Susanna GREGORY: To Kill or Cure

‘Not this time.’ Kenyngham patted his hand, and Bartholomew noticed for the first time that the friar’s skin had developed the soft, silky texture of the very elderly. ‘I am too tired. Your students are laughing – what a pleasant sound!’

The source of the lads’ amusement was a medical student named Falmeresham, who was intelligent but mischievous and unruly. Bartholomew doubted Kenyngham would be amused if he was let in on the joke, because it was almost certain to be lewd, malicious or both.

‘Michael is pale,’ said Kenyngham in a low voice. ‘The rent war is worrying him more deeply than you appreciate, so you must help him resolve it.’

‘Me?’ asked Bartholomew, startled by the suggestion. ‘It is the proctors’ business, and none of mine. He has a deputy to manage that sort of thing for him.’

‘Yes, but his current assistant is neither efficient nor perspicacious, and Michael will only win the dispute if he is helped by his friends. Good friends, not crocodiles.’

‘Crocodiles?’ echoed Bartholomew, bemused.

‘Crocodiles,’ repeated Kenyngham firmly. ‘Timely men with teeth. And you must oppose false prophets. Like shooting stars, they dazzle while they are in flight, but they burn out and are soon forgotten. Crocodiles and shooting stars, Matthew. Crocodiles and shooting stars.’

Bartholomew had no idea what he was talking about, but Kenyngham had closed his eyes and his face was suffused with the beatific expression that indicated he was praying again. There was no point trying to question him when he was in conversation with God, and Bartholomew did not try. He turned to Michael, and was about to comment on the baked apples, when the choir resumed their programme. Fuelled by ale, they were rowdier than ever. Gradually, they veered away from the staid ballads Michael had taught them, and began to range into the uncharted territory of tavern ditties. The lyrics grew steadily more bawdy until even the liberal-minded Langelee was compelled to act. He stood to say grace, and Fellows and students hastened to follow his example. There was a collective scraping of benches and chairs, and then everyone was on his feet. Except one man.

‘Give Kenyngham a poke, Bartholomew,’ said Langelee. ‘He seems to have fallen asleep again. It must be the wine.’

‘Or the restful music,’ added Wynewyk caustically.

The physician obliged, then caught the old man as he started to slide backwards off his seat. After a moment, he looked up. ‘I cannot wake him this time,’ he said softly. ‘He is dead.’

Space was in short supply for University scholars, and only the very wealthy could afford the luxury of a room to themselves – and sometimes even then, no purse was heavy enough to overcome the need to cram several men into a single chamber. Bartholomew was uncommonly lucky in his living arrangements. He was obliged to share his room with only one student – and Falmeresham preferred to be with his friends than with his teacher, so was nearly always out. It meant the physician had a privacy that was almost unprecedented among his peers.

He occupied a pleasant ground-floor chamber with two small arched windows looking across the courtyard, and had a tiny cupboard-like room across the stairwell where he kept his remedies and medical equipment. The bedchamber was sparsely furnished: it contained a single bed, with a straw mattress for Falmeresham that was rolled up each morning and stored underneath it; a row of pegs and a chest for spare clothes; and a pair of writing desks.

Michael, meanwhile, shared his quarters with two Benedictines from his Mother House at Ely, but spent most of his daylight hours at the proctors’ office in the University Church, commonly called St Mary the Great. It was generally acknowledged that he was by far the most powerful scholar in Cambridge, because Chancellor Tynkell was a spineless nonentity who let him do what he liked. The monk’s friends often asked why he did not have himself elected as Chancellor, and claim the glory as well as the power, but Michael pointed out that the current arrangement allowed him to make all the important decisions, while Tynkell was there to take the blame if anything went wrong.

The sudden and unexpected death of Kenyngham had sent a ripple of shock through the College that affected everyone, from the most junior servant to the most senior Fellow, and the monk did not want to be with his Benedictine colleagues or haunt St Mary the Great that afternoon. Instead, he sat in Bartholomew’s chamber, perching on a stool that creaked under his enormous weight.

‘So Kenyngham just … died?’ he asked, holding out his goblet for more ‘medicinal’ wine.

‘People do,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘He was very old – well past seventy.’

‘But how could he? He was at a feast, for God’s sake! People do not die at feasts.’

As a physician, Bartholomew was used to being asked such questions by the bereaved, but that did not make them any easier to answer. ‘He closed his eyes to pray, and I suppose he just slipped away. He loved Easter, and was happy today. It is not a bad way to go.’

‘Are you sure it was natural? Perhaps he was poisoned.’

‘You have been a proctor too long – you see mischief everywhere, even when there is none.’

Michael was thoughtful. ‘I went to his room last night, and caught him swallowing some potion or other. When I asked what it was, he told me it was an antidote.’

‘An antidote for what?’ asked Bartholomew, mystified. He was Kenyngham’s physician, and he had prescribed nothing except a balm for an aching back in months.

‘He declined to say – he changed the subject when I tried to ask him about it. But supposing it was an antidote to poison, because he knew someone was going to do him harm?’

Bartholomew regarded him askance. ‘You have a vivid imagination, Brother! Besides, you do not take antidotes before you are poisoned – you take them after, once you know what you have been given. But there was nothing strange about his death. He was obviously feeling unwell, because he said he was too tired to visit the Gilbertine convent today, and you know how he liked their chapel. Besides, who would want to harm Kenyngham?’

‘No one – but I cannot shake the feeling that a person is to blame for this. Kenyngham was a saint, and God would never have struck him down so suddenly.’

‘Good men are just as prone to death as wicked ones.’

Michael stood. ‘Come to his room with me – now. We shall find this antidote, and then you will see I am right to be suspicious.’

Bartholomew did not find it easy to open Kenyngham’s door and step inside his quarters. The Gilbertine’s familiar frayed cloak hung on the back of the door, and the pillow on the bed still held the hollow made by the old man’s head. Bartholomew stood by the window and thought of the many hours he had spent there, enjoying Kenyngham’s sweet-tempered, erudite company.

‘I cannot find it,’ said Michael after a while. He stood with his hands on his hips, perturbed.

‘We should not be here,’ said Bartholomew uncomfortably. ‘It feels wrong. He gave you an evasive, ambiguous answer when you asked him what he was swallowing, which tells me he did not want you to know. Can we not respect his wish for privacy?’

Michael sighed. ‘Very well – but just because I cannot find this antidote does not mean I imagined the whole incident. He really did take something, you know.’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘I believe you, but it could have been anything – a mild purge, a secret supply of wine. It does not have to be sinister.’

‘Right,’ said Michael in a way that suggested he would make up his own mind about that.

Once back in Bartholomew’s room they sat in silence for a long time. ‘We shall have to elect someone to take his place – and soon,’ said the monk eventually. ‘Suttone and Clippesby will be away again next term, and we cannot manage with a third Fellow gone.’