Susanna GREGORY - An Order for Death

‘I was here first,’ came a petulant voice. Bartholomew glanced up to see Robin of Grantchester. The town’s surgeon held a fearsome array of rusty, bloodstained knives, and was busily deciding which one he would use to slice through the veins in Richard’s arms.

‘Leave him, Robin,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘This is my nephew and I do not want you shoving your filthy instruments into him.’

‘He needs to be bled,’ protested Robin. ‘I will do it now, and he can pay me sixpence when he revives. He will not mind paying above the odds for an operation performed in the street.’

Bartholomew ignored him. ‘What happened?’ he asked, addressing the watching crowd.

‘I found him first,’ repeated Robin angrily. ‘With those expensive clothes and that fine black horse, he can afford to pay me what I ask. I will not stand by why you take the bread from my mouth. Go away.’

‘What happened?’ Bartholomew asked again, while the crowd, anticipating a fight between the surgeon and the physician, looked on expectantly.

‘Robin did find him first,’ offered Bosel the beggar, who had been relieved of a hand for persistent stealing and who now worked on the High Street, demanding money on the fraudulent claim that he had lost an arm fighting in France. He was not a man Bartholomew liked.

‘But Doctor Bartholomew has a right to him,’ replied Isnard the bargeman, who sang bass in Michael’s choir, and who was in debt to Bartholomew for once setting his broken leg, free of charge. ‘He is kin.’

‘Did anyone see what happened to Richard?’ pressed Bartholomew loudly, before the argument could escalate and everyone started to take sides.

‘He fell off his horse,’ said Bosel, gloating. ‘One moment he was riding along, trampling us under his hoofs and pretending to be a great man, and the next he was on the ground in the muck.’

‘He just fell?’ asked Bartholomew, pushing Robin’s hands away as the surgeon made a grab for Richard’s arm. ‘No one threw anything at him or pushed him off?’

There was a chorus of denials, although several of the crowd muttered that they wished they had.

‘The horse was prancing and waving its front feet around,’ explained Isnard. ‘But it always does that. It is the most badly behaved animal in the town.’

‘Let me bleed him,’ pleaded Robin, trying again to lay hold of one of Richard’s wrists. ‘If you wait until he regains his senses, he will refuse my services and I will have lost sixpence.’

‘I will give you sixpence if you leave him alone,’ said Bartholomew, covering his nephew with his tabard. He tapped the young man’s cheeks until Richard opened his eyes, squinting against the white brightness of the sky.

A grubby hand was thrust under Bartholomew’s nose. ‘All right, then,’ said Robin ungraciously. ‘Give.’

Seeing that the hand was likely to remain where it was until he paid, Bartholomew rummaged in his scrip for six pennies. He could find only three, even with the one Matilde had given him, and Michael was obliged to provide the rest.

‘What is wrong with him?’ asked the monk, crouching next to Bartholomew and peering at Richard’s pale face. ‘Has he swooned?’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘And then the horse threw him. That thing is far too powerful for a man of his meagre riding abilities.’

With Michael’s help, Bartholomew raised the dazed Richard from the ground, put a supporting arm around the young man, and walked him towards Milne Street, where he could be deposited at his father’s business premises. Michael paid Isnard a penny to find the escaped Black Bishop of Bedminster and bring it back before it ate someone, and then followed them.

Oswald Stanmore stared expressionlessly when he saw Richard helped across the courtyard, but did not offer to assist when the physician lowered the invalid gently on to a bench.

‘Has he been drinking with that Heytesbury again?’ Stanmore asked folding his arms and regarding his son with disapproval. ‘The man is leading him to a life of debauchery and lust.’

‘Heytesbury is leading Richard astray?’ asked Michael. He watched Bartholomew help Richard sip some water. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because Heytesbury is in an inn at every opportunity,’ said Stanmore crossly. ‘And when there is no tavern available, he insists on being provided with wine.’

‘Really,’ said Michael, interested. ‘Would you say that this affinity with wine is more marked than in most men?’

‘I certainly would,’ said Stanmore firmly. ‘He has already drunk the best of my cellars, and is inveigling invitations to friaries and Colleges all over Cambridge, so that he can have a go at theirs. He is one of those cunning imbibers – not the kind who becomes roaring drunk so that the whole town knows what he has been doing, but the kind who indulges himself steadily and heavily and shakes like a leaf when there is too long an interval between tipples.’

‘Like Dame Martyn,’ said Bartholomew. Stanmore nodded.

‘Well, now,’ said Michael, his eyes gleaming. ‘Perhaps Heytesbury will sign my deed sooner than he anticipates.’

‘Yes, blackmail him,’ said Stanmore harshly. ‘Then he will remove himself from my house and return to that den of iniquity he calls Oxford. I do not want to order him to leave, because he is Richard’s friend, but he cannot depart soon enough for me or Edith.’

Michael draped an arm over Stanmore’s shoulders with a grin of immense satisfaction. ‘Just leave it to me.’

‘I do not know why you needed Oswald to tell you this,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It has been apparent from the start that Heytesbury likes his wine. I have seen him in the Swan and the Cardinal’s Cap, and he carries gum mastic – a breath freshener – with him at all times to disguise the scent of wine on his breath.’

‘Then why did you not point this out to me sooner?’ asked Michael coolly. ‘Had I known, it would have made a big difference to the way I dealt with him.’

‘It was so obvious I did not think it necessary to mention it. You do not need to be a physician to detect the symptoms of a committed drinker. However, Richard has not been drinking – not today, at least.’

‘What is wrong with him, then?’ said Stanmore, finally becoming worried. ‘It is not the Great Pestilence again, is it? Oxford is exactly the kind of place it would come from a second time.’

‘It is not the plague,’ said Bartholomew, taking Richard’s wrist and measuring the pace of his life-beat. It was within the normal range for a man of his age and size, and Bartholomew did not think there was anything seriously wrong with his nephew. Richard’s eyes flickered and he began to show signs of awareness.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Where am I? Where is my horse?’

‘You fell off it,’ said Michael unsympathetically. ‘It is too spirited for you; you would do better with a palfrey.’

‘I cannot be seen on a palfrey,’ said Richard, not too unwell to be indignant. ‘What would people think?’

‘They would think that you are a man who is sensible, modest and steady,’ replied Michael. ‘They would not snigger behind your back because you have purchased a mount over which you have no control, and they would not think you are an ambitious toady, who is so aware of outward appearances that there is no substance to him.’

Richard’s eyes were wide. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘It is what you tell people to think with your Black Bishop of Bedminster and your dangling ear-ring and your glittering buttons,’ scolded Michael.

Richard turned on his father. ‘I told you that horse was too ostentatious and that we should have bought the brown one instead!’