'The servants already know Paul was murdered!
They saw his body! And there are already rumours around the town.'
'Then you must make certain that no such rumours are given credence. You mustprey on people' s sympathies — a poor old man, lying alone listening to the celebrations in the hall. He decides to release his soul to the Lord so that he will no longer be an encumbrance to his College.
Master Wilson tells me that there was a note saying as much found in Paul's hand.'
Bartholomew stared at Wilson in shock. The plan was becoming more and more elaborate with each passing moment. Wilson refused to meet Bartholomew's eyes and busied himself twisting the rings on his fat fingers.
"I agree with Bartholomew.' Swynford was also on his feet. 'This plan is not only foolhardy, but dangerous. If ever the truth were to be found out, we would all hang!'
'You will hang for treason if you do not comply,' said the Bishop casually, sitting down again. "I have already informed you that the University cannot afford a scandal. There are many at King's Hall who enjoy the King's protection, who will consider any dissent in this matter to be a deliberate act of defiance towards the Crown.'
Swynford sat down hastily. He was well-enough connected with the University's power-brokers to know that this was not an idle threat. Bartholomew thought back to Aelfrith's words. The King, and his father before him, had invested money and power in King's Hall; any weakening of the University would injure their institution too, and no King liked to discover that he had made a poor choice in where he invested his authority.
'But what if Augustus's body is discovered after we "bury" it?' Bartholomew asked anxiously, his mind running through a wealth of possibilities in which the Michaelhouse Fellows would be discovered and exposed.
'Augustus will not be recovered, Doctor Bartholomew,' said the Bishop smoothly. "I am sure I can rely on you all to see to that.'
Bartholomew swallowed. 'But this is against the laws of the Church and the State, and I will not do it,' he said quietly.
'Against the laws of the Church and the State?' said the Bishop musingly. 'And who do you think makes these laws?' His voice became hard. 'The King makes the laws of the State, and the Bishops make the laws of the Church.
You have no choice.' "I will resign my fellowship,' persisted Bartholomew, 'rather than be a part of this.'
'There will be no resignations,' said the Bishop.
'We can afford no scandal. Now, we must come to some arrangement. Master Wilson informs me that you wish for a larger room for your medical consultations and an increase in your stipend 'And I will not be bribed!' retorted Bartholomew angrily.
The Bishop's face turned white with anger and Bartholomew knew that his protestations had touched a raw nerve. He stood again and advanced on Bartholomew.
"I see you have a bad leg, Doctor. Perhaps you would like to return with me to Ely so that my barber-surgeon can treat it? Perhaps there we can persuade you of your wisest course of action.' He gave Bartholomew one of the coldest smiles the physician had ever seen, and pushed him back down onto the bench.
William grabbed Bartholomew's arm as the Bishop walked back to his chair. 'For God's sake, man! 'he hissed.
'The Bishop is being more than patient! He could hang you for treason right now, and if you force him to take you with him to Ely, you can be sure that you will not return the same man!'
Aelfrith nodded vigorously. 'Remember what I said to you,' he whispered. 'There are forces at work here of which you have no idea. Your life will not be worth a fig if you do not comply.'
'Now,' the Bishop began again, having controlled himself somewhat, "I will require all here to take an oath that you will act as I have suggested. Master Wilson.'
The Bishop extended his hand, and Wilson stood slowly and knelt in front of the Bishop. He took the proffered hand.
"I swear, by all that I hold holy, that I will do everything in my power to save the College, the University, and the King's name from disrepute. I will tell no one of the events of last night other than as you suggest.' He kissed the seal on the Bishop's ring, bowed, and left the hall without looking back. For the first time since he had known him, Bartholomew felt sorry for Wilson. As Master, he had obviously been held responsible for the events of the night, and would have a formidable task in ensuring the Bishop's fabric of lies was accepted outside the College.
The Bishop eyed Swynford, who rose and swore the same oath. Bartholomew's thoughts were in turmoil.
How could he make such a promise? It would be a betrayal of Sir John, Augustus, Paul, and Montfitchet.
He would be saying that he, one of the most highly qualified physicians in the country, was unable to tell the difference between a living man and a dead one!
He watched as Alcote scurried forward when Swynford left. What could he do? Perhaps he had already signed his death warrant with the Bishop, or with some of the forces about which Aelfrith had warned him.
Alcote left, and William stepped forward. Aelfrith seized his arm. 'You must take the oath! You will not live another day if you do not! Do it for the College, for Sir John.' He broke off as the Bishop gestured for him to approach. Michael slid along the bench towards Bartholomew, his eyes frightened in his flabby face.
'For God's sake, Matt! None of us like this, but you are putting us all in danger. Do you want to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield? Just swear this wretched oath! You do not need to do anything else.
You can always go away until all this dies down.'
Abigny stepped forward. Michael's grip became painful. 'Not to take the Bishop's oath will be treason, Matt. I understand the position you are taking, but it will cost you your life if you persist!' He stood as the Bishop gestured for him to advance, swore his promise, and left.
Bartholomew reflected that his colleagues seemed very keen that he should take the Bishop's oath. Was this out of concern for him, or did they have other, more sinister reasons for wanting his silence concerning the deaths at Michaelhouse? The conclave was silent. The Bishop and Bartholomew regarded each other.
The Bishop suddenly snapped his fingers, and, in an instant, parchment was cleared away, inkhorns sealed, and pens packed. The clerks filed out in silence, leaving the Bishop alone with Bartholomew.
Bartholomew waited, and was surprised when the Bishop sat heavily at one of the tables and put his head in his hands. After a few moments, the Bishop looked up, his face lined and grey with worry, and gestured for Bartholomew to sit next to him.
"I have become so involved in the interests of the Church, and of upholding the law, that I have failed to see some things,' he said. "I know what I am asking you to do is wrong on one level, and yet, on another it is absolutely right. This pestilence is at the centre of it.
Have you heard the news? In Avignon, our Pope has
had to consecrate the River Rhone because there were too many bodies for the graveyards. In Paris, the dead lie stinking in their houses and the streets because there are none left to bury them. All over Europe, villages lie silent.
Many great abbeys and monasteries have lost more than half their brethren.
'Some say it is a visitation from God, and they may be right. The people will need their faith to deal with this terrible plague, and they will need their priests, friars, and monks to help them. If the same happens in England as has already happened in France, there will be a desperate shortage of clergy, and we will need every religious house and the universities to train more.
'Do you not see, Matthew? We must prepare ourselves, and gather our forces. We cannot allow the University to flounder now, just before the people will need it more than ever before. You may have been told that some scholars at Oxford would like very much to see Cambridge fall so that they will have a monopoly over students and masters. This may well be true, but I cannot allow that to happen. We must offer as many places of training as possible, so that we can produce learned clergy to serve the people.
'You made me angry e
arlier, and I am sorry. I had to threaten you because I could not allow your stand to cause the others to waver. I will not force you to take the oath, because you, of all the Fellows, would not want the people to suffer from a lack of spiritual comfort during this terrible plague and the years to follow. I have heard that you choose to work with the poor, when you could easily become rich by healing the wealthy. I know that you understand why I was forced to ask the others to protect the University.'
The Bishop was no longer the splendid figure in purple who had ridden in at the gates, but a man struggling to reconcile his actions with his conscience.
Bartholomew's anger was still very much at the surface, and he had had too many dealings with crafty patients not to be aware that some people possessed powerful skills at lying.
'So where does this leave us?' he said suspiciously.
'It leaves us in your hands, Matthew,' said the Bishop. 'If you will not give outsiders the explanation I have offered, then say nothing. In a few weeks it may not matter anyway, and you and I could be dead.'
He sighed and stood up to leave. 'Go in peace, Matthew,' he said, sketching a benediction in the air above Bartholomew's head. 'You continue God's work in your way, and I will continue in mine, and may we both learn from each other.'
The Bishop walked out of the room, and by the time Bartholomew had limped over to the window to watch him leave Michaelhouse, he had regained his regal bearing. He sat upright in his saddle, and clattered out of the yard with his clerks and monks trailing behind him.
The door of the conclave burst open and Brother Michael shot in, his chest heaving with exertion. 'Oh, thank God!' he said, fervently crossing himself. "I expected to find you here with a knife in your ribs!'
His words brought back a memory of Brother Paul, and he visibly paled. 'Oh lord,' he groaned, flopping into Wilson's chair, 'we really are going to have to be careful!'
5
December 1348
Brother Paul, Augustus, and Montfitchet were laid to rest in the little cemetery behind St Michael's Church two days after the Bishop's visit. The official explanations for their deaths were given to any who asked, and, although speculation was rife for several weeks, the Fellows' consistent rendering of the same story began to pay off. Bartholomew, when asked specific questions, replied that he did not know the answer, although whenever possible he avoided the subject. Eventually, the excitement died down and the incident seemed to be forgotten. Term started at the beginning of October, and, although student numbers were low because of the fear of the impending plague, the Michaelhouse Fellows found themselves as busy as ever with lectures, disputations, and readings.
Bartholomew tried to forget about the events of August; even if he had discovered anything, what could he have done about it? He considered confiding his thoughts to his brother-in-law, but was afraid that if he involved Stanmore, he might endanger him somehow. For the same reason, he did not wish to involve any of his friends.
Rachel Atkin had regained her wits after the death of her son. As well as his manor in Trumpington, Sir Oswald Stanmore owned a large house at his business premises in Milne Street in which his brother Stephen lived with his family. Bartholomew persuaded Stephen to take Rachel as a laundress, and she seemed to settle well enough into his household.
The Oliver brothers remained a problem. They seldom attended lectures, and Wilson would have sent them down had not the College's acquisition of the property on Foul Lane depended on their academic success. Bartholomew occasionally saw Henry glowering at him, but it became so commonplace that eventually he came not to notice it.
Bartholomew spent many of the final days before term in the company of Philippa Abigny. They rode through the rich meadows to Grantchester, and watched the archery competitions in Barton, sometimes alone, but often in the company of her brother and one of his latest loves. Brother Michael or Gregory Colet occasionally acted as chaperons, prudently disappearing on business of their own once outside the sight of the nunnery, leaving Bartholomew and Philippa alone together.
Edith also acted as chaperon, and was only too pleased to encourage her younger brother in his courting. She had been nagging him for years to find a wife and settle down.
Bartholomew and Philippa often strolled together in the pleasant grounds of St Radegund's Priory, careful not to touch each other, for they knew that behind the delicate arches of the nunnery windows the Abbess watched with hawklike eyes.
On several days they attended the great Stourbridge Fair, which ran for most of September and drew huge crowds of people from the countryside for miles around.
They saw fire-eaters from Spain, jugglers from the Low Countries, and jongleurs from France, who sang of deeds of daring. Men and women hawked pies, pastries, drinks of fermented apple, crudely made wooden flutes, and cloths and ribbons of all colours. The smell from roasting meat mingled with that of damp straw and horse manure.
Animals bleated and squealed, children screamed in delight, jousting knights clashed their weapons, and here and there a lone voice shouted warnings of the terrible pestilence that swept over Europe and would soon claim all whom God deemed unholy.
The threat of the coming plague cast a grim shadow over their lives. Stories came to Cambridge of settlements like Tilgarsley in Oxfordshire where every inhabitant had died, leaving behind a ghost village. A third of the population of the city of Bristol was said to have perished, and in October the first cases began to appear in London. Bartholomew spent long hours consulting his fellow physicians and surgeons about how to deal with the pestilence when it came, although the truth of the matter was that they really did not know. The town officials tried to impose some sort of control on who was allowed into the town in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading, but it was impossible to enforce, and those barred from entering merely crossed the ditches, swam the river, or hired a boat.
The first snows fell early, powdering the ground with white before the end of November, and Bartholomew saw an increasing number of elderly patients with chest troubles brought on by the cold. Then, just before term ended, he saw his first case of the plague.
It was a cold morning, with a raw wind howling from the fens, with the promise of more of the persistent drizzling rain that had been dogging Cambridge for the past three days. Bartholomew had risen at five, while it was still dark, and attended Father William's high-speed mass. Lectures started at six, and his students, perhaps sensing the role they might soon have to play, bombarded him with questions. Even Francis Eltham, whom Bartholomew doubted would ever make a physician, had joined in the lively discussion.
Lectures finished around nine, and the main meal of the day was at half-past ten. It was a Friday, and so the meal was fish, freshly baked bread, and vegetables.
Bartholomew tuned out the reading of the Bible scholar and thought about the debate on contagion in which he had just led his students. He wondered how he could convince them that there was a pattern to whom infectious diseases affected, and they were not merely visitations from God. He had risked the wrath of the clerics by refusing to allow the students to consider 'struck down by God' as a determinant for contagious disease. They had to think for themselves. 'Struck down by God' was a convenient excuse for not working out the real causes.
After the meal, all members of College were obliged to attend the midday service in St Michael's Church.
Bartholomew walked back to the College with Michael, who was grumbling about the cold.
'Right! I am away,' said Abigny, coming up behind them and slapping them both on the shoulders. 'It is too damned cold at that College. I am going over to St Radegund's, where they have warm fires to toast pretty little feet.' He raised an eyebrow at Bartholomew.
'Coming? Philippa specifically told me to ask you.'
Bartholomew smiled. 'Tell her I will come later. I have two patients to see first.'
Abigny tutted. 'But will she wait until later, Physician?
I, for one, would not wish to em
brace you after you had been in those shabby hovels you like to frequent.'
'Then it is just as well you will not get the chance, Philosopher,' retorted Bartholomew.
Michael nudged him. 'Just go, man. Your patients will wait; your love might not.'
Bartholomew ignored them and went to collect his leather sack of medicines and instruments. He was in good spirits as he set off towards the Trumpington Gate, despite the bitter wind and the promise of rain. His first call was to the family of tinkers that lived near the river; the other call was on Bridge Street, near the church of the Holy Trinity, to one of Agatha's numerous relatives.
Afterwards, he could go straight to the Priory and visit Philippa while Abigny was still there, since the nuns would not allow Bartholomew to see Philippa unless she was chaperoned.
The first drops of rain were beginning to fall when he reached the tinker's house. A group of children waited for him, standing barefoot in the mud. He followed them to the ramshackle pile of wood and earthen bricks that was their home. It was cold inside, despite the fire that billowed smoke so that Bartholomew could barely see.
He knelt down on the beaten earth floor next to a child who lay in a tangle of dirty blankets, and began his examination. The child was obviously frightened, and Bartholomew found himself chattering about all manner of inane subjects to distract her. The other children clustered round, giggling at his banter.
The child was about six years old, and, as Bartholomew had thought, was suffering from dehydration resulting from severe diarrhoea. He showed the mother how to feed her with a mixture of boiled water and milk and gave her specific instructions about the amounts she should be given. He discovered that the child had fallen into the river two days earlier, and suspected that she had swallowed bad water.
The rain was falling persistently as he walked back along the High Street towards Shoemaker Row, and he was drenched by the time he reached Holy Trinity Church. It was the third time he had been soaked in a week, and he was running out of dry clothes. The only fires Wilson allowed in the College were in the kitchens and, on very cold days, in the conclave, and there was not enough room for all the scholars to dry their clothes.
A Plague On Both Your Houses Page 11
