Susanna Gregory: A Deadly Brew

Cambridge, late January 1353

Rain slanted across Michaelhouse’s yard in a steady hiss, drumming on the wooden roof of the stable and staining the College’s honey-coloured stone walls a deep amber. The cat, its fur soaked into black spikes, sat morosely under the meagre shelter of a leafless tree and watched a scholar clad in the ceremonial red robes of a University doctor splash his way across the muddy yard. The scholar paused for a moment to glance up at the dull grey sky before disappearing through one of the doorways that led to the rooms where the students and their masters lived.

‘We will be late,’ he warned, looking round the door of Brother Michael’s chamber and seeing that the monk was not yet ready to leave. Michael made no reply and stood in front of a strategically placed silver plate plastering his thin, light brown hair into place with dabs of water. This performed to his satisfaction, he turned his attention to his newly purchased Benedictine habit, brushing away imaginary dust with the head of a teasel.

Matthew Bartholomew sighed impatiently, striding across the room to lean out of the window. ‘The bell has already stopped ringing.’

Michael waved a dismissive hand and continued with his primping. ‘There is no point in attending these festivities if we do not look our best, Matt,’ he said, taking up an ornate cross of gold and hanging it round his neck, careful not to disturb his immaculate hair.

‘It is not you being installed as Master of the Hall of Valence Marie, Brother,’ Bartholomew pointed out. He gazed across Michaelhouse’s yard at the undergraduates hurrying from their lectures to the midday meal. ‘In fact, I do not understand why we should be there at all. I still have not finished Galen’s Prognostica with my third-year students, there is an outbreak of sickness among the river people, and I want to work on my treatise on fevers. This installation is a distraction I could do without.’

Michael gave an exasperated shake of his head. ‘You think of nothing but your work these days,’ he chided. ‘This grand installation will be good for you. You can see all the great and powerful of the University gathered together under one roof and watch the games being played.’

‘Over the past five years I have seen enough of the University’s games to last me a lifetime,’ said Bartholomew vehemently. ‘I want only to teach my students and attend my patients.’

Michael’s green eyes gleamed. He thrived on the intrigues and plots that were as much a part of University life as teaching, and loved nothing more than to attend an event like the installation of the new Master of the Hall of Valence Marie, where he could watch alliances being formed and plans being hatched to avenge ancient grievances. As well as being a Fellow of Michaelhouse, Michael was Senior Proctor, a position that meant he was well-placed to observe — and meddle in — the murky affairs of the University and its scheming scholars.

‘Besides,’ the monk said briskly, ignoring Bartholomew’s grumbling and turning his head this way and that as he studied his reflection in the plate, ‘all Fellows of Michaelhouse were personally invited by the Master-Elect. It would be ungracious to decline, especially if the reason is that you prefer teaching and seeing patients.’

He took a thick winter cloak from a hook on the wall and draped it over his shoulders, fiddling with it until he was sure the expensive cloth fell in even folds before carefully lifting the hood over his head. Then he stepped over to the plate once more and admired the finished product, adjusting a strand of hair here and a fold of his habit there. He glimpsed his friend’s morose expression as he continued to stare out of the window and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

‘Forget your students, Matt. Forget your patients, too. Enjoy yourself for once!’

‘With a group of men whose idea of fun is an all-night debate on the efficacy of Ockham’s Razor?’ asked Bartholomew gloomily. ‘Or, worse still, with those of our colleagues who will drink the new Master’s free wine until they are sick, violent or insensible?’

‘You are in a miserable mood today,’ said Michael, amused. ‘But you will make us late by keeping me here chattering. Come on, hurry up. We do not want to arrive last.’

Glumly, Bartholomew followed Michael down the wooden stairs and out into the yard, a morass of churned mud from the rain that had fallen almost incessantly since Christmas. The cat, seeing the door had been left open, tried in vain to reach it without getting its feet wet. Despite his ill humour, the physician could not help smiling when he noted a similarity between the cat’s dainty, careful footsteps and those of Michael, who held his habit clear of the ground with thumbs and forefingers. The monk cursed and swore at the brown slime that oozed over his carefully polished sandals in language that belied his contemplative vocation.

‘I have never seen such rain,’ he muttered. ‘We are a cursed race. First came the pestilence that claimed so many lives; then there was the drought of last summer when we baked under a sun that turned the whole country brown; and now we have endless rain. The crops will rot in the fields and there will be an even greater shortage of bread than there is now. You mark my words.’

‘Rain in winter should not be a problem,’ said Bartholomew, splashing along beside Michael, oblivious to the mud. He had dressed in his best scarlet robe when he had finished teaching — around ten o’clock that Saturday morning — but had been called out to tend to a patient with a winter fever. His feet were already wet inside his boots and avoiding puddles would make little difference to him now. ‘It is summer rain that rots the crops in the fields.’

Michael shot him a disbelieving glance and continued with his litany of complaints. ‘This rain is worse than snow. The roof leaks in my room and I can barely sleep for the noise of drips falling into the bucket.’

Bartholomew recalled pulling the bed-covers over his ears the night before in a vain effort to muffle the sound of Michael’s snores thundering from the room above his, and treated the monk’s words with scepticism.

‘And the dampness is unbearable. All my bones ache with it,’ Michael added, looking resentfully up to a lead-grey sky that made the noon light seem like late afternoon.

Bartholomew turned to him in concern. ‘Do they? Do you need a physic? I have a poultice that, if applied daily, can ease soreness in the joints.’

Michael sighed and gave a wry grin. ‘I am not so bad that I need a physic. It is nothing a dry blanket and a doze by a fire would not cure. But this foul weather must be hard on your older patients.’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘A number of them are complaining about painful joints. But it is this winter fever that worries me. I have never seen anything quite like it.’

‘It is not like the Death, then?’ asked Michael, picking his way cautiously around a gigantic puddle that shivered and rippled as the rain pattered into it.

Bartholomew shuddered. ‘No, thank God!’ Even after five years, Bartholomew had not forgotten his helplessness in the face of the plague that had defied all treatment and seemed to strike at random, carrying off at least a third of the population of Cambridge and completely annihilating the people who lived in the impoverished little settlement near the castle, where cramped and filthy conditions seemed to hasten the disease’s relentless progress.

They reached Michaelhouse’s great gates and unlatched the wicket door. Michael stepped into the lane and rinsed the mud off his feet in a puddle of cleanish water, wincing at its coldness. They walked up the lane and then along the High Street towards the Hall of Valence Marie. For a while, they were forced to abandon conversation and concentrate on avoiding the deep potholes that lurked unseen under the flooded surface of the road.