A Bone of Contention

by Susanna GREGORY

  Heppel arrived, breathless as always. He was apparently to be someone's guest, perhaps Michael's, for he wore ceremonial scarlet and a pair of fine yellow hose.

  Uncharitably, Bartholomew could not but help compare the skinny legs that were thrust into them with those of a heron.

  'Thank the Lord you are awake,' said Heppel to Bartholomew in relief. 'I must have this astrological consultation before I enjoy the pleasures of your Founder's Feast today. After the last one I attended, I was ill for a week. I must know whether my stars are favourable, or whether I should decline the invitation.'

  Father William gave a sudden groan and clutched at Bartholomew to support himself. 'Oh, I do feel ill, Matthew,' he whispered hoarsely. 'I think I might have a contagion.'

  'A contagion?' squeaked Heppel in alarm, moving backwards quickly. 'What manner of contagion?'

  'One that is both painful and severe,' said William, holding his stomach dramatically. 'I do hope its miasma has not affected Matthew. You might be better waiting a while for this consultation, Master Heppel, in case he passes it to you."

  Heppel took several more steps away, and shoved a vast pomander to his nose.

  'Saturn is still ascendant,' said Bartholomew, thinking he should at least try to ease Heppel's obvious concern for his well-being. 'So take a small dose of that angelica and heartsease I gave you and eat and drink sparingly today.

  That should see you safely through the ordeal. And avoid anything that might contain fish giblets.'

  'Are fish giblets under the dominion of Saturn, then?' asked Heppel, puzzled and taking yet another step backwards as William reeled.

  'Yes,' said William before Bartholomew could reply.

  'Say a mass before you come to the Feast, Master Heppel, and pray for me.'

  Heppel bowed briskly to Bartholomew and William and walked out of the yard a good deal more quickly than he had walked in. Bartholomew took Father William's arm, although the ailing friar made a miraculous recovery once Heppel had been ushered out of the front gate by the porters.

  'Did you smell it?' William growled to Bartholomew.

  'Perfume! Like a painted whore! And God knows whores have no business in a place of learning!'

  Bartholomew swallowed hard and hoped Michael had ensured that Matilde was not seated anywhere near Father William at the Feast. He unlocked the little storeroom where he kept his medicines and mixed a draught of chalk and poppy syrup. William gulped it down and pulled a face.

  'God's teeth, Matthew, that is a vile concoction! You should give a dose to that reprehensible Heppel. That would stop him coming after you for his astrological consultations.'

  'Remember,' Bartholomew warned as the friar left.

  'No wine.'

  'I am not one of your dull-witted students, Matthew,' said William pompously. 'I only need to be told something once for it to sink in. No wine.' He looked Bartholomew up and down disparagingly. 'I do hope you are going to change into something a little more appropriate. You look very scruffy this morning.'

  'But wearing fine clothes would be indulging in the sins of the flesh,' Bartholomew pointed out to the man who professed to have no wish for material goods and to care nothing for appearances.

  Aware that he had been caught out in an inconsistency, Father William pursed his lips. 'You have my blessing to indulge yourself today, Matthew. After all, we cannot have Fellows of other colleges thinking that Michaelhouse scholars are shabby, can we? I, of course, as a lowly friar, own no fine clothes, but Agatha washed my spare habit specially for the occasion. Unfortunately, it shrank a little and is now a lighter shade of grey than it should be, but it is spotlessly clean.'

  'Are you telling me that this is the first time it has ever been washed?' asked Bartholomew, disgusted. 'You have had the same two habits since before I became a Fellow here and that was eight years ago!'

  'Grey does not show the dirt, Matthew. And anyway, I was afraid laundering might damage them. I am well aware of your peculiar notions about washing, but I personally believe that water has dangerous properties and that contact with it should be avoided at all costs.'

  'So I see,' said Bartholomew, noticing, not for the first time, that the friar's everyday habit was quite stiff with filth. He imagined there was probably enough spilled food on it to keep the College supplied for weeks.

  'Well, I must go and prepare the church for prime,' said William. He raised a hand to his head. 'The burning in my stomach has eased but I feel a little giddy. Is it that potion you gave me?'

  'It might be,' said Bartholomew. 'Of course, it might equally well be the terrifying notion of wearing a clean habit. You will need to take another dose, probably just before the Feast. I will leave it for you on my table, so you can come to get it when it is convenient. Only take half of it, though. The rest is to be drunk before you go to bed.'

  William nodded and was gone. Alone, Bartholomew washed and shaved and donned a clean shirt and hose, although both were heavily patched and darned. Cynric slipped into the room with Bartholomew's ceremonial red gown that he had painstakingly brushed and ironed.

  Bartholomew took it reluctantly, guessing that Cynric had been to some trouble to render it so smart. The physician was careless with clothes, and knew it would be only a matter of time before something spilled on it or it became crumpled.

  'It should be a fine day,' said Cynric, nodding to where the sky was already a clear blue. 'I hope you have a good time with that Eleanor Tyler.'

  His good wishes did not sound entirely sincere and Bartholomew glanced at him, puzzled. 'First Agatha and now you. What is wrong with Eleanor Tyler?'

  'Nothing, nothing,' said Cynric hastily. He hesitated.

  'Well, she is a touch brazen, boy, if you must know the truth. And she is after a husband. With no father to negotiate for them, those Tyler daughters are taking matters into their own hands. That is what makes them brazen.'

  But not as brazen as a prostitute, Bartholomew thought, wondering what Cynric would say when he found out about Matilde. It crossed his mind that Cynric, Agatha and even Father William, might excuse his choice of guests on the grounds that his stars were misaligned, assuming, of course, that they did not discover that the invitations were issued long before he was hit on the head.

  The day was already becoming warm as the scholars assembled in the yard to walk to the church for prime.

  Bartholomew found he was uncomfortable in his thick gown, and warned Cynric that watered ale might be required at some point of the proceedings if someone fainted. Master Kenyngham, the gentle Gilbertine friar who was head of Michaelhouse, beamed happily at his colleagues, blithely unaware of Gray scampering late into his place near the end of the procession. Agatha approached Gray nonchalantly, and a large pewter jug exchanged hands, even as the line of scholars began to move off towards the church.

  Michael walked next to Bartholomew, behind the Franciscans, his podgy hands clasped reverently across his ample stomach. He wore his best habit, and the wooden cross that usually hung around his neck had been exchanged for one that looked to be silver. His thin, brown hair had been trimmed, too, and his tonsure was, as always, perfectly round and shiny.

  'You look very splendid today, Brother,' Bartholomew remarked, impressed by the fact that, unlike everyone else, the monk had escaped being involved in the frantic preparations that morning.

  'Naturally,' said Michael, raising a hand to his hair. 'A good many important people will be at this Feast, not to mention your gaggle of hussies. I must make a good impression.'

  'Did you ask the steward to make sure Matilde was not near William?' asked Bartholomew anxiously.

  The monk nodded. 'Eleanor will be next to Father William. Matilde will sit between you and our esteemed Senior Fellow, Roger Alcote.'

  'Are you insane?' Bartholomew cried. The Franciscans looked round to glower at him for breaking the silence of the procession. He lowered his voice. 'Alcote will be worse than William, if that is possible, and William will be horri
fied to find himself next to Eleanor!'

  'That cannot be helped,' said Michael primly. 'You should have considered all this before inviting a harem to dine in our College.'

  The church was gloomy in the early morning light but candles, lit in honour of the occasion, cast wavering shadows around the walls. The procession made its way up the aisle and filed silently in two columns into the chancel, Fellows in one and students in the other. The body of the i church was full of townspeople and scholars from other colleges. Eleanor Tyler was standing at the front and gave Bartholomew a vigorous wave when he saw her.

  Michael sniggered unpleasantly and then slipped away to join his choir.

  'What in God's name is Father William wearing? ' hissed Roger Alcote from Bartholomew's side. 'Has he borrowed a habit from Father Aidan? It is far too small for him — you can virtually see his knees! And the colour! It is almost white, not grey at all!'

  'He washed it,' explained Bartholomew, smiling when he saw William's powerful white calves displayed under his shrunken habit. 'He said he thought that water might be dangerous to it, and, from the state of it, I would say he was right!'

  Michael cleared his throat, and an expectant hush fell on the congregation.

  'Let us hope he has chosen something short,' muttered Alcote, as Michael raised his hands in the air in front of his assembled singers. 'Or we may find we have fewer guests for the rest of the day than we had anticipated.'

  His uncharitable words were not spoken lightly. As one, the congregation winced as the first few notes of an anthem by the Franciscan composer Simon Tunstede echoed around the church. What Michael's singers lacked in tone was compensated for by sheer weight of numbers, so that the resulting sound was deafening. Michael gesticulated furiously for a lowering of volume but his volunteers were out to sing for their supper and their enthusiasm was not to be curtailed. The lilting melody of one of Tunstede's loveliest works was rendered into something akin to a pagan battle song.

  The door of the church opened and one or two people slipped out. Bartholomew saw his sister standing near the back of the church, her hand over her mouth as she tried to conceal her amusement. To his horror, he saw Eleanor Tyler had no such inhibitions and was laughing openly.

  Next to her, Sheriff Tulyet struggled to maintain a suitably sombre expression, while his infant son howled furiously, unsettled by the din. Only Master Kenyngham seemed unaffected, smiling benignly and tapping his hand so out of time with the choir that Bartholomew wondered if he were hearing the same piece.

  To take his mind off the racket, Bartholomew looked at the space that had been cleared for Master Wilson's tomb. The mason had said the whole contraption would be ready before the end of autumn, when Wilson's mouldering corpse could be removed from its temporary grave — recently desecrated by Bartholomew — and laid to its final rest under his black marble slab. The notion of exhuming the body of a man who had perished in the plague bothered the physician. Some scholars believed that the pestilence had come from graves in the Orient, and Bartholomew had no desire to unleash again the sickness that took one in every three people across Europe. He decided that he would exhume the grave alone, wearing gloves and mask, to reduce the chances of another outbreak. Anyone who felt so inclined could come later and pay their respects — although he could not imagine that the unpopular, smug Master Wilson would have many mourners lining up at his grave.

  When the long Latin mass was over, the scholars walked back to Michaelhouse and prepared to greet their guests in the courtyard. There was a pleasant breeze — although it had blown the bed-cover hiding the stable askew — and the sun shone brightly. Agatha's voice could be heard ranting in the kitchens, almost drowned out by the church bells. The gates were flung open and the guests began to arrive.

  One of the first was Eleanor Tyler, who flounced across the courtyard, looking around her speculatively.

  She looked lovely, Bartholomew thought, dressed in an emerald-green dress with her smooth, brown hair bound in plaits and knotted at the back of her head. She beamed at Bartholomew and took his arm. Her face fell somewhat when she saw a patched shirt-sleeve poking from under his gown.

  'I thought you were all supposed to be wearing your best clothes,' she said, disappointed.

  'These are my best clothes,' protested Bartholomew.

  'And they are clean.'

  'Clean,' echoed Eleanor uncertainly, apparently preferring grimy finery to laundered rags. But her attention was already elsewhere. 'Why is there a bed-cover on that old wall?' she asked, pointing to Bartholomew and William's handiwork. 'If it is being washed, you might have taken it in before your guests arrived.'

  'Your choir put their hearts and souls into that anthem by Simon Tunstede,' remarked Bartholomew as Michael came to stand next to him. 'It must have been heard fifteen miles away in Ely Cathedral.'

  Michael winced. 'More like sixty miles away in Westminster Abbey! Once their blood is up, there is no stopping those people. My only compensation is that my guest, the Prior of Barnwell, told me he thought it was exquisite.'

  'But he is stone deaf,' said Bartholomew, startled. 'He cannot even hear the bells of his chapel any more.'

  'Well, he heard my choir,' said Michael. 'Here he comes.

  You must excuse me, Madam.' He bowed elegantly to Eleanor, lingering over her hand rather longer than was necessary.

  Eleanor's indignation at the monk's behaviour was deflected by the magnificent spectacle of the arrival of Sheriff Tulyet and the Mayor, both resplendent in scarlet cloaks lined with the softest fur, despite the warmth of the day. Sensibly, Tulyet relinquished his to a servant, but the Mayor knew he looked good and apparently decided that sweating profusely was a small price to pay for cutting so fine a figure. Master Kenyngham approached, smiling beatifically, and introduced himself to Eleanor, asking her if she were a relative of Bartholomew's.

  At that moment, Bartholomew spotted his sister and her husband, and excused himself from Eleanor's vivid, and not entirely accurate, description of how Bartholomew had saved her on the night of the riot. Kenyngham, Bartholomew noted, was looking increasingly horrified; he hoped Eleanor's account of the violence that night would not spoil the gentle, peace-loving Master's day.

  'Matt!' said Edith Stanmore, coming to greet him with outstretched arms. 'Are you fully recovered? Sam Gray tells me your stars are still poorly aligned.'

  Bartholomew raised his eyes heavenwards. 'I am perfectly well, Edith.' He fixed his brother-in-law with a look of reproval. 'And I have no need of Cynric following me everywhere I go.'

  Stanmore had the grace to look sheepish. 'This is Mistress Horner,' he said, turning to gesture towards an elderly woman who stood behind him. Mistress Horner was crook-backed and thin, wearing a dowdy, russet dress that hung loosely from her hunched figure. A starched, white wimple framed her wind-burned face, although her features were shaded by a peculiar floppy hat. A clawed, gloved hand clutched a walking stick, although she did not seem to be particularly unsteady on her feet.

  Bartholomew had not seen her before and assumed she must be someone's dowager aunt, wheeled out from some musty attic for a day of entertainment. He bowed politely to her, disconcerted by the way she was staring at him.

  Stanmore caught sight of the Mayor standing nearby, and was away without further ado to accost him and doubtless discuss some business arrangement or other. Edith was watching her brother with evident amusement.

  'You have met Mistress Horner before,' she said, her eyes twinkling with laughter.

  'I have?' asked Bartholomew, who was certain he had not. He looked closer and his mouth fell open in shock.

  'Matilde!'

  'Shh!' said Matilde, exchanging a look of merriment with Edith. 'I did not go to all this trouble so that you could reveal my disguise in the first few moments. What do you think?'

  She smiled up at him, revealing small, perfectly white teeth in a face that had evidently been stained with something to make her skin look leathery, while careful
ly painted black lines served as wrinkles. Bartholomew was not sure what he thought; there was no time anyway because Eleanor had arrived to reclaim him, and the bell was chiming to summon the scholars of Michaelhouse and their guests into the hall for the Feast. His heart thudded painfully as he escorted Eleanor and Mistress Horner through the porch, in the way that it had not done since he was a gawky youth who had taken a fancy to one of the kitchen maids at his school. He heard his sister informing Eleanor, who was not much interested, that Mistress Horner was a distant relative.

  When they reached the stairs, Eleanor grew impatient with Mistress Horner's stately progress, and danced on ahead, eyes open wide at the borrowed tapestries that hung round the walls of Michaelhouse's hall, and at the yellow flicker of several hundred candles — the shutters were firmly closed to block out the daylight, although why Michaelhouse should think its guests preferred to swelter in an airless room to dining in a pleasant breeze, Bartholomew could not imagine. On the high table, the College silver was displayed, polished to a bright gleam by Cynric the night before. Bartholomew solicitously assisted his elderly guest towards it, alarmed when Father William stepped forward to help. Matilde, however, was completely unflustered and accepted the friar's help with a gracious smile that she somehow managed to make appear toothless.

  Despite the fact that there were perhaps four times as many people dining in College than usual, only one additional table had been hired for the occasion. The scholars and their guests were crammed uncomfortably close together, particularly given that the day was already hot, and hundreds of smoking candles did not make matters any easier. Squashed between Eleanor on the one side and Matilde on the other, Bartholomew felt himself growing faint, partly from the temperature, but mainly from anticipating what would happen if Matilde's make-up should begin to melt off, or Eleanor Tyler display some of the indiscretion that his friends seemed to find so distasteful. He reached for his goblet of wine with an unsteady hand and took a hefty swallow.

  Next to Eleanor the misogynistic Father William did the same, sweat standing out on his brow as he tried to make himself smaller to avoid physical contact with her.