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

by Gregory, Susanna

  Michael clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘But solving the mystery would not have been nearly as much fun.’

  A few miles away, in the Fens, a man sat at the side of a mere, staring across the sunset-stained water. Arderne was angry at the way matters had ended at Cambridge. He missed his faithful Motelete, he had been forced to abandon all his belongings – including the star-spangled cart of which he had been so proud – and he had grown tired of Isabel. He looked dispassionately at the spread of her hair just below the wind-ruffled surface. She had willingly – eagerly – imbibed the potion he said would give her eternal youth, and then he had slid her into the icy pond when the poison had rendered her immobile. It had been a relatively painless death, and he knew her body would not be found easily, if ever. And by then, Arderne would be long gone, safely plying his trade in another city. Perhaps Bristol this time. Or Oxford.

  He smiled when he thought about his revenge on the men who had foiled his plans. He had sent a barrel of fine wine to the scholars of Michaelhouse, thanking them for their part in solving Lynton’s murder. They would assume it came from a grateful colleague, and would never question it. Of course, when they came to drink they would be in for a shock. Arderne’s famous love-potions were good for a lot more than making the fanciful swoon. The Fellows would toast each other’s health, and by the following morning, they would all be dead. Rougham and Paxtone would never work out what had happened, because they were too stupid.

  The thought of his enemies choking on blistered throats made him grin, and he felt the need to make yet another toast of his own. He took his flask and upended it, draining what was left. But was there a bitter taste that should not have been present? He frowned and sniffed it. The claret seemed all right. He looked in the jar where he kept his ‘mandrake root’ – white bryony looked similar and did much the same thing, but was a fraction of the price. He did not see why should he waste money on people who could not tell the difference anyway. He regarded the pot in puzzlement. Had he really used that much on Isabel?

  He was still pondering the question when he became aware of a numbness in his mouth, followed by a burning pain. He shot to his feet. That woman! She must have detected his growing coldness towards her and tampered with his powders, trying to prepare her own love-potion that would see him fall at her feet. How could she? He tried to recall what Bartholomew had done when Honynge had swallowed the poison. People had talked about it afterwards, but he had paid scant attention. He wracked his brains.

  Charcoal! He staggered to his campfire and began to gnaw on singed twigs. It was not helping. He was feeling worse – dizzier, and the burning was almost unbearable. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled towards the pool. Water would soothe him. He leaned forward but lost his balance. An icy coldness enveloped him, and Isabel’s white face loomed close. Flailing in fright, he grabbed the grass at the edge of the pond. He would feel better soon, and then he would pull himself out. He did not notice the weeds sliding through his fingers, but he did see the brown Fenland waters closing over his head.

  Back at Michaelhouse, the scholars were pleased when Cynric announced the unexpected delivery of a cask of French wine. Deynman went to collect it. He broached it himself, but earned Cynric’s dismayed disapproval when he declined to let the book-bearer taste it, to make sure it was good.

  ‘Servants always taste gifts of wine, boy,’ said Cynric indignantly. ‘It is tradition.’

  Deynman wavered. As College Librarian, tradition was something he felt obliged to uphold. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Cynric. ‘Kenyngham said it was one of Michaelhouse’s most sacred customs.’

  ‘I miss him,’ said Deynman sadly. ‘And Doctor Bartholomew should have asked me what he meant by crocodiles and shooting stars – I could have told him straight away. There is a crocodile carved on the cover of the book Tyrington gave the library – although Master Langelee called it a serpent. It is very distinctive and Kenyngham must have seen it when he visited him once. Meanwhile, Arderne’s personal carriage has shooting stars painted on the side.’

  Cynric regarded him askance. ‘You are right! Why did I not notice them?’

  Deynman shrugged nonchalantly. ‘It takes a Librarian, I suppose.’

  ‘Hurry up, Deynman,’ called William. ‘I am ready to start singing, and it would be good to loosen my throat with a mouthful of good claret first.’

  With an apologetic grin at Cynric, Deynman grabbed the barrel and set off across the yard, but the peacock chose that moment to launch itself at the College cat. Librarian and bird became hopelessly entangled, and the barrel flew from Deynman’s hands to smash on the cobbles.

  ‘Oh, Deynman!’ cried William. He crouched down, and might have considered lapping some of it up – it was not every day Michaelhouse was sent extravagant gifts from grateful colleagues – but the peacock had been there and so had the chickens. He thought better of it.

  ‘It was sour, Father,’ said Cynric soothingly. ‘I tasted it, see. Peterhouse presented us with spoiled wine.’

  ‘Then we shall not send them our thanks,’ declared William, offended and indignant. ‘We shall pretend it never arrived.’

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  In 1327, a College named University Hall was founded in Cambridge. It was never endowed with very much money, and its scholars were almost immediately strapped for cash. Fortunately, help was to hand in the form of the wealthy Elizabeth de Burgh, the Countess of Clare and a granddaughter of Edward I. She stepped in with a hefty benefaction in 1336, and during the next two decades, when she maintained an active interest in the place, University Hall became Clare Hall. Today, it is known as Clare College, or simply Clare, while Clare Hall is a separate foundation established in the 1960s. To avoid confusion, I have referred to the medieval foundation as just Clare, even though it would have been known as Clare Hall.

  Names were the least of Clare’s problems in the fourteenth century. Robert Spaldynge, who had been made a Fellow there in the 1320s, had been put in charge of a house that was being used as a hostel (the building later became known as Borden Hostel). Although it was not his to dispose of, he decided to sell it, an action that saw him deprived of his Fellowship by his peeved colleagues. The story does not end there. For some inexplicable reason, he was later awarded a substantial pension from Clare, and liked his old College well enough that he bequeathed it several valuable books. It has been suggested that Elizabeth de Burgh intervened on Spaldynge’s behalf, and ordered the Master and Fellows to look after him, but we shall probably never know why he was given money after so brazenly breaking his College’s trust.

  Most of the scholars in this book actually existed, although there is no evidence to suggest any of them were criminals, malicious or deranged. Richard Wisbeche was Master of Peterhouse from 1351 until about 1374. Thomas Paxtone was a Fellow of King’s Hall in the 1340s, and later went on to hold lucrative clerical posts all over the country, and William Rougham was a founding Fellow of Gonville Hall.

  The Master of Clare in the 1350s was Ralph Kardington (or Kerdyngton), who remained in post until 1359. His contemporaries included Walter de Wenden, who was probably elected in 1327, John Gedney, who was a Fellow in 1342, and Thomas Lexham, who obtained his master’s degree in 1355 and later became a powerful churchman. Henry Motelete is recorded as giving Clare the sum of five marks in 1355, but then he fades from the records, and there is no evidence that he was ever a proper member of the College.

  Michaelhouse was founded in 1324. Its Master in 1357 was probably Ralph de Langelee, and his Fellows included Michael de Causton and William de Gotham, both of whom later became influential members of the academic community. Thomas Kenyngham (or Kyngingham) was a founding Fellow of the College, and was later its Master. Wynewyk occurs in Michaelhouse records as an early benefactor. John de Falmeresham (or Felmersham) took his master’s degree in the 1340s, and eventually became Warden of St John’s Hospital in Farley, Bedfordshire. Roger de Carton was el
ected a Fellow in 1359, and earned the title of Magister. Roger Honynge was another early Fellow, who gave money as a benefaction, while Roger Tyrington was recorded as a Fellow in 1349 and 1353.

  Proctors wielded considerable power in the medieval Universities, although the arduous nature of their duties probably meant few scholars were very keen on holding the office. Thomas Bukenham is recorded as a proctor in the 1330s.

  The town’s records are less easy to research, but fourteenth-century bailiffs or citizens included Hugh Candelby, John Blankpayn, John Hanchach, Maud Bowyer and Isabel St Ives. Roger Harleston was Mayor from 1356 until 1358. Meanwhile, John Arderne was a famous fourteenth-century surgeon, who is often regarded as the ‘Father of Proctology’.

  The Blood Relics dispute was a bitter one, and spanned several centuries. It reached a crisis in the 1350s, when the Spanish Franciscan Bajulus of Barcelona wrote a tract about it. The issue of whether bits of Christ’s body were left behind after the Resurrection seems trivial today, but in the Middle Ages it was a matter for fierce debate, and had repercussions for the Transubstantiation, as well as other theological niceties. And, of course, there were the handsome revenues from Blood Relic shrines to be taken into account – no religious foundation that owned Blood Relics wanted to be deprived of those. The rift was deep and traumatic, and it sent tremors of shock throughout the entire medieval Church. The scholars at Cambridge would certainly have argued about it. Likewise, the mean speed theorem proposed by the scholars of Merton College, Oxford, would also have been regarded as exciting, heady stuff in the 1350s.

  Rents were a serious business, too, and statutes were drafted in the thirteenth century to make sure certain rules were followed. These seem manifestly weighted in favour of the University – for example, once a house had been rented to a scholar as a hostel, it could only stop being a hostel if the owner wanted to live in it himself. He could not demand it back to lease to someone else. Further, the University was responsible for brokering agreement on what constituted ‘fair’ rents. It is not unreasonable to assume that these statutes led to a good deal of ill feeling between town and University, and confrontations must have occurred on a regular basis.

  THE TARNISHED CHALICE

  The Twelfth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew

  Susanna Gregory

  On a bitter winter evening in 1356, Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael arrive in Lincoln – Michael to accept an honour from the cathedral, and Bartholomew to look for the woman he wants to marry.

  It is not long before they learn that the friary in which they are staying is not the safe haven they imagine – one guest has already been murdered. It soon emerges that the dead man was holding the Hugh Chalice, a Lincoln relic with a curiously bloody history.

  Bartholomew and Michael are soon drawn into a web of murder, lies and suspicion in a city where neither knows who can be trusted.

  ‘A good, serious and satisfying read’ Irish Times

  978-0-7515-3545-7

  A CONSPIRACY OF VIOLENCE

  Chaloner’s First Exploit in Restoration London

  Susanna Gregory

  The dour days of Cromwell are over. Charles II is well established at White Hall Palace, his mistress at hand in rooms over the Holbein bridge, the heads of some of the regicides on public display. London seethes with new energy, freed from the strictures of the Protectorate, but many of its inhabitants have lost their livelihoods.

  One is Thomas Chaloner, a reluctant spy for the feared Secretary of State, John Thurloe, and now returned from Holland in desperate need of employment. His erstwhile boss, knowing he has many enemies at court, recommends Chaloner to Lord Clarendon, but in return demands that Chaloner keep him informed of any plot against him.

  But what Chaloner discovers is that Thurloe had sent another ex-employee to White Hall and he is dead, supposedly murdered by footpads near the Thames. Chaloner volunteers to investigate his killing: instead he is despatched to the Tower to unearth the gold buried by the last Governor. He discovers not treasure, but evidence that greed and self-interest are uppermost in men’s minds whoever is in power, and that his life has no value to either side.

  ‘Immaculate research, a well thought-out plot, and a sense of drama’ Choice

  978-0-7515-3758-1