‘We know he disappeared shortly after arriving in Cambridge,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Turke told us at the Christmas Day feast that he had been missing for five days.’
‘That means he disappeared on the twentieth of December,’ said Michael. ‘A Tuesday, and – coincidentally – the day Norbert went missing. I wonder whether that is significant. But what was Gosslinge doing to warrant ending up smothered in St Michael’s mouldy robes? Does this mean his corpse stood hidden in here for two whole days before we happened to come across him?’
‘It looks that way, Brother.’
‘You do not think these marks – I hesitate to call them injuries, since they are so minor – were caused by Gosslinge himself in his death throes?’
‘There is no way to tell, but I would imagine not. I think it more likely someone harmed him – but I could be wrong.’
‘Perhaps he was lonely,’ suggested Michael, reluctant to abandon the suicide theory. ‘Perhaps he did not want to go to Walsingham. Perhaps Turke drove him to take his own life. Gosslinge knew no one else here, so if anyone drove him to suicide, it must have been his master.’
‘Or Giles or Philippa,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But do not forget he knew the Waits. Quenhyth saw them with Gosslinge, and so did Harysone. And the Waits said Gosslinge ate a meal with Harysone – something Harysone admitted, too.’
‘I do not see why the Waits should drive him to take his own life – unless they threatened to inflict their juggling on him. But Harysone is another matter. I knew he was up to something when we saw him trying to get into the church, just a short time before we discovered Gosslinge’s corpse.’ Michael’s eyes gleamed with triumph, and Bartholomew saw the monk thought he had a workable theory.
‘No one in the Turke household mentioned any malaise or unhappiness on Gosslinge’s part,’ the physician said, still trying to think of reasons why Gosslinge might have killed himself. Some instinct told him that Gosslinge had not intended to die and, because of his earlier negligence, he felt obliged to give the matter his best attention now. He sighed despondently as he considered the scant evidence. ‘Suicide makes no sense. If Gosslinge took his own life, why was he not wearing his livery? And how did he end up among the albs?’
Although he was too embarrassed to admit it to Michael, Bartholomew was painfully aware that he had not taken the time to assess the nature of the folds that had held Gosslinge in the rotten robes. He knew now that he should have unravelled them slowly, so that he could have seen whether Gosslinge had tied them himself or whether someone else had done it for him. He had been careless and irresponsible, and that knowledge would haunt him for a very long time.
Michael sighed. ‘It would help, of course, if we knew for certain whether this was a suicide or murder. Are you sure there is nothing lodged in his mouth that may tell us one way or the other?’
Bartholomew was sure, but his confidence had suffered a serious blow, so he looked again. There was nothing. He tipped Gosslinge’s head back, and peered down the corpse’s throat for so long that Michael began to mutter in exasperation. Eventually, he rummaged in his medical bag and produced a knife, which he placed against Gosslinge’s wind-pipe.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Michael in alarm. He glanced around in agitation. ‘Put that thing away, man! You cannot start carving up Christian men as though they were slabs of meat on a butcher’s stall! I know you enjoy indulging in surgery now and again, but you cannot do it here, and you cannot do it on him. Someone will be sure to notice.’
‘But I want to see whether there is anything stuck in his throat,’ objected Bartholomew.
‘Then use tweezers, and go to his throat via his mouth. Do not start hacking him about in places where it will show. God’s teeth, Matt! You should not need me to tell you this.’
Reluctantly, Bartholomew complied, declining to point out that if Michael wanted answers to his questions, then he should not be squeamish about the ways in which those answers were provided. He found a fairly long pair of forceps and inserted them into Gosslinge’s mouth, pushing them as far to the back of the throat as he could.
‘There
‘I sincerely hope you did not submit my husband to this kind of treatment,’ came a cold voice from behind them.
