A Deadly Brew

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘Of course, Armel and his friends were not to know that,’ said Gray in a superior tone. ‘That bunch of nuns never break the University rules. They came to the George yesterday for the first time ever – can you believe it when the tavern is only next door to their hostel? – and fell for Sacks’s patter.’

  ‘Then why did you not warn them?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Surely it was uncharitable to allow them to buy potentially stolen goods?’

  ‘They are from Bernard’s,’ said Deynman with high indignation. ‘A hostel! Had they been Michaelhouse students, it would have been different.’

  ‘And it was only wine,’ said Gray, grinning at Deynman. He sobered suddenly as he thought about it. ‘Except it was not, was it?’

  ‘No,’ said Bartholomew shortly. ‘It was not. What of Sacks? Has he a grudge against students?’

  The three looked at each other, mystified. ‘I would say not,’ said Gray. ‘Students provide him with much of his trade. He has been operating in the George for years.’

  So, it would seem that Armel had not been sold the poisoned wine intentionally – at least not by Sacks. But there was always the possibility that someone had given it to Sacks to peddle knowing exactly what was in it.

  ‘Where does Sacks live?’ asked Bartholomew.

  Gray shrugged. ‘No one really knows. He has cheated so many people that it is safer for him to keep his lodgings secret. I think he has some kind of dwelling to the north, up in the Fens. He certainly does not live in Cambridge.’

  ‘Two more questions,’ said Bartholomew, ‘and then we will say no more about these illicit visits to taverns. First, how many bottles did Sacks have yesterday?’

  ‘Four,’ said Gray promptly. ‘And they looked like the same ones he had tried to sell last month – thin bottles of a smoky-brown colour.’

  ‘And second, to whom did he sell the other bottle?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘We know Armel bought three.’

  The students looked at each other, frowning in concentration.

  Deynman suddenly brightened. ‘One of fat old Stanmore’s apprentices bought one when Sacks first tried to sell the stuff a month or so ago. I do not know his name.’

  ‘One of Oswald Stanmore’s lads?’ asked Bartholomew.

  Deynman blushed, embarrassed. He had forgotten Stanmore was his teacher’s brother-in-law.

  ‘That was … four weeks last Saturday,’ said Bulbeck hurriedly, before Deynman could dig himself into a deeper trench of indiscretion. ‘Perhaps Sacks still has the last bottle. He said he had half a dozen when he first tried to sell them, and he had four last night. So, if he had only sold two bottles in a month, he could not have been doing too well with them.’

  Gray and Deynman agreed and looked at Bartholomew warily, not certain what he would do with the knowledge that they had been regularly and flagrantly flouting the University’s rules about inns.

  ‘We only went out because Sam has been depressed,’ said Deynman. He looked at Gray, who gnawed anxiously at his lower lip. ‘He has been sad since Eleanor Tyler left town last year. He was fond of her and we only wanted to cheer him up.’

  Bartholomew was unmoved. ‘That was months ago and you had not known her for long.’

  ‘But it was love at first sight,’ protested Deynman, rallying to his friend’s defence. ‘They adored each other and he misses her terribly.’

  Bartholomew sighed. Unconvinced as he was by Gray’s lovesick state – he seriously doubted that anyone could penetrate the thick skin of self-interest that was one of the less attractive aspects of Gray’s personality – he often felt the University’s regulations were too restrictive for young men with high spirits. Trying to ban them from taverns was as hopeless as emptying a well with a sieve. But he was fond of these three students nevertheless, and the thought that one of them might go the same way as Armel filled him with horror.

  ‘While I am gone, and until this business is over, I want you to promise me you will stay away from taverns and eat only in Michaelhouse. Do I have your word?’ He looked at them one by one.

  ‘But you might be gone for ages,’ protested Gray. ‘We will starve if we eat only Michaelhouse food.’ He looked sly. ‘And I need to build myself up for my disputation.’

  Bartholomew could not help smiling. ‘Then you must attempt to ingratiate yourself with Agatha. She feeds Michael well enough.’

  Gray could not argue that the obese Michael was anything but well fed. He nodded with ill grace. ‘I suppose, since you seem so concerned for our welfare, that we will humour you and suffer on Michaelhouse fare until you return.’

  ‘I am more concerned that years of my hard work should not be brought to an untimely end by a single sip of wine,’ said Bartholomew. He was gratified to see Gray look indignant. Gray had twice saved Bartholomew’s life and both times had claimed his sole motive was that if he lost his teacher it would interfere with his plans to become a wealthy and successful physician. Bartholomew felt somewhat avenged.

  When he had wrung similar promises from the other two, he took his leave. Cynric was waiting for him, holding Bartholomew’s cloak over his arm and with spare shirt and hose packed in a bag. Michael joined them.

  ‘I need to talk to Harling before we leave for Ely. I must tell him what we have reasoned about Grene’s death.’

  ‘We should also speak to Oswald about the apprentice that Philius said he visited a month ago,’ said Bartholomew. ‘The one who died of symptoms similar to those suffered by Armel and Grene.’

  ‘Should we?’ asked Michael, raising his eyebrows. ‘And here was I under the impression that you wanted to have nothing to do with my investigation. Silly me!’

  ‘I do not,’ protested Bartholomew. ‘I only want to ensure the safety of Oswald and his apprentices. And I promised to check on Philius this morning. It will not take long.’

  Michael glanced up at the sky. ‘We must leave enough time to reach Ely by nightfall and we will need longer than usual if the riding is rough. Especially with you along,’ he added rudely, referring to Bartholomew’s notorious lack of skill on horseback.

  Leaving Cynric to take their bags to the Brazen George, Bartholomew and Michael went first to Gonville Hall. Michael talked with Master Colton while Bartholomew went to see his patient.

  Philius was sitting up in his bed eating oatmeal cooked with milk. He was pale and ate carefully so as not to hurt his burned mouth, but at least he was well enough to eat at all.

  ‘I hear I need to thank you twice – once for delivering me from the poison that was eating away at my innards, and once for quenching a fire that would have burned me to a cinder.’ He gestured for Bartholomew to sit on one of the stools near the bed. ‘Now, as to the matter of payment …’

  Bartholomew shook his head. ‘Who knows? I might need your services one day.’

  Philius smiled. ‘So be it. Although I was always under the impression that you regard my traditional approach to medicine with more than a degree of scepticism.’

  ‘That is not true,’ said Bartholomew. He shrugged. ‘I just experiment more than you do.’

  ‘So I have heard,’ said Philius. ‘Isaac told me …’ He trailed off and the events of the previous night hung in the air uncomfortably between them. Philius swallowed hard and continued. ‘Isaac told me that you had treated a case of the bloody flux with nothing more than boiled water.’

  ‘It worked,’ said Bartholomew defensively. ‘And I used infusions of cumin and anise as well, not to mention a specially devised diet for afterwards–’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Philius, raising one hand to quiet him. ‘I was not criticising you, merely repeating what I had been told. I was going to suggest we might learn something if we could be a little more patient with each other’s ideas. I hear you are writing a treatise on fevers. I have always been interested in fevers and would very much like to read it when it is completed.’

  ‘That will not be for some time,’ said Bartholomew gloomily. ‘There are too many distractions
– teaching, my patients and now this summons to Ely.’

  He told Philius about the attack on the Chancellor. The Franciscan shook his head. ‘Cambridge is becoming a dangerous place. I am seriously thinking of leaving and returning to Italy. There are brigands there, too, of course, but at least it does not rain all the time.’

  He toyed with his food and then looked at Bartholomew, his eyes anxious. ‘It is a bad business with Isaac. I was uncertain whether you understood what I was trying to say. Isaac was always looking to make money, although I usually turned a blind eye. Anyway, I attended Stanmore’s house late on a Saturday night – more than a month ago now – where one of the apprentices had been struck down with some kind of seizure. He was already dead when I arrived and, since there was nothing I could do, I left almost immediately. But I noticed the symptoms you mentioned last night – blistering of the lips and signs of suffocation.’

  He paused, gazing at the logs crackling merrily in the hearth. The charred rugs had already been replaced with newer, finer ones, and large bowls of dried flowers added their pungent scent to the underlying acrid stench of burning. Philius continued.

  ‘Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Isaac slip something into his bag, although I was not certain what it was. When I heard you question him about the wine he used in my purge, I realised exactly what had happened. I take a purge each Saturday morning to maintain the balance of my humours and Isaac makes it up for me once a month. The poisoned bottle must have sat harmlessly for four weeks before Isaac used it. I was lucky you guessed the cause of my ailment or I might be dead.’

  ‘Probably not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You might have recovered on your own.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I would have taken the purge again next week – not knowing it was the cause of my illness – and then I would have died for certain. It is due to you that I am alive today and I thank you for it most sincerely.’

  Bartholomew rose to leave, embarrassed by the Franciscan’s profuse gratitude. ‘I am glad the treatment worked, Philius. I admit I was uncertain that it would.’

  ‘So was I, given that you had not consulted any astrological charts to see what my stars suggested, or even bled me.’

  Bartholomew raised his hands, not wishing to become embroiled in a debate over the efficacy of the methods Philius employed while Michael waited for him. ‘I imagine you had bled all too much as a result of the burning nature of the poison.’

  Philius held out his hand to Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps you are right. Meanwhile, when I am well I will make some inquiries among some of my brethren who have experience with poisons, and if I discover the nature of the potion that struck me down, I will let you know.’

  Bartholomew thanked him politely, declining to ask how Philius’s Franciscan brethren had acquired their ‘experience with poisons’. Philius had completed his medical training at the University of Salerno in Italy, and Bartholomew had been told that Italians were very skilled in the uses of toxic substances. Philius probably knew far more about them than did Bartholomew.

  ‘You said Grene died from drinking this poison, as well as the young student from Bernard’s?’ asked Philius as Bartholomew reached the door. ‘Perhaps it was as well. Poor man.’

  Bartholomew gazed at him uncertainly, the hand that had been stretching out to the handle arrested in mid-air.

  ‘Around Christmas I diagnosed a wasting sickness in Grene,’ Philius continued. ‘You and I have seen many such cases before – there is no cure and the demise is long and painful. I estimated that he had a few months to live at most. At least he was spared a lingering death.’

  Bartholomew nodded slowly and took his leave of Philius. Grene must have been told of his illness after he had lost the election to Bingham. No wonder he was bitter. Bartholomew considered Eligius’s story – that Grene had claimed to be in fear of his life. Were they the ramblings of a man already fatally ill and perhaps weak in his wits? Or was there some truth to his fears? Or was the whole thing a fabrication and had Eligius’s disregard for both Grene and Bingham driven him to use the death of one to rid Valence Marie of the other?

  He told Michael what Philius had said as they walked the short distance from Gonville Hall to Stanmore’s house on Milne Street, but the monk had no answers either. Engrossed in thoughts of Eligius and Grene, he was almost crushed by a brewer’s wagon as it thundered down the lane at a speed that was far from safe, and was saved only by a timely shove from the more alert Michael. The brewer was not in the least apologetic, announcing in a ringing voice that scholars had no right to wander all over the roads with total disregard for other users.

  Several onlookers exchanged amused grins, gratified to see a townsman berating members of the detested University. Immediately, two friars and three undergraduates in black tabards came to stand next to Bartholomew, clearly itching to punish the brewer’s impudence with a show of violence. Michael ordered them about their business, nodded curtly to the brewer, and the unpleasant atmosphere dissipated. Bartholomew glanced around him uneasily, sensing it would take very little to spark off a fight between scholars and townsmen; and a rumour that poisoned wine sold by a town thief to a young student would be more than enough.

  The house of Bartholomew’s brother-in-law, Oswald Stanmore, was one of the grandest on Milne Street, although Stanmore himself elected to live on his manor at the nearby village of Trumpington, away from the noise and the noxious smell of the river. Stanmore’s business was cloth and, as Bartholomew strode through the gates into the cobbled yard with Michael, he saw evidence of it wherever he looked. The doors to the storehouses stood open, revealing bales of wool that were stacked to the ceiling, while piles of the wooden cones on which the cloth was wound occupied one corner, ready to be re-used. Scraps of material left from cutting were strewn across the yard in a kaleidoscope of colours, and fluttered here and there where they were caught on doors or timbers.

  Because it was Sunday, Bartholomew had expected Stanmore to be in Trumpington and had intended to speak with his steward. He was pleased to find that not only was Stanmore in Cambridge, but that Edith was with him. She ran forward to greet her brother in delight.

  ‘Matt! What a lovely surprise! I saw you at that dull installation yesterday, but every time I tried to make my way over to you, that boring Prior of Barnwell would start yet another tedious tale to keep me at his side. And after that dreadful scene with Grene, Oswald decided it was time to leave.’

  Bartholomew hugged her, swinging her off her feet. She was ten years older than him, but she had retained the youthful exuberance he remembered from his earliest days. Her hair, like his, was black, although wisps of silver were beginning to appear here and there, and her dark eyes sparkled with humour. Stanmore placed an affectionate arm across Bartholomew’s shoulder, and invited him and Michael for breakfast. Bartholomew shook his head, although Michael was clearly tempted.

  ‘We cannot stay. We have been summoned to Ely by the Bishop.’

  The laughter in Edith’s face was gone in an instant. ‘Why? What does he want with you?’ She looked at Michael anxiously, wondering in what murky subterfuge the fat monk was embroiling her brother this time.

  Bartholomew put a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘Nothing to concern you. The Chancellor and a group of scholars attending the installation were attacked on the Cambridge to Ely road. I have been asked to tend to the injured.’

  ‘How can you say such a thing does not concern me?’ said Edith, knocking his hand away angrily. ‘If the Chancellor was attacked, how can the Bishop be sure you will be safe?’

  ‘He has sent an escort,’ said Michael. ‘And Cynric is going with us.’

  ‘Cynric will look after you,’ said Edith grudgingly. ‘But I am not happy about this. Tell the Bishop you cannot go. Tell him you are needed here. What will your patients do while you are gone – poor Mistress Pike took a turn for the worse last night.’

  ‘Edith is right,’ said Stanmore when she paused for breath. He stroked his beard though
tfully. ‘The Bishop’s summons is unreasonable. He has his own physicians at Ely.’ He called to his steward, who lounged against a wall watching two apprentices racing woodlice. ‘Hugh! You travelled the Ely road yesterday. Did you see any signs of trouble?’

  Hugh shrugged laconically. ‘A cart had broken down near Stretham, but that was all.’

  ‘Any signs of outlaws on the roads?’

  Hugh shook his head, his eyes not moving from the apprentices’ game. ‘Quiet as the grave. Sinister place, the Fens.’

  ‘Oh, Matt, please do not go,’ begged Edith. ‘The Sheriff told Oswald at the installation last night that three houses actually inside the town have been attacked by robbers. It is safe nowhere!’

  ‘If the robbers have turned their attention to the town itself, then I am probably safer away from it,’ said Bartholomew. He raised his hands to quell her angry objections. ‘I cannot refuse a summons from the Bishop – you know that. He has a good deal of influence over the Chancellor and I have no wish to lose my Fellowship.’

  ‘Take a couple of my men, then,’ said Stanmore. ‘Egil is from the Fens and Jurnet has a wife in Ely. They can go with you.’

  ‘That is not necessary,’ protested Bartholomew, but Stanmore had already moved away and was shouting instructions to Hugh. He turned to Edith. ‘I might be away a week and Oswald will need them before then.’

  ‘He will manage,’ she said. ‘And Egil and Jurnet will enjoy a few days away. Now. Why did you come? You know we are usually in Trumpington on Sundays, so you cannot have expected to see us here. Did you need something? To borrow a horse or a better cloak? Those are nice gloves you are wearing. They look new, although I see you have already torn the thumb. How long have you had them?’

  Bartholomew smiled at her and evaded her question, not wanting her to know that he had managed to rip them in less than a day. ‘I came to ask about the apprentice that died here a month last Saturday. The one Father Philius was called to attend.’