A Plague on Both Your Houses (30 page)

Bartholomew’s first duty of the day was to examine

Alyngton and five students in the commoners’ room. He

lanced the swellings that looked as though they would

drain, and left Michael’s Benedictine room-mates with

instructions on how to keep the sick scholars comfortable.

That done, he visited three patients in the river

men’s houses down by the wharf.

Gray followed him from house to house carrying

the heavy bag that contained Bartholomew’s instruments and medicines. Bartholomew could feel the student’s

disapproval as he entered the single-roomed shacks

that were home to families of a dozen. The only

patient of which Gray did not disapprove was the

wife of a merchant. She was one of the few cases with

which Bartholomew had had success, and was lying in

a bed draped with costly cloths, tired, but still living.

The grateful merchant pressed some gold coins into

Bartholomew’s hand. Bartholomew wondered whether

they would be sufficient to bribe people to drive the

carts that collected the dead.

Once the urgent calls were over, Bartholomew

turned to Gray.

“I need to discover what happened to Philippa,’ he

said. “I am going to try to see if anyone knows Giles

Abigny’s whereabouts.’

Gray’s face broke into a smile. ‘You mean you plan

to visit a few of his favourite spots?’ he asked cheerfully.

‘Oh, good. Beats traipsing around those dismal hovels.

Where shall we begin?’

Bartholomew was thankful that Gray had so readily

agreed to help. ‘The King’s Head,’ he said, saying the first place that came into his head.

Gray frowned. ‘Not a good place to start,’ he said.

‘We would be better going there later when it is busier.

We should visit Bene’t’s first - that is where he spent most of his time outside Michaelhouse. Hugh Stapleton’s brother, Cedric, is ill and now Master Roper is dead,

they have no physician. We could see him first and then wheedle an invitation to eat there.’

Bartholomew saw he had a lot to learn in the sleazy

ways of detection. He walked with Gray up the High

Street to Bene’t Street. Gray strolled nonchalantly into Bene’t Hostel and a notion went through Bartholomew’s

mind that the scholars there might consider him to

have poached Gray from them. The student had

attached himself to Bartholomew with gay abandon,

and Bartholomew had not asked whether he had sought

permission from the Principal - whoever that was now

that Hugh Stapleton had died.

The hostel was little more than a large house, with

one room enlarged to make a hall. Bartholomew assumed

that the hall would be used for communal meals as well as teaching. The hostel was far warmer than the chilly stone rooms of Michaelhouse, and the smell of boiled

cabbage pervaded the whole house. Drying clothes

hung everywhere, and the entire place had an aura

of controlled, but friendly, chaos. No wonder Abigny

had felt more at home here than in the strict orderliness of Michaelhouse.

Gray made for the small hall on the first floor of the building. He stopped to speak to a small, silver-haired man, and then turned to Bartholomew. ‘This is Master

Burwell, the Sub-Principal,’ he said. ‘He is very grateful for your offer to attend Cedric Stapleton.’

Bartholomew followed Burwell up some narrow

wooden steps into the eaves of the house. ‘How long

has Master Stapleton been ill?’ he asked.

‘Since yesterday morning. I am sure there is little

you can do, Doctor, but we appreciate you offering to

help.’ Burwell glanced round to smile at Bartholomew,

and opened the door into a pleasant, slant-sided room

with two dormer windows. The windows were glazed,

and a fire was lit, so the room was remarkably

warm. Bartholomew stepped in and went to the

man who lay on the bed. A Dominican lay-brother

was kneeling by him, alternating muttered prayers with wiping his patient’s face with a napkin. Bartholomew

knelt next to him to peer at the all-too-familiar

symptoms.

He took a knife and quickly made criss-cross

incisions on the buboes in Stapleton’s armpits and

groin. Immediately, a foul smell filled the room,

and the lay-brother jerked backwards with a cry of

disgust. Bartholomew asked for hot water, and set about cleaning the swellings. It seemed that Bartholomew’s

simple operation had afforded Stapleton some relief,

for his breathing became easier and his arms and legs

relaxed into a more normal position.

Bartholomew sat for a while with Stapleton, then

went in search of Gray. He found him holding court in

the small hall, in the middle of some tale about how he had sold a pardoner some coloured water to cure him of his stomach gripes, and how the pardoner had returned

a week later to tell him that the wonderful medicine had worked.

Bartholomew sat on the end of a bench next to

Burwell. Burwell raised his eyebrows questioningly.

‘It is too soon to tell,’ Bartholomew said in response.

‘You will know where you stand with Master Stapleton by nightfall.’

Burwell looked away. ‘We have lost five masters

and twelve students,’ he said. ‘How has Michaelhouse

fared?’

‘Sixteen students, three commoners, and two Fellows.

The Master died last night.’

‘Wilson?’ asked Burwell incredulously. “I thought he

was keeping to his room so he would not be infected.’

‘So he did,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But the pestilence

claimed him all the same.’ He was wondering how to

breach the subject of Abigny without sounding too

obvious, when Burwell did it for him.

‘We heard about Giles Abigny,’ he said. ‘We heard

from Stephen Stanmore that he had been hiding in your

sister’s attic, and then ran off with Stanmore’s horse.’

‘Do you have any ideas where Giles might be?’

Bartholomew asked.

Burwell shook his head. “I never understood what

was going on in Giles’s head. A strange combination of incredible shallowness mixed with a remarkable depth

of learning. I do not know where he might be.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’ asked

Bartholomew.

Burwell thought carefully. ‘He was very shocked at

Hugh’s death. After that he went wild, trying to squeeze every ounce of pleasure from what he thought might be a short life. He continued in that vein for perhaps a week. Then he seemed to quieten down, and we saw

less of him. Then, about two weeks ago, after going to the King’s Head, he regaled us with a dreadful tale about cheating at dice and stealing the wages of half the Castle garrison. He had an enormous purseful of money, so

perhaps there was some truth in it. He went off quite

late, and I have not seen him since.’

Bartholomew tried to hide his disappointment. A

sighting two weeks ago did not really help. He stood to leave, and beckoned Gray.

‘Please send someone for me at Michaelhouse if I

can be of any more help to Cedric,’ he said to Burwell.

‘And thank you for your assistance with Giles.’

Burwell smiled again, and escorted them to the

door. He watched as they made their way down

Bene’t Street and the smile faded from his face.

He beckoned to a student, and whispered in his

ear. Within a few moments, the student was scurrying

out of the hostel towards Milne Street, his

cloak held tightly against the chill of the winter

afternoon.

Bartholomew and Gray spent two fruitless hours enquiring after Abigny in the town’s taverns. They came up with

nothing more than Burwell had told them, except that

Abigny’s idiosyncrasies seemed to be notorious among

the townspeople.

Bartholomew was ready to give up, and retire to

bed, when Gray, with a display of energy that made

Bartholomew wonder whether he had been at the

medicine store, suggested they walk to Trumpington

to visit the Laughing Pig.

‘It is best we visit at night,’ he said. ‘More people

will be there, and they will have had longer for the ale to loosen their tongues.’

So the two set off for Trumpington. Although it

was only two miles, Bartholomew felt he was walking to the ends of the Earth. A bitter wind blew directly into their faces and cut through their clothes. It was a clear night, and they could hear the crack and splinter of the water freezing in the ruts and puddles on the track as the temperature dropped.

Bartholomew breathed a sigh of relief when the

Laughing Pig came into sight. Within a few minutes they were seated in the tavern’s large whitewashed room with frothing tankards of ale in front of them. The tavern was busy, and a fire crackled in a hearth in the middle of the room, filling it with pungent smoke as well as warmth.

The floor was simple beaten earth, which was easier to keep clean than rushes.

Bartholomew was well known in Trumpington, and

several people nodded at him in a friendly fashion. He struck up a conversation with a large, florid-faced man who fished for eels in the spring and minded Stanmore’s cows for the rest of the year. The man immediately

began to gossip about the disappearance of Philippa.

Bartholomew was dismayed, but not surprised, that

her flight had become the subject of village chatter doubtless by way of Stanmore’s party of horsemen who

had tried to catch up with the fleeing Abigny.

Overhearing the discussion, several others joined in,

including the tavern maid with whom Abigny had claimed he was in love back in the summer. She perched on the

edge of the table, casting nervous glances backwards to make sure the landlord did not catch her skiving.

‘How long do you think Giles Abigny was pretending

to be his sister?’ Bartholomew asked casually, in a rare moment of silence.

There was a hubbub of conflicting answers. Everyone,

it seemed, had ideas and theories. But listening

to them, Bartholomew knew that was all they were. He

stopped paying attention and sipped at the sour ale.

‘Giles was odd a long time before he did this,’

whispered the tavern maid, who, as Abigny had said,

was indeed pretty. She glanced towards the next table

where the landlord was serving and pretended to clean

up near Bartholomew. ‘The last time I saw him was at

the church two Fridays ago. He was hiding behind one

of the pillars. I thought he was playing around, but when I grabbed him from behind, he was terrified! He ran out, and I have not seen him since.’

Two Fridays before. That was three days after

Philippa had become ill. So Abigny had not been

impersonating her at least until then.

‘Do you know where he went?’ Bartholomew

asked.

The tavern maid shook her head. “I ran after him,

but he had gone.’

The landlord shouted for her to serve other customers, and she left. Bartholomew thought about what

she had told him: Abigny had been in the church at

Trumpington terrified of something.

He tried to bring the general conversation round to

what Abigny’s reasons could be, but the suggestions were so outrageous that he knew no one had any solid facts to add.

Bartholomew and Gray talked with the locals for a while longer, and decided to stay with Edith for the night. Perhaps he would have more luck with his search tomorrow.

Gray was already up and admiring the horses in

Stanmore’s stable by the time Bartholomew awoke.

He threw open the window-shutters and looked out

over the neat vegetable patches to the village church.

He could see the Gilbertine Canon, standing outside

the porch talking to the early risers who had been to

his morning mass. The weak winter sun was shining,

glittering on the frost that lay over everything like a white sheet of gauze. Bartholomew took a deep breath,

and the air was clean and fresh. He understood why

Stanmore preferred not to live at the house in Milne

Street so near the stinking ditches and waterways of

Cambridge.

He went to the garderobes and broke the ice on a

bowl of water. Shivering and swearing under his breath, he washed and shaved as fast as he could, and borrowed one of Stanmore’s fresh shirts from the pile on the shelf in the corner. He went down to the kitchens, where a

large fire blazed, and he and Edith sat on stools and

discussed Philippa’s disappearance. It seemed he could have saved himself a walk, because she had been busy

on his behalf, collecting scraps of information from the Trumpington folk.

She, too, had spoken to the tavern girl, and had also

questioned the Canon. He had told her that Abigny had

frequented the church a great deal following Philippa’s arrival. Abigny had seemed restless and agitated, and

once the Canon had alarmed him by standing up suddenly from next to the altar where he had been meditating.

Abigny had turned so white that the Canon had been

genuinely concerned for his health. The day after,

he had disappeared. The Canon had assumed that

Abigny had been waiting while Philippa was ill, and

as soon as she was well again, he had returned to

Michaelhouse.

‘So,’ said Edith, ‘Giles may have been in the house

pretending to be Philippa as early as the day her fever broke, since that was when either of them was last seen.

I do not understand why he did not just come here. He

has stayed with us before.’

Bartholomew nodded in agreement.