Susanna Gregory: A Deadly Brew

‘Langelee has just offered us a repeat performance of his adventures in the Fens,’ said Michael with a grin, watching the burly philosopher taking a break from his labours as he crammed one of Agatha’s cakes into his mouth.

‘What, again?’ asked Bartholomew without enthusiasm. ‘He has only just finished enthralling us the first time.’

‘He is not a man for false modesty, apparently,’ said Michael. ‘And so he will relate once more the tale of how he single-handedly saved the kingdom, starting as soon as Cynric has replenished the wine in his audience’s goblets.’

‘That is rash of him,’ remarked Bartholomew. ‘There will be discrepancies between the story he just told, and the one he will tell again. He will never recall all the lies he has already spoken. Father William will be on him in an instant, and will expose him as a fraud.’

‘I thought as much when I persuaded him to accede to the Master’s request for the tale to be repeated,’ said Michael smugly, stretching his hands to the fire.

Bartholomew laughed. ‘Dame Pelagia would approve of that.’

‘No,’ said Michael, musing for a moment. ‘She would consider it too unsubtle.’

Bartholomew laughed again, and looked back to where Langelee was raising a wine bottle to his lips — a bottle of smoked glass, just like the ones that had killed Armel, Grene, Will Harper and Katherine Mortimer, and had dragged Bartholomew and Michael into investigating the poisoned wine with such dire consequences.

Bartholomew’s stomach began to churn as he realised, with absolute certainty, that Harling had been a good deal more clever than they had supposed. Michael was wrong: the horrible events of the past few days were not over! Harling had not been fooled for an instant by Langelee’s duplicity and had not been surprised in the least that he had been followed into the Fens — he had known Langelee would not kill Bartholomew and Michael! He had told Langelee to return to Michaelhouse to await payment. Part of the payment must have been a bottle of wine — in a smoked glass bottle — the last of the six that Sacks had stolen! Harling had lied, and it had not been smashed in the fight with Sacks at all. It was his insurance that Langelee would die, even if he escaped the final confrontation in the Fens.

The students’ singing in the hall raised to a crescendo once more, drowning out Bartholomew’s warning shout. Langelee paused to listen to something Kenyngham was saying, and then brought the bottle to his mouth again to remove the cork with his teeth. The cork! Suddenly, the whole issue of the poison became horrifyingly clear. Grene and Armel had died instantly, yet Philius had merely become ill. The poison was not in the wine — it was soaked into the stopper! While Philius had ingested some of the poison washed from the neck of the bottle as it had been poured, Armel and Grene had either drawn the stopper from the bottle with their teeth, or had put their lips to the neck of the bottle to drink.

Just as Langelee was about to do.

‘No!’ he yelled, leaping to his feet.

Langelee paused again, but it was nothing to do with Bartholomew. He was paying attention to Kenyngham, and the physician’s voice was drowned out by the students laughing and cheering in the room next door. Michael watched curiously as Bartholomew tried to push past Father Paul to reach Langelee. The blind friar Paul stumbled, and grabbed at Bartholomew to steady himself. The bottle was inches away from Langelee’s mouth, and Bartholomew could not extricate himself from Paul’s grip.

As he struggled to push Paul away, he felt something hard in his shirt pocket. Tulyet’s lemon! He drew it out and hurled it with all his might, aiming to strike the bottle from Langelee’s hand.

The throw went appallingly wide and smashed through one of Michaelhouse’s newly installed, and much admired windows. The other Fellows leapt to their feet in shock, while Langelee dropped the bottle as he ducked away from the missile that sailed past his head. He gazed at Bartholomew in bewilderment, his mouth hanging open. Master Kenyngham turned to Bartholomew in horror.

‘Matthew!’ he cried. ‘Our lovely glass!’

‘Well done, Matt,’ muttered Michael, sardonically, from his chair near the fire. ‘Our one chance to rid ourselves of the appalling Langelee, and you go and save his life!’

The following day Bartholomew threw himself into his teaching to take his mind off the events of the previous week. He and Michael had successfully resolved the deaths of Armel, Grene, Philius and Isaac; removed any suspicion that the town was trying to kill the University’s scholars with poisoned wine; Harling was dead and his accomplices either killed or in Tulyet’s care; Rob Thorpe was under lock and key; and the merchant smugglers were suitably subdued. Yet Bartholomew felt anything but satisfaction. He fretted over Edith’s grief over Rob Thorpe, and was disturbed that a man like Harling, who had given the University his loyalty and energies for so many years, should suddenly turn on it with such bitterness.

When the bell rang to bring an end to the day’s lectures, Bartholomew felt drained, and trailed apathetically after his students to the hall for dinner. Kenyngham was spending the day with Chancellor Tynkell and Langelee at St Mary’s Church, writing the official report about Harling that would be sent to the King, and Father William was due to preside over the midday meal. Bartholomew’s spirits sank at the prospect of food eaten in silence, and long graces, during which each of the Franciscans would take it in turns to say more than a few words. When he saw the friars carrying various books and scrolls with them from which to read, his appetite began to wane, and he decided to risk their displeasure and miss the meal altogether.

He skulked in his room until all the scholars were in the hall, and then began to walk across the yard to the gate, intending to buy one of Mortimer’s pies and take it to eat in the deserted water meadows behind Peterhouse. He was startled to hear his name hissed urgently from Michael’s room on the floor above. He looked up, and saw Michael leaning out of his window, beckoning frantically to him.

He climbed the wooden stairs to the room that Michael shared with three Benedictine undergraduates, and pushed open the door.

Michael sat on his bed with a small strongbox open on his knees. ‘Is anyone about?’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘They are all in the hall. What are you doing?’

‘I had to pack up Eligius’s possessions this morning,’ said Michael. ‘They need to be returned to the Dominicans at Blackfriars in London. While I was in his room I came across this box. No one knows I have it, but I need a witness to what I have found.’

‘No!’ said Bartholomew vehemently, beginning to back away. ‘I have had enough of University politics! Choose someone else as your witness.’

‘Matt!’ exclaimed Michael in exasperation. ‘Look!’ He held up a handful of small scraps of parchment, each bearing a few words of writing. Bartholomew regarded them blankly. ‘The voting slips from the chancellorial election,’ Michael explained. ‘And almost every one of them bearing Harling’s name. Here is yours.’

Curious, despite his reservations, Bartholomew stepped forward and saw that Michael was right. In the box on the monk’s lap were dozens of the small scraps of parchment that had been used by the University Fellows to vote for their favoured candidate as Chancellor. Bartholomew leaned down and took a handful of them, leafing through them quickly. He exchanged a glance of puzzlement with Michael, and then inspected the piece that bore his name and Harling’s.

‘So?’ he asked, nonplussed. ‘You said Eligius and Kenyngham counted the votes. Why should they not be in Eligius’s room?’