A Deadly Brew (4 page)

The Master Baker gave a superior smile. ‘They are very expensive so I would not expect a man of your meagre means to know. Thomas Deschalers, the grocer, sold some to me. I ate them quartered and dipped in fine white sugar.’

Bartholomew winced at the mere concept. ‘You ate raw lemons?’

Mortimer nodded, unaware of or indifferent to Bartholomew’s revulsion. ‘With sugar. I am told they are an acquired taste and should not be given to women or children lest they disturb the humours. I bought ten. I gave one to Edward, my eldest son, and I ate the rest myself.’

Bartholomew shuddered, his teeth on edge. ‘I have been to Spain and the people there cook lemons or use the juice for drinking with water. I have never seen anyone eat one raw – sugar or not – and certainly not nine at once. Their juice is sour and has probably upset the balance in your stomach.’

‘But Thomas Deschalers said nothing of this,’ protested Mortimer. ‘He said the King has lemons at his table – and what is good enough for the King is good enough for me. I named my first son after the King, you know.’ He gave Bartholomew an ingratiating smile that vanished as he was racked with a spasm of his gripes. Bartholomew poked his head through the curtains and asked Katherine to fetch warm milk from the kitchen.

She glanced towards the bed, as if trying to see through the thick hangings to where her husband lay like a beached whale. ‘Will he live?’

Bartholomew smiled reassuringly. ‘He is not dying.’

She regarded him uncertainly. ‘Are you sure? He told me he was breathing his last.’

‘It is just indigestion from the lemons. It can be very painful,’ he added when he saw her uncertainty change to anger.

‘Indigestion?’ she repeated in disbelief. ‘He said he was on his deathbed and had me summon all these people. Now you tell me it was his greed with those wretched lemons? I told him to peel them first but he would insist that he knew best!’

With some difficulty, Bartholomew managed to interrupt her tirade and send her for the milk. When it arrived, he added a small amount of finely ground chalk powder and some laudanum. After the potion had been swallowed to the last drop, he untangled the bedclothes and made his patient comfortable for the deep sleep he knew would soon come.

‘I feel better already,’ murmured Mortimer gratefully. ‘The terrible burning has eased. I will have words with Deschalers about those lemons. I wonder how the King’s constitution deals with such sour foods. He must be a strong man indeed.’

‘I am sure his constitution is nothing compared to yours,’ said Bartholomew ambiguously, helping Mortimer to ease further down the bed.

Mortimer closed his eyes drowsily, but then opened them again and fixed the physician with a hard stare. ‘Your reputation belies your abilities, Bartholomew. It is said you indulge in surgery and I was expecting to be sliced open like a pig in order to be cured of my pains, but you have been as gentle with me as a mother with a new-born babe. My only complaint is that your hands are as cold as those of a corpse. Buy some gloves, man!’

Bartholomew nodded vaguely and began to buckle his bag as he prepared to leave. Mortimer reached out and rested a moist, flabby hand on his wrist.

‘I am quite serious, Bartholomew,’ the baker insisted. ‘You will kill someone with shock one day if you continue to place them on bare flesh in so reckless a manner. I have some gloves you can buy. Katherine!’

‘No, please, I–’ began Bartholomew. But it was too late. Katherine was dispatched for the gloves and Bartholomew’s protestations that he did not want any were overridden.

‘Look on them as a tool of your trade,’ preached Mortimer condescendingly. ‘A physician with cold hands is about as desirable as a baker who dribbles in his dough. Ah, here is Katherine with the gloves. Choose a pair, Bartholomew. I will make you a good deal.’

‘Yes, choose,’ said Katherine. She smiled nervously at her husband and then addressed Bartholomew. ‘But you will not pay for them; they will be a gift to compensate you for the fact that you have missed the installation in order to attend Constantine.’

‘What?’ gasped Mortimer in shock, attempting to raise himself from his pillow. Bartholomew opened his mouth to object, but Katherine was not interested in interruptions. It was unusual to see the shy, diffident woman cross her husband and Bartholomew wondered whether his claim to have been brushed by death had rendered him suddenly more human and fallible in her eyes.

‘Doctor Bartholomew could have declined to come to you, Constantine,’ she reasoned. ‘You are not his patient and he will be the only Fellow in the University to miss the grand installation that the town has been discussing for weeks.’

‘Except for Father Philius,’ grunted Mortimer. ‘You told me he is ill, too.’

‘And you should remember that Father Philius would not have answered your summons until the festivities were over,’ said Katherine. ‘Now, try these green gloves, Doctor. They are the best ones here and suitably fine for a man of your profession.’

‘They make his hands look leprous,’ said Mortimer, eyeing them critically. ‘Give him the black pair. Black goes with anything and you would not want him to don green gloves with that red robe.’

‘True enough,’ admitted Katherine. ‘And the black ones are harder wearing than the green. Your sister tells me you are careless with clothes and so you should probably take a more durable pair. Do they fit?’

‘They fit perfectly,’ announced Mortimer, as though Bartholomew was incapable of answering, leaning forward to tug at one of the fingers experimentally. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I feel terribly sleepy. Next time you come to me, Bartholomew, I shall expect to be examined with hands as soft and warm as a baby’s, not rough, red and frozen like a peasant’s.’

Bartholomew smiled and made his farewells to the baker. He ushered the assembled people – and dogs – out of the bedchamber, assuring them that their master needed only rest to make a full recovery, although not all of them seemed overjoyed by the news that death had been cheated of its prey.

Katherine saw him to the door and handed him two silver pennies. ‘It was kind of you to come when you should be at the installation.’

‘So should you,’ said Bartholomew, certain that Valence Marie would not risk offending one of the most powerful merchants in the town and his wife by not issuing them an invitation.

Katherine gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘I am tempted to go now since it seems the reason I am to be denied is my husband’s greed. But I am sure word has gone out that Constantine is gravely ill, and I do not want to appear uncaring. When he wakes in the morning, he will be telling folk how you snatched him from the jaws of death. My son Edward is the same. While the rest of us suffer simple rheums, he has a terrible fever; a tiny cut is a life-threatening wound with him.’

‘Not everyone bears discomfort stoically,’ said Bartholomew carefully, not wanting to tell her that he considered Mortimer’s summons a complete waste of his time, because the baker would have recovered perfectly well after a good night of sleep and a day of careful eating anyway.

Katherine sighed again, but then became businesslike. She took Bartholomew’s elegantly clad hand and smiled. ‘I am keeping you from the celebrations while I run on. Thank you again, and enjoy the festivities.’

For the third time that day, Bartholomew turned towards the Hall of Valence Marie. He glanced down at his best gown and saw that it was liberally splattered with mud, while water dripped from the hem. His boots were filthy, and kneeling on the rush-strewn floor of St Bernard’s Hostel to tend Armel had caused fragments of the dried plants to adhere to them. In short, he looked scruffy, impoverished and disreputable. He wondered if the Valence Marie porter would even let him in, or whether he should obey his strong inclination to head home, perhaps to sit by the fire in the kitchen and watch the rain teem past the window. He hesitated, seriously considering returning to Michaelhouse.

But, like it or not, he was committed to attending at least part of the installation ceremony, and he could not, in all conscience, use Mortimer’s ailment as an excuse to stay away for much longer. He would be missed, if not by the Fellows and Master-Elect of Valence Marie, then by his own colleagues at Michaelhouse, some of whom would claim that his absence was a dereliction of duty and that he had done disservice to Michaelhouse’s good relations with another College.

Stamping his feet to try to dislodge some of the mud from his boots, he stepped through the sturdy front gates of Valence Marie and prepared to be admonished by the condescending porter for his bedraggled appearance on such an auspicious day. The porter, however, seemed to have gone off duty and a student was performing the role of doorman. He was considerably more polite than the porter had been, and cheerfully helped Bartholomew to brush the worst of the mud from his clothes.

By the time the physician had been conducted to Valence Marie’s splendid hall, the ceremony was virtually over. He stood at the back, leaning against the wall, and remembered the events of the previous summer when, had it not been for the timely intervention of Michael, he would have lost his life in that very room. Since then, the hall had been redecorated on the orders of its incoming Master, and new tapestries in brightly coloured wools adorned the walls. Above his head, the wooden musicians’ gallery had been rebuilt and boasted some of the finest carvings in Cambridge. A group of students was there now, singing to occupy the guests while the Fellows of the Hall of Valence Marie lined up to sign the writ that would make legal the installation of Thomas Bingham as Master.

When the last Fellow had shuffled his way forward and added his name to the official parchment, the singing stopped and Bingham began to make his speech. In Bingham’s position, Bartholomew would have been brief. The election had not been unanimous and ill-feelings might be resurrected if Bingham spoke at too great a length about his victory over his rival and his plans for the College. The new Master, however, had a good deal to say on a wide range of matters and, in the body of the hall, the assembly became restless. The language of the University was Latin, and while Bartholomew and the other scholars were fluent, few of the guests from the town would understand all of Bingham’s words. Despite the chilly weather, the hall, filled to overflowing with people, began to grow stuffy and soon became uncomfortable.

Bartholomew edged nearer the door, where a welcome draught wafted in from outside, and thought about the events of the day. He wondered about the three bottles of wine, still wrapped in his hat and left in the porter’s lodge for safety. Had a townsperson deliberately sold the students poisoned claret? Michael clearly thought so, but Bartholomew had his doubts. He was certain the Franciscan novices would not have been behaving sufficiently rowdily to warrant someone wanting them dead – none of them had been drunk when he and Michael had arrived and they seemed a tame group to him, particularly compared to his own students. The Franciscans seemed the kind of young men whose idea of wild behaviour was three goblets of ale and staying up past midnight – a stark contrast to some Michaelhouse scholars, whose ways of merrymaking sometimes verged on the criminal.

And the business of the lemons was odd, too. Bartholomew could not recall ever having seen lemons in Cambridge in February before. Mortimer must have paid dearly for such a luxury – from his purse as well as his innards. Bartholomew smiled to himself as he imagined the merchant sitting at his table eating the sour fruits one after the other. Regardless of the amount of fine white sugar he had added, it would not have been a pleasant repast. Bartholomew recalled that Mortimer was the son of a ditcher, and had worked hard to haul himself from his lowly beginnings to his present status. Whatever Mortimer had heard, Bartholomew was certain the King did not devour raw lemons on a regular basis, and it was ironic that, even as Mortimer tried to show the world he was wealthy and accomplished, he betrayed his simple origins by revealing he did not know how to prepare the luxury foods he was able to buy.

At the dais to the front of the hall, Bingham looked up from his sheaf of notes and paused for breath. Immediately, someone began to clap. Bartholomew saw it was Thomas Kenyngham, the gentle Master of Michaelhouse, beaming his customary seraphic smile and nodding in a congratulatory manner to Bingham. Seizing the opportunity for an early end to the tedious speech, everyone else hastened to join in the applause, while the Fellows of Valence Marie prepared to lead the procession out to the church. The students began to sing, while the people in the hall stretched stiff limbs in evident relief. Bingham’s mouth dropped open in dismay, but his Fellows clustered about him to offer their felicitations, and then the procession was on the move. Bingham had to scamper to take his place of honour behind them, or run the risk of being left behind.

Amused by Bingham’s discomfiture, Bartholomew waited for the Fellows from his own College as the other guests filed past him. Master Kenyngham led the Michaelhouse deputation, a guileless smile still playing about his lips, his eyes raised heavenward and his lips moving in prayer. Bartholomew had no doubt that Kenyngham’s timely interruption of Bingham’s speech was wholly innocent: of all the scholars in the University, the honest, kindly Gilbertine friar would be the least likely to do something purposely malicious.

Behind Kenyngham scurried Roger Alcote, a small, vindictive man whose ambitious eyes were already on the Mastership currently occupied by Kenyngham. Blind Father Paul leaned on the arm of Father William, both Franciscan friars who taught theology and the Trivium – grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Michael brought up the rear with Michaelhouse’s newest Fellows – John Runham, who taught law, and Ralph de Langelee, who lectured in philosophy.

Runham was the cousin of a previous, highly unpopular Master of Michaelhouse who had died during the plague, and seemed to have inherited some of his detested kinsman’s less loveable traits: he was arrogant, smug and condescending. But he was easily one of the best teachers of law Michaelhouse had ever seen. His lectures were eloquent, precise and logically flawless, and his reputation meant that the College was inundated with applications from students who wanted him to teach them. Because the numbers of new would-be scholars were low following the plague, a popular master like Runham was a valuable commodity, and Bartholomew tried hard to maintain a cordial relationship with him for the College’s sake.