Susanna Gregory: A Deadly Brew

‘He will do nothing so petty!’ said Langelee confidently. ‘Now, let me think. I must arrange for horses. Meanwhile, you ask Brother Michael whether he will marry us. He is more likely to agree if you put it to him.’

He bustled out of the room leaving Bartholomew to follow. Speechless, the physician walked into the courtyard, staring at Langelee’s broad back as he strode purposefully across the yard, humming to himself. And then he started to laugh. Michael, emerging from the kitchen after devouring a large plate of honey cakes — originally intended for Alcote who had paid for the ingredients — saw him, and picked his way mincingly across the slippery snow.

‘What were you doing in Langelee’s room? And what is so funny?’

Bartholomew told him, and Michael narrowed his eyes in thought. Bartholomew’s jaw dropped in horror, feeling the humour of the situation evaporating like the Fen mist in the sun.

‘Do not tell me you are going to oblige! This is madness, Brother. Deschalers would never let the matter rest: Julianna is all he has in the way of an heir for his business, and he will not let her go to someone he does not approve of.’

‘This was not your idea?’ asked Michael, surprised. ‘You suggested to Matilde that you would see if you could persuade Julianna to spirit Langelee away so that we could be rid of him. I simply assumed all this was your doing.’

‘It most certainly was not my idea. I want nothing to do with it.’

‘But it might be an excellent opportunity for us to lose Langelee. He can hardly remain a Fellow of Michaelhouse if he has eloped with a merchant’s niece. Fellows are not permitted to marry.’

‘But how can you consider implicating yourself in all this?’ protested Bartholomew. ‘You are always stressing how important it is to maintain good relations with the merchants. Deschalers will be outraged if you marry Julianna to that brute of a man.’

‘We must weigh up the pros and cons,’ said Michael smoothly. ‘And being free of Langelee is a pro not to be lightly dismissed.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I think I will accede to their request. I can always claim later I did not know the arrangement was anything but legitimate.’

‘In the middle of the night? In a dark church?’

Michael rubbed his chin. ‘You have a point. But my grandmother tells me Julianna is pregnant, so I can always claim I thought the secrecy was because of that. Speaking of which, I must tell her about this. It will amuse her no end!’

He strolled away, whistling, leaving Bartholomew speechless for a second time. He determined to put the whole unsavoury business from his mind and went to bed early that night so that Michael might not be tempted to ask him to help. He was overtired, and thoughts of his sister and her continuing distress over Rob Thorpe tumbled through his mind in an uncontrolled fashion. His room was freezing and flakes of snow found their way through the cracks in the window shutters to form damp little piles on the table: he did not know whether to be grateful or irritated that his teeming, unpleasant dreams were so often interrupted because he woke from the cold. When Michael shook his shoulder to wake him for mass early the following morning, he felt exhausted.

Swearing under his breath, he hopped from bare foot to bare foot across the flagstone floor to the water in the jug Cynric left each night, while Michael waited for him, eating some nuts given by a patient in lieu of payment.

‘It has frozen solid again,’ said Bartholomew tiredly, shaking the solid mass in the jug to see if he could hear water slopping about underneath. There was nothing. ‘I will have to fetch some from the kitchen.’

‘You washed yesterday,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘Is there no end to this cleanliness nonsense? Just get dressed and let us be off before we are late for the third time this week.’

‘Did you marry Langelee and Julianna last night?’ asked Bartholomew, fumbling around in the dark for his shirt.

‘Not so loud, Matt! You will wake the others,’ warned Michael. ‘Just because we have to be at the church early does not mean that the entire College needs to be up with us.’

Bartholomew hauled the cold, damp garment over his head. ‘Sorry. But what of this nocturnal wedding? What happened?’

‘We will speak of the matter after mass,’ said Michael. ‘I will meet you by the gate. Hurry or you can pay my fine for being late as well as your own.’

Bartholomew finished dressing and, hauling his tabard over his head, ran across the snowy yard to where Michael had pulled the bar from the wicket gate. There was no sign of Walter, but the weather was foul — sleet being driven almost horizontally by a bitter wind — and Bartholomew imagined very little would extract him from his cosy room to open the gate for scholars off to early morning mass.

‘It is dark this morning,’ mumbled Bartholomew, glancing up at a black sky laden with heavy clouds. He shivered as icy flakes flew into his face. ‘And cold.’

Michael was walking up the lane towards the High Street with uncharacteristic speed, but Bartholomew was grateful because it stirred the blood in his veins and he felt some warmth begin to creep through his body. He followed Michael through the knee-deep drifts of snow in St Michael’s graveyard to the porch. Someone already waited there and Bartholomew froze in his tracks.

‘Julianna!’

She came towards him, surprised. ‘I did not expect you to be here,’ she said. ‘I thought you were against my marriage to Ralph.’

Bartholomew spun round to Michael, realising exactly why the night seemed to black and why he felt so tired. It was not nearing dawn at all: it was midnight!

Michael raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘I did not lie to you. I only said we would speak of the matter after mass. Which we will do I am sure. If the marriage is to be legal, I need a witness and you are the only one I can trust to do it discreetly.’

‘You trust me?’ said Bartholomew harshly. ‘When I cannot trust you?’

Michael laughed softly in the darkness. ‘You can trust me for important things, and that is what matters. This is a trifling business.’

‘Not to me,’ proclaimed Julianna huffily.

‘Nor to me,’ growled Langelee from behind them.

Bartholomew heaved a huge sigh of resignation and followed them into the church. He struggled to light the temperamental lamp while the others waited impatiently.

‘Hurry it up, Bartholomew,’ ordered Langelee imperiously. ‘We do not have all night.’

Bartholomew was about to suggest that Langelee should light the lamp himself — knowing that the philosopher’s thick, clumsy fingers would never be able to perform the intricate operation required — when it coughed into life. Langelee snatched it from his hand and led the way inside. Michael had apparently made some preparations the night before, because the Bible was opened to the relevant page and the altar was draped with a white cloth. Something glittery to one side caught his eye. It was Wilson’s black marble tomb, now topped with a grotesque effigy of a man in a scholar’s gown, partly faced in gold.

‘That monstrosity will have to go,’ muttered Michael, seeing Bartholomew staring at it with loathing. ‘It would be bad enough if it were all one colour, but now the smuggling is over Runham cannot lay his hands on sufficient gold leaf to finish covering the thing. We have Wilson with a golden stomach and a face of cheap limestone.’

‘At least it does not look like him,’ said Bartholomew, helping Michael to lay out the regalia for the mass. ‘I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.’

While Michael ripped through the Latin wedding ceremony at an impressive rate, Bartholomew sat at the base of one of the pillars and watched moodily. He wondered what the offspring of such an alliance would be like and hoped they did not move back to Cambridge so he would find out. There was a sudden draught of wind and the lamp fluttered dangerously. Michael looked up from his reading and Bartholomew went to close the door that the fierce wind had blown open.