Susanna GREGORY: The Mark of a Murderer

The scholar carried a package under his arm, which Clippesby knew from past observations contained marchpanes for Yolande’s children; he supposed the gift eased the man’s conscience about cavorting with their mother while they and their father slept upstairs. When Yolande opened the door to her suitor’s soft taps, Edwardus eased past her and began sniffing the parcel. The scholar tried to kick him, but Edwardus had been hurt by the man before, and was ready to dodge out of the way. Then the dog stiffened and started to growl.

Clippesby raced forward as fast as he could. He heard Edwardus’s furious yaps and the scholar’s exclamation of annoyance that he should be disturbed as he was about to enjoy himself. Then Yolande screamed, and blood spurted from a gaping wound in the scholar’s shoulder.

‘The wolf!’ Clippesby yelled. ‘It is the wolf!’

Cambridge,

Pentecost 1355

Dawn was not far off. The half-dark of an early-June night was already fading to the silver greys of morning, and the Fen-edge town was beginning to wake. Low voices could be heard along some of the streets as scholars and friars left their hostels to attend prime, and an eager cockerel crowed its warning of impending day. Matthew Bartholomew, Master of Medicine and Fellow of Michaelhouse, knew he had lingered too long in Matilde’s house and that he needed to be careful if he did not want to be seen. He opened her door and looked cautiously in both directions, before slipping out and closing it softly behind him. Then he strode briskly, aiming to put as much distance between him and his friend as possible. He knew exactly what people would say if they saw him leaving the home of an unmarried woman – some would say a courtesan – at such an unseemly time.

He slowed when he emerged from the jumble of narrow alleys known as the Jewry and turned into the High Street. The elegant premises of the University’s stationer stood opposite, and Bartholomew detected a flicker of movement behind a window. He grimaced. If John Weasenham or his wife Alyce had spotted him, he was unlikely to keep his business private for long. Both were unrepentant gossips, and the reputation of more than one scholar – innocent and otherwise – had been irrevocably tarnished by their malicious tongues.

Once away from Weasenham’s shop, he began to relax. The High Street was one of the town’s main thoroughfares, and Bartholomew was a busy physician with plenty of patients. Anyone who saw him now would assume he had been visiting one, and would never imagine that he had spent the night with the leader of and spokeswoman for the town’s unofficial guild of prostitutes. The University forbade contact between scholars and women, partly because it followed monastic rules and its Colleges and halls were the exclusive domain of men, but also because prevention was better than cure: the Chancellor knew what would happen if his scholars seduced town wives, daughters and sisters, so declaring the entire female population off limits was a sensible way to suppress trouble before it began. However, rules could be broken, and even the prospect of heavy fines and imprisonment did not deter some scholars from chancing their hands.

It was not far to Michaelhouse, where Bartholomew lived and worked, and the journey took no time at all when the streets were quiet. When he reached St Michael’s Lane, he continued past his College’s front gates and aimed for a little-used door farther along the alley. He had left it ajar the previous evening, intending to slip inside without being obliged to explain to the night porter where he had been. He was startled and not very amused to find it locked. Puzzled, he gave it a good rattle in the hope that it was only stuck, but he could see through the gaps in its wooden panels that a stout bar had been placed across the other side.

He retraced his steps, wondering which of the students – or Fellows, for that matter – had crept out of the college the night before and secured the door when he had returned. Or had someone simply noticed it unbarred during a nocturnal stroll in the gardens and done the responsible thing? It was a nuisance: Bartholomew had been using it for ten days now, and did not want to go to the trouble of devising another way to steal inside the College undetected. He walked past the main gates a second time, and headed for nearby St Michael’s Church. All Michaelhouse men were obliged to attend daily religious offices, and no one would question a scholar who began his devotions early – particularly at Pentecost, which was a major festival. He wrestled with the temperamental latch on the porch door, then entered.

Although summer was in the air, it was cold inside St Michael’s. Its stone walls and floors oozed a damp chill that carried echoes of winter, and Bartholomew shivered. He walked to the chancel and dropped to his knees, knowing he would not have long to wait before his colleagues appeared. Smothering a yawn, he wondered how much longer he could survive such sleepless nights, when his days were full of teaching and patients. He had fallen asleep at breakfast the previous morning, a mishap that had not gone unnoticed by the Master. He was not entirely sure Ralph de Langelee had believed him when he claimed he had been with a sick patient all night.

The sudden clank of the latch was loud in the otherwise silent church, and Bartholomew felt himself jerk awake. He scrubbed hard at his eyes and took a deep breath as he stood, hoping he would not drop off during the service. The soft slap of leather soles on flagstones heralded the arrival of his fellow scholars; they were led by Master Langelee, followed closely by the Fellows. The students were behind them, while the commoners – men too old or infirm to teach, or visitors from other academic institutions – brought up the rear. They arranged themselves into rows, and Bartholomew took his usual place between Brother Michael and Father William.

‘Where have you been?’ demanded William in a low hiss. William was a Franciscan who taught theology, a large, dirty man who had fanatical opinions about virtually everything. ‘You left shortly after dusk and have been gone ever since.’

His voice was indignant, as if Bartholomew’s absence was a personal affront, and the physician wondered whether it was he who had barred the door. William was narrow minded and intolerant when it came to University rules, despite the fact that he did not always heed them scrupulously himself.

‘Fever,’ he replied shortly. William had no right to question him: that was the Master’s prerogative – and Langelee was mercifully accommodating when it came to the activities of a physician with a long list of needy customers. He encouraged Bartholomew to treat the town’s poor, in the hope that this might induce some of them to spare Michaelhouse during the town’s frequent and often highly destructive riots.

‘What kind of fever?’ asked William uneasily.

‘A serious one,’ replied Bartholomew pointedly, wishing the Franciscan would begin his prayers. He did not want to elaborate on his story – and he certainly could not tell the truth.

‘Fatal?’ asked William, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve. His voice went from accusing to alarmed. ‘Is it the Death? There are rumours that it is coming a second time. Not enough folk mended their wicked ways, and God is still angry with them.’

Bartholomew smiled despite his irritation, amused by the way that William did not consider himself one of those with ‘wicked ways’. ‘It is not the plague.’

‘Then who has this fever? Anyone I know?’

‘A labourer – one of the men hired to clean the town for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Visitation next week.’ This was true: he had indeed been summoned to tend one of the hollow-eyed peasants who worked all day for the price of a meal. He had physicked the fellow before visiting Matilde.