An Order for Death хмб-7

by Susanna GREGORY

  Michael was keen to visit the Franciscans, to ask their Prior why he had been among those attending Walcote’s meetings, but Bartholomew remembered that Faricius was due to be buried that day, and recommended that they go to the Carmelite Friary first.

  Reluctantly, Michael trudged after Bartholomew along Milne Street. They arrived to see the massive form of Lincolne, with its curiously short habit, leading the way from the friary to St Botolph’s Church, where a requiem mass was to be said. Immediately behind Lincolne was a crude wooden coffin, which had such large gaps in it that the dead man’s fingers poked through one. Bartholomew supposed Faricius was lucky to have a coffin at all: since the plague, wood and carpenters were expensive, and most people hired a parish coffin, reclaimed when the funeral was over. Horneby was among the pall-bearers, while behind them trailed the other Carmelite masters and students.

  ‘We need to talk, Brother,’ said Lincolne in a low voice as he passed. He continued to walk, so Michael and Bartholomew fell into step next to him.

  ‘Very well,’ said Michael. ‘We have more questions to ask anyway, but they will wait until you have finished your sorry task here.’

  ‘My business is more urgent than yours,’ said Lincolne presumptuously. ‘I am worried about Simon Lynne: he has not been seen since Monday and his friends say they do not know where he is. I should have realised something was amiss yesterday, when you asked to speak to him and he could not be found.’

  ‘Why are you concerned now?’ asked Michael, seeing an opportunity to solicit information before telling Lincolne that he had seen Lynne himself only the previous day. ‘Do you think he might have come to some harm? Or is it that his disappearance has something to do with the fact that he is clearly hiding something relating to the death of Faricius?’

  Lincolne shot him an unpleasant look. ‘It is far more likely that the Dominicans have threatened him in some way. It would be typical behaviour for men who profess to be nominalists.’

  ‘The Dominicans’ philosophical beliefs are hardly the issue here–’ began Michael.

  ‘Of course they are the issue,’ snapped Lincolne, cutting him off. ‘They are heresy!’

  Michael refused to be drawn into a debate. ‘I do not care. I am only interested in who killed Faricius. You claim that Lynne might be in danger from the Dominicans. Why? Has he done something to wrong them?’

  ‘You seem very willing to believe the worst of us, Brother,’ said Lincolne coldly. ‘It is most unjust. The Dominicans march on our friary, Faricius is murdered and Lynne is missing, yet you seem to hold us responsible.’

  ‘When did you last see Lynne?’ asked Bartholomew, wondering whether the student-friar might have inflicted some harm on the missing Henry de Kyrkeby and then run away. It had been bad luck on Lynne’s part that he had chosen St Radegund’s as his haven when the Senior Proctor had visited it, and worse luck still that the foolish Tysilia was on gate duty. Any sensible nun would have checked with her Prioress first, before showing unexpected guests into the heart of the convent, and then Lynne could have slipped away unnoticed by Michael and Bartholomew.

  ‘He attended the evening mass in St Mary’s on Monday, but I have not set eyes on him since then. I assumed he was walking in our grounds – to be alone with his grief for Faricius – but when we searched, there was no sign of him.’

  ‘Monday night,’ mused Bartholomew softly. ‘It seems a lot happened on Monday night: Kyrkeby and Lynne went missing, and poor Walcote was murdered.’

  ‘Well, you have no cause to worry,’ said Michael to Lincolne. ‘I saw Lynne myself only yesterday, enjoying the dubious hospitality of the nuns at St Radegund’s Convent.’

  ‘St Radegund’s?’ echoed Lincolne in disbelief, stopping abruptly and stumbling when the coffin thumped into the back of him. He glared at the pall-bearers, who shifted uneasily, and then turned his attention back to Michael. ‘What was he doing there?’

  ‘What many other young men do, I imagine,’ said Michael blithely. ‘Confessing his sins to the Mother Superior.’

  ‘That Tysilia is at the heart of this,’ said Lincolne bitterly. ‘She is poison. Why she was not strangled at birth, I cannot imagine.’

  ‘That is not a very friarly attitude,’ said Michael, amused. ‘What do you have against her?’

  ‘She is a danger to men,’ said Lincolne uncompromisingly. ‘She uses her womanly wiles to seduce them into breaking their vows of chastity, and then, when they have betrayed themselves and God, she moves on to her next victim, leaving them with nothing.’

  ‘She has made herself available to other Carmelites, then, has she?’ asked Michael astutely.

  Lincolne nodded. ‘My friars do their best, but they are young men when all is said and done, with young men’s desires.’

  ‘You cannot blame Tysilia because your friars cannot control their passions,’ said Bartholomew. ‘That is unfair.’

  He recalled a suicide just before Yuletide, when a Carmelite student-friar had thrown himself into the King’s Ditch. The note the young man left Lincolne indicated that the source of his deep unhappiness was the unrequited affection of a nun. The sad little letter had not mentioned Tysilia by name, but clearly Lincolne had drawn his own conclusions.

  ‘Tysilia is not like other women,’ insisted Lincolne. ‘She is…’ He gestured expansively, almost knocking the coffin from the shoulders of the pall-bearers as he sought to find the appropriate words to describe the Bishop’s niece.

  ‘Wanton?’ suggested Michael. ‘That is the term her uncle favours.’

  ‘It is more than that,’ said Lincolne. ‘Would you believe she even tried her charms on Master Kenyngham of Michaelhouse? She claimed to be in pain and insisted that he place his hand on her chest so that the warmth would heal her. Kenyngham, who hates to see people suffer, obliged, then when he was leaning over her she made a grab for him so that they both tumbled to the ground.’

  Michael started to laugh. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I am quite serious,’ said Lincolne sternly. ‘And it is no laughing matter. But I should not be standing here in the middle of the street looking as though I am telling jokes when I should be leading Faricius to his requiem. We will speak later.’

  Bartholomew thought that he and Michael should attend Faricius’s requiem, to see whether they could gather any clues regarding the student-friar’s death, but Michael demurred. He took Bartholomew’s arm and the physician found himself being steered in the direction of the Brazen George, the large and comfortable tavern on the High Street, where Michael was sufficiently well known to be able to commandeer a private chamber at the rear of the premises whenever he liked.

  ‘Just some warmed ale,’ Michael told the surprised taverner, who had come expecting to serve a sizeable meal. ‘Nothing else. We will not be here long.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked the landlord, wiping his hands on the white apron that was tied around his waist. ‘My wife baked some Lombard slices today, and I know they are a favourite of yours.’

  Michael smiled. ‘You are kind, but I will just take the ale today, thank you.’

  ‘Well, I would like some,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I am starving.’ He reached across the table and felt the monk’s forehead with the back of his hand. ‘You are not ill, are you?’

  Michael pushed him away as the landlord left to fetch their order. ‘I do not spend all my time eating, you know. And I am growing tired of constant allusions to my girth. Even people I barely know have started to do it – like that Bulmer.’

  ‘You do not usually care what people think,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Are you sure you are well?’

  Michael sighed, his large face sombre. ‘No murder is pleasant to investigate, but Walcote’s is more personal than most. I sense it will take all my wits to best the cunning mind responsible for it and it is a heavy responsibility.’

  ‘You were confident enough yesterday,’ said Bartholomew. ‘What has changed your mind?’

  ‘Lincolne,’ said Michae
l gloomily. ‘And the missing Kyrkeby. And Lynne and Horneby and Bulmer and anyone else who either tells us lies or declines to tell us the complete truth. How can we hope to come to grips with this when no one is honest with us?’

  Bartholomew tapped Michael lightly on the arm. ‘We will get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘It is all very odd,’ said Michael, taking a sip of the ale that the landlord had brought. ‘I knew the deaths of Walcote and Faricius were connected; I just knew it. First, there was that yellow stain you found on both their hands, and then we saw Faricius’s friend Lynne lurking around Barnwell Priory – where Walcote lived. You were wrong when you said they were unrelated.’

  ‘In my experience, killers keep to one method once they have met with success. Faricius was stabbed, but Walcote was hanged – two very different modes of execution.’

  ‘Perhaps one was spontaneous and the other planned,’ said Michael. ‘You cannot decide to hang someone on the spur of a moment unless you can lay your hands on a piece of rope.’

  ‘Several pieces of rope,’ said Bartholomew, selecting one of the Lombard slices – a mixture of figs and raisins wrapped in pastry and fried in lard. He took a bite and put the rest back on the platter. They were rich, not for wolfing down quickly, and now that he was not in competition with Michael for them, he could afford to eat at a more leisurely pace. ‘Rope was needed for his hands and feet, too. Also, although Walcote was not particularly big, he was fit. I do not think it would have been easy for one person to overpower him and string him up.’

  ‘It probably would not have been easy for two,’ said Michael, staring thoughtfully at the Lombard slices before reaching out and taking one. He stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.

  ‘Perhaps someone who lives near the Dominican Friary heard Walcote shouting for help,’ suggested Bartholomew.

  ‘Beadle Meadowman has already investigated that possibility,’ said Michael, taking another pastry and treating it to the same fate as the first. ‘He reported to me late last night, when you were in bed. No one heard anything or saw anything.’

  ‘I suppose people’s window shutters would be fastened,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It was cold, wet and windy that night. Shutters not only stop you from seeing out, but they muffle sounds.’

  ‘That tale Lincolne just told us about Kenyngham and Tysilia was revealing,’ said Michael. ‘Kenyngham is no longer a young man, and he seldom ventures further than Michaelhouse or his own Priory of Gilbertines on Trumpington Way. So, how did he come to meet her? The answer is that he went to St Radegund’s, just as Eve Wasteneys and Matilde told us.’

  Bartholomew nodded. ‘And for Lincolne to have witnessed this exchange means that he must have been at St Radegund’s, too. Again, just as Eve and Matilde told us.’

  ‘I wonder how Walcote induced all those men to go to a place like St Radegund’s in the dead of night. It makes no sense. And why did he not tell me what he was doing?’

  ‘You really have no idea?’

  ‘None at all,’ said Michael bitterly. ‘I trusted Walcote, and often told him my secret plans. I am hurt that he did not see fit to reciprocate.’

  ‘Did you tell him everything?’ asked Bartholomew.

  Michael regarded him as though he were insane. ‘Of course not. I do not even tell you everything. But I did confide a great deal to Walcote. I am astonished that he had business with important men like Lincolne, Pechem and Kenyngham, and yet said nothing to me.’

  ‘Perhaps he was planning to surprise you with something,’ suggested Bartholomew.

  ‘Such as what? I do not like surprises – especially ones that involve secret meetings in a place like St Radegund’s. It sounds more like a plot than a surprise.’ He punched Bartholomew on the shoulder, his previous low spirits revived by the ale and his determination to discover what his Junior Proctor had been doing without his knowledge. ‘But we will find out whatever is afoot and we will solve these two murders.’

  Bartholomew reached for the rest of his pastry to find it had gone. ‘I thought you had lost your appetite,’ he said as the monk swung his cloak around his shoulders. ‘I was the one who was hungry.’

  ‘How can you be thinking about food when we have a murderer to catch?’ demanded Michael accusingly. ‘Come on. Faricius’s requiem will be over now. We should talk to Prior Lincolne.’

  Bartholomew refused to return to the Carmelite Friary until they had fulfilled their promise to visit Matilde at the Convent of St Radegund’s. The monk complained bitterly about the brisk walk along the Barnwell Causeway, but it was too cold to travel at the ambling pace he usually favoured. When they arrived at the convent, and had made their way through the dripping vegetation to the front gate, Michael was puffing and panting like a pair of bellows, although it had still not been fast enough to drive the chill from Bartholomew’s bones. Shivering, and with a sense of foreboding, he knocked on the door.

  The grille snapped open, and the bright black eyes of Tysilia peered out at them. Before he could announce their business, the door had been opened, and Michael pushed his way across the threshold, still grumbling about the speed of the walk.

  ‘Do come in, Brother,’ said Tysilia to Michael’s back, as the monk headed towards the solar. Bartholomew glanced at her sharply, but could not tell whether she was being facetious, or merely reciting the words of welcome she had been trained to say.

  ‘We would like to speak to Dame Martyn,’ he said, feeling obliged to make at least some effort to explain their presence. ‘Is she in her quarters?’

  ‘Everyone is in the refectory,’ replied Tysilia, as she closed the door behind him. ‘We are having breakfast.’

  ‘Breakfast?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. Michael overheard and veered away from the direction of the solar to aim for a substantial building to his left. ‘But it is almost midday.’

  Tysilia seemed surprised. ‘It is only midday if you rise at dawn. None of us do, I am pleased to say, and so for us it is breakfast time.’

  ‘But what about matins, prime and terce?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘How do you keep those offices, if you wake so late?’

  Tysilia waved a dismissive hand. ‘We leave those for the friars and monks to say. We are doing God a favour, actually. Can you imagine what it must be like to have all those voices clamouring at you at certain times of the day? I am sure He is grateful to us for our conflagration. Or do I mean for our condescension? All these long words sound the same to me.’

  ‘I imagine you mean “consideration”,’ said Bartholomew, eyeing her warily. He tried to read some expression in her dark eyes, but although they sparkled, they did so with a brilliance that was only superficially shiny, like a pair of Richard’s buttons. He could not tell whether a clever mind was thoroughly enjoying itself by presenting a false image to the world, or whether what he saw was all there was.

  ‘Have you caught your killer?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you are here again?’

  Bartholomew glanced at her a second time, wondering whether her question was more than idle curiosity. He thought he glimpsed a flicker of something in her face, but then wondered if it were merely a trick of the light. He did not know what to think.

  ‘No,’ he replied shortly, not wanting to give away details to someone who might have more than a passing interest in the matter.

  ‘We have a fat woman staying with us,’ Tysilia chirped conversationally, as they walked towards the refectory. She did not seem to find his curt reply to her question worthy of comment. ‘She is paying five groats a day to escape from her demanding husband.’ Her pretty features creased into a moue of disgust. ‘I hope my uncle will not foist one of those on me. I am happier changing my lovers each week.’

  ‘Each week?’ asked Bartholomew, trying to keep the surprise from his voice at her unusual choice of topics. He wondered whether she was trying to shock him, and he did not want to give her the satisfaction of seeing he was embarrassed. ‘Do you not keep them longer than that?’

  ‘No,’ she
said airily. ‘You see, the first few times a lover meets you, he is affectionate and only wants physical favours. But after about a week, he wants more than a romp between the covers, and likes to talk and ask questions. I cannot be bothered with all that.’

  ‘You mean you disapprove of conversation and discussion?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘I do not know about that, but I dislike talking,’ replied Tysilia, opening the door to the refectory and ushering her guests inside. ‘I talk and listen all day with the nuns. I do not want to do it during the night, as well. I am sure you know what I mean.’

  She gave him a hefty nudge with her elbow that all but winded him, but he was spared from the obligation of supplying her with an answer by Eve Wasteneys, who came forward to greet them.

  The refectory was warm and comfortable, and the hum of voices and laughter indicated that Dame Martyn did not insist upon silence or Bible-reading at meals. Breakfast comprised baked eggs in addition to bread and oatmeal, and Bartholomew was certain he saw Dame Martyn slide a large piece of ham out of sight under her trencher. Ham was not an item that should have been on the breakfast table during Lent, and so she was wise to hide it from the sight of her unexpected visitors. The Prioress smiled a greeting at Bartholomew and Michael, and then raised a large cup of breakfast ale to her lips, drinking long and deep, as if she imagined she might need the fortification it provided.

  ‘Where is my ham?’ demanded Tysilia petulantly, as she sat down at her place. ‘It was here when I went to answer the door. Who took it?’

  Dame Martyn and Eve exchanged a weary glance, and Bartholomew saw the plump, wrinkled woman who sat to one side raise her napkin to her lips so that no one would spot her smiling. Bartholomew was relieved to see her, knowing that if Matilde was sitting at the breakfast table and was amused by Tysilia’s antics, then she was not yet in any danger.