Susanna GREGORY - The Devil's Disciples

‘Sinners!’ interrupted Carton bitterly. ‘They brought the Death down on us the first time, and they will do it again. And Spaldynge is one of the worst.’

Bartholomew was not sure how to respond. He was stunned – not only to learn what Spaldynge had done, but by the fact that Carton was ready to use it against him.

‘Did you test that powder from Thomas’s room?’ Carton asked, changing the subject before the physician could take issue with him. Bartholomew supposed it was just as well, given that neither would be willing to concede the other’s point of view and the discussion might end up being acrimonious. ‘Was it poison?’

‘The experiment is still running. Where did you find it again?’

‘In a chest under his bed. I thought it might explain why he died so suddenly, because I still do not believe you killed him. No one should blame you, and it is time you stopped feeling guilty about it.’

Bartholomew blinked, baffled by the man and his whirlwind of contradictions – from spiteful bigot to sympathetic friend in the space of a sentence. Then they arrived at Barnwell Priory, and Carton left to knock on the gate, relieving the physician of the need to think of a response. Once he had gone, Cynric came to walk at Bartholomew’s side. The book-bearer squinted at the sun.

‘The Devil is responsible for all this hot weather. Father William said so.’

There was something comfortingly predictable about Cynric’s superstitions – far more so than Carton’s bewildering remarks. Bartholomew smiled, relieved to be back in more familiar territory.

‘William told me the Devil is getting ready to unleash the next bout of plague on us, too,’ he said. ‘So he must be very busy.’

Irony was lost on Cynric, who nodded sagely. ‘The Devil is powerful enough to do both and comb the beards of Bene’t’s goats. Carton is a strange fellow, do you not think? He is not the man he was. In fact, he has changed so much that there is talk about him in the town.’

‘I do not want to hear it, Cynric,’ warned Bartholomew. He had never approved of gossip.

‘You should, because it affects Michaelhouse. It is his stance on sin – he condemns it too loudly.’

Bartholomew did not understand what his book-bearer was saying. ‘I should hope so. He is a priest, and that is what they are supposed to do. If he spoke for it, I would be worried.’

‘You are missing my point. He condemns it too loudly – and it makes me think it is a ruse.’

Bartholomew regarded him blankly, still not sure what he was trying to say. So much for being in familiar territory. ‘A ruse?’

‘For what he really thinks,’ elaborated Cynric. Because it is said in the town that Carton is the Sorcerer.’

Bartholomew was used to his book-bearer drawing wild conclusions from half-understood facts, but this was a record, even for him. He regarded Cynric in astonishment, not knowing how to begin disabusing him of the notion, but aware that unless the belief was nipped in the bud fairly smartly, it would flower into something permanent.

‘No,’ he managed eventually. ‘Carton is not a heretic, and you cannot say–’

‘He has always been interested in witchery,’ interrupted Cynric. ‘We used to spy on the covens together, the ones that meet in St John Zachary or All Saints-next-the-Castle – I have been keeping an eye on them since the Death, as you know. Then he stopped coming, just like that. It was because he joined one, see. And he was so good at it that they made him their master. It is true!’

‘It is not,’ said Bartholomew, appalled that Cynric should have devised such a monstrous theory on such a fragile thread of ‘evidence’.

‘Think about it logically,’ persisted Cynric. ‘All the Fellows were asleep when Margery was hauled from her grave and the blood was left in our font – except Carton. I happened to notice his bed was empty as I walked past his room.’

‘I was not asleep then, either,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘And it was very hot last night. I am sure Carton was not the only one who got up in search of cooler air.’

‘He was,’ declared Cynric, with absolute certainty. ‘Similarly, you were all teaching when Bene’t’s goats went missing, but Carton was busy elsewhere – alone. And who was the only man to go out on the night Danyell died and his hand was chopped off – other than you? Carton!’

‘Coincidence,’ said Bartholomew. ‘There will be perfectly rational explanations for all this.’

‘There will,’ agreed Cynric. ‘And they are that he is the Sorcerer – the man whose dark power grows stronger every day, and who aims to seduce decent, God-fearing men away from the Church.’

‘Is that the Sorcerer’s intention, then?’ asked Bartholomew, changing the tack of the discussion. He knew from past debates that Cynric would never accept that his ‘logic’ might be flawed, and did not want to argue with him. ‘To promote his coven at the expense of the Church?’

The book-bearer nodded with great seriousness, then pointed to a small blemish on the palm of his hand. ‘Along with banishing warts. I had one myself, so I bought one of his remedies, and you can see it worked. He is not all bad, I suppose.’

‘Lord!’ muttered Bartholomew, at a loss for words. He was beginning to wish he had made the journey alone, and wondered whether the heatwave was responsible for some of the peculiar thinking that was afflicting his Michaelhouse cronies.

‘Here is Arblaster’s house,’ said Cynric, regarding it with disapproval. ‘It is recently painted, which tells you he has money to squander while decent folk must eke a living in the fields.’

‘He probably paid someone to do the work,’ countered Bartholomew, getting a bit tired of the book-bearer’s flamboyant opinions. ‘Which means he provided employment for–’

‘Great wealth is all wrong,’ interrupted Cynric firmly. ‘And against God’s proper order.’

Bartholomew was tempted to point out that if Cynric felt so strongly about ‘God’s proper order’, he should not be wearing pagan amulets around his neck. But he said nothing, and instead studied the cottage that so offended the Welshman’s sense of social justice. It was larger than he expected, with a neat thatch and fat chickens scratching in the garden. Tall hedges surrounded a field that released a foul smell; he supposed it was where Arblaster composted the commodity that had brought him his fortune. Seven black goats were tethered under a tree by the river. While they waited for the door to be answered, Cynric jabbed the physician with his elbow and pointed at them.

‘Bene’t College lost seven black goats,’ he said meaningfully.

Bartholomew rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘So Carton is the Sorcerer, and Arblaster – a respectable merchant – steals the University’s livestock? What other tales can you concoct? That Master Langelee has a penchant for wearing our laundress’s clothes?’

‘No, but your colleague Wynewyk does,’ replied Cynric, without the merest hint that he was jesting. ‘They are too large for him, but he makes do.’

Bartholomew was relieved when the door opened, saving him from more of Cynric’s unsettling conversation. A woman stood there, small and pretty. She wore a red kirtle – a long gown – with a close-fitting bodice that accentuated her slender figure. Her white-gold hair was gathered in plaits at the side of her face, held in place with an elegant silver net called a fret. Her dark blue eyes were slightly swollen, showing she had been crying.

‘Doctor Bartholomew,’ she said with a wan smile. ‘I recognise you from the public debates in St Mary the Great. It is good of you to come, especially as we are Doctor Rougham’s patients, not your own. I am Jodoca, Paul Arblaster’s wife.’