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business at all, and it still caused considerable trouble among churchmen, it was accepted as an essential part of medical studies in Italy. Was it possible that a man like Boyle could disagree?
    ‘Oh, no. He has nothing against anatomising, but he feels I tend to become undignified about the matter. Which may be true, but there is no other way of getting hold of them without getting permission first.’
    ‘What do you mean? Getting permission? Where does this man find the body in the first place?’
    ‘He is the body.’
    ‘How can you ask permission of a corpse?’
    ‘Oh, he’s not dead,’ Lower said airily. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
    ‘Is he ill?’
    ‘Heavens, no. Prime of life. But they’re to hang him soon. After he’s found guilty. He attacked a gentleman and injured him badly. A simple case it is, too; he was found with the knife in his hand. Will you come to see the hanging? I must confess I shall; it’s not often a student is hanged, alas. Most of them join the Church and get livings . . . I’m sure there’s a witticism in there somewhere, if I phrased it rightly.’
    I was beginning to see Boyle’s point of view, but Lower, quite impervious to disapproval when fixed on his work, explained how very difficult it was to get hold of a fresh corpse these days. That had been the one good effect, he said nostalgically, of the civil war. Especially when the king’s army had been quartered in Oxford, there were corpses, two a penny. Never had anatomists had such a plentiful supply. I forbore to point out that he was much too young to know.
    The trouble is, you see, that most people who die are sick in some way.’
    ‘Not if they have the right doctor,’ I said, desiring to show myself as witty as he.
    ‘Quite. But it’s very inconvenient. The only time we can see what a properly healthy person looks like is if they are killed in some relatively clean fashion. And the best supply of those comes from the gallows. But that is another one of the university’s monopolies.’
    ‘Pardon?’ I said in some surprise.
    ‘Law of the land,’ he went on. ‘The university has a right to the bodies of everyone hanged within twenty miles. The courts are so very lax on crime these days, as well. Many an interesting specimen gets off with a flogging, and there’s only about half a dozen hangings a year. And I’m afraid they don’t always make the best use of the corpses they do have. Our Regius professor is scarcely qualified to be a carpenter. Last time . . . well, let’s not go into that,’ he said with a shudder.
    We had arrived at the castle, a great gloomy edifice which scarcely seemed capable of defending the town from assault or of providing a refuge for the townspeople. In fact, it had not been used for such a purpose for as long as anyone could remember, and was now the county prison, in which those due to appear at the assizes were held pending their trial – and pending their punishment afterwards. It was a dirty, shabby place, and I looked around with distaste as Lower knocked on the door of a little cottage down by the stream, in the shadow of the tower.
    Getting in to see his body was surprisingly easy; all he had to do was tip the guardian a penny, and this old, hobbling man – a Royalist soldier who had been given the position for his services – led the way, his keys jangling by his side.
    If it was gloomy outside, it was even darker inside, although far from grim for the more fortunate of the inmates. The poorer ones, naturally, had the worst of the cells and were forced to eat food which was barely adequate for keeping body and soul together. But, Lower pointed out, as several were to have body and soul forcibly separated in due course anyway, there was little point in spoiling them.
    However, the better sort of prisoner could rent a more salubrious cell, send out to a tavern for food and in addition have laundry done when required. He could also receive visitors if, as was the case with Lower,