Susanna GREGORY: A Bone of Contention

The Hall of Valence Marie had been founded five years previously – by Marie de Valence, the Countess of Pembroke – and the Chancellor and Sheriff were only too aware of the desire of its Master to make the young Hall famous. The bones of a local martyr would be perfect for such a purpose: pilgrims would flock to pray at the shrine Thorpe would build, and would not only spread word of the miraculous find at Valence Marie across the country, but also shower the College with gifts.

The Chancellor had charged Michael to handle Thorpe with care.

Thorpe inclined his silver head to Bartholomew, to acknowledge the role foisted on him by the Chancellor, and walked to where a piece of rough sacking lay on the ground. With a flourish, Thorpe removed it to reveal a pile of muddy bones that had been laid reverently on the grass.

Bartholomew knelt next to them, inspecting each one carefully, although he knew from a glance what they were. Michael, too, had devoured enough roasts at high table in Michaelhouse to know sheep bones when he saw them. But Bartholomew did not want to give the appearance of being flippant, and was meticulous in his examination.

‘I believe these to be the leg bones of a sheep,’ he said, standing again and addressing Thorpe. ‘They are too short to be human.’

‘But the martyr Simon d’Ambrey is said to have been short,’ countered Thorpe.

Michael intervened smoothly. ‘D’Ambrey was not that small, Master Thorpe,’ he said. He turned to Bartholomew. ‘Am I right? You must remember him since you lived in Cambridge when he was active.’

‘You?’ asked Thorpe, looking Bartholomew up and down dubiously. ‘You are not old enough. He died a quarter of a century ago.’

‘I am old enough to remember him quite vividly, actually,’ said Bartholomew. He smiled apologetically at Thorpe. ‘He was of average height – and certainly not short. These bones cannot be his.’

‘We have found more of him!’ came a breathless exclamation from Bartholomew’s elbow. The physician glanced down, and saw a scruffy college servant standing there, his clothes and hands deeply grimed with mud from the Ditch. He smelt like the Ditch too, thought Bartholomew, moving away. The servant’s beady eyes glittered fanatically, and Bartholomew saw that Master Thorpe was not the only person at Valence Marie desperate to provide it with a relic.

‘Tell us, Will,’ said Thorpe, hope lighting up his face before he mastered himself and made his expression impassive. ‘What have you found this time?’

They followed Will across the swathe of poorly kept pasture to the Ditch beyond. A swarm of flies hovered around its mud-encrusted sides, and even Bartholomew, used to unpleasant smells, was forced to cover his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his gown. The servant slithered down the bank to the trickle of water at the bottom, and prodded about.

‘Here!’ he called out triumphantly.

‘Bring it out, Will,’ commanded Thorpe, putting a huge pomander over his lower face.

Will hauled at something, which yielded itself reluctantly from the mud with a slurping plop. Holding it carefully in his arms, he carried it back up the bank and laid it at Thorpe’s feet. His somewhat unpleasant, fawning manner reminded Bartholomew of a dog he had once owned, which had persisted in presenting him with partially eaten rats as a means to ingratiate itself.

Holding his sleeve over his nose, Bartholomew knelt and peered closely at Will’s bundle.

‘Still too small?’ asked Michael hopefully.

‘Too small to belong to a man,’ said Bartholomew, stretching out a hand to turn the bones over. He glanced up at Thorpe and Michael, squinting up into the bright sun. ‘But it is human.’

Bartholomew and Michael sat side by side on the ancient trunk of an apple tree that had fallen against the orchard wall behind Michaelhouse. The intense heat of the day had faded, and the evening shade, away from the failing sunlight, was almost chilly. Bats flitted silently through the gnarled branches of the fruit trees, feasting on the vast number of insects that always inhabited Cambridge in the summer, attracted by the dank and smelly waters of the river. That night, however, the sulphurous odours of the river were masked by the sweeter smell of rotting apples, many of which lay in the long, damp grass to be plundered by wasps.

Bartholomew rubbed tiredly at his eyes, feeling them gritty and sore under his fingers. Michael watched him.

‘Have you not been sleeping well?’ he asked, noting the dark smudges under the physician’s eyes.

‘My room is hot at night,’ Bartholomew answered. ‘Even with the shutters open, it is like an oven.’

‘Then you should try sleeping on the upper floor,’ said Michael unsympathetically. ‘The heat is stifling, and my room-mates sincerely believe that night air will give them summer ague. Our shutters remain firmly closed, regardless of how hot it is outside. At least you have a flagstone floor on which to lie. We have a wooden floor, which is no use for cooling us down at all.’

He stretched his long, fat legs out in front of him, and settled more comfortably on the tree trunk. ‘It will soon be too cold to sit here,’ he added hastily, seeing Bartholomew’s interest quicken at the prospect of a discussion about the relationship between summer ague and night air. Fresh air and cleanliness were subjects dear to his friend’s heart, and Michael did not want to spend the remainder of the evening listening to his latest theories on contagion. ‘The nights are drawing in now that the leaves are beginning to turn.’

Bartholomew flapped at an insistent insect that buzzed around his head. ‘We could try an experiment with your room-mates’ notion about night air,’ he said, oblivious to Michael’s uninterest. ‘You keep your shutters closed, and I will keep mine open…’

‘Strange business today,’ Michael interrupted. He laughed softly. ‘I felt almost sorry for that greedy dog Thorpe when you told him his precious bones could not belong to that martyr he seems so intent on finding. He looked like a child who had been cheated of a visit to the fair: disappointed, angry, bitter and resentful, all at the same time.’

Bartholomew sighed, regretful, but not surprised, that Michael was declining the opportunity to engage in what promised to be an intriguing medical debate. ‘I suppose Thorpe wants to make money from d’Ambrey’s bones as saintly relics,’ he said.

Michael nodded. ‘There is money aplenty to be made from pilgrims these days. People are so afraid that the Death will return and claim everyone who escaped the first time, that they cling to anything that offers hope of deliverance. The pardoners’ and relic-sellers’ businesses are blossoming, and shrines and holy places all over Europe have never been so busy.’

Bartholomew made an impatient sound. ‘People are fools! Relics and shrines did not save them the last time. Why should they save them in the future?’

Michael eyed his friend in monkish disapproval. ‘No wonder you are said to be a heretic, Matt!’ he admonished, half-joking, half-serious. ‘You should be careful to whom you make such wild assertions. Our beloved colleague Father William, for example, would have you hauled away to be burned as a warlock in an instant if he thought you harboured such irreligious notions.’

Bartholomew rubbed a hand through his hair, stood abruptly, and began to pace. ‘I have reviewed my notes again and again,’ he said, experiencing the familiar feeling of frustration each time he thought of the plague.

‘Until the pestilence, I believed there were patterns to when and whom a disease struck. But now I am uncertain. The plague took rich and poor, priests and criminals, good and bad. Sometimes it killed the young and healthy, but left the weak and old. Some people say it burst from ancient graves during an earthquake in the Orient, and was carried westwards on the wind. But even if that is true, it does not explain why some were taken and some were spared. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense.’