A Deadly Brew

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘But it might be an excellent opportunity for us to lose Langelee. He can hardly remain a Fellow of Michaelhouse if he has eloped with a merchant’s niece. Fellows are not permitted to marry.’

  ‘But how can you consider implicating yourself in all this?’ protested Bartholomew. ‘You are always stressing how important it is to maintain good relations with the merchants. Deschalers will be outraged if you marry Julianna to that brute of a man.’

  ‘We must weigh up the pros and cons,’ said Michael smoothly. ‘And being free of Langelee is a pro not to be lightly dismissed.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I think I will accede to their request. I can always claim later I did not know the arrangement was anything but legitimate.’

  ‘In the middle of the night? In a dark church?’

  Michael rubbed his chin. ‘You have a point. But my grandmother tells me Julianna is pregnant, so I can always claim I thought the secrecy was because of that. Speaking of which, I must tell her about this. It will amuse her no end!’

  He strolled away, whistling, leaving Bartholomew speechless for a second time. He determined to put the whole unsavoury business from his mind and went to bed early that night so that Michael might not be tempted to ask him to help. He was overtired, and thoughts of his sister and her continuing distress over Rob Thorpe tumbled through his mind in an uncontrolled fashion. His room was freezing and flakes of snow found their way through the cracks in the window shutters to form damp little piles on the table: he did not know whether to be grateful or irritated that his teeming, unpleasant dreams were so often interrupted because he woke from the cold. When Michael shook his shoulder to wake him for mass early the following morning, he felt exhausted.

  Swearing under his breath, he hopped from bare foot to bare foot across the flagstone floor to the water in the jug Cynric left each night, while Michael waited for him, eating some nuts given by a patient in lieu of payment.

  ‘It has frozen solid again,’ said Bartholomew tiredly, shaking the solid mass in the jug to see if he could hear water slopping about underneath. There was nothing. ‘I will have to fetch some from the kitchen.’

  ‘You washed yesterday,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘Is there no end to this cleanliness nonsense? Just get dressed and let us be off before we are late for the third time this week.’

  ‘Did you marry Langelee and Julianna last night?’ asked Bartholomew, fumbling around in the dark for his shirt.

  ‘Not so loud, Matt! You will wake the others,’ warned Michael. ‘Just because we have to be at the church early does not mean that the entire College needs to be up with us.’

  Bartholomew hauled the cold, damp garment over his head. ‘Sorry. But what of this nocturnal wedding? What happened?’

  ‘We will speak of the matter after mass,’ said Michael. ‘I will meet you by the gate. Hurry or you can pay my fine for being late as well as your own.’

  Bartholomew finished dressing and, hauling his tabard over his head, ran across the snowy yard to where Michael had pulled the bar from the wicket gate. There was no sign of Walter, but the weather was foul – sleet being driven almost horizontally by a bitter wind – and Bartholomew imagined very little would extract him from his cosy room to open the gate for scholars off to early morning mass.

  ‘It is dark this morning,’ mumbled Bartholomew, glancing up at a black sky laden with heavy clouds. He shivered as icy flakes flew into his face. ‘And cold.’

  Michael was walking up the lane towards the High Street with uncharacteristic speed, but Bartholomew was grateful because it stirred the blood in his veins and he felt some warmth begin to creep through his body. He followed Michael through the knee-deep drifts of snow in St Michael’s graveyard to the porch. Someone already waited there and Bartholomew froze in his tracks.

  ‘Julianna!’

  She came towards him, surprised. ‘I did not expect you to be here,’ she said. ‘I thought you were against my marriage to Ralph.’

  Bartholomew spun round to Michael, realising exactly why the night seemed to black and why he felt so tired. It was not nearing dawn at all: it was midnight!

  Michael raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘I did not lie to you. I only said we would speak of the matter after mass. Which we will do I am sure. If the marriage is to be legal, I need a witness and you are the only one I can trust to do it discreetly.’

  ‘You trust me?’ said Bartholomew harshly. ‘When I cannot trust you?’

  Michael laughed softly in the darkness. ‘You can trust me for important things, and that is what matters. This is a trifling business.’

  ‘Not to me,’ proclaimed Julianna huffily.

  ‘Nor to me,’ growled Langelee from behind them.

  Bartholomew heaved a huge sigh of resignation and followed them into the church. He struggled to light the temperamental lamp while the others waited impatiently.

  ‘Hurry it up, Bartholomew,’ ordered Langelee imperiously. ‘We do not have all night.’

  Bartholomew was about to suggest that Langelee should light the lamp himself – knowing that the philosopher’s thick, clumsy fingers would never be able to perform the intricate operation required – when it coughed into life. Langelee snatched it from his hand and led the way inside. Michael had apparently made some preparations the night before, because the Bible was opened to the relevant page and the altar was draped with a white cloth. Something glittery to one side caught his eye. It was Wilson’s black marble tomb, now topped with a grotesque effigy of a man in a scholar’s gown, partly faced in gold.

  ‘That monstrosity will have to go,’ muttered Michael, seeing Bartholomew staring at it with loathing. ‘It would be bad enough if it were all one colour, but now the smuggling is over Runham cannot lay his hands on sufficient gold leaf to finish covering the thing. We have Wilson with a golden stomach and a face of cheap limestone.’

  ‘At least it does not look like him,’ said Bartholomew, helping Michael to lay out the regalia for the mass. ‘I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.’

  While Michael ripped through the Latin wedding ceremony at an impressive rate, Bartholomew sat at the base of one of the pillars and watched moodily. He wondered what the offspring of such an alliance would be like and hoped they did not move back to Cambridge so he would find out. There was a sudden draught of wind and the lamp fluttered dangerously. Michael looked up from his reading and Bartholomew went to close the door that the fierce wind had blown open.

  He heaved it closed, his feet skidding on the wet tiles as he fought against the blizzard, and went back to his place at the base of the pillar. Moments later, the same thing happened again. Michael scowled at the interruption.

  ‘The latch must be faulty, Matt. Shut it properly. If the lamp goes out I will have to pronounce them man and wife in the dark and I do not want to end up kissing Langelee instead of the bride.’

  ‘I thought the groom was supposed to kiss the bride,’ said Langelee. ‘Not the priest.’

  ‘And who is the expert on religious matters here, you or me?’ demanded Michael. ‘Go and check the door, Matt, or we will all freeze to death before I kiss anyone!’

  Bartholomew hauled himself to his feet a second time and went to the door. And stopped abruptly when he saw Master Kenyngham struggling to close it. He closed his eyes, disgusted at himself for forgetting that it was the feast day of St Gilbert of Sempringham and that Kenyngham, a Gilbertine friar, would certainly keep a midnight vigil in the church in honour of the occasion.

  Kenyngham turned to put his back to the door to force it closed, and smiled happily when he saw Bartholomew standing in the shadows.

  ‘Matthew!’ he exclaimed in genuine pleasure. ‘What a lovely surprise! I assume you are here to keep me company while I say matins for the feast of St Gilbert of Sempringham?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Bartholomew, moving forward to help latch the door.

  ‘Who is there?’ called Michael. Bartholomew heard the slap of his sandals as he
huffed his way up the nave to find out what was happening.

  ‘Brother Michael!’ cried Kenyngham in delight, taking his weight from the door so that it blew open again. Bartholomew caught it as it flew backwards, and leaned into it, making the others jump when the wind dropped and it slammed with a crash that sent echoes reverberating around the dark church. ‘And Master Langelee, too! All here to pray with me and celebrate the feast day of Gilbert of Sempringham, the saintly founder of my Order! And you have brought a friend, I see.’

  He reached forward and placed a hand on Julianna’s head in blessing, muttering a prayer as he did so. Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a glance of bemusement, not at all certain what would happen next.

  ‘I am to be married,’ announced Julianna proudly. ‘And then I am going to live in France, where the sun shines all the time.’

  ‘Do not go to Paris, then,’ said Bartholomew.

  ‘France?’ asked Langelee doubtfully. ‘You have not mentioned France before.’

  ‘Congratulations, my child,’ said Kenyngham, still smiling beatifically. ‘I shall pray for you. Who is to be the lucky man?’

  Only an innocent like Kenyngham could have failed to notice the way Langelee’s arm was wrapped indecorously around Julianna’s waist and the way in which the lovers looked at each other. Bartholomew and Michael exchanged yet another mystified look.

  ‘Ralph de Langelee,’ said Julianna loudly, as though she were talking to someone either very old or very deaf. ‘I am to marry Ralph de Langelee, Master Kenyngham.’

  Kenyngham’s smile faded slightly. ‘Ralph de Langelee? But he is a Fellow of Michaelhouse; you cannot marry him!’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Julianna indignantly. ‘He is a man, is he not?’

  ‘Not all men are available for marriage,’ said Kenyngham gently. ‘And if Ralph de Langelee married you, he would have to resign his Fellowship and he would lose the opportunity to make a name for himself by teaching philosophy – and perhaps even to be the Master of the College himself one day.’

  ‘God forbid!’ muttered Michael under his breath. ‘And the name he would make for himself by teaching philosophy would not be one I would repeat in a church!’

  ‘Why should I resign?’ asked Langelee, startled. ‘Why can I not marry Julianna and keep my Fellowship as well?’

  ‘It is against the rules,’ said Kenyngham. ‘No Fellows are allowed to marry. But the choice is yours: marry and have a happy and fulfilled life with children and a wife who loves you, or stay at Michaelhouse and take part in the shaping of young minds or perhaps tread in the footsteps of others before you and become an emissary to the King or the Pope.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Langelee, intrigued. ‘Scholars from Michaelhouse have become emissaries to popes and kings?’

  ‘Not very many,’ said Michael quickly. ‘And the opportunities are few and far between, and very competitive.’

  ‘We would have such fun,’ whispered Julianna, leaning against him seductively. ‘We could set up business together and become rich beyond our wildest dreams.’

  Langelee was silent, thinking. All Bartholomew could hear in the dark church was the splattering of sleet against the window shutters and the sound of Langelee’s heavy breathing as he pondered his dilemma.

  ‘Well,’ said the philosopher eventually. ‘Now, let me see …’

  Historical Note

  Before the drainage of parts of East Anglia in the seventeenth century, the Fens were an area of wilderness, a myriad of channels, ditches and lakes winding round innumerable small islands that were heavily wooded with tangles of willow and alder. Routes through the marshes were treacherous, and most were known only to the Fenlanders who lived there. For boats, there were winding reed- and sedge-choked waterways, and for horses and pedestrians there were unstable causeways comprising paths that led from one islet to another. The Fens saw England’s only serious rebellion against the Norman Conquest: Hereward the Wake used his knowledge of the area to lead William’s troops a merry dance until a proper causeway was built between Cambridge and Ely.

  Smuggling was not uncommon in medieval England, and there was a brisk trade between there and France in the fourteenth century, despite the fact that for most of Edward III’s reign the two countries were officially at war. The Fens were almost impossible to police and were widely acknowledged as an area where contraband could be hidden and then transported to the surrounding towns and villages.

  The Black Death evinced many social and economic changes. There was an increase in the popularity of shrines containing the relics of saints. It also influenced the course of the Hundred Years War, with hostilities virtually ceasing between France and England until they received a new lease of life when the Black Prince arrived in Languedoc in 1355, and spent two months happily slaughtering whoever he could catch (unless they were likely to be worth a ransom) and burning crops and villages. Skirmishing, however, continued in Brittany right through the 1350s, and there is some evidence that the King was well aware that his soldiers were ransacking religious houses, but was inclined to turn a blind eye. The chronicler Edward Walsingham recorded that, even in 1348, the country was flooded with French plunder, some of it from the religious houses of Brittany.

  Michaelhouse was founded as a College at the University of Cambridge in 1324, and continued as such until it was merged with King’s Hall, Physwick Hostel and several smaller institutions to form Trinity College in 1546. Thomas Kenyngham was Michaelhouse’s Master in the early 1350s, and other members of the Fellowship at this time included John Runham and Ralph de Langelee.

  The Hall of Valence Marie was founded in 1347 by Mary de Pol, the Countess of Pembroke. She called her new institution the Hall of Valence Marie, although it was called Pembroke Hall until the 1830s, when it became known as Pembroke College. The Countess of Pembroke was born in about 1304 and married the heroic Aymer de Valence, although she was a widow by the time she was twenty years old. Aymer’s death left her immensely rich and she was able to found the College, as well as endow a community of Franciscan nuns – Poor Clares – at the little convent at Denny to the north of Cambridge. Robert de Thorpe and Thomas Bingham were its first two Masters.

  Gonville Hall, otherwise known as the Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, was founded by Edmund Gonville by a licence from the Crown in 1348, and on 4 June 1349 John Colton of Terrington was appointed as its first Master. Another College, founded just three years later, was Corpus Christi, but it was unusual in that it was established by donations from two of the town’s guilds – the Guild of St Mary and the Guild of Corpus Christi. Because of its proximity to St Bene’t’s Church, it was often called St Bene’t’s College.

  Richard de Wetherset was Chancellor of the University from 1349 to 1351, Richard Harling took over in 1352 and William Tynkell held the office from 1352 to 1359. Although de Wetherset returned for another term of office in the 1360s, Richard Harling disappears from the records.

  In the town, John Cheney, Constantine Mortimer and Thomas Deschalers were all merchants who were also burgesses in fourteenth-century Cambridge. The Deschalerses were a powerful family in East Anglia, although their fortunes had begun to wane by the 1350s. The Tulyets or Tuillets were also a powerful family. A Richard Tulyet was mayor from 1337 to 1340, and also in 1345 and 1346. He was also a bailiff, and was among a group of townsmen accused of instigating riots against the University in 1322.

  Fragments of the Cambridge of the fourteenth century can still be seen. Some stone coursing in a building on the southern side of Trinity Great Court shows where one of Michaelhouse’s buildings stood, while the name ‘King’s Hostel’ and a lovely range of gothic arches to the north of the Great Court are remnants of King’s Hall, along with the splendid gatehouse that was moved from its original location after Trinity College was founded. Meanwhile, nine miles to the north, the lovely, tranquil ruins of Denny Abbey are in the care of English Heritage and can be visited from April to September. The abbey has been
subject to so many building phases that it is difficult to interpret, but the great pillars of the Clares’ church and fragments of the Countess of Pembroke’s sumptuous apartments can still be seen.

  Finally, King Edward II was murdered in Berkeley Castle in 1327, and was succeeded by his fourteen-year-old son, Edward III. It was no secret that Queen Isabella was complicit in her husband’s death, and when Edward III was old enough to dispense with her services as Regent in 1331, she retired from his court to Castle Rising in Norfolk. She spent the rest of her life enjoying the pleasures of the country – hawking, hunting and travelling around her estates – and giving generous gifts to a nearby community of Franciscan nuns. She died in 1358, having entered the Order of Poor Clares.