A Poisonous Plot

Chapter 15

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.

‘Hurry!’ howled Michael. The water had reached his chin.

Both took breaths at the same time, Michael as the ditch surged towards his nose, and Bartholomew as he dived, desperately hoping that the axe would be sharp enough to hack through the ropes. He found Michael’s legs, then groped for the cords, sawing frantically at one that was stretched taut from the monk’s frenzied struggles to break free. He could not tell whether it was working, and was about to surface for air when he was thrust down so hard that his head cracked against the gunwale.

He tried to push upwards, but someone was holding him down. He struggled, violently at first, but with decreasing vigour as he felt himself begin to black out. Then, just when he thought his lungs would explode, he was released. He surfaced, gasping, to see that he must have cut enough of the rope to let Michael snap the rest, because the monk was standing up.

He looked around wildly, and saw it had been the student who had tried to drown him; Michael had knocked him away with his shoulder, and the lad was floating face-down nearby. Morys was clawing at the mud that filled his eyes and nose, while Dickon and the other student were still engaged in their deadly dance. Bartholomew looked for Robert.

‘Behind you, Matt!’ howled Michael.

Bartholomew spun around to see that the almoner had managed to grab the axe. With a vengeful grin, Robert raised it above his head in readiness for the fatal blow. Bartholomew threw up an arm to defend himself, but then came an imperious voice.

‘What is going on?’

Bartholomew sagged in relief. It was Prior Joliet. Robert lowered the axe, while on the bank, Dickon and the student stopped fighting.

‘You are making too much noise,’ said Joliet angrily. ‘Do you want the beadles to rush in and see what is happening?’

Numbly, Bartholomew noticed that the Prior’s arm was no longer in its orange sling, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with it.

‘So you are the strategist!’ spat Michael in disgust. ‘I might have guessed.’

‘Might you?’ mumbled Bartholomew, hating the sour taste of defeat. It had not occurred to him that the jolly, round little Prior should be involved in such a wicked scheme. ‘Why?’

‘The mural in our hall,’ said Michael. ‘What does it depict?’

‘Aristotle, Plato, Galen and Aquinas,’ replied Bartholomew, struggling to understand why the monk should consider the painting relevant. ‘Teaching under a tree.’

‘Quite,’ said Michael. ‘Under a tree – not in an academic hall or a church. I wondered from the start why that should be, but now I understand. It was Joliet’s idea to move the University to the Fens. He painted his vision of the future.’

Many things became clear to Bartholomew as the last clue fell into place, but there was no time to analyse them, because a fury of sound from the High Street suggested that a pitched battle was in progress. There would be injuries and deaths, particularly among the townsmen, whose sticks and tools were no match for the scholars’ swords and bows.

He glanced at Joliet and saw satisfaction in the plump face. It was exactly what the Prior wanted: no scholar could stay in a place that burned with resentment over the uneven number of casualties, so the University would have to flee to the Fens, where his dream of a studium generale away from the trappings of a town would be realised. Bartholomew felt a small spark of satisfaction, though: the sacking of the Austin Priory would not contribute to the trouble, because the bar he had placed across the door would keep looters out – at least until Joliet and Robert realised what he had done and went to remove it.

‘Pull that student out of the water,’ instructed Joliet, when the clamour had eased and he could make himself heard again. ‘Or he will drown.’

Robert tossed the axe to Morys and went to oblige, although Bartholomew could see it was too late. So could Joliet, who scowled angrily.

‘If you had dispatched Michael quickly, as I ordered, Bartholomew would have gone away in ignorance and that lad would still be alive. Now we shall have to kill Bartholomew, too, which is a pity – another physician would have been be useful in the Fens.’

‘Do not use the axe to do it, Morys,’ advised Robert. ‘A knife will be cleaner.’

He was proven right when Bartholomew evaded Morys’s wild swing with ease. Swearing under his breath, the Principal tossed the axe on to the pier and drew a dagger instead.

‘How did you escape from the chapel, Father Prior?’ asked Bartholomew, edging away.

‘By unlocking the door,’ replied Joliet shortly. ‘Do you really think I would allow myself to be shut inside when a riot was in progress?’

‘You tried to make us think that Wauter was the strategist,’ said Bartholomew accusingly, jerking away from Morys’ next lunge, which came far too close for comfort. ‘You claimed he left you his Martilogium to–’

‘To ensure you did not suspect me,’ interrupted Joliet briskly. ‘Yes. Not that it matters now. And I do have the Martilogium. It is a valuable work, and I could not risk it being destroyed in the riots. I took it when I last visited your College.’

‘Wauter was never one of us,’ said Morys, grimacing when yet another swipe missed. ‘He would have disapproved.’

‘So who is involved?’ asked Michael. ‘All Zachary, I suppose, which is why they refuse to wear their tabards – a ploy to aggravate the town with a flaunting of riches. And the Austins.’

‘Not the Austins,’ said Joliet. ‘It is best my brethren remain ignorant of what needs to be done, so they are still locked in the chapel, praying for peace.’

‘And not Nigellus either,’ surmised Bartholomew. ‘Or he would have treated you with more respect at the disceptatio. Instead he blackmailed you over the sucura you acquired from Frenge.’

‘I will make him regret that,’ vowed Joliet unpleasantly, then turned to his helpmeets. ‘Enough talk. Make an end of them.’

Obediently, the surviving student renewed his assault on Dickon, while Morys advanced on Bartholomew again. Robert jumped into the ditch and waded purposefully towards Michael.

‘You sold Shirwynk those lead tanks, knowing exactly what would happen if he fermented wine in them,’ said Michael, twisting suddenly so that Robert was knocked backwards. ‘And you have pretended to be calm and reasonable, but your “innocent” remarks have made matters worse.’

‘Hurry up,’ Joliet snapped to his helpmeets. ‘This distasteful confrontation has gone on quite long enough.’

‘You were never hurt by a rock either,’ said Michael. ‘You claimed a townsman had lobbed one, hoping the University would rebel at an assault on a priest, and you wore a bright orange sling to draw attention to the “injury”. But it was yet another ruse, aimed to encourage more–’

‘It worked,’ interrupted Joliet curtly. ‘Which is even more reason to leave this turbulent town. If we can stir up such hatred with a few rumours, lawsuits, lies and deaths, imagine what would happen if someone wicked tried to do it.’

‘Someone wicked?’ echoed Michael in disbelief. ‘I think you will find that you qualify for that particular description – as you will learn when your sins are weighed on Judgement Day.’

‘We are in the right,’ snarled Joliet, and as he spoke, he stepped into the flickering lamplight to reveal what he was wearing on his feet. ‘It is fat and corrupt Colleges that–’

‘You killed Kellawe!’ breathed Bartholomew when he saw the colourful smears. He recalled what Dickon had said: that the Austins did not have the luxury of spare boots. Joliet had worn sandals in his refectory earlier, but something sturdier was needed for hurrying around outside in the dark, so the Prior had had no choice but to don the footwear he had worn to the dyeworks.

‘He was a liability,’ snapped Joliet crossly. ‘And put more moderate men off joining us. I told him to stay away from your sister’s business after he was almost caught there the first time, but he ignored me and went again anyway. I followed and–’

He was interrupted by an agonised scream. The surviving student had been distracted by the discussion, which allowed Dickon to dart forward and plunge his sword into the lad’s foot. Then Dickon whipped around and rushed at Joliet. The Prior tried to turn, but lost his footing on the slippery wood. He landed on his back, where he made a peculiar sound, half whimper, half groan.

Bartholomew also capitalised on the distraction, lashing out with a punch that sent Morys flying. When the Principal regained his feet, he was within reach of Dickon’s sword. There was an unpleasant crunch as metal met bone, and Morys went limp.

‘Untie me, Matt,’ shouted Michael, ramming a meaty elbow into Robert’s face. The almoner reeled, dazed. ‘The University needs its Senior Proctor out on the streets, or these misguided fools are going to get their wish of a University in the Fens.’

‘Not Morys – he is dead,’ said Dickon with enormous satisfaction. ‘I can see his brains.’

‘So is Joliet,’ added Bartholomew, as he slashed away the ropes from Michael’s wrists with his trusty dagger. ‘He landed on the axe that Morys dropped just now, and it must have punctured his …’

He trailed off when he saw Dickon listening with far too much interest.

‘Get the chapel key from his purse,’ instructed Michael, climbing out of the ditch and pulling the dazed Robert with him. ‘Hurry!’

Bartholomew obliged, then used Dickon’s sword to urge Robert and the limping student towards the chapel. He glanced up at the sky as they went. Dawn would come soon, and he wondered what horrors daylight would reveal.

They reached the chapel to find that the Austins had been suspicious when Joliet had accused Robert of shutting them in when they knew he had the key himself. One had also seen Morys forcing Michael towards the King’s Ditch at knifepoint. They were sorry when the monk gave a brief summary of what had happened, but not surprised, and informed him that their concerns had been mounting for some time.

‘The Zachary men often visit at night,’ said Overe, watching Dickon shove the two prisoners into the chapel and lock the door. ‘And Prior Joliet hated the fact that the University is surrounded by what he called the corrupting influence of the town.’

‘But we want to stay,’ said another. ‘How can we succour the poor from the marshes?’

‘A move would have gone against everything we believe in,’ said Overe. ‘Yet Joliet and Robert were not bad men – just ones who did what they thought was right.’

‘Setting an entire town alight with hatred and bigotry is right?’ asked Michael archly.

Bartholomew, Michael and Dickon hurried to the High Street to see that Bene’t College was under siege from a gang of hostel men, while a mob from the town was looting a house that had been left empty when its residents had decanted to the Fens. More trouble was brewing at the Trumpington Gate, where a host of scholars had again gathered to leave, and a rival contingent led by King’s Hall aimed to stop them. Townsfolk had gravitated towards the confrontation.

‘Where have you been, Brother?’ demanded Tulyet between gritted teeth. ‘Your hostel men have not brought travelling packs with them this time – they carry staves and knives, and they intend to do battle with the Colleges.’

‘Where is Tynkell?’ asked Michael. ‘Did he not tell them to go home?’

‘They are well past taking orders,’ said Tulyet. ‘We need a miracle if we are to avert a massacre.’

‘Their leader is dead,’ said Michael grimly. ‘But it seems his plan might work anyway.’

‘It was Prior Joliet and Master Morys,’ piped Dickon. ‘Prior Joliet fell on an axe that punctured something, while I killed Master Morys with a blow that sliced clean through his head.’

Tulyet grimaced irritably, clearly thinking it was another of his son’s exaggerations. Michael did not enlighten him, but hurried to interpose himself between the two factions, calling for his beadles as he went. Unfortunately, the lines were blurred, so it was impossible to know where one ended and the other began. Townsfolk were everywhere, adding to the confusion and the din.

He started to shout, but although those closest to him turned to listen, the general racket was so great that his words were inaudible to most. Then another voice joined in, one that did still the cacophony.

‘Brother Michael is talking,’ roared Isnard the bargeman, his powerful voice explaining why the Michaelhouse Choir had a reputation for being able to sing at such a tremendous volume. ‘So shut your mouths and listen.’

‘Why should we?’ demanded Gilby. He carried a stave, and had a pack of hostel men at his heels, all of whom looked as though they would rather skirmish than embark on a life of scholarly contemplation in the marshes. ‘He is friends with the woman who is poisoning our river – which is another reason why we should abandon this filthy place.’

‘No one is poisoning the river,’ shouted Bartholomew, eager to clear his sister’s name. He baulked at adding more, though, suspecting that naming the brewery as the culprit was unlikely to help the cause of peace.

‘He is right,’ boomed Michael. ‘It was a misunderstanding, which will be explained in full later this morning. So go home and wait there for news.’

‘You heard him,’ bellowed Tulyet, going to stand next to the monk in a gesture of unity. His voice was hoarse from previous appeals. ‘Stand down, all of you.’

‘We will stand down when these hostel vermin slink back to their hovels,’ declared Wayt, who was clad in full armour and carried a halberd. ‘Until then, we stay here.’

‘We want you all to leave our town,’ shrieked Hakeney. He had abandoned the sanctuary of the King’s Head, and was with a contingent of heavily armed cronies who looked delighted at the prospect of going to war with scholars. ‘None of you are welcome here.’

Howls of fury vied with cheers and a lot of menacingly brandished weapons. Then Michael’s eye lit on the Chancellor, who had donned his ceremonial finery in the hope of rendering himself more imposing. It had not worked, and he looked like a frightened man wearing robes that were too big for him. Michael was desperate enough to make an appeal anyway.

‘Do something, Tynkell,’ he begged. ‘For God’s sake, help me!’

Tynkell cleared his throat nervously as the clamour began to die down. ‘This is all very silly,’ he began feebly. ‘So go home. It looks like rain anyway, and you will not want to get wet.’

There was a startled silence, followed by jeering laughter from townsmen and scholars alike. But the atmosphere soon turned menacing again.

‘Will we listen to a man who is afraid of his mother?’ asked Wayt sneeringly of his cronies. ‘Or shall we leave that sort of nonsense to the hostels?’

‘We are not afraid of women,’ declared Gilby. He turned to the men who were ranged at his back. ‘Are you ready? Then let us attack and be away from this evil place once and for all!’

Gilby’s charge never materialised, because there was a sudden rumble of hoofs on the road outside the gate. A cavalcade was thundering towards it, comprising an elegant carriage, two heavily loaded wagons and a pack of liveried knights on horseback. There was immediate curiosity – and consternation – as only nobility or high-ranking churchmen travelled in that sort of style.

The vehicles clattered through the gate and rolled to a standstill. The warriors took up station on either side of them, their faces dark and unsmiling. A nervous murmur ran through the crowd, but it petered out quickly, and the silence was absolute as one horseman flung back his hood and dismounted.

‘Wauter!’ breathed Bartholomew. ‘Now what?’

The geometrician strode towards the carriage and offered his hand to its occupant. A woman alighted. She was well past her prime and not very tall, but there was a gleam in her eye and a set to her chin that indicated she was not someone to trifle with.

‘Oh, Lord!’ gulped Tynkell, as she gazed around with an imperious stare that caused more than one person in the crowd to shuffle his feet and look away. ‘It is my mother!’

‘Lady Joan de Hereford,’ announced Wauter in a ringing voice. ‘Wife of Robert Morys of Brington Manor and friend of Her Majesty the Queen. And with her are members of the royal guard – men who know how to deal with those who break the King’s peace.’

‘What is going on here?’ demanded Joan. ‘Why are you not at your devotions? It is time for morning service, is it not? To be attended by scholars and townsfolk.’

‘We are about to teach the University a lesson,’ shouted Hakeney, hopping from foot to foot in excitement, so that the cross he wore around his neck bounced wildly and was in danger of knocking his teeth out. However, if he was expecting support from his ruffianly friends, he was disappointed, because they shot away from him as though he had the plague.

Joan fixed him with a hard stare. ‘You intend to attack my son?’

Hakeney swallowed hard when he found himself standing in splendid isolation. ‘Not him, specifically, but scholars in general. They are an unruly horde, given to stealing crucifixes and suing people. Not to mention wearing clothes that make them look like courtiers. Not that there is anything wrong with courtiers, of course,’ he added prudently.

‘I am glad to hear you think so,’ said Joan coolly, then brought her basilisk gaze to bear on the assembled scholars. ‘The King will not be pleased to learn that you would rather brawl than attend your religious duties. So shall I tell him, or will you go to your churches and chapels?’

Wayt opened his mouth to argue, but she fixed him with a steely glare, and the words died in his throat. However, it was the knights who convinced him to stand down – one spurred his enormous destrier forward and the Acting Warden was obliged to scramble away or risk being knocked over. The other warriors followed suit, drawing broadswords as they did so, and the crowd scattered like leaves in the wind. A skirmish had been averted, aided by the fact that dawn had brought a drenching drizzle that encouraged people not to linger anyway.

‘Hello, Mother,’ said Tynkell, advancing with a curious crab-like scuttle that made those watching wonder if he aimed to embrace her or fall at her feet.

Lady Joan regarded him stonily. ‘I thought Master Wauter was exaggerating when he came to tell me to hurry because there was trouble. I am not impressed, William. You are Chancellor – you should nip this sort of thing in the bud. As should the Sheriff.’

‘He tried,’ shouted Dickon indignantly. ‘He is my father, and a very good leader. He has been teaching me things.’

Joan’s eyebrows went up when she saw the scarlet face, but then her expression softened. ‘And you are a worthy pupil, I am sure. Come here, and tell me your name.’

‘Why am I not surprised that she has taken a liking to him?’ muttered Wauter, coming to stand next to Bartholomew and Michael. ‘The Devil sees his own like, I suppose.’

‘Where have you been?’ demanded Michael frostily.

‘Fetching her,’ replied Wauter. ‘I wrote a letter explaining why, and left it with Prior Joliet. Did he not give it to you? Lady Joan and I are old friends, and I thought she would give her son the strength he needs to lead the University in its time of crisis.’

‘You consider Dick and me unequal to the task?’ asked Michael coolly.

‘I thought you might need help,’ said Wauter quietly. ‘That is all.’

‘Well, I am glad you brought the King’s knights,’ said Tulyet, watching Lady Joan and Dickon talk animatedly. ‘I am not sure we could have quelled that battle without them, and people would have died.’

‘How long will she and her entourage stay?’ asked Bartholomew, suspecting the turmoil would start again the moment they left.

‘Until Christmas at least,’ replied Wauter. ‘Quite long enough to put us all in order.’