Susanna GREGORY - A Poisonous Plot

‘You helped, Brother.’ Robert’s smile was gloating. ‘With the tale about him being a cattle thief – an accusation that infuriated the town. And another truth will circulate tomorrow – one that will reveal it was poison from the dyeworks that claimed his life.’

‘It will be our parting gift to the town,’ said Morys. ‘A story that will see that place closed down once and for all.’

Bartholomew’s stomach lurched at the notion that Edith should be so used, and he looked around frantically for something that might help him defeat them. There was nothing.

Robert’s expression turned earnest. ‘But you must see we are right, Michael. The town has never wanted us. Its residents fight us constantly, despite all we have done to win their affection – such as starving ourselves last winter so that the poor could eat – but still they hate us. And their antipathy turns our scholars aggressive, arrogant and overbearing.’

‘So you set out to make it worse,’ said Michael in distaste. ‘You identified folk with grudges and manipulated them – to add fuel to the fire.’

Robert nodded. ‘It was easy. I persuaded Shirwynk that his son had suffered an injustice when he was rejected from the University; I wrote letters to the greedy and selfish Stephen; I sent Kellawe, Gilby and Hakeney to stir up trouble at the dyeworks …’

‘Using Stephen was a clever touch,’ bragged Morys. ‘He gossiped, as we knew he would, and made scholars think that a move to the Fens was being discussed at the very highest levels.’

Michael ignored him and addressed Robert pleadingly. ‘How can you think of abandoning the paupers who rely on you? And what about the commissions for the murals that you have won? I thought you were pleased by them?’

‘We shall still execute those,’ said Robert. ‘But on buildings in the marshes. And I am afraid the poor will have to manage without us. It might have been different if they had sprung to our defence when the trouble started, but they stood back and watched in delight.’

‘The cross that created such a rumpus,’ said Michael quickly, as Morys fingered the axe. ‘ Did you buy it in London?’

‘Of course not,’ replied Robert scathingly. ‘My documents are forgeries. I took the thing from Hakeney solely to demonstrate how the town will always side with one of their own, regardless of the “evidence”. I also knew he would refuse to have the case judged by the Bishop – again showing the town’s disinclination to be reasonable and fair in its dealings with us.’

‘And there was Anne,’ said Michael, unable to keep the resignation from his voice. ‘She would have overlooked Segeforde’s assault, but you were there to mention compensation …’

‘Which I suspected would snag her avaricious interest,’ smirked Robert.

Michael turned to Morys. ‘Are you sure you want to go to the Fens with a man who has murdered four Zachary scholars? Who is to say that you will not be next?’

Robert laughed. ‘I did not kill them. He did.’

‘Not Irby.’ Morys’s wasplike face was bright with spiteful triumph. ‘He died of disease. And not Kellawe either. Why would I? He was one of our most fervent supporters. But Yerland and Segeforde began to have second thoughts about our scheme, so I fed them fatally large doses of sucura – one in some apple pie and the other in Lombard slices. And before you ask, yes, we know all about lead salts.’

‘But you gave them to Arnold!’ cried Michael, addressing Robert. ‘A fellow Austin!’

‘To end his suffering,’ explained Robert. ‘He was old and in pain, so why not hasten his end? It was an act of mercy, as he would have been the first to agree.’

There was a roar of angry voices on the High Street, and Robert nodded at Morys a second time to smash the boat, but Michael had another question.

‘Which of you will be Chancellor of your University in the Bogs?’ he asked contemptuously.

Robert smiled enigmatically. ‘Neither. We are followers, not leaders.’

Bartholomew frowned. Did that mean Robert was not the strategist? Then who was? Wauter? He glanced behind him uneasily, half expecting the geometrician to be standing there listening, but the priory was deserted and eerily still. The scent of rain was in the air, and a distant part of his mind wondered how long it would be before there was a downpour.

‘Our Chancellor will be a better man than Tynkell,’ said Morys with a moue of distaste. ‘What a weakling! Frightened of his mother!’

‘I know you killed Hamo, Robert,’ gabbled Michael as the axe went up again. ‘When we came here on the night of his murder, you were the only friar who was unarmed – you had no knife because you had used it to stab him. But you should have made sure he was dead – he lived to write your name under the altar. It is still there, and your brethren are looking at it as I speak.’

Robert’s reply was lost in a sudden frenzy of yells from the street, and footsteps hammered along outside – townsfolk, judging by their voices. Bobbing torches lit the night, so many that it seemed the whole of Cambridge had turned out to make mischief. Then there was a boom that sounded as though it came from the priory’s front gate.

‘Looters,’ said Morys in satisfaction. ‘Just as we expected. The last stage of our plan is about to unfold.’

The axe cracked down and water began to fountain into the little craft. With a yell of victory, Morys dropped the axe into the boat and leapt for the safety of the pier.

No ingenious scheme to save Michael had occurred to Bartholomew, so he did the only thing he could – he leapt up and powered forward, bowling into the plotters and managing to carry Robert and one of the students into the King’s Ditch with him.

His world went dark as he hit the water, the lamp’s frail gleam unequal to penetrating its filthy blackness. It was shockingly cold, and he tried not to swallow, suspecting it would kill him if his opponents did not. His hands touched the soft sludge on the bottom, so he kicked upwards – and was startled to find himself standing in water that barely reached his waist.

‘No!’ cried Robert in dismay, also on his feet. ‘The ditch has silted up! The boat will not sink far enough to hide the monk’s corpse!’

Michael, struggling frantically against the ropes that held him as the boat began to sink, did not seem very comforted, and was looking more frightened than Bartholomew had ever seen him. Then a clash of metal drew the physician’s eyes to the bank. Dickon was fighting the remaining student. Bartholomew watched in horror. Dickon was large for his age, but he was still a child, and could not possibly win a battle with a full-grown man.

While he hesitated, not sure whether to rescue Dickon or Michael first, he heard a splash and whipped around to see Morys wading towards him. He tried to back away, but mud and weeds snagged his feet, and he could not move quickly enough. Morys grabbed his tabard, but Bartholomew jerked it back, pulling Morys off balance. While the Zachary man floundered, Bartholomew seized his hair and forced Morys’s face so deeply under the water that he felt it squelch into the slime on the bottom.

Meanwhile, the boat was sinking fast, and even with the silt, Bartholomew knew that Michael’s head would not clear the surface once the vessel settled on the bottom. He surged towards it, but a hand caught his shoulder. It was the student he had knocked into the ditch. Bartholomew lashed out with a punch that hit home more by luck than design, then resumed his agonisingly slow journey towards Michael.

‘Matt!’ shrieked the monk in terror. ‘Cut me free!’

Bartholomew reached for his medical bag where he kept several surgical blades, only to find he no longer had it – in the panic following Nigellus’s confession he had left it on the High Street. Then he remembered the axe – Morys had dropped it into the boat before leaping to safety. He plunged beneath the surface, cold-numbed fingers groping wildly in the blackness. It was not there! Had it fallen out? Then his questing fingers touched the handle. He took hold of it and stood.