A Plague on Both Your Houses (33 page)

Inside the convent, a bell began to ring. ‘Terce,’

said Emelda. “I must go.’ She smiled at the two men

and slipped quickly through the door again.

Gray led the way through the undergrowth and

back to the road. Bartholomew was full of questions.

‘That was the door Philippa spoke about, the door that Sister Clement used when she went out to work among

the sick. How did you know about it?’ he demanded.

‘And you did not tell me you had a cousin in the convent!

What was it you handed to her in that package?’

Gray raised his hand to slow the stream of questions,

reminding Bartholomew unpleasantly of Wilson.

‘Emelda has been at St Radegund’s since we were

children, and she told me about the gate. I never told you about her because you have never asked about my

family. And what I gave her was my business.’

Gray knew he had overstepped his bounds before

Bartholomew said a word. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he muttered.

“I will tell you, but you have to promise not to fly into a temper.’

“I will promise no such thing,’ said Bartholomew

coldly.

Gray sighed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It is medicine for my mother. She is in there too. She took orders when

I was old enough to look after myself, but now she has a wasting sickness and every week I take her medicine

to relieve her pain.’

He looked defiantly at Bartholomew before continuing.

‘That was one of the reasons why I had to become

apprenticed to you. I was making a lot of money nursing rich plague victims, but Jonas refused to sell me the

medicine. I stole it from Roper when I was with him,

and now I steal it from you.’

He stopped walking, and looked at Bartholomew

belligerently, waiting. Bartholomew stopped too, and

studied this strange young man. ‘Why did you not just

ask me?’ he said gently.

‘Because you are always too busy, and because my

mother comes from a rich priory and I thought you

might rather give the medicine to the poor.’

Bartholomew was shocked. Did he really appear so

insensitive to Gray? “I have never refused medicine to anyone, rich or poor,’ he said.

Gray suddenly lost his belligerence, and looked at

the ground. “I know. I am sorry,’ he said in a quavering voice. ‘It just seemed easier to steal the medicine than to ask for it.’

Bartholomew realised that this was why Gray had

persuaded him to go to St Radegund’s - not to ask

about Philippa, but to deliver medicine for his mother, perhaps the strain of his mother’s illness accounted for his dreadful behaviour earlier that day. ‘Perhaps I could examine her …?’ he suggested.

Gray grimaced. “I wish you could, but that old bitch,

the Abbess, will not let anyone in or out, and my mother is too ill to be moved now. The medicine is the only thing that helps.’

‘Which medicine is it?’ asked Bartholomew.

Gray told him. ‘My God, man!’ Bartholomew

exploded. ‘Concentrated opiates can be a powerful

poison! No wonder Jonas refused to sell it to you! It

does have pain-relieving powers, but if someone gives

her too much, she could die!’

Gray winced and took a step back. “I know,’ he

said defensively, ‘but I know how much she can have.

I watched Roper giving it out to one of his sons when

he had a similar wasting disease. I measure it out and put it in little packets for Emelda to give her.’

‘Oh, lord!’ groaned Bartholomew. ‘What have I

done to deserve a student like this?’ He looked at Gray.

“I suppose you knew my supply was running low, and

that I have been wondering where it had gone, and that is why you have chosen now to tell me?’

The answer was in the way Gray hung his head and

refused to meet his eyes.

Bartholomew began walking again. Gray followed.

On the one hand Bartholomew was relieved that his

medicines had not been the cause of Aelfrith’s death;

on the other hand, he was disturbed that Gray had

stolen such a powerful drug from him and prescribed

it to someone.

‘You are a disreputable rascal, Gray. You lie and

steal, and I cannot trust you. We will go to Jonas now, together, and replenish my stocks of this wretched stuff.

Then will measure it out for your mother, and we will

go together and discuss with Emelda what else we can

do to make your mother’s life more bearable. Medicine

is not just giving out potions, you know. There are many other things that can be done to effect a cure or to relieve symptoms.’

Detecting that a lecture was about to begin, Gray

skipped a little to catch up to him to listen properly. He would need to work hard to gain the trust of his teacher, but at least he knew Bartholomew was prepared to allow him to try.

Bartholomew, meanwhile, glanced at Gray walking

beside him - a liar and a thief. He could not possibly confide in the student, and, excluding his family, there was not a single person left in the world whom he

could trust.

It was dusk by the time Bartholomew and Gray arrived

back at Michaelhouse. The rain had turned the beaten

earth of the yard into a quagmire, and the honey-coloured stones of the buildings looked dismal and dirty in the fading light. Like a skull, Bartholomew thought suddenly, and the windows and doors were like eyeless sockets and broken teeth. He pinched himself hard, surprised at

his morbid thoughts; he was becoming preoccupied

with death.

As if to reinforce his thoughts, Father William

emerged from the staircase leading to the plague room.

He was dragging something behind him, a long shape

sewn into a blanket. Bartholomew went to help.

‘Who is it?’ he asked, taking a corner of the

blanket and helping William to haul it through the

mud. He wondered what he would have thought of

this manhandling of the body of a colleague before

the plague had struck and inured him to such things.

‘Gilbert,’ said William shortly, oblivious to the

muddy puddles through which he dragged the body.

‘Like his master, isolation did not keep him from the

Death.’

The stables, used as a mortuary for College plague

victims, smelled so strongly of death and corruption that William backed out so fast he fell. Bartholomew went to help him up.

‘Holy Mother!’ the friar exclaimed, clambering to

his feet with his wide sleeve firmly pressed to his nose.

‘Thank the Lord we have no horses! They would have

died breathing that stench!’ He walked away as quickly as he could, turning to shout at Bartholomew, ‘Get rid of the corpses, Doctor. Do your job!’

Bartholomew went back into the stables, covering

his nose and mouth with his cloak. William was right:

the odour was terrible. The porter, hearing William’s

shouting, came over to say that the carts had not been for the bodies for several days, and so it was not surprising that they were beginning to smell. Bartholomew tipped

rushes from a hand-cart so he could begin to load the

bodies onto it. The scholars would have to take their

colleagues to the plague pit themselves if the official carts did not come.

Gray came to help, but gagged and complained

so much that Bartholomew told him to wait outside.

Bartholomew hated what he was doing. These ungainly

lumps sewn tightly into rough College blankets had been people he had known. There were five College students, two of the commoners, and now Gilbert. Eight College

members who had been his friends and colleagues.

But there were nine shrouded bodies. He frowned

and counted again, running through the names of

the dead scholars one by one. He must have forgotten

someone.

He took a body by the feet, and began to drag it

to where Gray waited outside by the empty cart.

‘Who has died since we buried Wilson?’ Bartholomew

asked.

Gray looked taken aback. “I thought you kept a note

of all these things,’ he said. Seeing a flash of annoyance pass across Bartholomew’s face, he recited the names.

‘Eight,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Who died just before

Wilson?’

Gray named the others, nineteen in all. He thought

he saw which way the conversation was leading, assumed he was being criticised, and began to object. ‘You told me to take them to the plague pit, and I did. Ask Cynric. He helped. We took all of them!’

Bartholomew held up his hand to quell Gray’s

indignant objections. “I believe you,’ he said. ‘But we seem to have an extra body here now.’

Gray looked at the one Bartholomew still held by the

feet. ‘One of the townspeople probably slipped it in here so that we would take it to the pits with the others,’ he suggested.

‘Unlikely,’ said Bartholomew, ‘unless they stole one

of our blankets as well.’

Gray and Bartholomew looked at each other for a

moment, and then back to the stables. Bartholomew

began to drag the body back inside again.

‘This had best be done out of sight,’ he said over

his shoulder to Gray. “I do not want anyone to see what I am going to do. Will you bring a lamp?’

Gray was gone only briefly, returning with a lamp

and a needle and thread. He lit the lamp and closed the door against prying eyes. ‘You cut the shrouds open, and I will sew them up,’ he said, swallowing hard as he steeled himself for the grisly task.

Bartholomew clapped him on the shoulder, and

made a small cut along the seam of the first body. It

was Gilbert. He sat for a moment, looking at his face, more peaceful than most of his patients, but blackened with the plague nevertheless. Gray, kneeling next to him, nudged him with his elbow.

‘Hurry up,’ he urged, ‘or someone will come and

ask what we are doing.’

He began stitching the blanket back together while

Bartholomew moved to the next one. It was one of the law students who had been studying under Wilson. He resisted the urge to think about the scholars as their faces appeared under the coarse blanket-shrouds, and

tried to concentrate on the task in hand. The third

was another student, and the fourth one of the old

commoners. As he came to the fifth, he paused. The

blanket was exactly the same as the others, but there

was an odd quality about the body inside that he could not define. Instinctively, he knew it was the one that did not belong to Michaelhouse.

Carefully he slit the stitches down one side of the

blanket, noting that they were less neat than the others he had cut. He peeled it back and cried out in horror, leaping backwards and almost knocking the lamp over.

‘What? What is it?’ Gray gasped, unnerved by

Bartholomew’s white face. He went to look at the

body, but Bartholomew pulled him back so he should

not see.

They went to the door for some fresh air, away

from the stench of the bodies. After a few moments,

Bartholomew began to lose the unreal feeling he had had when he looked into the decomposed face of Augustus,

and rubbed his hands on his robe to get rid of their

clamminess. Gray waited anxiously.

Taking a last deep breath of clean air, Bartholomew

turned to Gray. ‘It is Augustus,’ he said. Gray looked puzzled for a moment, and then his face cleared.

‘Ah! The commoner who disappeared after you had

declared him dead!’ He looked at the stables. ‘He is dead now, is he?’

‘He was dead then,’ snapped Bartholomew, trying

to control the shaking of his hands. ‘And he is very

dead now.’

Bartholomew led Gray back inside the stables again,

noticing how the student’s eyes kept edging fearfully over to the bundle that was Augustus. ‘You must not tell anyone of this,’ Bartholomew said. “I do not understand what is happening, why his body has been put here now after

all this time. But I think he was murdered, and his

murderer must still be alive or Augustus’s body would

still be hidden. We must be very careful.’

Gray nodded, his usually cheerful face sombre.

‘Just sew him back up again, and let us pretend

to anyone who is watching that we have not

noticed the extra one,’ he said, going to the door

and trying to peer out through the gaps in the

wood.

It was possibly already too late for that, Bartholomew thought, if the murderer had seen them take Gilbert’s

body back inside again once they had realised that something was amiss. He collected his thoughts. Bartholomew

could see why Augustus’s body had reappeared. It had

been no secret that Wilson had spent some time talking alone to Bartholomew before he died. The murderer had

assumed, correctly, that Wilson would tell him about the trap-door to the attic -where Augustus had probably lain since his body had been taken. That would explain the

unpleasant smell that Bartholomew had noticed there.

If, as Bartholomew supposed, the body had been hidden

in the passageway, Wilson would have been unlikely to

have found it because he would have no reason to

search a passageway he knew was blocked off. Unless,

he thought, Wilson had known, and had deliberately

told Bartholomew about the trap-door, knowing that he

would find Augustus. What had Wilson said? Discover

who in the College knew about the trap-door and he

would find the murderer?

Bartholomew rubbed a hand over his face. He

realised that once the murderer became aware that

Bartholomew knew of the trap-door and would be likely

to search the attic, he would have to dispose of the corpse that had lain there for several months. In many ways, it was an ideal time. When better to dispose of a body than when there were bodies of so many others to be taken away?