A Wicked Deed mb-5

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘Thank you for telling us,’ said Michael. ‘But we are forgetting our manners. Please, sit with us and take some wine. It is apparently the best that insane taverner has to offer.’

  Stoate sat at the table next to Bartholomew, and began to enquire about the latest medical theories that were being expounded at Cambridge. Unfortunately, since the plague had killed so many physicians, and the few who were left could earn ten times the amount by practising their trade on the wealthy than they could teaching medical theory to students in a University, Cambridge was not overly endowed with them. Oxford fared little better, although Paris, Salerno and Montpellier were thriving. Stoate said he had studied medicine first in Paris, and later at the University of Bologna.

  Sensing that the discussion would soon become unpleasantly spangled with references to grotesque diseases, Alcote slipped away. As he left, Stoate’s companions began to laugh, and nudged and jostled the fair-haired woman in a gently teasing way. Alcote glowered furiously, and scuttled from the room as fast as his spindly legs would carry him.

  ‘What are they laughing at?’ asked Bartholomew, bemused by their reaction to the fussy scholar.

  ‘Rosella found a pod with nine peas this morning,’ said Stoate, as if that explained all.

  ‘So?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘So, she takes the ninth pea, and places it on the lintel of the door,’ said Stoate impatiently. ‘The first man over the threshold will be her sweetheart.’

  ‘And Alcote was the first of us to come in,’ said Bartholomew, smiling. ‘Poor Rosella! Alcote has a morbid dislike of women in any form, but young and pretty ones in particular.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Stoate curiously. ‘They are among God’s finest creations.’

  ‘I have no idea. But if you have any regard for Rosella, you will advise her to shell a few more peas. And speaking of peas, have you tried them cooked in sugar to help those recovering from the sweating sickness?’

  Deynman listened to the conversation for a while, but his concentration span was short, and he was soon kicking Horsey under the table to play dice with him. Michael closed his eyes and began to doze, pretending not to notice the illicit gaming in the darkest corner of the tavern and hoping it would keep Horsey from dwelling too much on the death of his friend.

  It was not long before the plague became the topic of conversation, and Stoate told Bartholomew how he had cured people with a purge of pear juice mixed with red arsenic, lead powder and henbane. It was not a recipe with which Bartholomew was familiar, nor, after hearing the amounts of arsenic, lead and henbane Stoate used in his concoction, was it one he intended to try. If Stoate’s patients had survived both the plague and the remedy, they were possessed of stronger constitutions than the citizens of Cambridge.

  But it was good to be able to discuss medicine with someone who was interested. Stoate told him of country cures for chilblains, cramp and nosebleeds, and then went on to describe purges for all occasions.

  ‘Is that what you do most?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Prescribe purges?’

  ‘That is what most people summon me for. It is my contention that it is cheaper for physicians to prevent diseases than to cure them. I recommend that everyone should be purged of evil humours once a week, and bled at least three times a year.’

  ‘And you find this helps to keep people in good health?’ asked Bartholomew, uncertainly.

  Stoate gestured around him. ‘Ask my patients. Most are in excellent health. Are yours?’

  Michael gave a soft snort that might have been laughter or might have been an innocent noise made while asleep. His eyes remained closed.

  ‘No,’ said Bartholomew, looking back at Stoate. ‘But then, living in a town is far less healthy than life in the country. There is often not enough to eat, and the water from the river is filthy.’

  ‘What has the water to do with anything? Try some of my purges on these ailing patients of yours and you will notice a difference within a week. And there is nothing quite like bleeding to improve the health, of course.’

  ‘Is there a surgeon in Grundisburgh, then?’ asked Bartholomew, disappointed that Stoate was like all the other physicians he had met. Bleeding, to rid the body of the excessive humours that caused imbalances, was seen as the answer to everything — even the plague. In Bartholomew’s experience, phlebotomy served to weaken the patient if he were ill, and was a waste of time if he were not.

  ‘Our surgeon died during the pestilence,’ said Stoate. ‘Do you have a good remedy against lice? We had a spate of them last summer, and even Eltisley professed himself at a loss for a solution.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But who bleeds your patients if there is no surgeon?’

  ‘Master Stoate bleeds his patients himself,’ said the formidable matron who had apparently been listening to their conversation from her fireside seat. Her eyes, however, were fixed on Deynman’s dice. ‘He is a most accomplished surgeon, and charges tuppence for a vein to be opened in the foot and threepence for the hand.’

  ‘You practise surgery?’ asked Bartholomew, startled.

  Stoate looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, blood-letting is not exactly surgery, and I only do it if I feel a patient should not make the journey to Ipswich.’

  ‘That is excellent!’ exclaimed Bartholomew, delighted. ‘Well, not the bleeding, but to meet a physician who is prepared to use surgical means to help his patients. I have performed a number of operations including trepanation, cauterising and suturing wounds, amputations …

  ‘Have you?’ asked Stoate doubtfully. ‘That is strictly forbidden. The Lateran Council of 1215 says that priests are not allowed to practise cautery.’

  ‘I am not a priest,’ said Bartholomew impatiently. ‘But what else do you do, besides phlebotomy? Have you tried pulling teeth? It requires more skill than most surgeons believe — if the tooth breaks in the jaw, it can cause infections and even death from poisons in the blood.’

  ‘I have not,’ said Stoate with a shudder. ‘I have an infallible remedy for extracting teeth without the need for physical effort on my part: powder of earthworms. Just a pinch of this in the hollow of a tooth will make it drop out within days.’

  Bartholomew winced. ‘What about bone-setting? Do you do that?’

  ‘No,’ said Stoate. ‘As I said, I do not practise surgery if I can avoid it, and I have not bled anyone for several weeks now. But I did once remove the blue skin that forms over the eyes of the old, so that the person could see again.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Bartholomew, fascinated. ‘Tell me how you did it. I have tried that procedure twice, but in both cases the blindness returned within three years.’

  ‘My patient died of a bloody flux about a week later,’ said Stoate. ‘But I learned two things: the knife must be sharp, and the patient must lie still.’

  ‘Well, that goes without saying,’ said Bartholomew, regarding him doubtfully. ‘But did you use witch-hazel as a salve afterwards? Or did you use groundsel as Dioscorides recommends?’

  ‘I used sugar water,’ came the unexpected reply. Stoate gazed at Bartholomew and suddenly slapped his hand hard on the table, waking Michael, who regarded him in alarm. ‘That is it! I knew there was something else!’

  ‘That is what?’ asked Michael, irritably.

  Stoate looked pleased with himself. ‘Ever since I learned of your Franciscan’s murder I have been thinking about the person I saw coming out of the church. I knew there was something I should have remembered, but it had slipped to the back of my mind. Talking about surgery to the eyes has suddenly jolted my memory, and I now know exactly what it was that has been bothering me: the person in the long cloak was rubbing his face.’

  ‘You mean as though he had been crying?’ asked Bartholomew, not sure that this had been worth waiting for.

  ‘No, rubbing his eyes hard with both fists, as though there was something wrong with them,’ said Stoate. ‘So, you are probably looking for someone with an eye infection, Doctor Bartholomew
. That should narrow down your list of killers!’

  Chapter 5

  By the time stoate left, Bartholomew was sleepy and excused himself to go to bed, knowing it would not be long before he would have to relieve Father ‘William for Unwin’s vigil. Eltisley led him to the upper floor, explaining that he and his wife used one room, while the other two were reserved for guests. The chambers were pleasant enough, with mullioned windows, polished wooden floors, and several straw mattresses that were piled with more blankets than even the most chilly of mortals could require during an early-summer night. Wearily, Bartholomew found a bowl of water and began to wash. After a moment he became aware that Eltisley was still in the room, fiddling with one of the windows.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Bartholomew asked, wiping his face with a piece of sacking.

  ‘I am tying a piece of twine to the latch on the window so that you can open it without getting out of bed if you become too hot during the night.’

  ‘Why should I need to open it without getting out of bed?’ asked Bartholomew warily.

  ‘Because then you would be too cold,’ said Eltisley, still tinkering.

  ‘But if I felt the need to open the window because I was hot, I would not be too cold the instant I stepped out of bed,’ reasoned Bartholomew. ‘Please do not worry. I am quite happy to open a window without the need for a piece of rope.’

  ‘It will only take a moment,’ said Eltisley persistently. He gave Bartholomew a superior look. ‘I saw that the bottle containing my potion was empty when I came for the dirty dishes. You changed your mind and took it, I expect.’

  ‘It was an interesting colour,’ said Bartholomew evasively. ‘I have never seen anything quite like it.’

  Eltisley gave a happy grin, assuming an implicit compliment. ‘I might be persuaded to part with the recipe when you leave, after all. I am not a man who believes in keeping effective remedies to himself. It is not ethical.’

  Bartholomew nodded, and turned his attention back to washing.

  ‘I was very sorry to hear about Unwin,’ said the taverner, continuing to fiddle with the window. ‘Did I tell you that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But thank you anyway.’

  ‘It is a curious thing,’ said Eltisley absently, engrossed with his piece of string, ‘but I am sure I saw him talking to Sir Robert Grosnold — the bald lord of Otley manor — in the churchyard just after the feast started. Of course, that is not possible. I must be going mad.’ He beamed at Bartholomew in a way that made the physician sure he was right.

  ‘You must be mistaken,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Grosnold rode with us from Wergen Hall, and then set off immediately to return to Otley. He thundered across the village green like a maniac.’

  ‘I saw him,’ said Eltisley. ‘Worse, he ran me over. Look at my leg.’ Unceremoniously, he hauled down his hose to reveal a semicircular bruise that would doubtless match one of the shoes on Grosnold’s destrier. ‘I will take a purge for it tomorrow.’

  ‘What good will a purge do a bruise?’ asked Bartholomew, startled.

  ‘It will take away the evil fluids from the wound and reduce the swelling. Bruises mean an increase of humours in the body, and so vomiting must be induced to balance them again.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bartholomew, understanding exactly why many physicians so fervently believed the adage that a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing.

  Eltisley beamed at him absently. ‘But this business with Grosnold is odd, is it not?’

  ‘Very,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Are you sure he was not talking to Unwin before he trampled you with his horse?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Eltisley. ‘I have been in considerable pain ever since. When I saw Grosnold talking surreptitiously to Unwin a few moments after he trampled me, I considered giving him a piece of my mind. Then I decided I did not want to hang for impudence, so I left it.’

  ‘What do you mean by “talking surreptitiously”?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘“Surreptitious” means furtive or sly,’ said Eltisley. ‘I thought you would have known the meaning of that word, Doctor, you being from Cambridge. But we all learn, I suppose.’

  ‘What I meant was what were they doing to make you think they were surreptitious?’

  ‘Well,’ said Eltisley, touching a finger to the bridge of his nose. ‘Let me see. Grosnold — although it could not have been Grosnold since he had left the village — had Unwin by the arm and was whispering something in his ear.’

  ‘Is there anyone else it could have been?’ asked Bartholomew, beginning to feel a little irritated by the man’s vagueness. Unwin had been murdered after all, and Eltisley might well have seen the man who had done it. ‘Is there someone you might have mistaken for Grosnold?’

  Eltisley stopped tampering and gazed out of the window, frowning. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘There is only one man I know with a suit of black clothes and a pate that glistens like Grosnold’s. But then, as I said, what I saw was not possible, because Grosnold had already gone home. I asked a few of my patrons whether any of them had seen Grosnold after he rode across our green so carelessly, but none of them had. So, I must have been mistaken.’

  Bartholomew was perplexed. ‘So did you see Grosnold with Unwin or not?’

  Eltisley shrugged. ‘My eyes told me yes, my mind tells me no.’

  ‘Was he wearing a long cloak?’ he asked, thinking of Stoate’s observation. ‘Or was there anything wrong with his eyes?’

  ‘His eyes?’ queried Eltisley, taken aback. ‘No, not that I could see. They seemed normal enough — beady, just as usual. And he wore his black cotte and hose — he likes to think he looks like the Prince of Wales in them. Foolish man! The Prince is not bald, forty and pig-ugly! Have you ever seen him? The Prince?’

  ‘Not recently,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But if the man you saw talking to Unwin was wearing these distinctive clothes, then it must have been Grosnold. There cannot be two people in the area with an outfit like that. Perhaps he came back for something.’

  ‘I suppose he must have done,’ said Eltisley, brightening. ‘And it is certainly true that no one else that I know of possesses clothes like Grosnold’s. Perhaps he forgot something, or realised that he needed to speak to Unwin before he returned to Otley. I am not mad, after all!’

  That by no means followed, thought Bartholomew. Could he trust Eltisley’s observation, or had the whole scene come from the jumble of nonsense that passed for his brain? He rubbed a hand through his hair, and flopped heavily on one of the straw mattresses. He was so tired, he did not know what to think.

  ‘There,’ said Eltisley triumphantly, standing back with his twine in his hand. ‘This little invention of mine will work perfectly. Watch.’

  He sat on the bed nearest the window, and gave the twine a gentle tug. Nothing happened. Puzzled, he tried again. The third tug was more savage, and with a screech of ancient metal, the latch plopped out of its frame and dropped to the floor. The window remained closed.

  ‘Mend it tomorrow,’ pleaded Bartholomew, sensing the taverner was going to spend half the night with it.

  It was not easy persuading Eltisley to leave, but at last Bartholomew was alone. He doused the candle, lay on the crackling mattress, and hauled one of the rough blankets over him. Somewhere, a mouse scurried across the floorboards, its feet skittering on the shiny surface, and from the tavern below, the muted voices of his companions were raised in some kind of debate. Still thinking about why Grosnold might want to kill Unwin, he fell into a deep sleep, and knew nothing more until he was awoken by Michael shaking his shoulder some hours later. Candle wax splattered on his bed-covers as the monk leaned over him, his bulk casting monstrous shadows on the wall.

  ‘I have no idea what the time is, Matt, but it is long past midnight,’ he whispered, trying not to disturb Alcote. He was clutching his stomach, and in the candlelight Bartholomew could see that his face was contorted with pain.

  ‘I suppose you feel ill,’ he said unsy
mpathetically.

  Michael nodded. ‘It must have been the green stuff that was all over the hare I ate. I scraped most of it off, but there must have been enough left to make me sick.’

  Bartholomew reached out and touched the monk’s face in the darkness. It was hot, but not feverish. ‘I ate the vegetables, and I am all right’

  ‘But you have an unnatural constitution, Matt. I keep telling you that green things are bad for me, but you will not listen. Now I am proven correct. Again.’

  ‘Take this,’ said Bartholomew, groping in his bag for the remedy for over-indulgence and indigestion he frequently dispensed to Michael. ‘And then go back to sleep.’

  ‘Matthew,’ came Alcote’s tremulous voice in the darkness. ‘I am ill. Help me!’

  ‘Summon Master Eltisley, then,’ said Bartholomew, unmoved. ‘He can give you some of his goat urine and cloves to drink.’

  Alcote retched suddenly, so Bartholomew went to his aid, holding his head while the goat’s urine made its reappearance, along with the rest of Alcote’s dinner.

  ‘I feel dreadful,’ he wept, clutching Bartholomew’s hand. He raised fearful eyes to Michael. ‘You will have to grant me absolution, for I shall not live to see the light of day. Help me, Matthew!’

  ‘But you have no faith in my medicine,’ said Bartholomew, feeling vindictive. ‘You said so at dinner, while you were eating the hare that was swimming in grease.’

  Alcote retched again, and when he had finished, Bartholomew helped him to lie back with a water-soaked bandage across his forehead.

  ‘We have been poisoned by vegetables,’ said Michael, still holding his stomach.

  ‘You have been poisoned by greed, and Roger has been poisoned by Eltisley’s foul concoction,’ said Bartholomew. ‘That will teach him to drink something prepared by a man who does not know what he is doing.’

  But it was not a lesson Alcote would remember for long. It was not the first time Bartholomew had been summoned to tend Alcote in the dead of night because he had swallowed some potion that promised miraculous results, and it would probably not be the last. He mixed poppy juice and chalk in a little water, and handed it to the Senior Fellow to drink.