Susanna GREGORY - A Poisonous Plot

‘He is a scholar, Brother. He is supposed to have ideas of his own.’

‘Not ones that conflict with mine.’

Both stopped when there was a sudden roar of cheering voices. Bartholomew assumed it was the procession getting under way, but the direction was wrong, and Michael gave an urgent yelp before stabbing a plump finger to where bright flames danced up the side of St Michael’s tower.

‘That bonfire!’ he cried. ‘Now it has set our church alight!’

It was a fraught dash back to the High Street. Three different bands of marauding townsmen tried to waylay them, and it was not easy to extricate themselves without giving cause for offence. They arrived to find a large crowd watching gleefully as fire consumed a derelict lean-to shed that sagged against the base of the church tower.

‘We have been meaning to demolish that anyway,’ wheezed Michael, grabbing Bartholomew’s shoulder for support as he fought to catch his breath. ‘So its destruction is no loss. However, the blaze might spread, so you start putting it out while I fetch help.’

Bartholomew seized a long-handled hoe and began to knock the little building to the ground. Fires were taken seriously in a town with lots of wooden houses and thatched roofs, so he was surprised when the onlookers did nothing but jeer and hoot. He glanced at them as he worked. The men were sullen and the women snide, united in their hatred of the University and its perceived affluence. One went so far as to lob a stone at him.

‘I love a good conflagration,’ taunted the furrier named Lenne, whose wife Isabel was at his side. ‘With luck, it will take their damned church as well.’

He coughed, the deep, painful hack of a man who had spent too many years inhaling hairs from the pelts he sold. Sadly, much of his antagonism towards the studium generale resulted from the fact that its physicians were powerless to cure him.

‘I have never liked St Michael’s,’ declared Isabel. ‘It stinks of scholars.’

‘Help me!’ shouted Bartholomew, bellowing to make himself heard over the mocking laughter that followed. ‘If the church ignites, your houses might be next.’

‘Not with this wind,’ countered Shirwynk. Bartholomew was surprised to see the brewer out and about so soon after losing his wife, and could only suppose that he had been unable to resist the temptation of joining the mischief. ‘The sparks are flying towards Gonville Hall and Michaelhouse, both places we should love to see incinerated.’

Bartholomew abandoned his efforts to persuade and concentrated on the shed. Just when he thought his efforts were in vain – that the church would burn anyway – Michael, Langelee and some of their students arrived. Once they did, the lean-to was quickly flattened and the flames stamped out.

‘I told you this would happen, Lenne,’ said Langelee angrily. ‘You promised to be careful.’

Lenne coughed again, then shrugged. ‘So I misjudged – just like Wayt of King’s Hall misjudged when he decided to sue Frenge for trespass. And now Frenge is dead.’

‘Murdered,’ hissed Isabel. ‘By a scholar.’

There was a growl of agreement from the crowd, but Michael drew himself up to his full and impressive height and it gradually died away.

‘We do not know the identity of the culprit yet, so I suggest you keep your accusations to yourselves. And before you indulge in any more shameful antics, you might want to remember that we cannot repair damaged buildings and buy bread and ale for the poor – your fellow citizens – after choir practices.’

‘Nor free care from the University’s Senior Physician,’ added Langelee tartly. ‘So bear that in mind the next time you leave us to burn.’

There were more mocking jeers, but they lacked conviction, and it was not long before the crowd began to disperse, especially when the wind changed course and blew smoke towards them. It made Lenne cough so violently that he had no breath to argue and limped away on Isabel’s arm. Soon, only the Michaelhouse men remained.

‘Can we leave you to finish here, Master?’ asked the monk wearily. ‘Matt needs to examine Letia Shirwynk, whom we believe might have died in suspicious circumstances.’

‘We cannot visit the brewery, Brother,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Shirwynk was among the onlookers just now, so he will not be at home to give us his permission.’

Michael smiled sweetly. ‘Then we shall just have to get it from Peyn instead – which I anticipate will be a lot easier than dealing with his sire.’

Once again, they hurried through the dark streets, Michael more fleet-footed than usual as he aimed to be home in time for the feast. They trotted down Water Lane, grimacing at the rank smell that seeped from the dyeworks even though they were closed, and were about to approach the brewery when Peyn emerged with some friends. He was so intent on bragging about his imminent move to Westminster that he did not notice the door pop open again after he had closed it.

‘His father will not be impressed by that cavalier attitude towards security,’ remarked Michael, watching him swagger away. ‘But it suits our purposes. Come on.’

Bartholomew baulked. ‘If I am caught examining someone’s dead wife without permission, the town will rise against the University for certain.’

‘Then we must ensure that you are not caught. I will guard the door, while you go in. Be ready to make a run for it if you hear me hoot like an owl.’

‘ Can you hoot like an owl?’

Michael flapped an impatient hand. ‘Hurry up. You are wasting time.’

Heart hammering, Bartholomew stepped inside. A lamp had been left burning by one of the vats, so he grabbed it and made his way to the living quarters at the back of the house, expecting at any moment to bump into Shirwynk, back early from the festivities. But he met no one, and it was almost an anticlimax when he found Letia’s body on a pallet in the parlour.

He examined her quickly, ears pricked for anything that sounded remotely like a bird. However, it was a cacophony of cheers from the High Street that eventually drove him outside again.

‘That was the procession ending,’ whispered Michael. ‘Shirwynk will be home soon, so let us be off before anyone spots us. Well? How did she die? And please do not say dizziness.’

‘I could not tell. There are no marks of violence, and certainly nothing to suggest she swallowed the kind of poison that killed Frenge. To all intents and purposes, she appears to have died of natural causes. Yet there are compounds that kill without leaving any trace …’

‘So was she murdered or not?’ hissed Michael impatiently.

‘I have already told you,’ said Bartholomew, equally testy. ‘I could not tell.’

‘But you must! You were gone an age – you must have seen something to help us find out why Shirwynk’s fellow brewer and wife died on the same day.’

‘It is suspicious,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘But I am afraid poor Letia provided no answers.’

‘Lord, I feel sick,’ muttered Michael, as the Fellows took their places at the high table the following morning. Meals in College were meant to be taken in silence, so that everyone could listen to the Bible Scholar chanting the scriptures, but it was a rule they rarely followed, and the hapless reader invariably struggled to make himself heard over the buzz of conversation. ‘I think I ate something that was past its best last night.’

The Benedictine was not the only one to be fragile. The feast had been glorious, reminiscent of the splendid affairs they had enjoyed a decade earlier, when the College had been flush with funds. There had been mountains of meat and fish, wine in abundance, bread made with white flour rather than the usual barley-and-sawdust combination, and enough cakes to feed an army. Bartholomew had stayed sober, lest he was called out on a medical emergency, but no one else had demonstrated such restraint, and now there were sore heads aplenty.