A Plague on Both Your Houses

A Plague On Both Your Houses

by

Susanna Gregory

The bizarre death of the Master of Michaelhouse College appears to be suicide. At least, it does until it is swiftly followed by several more deaths, an assault, a ransacking, an attempted murder and a disappearing corpse. Added to a previous series of deaths in Cambridge colleges, it generates rumours of a plot by Oxford to undermine its rival. For with a terrible pestilence sweeping across the country, there may soon be only one university left standing; and the weaker Cambridge is to begin with, the greater the chance that Oxford will be it.

Michaelhouse’s Fellow of Medicine, Matthew Bartholomew, wants his friend’s death investigated. The Bishop wants to cover it all up. Bartholomew is forced to give in, and indeed has enough to do with preparing for the plague and dodging the malice of someone who’s clearly out to get him - though he hasn’t the faintest notion who or why. Then the Death hits Cambridge … and despite the fact that people are dropping like flies, someone sees the need to commit another murder. Reasoning that the Bishop will be busy, Bartholomew decides to investigate the matter himself, and soon comes to suspect even his friends and family of being involved in the plot that’s afoot. That is, if the plot exists at all.

Who would have thought academic life could be so dangerous? That’s what I love about Susanna Gregory - she manages to combine loads of historical detail with a high body count and plenty of other crimes and misdemeanours. Mediaeval Cambridge springs to life on the page without slowing down the plot. And what a plot it is! By page 300 I was thoroughly baffled and wondering how on earth it could all be resolved. A hundred pages later I was marvelling at how something so (relatively) simple could spawn such a complex heap of criminal activity, and feeling both educated and entertained. As well as town and college life, the novel shows the chaos created by the black death and the waiting that preceded it.

A Little, Brown Book

This edition first published in Great Britain by Little, Brown in 2.001

The Matthew Bartholomew Omnibus Copyright Š Susanna Gregory 2001

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of

binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library.

ISBN 0 316 85891 9

Printed and bound in lra.lv

Little, Brown and Company (UK)

Brettenham House

Lancaster Place

London WC2E 7E

Cambridge, 1348

THE SCHOLAR WAITED IN THE BLACK SHADOWS OF the churchyard trees for the Sheriffs night patrol to pass by, trying to control his breathing. Two of

the men stopped so close that he could have reached

out and touched them. They stood for several minutes,

leaning against the wall surrounding the churchyard,

looking up and down the deserted road. The scholar held his breath until he thought he would choke. He could

not be discovered now: there was so much to lose.

Eventually, the Sheriffs men left, and the scholar

took several unsteady breaths, forcing himself to remain in the safety of the shadows until he was certain that they had gone. He jumped violently as a large cat stalked past his hiding place, glancing at him briefly with alert yellow eyes. He watched it sit for a moment in the middle of the road, before it disappeared up a dark alleyway.

The scholar gripped the voluminous folds of his

cloak, so that he would not stumble on them, and slipped out of the trees into the road. The moon was almost full, and shed an eerie white light along the main street. He peered carefully both ways, and, satisfied that there was no one to see him, he made his way stealthily down the street towards his home.

The main gates of the College were locked, but the

scholar had ensured that the little-used back door was left open. He turned from the High Street into

St Michael’s Lane. He was almost there.

He froze in horror as he saw someone was already

in the lane: another scholar, also disobeying College

rules by being out at night, was walking towards him.

Heart thumping, he ducked into a patch of tall nettles and weeds at the side of the road, in the hope that his stillness and dark cloak would keep him hidden. He

heard the footsteps come closer and closer. Blood

pounded in his ears, and he found he was trembling

uncontrollably. The footsteps were almost level with

him. Now he would be uncovered and dragged from

his hiding place!

He almost cried in relief as the footfall passed him

by, and faded as his colleague turned the corner into the High Street. He stood shakily, oblivious to the stinging of the nettles on his bare hands, and ran to the back

gate. Once inside, he barred it with unsteady hands,

and made his way to the kitchens. Faint with relief, he sank down next to the embers of the cooking fire and

waited until his trembling had ceased. As he prepared

to return to his room to sleep away what little remained of the night, he wondered how many more such trips

he might make before he was seen.

Several hours later, the Bishop’s Mill miller dragged

himself from his bed, tugged on his boots, and set off to his work. The sky was beginning to turn from dark

blue to silver in the east, and the miller shivered in the crispness of the early morning. He unlocked the door

to the building and then went to feed the fat pony that he kept to carry flour to the town.

A short distance away, he could hear the rhythmic

whine and swish of the water-wheel, powered by a

fast-running channel diverted from the river. The

miller had grown so familiar with its sound that he

never noticed it unless there was something wrong.

And there was something wrong this morning. There

was an additional thump in the rhythm.

The miller sighed irritably. Only the previous week

he had been forced to ask the help of his neighbours to free the branch of a tree that had entangled itself in the wheel, and he was loathe to impose on their good graces again so soon. He tossed some oats to the pony, and,

wiping his hands on his tunic, he went to investigate.

As he drew nearer, he frowned in puzzlement. It did not sound like a branch had been caught, but something

soggier and less rigid. He rounded the corner and

approached the great wheel, creaking and pounding

as the water roared past it.

He felt his knees turn to jelly as he saw the wheel and what was caught in it, and sank onto the grass, unable to tear his eyes away. The body of a man was impaled

there, black robes flapping wetly around him as the

wheel dragged him under the water again and again.

As the wheel lifted the body, one arm flopped loose in a ghostly parody of a wave, which continued until the

body dived, feet first, back into the water for another cycle. The horrified miller watched the body salute him three times before he was able to scramble to his feet and race towards the town screaming for help.

THE DULL THUD OF HORSES’ HOOVES AND THE gentle patter of rain on the wooden coffin were the only sounds to disturb the silence of the dawn.

Black-gowned scholars walked slowly in single file along the High Street, following the funeral cart past the town gate to the fields beyond, where the body of their Master, Sir John Babington, would be laid in its final resting place.

Somewhere behind him, Matthew Bartholomew heard

one of the students stifle a giggle. He turned round and scowled in the general direction of the offending noise.

Nerves, doubtless, he thought, for it was not every day that the College buried a Master who had taken his own life in such a bizarre manner.

The small procession was allowed through the gate

by sleepy night-watchmen who came to the door of their guardroom to look. One of them furtively nudged the

other and both smirked. Bartholomew took a step towards them, but felt Brother Michael’s restraining hand on his shoulder. Michael was right; it would be wrong to turn Sir John’s funeral into a brawl. Bartholomew brought

his anger under control. Sir John had been one of the

few men in the University who had been liked by the

townspeople, but they had been quick to turn against

him once the manner of his death became known. Had

Sir John died a natural death, he would have been buried in the small churchyard of St Michael’s, and been given a glorious funeral. Instead, church law decreed that,

as a suicide, he should be buried in unconsecrated

ground, and be denied any religious ceremony. So,

in the first grey light of day, Sir John was escorted out of the city by the scholars of Michaelhouse, to be laid to rest in the waterlogged fields behind the church of St Peter-without-Trumpington Gate.

The horse pulling the cart bearing the coffin

stumbled in the mud, causing the cart to lurch

precariously. Bartholomew sprang forward to steady

it, and was surprised to see Thomas Wilson, the man

most likely to be Sir John’s successor, do the same. The eyes of the two men met for an instant, and Wilson

favoured Bartholomew with one of his small pious

smiles. Bartholomew looked away. No love had been

lost between the smug, self-satisfied Wilson and Sir John, and it galled Bartholomew to watch Wilson supervise Sir John’s meagre funeral arrangements. He took a deep breath, and tried not to think how much he would miss

Sir John’s gentle humour and sensible rule.

Wilson gave an imperious wave of a flabby white hand,

and Bartholomew’s book-bearer, Cynric ap Huwydd,

hurried forward to help the ostler lead the horse off

the road and across the rough land to the grave site.

The cart swayed and tipped, and the coffin bounced,

landing with a hollow thump. Wilson seized Cynric’s

shoulder angrily, berating him for being careless in a loud, penetrating whisper.

Bartholomew had had enough. Motioning to the

other Fellows, he edged Sir John’s coffin from the cart, and together they lifted it onto their shoulders. They began the long walk across the fields to where the grave had been dug in a ring of sturdy oak trees. Bartholomew had chosen the spot because he knew Sir John had liked to read in the shade of the trees in the summer, but

he began to doubt his choice as the heavy wood cut

into his shoulder and his arms began to ache. After a

few minutes, he felt himself being nudged aside, and

smiled gratefully as the students came forward to take their turn.

Wilson walked ahead, and stood waiting at the

graveside, head bowed and hands folded in his sleeves

like a monk. The students lowered their burden to

the ground and looked at Bartholomew expectantly.

He arranged some ropes, and the coffin was lowered

into the ground. He nodded to Cynric and the other

book-bearers to start to fill in the grave, and, taking a last look, he turned to go home.

‘Friends and colleagues,’ began Wilson in his

rich, self-important voice, ‘we are gathered together

to witness the burial of our esteemed Master, Sir John Babington.’

Bartholomew froze in his tracks. The Fellows had

agreed the night before that no words would be spoken: it was felt that there were none needed - for what could be said about Sir John’s extraordinary suicide? It had been decided that the Fellows and the students should

escort Sir John to his resting place in silence, and return to the College still in silence, as a mark of respect. Sir John had done much to bring a relative peace to his

College in a city where the scholars waged a constant

war with each other and with the townsfolk. A few of his policies had made him unpopular with some University

authorities, especially those who regarded learning to be the domain of the rich.

‘Sir John,’ Wilson intoned, ‘was much loved by us

all.’ At this, Bartholomew gazed at Wilson in disbelief.

Wilson had led the opposition to almost anything Sir

John had tried to do, and on more than one occasion

had left the hall at dinner red-faced with impotent fury because Sir John had easily defeated his arguments with his quiet logic.