A Deadly Brew

by Susanna GREGORY

  The uncertainty evident in his voice did more to fan the flames of mystery about the cause of Grene’s death than anything Bartholomew could have said. The Fellows looked at each other with renewed suspicions.

  ‘But what if it should be found that Grene’s death was not brought on by disappointment?’ asked one of the Fellows, a tall Dominican friar whom Bartholomew recognised as Father Eligius, Valence Marie’s most celebrated scholar. There was a murmur of consternation from the others.

  ‘And why should such a thing be found?’ asked Harling softly, addressing Father Eligius but then shifting his eyes to Bingham, who shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Far from suppressing the rumours that would soon begin to circulate, Harling’s meaningful look and Bingham’s response seemed to suggest that the Fellows had good cause to speculate.

  ‘That will be for the Senior Proctor to determine,’ said Eligius. Behind him, the other Fellows muttered and gazed worriedly at Michael, concerned, no doubt, that having the Senior Proctor investigate the death of one of their number would do their College’s reputation no good, thought Bartholomew uncharitably.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Harling politely. ‘And Brother Michael will do a thorough job, you can be certain.’ He regarded Bingham suspiciously again, before looking at Grene’s sheeted body.

  The loaded conversation, thick with inner meanings and positively dripping innuendo, was becoming too much even for Michael. He took control.

  ‘Go back to your guests, Master Bingham,’ he said firmly, taking the new Master’s arm and leading him away. ‘Assure them that all is well and then arrange for a vigil to be mounted over Grene.’

  Bingham hesitated, but then complied, evidently grateful to be given an escape route from a situation that was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Vice-Chancellor Harling and the Valence Marie Fellows followed him out of the church, leaving Bartholomew and Michael alone. Michael closed the door as the last scholar left and came to stand near Bartholomew as he stared down at the corpse. Grene’s body lay on a trestle table in the chancel, draped with a darkly stained sheet that had evidently been used to cover the victims of violent death before. At his head and feet, the servant in blue had lit thick wax candles that cast long shadows around the chapel.

  ‘Well?’ asked Michael, his voice echoing in the silence. ‘Was he poisoned?’

  Bartholomew took one of the candles and held it close to Grene’s face, inspecting it with a care he had been unable to exercise while watched by the dead man’s colleagues. Sure enough, Grene’s lips were blemished with small blisters, like the ones Bartholomew had noticed on Brother Armel. Giving the candle to Michael, he prised Grene’s mouth open and looked inside.

  ‘Good God! Look at this!’

  Grene’s mouth was a mass of tiny white blisters that bled and oozed even after death. Michael glanced down and moved back quickly with an exclamation of disgust. Bartholomew forced Grene’s mouth open further and tried to inspect the back of his throat.

  ‘I cannot see,’ he complained. ‘Hold the candle nearer.’

  ‘What more do you need to see?’ protested Michael, keeping his eyes averted. ‘It is clear that he has been poisoned. And we both saw that the bottle was of the same kind as the one from which Armel drank.’

  Bartholomew snatched the candle from Michael impatiently and resumed his examination. ‘No wonder death was instant!’ he exclaimed after a moment. ‘This poison has burned the skin at the back of the throat and the resulting swelling has closed it completely. Even if I had been able to force something into his throat to keep it open for air, he probably would have died when the poison reached his stomach. What a foul substance!’

  ‘Was it the same with Armel?’ asked Michael, noting with relief that Bartholomew had finished his repellent investigation and had closed the unfortunate Grene’s mouth.

  ‘I did not look,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I could not with all his friends watching me – you know how people react over such things. But I can look now.’

  ‘Not now,’ said Michael, nodding towards the unglazed windows. ‘It is dark and the curfew bell will sound soon. I take it Armel’s condition will not change overnight?’ Bartholomew shook his head. ‘Then tomorrow will be soon enough, when you have the daylight to help you.’

  ‘I saw small blisters on Armel’s lips, however,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Just like the ones on Grene. I have little doubt that we will also find the same damage to Armel’s mouth and throat, and that the poison that killed one also killed the other.’

  Michael heaved a great sigh and leaned heavily against one of the pillars. ‘This is terrible, Matt! Two members of the University have been murdered most vilely by townspeople.’

  ‘You do not know that is true of Grene,’ reasoned Bartholomew. ‘Bingham might have killed him. There is no question that Grene would have made ruling Valence Marie very difficult for Bingham. You heard what he said – that the excitement of the day killed his rival. How convenient for him!’

  ‘Convenient indeed!’ came a soft voice from the darkness of the aisle. Bartholomew and Michael jumped in shock. They had believed themselves to be alone and that Bingham had taken all his scholars with him when he had left. Out of the deep shadows, Father Eligius emerged, his pallid features startlingly white above his black gown.

  ‘Eligius!’ exclaimed Michael, peering at the Dominican in the gloom. ‘I thought you had returned to Valence Marie with the others.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Eligius coolly, ‘or you would not have been discussing the murder of poor Grene so candidly. So, Matthew, you believe our new Master dispatched his hated rival with poison?’

  ‘He does not,’ intervened Michael quickly, before Bartholomew could respond. ‘He has no evidence to justify such an accusation. A student seems to have been killed with a similar potion – as you no doubt overheard – and since Master Bingham is unlikely to have a motive for murdering a Franciscan novice, it seems he is also unlikely to have killed Grene. Regardless of what Matt might speculate.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Eligius, moving closer to look at the sheeted body. He lifted a corner of the cloth and gazed down at Grene’s face, eyes half open despite Bartholomew’s attempts to force them closed. An expression of remorse flickered over Eligius’s own features so quickly that Bartholomew thought he might have imagined it, before the sheet fell and Grene was covered once more.

  ‘I do not find Master Bingham’s guilt such an unlikely proposition,’ said the Dominican, looking at Michael.

  Michael spread his hands. ‘How could Master Bingham have killed Grene at the feast?’ he reasoned. ‘There were dozens of guests present. The matter of the contest between him and Grene was public knowledge, and I am sure I was not the only person watching Grene closely to see how he was taking his defeat. Grene and Bingham did not so much as utter a word to each other all evening, let alone one give the other poison. And anyway, imagine how difficult Bingham’s position will be if there is so much as a whiff of rumour that he has harmed his rival. He would find making a success of his Mastership impossible.’

  Eligius considered, watching Michael with unfathomable eyes, and tapping his pursed lips with a long forefinger. He was one of Cambridge’s leading logicians and had taken part in debates in universities all over Europe. Bartholomew had always thought the Dominican philosopher looked every bit a man of learning: he had a head that was too big for his body, an impression accentuated by the way his dark brown hair was chopped short at the forehead and sides but straggled long at the back. He was a tall man, topping Bartholomew by the length of a hand, but was unnaturally thin.

  ‘Master Bingham will find his Mastership difficult regardless,’ Eligius said finally. ‘Grene alive would have opposed anything he tried to do; there are still those loyal to the previous Master – Robert Thorpe – who consider his dismissal a grave miscarriage of justice; and now Grene conveniently dead will arouse suspicions regarding whether Bingham had a hand in it or not. Had Bingham used the few brains he was
born with, he would have foreseen the impossible situation in which he was placing himself and declined the Mastership. Or, if he was wholly unable to resist the lure of power, he should have devised a more discreet way of dispensing with Grene’s presence.’

  Michael eyed him speculatively. ‘And which of the two men did you vote for?’

  Eligius’s thin lips curved into a humourless smile. ‘I was an avid supporter of neither candidate because I was impressed with the qualities of neither. But Grene had an edge over Bingham and I declined Bingham’s offer of a rise in salary to shift my allegiance.’

  ‘He bribed you to vote for him?’ asked Bartholomew with distaste.

  ‘The word “bribe” implies that he offered me something and that I took it,’ said Eligius reproachfully. ‘He might have offered, but I can assure you I took nothing. But while I was content to watch Bingham struggle to rule with Grene alive, I am certainly not prepared to see him in power with Grene murdered. You see, Grene confided to me only last night that he was in fear of his life from Bingham. Naturally, I dismissed his claim as the bitter rambling of a thwarted man. Now I am not so sure.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Bartholomew, aghast. ‘Grene claimed that Bingham might kill him? Are you certain? Could you have mistaken his meaning?’

  Eligius shook his head slowly. ‘Poor Grene made his point most clearly. There is no possibility that I could have misunderstood what he was saying. And then, of course, there is the Valence Marie relic.’ He crossed himself reverently.

  ‘Not that again, Eligius,’ said Michael wearily. ‘The Valence Marie bones were a hoax perpetrated by an evil man. It was not the hand of a saint.’

  ‘Not everyone believes that to be true,’ remonstrated Eligius. ‘I saw that relic and I felt the holiness emanating from it like heat from a fire. Chancellor Tynkell has promised to reinstate it to us so that we can revere it as it deserves.’

  ‘Has he?’ asked Bartholomew, startled. ‘I thought it had been destroyed.’

  ‘It is in the University chest in St Mary’s Church,’ explained Michael. ‘It cannot be destroyed until the question of its legal ownership has been resolved. Wretched thing!’

  ‘It is a gift from God,’ said Eligius, his eyes gleaming with the same fanaticism Bartholomew had seen in Father William’s from time to time. ‘And I am not the only Fellow of Valence Marie to be convinced of its authenticity – Grene believed it, too, although Bingham does not.’

  ‘I hope you are not suggesting Bingham murdered Grene because of the relic,’ said Michael.

  Eligius said nothing.

  ‘But do you honestly see Bingham poisoning Grene in front of all the guests at the feast?’ asked Bartholomew, simultaneously bewildered and unconvinced by the Dominican’s suppositions. ‘You know him better than I, but it seems to me that he does not possess such presence of mind.’

  Eligius sighed. ‘You are probably right,’ he said, his tone of voice making it perfectly clear he did not believe so for an instant. ‘But if Bingham did not kill Grene, who did?’

  Michael and Bartholomew had no answer, and all three scholars looked down at the body lying under its dirty sheet on the table. A breath of wind gusted suddenly, making the candle flames flutter and lunge and splattering heavy drops of rain onto the stone floor to echo eerily around the otherwise silent church.

  ‘There is something about Father Eligius I find disconcerting,’ said Bartholomew, shivering as he watched Michael try to poke some life into the dull embers of the kitchen fire.

  Michaelhouse, despite its fine buildings and formidable gateway, was not wealthy, and firewood had been expensive since the plague. Usually, Master Kenyngham allowed a fire in the hall during winter so that the scholars had some warmth for lectures, but the wet weather was mild and, at a meeting of the Fellows in December, it was mooted that a fire was an unnecessary extravagance. Bartholomew had argued that dampness was as chilling as winter snow, and that the students needed somewhere to dry their clothes. Kenyngham had wavered, since he took Bartholomew’s concerns about health seriously, but Langelee, backed by Alcote – who was sufficiently affluent to afford a fire in his own chambers anyway – argued that such luxuries were needless, and that was that. The only fire in Michaelhouse was in the kitchen; Kenyngham had been forced to declare that out of bounds when Agatha, the College laundress, had claimed so many students were vying to sit near it, that the servants could not reach it to do the cooking.

  By the time Bartholomew and Michael had returned from the feast, Michaelhouse was silent. Here and there, lights flickered in windows, suggesting that there were a few scholars who could afford a candle to render the long winter nights more endurable with reading or illicit games of cards, but most were asleep, rolled up in their blankets in a vain attempt to keep the iciness of the stone-built rooms at bay. The kitchen, too, was deserted, the cook and his assistants having retired to their own quarters above the laundry for the night. Agatha often sat in her great wooden chair by the fire in the evenings, straining her eyes to sew, or holding forth about all manner of subjects to anyone who would listen. But it was late, and the barely glowing embers suggested that Agatha had long since gone to her bed.

  On the table, wrapped in a piece of old blanket from the laundry, were the bottles of poisoned wine – three from the novices at St Bernard’s Hostel and the one that had killed Grene. All four were identical, so that it was clear they had come from the same source. The Valence Marie porter, back at his post with his hand swathed in a huge and inexpertly tied bandage that bore the hallmarks of Robin of Grantchester’s work, had regarded the containers fearfully, as though he imagined their contents might leap out and pour themselves down his throat. Bartholomew had tried to question him about his burned hand, but the porter declined to incriminate himself, and continued to insist that he had merely been moving them to a safer place. Exasperated, Bartholomew recommended that the wine Grene had spilled in his death throes was treated with appropriate caution, and had carried the other bottles back to Michaelhouse.

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ snapped Michael, glaring at the feeble glow of the fire. ‘I am the University’s Senior Proctor and one of the finest theologians in the country – do not look like that, Matt, it is true – and here I am reduced to blowing on ashes to warm my frozen feet. I have had enough of this!’

  He stormed from the kitchen, leaving the startled physician alone in the chilly kitchen wondering whether he was coming back. A few moments later, Michael returned, his arms full of logs.

  ‘There,’ he said, setting them in the hearth and watching the flames take hold. ‘That is better. Now, all that aggravation has given me an appetite. Fetch some ale to mull, Matt, and I will see what can be salvaged from that miserable hole Agatha sees fit to call her pantry.’

  He returned with several slices of fat bacon, some cheese and half a venison pie that Bartholomew knew was the personal property of Roger Alcote. The physician set the ale to mull over the now merry fire and watched Michael eat, wondering how he could, given the quantity of food he had put away at the installation feast.

  ‘You were giving me your impressions of Father Eligius,’ said Michael, barely understandable through a mouthful of pie. His eyes watered, and he began to cough as crumbs caught at the back of his throat from trying to eat and talk at the same time.

  ‘Only that I find him disconcerting,’ said Bartholomew, giving him a hefty thump on the back.

  ‘Father Eligius is a fine scholar,’ said Michael, swallowing the pie and jamming a sizeable chunk of bacon in his mouth. ‘He has disconcerted some of the finest minds in the western world with his logic and theories.’

  ‘I was not referring to his intellect,’ said Bartholomew, pulling his stool as close to the fire as possible and holding his frozen hands near the dancing flames. ‘I find his attitude to Grene’s death unsettling.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Michael, surprised. ‘His reaction seemed perfectly reasonable to me, given what Grene had confided the
day before.’

  Bartholomew pondered as he watched Michael sit in Agatha’s chair, accompanied by a medley of grunts and sighs as he settled himself comfortably. ‘I suppose it was the casual way he revealed that Grene was in fear of his life. Had you confided to me that you were afraid someone would kill you, and you were poisoned within a day, I would be a little more vocal about it.’

  ‘With Bingham there?’ asked Michael, stretching his sandalled feet towards the fire. ‘That probably would have caused exactly the kind of confrontation Valence Marie needs to avoid. Bingham would have denied the accusation vehemently – perhaps even violently.’

  Bartholomew was silent, thinking. ‘The same kind of poisoned wine was used to kill both Armel and Grene. We know Armel bought his from a man in a tavern, but how could Bingham have acquired some – today of all days, when his every moment would have been filled with preparations for the installation? Surely Eligius, as a logician, can see that is unlikely.’

  ‘Your own logic is failing you, my friend,’ said Michael. ‘It is entirely possible that this wine-seller sold claret to both Bingham and Armel. Perhaps not today, but maybe yesterday or last week. Bingham might have had no idea that the stuff was poisoned and it might be mere coincidence that Grene was the victim.’

  ‘Do you honestly believe that Bingham bought a bottle of wine – just the one, mind you, since your own search revealed that there was not another like it in the hall – and it just happened to be poisoned and just happened to end up being consumed by his arch-enemy, Grene?’ asked Bartholomew incredulously.

  Michael rubbed the rough whiskers on his chin and answered with a question of his own. ‘Do you think Bingham murdered Grene? You told Eligius you did not think he had the presence of mind, despite the fact that it was your observation of the convenience of Grene’s death to Bingham that brought Eligius from the shadows in the first place.’