A Deadly Brew

Epilogue

As the days passed, the memories of the unpleasant events with Harling and his smuggling empire began to fade in Bartholomew’s mind. He immersed himself in his teaching, determined that his students would pass their next disputations – even Deynman, if that were humanly possible. He taught each morning, visited his patients in the afternoons, while evenings were taken up with writing his treatise on fevers by the light of some cheap candles John Runham sold him – probably the remnants of his brush with the smuggling trade.

The mild weather ended abruptly and winter staked its claim with a vengeance. The river froze, and children made skates from sheep leg-bones to skid across a surface that was pitted and uneven from the rubbish that had been trapped in the ice. And then the snow came – tearing blizzards that turned the countryside from brown to white in the course of a day, and buried whole houses beneath drifts so deep that they were like rolling white hills. The country was paying dearly for the mild start to the year.

One afternoon, as the light was beginning to fade and cosy glows could be seen through the gaps in the window shutters of the houses in the High Street, Bartholomew finished setting the broken arm of an old man – who had been sufficiently drunk to believe he could still skate like a child across the King’s Ditch – and made his way back towards the College. The smells of stews and baking bread followed him as he walked, because the frigid temperatures suppressed the stench of sewage and rotting rubbish that usually pervaded the town.

The first flurry of snow, heralding yet another storm, tickled his face, and he drew his cloak more tightly around him, grateful to Edith and Matilde for their thoughtfulness. The wind stung his ears and blew his hood back, making his eyes water. He hurried down St Michael’s Lane, into Foul Lane and ducked through the wicket-gate into Michaelhouse. As he strode across the yard to his room, he was intercepted by Cynric, who gave him a message that Thomas Deschalers was ill and needed to see him immediately.

Since Philius’s death Bartholomew had received a number of calls from the wealthy merchants who had been under the care of the Franciscan physician. He anticipated, with some relief, that they would not retain his services for long when they realised he had no time for malingerers and refused to leech his patients on demand or indulge them in time-consuming astrological consultations.

By the time he arrived at Deschaler’s house, it was snowing in earnest, great penny-sized flakes that drifted into his eyes and mouth as he walked, and that promised to settle and cover once again the filthy slush that lay thick across the town’s streets. Shivering, he knocked on the door, and waited a long time before it was opened the merest crack.

‘There you are!’ said Julianna, opening the door a little further. ‘I sent for you ages ago. Where have you been? I might have died waiting for you!’

‘I have other patients to attend,’ said Bartholomew shortly. ‘And you do not appear to be at death’s door to me.’

‘How would you know that?’ she demanded. ‘You have not consulted my stars. Anyway, do not keep me out here in the cold with your idle chatter. Come in before you let all the heat escape.’

She gave him a predatory grin and stood back so that he could enter the house. He hesitated, backing away from her.

‘Oh, Doctor Bartholomew!’ she said, the grin fading as she gave an impatient stamp of her foot. ‘Do not start all this side-stepping and dancing around again. Come inside, man! I do not bite.’

Unconvinced, Bartholomew stepped across the threshold and stood uncertainly in the hallway. His reticence to be there with her increased a hundredfold when he saw her look furtively up and down the street before closing the door.

‘Is Master Deschalers ill?’ he asked nervously. ‘Because if not, I am very busy …’

‘We are all busy,’ retorted Julianna. ‘No one is ill, but I have something to ask of you. You heard what my uncle said: that you owe me a favour for saving your life. And do not try to claim otherwise because my uncle tells me that this Egil of yours was deeply involved with Vice-Chancellor Harling, and that he was trailing you across the Fens in order to kill us all.’

‘What do you want from me?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Have you had enough of life in the town, and want me to spirit you back to Denny Abbey in the dead of night?’

Julianna laughed. ‘Oh no! Life here is infinitely preferable to the drudgery at Denny. Since I have returned I have seen bodies dredged from wells, had soldiers searching our house for stolen goods, and witnessed a dramatic fight on the river bank between Tulyet and some outlaws.’

‘And what were you doing out at that time of night?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Looking for someone to kill with a heavy stone?’

Julianna’s eyes narrowed. ‘That is none of your business,’ she said coldly. ‘But we are wasting time. My uncle will be back soon, and he will think you are attempting to seduce me if he finds us here alone.’

‘Then I am leaving right now,’ said Bartholomew with determination, starting to push past her towards the door.

Julianna stopped him. ‘I want you to take a message to Ralph de Langelee,’ she said.

Bartholomew regarded her doubtfully. ‘Is that all? Then you will consider your favour repaid and will leave me alone?’

She nodded.

Bartholomew shrugged. ‘Give it to me, then. I will put it under his door as soon as I get back.’

Julianna sighed heavily. ‘I cannot entrust what I have to say to parchment. And, anyway, I do not write. You must memorise the message and repeat it to him.’

Bartholomew shrugged again, noting that there was a very distinct difference between ‘cannot write’ and ‘do not write’. ‘Very well. What is it?’

Julianna regarded him appraisingly for a moment. ‘You must promise not to tell.’

Bartholomew strongly suspected he was about to be drawn into something of which he would disapprove, or, worse still, which might lead him into trouble.

‘I hope this is nothing illegal …’

Julianna dismissed his objections with a wave of her hand. ‘Do not be ridiculous! What do you think I am?’ Bartholomew refrained from answering and Julianna continued. ‘You must tell Ralph to be prepared to admit me to his chambers at midnight tonight. He should have a priest at the ready and we will exchange our marriage vows in St Michael’s Church.’

Bartholomew regarded her dubiously and wondered, not for the first time, whether she was totally in control of her faculties. ‘How do you plan to get past the porter?’

She gave a snort of disdain. ‘Your porter sleeps all night. That will be no problem.’

‘Not since he was attacked,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Although I am sure his vigilance will not last for much longer.’

‘Damn!’ said Julianna, chewing her lip. She brightened suddenly. ‘No matter. I will meet Ralph at the church instead. That will be better anyway – it is not so far to walk.’

‘And where is Langelee supposed to find a priest who will marry you in a dark church in the depths of the night?’

Julianna shrugged. ‘Ralph says Michaelhouse is full of priests.’

‘Not ones who will agree to perform that sort of ceremony,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And what do you plan to do afterwards? Go back to his chamber and ask his room-mate John Runham to turn a blind eye while you consummate your union?’

‘Ralph is to have horses ready and we will flee into the night.’ She twirled around happily, her eyes glittering with excitement.

‘Flee where?’ persisted Bartholomew. ‘And what of Langelee’s position as Master of Philosophy? Is he to abandon it?’

Julianna gave another impatient sigh. ‘Of course he is. But that is none of your affair. You owe me a favour and I charge you to deliver this message to him.’

Bartholomew raised his hands. ‘All right, I will tell him of your plan. But have you considered that he might prefer a more conventional form of courtship? I see no reason why your uncle should refuse him permission to marry you now that your betrothal to Edward Mortimer is dissolved.’

Julianna pouted. ‘Uncle does not like Ralph.’ Bartholomew could see why. ‘He would not accept him willingly into our family. And, anyway, I am with child.’

‘Langelee’s child?’ asked Bartholomew tactlessly.

Julianna gave him a nasty look. ‘Of course,’ she said sharply. ‘And I will not be able to conceal it much longer. Look.’

Bartholomew glanced down to where she pulled her loose dress tight around her middle, and saw that she was right. It was fortunate that the novice’s habits at Denny had been loose-fitting, or her aunt might have noticed some weeks before. No wonder Julianna was prepared to go to such desperate lengths to leave Denny and to return to the arms of her paramour. He rubbed a hand through his hair and shrugged yet again.

‘I will pass your message to Langelee, but will return to inform you if he cannot make it at such short notice.’ He could not imagine that Langelee would agree to a midnight flight with Julianna, and did not like to think of her wandering the streets after dark alone – although, he reminded himself, she was more than able to look after herself if there were large stones to hand.

Julianna opened the door and ushered him out into the snow. She stood on the front step, her hands on her hips, and winked at him in a conspiratorial way that made several passers-by nudge each other and point at him. He wondered how she had succeeded in avoiding learning even a modicum of the decorous behaviour usually expected in the female relatives of wealthy merchants. He walked back to Michaelhouse in low spirits, and knocked at the door of the comfortable chamber Langelee shared with the smug Runham.

The philosopher was sitting at a table, scowling in concentration over Aristotle’s De Caelo in preparation for his forthcoming public debate. He had one of the largest lamps Bartholomew had ever seen, and the brightness that filled the room was eye-watering.

‘What do you want?’ he growled when Bartholomew put his head round the door. ‘I am busy.’

Bartholomew repeated Julianna’s message and watched Langelee’s eyes grow wide in his red face. When Bartholomew had finished, declining to mention Julianna’s advanced pregnancy, Langelee expelled his breath in a whistle and sat down on his bed.

‘She certainly knows her mind,’ he said admiringly. ‘Do you think Brother Michael will do the honours?’

‘You mean to go through with this?’ asked Bartholomew, astounded.

Langelee looked surprised. ‘Well, of course I do! Deschalers will never permit me to marry her otherwise. He thinks I want his money. I would not mind it, actually, and perhaps he will change his mind when presented with a fait-accompli.’

‘Perhaps he will disown the both of you,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps he will claim you took Julianna by force and apply to have the marriage annulled.’

‘He will do nothing so petty!’ said Langelee confidently. ‘Now, let me think. I must arrange for horses. Meanwhile, you ask Brother Michael whether he will marry us. He is more likely to agree if you put it to him.’

He bustled out of the room leaving Bartholomew to follow. Speechless, the physician walked into the courtyard, staring at Langelee’s broad back as he strode purposefully across the yard, humming to himself. And then he started to laugh. Michael, emerging from the kitchen after devouring a large plate of honey cakes – originally intended for Alcote who had paid for the ingredients – saw him, and picked his way mincingly across the slippery snow.

‘What were you doing in Langelee’s room? And what is so funny?’

Bartholomew told him, and Michael narrowed his eyes in thought. Bartholomew’s jaw dropped in horror, feeling the humour of the situation evaporating like the Fen mist in the sun.

‘Do not tell me you are going to oblige! This is madness, Brother. Deschalers would never let the matter rest: Julianna is all he has in the way of an heir for his business, and he will not let her go to someone he does not approve of.’

‘This was not your idea?’ asked Michael, surprised. ‘You suggested to Matilde that you would see if you could persuade Julianna to spirit Langelee away so that we could be rid of him. I simply assumed all this was your doing.’

‘It most certainly was not my idea. I want nothing to do with it.’

‘But it might be an excellent opportunity for us to lose Langelee. He can hardly remain a Fellow of Michaelhouse if he has eloped with a merchant’s niece. Fellows are not permitted to marry.’

‘But how can you consider implicating yourself in all this?’ protested Bartholomew. ‘You are always stressing how important it is to maintain good relations with the merchants. Deschalers will be outraged if you marry Julianna to that brute of a man.’

‘We must weigh up the pros and cons,’ said Michael smoothly. ‘And being free of Langelee is a pro not to be lightly dismissed.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I think I will accede to their request. I can always claim later I did not know the arrangement was anything but legitimate.’

‘In the middle of the night? In a dark church?’

Michael rubbed his chin. ‘You have a point. But my grandmother tells me Julianna is pregnant, so I can always claim I thought the secrecy was because of that. Speaking of which, I must tell her about this. It will amuse her no end!’

He strolled away, whistling, leaving Bartholomew speechless for a second time. He determined to put the whole unsavoury business from his mind and went to bed early that night so that Michael might not be tempted to ask him to help. He was overtired, and thoughts of his sister and her continuing distress over Rob Thorpe tumbled through his mind in an uncontrolled fashion. His room was freezing and flakes of snow found their way through the cracks in the window shutters to form damp little piles on the table: he did not know whether to be grateful or irritated that his teeming, unpleasant dreams were so often interrupted because he woke from the cold. When Michael shook his shoulder to wake him for mass early the following morning, he felt exhausted.

Swearing under his breath, he hopped from bare foot to bare foot across the flagstone floor to the water in the jug Cynric left each night, while Michael waited for him, eating some nuts given by a patient in lieu of payment.

‘It has frozen solid again,’ said Bartholomew tiredly, shaking the solid mass in the jug to see if he could hear water slopping about underneath. There was nothing. ‘I will have to fetch some from the kitchen.’

‘You washed yesterday,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘Is there no end to this cleanliness nonsense? Just get dressed and let us be off before we are late for the third time this week.’

‘Did you marry Langelee and Julianna last night?’ asked Bartholomew, fumbling around in the dark for his shirt.

‘Not so loud, Matt! You will wake the others,’ warned Michael. ‘Just because we have to be at the church early does not mean that the entire College needs to be up with us.’

Bartholomew hauled the cold, damp garment over his head. ‘Sorry. But what of this nocturnal wedding? What happened?’

‘We will speak of the matter after mass,’ said Michael. ‘I will meet you by the gate. Hurry or you can pay my fine for being late as well as your own.’

Bartholomew finished dressing and, hauling his tabard over his head, ran across the snowy yard to where Michael had pulled the bar from the wicket gate. There was no sign of Walter, but the weather was foul – sleet being driven almost horizontally by a bitter wind – and Bartholomew imagined very little would extract him from his cosy room to open the gate for scholars off to early morning mass.

‘It is dark this morning,’ mumbled Bartholomew, glancing up at a black sky laden with heavy clouds. He shivered as icy flakes flew into his face. ‘And cold.’

Michael was walking up the lane towards the High Street with uncharacteristic speed, but Bartholomew was grateful because it stirred the blood in his veins and he felt some warmth begin to creep through his body. He followed Michael through the knee-deep drifts of snow in St Michael’s graveyard to the porch. Someone already waited there and Bartholomew froze in his tracks.

‘Julianna!’

She came towards him, surprised. ‘I did not expect you to be here,’ she said. ‘I thought you were against my marriage to Ralph.’

Bartholomew spun round to Michael, realising exactly why the night seemed to black and why he felt so tired. It was not nearing dawn at all: it was midnight!

Michael raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘I did not lie to you. I only said we would speak of the matter after mass. Which we will do I am sure. If the marriage is to be legal, I need a witness and you are the only one I can trust to do it discreetly.’

‘You trust me?’ said Bartholomew harshly. ‘When I cannot trust you?’

Michael laughed softly in the darkness. ‘You can trust me for important things, and that is what matters. This is a trifling business.’

‘Not to me,’ proclaimed Julianna huffily.

‘Nor to me,’ growled Langelee from behind them.

Bartholomew heaved a huge sigh of resignation and followed them into the church. He struggled to light the temperamental lamp while the others waited impatiently.

‘Hurry it up, Bartholomew,’ ordered Langelee imperiously. ‘We do not have all night.’

Bartholomew was about to suggest that Langelee should light the lamp himself – knowing that the philosopher’s thick, clumsy fingers would never be able to perform the intricate operation required – when it coughed into life. Langelee snatched it from his hand and led the way inside. Michael had apparently made some preparations the night before, because the Bible was opened to the relevant page and the altar was draped with a white cloth. Something glittery to one side caught his eye. It was Wilson’s black marble tomb, now topped with a grotesque effigy of a man in a scholar’s gown, partly faced in gold.

‘That monstrosity will have to go,’ muttered Michael, seeing Bartholomew staring at it with loathing. ‘It would be bad enough if it were all one colour, but now the smuggling is over Runham cannot lay his hands on sufficient gold leaf to finish covering the thing. We have Wilson with a golden stomach and a face of cheap limestone.’

‘At least it does not look like him,’ said Bartholomew, helping Michael to lay out the regalia for the mass. ‘I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.’

While Michael ripped through the Latin wedding ceremony at an impressive rate, Bartholomew sat at the base of one of the pillars and watched moodily. He wondered what the offspring of such an alliance would be like and hoped they did not move back to Cambridge so he would find out. There was a sudden draught of wind and the lamp fluttered dangerously. Michael looked up from his reading and Bartholomew went to close the door that the fierce wind had blown open.

He heaved it closed, his feet skidding on the wet tiles as he fought against the blizzard, and went back to his place at the base of the pillar. Moments later, the same thing happened again. Michael scowled at the interruption.

‘The latch must be faulty, Matt. Shut it properly. If the lamp goes out I will have to pronounce them man and wife in the dark and I do not want to end up kissing Langelee instead of the bride.’

‘I thought the groom was supposed to kiss the bride,’ said Langelee. ‘Not the priest.’

‘And who is the expert on religious matters here, you or me?’ demanded Michael. ‘Go and check the door, Matt, or we will all freeze to death before I kiss anyone!’

Bartholomew hauled himself to his feet a second time and went to the door. And stopped abruptly when he saw Master Kenyngham struggling to close it. He closed his eyes, disgusted at himself for forgetting that it was the feast day of St Gilbert of Sempringham and that Kenyngham, a Gilbertine friar, would certainly keep a midnight vigil in the church in honour of the occasion.

Kenyngham turned to put his back to the door to force it closed, and smiled happily when he saw Bartholomew standing in the shadows.

‘Matthew!’ he exclaimed in genuine pleasure. ‘What a lovely surprise! I assume you are here to keep me company while I say matins for the feast of St Gilbert of Sempringham?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Bartholomew, moving forward to help latch the door.

‘Who is there?’ called Michael. Bartholomew heard the slap of his sandals as he huffed his way up the nave to find out what was happening.

‘Brother Michael!’ cried Kenyngham in delight, taking his weight from the door so that it blew open again. Bartholomew caught it as it flew backwards, and leaned into it, making the others jump when the wind dropped and it slammed with a crash that sent echoes reverberating around the dark church. ‘And Master Langelee, too! All here to pray with me and celebrate the feast day of Gilbert of Sempringham, the saintly founder of my Order! And you have brought a friend, I see.’

He reached forward and placed a hand on Julianna’s head in blessing, muttering a prayer as he did so. Bartholomew and Michael exchanged a glance of bemusement, not at all certain what would happen next.

‘I am to be married,’ announced Julianna proudly. ‘And then I am going to live in France, where the sun shines all the time.’

‘Do not go to Paris, then,’ said Bartholomew.

‘France?’ asked Langelee doubtfully. ‘You have not mentioned France before.’

‘Congratulations, my child,’ said Kenyngham, still smiling beatifically. ‘I shall pray for you. Who is to be the lucky man?’

Only an innocent like Kenyngham could have failed to notice the way Langelee’s arm was wrapped indecorously around Julianna’s waist and the way in which the lovers looked at each other. Bartholomew and Michael exchanged yet another mystified look.

‘Ralph de Langelee,’ said Julianna loudly, as though she were talking to someone either very old or very deaf. ‘I am to marry Ralph de Langelee, Master Kenyngham.’

Kenyngham’s smile faded slightly. ‘Ralph de Langelee? But he is a Fellow of Michaelhouse; you cannot marry him!’

‘Why not?’ demanded Julianna indignantly. ‘He is a man, is he not?’

‘Not all men are available for marriage,’ said Kenyngham gently. ‘And if Ralph de Langelee married you, he would have to resign his Fellowship and he would lose the opportunity to make a name for himself by teaching philosophy – and perhaps even to be the Master of the College himself one day.’

‘God forbid!’ muttered Michael under his breath. ‘And the name he would make for himself by teaching philosophy would not be one I would repeat in a church!’

‘Why should I resign?’ asked Langelee, startled. ‘Why can I not marry Julianna and keep my Fellowship as well?’

‘It is against the rules,’ said Kenyngham. ‘No Fellows are allowed to marry. But the choice is yours: marry and have a happy and fulfilled life with children and a wife who loves you, or stay at Michaelhouse and take part in the shaping of young minds or perhaps tread in the footsteps of others before you and become an emissary to the King or the Pope.’

‘Really?’ asked Langelee, intrigued. ‘Scholars from Michaelhouse have become emissaries to popes and kings?’

‘Not very many,’ said Michael quickly. ‘And the opportunities are few and far between, and very competitive.’

‘We would have such fun,’ whispered Julianna, leaning against him seductively. ‘We could set up business together and become rich beyond our wildest dreams.’

Langelee was silent, thinking. All Bartholomew could hear in the dark church was the splattering of sleet against the window shutters and the sound of Langelee’s heavy breathing as he pondered his dilemma.

‘Well,’ said the philosopher eventually. ‘Now, let me see …’