A Plague On Both Your Houses

by Susanna GREGORY

  Bartholomew watched in amazement as the door opened and a young woman in a nun's habit peeped out. Seeing Gray, she checked no one was looking, and stepped out, closing the door carefully behind her.

  'This is my cousin, Sister Emelda,' said Gray, turning to Bartholomew.

  The young woman smiled shyly at Bartholomew, and then looked at Gray. "I knew you would come!

  I cannot stay long, though, or I will be missed.' She glanced around her, as if expecting the spectre of the Abbess to appear through the trees. Gray nodded, and passed her something wrapped in a cloth. Emelda took it quickly, and secreted it in her robes. She reached up and kissed him quickly on the cheek. 'Thank you,' she whispered.

  Gray flushed. 'The doctor has something to ask you,' he said, to cover his embarrassment.

  Emelda smiled at Bartholomew again. "I know you from when you used to come to court Philippa. Poor philippa! She hated it here, especially in the winter months, and even more when you stopped coming.'

  'Is she here now?' he asked.

  Emelda quickly shook her head. 'No. She has not been seen since you took her away. If she were here, I would know, because I do the cooking, and food is very carefully rationed. I would know if there were another person hidden away.'

  'Have you heard anything from her?'

  Again, a shake of the head.

  'Do you know if the Abbess has heard of her whereabouts?'

  'She has not! And she is very angry about it' Emelda giggled. 'It is hard to keep secrets in a small community like this, and I know that she has those beastiy nephews of hers trying to find out where Philippa is. I hope you find her before they do.'

  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. Will
iam 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?

  Had William not complained, then Bartholomew might well have left the bodies to be collected by the dead-cart the following day, and no one would have known that one of them had not died of the plague at all.

  So the person who had brought Augustus's body to the stables must also have been the person who had killed him. It could not have been Aelfrith, since he was long dead. It could not have been Wilson, because Augustus's body had been placed in the stable after he had died — and Bartholomew was certain Gray was not lying to him about removing the previous corpses. Was it Abigny? Had he come back from wherever he was hiding when he had heard that Bartholomew knew about the trap-door? Could it have been Swynford, back from his plague-free haven? Was it Michael, who had reacted so oddly at Augustus's death? Was it William, who had prompted him to look at the bodies in the first place, or Alcote, skulking in his room?

  Gray was handing him the needle and thread so he could sew up Augustus's shroud again. But Bartholomew had one more task he needed to do.

  'Start taking the others out to the cart,' he said. "I need to take a closer look.'

  Gray's eyes widened in horror, but he began to drag the bodies outside to the cart as Bartholomew had instructed. Bartholomew knelt down by Augustus, and slit the shroud down the side, pulling it back to reveal the grey, desiccated body. Augustus was still dressed in the nightshirt he had been wearing when Bartholomew had last seen his body, but it was torn down the middle to reveal the terrible mutilations underneath. Bartholomew felt anger boil inside him. Whoever had taken the body had slashed it open, pulling out entrails, and slicing deeply
into the neck and throat.

  All Bartholomew could assume was that Augustus had led the murderer to believe he had swallowed that wretched ring of Sir John's, and the murderer had desecrated his body to find it. Bartholomew was beginning to feel sick. Augustus's blackened and dried entrails had been stuffed crudely back into his body with a total disregard for his dignity. The horrific mess made Bartholomew wonder whether the murderer would ever have found the ring anyway.

  He had seen enough. Hastily, he began to resew the bundle, hiding the terribly mangled body from his sight — and from Gray, who was becoming bolder and inching forward. Bartholomew looked at Augustus's face. The warmth of the attic in the top of the house in late summer must have sucked the moisture from the body, for the face was dry and wizened rather than rotten. The skin had peeled back from the lips, leaving the teeth exposed, and the eyes were sunken, but it was unmistakably Augustus.

  As Bartholomew covered up the face, he whispered a farewell. His mind flashed back to Augustus's funeral back in September, when a coffin filled with bags of earth had been reverently laid to rest in the churchyard. He sat back on his heels, staring down at the shapeless bundle in front of him, and wondered if the requiem mass said for him by Aelfrith had truly laid his soul to rest.

  Bartholomew had often looked at the simple wooden cross in the churchyard, and wondered about the body that should have lain beneath it. At least in the plague pit the old man would rest in hallowed ground and no one would come again to desecrate his body.

  9

  February 1349

  January ended in a succession of blizzards that coated everything in white. With February came wetter, warmer weather that turned the snow into icy brown muck that seeped into shoes and chilled the feet. Bartholomew still trudged around the houses of plague victims, incising buboes where he could, but mostly doing little more than watching people die. He and Gray had visited the last of Abigny's known haunts, and then revisited his favourite ones, but had learned nothing. Philippa and Abigny seemed to have vanished into thin air.