To Kill or Cure: The Thirteenth Chronicle Of Matthew Bartholomew (The Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

by Gregory, Susanna

  ‘It is hardly a matter of conscience, Father,’ said Langelee impatiently. He turned to the monk. ‘I shall stand with you, Michael, and I shall persuade a few others to do likewise.’

  ‘You will not use rough tactics, will you?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily.

  ‘I might,’ said Langelee airily, rubbing his hands together. ‘It depends how willing they are to accept my point of view. William is right: if Michael loses, his failure will reflect on our College, and I do not want to be seen as the Master of a place that cannot get its own way.’

  Bartholomew was not very interested in Langelee’s political manoeuvrings, and was more concerned to find out where Falmeresham had been for the last four days. The student was pale and thin, but his eyes were bright, and his old grin was plastered firmly across his face. Carton was also smiling, although not as broadly as the physician would have expected.

  ‘We were worried about you,’ said Bartholomew chidingly, as he went to sit next to his student. ‘Could you not have sent word to say that you were safe?’

  ‘You had several days to do it,’ added Carton, rather coolly.

  ‘Magister Arderne said it would be better to wait, to make sure his treatment of my fatal wound was successful,’ replied Falmeresham apologetically. ‘He feared for my life the first two days.’

  ‘It was not a fatal wound,’ said William pedantically, ‘if it did not kill you.’

  ‘But it did kill me,’ said Falmeresham earnestly. ‘I was dead, and Magister Arderne brought me back to life. It was a miracle!’

  ‘Was it indeed?’ murmured Bartholomew. ‘Where were you wounded?’

  Falmeresham raised his tunic to reveal a small, neat scar. ‘Blankpayn’s knife plunged deep into my liver. Magister Arderne pulled the whole thing out, stitched it up, and replaced it again.’

  ‘Did he?’ asked Bartholomew, astonished. In the past, he had extracted damaged organs, gently sutured them, and then put them back, but there was nearly always a fever afterwards, and it was often fatal. However, he had never attempted the procedure with anything as vital as a liver. Like most medici, he tended to leave livers alone.

  ‘And it hardly hurt at all,’ Falmeresham went on, clearly impressed. ‘Well, the stitching-up did, I suppose, but having my liver removed did not. I saw it in Magister Arderne’s hands.’

  ‘What did it look like?’ asked Deynman with ghoulish curiosity.

  ‘Large, knobbly and green,’ replied Falmeresham.

  There was an awed gasp from his listeners. Bartholomew frowned, recalling from dissections he had attended at the universities in Salerno and Montpellier that human livers were never ‘knobbly and green’. However, because anatomy was forbidden to English scholars, it was not something he could tell anyone. He wondered whether Falmeresham had been fed a potion that had made his wits reel during what must have been a serious undertaking. He knew from personal experience that it was better to have patients insensible during surgery, rather than thrashing around and fighting back.

  ‘How did you come to be in Arderne’s care?’ asked Carton, pouring Falmeresham more wine. ‘I asked virtually everyone in Cambridge, but no one recalls you being carried away.’

  ‘And Arderne was busy with Candelby and Maud after the accident, anyway,’ added Michael. ‘He took them in his cart, because theirs was wrecked.’

  ‘That brutish Blankpayn laid hold of me,’ said Falmeresham resentfully. ‘I thought at first that he was going to haul me off to a quiet place and finish me. But he believed I was dead already, and his chief concern was to hide the body before he could be accused of murder. He took me to the Angel, because it was closer than his own inn, and his plan was to drop me down the well.’

  ‘People drink from that,’ said Bartholomew in distaste. ‘He might have poisoned the—’

  ‘But I was not dead, and Candelby refused to let him do it anyway,’ interrupted Falmeresham, eager to finish his tale. ‘Magister Arderne happened to be in the Angel, seeing to Candelby’s arm, and he ordered me taken to his own house on the High Street.’

  ‘You mean you were held captive by townsfolk?’ asked Michael. ‘First Blankpayn, then Candelby, and finally Arderne?’

  ‘Magister Arderne was helping me,’ said Falmeresham firmly. ‘Candelby was not all bad, either. He would not let Blankpayn drop me down the well, and he was angry with him for knifing me in the first place.’

  ‘And you are completely recovered?’ asked Langelee.

  ‘Completely,’ said Falmeresham with a bright, pleased grin. ‘Magister Arderne gave me some medicine that he said would facilitate good healing, and it has worked. He recommended that I return to you as soon as I was able to walk – which was tonight. So, here I am.’

  ‘I am pleased to see you safe,’ said Bartholomew, wishing the healer had told him what he had done. It had been unkind to keep him – and Falmeresham’s friends – in an agony of worry for four long days. ‘There has been rather too much death of late.’

  Falmeresham nodded. ‘But Magister Arderne is fighting death wherever he can. He and I talked for hours, and he knows so much. He invited me to study with him, and it was a tempting offer, but I decided my place was here.’

  ‘It is,’ said William. ‘You have already paid next term’s fees, and they are non-refundable.’

  ‘But it was a hard choice,’ said Falmeresham wistfully. ‘Magister Arderne has such exciting ideas. You once told me that it was impossible to mend a split liver, Doctor Bartholomew.’

  ‘I thought it was. I have seen surgeons try it on three separate occasions, but the patient died in each case. What did Arderne do that was different?’

  ‘He applied his feather,’ said Falmeresham, quite seriously. ‘It is very effective. Patients were coming to his house all day, and I could see him curing them through the door he left ajar. Magister Arderne is a wise and learned man.’

  ‘Magister Arderne this, Magister Arderne that,’ grumbled Michael to Bartholomew, when the others had gone. ‘I am tired of hearing the name. Do you think Falmeresham is telling the truth?’

  ‘The truth as he knows it,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘However, the scar on his side is too small for a liver to have been pulled through it, and it is in the wrong place. He was probably in pain from his cut, and drowsy from strong medicine – not in a position to know what was really happening.’

  ‘He is beginning to worship the man,’ said Michael. ‘We are lucky he came back.’

  ‘Why did Arderne let him?’ mused Bartholomew. ‘It sounded as though he wanted an apprentice. And why not? Falmeresham is intelligent, quick witted and he learns fast.’

  ‘Perhaps he is an unwitting spy. We shall have to be careful what we say around him.’

  ‘Why would he spy on us?’

  ‘Spy on you. I am not saying Falmeresham would deliberately hurt you – he would not – but Arderne is quite capable of manipulating him. Our healer is a dangerous man, who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And he wants you gone, so we shall have to be careful. I, for one, do not want to see him succeed.’

  CHAPTER 8

  Although William and Wynewyk were scheduled to preside over the mock disputations that Friday morning, Langelee decided the new Fellows should earn their keep, and had informed them at breakfast that they were free to choose any topic they pleased. Honynge sighed heavily, and muttered something about using the free days outside term to conduct his own research, although Tyrington was more amenable.

  ‘Anything for Michaelhouse,’ he said, rubbing his hands and leering at Langelee in a way that made the Master clench his fists. Langelee disliked sycophantic men, and was not overly pleased to be decorated with the remnants of Tyrington’s breakfast either.

  ‘Do not debate Blood Relics, though,’ said William, standing with his hand covering the top of his breakfast ale to prevent Tyrington from adding to it. It was a defensive gesture that all the Fellows had employed the previous evening, and one Wynewyk had already dubbed ‘the Michaelh
ouse Manoeuvre.’ Bartholomew suspected it would not be long before they did it without thinking, and rival foundations would laugh at them for it. ‘We had enough of that last night.’

  Tyrington nodded. ‘You are right – the College does not seem ready for such weighty theology, so we should stick to simpler issues. How about whether counterfactuals – natural impossibilities, as they are also known – can overthrow the fundamental principles of an Aristotelian world view?’

  ‘I think I will stay here this morning,’ said Bartholomew to Michael. A debate on theoretical physics sounded a good deal more appealing than investigating the murder of a colleague.

  ‘Now just a moment,’ said William, offended by the slur on his colleagues’ collective intellect. ‘I resent your implications, Tyrington. Michaelhouse owns some of the best minds in the University.’

  ‘Actually, it does not,’ countered Honynge. ‘Tyrington and I will redress the balance, but it will take time. He is also correct in saying that we should debate simple topics to start with, which means the subject he has proposed is too advanced. We must select something even more basic, and build up to more complicated issues as term progresses.’

  ‘I wonder what he has in mind,’ said Michael, watching the servants dismantle the trestle tables in the hall and stack them behind the screen at the far end. William might splutter indignation at the new members’ comments, but the monk knew there was truth in them. He and Bartholomew were well-regarded in academic circles, but Wynewyk was more interested in College administration than in honing his mind, and Langelee had never made any pretence at scholarship. The two absent Fellows were solid but not outstanding, and he was perfectly aware that standards had slipped below foundations like Gonville, Clare and Trinity Hall.

  ‘Of course,’ Honynge muttered under his breath, ‘an inflated view of their worth is to be expected from men who put dog in their breakfast pottage.’

  ‘We do no such thing!’ said William angrily. ‘It is a Friday, and we never eat meat on Fridays.’

  ‘That means they have dog on other days,’ whispered Honynge. ‘You will have to watch them.’ He turned and walked away, having achieved the impossible: leaving William at a loss for words.

  When the servants had rearranged the benches to face the high table, the students began to take their places. The hall was rather full that morning, especially given that term had not yet started, because of the twenty new students. Honynge’s seven, Tyrington’s three and Lynton’s two were sitting together at the back, while the eight who had been chosen from the sodden hopefuls chose the front rows, eager to prove themselves to their new teachers.

  ‘I shall preside,’ announced Honynge, elbowing Langelee unceremoniously from the dais. ‘As I am obliged to be here, I may as well be in charge.’

  Langelee’s eyes narrowed. ‘Watch who you push around, man – unless you want to be pushed back. At Michaelhouse, people shove the Master at their peril.’

  Langelee had a way of sounding pugilistic even when he was trying to be pleasant, and when there was genuine menace in his voice, folk tended not to argue with him. Honynge nodded a prudent apology, and began to pace back and forth in front of the high table. When he spoke, his ringing voice silenced the rumble of conversation in the hall.

  ‘The subject we shall debate is: frequens legum mutato est periculosa. Who will translate?’

  ‘I will,’ said Deynman, leaping to his feet with one of his guileless smiles. ‘It means “frequently asking vegetables to remain mute makes them very discontented”.’

  ‘Lord!’ groaned Bartholomew. ‘He knows even less Latin now than when he first arrived.’

  Falmeresham and his cronies were sniggering, although the new students were too unsure of themselves to join in. Langelee nodded, suggesting that he found Deynman’s interpretation perfectly acceptable, while Wynewyk and Michael were uneasy, anticipating that Honynge’s inevitable scorn would bring about a quarrel. William looked puzzled and Tyrington was regarding Deynman warily, not sure what to think.

  ‘No, Deynman,’ said Honynge, surprisingly gently. ‘Although you have correctly identified the verb and the noun, which is to be commended. However, the proper translation is: a too frequent alteration of the laws is dangerous.’ Here he looked meaningfully at Michael.

  ‘By laws, do you mean Statutes?’ asked the monk icily.

  Honynge shrugged. ‘Changing the University’s Statutes to suit townsmen’s pockets is not a good idea, and I shall vote against it.’

  ‘I agree with your sentiments,’ said William. ‘But loyalty to colleagues comes first, and you should back Michael’s attempts to placate these landlords.’

  ‘I shall not,’ declared Honynge. ‘I shall vote as my conscience dictates. However, our students will not learn much today if all they do is hear us squabble. Let us begin this disputation.’

  ‘He is a sharp-tongued cur,’ whispered Langelee to Bartholomew, as the Fellows retreated to the back of the hall, leaving Honynge and Tyrington at the front. ‘I cannot say I like him.’

  ‘It was your decision to elect the man,’ said Bartholomew, feeling the Master had a lot to answer for. ‘If you had taken Carton, Michaelhouse would still be a haven of peace.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Michael, overhearing. ‘He has odd habits, too – such as going out after the curfew and declining to say where.’

  ‘Tyrington is all right, though,’ said Langelee. ‘I am not keen on his leering and slobbering, but at least I do not feel the urge to plunge a blade in his gizzard every time he opens his mouth. It is a good thing Honynge does not sit next to me at meals, because I would not like my appetite spoiled by an effusion of blood.’

  Bartholomew regarded him uncomfortably, not sure how much was humour and how much heartfelt desire. ‘Michael will find a non-violent solution to the problem. Just give him time.’

  ‘He has too many other things to worry about – finding Lynton’s killer, ending the rent war, averting trouble brought about by Arderne. He cannot manage Honynge, too.’

  ‘Oh, yes he can,’ said Michael firmly. ‘Especially if it transpires that Honynge killed Lynton.’

  Langelee was alarmed. ‘I sincerely hope that is not the case! If it is, Peterhouse might demand compensation from us – for the murder of one of their Fellows by one of ours.’

  ‘The crime was committed while Honynge was still at Zachary,’ said Michael. ‘It had nothing to do with us.’

  ‘But Zachary no longer exists,’ Langelee pointed out. ‘Candelby reclaimed it yesterday, the moment Honynge and his students vacated. He grabbed Tyrington’s hostel, too, and a wealthy goldsmith is already installed there. He must be delighted, because Tyrington was not due to leave Piron until September.’

  ‘Piron was well maintained,’ said Bartholomew, recalling the sumptuous building. ‘It needed no repairs before it could be leased again, so I am not surprised Candelby has filled it quickly.’

  ‘Zachary is the same,’ said Langelee. ‘It is a bit shabby on the outside, but the inside was always clean and neat. I imagine Honynge and Tyrington were ideal tenants from that standpoint.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said Michael, breaking into their discussion. ‘The disputation begins.’

  ‘I like your notion, Deynman,’ said Honynge, smiling pleasantly at the student. ‘The topic of a debate is irrelevant, and what is important is our ability to present coherent, logical arguments. In fact, I would suggest that debating the absurd requires greater skill than topics with which we are familiar. So, as president, I have decided that the subject will be the one Deynman has mooted: Let us enquire whether frequently asking vegetables to remain mute makes them very discontented.’

  The students laughed.

  ‘We cannot debate that,’ cried William, aghast. ‘I do not understand what it means!’

  ‘That is part of the exercise,’ explained Tyrington, not bothering to hide his exasperation with a man who should have known better. ‘You must define your terms. An
d then an opponent will challenge them.’

  Falmeresham stepped up to propose that vegetables disliked being asked to remain silent, and although his analysis had the hall ringing with laughter, his logic was impeccable. When he had finished, Tyrington put the opposite side of the argument. It was a lively debate, and Honynge was careful to let each student have his say, even Deynman. When someone made a mistake, it was highlighted patiently and kindly; Bartholomew wished Honynge was as considerate of his senior colleagues.

  Tyrington’s enthusiasm was infectious, so there was very little wandering of attention. When Carton – the only one of the assembled scholars who did not seem to be enjoying himself – began to gaze out of the window, Tyrington balled up a fragment of parchment and pitched it, hitting the commoner plumb in the centre of the forehead. Carton spun around with a start, and the other students smiled at his confusion. When Tyrington scored another direct hit a few moments later, Bartholomew suspected he had honed the skill to perfection: Carton glared at Tyrington, his normally bland face dark with fury.

  ‘Damn!’ murmured Michael. ‘They are both skilled teachers. I expected Honynge to be pompous and overbearing, but the students like him. And Tyrington’s obvious love of learning has even enthused my dispassionate Benedictines – I have never seen them so animated. What a nuisance! I was hoping to use incompetence as a means to be rid of Honynge, but now I cannot.’

  ‘Damn indeed,’ said William. ‘We shall have to think of something else, because I do not want him in my College. He is a vile creature – probably a secret Dominican.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Bartholomew asked, as the friar shoved past him, heading for the door.

  ‘To buy some dog-meat,’ replied William. ‘And lots of it.’