that would only convince Lincolne that I am determined to divert blame from the Dominicans. I shall have to catch Lynne alone, and then we shall see how his lies stand up to some serious prodding.’

  ‘Was Faricius really the scholarly man they would have us believe?’ mused Bartholomew. ‘Or was he just like the rest of them – a lout in a habit spoiling for a fight?’

  ‘He was scholarly, right enough,’ said Walcote. ‘I told you earlier that he attended lectures and that I admired his thinking.’

  ‘You need to decide whether Faricius really did remain in the friary to read when the others went to watch Lincolne pin his proclamation to the church door, or whether Lynne has just been told to say he did,’ said Bartholomew to Michael.

  Michael smiled craftily. ‘I am glad you seem interested in this crime, Matt. You can help me solve it, as you have done before.’

  Bartholomew balked at this. ‘No, Brother! I am too busy to spend my time chasing murderers with you. And anyway, that is why you have a Junior Proctor.’

 
Walcote shook his head. ‘The last week of Lent is always busy for us. The students are restless, and we are anticipating more trouble. It will be difficult for us to solve murders and keep peace in the town.’

  ‘And you are not busy at all, Matt,’ added Michael. ‘The first signs of spring have heartened people, so fewer of them are sick; it is coming up to Easter week, so we only teach in the mornings; and your treatise on fevers will never be finished. It is already longer than virtually everything written by Galen and you claim you are only just beginning.’

  ‘And you did find the body,’ Walcote pointed out.

  ‘I found an injured man,’ corrected Bartholomew. ‘But I can tell you nothing relevant. I asked who had stabbed him, but he was more concerned with the fact that he had lost his scrip than in telling me who had prematurely ended his life.’

  ‘Was that because he expected to recover?’ asked Michael. ‘Or because whatever was in his scrip was more important to him than seeing his killer brought to justice?’

  ‘I do not know, Brother. Dying people react in different ways. He may have been delirious. He had certainly swallowed a good deal of the laudanum I give to very ill patients, and that can cause people to say odd or irrelevant things.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Walcote. ‘If you had learned the name of the killer, you would not now be obliged to help us solve the crime. And I imagine it will take a while, because there are already questions regarding how it could have happened. I have the feeling this will transpire to be more complicated than a simple case of a Black Friar stabbing a White Friar during a riot.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Michael. ‘I feel it in my bones, and I am seldom wrong about such things.’

  Bartholomew looked from Michael to his deputy. ‘You two have been in Cambridge too long! You are looking for complex solutions when there is a very simple one staring you in the face. Have you never heard of Occam’s razor?’