Susanna GREGORY: To Kill or Cure

‘ Me ?’ asked the bargeman, stunned and flattered by the unexpected honour. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure,’ replied Michael, reaching for more chicken.

‘Right,’ said Isnard gleefully, turning to his fellow musicians. ‘Ready? One, two, three, go!’

And they were off. Unfortunately, he had not told them what to perform, as a consequence of which half began warbling one tune, while the remainder hollered another. Jubilantly, they seized the opportunity to out-sing each other in a bit of light-hearted rivalry. The result was not pleasant, but Michaelhouse was used to cacophonies where the choir was concerned, and most scholars thought it no different from the racket they made when they were all trilling the same piece.

‘Did you hear about Robert Spaldynge?’ yelled Bartholomew to Michael, to take the monk’s mind off the fact that all his careful instructing had obviously been a waste of time. On the physician’s other side, Kenyngham closed his eyes and began to pray again, perhaps for silence. ‘He is accused of selling a house that did not belong to him. It was owned by his College – Clare.’

Michael nodded. He was the University’s Senior Proctor, which meant he was responsible for maintaining law and order among the disparate collection of Colleges and hostels that comprised the studium generale at Cambridge. He had an army of beadles to help him, and very little happened without his knowledge. ‘He claims he had no choice – that he needed money to buy food. It might be true, because his students are an unusually impoverished group. Clare is furious about it, but not nearly as much as I am. Spaldynge’s actions have put me in an impossible position.’

Bartholomew was struggling to hear him. The singers had finished their first offering, and had started an old favourite that, for some inexplicable reason, included a lot of rhythmically stamping feet. He was sure the monk had not taught them to do it. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that his antics have come at a difficult time. The University is currently embroiled in a dispute about rents with the town’s landlords – you should know this, Matt; I have talked of little else this past month – and I issued a writ ordering all scholars to keep hold of their property until it is resolved. If we lose the fight, we will need every College-owned building we can get our hands on, to house those scholars who will suddenly find themselves with nowhere to live.’

The monk had held forth about a ‘rent war’ on several occasions, but Bartholomew had taken scant notice. The previous term had been frantically busy for him, because two Fellows on a sabbatical leave of absence meant a huge increase in his teaching load, and he had not had time to think about much else. ‘Spaldynge’s is only one house, Brother.’

Michael regarded him balefully. ‘You clearly have not been listening to me, or you would not be making such an inane remark. The landlords are refusing to renew leases, and we have dozens of homeless scholars already – scholars I need to house. Thus every building is important at the moment. Did you know the one Spaldynge sold was Borden Hostel? He was its Principal.’

‘Borden?’ asked Bartholomew, a little shocked. ‘But that has been part of the University for decades. It is older than most Colleges.’

Michael’s face was grim. ‘Quite. Unfortunately, the landlords have interpreted its sale to mean that if stable old Borden can fall into their hands, then so can any other foundation. As I said, I am furious about it – Spaldynge has done the whole University a disservice.’

Bartholomew was puzzled. ‘You say he sold his hostel to buy food, but where does he intend to eat it, if he has no home? He has solved one problem by creating another.’

‘He is a Fellow of Clare, so he and his students have been given refuge there. He said he made the sale to underline the fact that most hostels are desperately poor, but we collegians do not care.’

Bartholomew looked at the mounds of food on Michael’s trencher. ‘Perhaps he has a point.’

‘Perhaps he does, but it still does not give him the right to sell property that does not belong to him. Did I tell you that these greedy landlords are demanding that all rents be trebled ? As the law stands, it is the University that determines what constitutes a fair rent – and that rate was set years ago. It means these treacherous landlords are questioning the law itself !’

‘But the rate was set before the plague,’ Bartholomew pointed out reasonably. ‘And times have changed since then. Perhaps your “fair rent” is fair no longer.’

Michael did not hear him over the choir’s caterwauling. He speared a piece of roasted pork with uncharacteristic savagery. ‘If the landlords win this dispute, it could herald the end of the University, because only the very wealthy will be able to afford accommodation here. At the moment, nearly all our students live in town-owned buildings; only a fraction of them are lucky enough to occupy a scholar-owned College like ours.’

Bartholomew decided he had better change the subject before the monk became so weighed down with his concerns that it would spoil his enjoyment of the feast. He said the first thing that came into his head, before realising it was probably not much of an improvement. ‘Clare seems to be causing you all manner of problems at the moment. How is your investigation into the death of that other Fellow of theirs – Wenden?’

‘Solved, thank God. Wenden was deeply unpopular when he was alive, but he is even more so now he is dead.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘His colleagues endured his unpleasant foibles for nigh on thirty years, on the understanding that Clare would be his sole beneficiary when he died. However, when his will was read, it transpired that he had left everything to the Bishop of Lincoln instead.’

Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. ‘He bequeathed his College nothing at all?’

‘Not a penny. I might have accused his colleagues of killing him, but for the testimony of the friend he had been visiting that night. Wenden had forgotten his hat, and Honynge was chasing after him to give it back. Honynge saw a tinker lurking about, and heard a bow loosed moments later.’

‘A tinker?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Not the one we fished from the river a few days ago?’

‘The very same. You ascertained that he fell in while he was drunk – an accident – and I found Wenden’s purse hidden among his belongings. So, the case is closed.’

Michael turned his full attention to his food, and Bartholomew winced when the choir attempted a popular dance tune, delivered in a ponderous bellow at half-speed. Meanwhile, Kenyngham opened his eyes at last, and began to fill his trencher with slivers of roasted goose.

‘Our musicians are discordant today,’ he said, in something of an understatement. ‘Wait until they finish this song, then offer them some ale. That should shut them up.’

It was a good idea, and the physician supposed someone should have thought of it before they had started in the first place. He went to oblige, assisted by a commoner called Roger Carton. Carton was a short, plump, serious Franciscan, and had come to Michaelhouse to help Wynewyk teach the burgeoning numbers of law students – lawyers tended to make more money than men in other vocational professions, so law was currently the University’s most popular subject. When Bartholomew and Carton approached the choir with jugs of ale, the clamour stopped mid-sentence, and the singers clustered eagerly around them. A blissful peace settled across the hall.

‘Will you visit your Gilbertine colleagues later?’ Bartholomew asked of Kenyngham, when he was back in his place. ‘You usually spend at least part of Easter at their convent.’