A Bone of Contention

CHAPTER 3

In a small, secluded garden behind the Brazen George tavern later that evening, Michael sat at a wooden table with a large goblet of fine red wine in front of him, and watched Bartholomew pace back and forth in the gloom. The physician’s hard-soled shoes tapped on the flagstones of the yard, and he tugged impatiently at his sleeve when it snagged on a thorn of one of the rose bushes that added their heavy scent to the still air of the night.

‘We should not be here, Michael. You are a proctor and a monk. It would not be good for you to be seen in a tavern, especially drinking, and even more especially on a Sunday.’

Michael leaned back against the wall, where the stones still held the warmth of the day. ‘We will not be disturbed, and, for your information, I conduct a good deal of business here on behalf of the University and the Bishop.’

Bartholomew gave a huge sigh, and came to sit next to Michael on the bench. He took a sip of the ale Michael had bought him, and then another. ‘This ale is not sour!’ he exclaimed in surprise. He peered into the heavy pewter goblet, and realised the beer was clear enough to allow him to see the bottom.

Michael laughed. ‘There are advantages to conducting business outside Michaelhouse.’ He sipped appreciatively at his rich red wine. ‘You should venture out more, Matt. You have become far too used to that foul concoction brewed at Michaelhouse for your own good health.’

They were silent for a while, listening to the beadles in the street outside calling out the curfew, and, in the distance, the excited yells and shouts of people who were apparently enjoying some kind of celebration. The garden was dark, and the taverner had provided them with a lantern that they shared with hundreds of insects.

Michael flapped them away from his wine.

‘I had a letter last week,’ began Bartholomew casually. ‘Philippa, to whom I was betrothed, has married someone else.’

Michael was taken aback. Philippa had been the sister of a former room-mate of Bartholomew’s, and had become betrothed to the physician after the plague. Some time ago, Philippa had declared herself bored with life in Cambridge and, seduced by the descriptions of fairs, pageants and feasts in her brother’s letters, had set off to sample the delights of London. Three months had stretched to six, and Michael realised he had not seen Bartholomew’s attractive fiancée since early summer of the previous year. The monk had not given her long absence a second thought. Neither had Bartholomew, apparently.

‘Perhaps, since neither of you made the effort to visit the other during the time she was away, this would not have been a marriage made in heaven,’ said the monk carefully, uncertain of his friend’s feelings on the matter. ‘You would not want to end up as a couple like the dreadful Lydgates.’

Bartholomew studied him in the darkness. ‘I suppose not. Philippa married a merchant. She wrote that, at first, she thought that she would not mind being the wife of an impoverished physician, but realised that in time she might come to resent it. Then she said I would have taken rich patients to please her, and we both would have been unhappy.’

‘You always paid more attention to your patients than to her,’ said Michael, thinking in retrospect that Bartholomew might well have had a lucky escape. ‘I cannot say I am surprised by her decision.’

‘Well, I was!’ said Bartholomew earnestly. ‘I did not expect her to shun me quite so suddenly.’

‘She has been gone more than a year; that is hardly sudden,’ Michael pointed out practically. ‘Women are like good wines, Matt. They need to be treated with care and attention – not abandoned until you are ready for a drink.’

Despite his melancholy mood, Bartholomew smiled at Michael’s blunt analogy. ‘And what would you know of women, monk?’

‘More than you, physician,’ replied Michael complacently. ‘I know, for example, that since she was betrothed to you, it is illegal for her to wed another. You could take her to court.’

Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. ‘And what would that achieve? I would acquire a wife who despised me on two counts: my poverty, and the fact that I wrenched her away from the husband of her choice.’

Michael shrugged. ‘Then it is best you put the whole affair from your mind. And anyway, if you had married, you would have had to give up your Fellowship at Michaelhouse and your teaching. You like teaching, and you are good at it. Think of what you have gained, not what you have lost.’

‘I would have lost the opportunity to investigate murders,’ said Bartholomew morosely. ‘And the chance to meet such charming people as the Lydgates, Edred and Werbergh.’

Michael chuckled. ‘Such characters are not exclusive to the University, Matt. You would have encountered people just like them elsewhere, too. You might even have had to be pleasant to them, if they were your patients and you wanted them to pay you.’

Bartholomew grimaced with distaste at the notion. ‘I miss her,’ he persisted. ‘I lie awake at night and wonder whether I will ever see her again.’

Michael eyed him soberly. ‘So that is why you have been looking so heavy-eyed over the last few days. But if you do see her again, Matt, she will be someone else’s wife and unavailable to you, so put such thoughts out of your mind. Perhaps you should consider becoming a monk, like me.’

‘How would that help?’ asked Bartholomew listlessly. ‘It would make matters worse. At least now I am not committing a sin by thinking about women. If I were a monk, I would never be away from my confessor.’

‘Oh really, Matt!’ said Michael in an amused voice. ‘What odd ideas you have sometimes! You are capable of great discretion, and that should be sufficient to allow you to choose your secular pastimes as and when you please. A monastic vocation would suit you very well.’

Bartholomew regarded him askance, wondering what kind of monk would offer a jilted lover that kind of advice.

He took another sip of the excellent ale, and pondered whether he would ever know Michael well enough not to be surprised by some of his opinions and behaviour.

Michael took a noisy slurp of wine, and refilled his cup from the jug on the table. He stretched and yawned.

‘It is getting late,’ he said. ‘We should be considering Godwinsson Hostel and its shady inhabitants, not discussing your sinful desires for another man’s wife. Lydgate, Cecily, Werbergh and Edred – what an unpleasant group of people to be gathered under one roof.’

‘Two roofs,’ said Bartholomew, forcing his thoughts away from Philippa. ‘I forgot to ask about Kenzie’s lover, Dominica. Did you?’

‘I learned a little,’ said Michael. ‘But what did your nasty little friar tell you?’

Michael listened with growing interest as Bartholomew repeated his conversation with Werbergh, and gave a low whistle when he had finished.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘one of them is lying. Edred’s story coincides with Werbergh’s until after compline. Then he says he walked back to the hostel in the company of Werbergh, but makes no mention of Mistress Lydgate.’

‘Well, he would not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He could scarcely claim his Principal’s wife as an alibi with her sitting there and likely to denounce him as a liar. But neither story fits,’ he continued thoughtfully. ‘If Werbergh offered his arm to Mistress Lydgate, and Edred claims that he returned to the hostel with Werbergh, then all three must have been together. Edred makes no mention of Mistress Lydgate, while Werbergh makes no mention of Edred. Mistress Lydgate must surely have noted that it was she and not Edred who walked with Werbergh back to the hostel. Something is not right here, Brother.’

He could hear the rasp of Michael’s nails against his whiskers as he scratched his chin in the darkness. ‘And Edred did not mention Kenzie asking for his ring, even after I told him the lad had been murdered, and that I would appreciate any information he might have. I had a feeling he was not being honest with me.’

‘Either Edred is remarkably stupid not to guess that Werbergh would tell me about meeting Kenzie, or it did not happen,’ reasoned Bartholomew. ‘Or Edred is hiding evidence of what he considers a minor incident, because he is involved in one that is more serious. I am inclined to believe Werbergh was generally truthful, which means that Edred is the one telling lies.’

‘Edred and Cecily Lydgate both,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘If Werbergh is telling the truth and he walked home to Godwinsson with Cecily, then why did she not denounce Edred as a liar when he claimed he was with Werbergh? Something untoward is going on in that hostel. Give me the honest poverty at David’s any day over the thin veneer of civilisation at Godwinsson.’

‘So what about Dominica?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘What did you manage to find out about her?’

‘Very little, I’m afraid,’ said Michael. ‘Only that on the night of Kenzie’s murder she was staying with relatives much against her will if I read correctly the set chin and determined looks of Mistress Lydgate the elder. Dominica is still with them. Which means that wherever Kenzie went last night, it was not Dominica’s room, because she was not there.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Bartholomew watching the bats flit around the garden. ‘Perhaps that is exactly where he went, expecting to find her.’

‘And instead found an angry father and a dragon of a mother,’ said Michael. ‘Which means that they killed him, and dumped his body in the Ditch to avoid suspicion falling on them.’

‘That seems too easy,’ said Bartholomew. ‘There is something not right about all this.’

‘Why should it not be easy?’ asked Michael with a shrug. ‘The Lydgates are hardly over-endowed with intelligence, and neither is Edred if he could not come up with a better story than the one he spun me – knowing that Werbergh would not support his alibi if pressed for the truth.’

Bartholomew sighed. ‘I suppose you are right, but we cannot do anything about it, because we have no proof. All we know is that lies have been told.’ He stood, feeling suddenly chilly in the cool night air. ‘Perhaps the evidence we need will appear tomorrow. Lord save us! What was that?’

A tremendous crash, followed by yells and screams, shook the ground and made the leaves on the trees tremble.

Flickers of orange light danced in the street outside, and the shouting suddenly increased dramatically.

The landlord of the Brazen George came hurrying into the garden, his face tight with fear.

‘I know you do not like to be disturbed, Brother,’ he said apologetically, ‘but I thought you should know: the students are rioting. They have tied ropes to Master Burney’s workshop and hauled the whole thing down. Now they are trying to set it on fire.’

Bartholomew and Michael raced out into the street. The rickety structure, the upper floor of which had been Master Burney’s tannery, now lay sprawled across the High Street with flames leaping all over it. Bartholomew knew that Burney, a widower since the plague, slept in the workshop, and started towards the roaring flames.

Michael caught his arm and hauled him back.

‘If Burney was in there when it fell, you can do nothing for him now,’ he choked, eyes watering from the smoke.

Bartholomew saw that Michael was right: the searing heat from the flames was almost unbearable, even at that distance. He screwed up his eyes against the stinging fumes, and surveyed the wreckage. A tangle of limbs protruded from under a heap of smouldering plaster. Michael let out an appalled gasp and gripped Bartholomew’s arm to point them out.

‘Mistress Starre’s son,’ Bartholomew shouted, recognising the huge frame of the simple-minded giant among the twisted remains. ‘I heard he died recently.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This building belongs to the Austin Canons of St John’s Hospital,’ Bartholomew yelled over the crackle of burning wood. ‘They use the lower storey as a mortuary since they believe the smell from the tannery above will dispel the unhealthy miasma emanating from the corpses. The bodies you see were probably dead already – I know young Starre was.’

‘Does their theory hold any validity?’ asked Michael before he could stop himself. They should not be considering medical matters now, but attempting to order the rioting students back to their hostels and colleges and if that failed, seek sanctuary somewhere before they became the victims of a town mob themselves. Fortunately for him, Bartholomew’s attention was elsewhere.

‘The fire is spreading!’ he yelled, and Michael looked to where he was gesticulating wildly, seeing smoke seeping from the roof of the house next door. Seconds later, there was another dull roar, and a bright tongue of flames shot out of one of the windows.

‘Mistress Tyler lives there with her daughters!’ Bartholomew whispered, his horrified voice all but lost in the increasing rumble and crackle of the flames, greedy for the dry wood of the house.

‘No. She lives next door. And anyway, look,’ said Michael, indicating behind him with a flick of his head.

Bartholomew saw with relief the frightened faces of the Tyler family huddled against the wall of the Brazen George opposite, clutching what few belongings they had managed to grab as they fled for safety.

Students were everywhere, flitting like bats in the dancing light of the flames in their dark tabards. Michael was shouting to them to put out the flames, but while some obeyed, others amused themselves by hurling missiles at the horn windows of the Brazen George. Townspeople, woken by the din, began to pour into the street, and small skirmishes began between them and the scholars. Backing up against the wall next to the terrified Tyler family, Bartholomew saw a group of apprentices kicking a student they had seized and knocked to the ground, while a short distance away, a group of University men were poking at a fat merchant and his wife with sharpened sticks.

A group of three students ran past, shouting to each other in French, but one, seeing the pretty face of the eldest Tyler girl, called to his friends and they came back.

They seized her arms, and were set to make off with her, the expressions on their faces making their intentions perfectly clear. Mistress Tyler ran to the defence of her daughter, but stopped short as one of them jabbed at her stomach with a knife.

Bartholomew hit the student’s arm as hard as he could, knocking the dagger from his hand, and wrenched the girl away from the others. With a quick exchange of grins, the French students advanced on him, drawing short swords from the arsenal they had secreted under their tabards.

Bartholomew drew the small knife that he used for surgery from the medicine bag he always carried looped over his shoulder.

Seeing the tiny weapon compared to their swords, the students began to ridicule it in poor English. While one’s attention strayed to his friends, Bartholomew leapt at him, inflicting a minor wound on his arm. The student gave a yell of pain and outrage, forcing Bartholomew to jerk backwards as a sword whistled towards him in a savage arc. Suddenly, the students were not laughing or jeering, but in deadly earnest, and Bartholomew was aware of all three taking the stance of the trained fighter. He knew he would not win this battle, armed with a small knife against three men experienced in swordsmanship. And then what would happen to the Tyler women? ‘Run!’ he yelled to them, not taking his eyes off the circling Frenchmen.

But the Tyler women had not managed to live unmolested on the High Street, with no menfolk to care for them since the plague, by being passive. Seeing Bartholomew’s predicament they swung into action. The eldest hurled handfuls of sand and dust from the ground, aiming for the Frenchmen’s eyes, while the mother and two younger daughters pelted them with offal and muck from a pile at the side of the road.

Bartholomew staggered backwards as one student, a hand upraised to protect his face from the barrage of missiles, lunged forwards. As Bartholomew stumbled, his foot slipped on some of the offal that the Tylers were hurling, and he had to twist sideways to avoid the stabbing sword that drew sparks from the ground as it struck. He continued to roll, so that he crashed into the legs of the second swordsman, and sent him sprawling to the ground. The third had dropped his weapon, and was rubbing at his eyes, where one of the handfuls of dust had taken a direct hit.

The second Frenchman grabbed Bartholomew around the neck, preventing him from rising. Bartholomew, struggling desperately to prise the arm away from his throat as he felt it begin to cut off his breath, realised that he had dropped his knife. The first student, his hand still raised to protect his eyes, advanced on the physician smiling evilly, assured that his quarry would now be easily dispatched. Bartholomew lunged forward with every ounce of his strength, and succeeded in breaking the hold that had pinned him to the ground.

He scrambled to his feet, but found himself up against a wall with nowhere to move. The two Frenchmen moved apart by unspoken agreement, effectively eliminating any chance of escape.

Without warning, one of them dropped to his knees, his sword falling from his hand as he scrabbled at his back. His face wore an expression of shock that would have been comical in other circumstances. Then he pitched forward, and Bartholomew saw his own knife firmly embedded between the man’s shoulder-blades, and Mistress Tyler standing behind him, her face white with shock and anger.

The third Frenchman, his eyes raw from the dust he had rubbed from them, called for the other one to come away, his voice becoming more urgent when he perceived their friend’s fate. The student ignored him, and advanced on Bartholomew, his sword whistling in a series of hacking sweeps. Bartholomew, seeing defence was useless, dived at him when he was off-balance from a particularly vigorous thrust. Both men fell to the ground in a frenzy of flailing arms and legs, and Bartholomew’s hands fumbled for the Frenchman’s throat. Ignoring the pounding of fists on his chest and arms, he began to squeeze as hard as he could.

He was dimly aware of the other man coming to his friend’s rescue, and heard the Tylers renew their assault on him with any missiles they could find. There was a heavy thud as he fell. The student Bartholomew held was almost unconscious now, and Bartholomew forced himself to release him. The man flopped on to his side, concerned only with dragging sweet air down his bruised throat, while his friend crawled towards him.

Breathing heavily himself, Bartholomew grabbed Mistress Tyler’s arm and hauled her from the street into the small alley that ran down the side of the Brazen George, trusting the daughters would follow. In the comparative peace, the five of them regained their breath, the girls holding on to each other for comfort. Mistress Tyler was the first to recover, while Bartholomew leaned against a tall fence, hoping he would not disgrace himself by being the only one to allow his shaking legs to deposit him on the ground.

Although Oswald Stanmore had been to some trouble to teach his young brother-in-law the rudiments of sword play, archery and boxing, Bartholomew had not taken easily or happily to such training, preferring to seek out the company of Trumpington’s rector, and ply him with an endless barrage of questions about natural philosophy and logic. Occasionally, however, Bartholomew wished he had paid more attention to Stanmore’s lessons – the learning he had acquired over the years would not save him from a sword thrust, and Cambridge seemed to be growing ever more dangerous, with murders and riots at every turn.

He winced as a student friar tore past the top of their alleyway, screaming like an infidel. Students and townsfolk alike ran this way and that, most in small groups for safety. Distant yells indicated that the riot was spreading to other parts of the town, and the dark night sky was glowing orange in at least two places, suggesting that fires were not confined to the High Street. Several riderless horses galloped by, adding to the mayhem. Bartholomew wondered how the Sheriff would manage to control such widespread disorder with troops that had been sorely depleted during the plague and never replaced. Bravely, Mistress Tyler seized on a brief lull in the chaos to peer into the High Street, starting backwards when a shower of sparks danced across the road towards her.

‘The fire is more or less out,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘But there are people inside our house – probably looting, although they will find precious little to take.’

She put her arms around the elder girls’ shoulders, while the youngest clung to her skirts. ‘This is my treasure,’ she whispered shakily. ‘I will not risk it to save a few sticks of furniture.’

‘Shall I try to drive the looters out?’ asked Bartholomew, wondering whether his aching limbs would allow it, and regretting his offer the moment it was made.

Mistress Tyler looked at him aghast. ‘Of course not!

You have done enough for us already by rescuing my Eleanor from those French devils. But if you will do us a final kindness, Doctor, and escort us to my cousin’s house, we would much appreciate it.’

Bartholomew agreed readily enough, but wondered whether his presence – a single, unarmed man – could do much to protect the Tyler women from further assault.

He felt something pressed into his hand, and met the clear, grey eyes of Eleanor as she returned his knife to him, sticky and glistening black with blood. She must have retrieved it before following her mother to the alley. He was grateful, knowing that his knife found in the back of a corpse might well have been considered sufficient evidence to hang him for murder in one of the hasty and vengeful trials that often followed such disturbances, regardless of the fact that he was innocent.

He gave her a wan smile, and followed the women down the alley. They reached Shoemaker Row, where they kept to the shadows, avoiding the groups of apprentices that ran this way and that armed with a wicked assortment of weapons. At the Franciscan Friary, the stout doors were firmly closed: the friars obviously intended to keep well clear of the mischief brewing that night, and to protect their property from harm. One priest, braver or more naïve than his fellows, stood atop the gate, exhorting the rioters to return to their homes or risk the wrath of God.

Few heeded his words, and he was eventually silenced by a well-aimed stone.

Finally, having pursued a somewhat tortuous route to avoid confrontations, Mistress Tyler stopped outside the apothecary’s house.

‘Is Jonas the Poisoner your cousin?’ asked Bartholomew, using without thinking the usual appellation for the apothecary, following an incident involving confusion between two potions many years before.

‘His wife is,’ answered Mistress Tyler. She took Bartholomew’s arm and, when the door was opened a crack in response to her insistent hammering, she bundled him inside with her daughters.

While she told her fearful relatives of their near escape, Bartholomew allowed himself to be settled comfortably in a wicker chair, and brought a cup of cool wine. As he took it, his hands shook from delayed fright, so that a good part of it slopped on to his leggings. Mistress Tyler’s middle daughter – a young woman almost as pretty as her elder sister – handed him a wholly inadequate square of lace with which to mop it up. She was unceremoniously elbowed out of the way by Eleanor, and dispatched to fetch something larger, overriding Bartholomew’s embarrassed protestations that it was not necessary.

‘I did not thank you,’ said Eleanor, smiling at him as she refilled his cup. ‘You were more than kind to come to our rescue – especially given that you are clearly no fighting man.’

Such a candid assessment of his meagre combat skills was scarcely an auspicious start to the conversation, but he decided her comment was not intentionally discourteous.

‘We were more evenly matched than the Frenchmen imagined,’ he said, acknowledging the Tylers’ own considerable role in the skirmish. ‘And I should thank you for not running when I told you to.’

‘Yes, or you would have been dead by now for certain,’ she said bluntly. Bartholomew took a sip of wine to hide his smile, certain she was oblivious to the fact that many men would have taken grave exception to such a casual dismissal of their martial abilities.

She looked thoughtful. ‘You are a scholar: tell me why the students are so intent on mischief this term. They are always restless and keen to fight, but I have never known such an uneasy atmosphere before.’

‘We have discussed this at Michaelhouse several times, but we have no idea as to the cause,’ he answered, setting his cup down on the hearth before he could spill it again. ‘Should you discover it, please let us know. We must put a stop to it before any more harm is done.’

The middle daughter returned with water and a cloth with which to wipe up the slopped wine, and a slight, somewhat undignified tussle for possession of them ensued between the two sisters, a struggle that ended abruptly when the bowl tipped and a good portion of its contents emptied over Bartholomew’s feet. Quickly, he grabbed the rest of it before they drenched him further.

Across the room, Mistress Tyler tried to see what was happening.

‘Hedwise, give the doctor more wine,’ she called, before turning her attention back to the persistent questioning of her anxious relatives.

‘No, thank you,’ said Bartholomew hastily, as Hedwise tried to pour more wine into a cup that was already brimming. He did not want to return to Michaelhouse drunk.

Hedwise looked crestfallen, and Eleanor smiled enigmatically.

‘Fetch some cakes, Hedwise. I am sure Doctor Bartholomew is hungry after his ordeal.’

The last thing Bartholomew’s unsteady stomach needed was something to eat. He declined, much to Hedwise’s satisfaction, and she settled herself on a small stool near his feet, still clutching the wine bottle so that his cup could be refilled the instant he took so much as a sip. Eleanor knelt to one side, leaning her elbows on the arm of his chair.

‘When the weather is good, I sit outside to work – you know our family makes lace for a living – and students often talk to me. I will ask around to see if I can discover the cause of this unease for you.’

‘Me too,’ said Hedwise eagerly.

‘It might be better if you were to stay inside,’ said Bartholomew, concerned. ‘Supposing those French students return?’

‘Oh, they will,’ said Eleanor confidently. ‘They have been pestering me for weeks.’

‘And me,’ said Hedwise.

Eleanor ignored her. ‘Our mother was forced to speak to their Principal about them.’

‘Which hostel?’ asked Bartholomew, feeling a strange sense that he already knew the answer.

‘Godwinsson,’ the women chorused.

‘Do you know Dominica?’ Bartholomew asked, looking from one to the other. The daughter of Master Lydgate, the Principal?’

Eleanor smiled, her teeth white, but slightly crooked.

‘Dominica is the only decent member of that whole establishment. She was seeing a student, but her parents got wind of it. They sent her away to Chesterton village out of harm’s way.’

Hedwise giggled suddenly. ‘They think she has chosen a student from their own poxy hostel, but the reality is that she has far too much taste to accept one of that weaselly brood. It is another she loves.’

‘Her parents do not know the identity of her lover?’ asked Bartholomew, surprised.

‘Oh, no!’ said Eleanor. ‘But they would do anything to find out. They even offered money to their students to betray their fellows. A number of them did, I understand, but when stories and alibis were checked, the betrayals were found to be false, and stemmed from spite and malice, not truth.’

‘What an unpleasant place,’ said Bartholomew in distaste, recalling his own brief visit there – only a few hours ago, although it felt like much longer. ‘Do you know who Dominica’s lover is?’

‘Dominica tells no one about her lovers, for fear their names would reach her father,’ said Eleanor. ‘She is clever though, never meeting in the same place twice, and ensuring there are no predictable patterns to her meetings.’

Had Dominica chosen the King’s Ditch to meet Kenzie then, Bartholomew wondered, and the Scot had been killed as he waited for her to appear? If Dominica chose a different location each time she and Kenzie met, then she might well have been reduced to using a place like the shadowy oak trees near Valence Marie if the relationship had lasted for any length of time.

Feeling water squelch unpleasantly in his shoes, Bartholomew stood to take his leave of the Tylers and Jonas, declining their offer to stay the night. He wanted to return to Michaelhouse and sleep in his own bed.

Eleanor reached out to take his hand. ‘We will worry about you until we see you again, Doctor Bartholomew. Visit us, even if it is only to say you arrived home safely.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Hedwise, forcing her way between Bartholomew and her sister. ‘Come to see us soon.’

Mistress Tyler looked from her daughters to Bartholomew as she ushered him out of the door, first checking to see that it was safe. She touched his arm as he stepped into the street. ‘Eleanor and Hedwise are right,’ she said. ‘You must visit us soon. And thank you for your help tonight. Who knows what might have happened to us had you not come to our aid.’

Bartholomew suspected that they would have thought of something. The Tyler women were a formidable force – resourceful and determined. Eleanor caught his hand as he left, and it was only reluctantly that she released him into the night.

The streets were alive with howling, yelling gangs. Some were scholars and some were townspeople, but all were armed with whatever they had been able to lay their hands on: a few carried swords and daggers, a handful had poorly strung bows, while others still wielded staves, tools, and even gardening equipment. Bartholomew, his own small knife to hand, slipped down the noisy streets hoping that his scholar’s tabard would not target him for an attack by townspeople. There was little point in removing the tabard, for that would only expose him to an assault from scholars.

Here and there fires crackled, although none were as fierce or uncontrolled as the one that had destroyed Master Burney’s workshop. In places, window shutters were smashed, and from one or two houses, shouts of terror or outrage drifted, suggesting that looting had begun in earnest. Bartholomew ignored it all as he sped towards Michaelhouse. He could do very little to help, and would only get himself into trouble if he interfered.

He felt someone grab his arm as he ran, pulling him off balance so that he fell on one knee. He brought his knife up sharply, anticipating another fight, but then dropped it as he recognised Cynric ap Huwydd, his Welsh bookbearer. Cynric was fleet of foot and possessed of an uncanny ability to move almost unseen in the night shadows; Bartholomew supposed he should not have been surprised that the Welshman had tracked him down in the chaos.

Cynric tugged Bartholomew off the road, and into the shadows of the trees in All Saints’ churchyard.

‘Where have you been, boy?’ Cynric whispered. ‘I have been looking for you since all this fighting started. I was worried.’

‘With Mistress Tyler’s family at Jonas the Poisoner’s house. Is Michaelhouse secure? Are all our students in?’ asked Bartholomew, peering through the darkness at the man who, although officially his servant, would always be a friend.

Cynric nodded, looking through the trees to where a large group of students was systematically destroying a brewer’s cart with stout cudgels. The brewer was nowhere to be seen, and his barrels of ale had long since been spirited away. ‘All Michaelhouse students are being kept in by the Fellows – some by brute force, since they are desperate to get out and join in the looting. Only two are missing as far as I can see: Sam Gray and Rob Deynman.’

‘Both my students,’ groaned Bartholomew. ‘I hope they have had the sense to lie low.’ He coughed as the wind blew thick, choking smoke towards them from where a pile of wreckage smouldered. ‘As should we. We must get home.’

Cynric began to glide through the shadows, with Bartholomew following more noisily. They had to pass the Market Square to reach Michaelhouse, and the sight that greeted them reminded Bartholomew of the wall paintings at St Michael’s depicting scenes from hell.

For a few moments he stood motionless, ignoring the rioters who jostled him this way and that. Cynric, ever alert to danger, pulled him to one side, and together they surveyed the familiar place, now distorted by violence.

Fires, large and small, lit the Market Square. Some were under control, surrounded by cavorting rioters who fed the flames with the proceeds of looting forays; others raged wildly, eating up the small wooden stalls from which traders sold their wares in the daytime. The brightly coloured canvasses that covered the wooden frames of the stalls, flapped in the flames, shedding sparks everywhere, and causing the fires to spread. Bartholomew saw one man, his body enveloped in fire, run soundlessly from behind one stall, before falling and lying still in his veil of flames. Bells of alarm were ringing in several churches, occasionally drowned by the wrenching sound of steel against steel as the Sheriffs men skirmished with armed rioters.

Here and there, people lay on the ground, calling for help, water or priests. Others wandered bewildered, oblivious to the danger they were in from indiscriminate attack. A group of a dozen students sauntered past, singing the Latin chorus that Bartholomew had heard sung outside St Mary’s Church the previous day. One or two of them paused when they saw Bartholomew and Cynric but moved on when they glimpsed the glitter of weapons in their hands.

Bartholomew saw the voluminous folds of Michael’s habit swirling black against the firelight. Two of his beadles were close, all three laying about them with staves, as they fought to break up a battle between two groups of scholars – although, in their tabards and in the unreliable light of the fires, Bartholomew wondered how they could tell who was on whose side. He took a secure hold on his knife, and went to help Michael, Cynric following closely behind him.

He was forced to stop as one of the stalls in front of him suddenly collapsed in a shower of sparks and cinders, spraying the ground with dancing orange lights. By the time he was able to negotiate the burning rubble, he had lost sight of Michael. Then something thrown by a passing apprentice hit him on the head, and he sprawled forward on to his hands and knees, dazed. He heard Cynric give a blood-curdling yell, which was followed by the sound of clashing steel. With a groan another stall began to collapse, and Cynric’s attackers were forced to back off or risk it falling on them. Once away, they obviously thought better of dealing with Cynric, a man more experienced with arms than any of them, and went in search of easier prey. Bartholomew crawled away from the teetering stall, reaching safety moments before the whole thing crashed to the ground in a billow of smoke that stung his eyes and hurt the back of his throat. Cynric joined him, his short sword still drawn, alert for another attack.

‘The whole town has gone mad!’ said Cynric, looking about him in disgust. ‘Come away, boy. This is no place for us.’

Bartholomew struggled to his feet, and prepared to follow Cynric. Nearby, another wooden building, this used to store spare posts and canvas, began to fall screech of wrenching wood almost drowned in the of flames. With a shock that felt as though the blood draining from his veins, Bartholomew glimpsed Michael standing directly in its path as it began to tilt. He <…> his shouted warning would not pass his frozen lips, was too late anyway. He saw Michael throw his arms at his head in a hopeless attempt to protect himself, and entire structure crashed down on top of him.

Bartholomew’s knife had slipped from his nerve fingers before Cynric’s gasp of horror brought him to his senses. Ripping off his tabard to wrap around hands, he raced towards the burning building. Oblivious to the heat, he began to pull and heave at the timber covered Michael’s body. Three scholars, on their way from one skirmish to another, tried to pick a fight with him when he whirled round to face them wielding a bun<…> plank they melted away into the night.

Bartholomew’s breath came in ragged gasps, and he was painfully aware that his tabard provided inadequate protection for his hands against the hot timbers. Next to him, Cynric wordlessly helped to haul the burned wood away. Bartholomew stopped when part of a charred habit appeared under one of the beams, and then redouble his efforts to expose the monk’s legs and body.

Michael’s head was crushed under the main roof port, even with Cynric helping Bartholomew could not move it.

Bartholomew sank down on to the ground, put his head in his hands and closed his eyes tightly. He listened to sounds of the riot around him, feeling oddly détache he tried to come to terms with the fact that Michael dead. Bells still clanged out their unnecessary warning, people yelled and shouted, while next to him the pop and crackle of burning wood sent a heavy, singed smell into the night air.

‘This is not a wise place to sit,’ called a voice from behind him.

Bartholomew spun round, jaw dropping in disbelief, as Michael picked his way carefully through the ashes.

Cynric laughed in genuine pleasure, then took the liberty of slapping the fat monk on the shoulders.

‘Oh, lad!’ he said. ‘We have just been digging out your corpse from under the burning wood.’

Michael looked from the body that they had exposed to Bartholomew’s shocked face. Bartholomew found he could only gaze at the Benedictine, who loomed larger than life above him. Michael poked at the body under the blackened timbers with his foot.

‘Oh, Matt!’ he said in affectionate reproval. ‘This is a friar, not a monk! Can you not tell the difference? And look at his ankles! I do not know whether to be flattered or offended that you imagine such gracile joints could bear my weight!’

Bartholomew saw that Michael was right. In the unsteady light from the flames, it had been difficult to see clearly, and the loose habits worn by monks and friars tended to make them look alike. Bartholomew had assumed that, because he had seen Michael in the same spot a few seconds before, it had been Michael who had been crushed by the collapsing building.

He continued to stare at the body, his thoughts a confused jumble of horror at the friar’s death and disbelief that Michael had somehow escaped. He felt Michael and Cynric hauling him to his feet, and grabbed a handful of Michael’s habit to steady himself.

‘We thought you were gone,’ he said.

‘So I gather,’ said Michael patiently. ‘But this is neither the place nor the time to discuss it.’

When Bartholomew awoke in his room the next day, he was surprised to find he was wearing filthy clothes. As he raised himself on one elbow, an unfamiliar stiffness and a stabbing pain in his head brought memories flooding back of the previous night.

‘Michael?’ he whispered, not trusting which of the memories might be real and the others merely wishful thinking.

‘Here,’ came the familiar rich baritone of the fat monk from the table by the window.

Bartholomew sank back on to his bed in relief. ‘Thank God!’ he said feelingly. He opened his eyes suddenly.

‘What are you doing here? What happened last night?’

‘Rest easy,’ said Michael, leaning back on the chair, and closing the book he had been reading. When Bartholomew saw the chair legs bow dangerously under the monk’s immense weight, he knew he could not be dreaming. He eased himself up, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. There was a bump on the back of his head, and his hands were sore, but he was basically intact.

He pulled distastefully at his shirt, stained and singed in places, and smelling powerfully of smoke.

‘I thought it best to let you sleep,’ said Michael. ‘We virtually carried you home, Cynric and I. You should lose some weight, Doctor. You are heavy.’

‘The rioting?’

Michael rubbed his face, and for the first time Bartholomew noticed how tired he looked.

‘There was little we could do to stop it,’ said Michael. ‘As soon as we broke up one skirmish, the brawlers would move on to another. We have some of the worst offenders in the Proctors’ cells, and the Sheriff informs me that his own prison is overflowing, too. We even have three scholars locked up in the storerooms at Michaelhouse. But even with at least twenty students – and masters too, I am sorry to say – under arrest and at least twice as many townspeople, I feel that we still do not have the real culprits. There is something more to all this than mere student unrest. I am certain it was started deliberately.’

‘Deliberately?’ asked Bartholomew in surprise. ‘But why?’

Michael shrugged wearily. ‘Who knows, Matt?’

Bartholomew stood carefully, took off his dirty shirt, and began to wash in the water Cynric left each night.

‘Were many killed or injured?’

Michael shrugged. ‘I do not know yet. Once I realised how little we were doing to bring a halt to the madness, I decided to seek sanctuary in Michaelhouse until it was over. I suspect my beadles did the same, and there was scarcely a soldier to be seen on the way home. When you are ready, I will go out with you to see.’ He nodded towards the gates, firmly barred against possible attack. ‘It has been quiet since first light, and I expect all the fighting is over for now. Your skills will doubtless be needed.’

Bartholomew finished washing in silence, thinking over the events of the night before, blurred and confused in his mind. From beginning to end, for him at least, it had probably not taken more than two hours – three at the most. He hoped he would never see the town in such turmoil again. He found clean clothes, and shared a seedcake – given to him by a patient in lieu of payment – with Michael, washed down with some sour wine he found in the small chamber he used to store his medicines.

Michael grimaced as he tasted the wine and added more water. ‘How long have you had this?’ he grumbled. ‘You might do a little better for those of us you consider to be your friends. Did you buy this, or did you find it when you moved here eight years ago?’

Bartholomew, noting the bottle’s dusty sides, wondered if Michael’s question was not as unreasonable as it sounded. He glanced out of the window. The sun was not yet up, although it was light. The College was silent, which was unusual because the scholars usually went to church at dawn. Michael explained that most of them had only just gone to bed – the students had milled around in the yard, fearful that the College would come under attack, and the Fellows had been obliged to stay up with them to ensure none tried to get out. The Master, prudently, had ordered that no one should leave the College until he decided it was safe to do so.

‘You might not believe this,’ Michael began, breaking off a generous piece of the dry, grainy seedcake for himself, ‘but I heard some scholars accusing townspeople of murdering James Kenzie.’

‘What?’ said Bartholomew in disbelief. ‘How can they think that? Our main suspects at the moment are the scholars of Godwinsson!’

‘Quite so,’ said Michael, chewing on the seedcake. ‘But a rumour was put about that he had been killed by townsfolk. As far as I can tell, that seems to have been why the riot started in the first place. Meanwhile, the townspeople are claiming that the death of Kenzie was revenge for the murder – by scholars – of the child we found in the Ditch.’

‘But that child has been dead for years!’ cried Bartholomew. ‘And there is nothing to say it was killed by a scholar.’

‘Indeed,’ said Michael. ‘But someone has used the child’s death, and Kenzie’s, for his own purposes. There is something sinister afoot, Matt – something far more dangerous than restless students.’

‘But what?’ asked Bartholomew, appalled. ‘Who could benefit from a riot? Trade will be disrupted and if much damage has been done, the King will grant the burgesses permission to levy some kind of tax to pay for repairs. No one will gain from this.’

‘Well, someone will,’ said Michael sombrely. ‘Why else would he – or they – go to all this effort?’

Each sat engrossed in his own thoughts, until Bartholomew rose to leave.

‘Are you sure you are up to going out and throwing yourself on the mercy of the town’s injured?’ Michael said in sudden concern. ‘There are sure to be dozens of them and you are the town’s most popular physician.’

Bartholomew waved a deprecatory hand. ‘Nonsense. There is only Father Philius from Gonville Hall, Master Lynton of Peterhouse, the surgeon Robin of Grantchester, or me from which to choose. Philius’s and Lynton’s services are expensive, while Robin has a mortality rate that his patients find alarming. It does not leave most people with a huge choice.’

Michael laughed. ‘You are too modest, my friend.’ He grew serious again. ‘Are you certain you feel well? You were all but witless last night.’

Bartholomew smiled. ‘It was probably the shock of seeing you rise from the dead,’ he said. His smile faded. ‘It was not one of my more pleasant experiences. I lost my knife and tabard,’ he added illogically.

‘Cynric has your knife,’ said Michael. ‘It is not a good idea to leave an identifiable weapon at the scene of multiple murders you know. The Sheriff might find it and feel obliged to string you up as an example, despite the fact that he seems to consider himself your friend. We brought your tabard back but it was so damaged we had to throw it away. So get yourself another weapon, don your spare tabard, and let us be off.’

Bartholomew followed Michael across the yard of Michaelhouse, breathing deeply of the early morning air as he always did. Today, the usually clean, fresh wind that blew in from the Fens was tinged with the smell of burning.

Surprisingly, given the violence of the night’s rioting, only eight people had been killed. The bodies had been taken to the Castle and Bartholomew promised the harassed Sheriff that he would inspect them later in the day to determine the cause of death for the official records. But there were many injured, and Bartholomew spent most of the day binding wounds, and applying poultices and salves. Some people were too badly hurt to be brought to him, and so Bartholomew traipsed from house to house, tending them in their homes. He was just emerging from the home of a potter who had been crushed by a cart, when he met Eleanor Tyler. Shyly, she handed him a neat package that rattled.

‘Salves,’ she explained. ‘I thought you might need extra supplies today, given the number of people I hear have been injured. I packed them up myself in Uncle Jonas’s shop.’

‘Thank you,’ said Bartholomew, touched by her thoughtfulness. ‘That was kind, and I have been running low.’

She glanced at the potter’s house with its sealed shutters. ‘Will he live?’

Bartholomew shook his head. ‘Father William should be here soon to give him last rites.’

She took his arm and led him away. ‘I am sure you have done all you can for him but now you should look to your own needs. You look pale and tired and you should rest while you eat something. My mother has made some broth and we would be honoured if you would come to share it with us.’

‘That would be impossible,’ he said somewhat ungraciously, as he tried to extricate his arm. ‘I have another six patients to visit, and I cannot just abandon them.’

‘No one is asking you to abandon them,’ she said, taking a firmer grip on his sleeve. ‘I am simply advising you that if you want to do your best for them, you should rest. Uncle Jonas says it is dangerous to dispense medicines unless you are fully alert, and you cannot be fully alert if you have been working since dawn.’

‘Eleanor, please,’ he objected, as she pulled him towards the High Street. ‘I am used to working long hours and none of the medicines I will dispense are particularly potent.’ In fact, most of his work had involved stitching wounds and removing foreign bodies, work usually considered beneath physicians and more in the realm of surgeons.

They were almost at Eleanor’s home, still marked with streaks of soot from the fire of the previous night. Mistress Tyler and her other two daughters were scrubbing at the walls with long-handled brooms, but abandoned their work when they saw Bartholomew. Before he could object further, he was ushered through a small gate to an attractive garden at the rear of the house. While the two older daughters pressed him with detailed questions about the town’s injured, Mistress Tyler and the youngest child fetched ale and bread.

‘I heard that Michaelhouse’s laundress – Agatha drove away a group of rioters from the King’s Head virtually single-handed,’ said Hedwise with a smile. Hedwise, like her older sister, had rich tresses of dark hair and candid grey eyes. She was slightly taller than Eleanor and had scarcely taken her eyes off Bartholomew since he had arrived.

‘What was Agatha doing at the King’s Head?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘She lives at Michaelhouse.’

‘The King’s Head is her favourite tavern,’ said Eleanor, surprised. ‘Did you not know? She can often be found there of an evening, especially when darkness comes early and there is nothing for her to do in the College. She says if Michaelhouse will not buy her any candles so that she can see to sew, then she will take her talents elsewhere.’

‘Agatha?’ asked Bartholomew, bemused. ‘I had always assumed she went to bed after dark. I did not know she frequented taverns.’

‘You see how these scholars fill their heads with books to the exclusion of all else?’ asked Eleanor of Hedwise. ‘Doctor Bartholomew probably has no idea about how Agatha earns herself free ale in the King’s Head!’

‘And I do not wish to,’ he said hastily, embarrassed. The notion of the large and formidable woman, who ruled the College servants with a will of steel, dispensing favours to the rough male patrons of the King’s Head was not an image he found attractive.

Eleanor and Hedwise exchanged a look of puzzlement before Hedwise gave a shriek of shocked laughter and punched him playfully on the arm. ‘Oh, Doctor! You misunderstand! Agatha mends torn clothes for free ale. She is very good.’

‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, not sure what else he could say after what, in retrospect, indicated that he had a low opinion of the moral character of Michaelhouse’s most powerful servant. He hoped the Tyler women were discreet, for Agatha was not a woman to suffer insults without retaliating in kind.

Eleanor dispatched her sister to help Mistress Tyler with the broth. Hedwise left Bartholomew and Eleanor alone with some reluctance, glancing backwards resentfully as she left. As soon as she was out of sight, Eleanor rested her hand on his knee.

‘I hear Michaelhouse is due to celebrate its foundation next week,’ she said.

‘Yes, next Tuesday,’ he said, grateful for the change in conversation. ‘It is the most important day in the College calendar, and is the only time that its Fellows are allowed to bring ladies into the hall. We are each allowed two guests.’

‘I know,’ said Eleanor, smiling meaningfully, still gripping his knee.

Bartholomew looked at her, not certain what he was expected to say. He continued nervously. ‘Our founder, Hervey de Stanton, provided a special endowment for the occasion, so that there will always be money to celebrate it. The Founder’s Feast and the Festival of St Michael and All Angels the following Sunday – St Michael is the patron saint of Michaelhouse – come close together.’

‘So, who have you invited to this feast?’ asked Eleanor, raising her eyebrows.

‘I had been planning to ask my sister and her husband, but I left it too late and they accepted an invitation from one of the commoners instead. So, I have invited no one.’

It would have been pleasant, he thought ruefully, to have taken Philippa. The mere thought of her long, golden hair and vivacious blue eyes sent a pang of bitter regret slicing through him. He looked away.

‘I am free on Tuesday,’ said Eleanor casually. ‘And I have never been to a Founder’s Feast before.’

‘Would you like to come?’ asked Bartholomew doubtfully, wondering why a lively and attractive woman like Eleanor should want to sit through a long, formal dinner, with lengthy Latin speeches that she would not be able to understand, attended by lots of crusty old men whose aim was to eat enough to make themselves ill the following day and drink sufficient wine to drown a horse.

‘Yes, I would,’ she said happily, her face splitting into a wide grin. ‘I would be delighted!’

‘Good,’ said Bartholomew, hoping she would not be bored. ‘It begins at noon.’

Mistress Tyler arrived with the broth, and Eleanor’s hand was withdrawn from his knee. Bartholomew ate quickly, concerned that he had already been away too long from his patients. It was excellent broth, however, rich and spicy and liberally endowed with chunks of meat that were edible. The bread was soft and white and quite different from the jaw-cracking fare made from the cheapest available flour that emerged from the Michaelhouse kitchens. Perhaps Michael had been right in the tavern the previous night, and Bartholomew did need to venture out of College more and sample what the world had to offer. Including the company of women, he decided suddenly.

As he took his leave, one of Jonas the Poisoner’s children came to say that his father was inundated with requests for medicines after the riot, and that he needed Eleanor’s help.

‘You have some knowledge of herbs?’ asked Bartholomew, impressed.

‘She sweeps up,’ said Hedwise with disdain.

‘I do not!’ Eleanor retorted, glowering at her sister. ‘I have a good memory, and Uncle Jonas says I am indispensable to him in his work.’

‘Then you had better go to him,’ said Hedwise archly. ‘I shall accompany Doctor Bartholomew to see his next patient.’

‘There is no need for that,’ said Bartholomew, not liking the way Eleanor’s look had turned to something blacker.

Hedwise took his arm. ‘Shall we be off, then? I shall return later,’ she called to her family as she opened the garden gate and bundled him out.

‘Do not be too long,’ Eleanor shouted after her. ‘You still have the pig to muck out, and I have that potion for the rash on your legs that you asked me to fetch from Uncle Jonas. You should apply it as soon as possible before it becomes worse.’

Hedwise laughed lightly and, Bartholomew thought, artificially, as she closed the gate behind her. ‘Eleanor likes to jest, although mother is always berating her for being overly vulgar. But I have watched Uncle Jonas very carefully in his shop, and if I can be of service to you this afternoon, I shall be happy to oblige.’

‘What about the pig?’ asked Bartholomew, desperately trying to think of a way to reject her offer without hurting her feelings. It was not that he did not want her company, but some of the sights he had seen that morning had been horrific and he had no wish to inflict them on young Hedwise Tyler.

‘The pig will manage without me for an hour or two,’ said Hedwise, ‘and I am sure I can do more good by assisting you than by dealing with that filthy animal.’

‘Perhaps another time, Hedwise,’ said Bartholomew gently, ‘although I do appreciate your offer and the fact that you are prepared to subject yourself to some unpleasant experiences in order to help me.’

She looked away and, to his horror, he saw that her eyes brimmed with tears. At a loss, he offered her a strip of clean linen from his bag with which to wipe her eyes.

‘I so seldom leave the house,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘Eleanor, being the eldest, is always the first to go on errands and the like, while I have to stay at home with the pig.’

Bartholomew’s discomfort increased, so, uncertain what to say, he said nothing. She gave a loud sniff.

‘I never go anywhere,’ she continued miserably. ‘I have not even been to the Festival of St Michael and All Angels at St Michael’s Church.’

‘Oh, I could take you to that,’ he said, relieved he could at least suggest something positive. ‘It is the Sunday after next, although I cannot see that you would enjoy it – Michael’s choir is going to sing, you see, and they are not what they were before the plague. Afterwards, Michaelhouse provides stale oatcakes and sour wine in the College courtyard. If it rains, we just get wet because the Franciscans outvote everyone else that the meal – if you can call it that – should be held in the hall. The Franciscans do not approve of townspeople in the hall except at the annual Founder’s Feast.’

He realised he had not made the offer sound a particularly appealing one, and sought for something to say in the Festival’s favour. Hedwise did not give him the chance.

‘How wonderful!’ she exclaimed, tears forgotten. ‘Oh, thank you!’

‘You can bring your mother,’ he said, recalling that her elder sister had already inveigled an invitation to the Founder’s Feast. He did not want Mistress Tyler thinking he was working his way through her entire family. Hedwise, however, had other ideas.

‘Oh, no,’ she said briskly. ‘Mother will not want to sit in a damp church all day. But I will be delighted to accompany you. Just the two of us.’

‘And a hundred other people,’ he said. ‘The church is always full for the Festival. Of course, it might not be so well attended if people hear the choir in advance. But if you have second thoughts about wasting a Sunday, you must tell me. I promise you I will not be offended if you find something better to do.’

‘I can think of nothing better to do than to spend a Sunday with you at the Festival,’ she announced. She gave him a huge grin and slipped away, dodging deftly out of the path of a man driving an ancient cow to the Market Square. A little belatedly, Bartholomew began to wonder what he had let himself in for.