Bartholomew 11 - The Mark Of A Murderer

by Susanna GREGORY

  Michael sighed, unable to answer. It was a good deal quieter in the hall without William, and Bartholomew made rapid progress on Galen and black bile. Even Deynman seemed to have improved by the end of the lesson, and the physician was encouraged. He spent the second half of the afternoon teaching a combined class of his own students and Clippesby’s how to calculate the speed of the planets through the sky using different geometrical techniques. Afterwards, leaving the students reeling from their mental exertions, he visited Rougham, and was pleased to find him sleeping peacefully.

  Matilde was sleeping peacefully, too, so he crept out of the house so as not to disturb her, knowing that neither patient nor nurse would require his services that night. Rougham would soon be gone from her life and at that point, Bartholomew decided, they would discuss the future, and whether it would be one they might share. He returned to Michaelhouse, read until he started to feel drowsy, then went to bed, where he slept deeply and well.

  Michael cornered Langelee the following morning, and confided that he was now seriously worried about the Oxford murders and the damaging effect they might have when the Archbishop arrived in three days’ time. Unlike Bartholomew, he had slept fitfully, and Gonerby, Okehamptone and Chesterfelde had paraded through his mind like lost souls. His beadles informed him that the merchants had been at the Cardinal’s Cap the previous evening, and had befriended a number of locals with their deep purses: the resulting discussion had included the notion that the University might be harbouring a killer. Rougham’s medical students had overheard, and there had been an unpleasant exchange of words before the beadles were able to remove the scholars and fine them for drinking in a tavern.

  Langelee was a practical man, ambitious for his University, and he desperately wanted Islip to found his new College in Cambridge. He understood perfectly that three tradesmen hunting a scholar for murder would not make for peaceful relations, and was willing to do whatever was necessary to help. He immediately agreed to release Michael and Bartholomew from their teaching until the Visitation was over. Bartholomew was not pleased to be informed that his classes were to be suspended while he chased killers, but appreciated the now urgent need to solve the case before the Visitation. Langelee ordered the fiscally talented Wynewyk to manipulate the College finances so that two postgraduates could be paid to stand in for the absent masters, and Bartholomew set his students an unreasonable amount of work, hoping they would become alarmed by the number of texts they would eventually need to master and would settle down to some serious study.

  First, Bartholomew and Michael decided to see Clippesby at Stourbridge. The physician wanted to assess whether it was he who had attacked him in St Michael’s Church, while Michael was keen to question him about the deaths of Okehamptone and Gonerby. When Langelee urged Bartholomew to bring Clippesby back, sane or otherwise, Michael confided that he was a suspect, although he prudently kept Rougham’s name out of the explanation.

  Langelee was appalled. ‘But I was under the impression you had him locked away for his own sake, so he could enjoy a little peace, away from the strains of academic life.’

  ‘I wish that were true,’ said Bartholomew unhappily.

  ‘Then I hope you are wrong,’ said Langelee fervently. ‘We all know he is insane, but it has always been a charming kind of madness, not the kind that makes him rip out men’s throats like a wild beast. But it makes sense, I suppose. He has always claimed an affinity with animals, and it is not such a great leap from that to imagining he is one – the kind that likes to savage its prey.’

  Michael complained bitterly that there were no horses available for hire – they had all been put to pasture until after the Visitation, so they would not make a mess on the newly cleaned streets – and that he was obliged to waddle the mile or so to the ramshackle collection of huts that comprised the hospital at Stourbridge. His temper did not improve when they were obliged to battle with a powerful headwind that drove rain straight into their faces. It snatched the wide-brimmed hat from his head and deposited it in a boggy meadow that was difficult to traverse. Bartholomew’s boots were full of muddy water by the time they had retrieved it, and Michael’s normally pristine habit was streaked with filth.

  ‘Damn Clippesby,’ the monk muttered venomously when the thatched roofs of Stourbridge finally came into sight. ‘Why has he so suddenly taken it into his head to chew necks? He has never shown cannibalistic tendencies before.’

  ‘He may be innocent,’ said Bartholomew, although he could see the monk was unconvinced. ‘But you should put your question to Brother Paul, who has much more experience of insanity than I. He may tell you that this kind of violence is not a factor in Clippesby’s particular condition, and that we should be looking to another madman for our culprit.’

  Michael knocked at the hospital’s gate, then looked around with interest as they were ushered inside. He did not visit Stourbridge often, and always forgot how impressed he was by its orderly cleanliness. ‘We shall see Paul first, and then …what in God’s name is he doing?’

  ‘That patient has acute lethargy, so Paul is attempting to cure her by setting her feet in salt water, ringing bells in her ears, and placing feathers under her nose to make her sneeze.’

  Michael regarded him askance. ‘Will it work?’

  Bartholomew shrugged. ‘Such a course of treatment has sound classical antecedents, although I am sure there must be gentler ways to treat her, as yet undiscovered. In a moment, he will put the feather in her throat to induce retching, then he will bleed her, to rid her of excessive humours.’

  ‘We should talk to him before he starts, then,’ said Michael hastily. ‘I am already covered in mud, and I do not want to be sprayed with blood and vomit, too.’

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Brother Paul worriedly, when he saw Bartholomew approaching. ‘Does she seem any better to you?’

  Bartholomew considered. ‘No. She seems more listless than ever. But intensive humoral therapy is exhausting, so perhaps you should allow her more rest between sessions.’

  Paul regarded his charge with sad eyes. ‘We can try, I suppose, since nothing else seems to be working. What about electuaries and embrocations? Can you recommend any that might help?’

  Bartholomew shook his head slowly. ‘Ailments of the mind are a complete mystery to me, and all my training and experience seem to count for nothing when I meet cases like these. You are far wiser about them than I, and you should trust what your own instincts tell you to do.’

  ‘My instincts are failing me dismally at the moment.’ Paul nodded at the drooping woman who sat disconsolately, with her legs in a bucket and a down scarf around her neck. ‘I make no headway with her, while Clippesby is entirely beyond my skills. I misjudge him at every turn.’

  Bartholomew regarded him in alarm. ‘What is the matter? Has he harmed someone? Or himself?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Paul quickly. ‘Nothing like that. But he seems recovered one moment, and mad the next. I cannot make him out. I trust him completely to help with the others – he is patient and gentle with even the most vicious and ungrateful of them – but he seems unable to follow orders about his own well-being. And he will insist on quitting the hospital, when he knows he must stay. He left us again on Tuesday evening – he was gone when I looked in his room after dusk, but was back for prime on Wednesday morning. I beg him not to wander off in the dark, but he cannot seem to help himself.’

  Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a glance: so, it could have been Clippesby who had attacked Bartholomew with the spade. Nervously, Bartholomew wondered what else he might have done.

  ‘Did you ask where he had been?’ asked Michael.

  ‘He does not know,’ said Paul tiredly. ‘He is not lying – he really does have no idea. There is not much more I can do for him, Matt, other than offer company, a little recreational work and a safe haven – which will not be very safe if he continues to escape.’

  ‘How does he get out?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘I though
t you locked his door at night, and his window has mullions that are impossible to squeeze through.’

  ‘I forgot to bar the door,’ said Paul apologetically. ‘I was busy. Ned Tucker was dying and Clippesby slipped my mind. It was my fault, but I am sorry he took advantage of my lapse. Speak to him, and explain again that he is here for his own good.’

  While Paul turned his attention to the unresponsive woman, Bartholomew and Michael looked for Clippesby. He was not in the peaceful little chapel, saying prayers for Ned Tucker like many other inmates, nor was he in the kitchen helping to prepare the next meal. Next to the church was a large dormitory that contained the beds of those who required constant care; the fitter residents slept in smaller buildings, some of which could be locked to ensure they did not escape to harm themselves or others. It was in the hall that they found Clippesby, reading to a patient who was in the last stages of a disease that had ravaged his face. He raised his finger to his lips when Bartholomew and Michael entered, and continued speaking. It was only when the man slept that Clippesby left him.

  He looked healthy and cheerful, and his eyes had lost the wild expression that had so unnerved Bartholomew the day after Rougham had been attacked. He had combed his hair, so it lay flat and even across his tonsured pate, his face was shaved to a rosy pinkness, and his habit was scrupulously clean. It was difficult to see him as a deranged lunatic who bit the necks of his victims and wielded spades in dark churches. He smiled at Bartholomew, then clasped Michael’s hand.

  ‘It is good to see Michaelhouse men,’ he said, leading them to his own room so that their voices would not disturb the sleeping leper. ‘It is dull here, with no one of any intelligence to speak to. Paul is always too busy or too tired, and most of the others are beyond caring about decent conversation.’

  ‘I am sorry you have to be here,’ said Bartholomew sincerely. ‘But Paul tells me you made a bid for freedom on Tuesday night and were gone until dawn the following day. Why?’

  Clippesby shrugged. ‘Why do you think? I have been here fifteen days now, and I am bored. I went for a walk, although I cannot tell you where. I just followed a mouse.’

  ‘A mouse,’ said Michael flatly.

  ‘Well, a field mouse, naturally,’ elaborated Clippesby. ‘But you would know that, of course. One is hardly likely to find a dormouse with time on her hands at this time of year!’ He laughed, to indicate he considered the notion preposterous.

  ‘Did this mouse eventually lead you to Cambridge?’ asked Michael. ‘To St Michael’s?’

  ‘I do not recall,’ replied Clippesby. ‘I was too absorbed in what she had to tell me.’

  ‘And what was that?’ asked Michael suspiciously. ‘It was nothing to do with the gnawing of throats, was it? Or the wielding of spades?’

  ‘Hardly!’ said Clippesby, startled. ‘Her conversation was rather more genteel, and involved a discussion between St Benedict and his holy sister St Scholastica three days before her death.’

  ‘Scholastica?’ echoed Michael immediately. ‘Did this mouse mention riots, by any chance? On Scholastica’s feast day in Oxford?’

  ‘She did, but those are of scant importance when compared to the dialogue between the two mystics. I am sure you are aware, Brother, that no one knows exactly what was discussed the night Scholastica summoned a great storm to keep her brother from returning to his monastery – so he would stay with her. But the mouse knew.’

  ‘This mouse must be a considerable age,’ said Bartholomew, amused. ‘This alleged conversation is said to have taken place eight hundred years ago.’

  ‘She did not hear it herself,’ said Clippesby, irritated by the lack of understanding. ‘It was witnessed by an ancestor, and the information has been passed through the family from century to century. The same sort of thing happens with humans. Generations of first-born Clippesbys have been called John, to name but one example.’

  ‘Well?’ asked Michael. ‘What did St Benedict and his sister talk about that stormy night? What they were going to have for breakfast?’

  ‘That would no doubt be your choice of subject,’ replied Clippesby crisply. ‘But pious folk are not obsessed with such earthly matters. Benedict and Scholastica talked about the power of creation, and how one life is so small and insignificant compared to the living universe.’

  ‘Well, that very much depends on whose life we are talking about,’ said Michael, smarting over the accusation that he was venally minded. ‘For example, I would not consider Matt’s unimportant, and someone tried to take it before dawn on Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Clippesby, his eyes wide. ‘How terrible! But you are unharmed, so whoever tried to rob you was unsuccessful.’

  ‘How do you know it was a robber?’

  ‘Why else would anyone attack him?’

  ‘Have you encountered two men called Boltone and Eudo?’ asked Bartholomew, seeing Clippesby was not going to admit to being in St Michael’s at the time of the attack – if he even knew. But the mention of robbers had brought to mind the dishonest residents of Merton Hall.

  ‘The Merton Hall chickens detest Boltone,’ replied Clippesby. ‘They say he has been cheating his masters for years. Meanwhile, Edwardus Rex, the dog with whom Yolande de Blaston lives, tells me that Eudo may have stolen the silver statue I gave to Matilde.’

  Michael nodded. ‘It seems he took it when he visited her to get a remedy for women’s pains – for the wife he does not have.’

  ‘Many men do that,’ said Clippesby. ‘Matilde is good and generous, and people trust her. You should marry her, Matt, before someone else steals her heart.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Bartholomew, aware that Clippesby was regarding him expectantly. He hesitated, on the verge of confiding his decision to make her his wife, but then Clippesby’s attention was snatched by a flock of pigeons landing in the yard, and the moment was lost.

  ‘Do your chickens know anything about an astrolabe owned by Geoffrey Dodenho?’ asked Michael hopefully. ‘It was sold to someone at Merton Hall.’

  Clippesby shook his head. ‘No, but the King’s Hall rats told me that Dodenho claimed it had been stolen by another Fellow – probably by his room-mate, who is called Wolf – but that he suddenly went quiet about it. They think he later found it again, but because he had made such a fuss about its “theft”, he was obliged to sell it – so he would not have to apologise for making unfounded accusations. The rats say that is why Wolf ran away: he did not like being considered a felon.’

  ‘When you say “King’s Hall rats” are you referring to small furry rodents or to men in tabards?’ asked Michael cautiously.

  ‘Rodents, of course,’ said Clippesby, annoyed. ‘I do not insult rats by likening them to people.’

  ‘Do they or the chickens know anything about Eudo or Boltone?’ asked Michael. He sounded uncomfortable, unsure of how to deal with the strange realities of Clippesby’s world.

  Clippesby scratched his head. ‘I do not think so, but I can ask. The problem with hens is that they are not always interested in the same things as us, and one needs to question them very carefully to determine whether or not they know anything of relevance. It is quite an art.’

  ‘I can well imagine,’ said Michael dryly. ‘I have encountered similar problems myself. But I need to ask you more questions, if you have no objection. Matt and I have been investigating a very complex case, and you may be able to help us.’

  Clippesby nodded sombrely. ‘Of course. I am always willing to be of service to you, although you should be aware that a desire to help is not the same as being able to help. But ask your questions, and we shall see. As the hedgehogs of Peterhouse always say, if you do not ask, you will not receive.’

  ‘Right.’ Michael cleared his throat uneasily. ‘Where did you go in February, when you abandoned your teaching for ten days without permission?’

  ‘You have already fined me for that,’ said Clippesby, immediately defensive. ‘You cannot punish me twice for the same offence. Be
sides, I told you what happened: an owl came and told me my father was ill, so I went without delay to visit him in Norfolk.’

  ‘Norfolk?’ asked Michael. ‘Not Oxford?’

  Clippesby grimaced. ‘Certainly not. I dislike Oxford, and would never go there willingly.’

  ‘Was your father unwell?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Clippesby. ‘The owl must have confused him with someone else.’

  ‘Then what about your more recent absences? Where were you on the eve of Ascension Day?’

  ‘That was the night Rougham was attacked and I saved his life,’ replied Clippesby resentfully. ‘I wish I had not bothered, because then I would not be incarcerated here. However, I do not recall exactly where else I was that evening. You had plied me with too much wine earlier, Brother, and my wits were addled.’

  ‘That had nothing to do with the wine,’ muttered Michael. ‘Then what about last Saturday?’

  ‘You think I had something to do with the murder at Merton Hall – the man with the cut wrist?’ asked Clippesby. He saw Michael’s surprise that he should know about Chesterfelde, and smiled enigmatically. ‘The chickens mentioned what had happened – I told you I am friendly with them. But I did not kill anyone, Brother. I do not waste time with people when there are animals to talk to. What they say is worth hearing, unlike the vicious ramblings of men.’ Abruptly he turned his attention to Bartholomew, who was simultaneously disconcerted and startled by the penetrating stare. ‘I know what you are thinking.’

  ‘You do?’ asked Bartholomew, sincerely hoping he did not. He had lost interest in the discussion, and his thoughts had turned to Matilde. In the dusty gloom of Clippesby’s chamber he had reached a decision, and he knew with absolute certainty that it was the right one. He would marry Matilde. He loved her more than he had ever loved anyone, and his Fellowship was a small price to pay for the honour of spending the rest of his life with such a woman. His mind now irrevocably made up, he felt strangely sanguine about the University and its various mysteries. It occurred to him that he should probably confide his plans to Matilde before resigning and making arrangements to secure them a house, and determined to do so at the first opportunity. He did not countenance the appalling possibility that she might decline his offer.