A Poisonous Plot: The Twenty First Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

by Susanna Gregory

  ‘I have been looking for you,’ came a voice at his side. It was Dodenho from King’s Hall. ‘Two more of our students have gone down with the debilitas, and we need another pot of your miraculous Royal Broth. It has eased all Cew’s symptoms, and he is better than he has been in days, although he is still mad, unfortunately. Still, one thing at a time.’

  Loath to dispense a remedy, even vegetable soup, without examining the patients first, Bartholomew offered to accompany him to King’s Hall while Michael went to question the Austins again. As they walked, Dodenho regaled the physician with opinions, one hand on the sword he wore at his side. Bartholomew was grateful for his martial presence, given the amount of hostility he himself was attracting.

  ‘If the University does go to the Fens, we shall not join it,’ Dodenho declared. ‘It would be a bleak and impoverished existence, and our scholars are all from noble households, so they expect a degree of comfort. I imagine you feel the same, given the luxury in which you live.’

  Bartholomew gave a noncommittal grunt, thinking that Langelee’s ruse had been successful indeed if even the elegant King’s Hall was convinced of Michaelhouse’s affluence.

  When they arrived, Wayt gave reluctant permission for Bartholomew to examine the men who were ill. There were seven in total, exhibiting symptoms as varied as nausea, stomach pains, headaches, insomnia and dizziness. One lad, who had been ill longer than the rest, showed Bartholomew how his foot dropped when he tried to walk, a peculiar problem that had afflicted Cew, too.

  Cew, on the other hand, was considerably improved. His gait was back to normal, there was colour in his cheeks, and he seemed much stronger. Unfortunately, he was again convinced that he was the King of France.

  ‘The metal has gone,’ he confided. ‘We cannot taste it any longer. It must have been in the oysters. They were brought here on the river, you see, and we all know the Seine is poisoned.’

  ‘He means the Cam,’ put in Dodenho helpfully. ‘The Seine is in France.’

  ‘Our sucura is imported via the Seine,’ Cew went on. ‘Our courtiers adore sweet things, and it is our pleasure to indulge them, especially as they put extra in our own soul-cakes as a reward. King’s Hall is awash with it, although Wayt will tell you otherwise. But Frenge knew.’

  Bartholomew glanced at the Acting Warden, and when he saw the expression of weary exasperation on the hirsute face, something suddenly became abundantly clear.

  ‘You lied!’ he exclaimed. ‘You did not argue with Frenge about Anne the day he died – you quarrelled about sucura.’

  Wayt opened his mouth to deny the accusation, but Cew clapped his hands in delight. ‘You have it! You have it! What a clever fool you are!’

  Wayt cast a venomous glare at his colleague, who rocked back and forth, grinning wildly. There was a moment when Bartholomew thought the Acting Warden would attempt to dismiss the claims as the unfounded ravings of a lunatic, but then he threw up his hands in resignation.

  ‘Very well,’ he sighed irritably. ‘Yes – Frenge threatened to tell the Sheriff that we bought illegal sucura, and King’s Hall cannot afford to be seen breaking the law. However, I did not kill him. I merely informed him that if he ever breathed a word of our doings to another living soul, I would sue him for slander.’

  ‘You should have told Michael the truth,’ said Bartholomew accusingly. ‘It was—’

  ‘And risk him betraying us to Tulyet? Do not be stupid! However, you cannot go running to him with this tale, because physicians are morally bound to keep their patients’ ramblings quiet. Ergo, anything that Cew brays is confidential.’

  ‘No one from Michaelhouse would blab about sucura anyway,’ interposed Dodenho. ‘Being so affluent, they purchase it by the bucket load themselves.’

  Bartholomew regarded him thoughtfully. Every College and wealthy hostel in the University had reported cases of the debilitas except one: Michaelhouse. Was it because no one there could afford sucura – that it was the illegally imported sweetener that was making everyone ill? Had it become contaminated somehow, perhaps from the dyeworks? Was that why no pauper had been afflicted by the debilitas, and why it remained exclusively a ‘disease’ of the rich?

  He pulled the little packet that Cynric had given him from his bag, ignoring Dodenho’s triumphant hoot that he had been right, and poured some into his hand. He licked it cautiously. It did not taste as though it would do him harm, but only a fool thought that everything with a pleasant flavour was safe to eat.

  ‘Your theory is flawed,’ said Wayt, when Bartholomew explained tentatively what he was thinking, careful not to reveal that while Agatha had used sucura in the Hallow-tide marchpanes, all the other cakes had been made using the considerably cheaper honey. ‘Osborne of Gonville Hall has the debilitas, but he never touches sweet foods.’

  ‘The same is true of Lenne and the Barnwell folk,’ said Dodenho. ‘They had the debilitas so badly that it killed them, but they never ate sweetmeats either.’

  But the more Bartholomew pondered the matter, the more he was sure that sucura had played a central role in the sudden rise of the debilitas. He decided to experiment, and sent to Michaelhouse for more Royal Broth. When it arrived, he gave instructions that the sick men were to consume nothing but it and boiled barley water for a week. Assuming they followed his advice, he might soon have the beginnings of a solution.

  Michael was waiting for him outside King’s Hall, gloomily reporting that none of the Austins had remembered anything new. The killer had probably entered the convent at dusk, when there had been deep shadows to hide in, and there were no witnesses to the crime – at least, none that he had been able to find.

  ‘And now Kellawe has disappeared,’ the monk added. ‘Morys came to me in a panic about it an hour ago, although I suspect the fellow has just joined the exodus to the Fens.’

  ‘Have you checked the dyeworks? He may be making a nuisance of himself there.’

  ‘Come with me, then,’ said the monk tiredly. ‘Even I do not feel safe walking alone today, but the company of the Hero of Poitiers should serve to protect me.’

  Bartholomew winced. Cynric had been with him when the tiny English army had met the much larger French one, and gloried in the fact that he and the physician had played a part in the ensuing battle. Bartholomew’s contribution to the fighting had been adequate at best, although he had been invaluable in tending the wounded afterwards. However, Cynric, with the blood of bards in his veins, had exaggerated their performance to the point where the rest of the Black Prince’s troops might as well have stayed at home.

  They arrived to find the dyeworks closed. Unusually, there were no protesters outside, so Water Lane was strangely quiet. Then Edith appeared, Cynric hovering watchfully at her side, with a complex explanation about how long woad needed to soak, and as the previous day’s trouble had caused delays, the next stage of the process could not start until noon. It was midday now, so her women were beginning to trickle in. Anne de Rumburgh was among them, sensuously seductive in a new scarlet kirtle, which was not Bartholomew’s idea of obeying Edith’s instruction to ‘stay in the back and keep a low profile’.

  ‘We will be busy this afternoon with the first batch of Michaelhouse tabards,’ chattered Edith as she unlocked the door. ‘We dyed them with weld – yellow pigment – yesterday, so now we will overdye them with woad to make them green. Of course, we had to treat them with … certain substances first, because the garments are black.’

  ‘Toxic substances?’ asked Bartholomew archly. ‘Which produce nasty residues?’

  Edith glared. ‘Of course not. But do not ask me for details, because they are a trade secret.’

  At that moment, Anne flung open the rear door, and then gave a cry of horror when light flooded in to reveal what had hitherto been in darkness. The entire back half of the dyeworks’ floor was submerged in a multicoloured lake – one that had seeped under the door and oozed towards the river in trails of yellow, red and orange. Her howl brought the other
women running, and they stood at the edge of the spillage, gazing at it in stunned disbelief.

  ‘Our crimson!’ wailed Yolande. ‘Some spiteful beast has emptied out every bucket we made! And the weld, too! Who could have done such a terrible thing? It represents weeks of hard work!’

  ‘The window has been forced again,’ said Cynric, going to inspect it.

  ‘By the same villain as last time, I imagine,’ said Anne angrily. ‘For spite, because we almost caught him.’

  ‘He did it to “prove” that we pollute the river,’ said Edith in a strangled voice, while Bartholomew wondered if Kellawe had returned to finish the mischief he had started two days ago, before disappearing to the Fens to avoid another fine. ‘That we let our colorants escape into the water. And how can we deny it when the “evidence” is here for all to see?’

  ‘Then rinse it away before anyone sees,’ advised Michael urgently. ‘I have no idea if it is dangerous, but it looks terrible.’

  ‘It will be too late,’ said Yolande hoarsely. ‘The demonstrators are already gathering. They must have seen us coming to work …’

  In the vanguard of the deputation was Morys, who looked small, mean and angry in his trademark yellow and black. When he saw the vivid stains, his eyes shone with delighted malice.

  ‘Look! Look!’ he yelled triumphantly. ‘The whores have poisoned the river again, and this time the Senior Proctor and his Corpse Examiner cannot pretend they do not know what we are talking about, because they are staring right at it!’

  At his nod, several Zachary students slipped away, clearly aiming to spread word of the outrage. In response, Edith clapped her hands, bringing her workers out of their shocked immobility. Immediately, they set about hauling buckets of water from the river to sluice the offending mess away, although Cynric’s strategy of digging it in with a spade was ultimately more successful. Unfortunately, their labours were all for naught, as the Zachary lads did their work all too well, and people were soon flocking to inspect the damage. Morys was on hand to explain what had happened.

  ‘The strategist has excelled himself this time,’ muttered Michael. ‘This will certainly cause trouble. And do not say we cannot prove he was behind this – of course he was.’

  Bartholomew followed Edith back inside, where the light from the door revealed multihued footprints, made when the invader had hurried about wreaking his destruction. He bent to inspect them, and was surprised to identify not one but two different sets. One was larger and a mark on the sole was indicative of a hole. The other might have belonged to anyone.

  He stood, and his eyes were drawn to the largest of the three great dyeing vats. The outside was liberally splashed with yellow, as it was where Michaelhouse’s tabards were soaking. The ladder, which allowed the women to climb up and inspect the contents, was lying on the floor, and his stomach began to churn when it occurred to him that the staff would never have left it like that. He set it in its clips and began to ascend, aware that Michael, Cynric and the ladies had caught his unease and were watching him intently. He reached the top, but all he could see was sodden material. Then he spotted a hand.

  Appalled, he grabbed it and began to pull, although the rational part of his brain told him that its owner was beyond any help he could provide. The bright yellow face that emerged, eyes open in death, meant nothing to him at first, but then he recognised the pugnacious jaw.

  ‘Christ God,’ he swore. ‘It is Kellawe.’

  As they were worldly women, Edith’s staff were not unduly perturbed by the news that a Franciscan friar was dead in one of their vats, and were eager to scale the ladder and look for themselves. Bartholomew was hard-pressed to stop them, and it took a sharp word from his sister before they fell back. She was white-faced with shock.

  ‘Kellawe must have climbed up there for mischief, lost his balance and pitched in,’ surmised Yolande. ‘His accomplice, being a cowardly brute, ran away and left him to drown.’

  Bartholomew thought she might be right, given that Kellawe had invaded the dyeworks once already, and the ladder was unstable, so it would have been easy to slip. While Yolande elaborated on her theory to the others, Bartholomew glared at Michael.

  ‘You should have arrested him the last time,’ he whispered accusingly. ‘Not just levied a fine. Then he might have been less inclined to reoffend.’

  ‘I thought five shillings would make him think twice about re-indulging his penchant for burglary – it is a veritable fortune,’ Michael hissed back. ‘And keep your voice down. I did not tell Edith that Kellawe was the guilty party, lest she or her ladies decided to take matters into their own hands. She will skin me alive if she learns the truth.’

  She might, thought Bartholomew, and it would serve him right. But quarrelling with Michael was doing no good, so he forced down his irritation. ‘So what does this tell us – that Kellawe was the strategist and our troubles are over? Or that Kellawe was in the strategist’s pay, and came here under orders to cause all this damage?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Wearily, Michael turned to the women. ‘Are you sure you know nothing about this? You did not find him here and decided to deal with the matter yourselves? I understand why you might – he had no business breaking in and you are understandably indignant.’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ replied Yolande frostily. ‘However, if we had killed him, do you really think we would have left him in one of our vats? Of course not! We would have buried him in the Fens, where his corpse would never be found.’

  ‘That is a good point, Brother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Kellawe’s demise will do the dyeworks immeasurable harm, and may even see them closed down.’

  ‘So the bastard will achieve in death what he could not do in life,’ spat Yolande in disgust. ‘God damn him to Hell!’

  Michael began to look around, noting that the footprints were dry, which suggested that Kellawe and his accomplice had broken in some hours before.

  ‘Morys told me earlier that Kellawe left home at midnight, to keep vigil in St Bene’t’s Church for his dead colleagues,’ he mused. ‘He—’

  ‘We finished work at roughly that time,’ interrupted Yolande. ‘However, I can tell you two things: first, I can see St Bene’t’s from my house, and there were no lights there all night – I would have noticed – which means Kellawe said no prayers for his friends. And second, we all have alibis in each other from midnight until now.’

  ‘It is true,’ nodded Edith. ‘Half came home with me and half went with Yolande, because it was late, and we did not want them walking home alone lest they were accused of …’

  ‘Plying their former trade,’ finished Yolande. ‘So none of us shoved your acid-tongued Franciscan in the dye, Brother.’

  Bartholomew was relieved, as he had not liked the notion of investigating his sister’s workforce. He and Cynric began the complex operation of removing Kellawe from the vat without pulling the whole thing over. It was a messy business, even with the smocks and gloves that Edith lent them, and when they had finished, there were several shilling-sized stains on their clothes and skin that would be difficult to remove. Bartholomew began his examination, although he found the saffron-coloured face disconcerting, and so covered it with a cloth.

  ‘Do not tell the students what happened, boy,’ murmured Cynric. ‘They will refuse to wear tabards that have been soaking with a corpse. And who can blame them?’

  ‘That is a good point,’ whispered Michael. ‘We cannot afford to buy the material for new ones. So how did he die? Drowned? Overcome by fumes? That vat does reek.’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ said Bartholomew sombrely. ‘He was strangled. Look, you can see the twine still embedded in his neck. Someone came up behind him, looped it over his head, and pulled until he was dead.’

  ‘Murdered?’ groaned Michael. ‘Not an accident? Are you sure?’

  Bartholomew nodded. ‘Then he was toted up the ladder and dropped into the vat – not to hide the body, given that even I know that these tanks are inspected and
stirred multiple times a day, but for its shock value.’

  Michael’s expression hardened. ‘And all to exacerbate the trouble between us and the town. Is there anything to say who did this terrible thing?’

  ‘No, but our first task should be to check all our suspects’ footwear.’ Bartholomew pointed at the tracks that crisscrossed the floor. ‘The large ones are Kellawe’s – they match the hole in his heel. The others came from a pair of sturdy outside boots, almost certainly his killer’s.’

  ‘We shall do it at once,’ determined Michael. ‘Particularly Zachary’s. Kellawe is the fourth member of that place to die in odd circumstances, so something untoward is unfolding there. However, I can tell you someone who is innocent: Nigellus, who was in my gaol all night. Of course, there is an ex-Zachary man who is mysteriously missing …’

  While Michael asked more questions of Edith’s staff, Bartholomew fetched a bier from St Mary the Great. He commandeered four beadles to carry it at the same time, and had just ushered them inside the dyeworks when he heard a commotion coming from the brewery next door. Beadle Meadowman followed him there to see what was happening.

  They were greeted by a curious sight. Principal Morys was racing from barrel to barrel, attempting to peer behind them, while Shirwynk was trying to stop him. The brewer was large and powerful, but Morys buzzed about like an agile fly and easily evaded the bigger man. Peyn leaned against a wall and laughed at the commotion, although his tone was more mocking than amused, and did nothing to soothe ragged tempers.

  ‘Morys is looking for someone,’ Peyn replied in answer to Bartholomew’s questioning glance. ‘But he is wasting his time: we do not allow our nice clean brewery to be infested by grubby scholars.’

  ‘I know he is in here,’ shouted Morys. Bartholomew glanced at his boots, but if the Principal had been in the dyeworks, he had had the sense to change, because they were spotless. The same was true of the shoes worn by Shirwynk and Peyn. ‘What have you done with him?’