‘You mentioned yesterday that you planned to attend Faricius’s requiem mass, Janius,’ interrupted Michael loudly, deciding he had heard enough of nominalism as applied to the laws of physics for one day. ‘Did you go? Can I assume that your presence here means that it is over?’
‘It was over at midday, and the afternoon has been spent in private prayer for his soul,’ Janius told him. ‘That was why I was in Holy Trinity Church. But he is due to be buried about now, and I was on my way back there when I met you.’
‘Good,’ said Michael. ‘I want to talk to the Carmelites, and if they are all gathered together at Faricius’s mass, I will not have to hunt them down individually.’
‘You would not have to do that anyway,’ said Janius. ‘Since Faricius’s murder, most of the Orders are keeping their students inside. No one wants a retaliatory killing.’
‘There are those that would disagree,’ said Michael. ‘But it is cold standing here. Let us be on our way to this burial. Such an occasion will suit my mood perfectly.’
Chapter 6
FARICIUS’S REQUIEM MASS HAD BEEN A GRAND AFFAIR. Prayers for him had been said in the church all afternoon, and the rough wooden coffin was being carried back to the friary, where there was a small graveyard in the grounds near the river. Bartholomew and Michael joined the end of the procession, which comprised mainly White Friars, but also a smattering of scholars from other hostels and colleges who had met Faricius and been impressed by his scholarship. Both Timothy and Janius were among the mourners, as was Heytesbury, although he at least had the good sense to keep his face hidden in a voluminous hood.
‘What are you doing here?’ Michael asked the Merton man in a soft whisper. ‘A procession of realism-obsessed Carmelites is no place for the country’s leading thinker on nominalism. Are you mad?’
‘No such restrictions apply in Oxford,’ replied Heytesbury testily. ‘And I met Faricius once. I had the greatest respect for him, and wanted to persuade him to study with me at Merton.’
‘I doubt he would have taken a nominalist master,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Have you not heard how the Orders have ranged themselves around this debate? The Carmelites have decided that realism is the ultimate truth.’
‘Why should that make any difference?’ demanded Heytesbury. ‘The great nominalist William of Occam was a student of the equally great realist Duns Scotus. Faricius had an excellent mind, and I would have welcomed the opportunity to help him hone it, no matter what his beliefs.’
Bartholomew gazed at him, and wondered whether Oxford was really so different from her sister university. In his own experience, Oxford scholars were every bit as belligerent and aggressive as those in Cambridge, and just as prepared to prove their academic points with their fists. But given the strength of the feelings the debate seemed to have engendered that Lent, he could not imagine a Cambridge nominalist being willing to train a realist student, who in time might use that training against him and the beliefs he held dear. He wondered whether Heytesbury was a man of integrity who was devoted to scholarship in all its forms, or simply a fool.
The sombre procession passed in silence through the Carmelites’ orchard and into the small plot of land that had been reserved for burials. It was a pleasant place, sheltered by chestnut trees and overlooking the water meadows that stretched away to the small hamlet of Newnham Croft. Several grassy mounds already graced the area, along with a sizeable knoll that Bartholomew knew was where the friary’s plague victims had been laid to rest.
Under a spreading cedar tree was one of the town’s curiosities. In 1290, a man named Humphrey de Lecton had been the first Carmelite to take a doctor’s degree in Cambridge, and later became the first Carmelite to lecture for the University. When he died, he had been buried with some pomp and ceremony, and his grave was marked with an impressive piece of masonry: a disconcertingly realistic coffin with a likeness of Lecton etched into the top, covered by a four-pillared canopy that had once been painted. Wind and rain had stripped it of its colours, but the tomb still dominated the Carmelites’ peaceful burial ground.
A rectangular hole had been prepared for Faricius near Lecton’s monument, with a mound of excavated mud piled to one side. Water had collected in the bottom of the grave, and the coffin landed with a slight splash as it was lowered inside. Rain pattered on the wood and on the bowed heads of those who gathered around as Lincolne said his final words. Bartholomew saw Horneby standing next to his Prior, scrubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his habit; the expression on his face was a mixture of anger and grief. Lincolne’s peculiar turret of hair had escaped from under his cowl, and rose vertically from his forehead. Droplets of rain caught in it, so that it glittered in the dull light of the gloomy March afternoon.
‘The Dominicans will pay for this,’ Bartholomew heard Horneby mutter.
‘Faricius was a peaceful man who abhorred violence,’ said Brother Timothy gently. ‘He would not have wanted his friends to indulge themselves in a rampage of hatred on his behalf.’
‘He would not have wanted the Dominicans to murder him and then laugh about it,’ snapped Horneby. ‘They are in their friary celebrating what they have done. Look! They have even sent one of their number to observe his funeral and then report the details back to them.’
All eyes followed his accusing finger, and Michael was astonished to find himself the object of their scrutiny.
‘I am not Dominican,’ he said, aggrieved, pushing back his cowl to reveal his face. ‘I am a Benedictine, as well you know.’
‘Oh, it is you, Brother Michael,’ said Lincolne. ‘In this poor light it is difficult to tell Dominicans from Benedictines. Both wear black cloaks.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Michael brusquely. ‘Anyone with the merest glimmer of sense can tell a mendicant from a monastic. I am a monk, not a friar.’
‘One look at his girth should tell you that,’ Bartholomew thought he heard Heytesbury mutter. ‘Only Benedictines grow to such a size.’
‘Have you come to tell us that you have arrested Faricius’s killer?’ asked Lincolne, in a tone of voice that suggested he did not think they had. ‘It would be a fitting tribute at his funeral.’
‘I have come to ask more questions,’ said Michael. ‘But I am a good deal wiser about this case now than I was yesterday. The truth will prevail, have no doubt about that.’
Bartholomew hoped the monk’s confidence would not turn out to be a hollow brag. As far as he could see, they were even further from an answer, because all they had learned indicated that there was more to Faricius’s death than they had first thought.
Lincolne did not look as if he believed it, either. He turned to the watching mourners with a few words of dismissal. ‘Thank you for coming. It is gratifying to see that a Carmelite commanded such respect among so many people.’
The mourners began to move away in respectful silence. Heytesbury and Janius went with them, so that soon only Lincolne, Bartholomew, Michael and Timothy remained under the cedar tree. Horneby and several of his friends worked nearby, shovelling sodden earth that landed with hollow thumps on top of Faricius’s coffin. Horneby’s face was wet, although from the rain or from bitter tears, Bartholomew could not tell.
‘The proctors have more questions to ask!’ the student-friar jeered, shovelling hard at the earth. ‘There have been more than enough of those already. What we want now are answers.’
‘I would not need to ask more questions if you had told the truth,’ snapped Michael, rounding on him. ‘How can you expect me to catch your friend’s killer when you were dishonest with me?’
‘I was not–’ began Horneby, startled by the attack.
‘You told me it was impossible for Faricius to have left the friary, and yet he was found dead outside,’ Michael continued relentlessly.
‘I only said–’ attempted Horneby.
Michael cut through his words. ‘You are a fool, Horneby. I will find out what happened to Faricius, and I will discover how and why he happened
to be outside when the rest of you were in here. But, by not telling me the truth, you are running the risk that the culprit may have fled the town before I uncover him. Is that what you want?’
‘No! Of course not. But–’
‘Then tell me what you know,’ said Michael, in full interrogatory mode. Even Bartholomew felt intimidated by the flashing green eyes and the unwavering gaze. A mere novice like Horneby was helpless under the monk’s onslaught.
‘Nothing,’ stammered Horneby, casting an agonised glance at Lincolne that would have told even the most inexperienced investigator that he was lying.
‘Why was Faricius out?’ repeated Michael. He appealed to Lincolne. ‘Are we to stand here all day waiting for this half-wit to speak? Instruct him to answer me immediately, before any more time is wasted on his petty deceits.’
‘You had better tell him what you know, Horneby,’ said Lincolne tiredly.
‘But we decided to keep it a secret,’ wailed Horneby miserably, looking at his fellows, who seemed as unhappy as he did.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Lincolne, bemused. ‘Keep what a secret?’
‘About Faricius,’ said Horneby. ‘What he was doing had no bearing on his death, and we decided it was better the secret died with him. There was no point in telling the Senior Proctor.’
‘Worse yet, it will lead the investigation in the wrong direction,’ said one of the others, appealing to his Prior. ‘It is entirely irrelevant, and we decided Brother Michael would have a better chance of catching the killer if the waters were not muddied by what we know.’
‘What is it?’ demanded Michael. ‘I am quite capable of deciding what is and what is not relevant to a murder investigation. I was solving crimes such as this while you were still mewling and puking on your mothers’ knees.’
That was not strictly true. Michael had held his appointment as Proctor only since the plague, although he had been an agent of the Bishop of Ely before that.
‘What is all this about?’ demanded Lincolne, growing impatient. ‘What are you not telling Brother Michael?’
‘There is a tunnel,’ said Horneby unhappily. ‘It allows us to come and go as we please. Of course, we use it very rarely,’ he added when he saw Lincolne’s jaw drop in horror.
‘A tunnel?’ demanded Lincolne, appalled. ‘What do you think this is? Some dungeon where prisoners must dig for their freedom?’
‘We did not make it,’ said Horneby defensively. ‘It has been here for hundreds of years – ever since our Order moved to Cambridge, in fact.’
‘That was in 1290,’ Timothy pointed out pedantically. ‘The Carmelites were granted land in Milne Street in 1290 by the Archdeacon of York, which is why Humphrey de Lecton was buried here. It was certainly not hundreds of years ago.’
‘Well, it has been here a long time,’ said Horneby, dismissive of such details. ‘Each year, new students are shown the tunnel, then made to swear an oath that they will never tell anyone about it. The masters are never informed.’
‘Why did you not mention this before?’ demanded Michael angrily. ‘You must see that this has a bearing on our enquiries. It explains how Faricius left the friary without using the gates.’
Horneby cast a nervous glance at his Prior. ‘No masters are ever told, and you have always questioned us when Prior Lincolne was present. And anyway, Walcote knew about it. We assumed he would tell you.’
‘Walcote is dead,’ said Michael harshly. ‘And why are you so sure that he knew, anyway?’
‘He caught Simon Lynne using it a few days ago,’ replied Horneby reluctantly. ‘He was furious, and ordered us to close up the entrance immediately. He said he would return in a week, and if it were not blocked, he would report all of us to Prior Lincolne.’
‘And I assume he did not?’ asked Michael.
‘He died,’ explained Horneby. ‘The week expired today. We were going to obey him, but when we learned he was dead, we saw we would not have to. You clearly did not know about it, or you would have guessed how Faricius left the friary on the day he was murdered. Walcote was as good as his word when he promised to tell no one if we did as he ordered.’
‘That is outrageous!’ exploded Lincolne, his topknot trembling with anger. ‘Such a tunnel is a breach in our security, and it was extremely foolish of you to keep it from me.’
‘But we have not always been at loggerheads with our rival Orders,’ Horneby pointed out. ‘It is only a security problem if we are under attack, and that has not happened until recently.’
Lincolne favoured him with an icy glare. ‘Perhaps that is so during the few months that you have graced us with your presence. But in past years there have been nasty incidents – perhaps not with other Orders, but with the Colleges and the hostels – where such a tunnel might have been very dangerous for us. Where is the damned thing, anyway?’
Horneby walked to the tomb of Humphrey de Lecton and pulled back a nearby tree branch to reveal a sinister black slit.
‘Here it is. You slide through this hole, make your way forward on your hands and knees for about the length of a man, then a short tunnel leads to the garden of the house next door. You climb the wall, which is lower than ours and easier to scale, and you are in Milne Street.’
‘I could not fit down that,’ said Michael, eyeing it doubtfully.
‘No,’ agreed Horneby, looking him up and down. ‘It would be much too tight for you. But most of us students have done it at various times.’
‘Why?’ demanded Lincolne. ‘What would you leave the friary for?’
Horneby had the grace to look sheepish, and one of the younger novices was unable to prevent a nervous giggle escaping from his lips. Lincolne glowered at him, and the boy shrank backwards in abject embarrassment.
‘To do what most young men do of a night, I imagine,’ said Michael, seeing that none of the student-friars were prepared to furnish their Prior with an honest answer. ‘The taverns and the town’s women are an enticing proposition compared to an evening seated in a cold conclave with someone reading from the Bible.’
‘But that is against the University’s rules,’ cried Lincolne, appalled.
‘Yes,’ said Michael dryly. ‘So, I recommend that you seal up this hole before any more of your students clamber through it and pay the price. But you still have not answered my original question, Horneby. I want to know what Faricius was doing outside the walls, not how he got there.’
Horneby exchanged more glances with his fellows, some of whom Bartholomew saw were shaking their heads, warning him not to tell. Michael saw them, too.
‘Enough of this!’ he snapped angrily. ‘Faricius is dead. He was stabbed in the stomach and he bled to death with no priest present to give him spiritual comfort. It was a brutal, violent end for a man you say was gentle and peace-loving. If his memory means anything at all to you, you will tell me why he happened to be outside at the wrong time.’
‘Was it a woman?’ asked Lincolne, more gently. ‘It seems that is the main reason most of you slip away from your duties and obligations.’ His eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. ‘It is not that Tysilia, is it? I warned you all about her, after what happened to Brother Andrew.’
‘Do you mean the Brother Andrew who drowned himself in the King’s Ditch just before Christmas?’ asked Timothy curiously.
‘Yes,’ said Lincolne. ‘Tysilia stole his heart and then refused to see him. We told people his humours had been unbalanced and that he was ill when he took his own life – which was certainly true after he had encountered that witch.’
‘Faricius was not seeing a woman,’ said Horneby. ‘Not even Tysilia. We all kept our distance from her, just as you ordered, Father.’ He smiled ingratiatingly.
‘Do not think that obeying him over this one woman redeems you,’ said Michael, seeing that Lincolne was vaguely mollified by Horneby’s claim. ‘Personally, I do not believe it should be necessary for a Prior to issue such a warning to men of the cloth.’
‘Do n
ot be so pompous, Brother,’ muttered Bartholomew in Michael’s ear. ‘The chances are that some of your own escapades with women are known around the town. You will look foolish if they challenge your right to ask such questions.’
Michael ignored him. ‘And do not try to change the subject, Horneby. I want to know why Faricius left the friary.’
‘He was writing an essay,’ said Horneby reluctantly.
‘An essay?’ echoed Michael, surprise taking the anger from his voice.
Horneby shot an apologetic glance at Lincolne. ‘I am sorry, Father, but Faricius’s essay was in defence of nominalism and supported the controversial theories of the Oxford philosopher William Heytesbury. Faricius was a nominalist.’
‘An essay on nominalism?’ asked Michael, looking around the assembled scholars in wary disbelief. ‘Is that what this great secret is? Is that why Faricius risked life and limb to go outside when it was obvious he should have remained here?’
Horneby nodded unhappily, while the other students shook their heads in disgust that Horneby had betrayed their dead colleague’s trust.
‘Faricius was a nominalist?’ whispered Lincolne, aghast. ‘If only I had known! I could have used my powers of reason to show him that he was wrong, and that nominalism is heresy.’
‘No,’ said Horneby. ‘He was quite certain of his beliefs and he argued them convincingly. You would not have dissuaded him. We all tried and were unsuccessful.’
Michael scratched his chin, a puzzled frown creasing his fat features. ‘Nominalism is a complex theory. I cannot see that a mere novice would provide us with any new insights, and so I fail to see why this essay is important.’
‘Faricius could have provided you with new insights,’ argued Horneby. ‘He had a brilliant mind, and spent a good deal of time honing his debating skills. We were proud of him, but afraid for him at the same time.’
An Order for Death хмб-7 Page 21
