The students laughed again, but Bartholomew was not in the mood for levity. ‘Did any of you use concentrated poppy juice in a remedy this week?’ he demanded. ‘Or take any of my pennyroyal?’
‘You told us not to touch the stuff on the top shelf,’ said Risleye virtuously. ‘And I never disobey orders. Tesdale does, though.’
‘All I took this week was some yarrow to treat Dickon Tulyet’s cold,’ said Tesdale, shooting his classmate a weary look. ‘Why? Have you lost some?’
Bartholomew scratched his head. Perhaps the stain on the workbench had been there when he had polished it the day before; he had been preoccupied with all the teaching he was due to do, so his mind had not been wholly on the task in hand. And the pennyroyal? There was no explanation or excuse for that: it had gone, and that was all there was to it.
Once prayers had been said, and breakfast served, eaten and cleared away, Michaelhouse’s masters and their students gathered in the hall for the morning’s lessons. Bartholomew spoke on De proprietatibus rerum, the author of which listed a number of herbs and their uses, and although pennyroyal was on the physician’s mind to begin with, he had all but forgotten about it by the time the noonday bell rang some hours later.
He was hoarse from trying to make himself heard. Wynewyk had declared himself indisposed, so Master Langelee had taken his class instead, and as he knew nothing about law, he had passed the time by talking about local camp-ball ratings instead – he was an avid camp-ball player, and loved nothing more than a vicious scrum in which it was legal to punch people. The ensuing discussion had grown cheerfully rowdy, and Bartholomew had not been the only one struggling to teach over the racket.
Langelee was a burly man, with muscular arms and a thatch of thick hair, who looked more like a warrior than the head of a Cambridge College. Before becoming a scholar, he had worked for the Archbishop of York, and there were details about his previous life that Bartholomew still found unsettling. But his rule was just and fair, and his Fellows were satisfied with his leadership. One of the most astute things he had done was to delegate his financial responsibilities to Wynewyk, who had a good head for figures and an unerring eye for a bargain.
‘Lord!’ muttered Michael, coming to join the physician and casting a venomous look in the Master’s direction as the students clattered out of the hall. ‘That was tiresome. My theologians were not interested in camp-ball when we started out this morning, but they are gripped by it now. They tell me Langelee’s exposition of leagues and points was far more interesting than Holcot’s Postillae.’
‘No surprise there,’ murmured Bartholomew, collecting the wax tablets his lads had been using, and stacking them in a cupboard.
Michael’s expression hardened. ‘Well, your class was not exactly enthralled by whatever ghoulish subject you had chosen, either: Tesdale could not stop yawning, Valence was staring out of the window, and even Risleye’s attention strayed. I hope Wynewyk is better by this afternoon, because I am not in the mood for another bawling session.’
‘Ask Langelee to lower his voice, then.’
Michael grimaced. ‘I did – he told me he was practically whispering as it was. But the real problem is not him, it is the number of students we are trying to teach. We were stupid to let him enrol all those new pupils last Easter, because none of us can cope. Even with Thelnetham and Hemmysby newly installed as Fellows, we struggle. And all the money is gone, anyway.’
‘What money?’ asked Bartholomew, bemused.
‘The money we raised by accepting these additional fee-paying scholars. It has all been spent, and our coffers are emptier now than ever. We discussed it at the last Fellows’ meeting.’
‘Did we?’ Bartholomew did not remember.
‘You spent the whole time writing. Foolishly, we thought you were taking notes, and only learned later that you were penning a remedy for gout. You are lucky the rest of us care enough about your College to pay attention.’
Bartholomew watched the servants begin to arrange the hall for the noonday meal. Trestle tables were assembled, and benches set next to them. Cynric stoked up the fire, while scullions carried dishes from the kitchens to the shelves behind the serving screen. They did not smell very appetising – poor food was just one economy forced on them by Michaelhouse’s ailing finances.
‘I met Edith when I went out for a little proctorial business earlier,’ said Michael, seeing the physician had no answer to his charge. ‘She is pale, but seems to be coping with her friend’s death.’
‘You did not mention my missing pennyroyal, did you?’ asked Bartholomew anxiously. ‘She is sure to put the two “facts” together, and it took me a long time to convince her that Joan was not murdered. I do not want to give her a reason to rethink.’
‘Of course not,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘However, it does seem odd that Joan spent the day buying baby ribbons, then swallowed a substance to rid herself of her child the same night.’
‘Perhaps the ribbons were a ruse, to conceal her true intentions. A cover, in other words.’
‘And then she killed herself, too?’
‘And then died because she was unsure of the dosage,’ corrected Bartholomew. ‘But regardless of what happened, it is not our concern. She is not a scholar, and Edith’s house is not University property. Ergo, it is outside the Senior Proctor’s jurisdiction, and we are busy enough, without making more work for ourselves.’
‘It would be my jurisdiction if it was your pennyroyal that ended up inside her,’ retorted Michael.
‘That is unlikely,’ said Bartholomew, although not without a degree of unease. ‘Pennyroyal is not rare or unusual – it grows everywhere. And the oil can be distilled by anyone with a pot and a fire.’
Michael was unconvinced. ‘I dislike coincidences, and here we have a dangerous substance going missing from your storeroom – a place that is basically inaccessible to anyone but Michaelhouse men – and a woman dying of ingesting some of the stuff the very same night.’
‘But I do not know when it disappeared,’ objected Bartholomew. He really did not believe that the two events could be connected – how could a stranger like Joan know anyone in a closed, monastic-style foundation like Michaelhouse? – but there was a cold, unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, even so. ‘There is nothing to say it was the same day she died.’
Michael scowled at him. ‘You are splitting hairs and missing my point – which is that it has gone, and you have no idea where. And you are sure your students did not take it?’
‘They say not, and there is no reason to doubt them.’
‘Then it was stolen by someone else,’ concluded Michael. ‘But, as you have just pointed out, no one outside Michaelhouse has access to my storeroom.’
‘Then I recant that statement. We often have visitors, and there are always tradesmen arriving with deliveries. Meanwhile, we pay our servants a pittance, which means they do not stay long and owe us no loyalty. I barely know some of the staff these days. Perhaps one of them took it.’
‘I keep the door locked at all times.’
‘Rubbish! You often leave it open while you run to the library to check a reference or fetch water from the kitchen. Besides, locks can be picked. And if this pennyroyal oil is as dangerous as you claim, then I am perturbed by the notion that it is unaccounted for. I want answers, Matt – not only as your friend, but as Senior Proctor, too.’
‘But who would want to harm Joan?’ asked Bartholomew, unhappy with the way the conversation was going. ‘She has not lived in Cambridge for years, and no one here knows her.’
‘Then you had better question your students again.’ Michael’s expression turned from severe to worried. ‘But do it discreetly. That business earlier in the year has not been forgotten yet, and your reputation is …’ He waved a plump hand, unable to find the right words.
But Bartholomew knew what he meant. A magician-healer called Arderne had raised doubts about his abilities in the spring, and this had been followe
d by a frenzy of superstition in the summer, during which many of his patients had been quite open about the fact that they believed he was good at his job because he dabbled in sorcery. They did not care, as long as he made them well, but that was beside the point: it was unsafe for a member of the University to be seen as a practising warlock. Bartholomew had kept a low profile since then, shying away from controversy, but people seemed unwilling to let the matter rest, regardless. He hoped it would not dog him for the rest of his life.
‘You will have to find it,’ Michael went on. ‘The pennyroyal, I mean. It cannot stay missing, not if it has the power to kill.’
‘And how am I to do that?’ asked Bartholomew tiredly. ‘Besides, as I told you, it is not rare or unusual – lots of homes keep a supply of it.’
Michael regarded him worriedly. ‘If you say so, but I have a very bad feeling about this.’
So did Bartholomew, although he was reluctant to admit it, even to Michael.
That afternoon, Bartholomew conducted a thorough search of his storeroom. The missing pennyroyal was not there, although the hunt did warn him that he was running alarmingly low on a number of essential ingredients. He sent Tesdale, Valence and Risleye to the apothecary to replenish them, using most of his October wages to do so. When they returned, he summoned all his students to the hall.
‘I did not take the pennyroyal,’ declared Risleye angrily, before the physician could tell them what he wanted to discuss. ‘I never touch anything on that top shelf, although I think such a precaution is unnecessary at this stage of my training. I do not see why I should be penalised, just because everyone else took part in that silly joke with the igniting book.’
‘I did not take it, either,’ said Tesdale, alarmed when he saw he was the only other suspect. ‘And nor do I leave the room unattended.’
‘Yes, you do,’ countered Risleye spitefully. ‘You never remember all the ingredients you might need for a remedy, and often have to go out to fetch something.’
‘Well, you are guilty of that, too, Risleye,’ said Valence, who had been the ringleader of the exploding-book incident. ‘You left the door wide open the other day, when Walter tripped over his peacock and you went to help him up. And you were gone for ages.’
‘That was different,’ flashed Risleye. ‘An emergency. I bandaged his grazed arm really carefully, but then he refused to pay me. It took me a while to argue my case.’
Bartholomew was aghast. ‘You charged one of our own servants for medical treatment?’
‘Of course,’ replied Risleye, unabashed. ‘He was a patient and I cared for him. That equals a fee.’
‘Give it back,’ ordered Bartholomew. He cut across Risleye’s indignant objections. ‘Have any of you let anyone else in the storeroom?’
The assembled students shook their heads, and Bartholomew sighed when he saw his interrogation was not going to provide him with answers. And he could hardly berate Risleye and Tesdale for leaving the storeroom unattended when he was guilty of doing the same thing himself.
Unfortunately, their combined negligence meant that virtually anyone could have slipped in and stolen the oil. But who would want it? And who would know what it was capable of doing? He supposed the answer to the second question was obvious: the red cross on its jar warned students that it could be harmful, so anyone with a modicum of sense would know the pot held something to be used with caution.
‘Perhaps the thief did not want pennyroyal,’ suggested Valence, voicing what Bartholomew was already thinking. ‘You keep far more potent items than that: henbane, dog mercury, cuckoopint.’
‘And poppy juice,’ added Risleye. ‘People are always asking me to give them poppy juice, because it makes them feel happy.’
‘And do you oblige?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking of the stain on the bench.
Risleye was outraged. ‘Of course not! The last time I touched it was days ago, when I helped you prepare that pain remedy for Isnard. You were hurrying me, and would not answer questions, which was wrong, because my education is far more important than the well-being of some non-paying rogue.’
Bartholomew had rushed Risleye, because Isnard’s need was urgent. Had haste resulted in a spillage that was overlooked and not cleaned up? Yet there was something about Risleye’s denial that made the physician uneasy – he had caught Risleye out in lies before. Or was he allowing personal dislike to cloud his judgement?
‘If the thief came for something else and ended up with pennyroyal, then it means he cannot read,’ said Tesdale, rather pompously. ‘Every jar is clearly labelled, after all. Perhaps we can assume it was filched by a servant. Or by one of the men who came to mend the roof.’
Bartholomew was not sure what to think, and only knew he had been inexcusably careless. If it transpired that his pennyroyal had found its way to Joan, he was not sure Edith would ever forgive him. And she would have every right to be angry.
By the time he had finished the interrogation, a number of people had sent word that they needed to see him. Medical training at universities was largely book-based, but he wanted his students to see real diseases and wounds, too, so he usually took the more senior pupils with him when he went to tend patients. In the past, this had meant two or three lads, but Langelee’s decision to accept more scholars, along with Paxtone’s inability to teach Tesdale, meant he currently had eight. It was an absurdly high number, and clients tended to be alarmed when they all trooped into the sickroom. Because of this, he had been compelled to devise a rota, which was unsatisfactory for a number of reasons.
‘I got landed with a case of toothache last time,’ whined Risleye. ‘And Tesdale got the venery distemper. Now I get toothache again, while he has a strangury. It is not fair!’
‘I will exchange my bloody flux for your strangury, Tesdale,’ offered Valence. ‘And then Yaxley will take the bloody flux in return for his rhagades. You have not had rhagades yet.’
‘Lord!’ muttered Bartholomew, listening to the haggling in distaste.
He set off before they could involve him in it, leaving them to scurry to catch up. They pursued him in a gaggle, drawing attention to themselves with their lively good humour – except Risleye, who remained sullen. Then, when they reached the house of a patient, two would detach themselves from the mob and follow him inside.
He rarely rushed consultations, always trying to ensure both patient and pupils understood exactly what he was doing – although the students itched to be done with the mundane cases and on to the more interesting ones. As a result, the visits filled the rest of the day, and by the time they returned to Michaelhouse, it was dark and they had missed supper.
‘I do not care,’ said Risleye smugly. ‘I have fine bread and fresh cheese in my room, so I will not starve.’
He strode away without offering to share, and Bartholomew thought it no surprise that he was unpopular. Not all his classmates could afford the luxury of ‘commons’, and would go hungry that night. Fortunately, the rest were better friends, and agreed to a pooling of resources.
‘It will be better than College food,’ crowed Tesdale gleefully, on seeing the fine fare that was going to be available to him that night. ‘The meals are terrible these days – no meat, and peas galore.’
Bartholomew could only nod agreement. The situation would not have been so bad if Agatha – College laundress and self-appointed overseer of the kitchens – knew how to render pulses more interesting. But she only boiled them to a glue-like consistency, and when the Fellows complained, she retaliated by sending some very nasty concoctions to their table; she was not very good at accepting criticism. The previous noon had seen cabbage mixed with a variety of fish-heads.
‘I am sorry I was careless with the storeroom door, sir,’ said Tesdale, when the other students had gone. ‘But do not worry about the pennyroyal. There will be an innocent explanation for it.’
‘Such as what?’ asked Bartholomew.
Tesdale shrugged. ‘Cynric says it puts a lovely shine on me
tal, so perhaps one of the servants took it to buff the College silver. Or, as it has a strong but not unpleasant aroma, perhaps someone filched it to sweeten the latrines or to drop into his wet boots. Its loss is not necessarily sinister.’
Bartholomew sincerely hoped he was right.
During the evenings, it was the Fellows’ wont to gather in the comfortable room called the conclave, next to the hall. Candles and lamps were lit after dark, and on cold nights there was a fire in the hearth. Some Fellows read, some marked exercises prepared by students, and others enjoyed the opportunity for erudite conversation. The atmosphere was always convivial, which was something they all treasured – academics, being blessed with sharp minds, often had sharp tongues to go with them, and many members of other Colleges were barely on speaking terms. Michaelhouse, though, was a haven of peace, and although there were disagreements, they were rarely acrimonious.
When Bartholomew arrived, the room was unusually empty. Wynewyk was still unwell, Langelee was out, and Father William was languishing in the Fens. He sat at the table, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Michael, unhappy with the supper Agatha had created, had provided his colleagues with something edible instead.
‘She gave me a beetroot, Matt,’ explained the monk, his green eyes full of righteous indignation. ‘A hard, barely cooked one. It was reclining in a dish of melted butter, with a soggy leek for garnish.’
Bartholomew took a slice of meat pie. ‘Did you send it back?’
‘Only after he had drained the butter into a cup, and quaffed it,’ replied Suttone, a plump Carmelite who fervently believed that the plague would return at any moment. ‘I wish I had thought of that. I like butter, and there was a lot of it.’
Bartholomew felt slightly queasy. ‘Where is Langelee?’ he asked, to change the subject.
‘Dining at King’s Hall,’ said Michael with a grimace. ‘He found out what Agatha planned to give us, and hastened to make other arrangements. He should have warned us, too.’
A Vein Of Deceit: The Fifteenth Chronicle Of Matthew Bartholomew (The Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew) Page 4