Susanna GREGORY - A Poisonous Plot

Deynman went to rummage in a pile of parchments, his expression sullen. ‘Thelnetham will not get away with this,’ he vowed. ‘I shall send him an anonymous gift of that apple wine he likes so much – in the hope that it will make him sick again.’

‘Apple wine? You mean the stuff Shirwynk makes?’

‘Thelnetham is a glutton for it, and is sure to drink it all without sharing with his brethren. He told me that the last barrel he purchased brought on a bout of the debilitas – it turned him silly and he had to spend a whole week in bed.’

‘Then why would he drink a second one?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking the Librarian’s plans for sly revenge needed some serious revision.

‘Because he is a pig and will be unable to resist it,’ replied Deynman. ‘And I hope my gift makes him ill for a lot longer than a week. Hah! Here is Irby’s note.’

Bartholomew groaned when he read what was written. ‘ Similia similibus curantur .’

‘Currants are similar to each other,’ translated Deynman liberally. ‘But why–’

‘No! It means like things are cured by like things.’ Bartholomew waved the letter at him. ‘And here he explains that it is his suggestion for the disceptatio . He and I were on the committee appointed to choose the topic, but he was ill for the final meeting. Morys took his place.’

‘And promptly picked a boring discussion about giving away property that one doesn’t own,’ recalled Deynman. He nodded to the letter. ‘Irby’s idea would have been much more entertaining.’

‘When did he give you this message?’

Deynman thought carefully. ‘Saturday – the day before his death. Why?’

‘Because when he received no reply, he started to write another – the one I found under a jug in his room. It is not a clue revealing the identity of the man who took his life: it is a piece of routine correspondence.’

Deynman regarded him uneasily. ‘Are you saying it was important?’

Bartholomew nodded unhappily. ‘We wasted valuable time trying to work out its significance. And worse yet, Michael arrested Nigellus on the strength of it.’

Deynman’s expression was scornful. ‘I am surprised he has lasted so long as Senior Proctor, because everyone knows that Nigellus never cures anything. He calculates horoscopes that prevent people from becoming ill, but once they have a disease, he does nothing at all.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Bartholomew absently, his mind on Nigellus’s probable reaction when told his arrest had been a mistake. It would not be pleasant.

‘Because my brother got the debilitas , and Nigellus told him to abstain from food and drink for a day, but refused to prescribe a remedy. He also declined to give anything to Trinity Hall when they got the debilitas – twice – and the Gilbertine Priory.’

Bartholomew scrubbed hard at his face, wishing Deynman had acted like a responsible, rational being, and passed the letter on. He left the hall, and when he saw a lamp burning in Michael’s room, he climbed the stairs to tell him what had happened. The monk was horrified.

‘But that was our best piece of evidence against Nigellus!’

‘I did tell you it was unsafe,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘You will have to let him go.’

‘Let him go?’ cried Michael, loudly enough to wake the novices who shared his room. They sat up, rubbing sleep from their eyes. ‘Even if he did not dispatch Irby, his incompetence still made an end of Letia, Lenne, Arnold and God knows how many others.’

‘Did it? I am no longer sure about that. The Prior of Barnwell told me that Nigellus recommended all manner of tonics, infusions, electuaries and decoctions to help the canons who were ill, but nothing worked. Then Nigellus came here, where his “cures” entail eating garlic, wearing certain clothes or standing in the moonlight.’

‘Meaning what?’ asked Michael impatiently. ‘Do not speak in riddles, Matt.’

‘Meaning that I think the Barnwell losses shook his confidence, so when he came here, he elected not to prescribe anything. His diagnoses are outlandish, and he almost certainly has never read Aretaeus of Cappadocia, but I have not encountered a single person who has said that Nigellus has given him medicine.’

‘You are right, sir,’ put in one of the students. ‘I have friends in Ovyng Hostel, and all he did when they had the debilitas was tell them to avoid being looked at by rabbits.’

‘Prior Norton probably contributed to Nigellus’s self-doubt,’ continued Bartholomew. ‘He confessed that he said some cruel things when his people failed to recover.’

Michael stared at him. ‘But Nigellus will sue me if I release him, and we cannot afford yet another source of discord. I will have to keep him until the current trouble is over.’

‘That might be some time,’ said the student. ‘Because the disturbances will not stop until the University has moved to the Fens – and that will not be organised overnight.’

‘We are not going,’ said Michael firmly.

‘That is not what the town thinks,’ said the student, ‘while half our scholars would go tomorrow if they could. Regardless, the trouble will not subside very quickly, if at all.’

Dawn was touching the eastern sky when Bartholomew and Michael left the College, but the streets were mercifully empty, and when they met Meadowman, the beadle reported that it had been a quiet night. The gaol was full, though, of those who had made a nuisance of themselves before the rain and Dickon had driven people home. All would be released later that morning on payment of a fine – or languish until their friends managed to raise the requisite amount.

As the prison was filled to capacity, Nigellus no longer had the luxury of a room to himself, but he had made the most of the situation, and when Bartholomew and Michael arrived he was delivering an acid-tongued sermon to his cellmates. It comprised a poisonous diatribe against everyone who annoyed him: the dyeworks; the folk at Barnwell, whom he claimed had spread lies about him; and medici jealous of his superior abilities.

‘Here comes the Devil Incarnate,’ he sneered when he saw Michael. His hateful gaze shifted to Bartholomew. ‘And his helpmeet. You will both go to Hell for what you have done to me, and I shall sue the University for every penny it has.’

‘Good,’ said a lad from Bene’t College. ‘Because I do not want to move to the Fens, and if you deprive the University of funds, its officers will not have the money to bring it about.’

‘I would not mind going,’ countered a Carmelite novice. ‘There are no Frail Sisters in the Fens, and I shall not find myself tempted by their invitations. I never think about them when they are not around, but when they appear in front of me …’

‘Stand up, Nigellus,’ instructed Michael. ‘I am letting you go.’

There was a resounding cheer and Nigellus smirked. It was an unpleasant expression, designed to annoy, and Bartholomew found himself wishing his colleague had been guilty.

‘I shall see Stephen the lawyer this morning,’ Nigellus declared. ‘My reputation has been severely damaged, and for that you must pay.’

‘On the contrary,’ said the Carmelite. ‘Your reputation is enhanced – you are a martyr for the cause and we all admire you. You will certainly find your practice swollen with new patients now.’

Nigellus shot him a foul look. ‘I do not want new patients. I want compensation.’

He stalked through the door, and made a show of brushing himself off once he was in the street, declaring in a ringing voice that the University had never had any real evidence against him. He had been arrested, he informed passers-by, purely to conceal the fact that Edith was poisoning the town with her dyeworks, aided and abetted by her brother.