Susanna Gregory: A Plague On Both Your Houses

Drugged wine was left in the commoners' room, lest they returned from the feast too early. And Jocelyn had told Bartholomew that it had been his idea to drink Wilson's health with the wine he had found on the table. He must have known it was drugged, and also that the others were too drunk to question how the wine had come to be there so conveniently. How Jocelyn must have gloated at the ease with which that part of the plan had gone. Montfitchet did not want to drink because he felt ill, but, luckily for Jocelyn, Father Jerome persuaded him, unwittingly bringing about his death. D'Evene, who had a bad reaction to wine, had also been persuaded to drink.

Bartholomew stood and began jumping up and down on the spot, trying to force some warmth into his legs. As he considered the information he had, it was easy to see what Colet had done. He must have hidden in Swynford's room. Swynford was the only Fellow to have a room to himself, so no one would have seen Colet once he had slipped into the College in the commotion before the feast. He could then have used the second trap-door in the hallway outside Swynford's room to gain access to the attic, and gone from there to Augustus's room.

But how did Colet know about the doors to the attic? Wilson had said they were a secret passed from Master to Master. Wilson himself did not know about them until he read about them in the box from the Chancellor.

Try as he might, Bartholomew could come up with no reason why Swynford or Colet should know, and he felt his carefully constructed argument begin to crumble.

He could not imagine that Sir John would have broken trust by telling Swynford, and Swynford had not been at Michaelhouse long enough to have known the previous Master. Exhausted by his thinking and the events of the day, Bartholomew finally slipped into a restless doze huddled in a corner.

Bartholomew lost track of the time he was kept in his underground tomb. Once the door opened briefly and some bread, salted beef, and watered ale were shoved inside, but it occurred so quickly that by the time Bartholomew realised what had happened, the door had been closed and he was alone again. He sniffed at the food suspiciously, wondering if Colet meant to poison him, but he was hungry and thirsty enough to throw caution to the wind.

He thought about what his death might mean. Colet had said in Bene't Hostel that it would fit nicely into their plan, and would reinforce the notion that something was sadly amiss at Michaelhouse. What of Stanmore then? He would never accept Bartholomew's murder, no matter how cunningly disguised. He would try to seek out Bartholomew's killer, would confront members of the hostel committee, and generally make problems until he, too, was dispatched. And then Richard would guess something untoward had happened, and perhaps start an inexperienced, clumsy investigation of his own.

Where would it all end? Would Stanmore's colleagues be suspicious of three accidental deaths in one family?

Would they, too, start to look into matters?

Bartholomew recalled with a pang why he had been captured in the first place — trying to warn Stanmore that Stephen and Burwell planned to kill him. He cursed himself again for his ineptitude. He had seen Stephen wearing that cloak before. But the more he thought about it, the more he came to believe that Stanmore would be safe until his own body was found. Stanmore had no reason to be suspicious of Bartholomew's disappearance — since the plague had come he had kept such irregular hours that no one knew for certain where he was — and the hostel group was unlikely to cut off a source of funding in Stanmore before it became absolutely necessary.

He was dozing in the corner when the room was suddenly filled with light that hurt his eyes. There was noise too — shouting and arguing. Through painfully narrowed eyes, Bartholomew saw Swynford outlined in the doorway, flanked by a burly porter from Rudde' s Hostel who was armed with a loaded crossbow. Irrelevantly, Bartholomew remembered Colet telling him that the porter was a veteran of the King's wars in France before exchanging a soldier's career for a more sedentary life keeping law and order in one of the University's rowdier establishments.

Swynford held up the torch and the light fell on Bartholomew. Bartholomew squinted, wondering if they had come to murder him. He struggled to his feet, dazed and clumsy, but prepared to sell his life dearly. Swynford glanced at Bartholomew disinterestedly, and gestured to someone outside. Bartholomew had a fleeting glimpse of Brother Michael, firmly in the grasp of Jocelyn and Colet, before he was hurled into the room.

'Company for you, Physician,' said Swynford. 'Now you have someone with whom you can discuss what you think you know of us.' He turned to leave. Bartholomew, savouring the sound of voices after so long alone, was strangely reluctant to let them go. He thought quickly, wondering how he might detain them.

'Gregory!' he called, trying to disentangle himself from Michael who had stumbled into him. 'Did you kill Augustus and Paul?'

'Yes and no,' replied Colet smoothly, ignoring Swynford's look of disapproval. "I killed Paul. He kept calling out for someone to bring him water. He was a nuisance, and had to be silenced. But I did not kill Augustus, he killed himself.'

'What do you mean?' said Bartholomew. 'There were no marks of violence on him.'

'So that was what you were doing with his body,' said Colet. "I wondered what you were up to. I had planned to kill the old fool, and had my knife ready to slip between his ribs as he slept. But he was awake when I entered his room, and I saw him swallow something. I was wearing a black cloak and hood, and I really think he believed I was Death coming for him. He just keeled over and died of fright.'

Bartholomew remembered Wilson's dismissive words when Bartholomew told him he had been trying to discover the cause of Augustus's death. 'He probably frightened himself to death with his imagination,' Wilson had said, and he had been exactly right. But, even if no weapon were used, it was still murder to frighten an old man so much that his heart stopped. Colet seemed about to continue, and Bartholomew could tell from the tone of his voice that he was only too happy to talk about the deeds he had done and boast of his own cleverness in evading detection, but Swynford took him roughly by the arm and pulled him away. The door was slammed shut and firmly bolted and barred again from the outside. Once more the room was plunged into pitch blackness. Bartholomew heard Michael groping around in the darkness, and moved across to him. The fat monk was damp with sweat and trembling violently.

'How do you come to be here, Brother?'

Bartholomew asked, leading him to a crate, the position of which he knew so well from his wanderings in the dark.

'How do you?' retorted Michael angrily, pulling away from Bartholomew and stumbling against the chest. 'The word is that you have gone to Peterborough on a mercy call from your old mentor the Abbott.'

Bartholomew immediately appreciated that it was a clever ploy on the part of Swynford to say that he had gone to Peterborough. It was very plausible that Bartholomew might answer a call of distress from the monks at the abbey where he had gone to school, and at any time other than while the plague raged in Cambridge, Bartholomew would have gone without hesitation. But Colet and Swynford did not know him as well as they thought.

"I would not leave,' said Bartholomew, 'when there is only me and Robin of Grantchester to help the sick.

And the Abbott would know I would not desert my patients, and would never ask me to go.'

Michael gave a grunt. "I suppose that seems reasonable.

But you still have not explained how you come to be here.'

'Oswald!' said Bartholomew suddenly. 'How is he?'