Susanna GREGORY - A Poisonous Plot

Bartholomew ran his finger down the tank, then held it up so they could see the whitish powder that adhered to it. ‘Lead salts – formed when the acid from the fermenting apples eats into the metal. They are sweet to the taste, which is why your wine has a sickly flavour. It is not the kind of sucura you can buy in London, imported from Tyre and taxed at ninety per cent, but something else altogether.’

‘Most of Cambridge does not call my apple nectar sickly,’ said Shirwynk dangerously. ‘It is extremely popular.’

‘I am sure it is – far more than the sour stuff you could brew in wooden barrels. But you bought these metal ones from the Austin Priory this year–’

‘Then it is their fault, not ours,’ Peyn interrupted again. ‘Not that it matters, because you are wrong anyway. You say our wine is causing the debilitas , but my mother died of that disease, and she never touched wine of any description.’

‘But she ate food made with your “sucura”,’ argued Bartholomew. He raised his finger again. ‘And this is it – a by-product of brewing apple wine in lead tanks. It is not smuggled into the town, but manufactured here. You are the ones who have flooded Cambridge with it.’

‘We most certainly are not,’ declared Shirwynk indignantly. ‘Yes, there is usually a white crust in the vats, but not enough to “flood” an entire town. As everyone knows – except you, it would seem – sucura comes through the Fens.’

‘No, it does not, which is why the Sheriff has never been able to catch anyone bringing it in. You have complained several times that someone steals your wine at night, yet Peyn stays here to keep guard, so how can thieves break in? But I know the answer.’

‘Do not listen,’ Peyn instructed his father nervously. ‘He is just jealous that I am about to become a successful Treasury clerk. He wishes it was him that was going to Westminster.’

‘I will hear no slander against my son, Bartholomew,’ warned Shirwynk. He nodded to his apprentices. ‘Throw him out.’

‘He has been boiling the wine down while you are tucked up in bed and he is here alone,’ said Bartholomew, ducking behind the vat to escape the hands that came to lay hold of him. ‘A process that sees it crystallise as white powder – which he passes off as sucura. I wager anything you please that it will no longer be available once he leaves home.’

Peyn was shaking his head, but he wore a heavy bag looped over his shoulder, and his hand kept dropping to it in a very furtive manner. Michael made a lunge for it. Peyn tried to jerk away, and the ensuing tussle saw several packets drop out on to the floor.

‘Those are mine,’ shouted Peyn. ‘I bought them to … to bake my father a farewell cake.’

‘And when do you propose to do that?’ demanded Michael archly. The apprentices stopped trying to seize Bartholomew and stared at Peyn instead, equally unconvinced by the claim. ‘On the open road? And that is enough for twenty cakes, anyway.’

Shirwynk’s open mouth and pale face suggested that he had no idea what his son had been doing, but he rallied quickly. He ordered his apprentices out and told them to close the door behind them, unwilling for them to hear more of the discussion.

‘Peyn is a good lad,’ he said, when they had gone. ‘If he says he bought the sucura, then he did. It is illegal, but we all do stupid things from time to time, and one foolish mistake should not cost him his Treasury career. I am sure we can come to an arrangement.’

Michael reached under a table and retrieved something from the floor – several pieces of parchment that had been folded to make tiny envelopes, all of which were identical to the ones Cynric had given the Michaelhouse Fellows to protect them against restless spirits.

‘Then why is there a lot of unused sucura wrapping here? And I imagine the Sheriff will find even more evidence once he starts looking.’

‘We will make good on the tax,’ blurted Shirwynk, capitulating abruptly as the case against Peyn went from strength to strength. ‘We will offer Tulyet a settlement he cannot refuse. However, it is none of the University’s concern so–’

‘Oh, yes it is,’ said Michael sternly. ‘Scholars are dead because you have been selling contaminated wine, while your greedy son has been manufacturing lead salts and calling them sucura.’

‘Lead salts are not poisonous,’ said Peyn, licking dry lips. ‘Physicians and apothecaries use them in medicine. Even if you can prove these charges, we have harmed no one.’

‘They may have benefits in small doses,’ acknowledged Bartholomew. ‘But people have been swallowing lots of them.’ He turned to Shirwynk. ‘Including you, probably. Can you honestly say that you have not recently suffered from headaches, a metallic taste in your mouth, dizziness, stomach cramps, insomnia, loss of appetite, weakness in the limbs or nausea?’

‘I might have felt a little shabby of late,’ conceded Shirwynk. ‘But you cannot prove it is because of my wine or sucura.’

‘Yes, I can,’ countered Bartholomew. ‘All it needs are a few simple tests.’

‘You have been listening to that imbecile Nigellus,’ sneered Shirwynk, although a tremor in his voice revealed his growing fear that the physician might actually be right. ‘He does not know what he is talking about either.’

‘Other symptoms of lead poisoning include irritability and increased aggression,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Which may explain why so many people have been unusually short-tempered these last few weeks. Yourself among them.’

Shirwynk stared at him. ‘If I am angry, it is because your University tries my patience. It has nothing to do with any so-called lead salts.’

‘Peyn has told us twice now that he does not touch apple wine or sweet foods,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And he has exhibited none of these symptoms. He–’

He stopped speaking when Shirwynk whipped around and grabbed a long metal hook from the wall. He jabbed at the scholars with it, forcing them to retreat or risk being disembowelled.

‘Put that down,’ ordered Michael imperiously. ‘Or I shall–’

‘You are in no position to make threats,’ snarled Shirwynk. ‘And I have heard enough. I cannot allow you to harm Peyn as he stands on the brink of his new life. I am afraid you must die.’

The cold determination in Shirwynk’s eyes told Bartholomew and Michael that he meant to kill them where they stood. Peyn knew it, too, and his face was hard with savage glee as he drew the long knife he carried at his side, aiming to lend a hand.

Bartholomew pulled a pair of heavy childbirth forceps from his medical bag. They were not much of a weapon, but they did serve to deflect Shirwynk’s first blow, although he knew it was only a matter of time before the hook found its mark.

‘I know why you hate the University,’ the monk said, wholly unfazed by the danger. ‘Peyn made such a point about not wanting to be a scholar that I looked in our records. And what did I find? That he did apply, but was soundly rejected. You are both bitter–’

Bartholomew only just managed to counter the furious swipe that Peyn aimed at the monk’s vitals, although Michael did not flinch, perhaps because there had been no time. The resulting clash made Peyn yelp in pain and he fell back, nursing a wrenched elbow.

‘King’s Hall,’ he hissed between gritted teeth, flexing his damaged joint. ‘How dare they refuse me! And they were followed by Gonville, Peterhouse and all the hostels.’

‘Even Zachary!’ said Michael tauntingly. ‘A place with no academic standards whatsoever. You must have cut a miserable figure indeed for them to turn you down.’