The Mark of a Murderer by Susannah Gregory

Matthew Bartholemew is inciting comment from his fellows at Michaelhouse in Cambridge. It has long been suspected that he has tender feelings for Matilde, the head of the local prostitute's guild, but now he's been spending every night in her house, not leaving until after sunup. As all Michaelhouse scholars are supposed to be celibate this is leaving him open to censure from his fellows, but none of them can really get on their high horse to tell him he's doing wrong, for none of them is as pure as the driven snow.

Matt's canon, Brother Michael, is getting seriously annoyed with Matthew. A visitor to the city was killed, but because Matthew couldn't be found, Michael had to go with another Physician-teacher from Michaelhouse, and he certainly wasn't up to Matthew's skill at Anatomizing or investigation into the causes of Death. He didn't even want to touch the body, although eventually, he determined the death to have been from a fever. Now, though, another man has been killed in the same house, and this one was undoubtedly murdered- he has a knife driven into his back.

But all too soon, Matthew realizes that the knife in his back wasn't what killed him. He was bled out through a gash in one wrist, and the knife driven into his back to divert attention away from the true cause of death. Suspicion naturally falls on those sharing the house with the man, three merchants from Oxford, who are in town supposedly for business, but it soon comes out that they are there to find and track down a murderer. During the student riots in Oxford on St. Scholastica's Day in November, one of their number was struck down and killed, and his killer was heard to say that he would be returning to College in Cambridge.

His widow, apparently a formidable woman, made them swear to track down her husband's killer. All three of the merchant's promised, but only one of them really wants to try and find the killer, the other two are there because the third hectored them into it, and he's only doing it in hopes of being made guildmaster in the upcoming elections. Brother Michael takes offense at their task and says that if anyone is to find the killer, it will be him, and they reluctantly agree to do the job. But do they have any intention of living up to their side of the bargain and leaving the case alone?

Also in the house are teachers and academics from Matt's old school in Oxford, including his mentor and another physician who invented a set of metal teeth that he rented out to scholars who had lost their own in order to allow them to eat meat. But the metal teeth, shared out and not well cleaned by either renters or inventor, were responsible for a death by infection by one of its users, and when Matthew told the man so, a feud was born. When the teeth disappeared, the other physician accused Matthew of taking them and blamed him- and does still. The scholars are there for two reasons- in one, to escape the continuing chaos and danger of Oxford, and to look into the behavior of two tenants on their land, who they suspect of defrauding the college. For the house and property belongs to their colledge in Oxford, and they came to set things aright. But the death of a second of their number makes them think that perhaps Cambridge isn't as safe as Oxford after all.

As Matthew battles fatigue from his nightly visits to Matilde, who he will not give up, he and Michael investigate the deaths and look for the killer or killers of both victims. But hidden secrets and horrible murder hide everywhere in Cambridge, and this time, Michael and Matthew will be fighting for more than just their own lives, but also for Matthew's reputation, And Matthew has to decide if his love for Matilde is worth giving up his teaching career and the stipend he gets for just teaching his students. But will he and Matilde survive his latest case, or will this one be the end of all of them?

I've read Susannah Gregory's series ever since the first novel, "A Plague on Both Your Houses". Matthew is a most informed medieval doctor, with much of his learning depending on Moslem writings and teachings rather than the sometimes silly requirements of medieval medicine of the time. Astrology and Horoscopes were seriously used in medicine, and Matthew comes closest to modern medicine and attitudes among all his fellow physicians. It's almost unmedieval, but in the context of the story, he appears the least prejudiced and backwards of all his colleagues.

And his nearly modern ideas on medicine allow him to see what his colleagues do not, but he's not without fault, something that has disastrous effects on his relationship with Matilde at the end of this particular story. And though there is a definite salacious slant to the comments about him and Matilde early in the story, he and she aren't slaking their lust for each other in bed. There is a real and good excuse for him to be there and keep the real story secret.

I found this story intriguing, and it mirrored another book that I had read featuring a female scholar masquerading as a man to get an education and use her mind, but that story didn't have quite such a good ending as this one did, with the other story having her be found out and put to death for being unnatural and harboring ideas above her station. (How dare a woman want to use her mind! Shock! Horror! Oh no!) Yeah, it sucks, but that was medieval life for you.

This was a pleasant change from that book, even if the ending was quite different, and the story amused and entertained in equal amounts, while the ending was quite thrilling and at points the story horrified me (being left to drown in a well would suck donkey livers). I recommend this series about a very different detective team that complement each other well and mine a vein of medieval history that is sadly overlooked- that of medieval medicine and colleges. The wealth of period details make this series better than most and bring out what it must have been like to live back then without drowning you in boring description. Highly recommended.