A Plague on Both Your Houses (18 page)

and he began to doubt his fundamental belief that

diseases had physical causes that could be identified

and removed. He and Colet argued about it, Colet

claiming that he had more success with his leeches than Bartholomew had with his insistence on clean water and bedding, and use of various herbs. To a certain extent that was true, but Colet’s patients were wealthier than Bartholomew’s, and suffered and died in warm rooms

where lack of food was not a problem. Bartholomew did

not consider the comparison a fair one. He discovered

that in some cases he could ease the discomfort from the buboes by incising them to let the putrescence out, and that probably one in four of his patients might survive.

Term at the University was immediately suspended,

and scholars who would usually have stayed in Cambridge for the Christmas break thronged the roads leading

north, some taking the plague with them. Bartholomew

was horrified that many physicians went too, leaving

dozens of sick people to the care of a handful of

doctors.

Colet told Bartholomew that the royal physician,

Master Gaddesden, had also fled London, going with

the King’s family to Eltham Castle. The plague was not a disease that would profit the medical profession, for there seemed to be no cure and much risk. In Cambridge, three physicians had already perished, including the master of medicine from Peterhouse and Thomas Exton, who had

proclaimed that praying in the churches would deliver

people.

The plague seemed to bring with it unending

rain. Bartholomew trudged through the muddy streets

constantly wet and in a daze of exhaustion, going from house to house to watch people die. He sent a note to

Philippa urging her to stay in St Radegund’s, and it was advice that all the nuns seemed to take, for none were seen ministering to the sick. The monks and friars at Barnwell and St Edmund’s did their duty by administering last

rites, and they too began to fall ill.

College life changed dramatically. The remaining

students and teachers gathered together in the church

to attend masses for the dead and to pray for deliverance, but there were looks of suspicion everywhere. Who had

been in contact with the sick? Who might be the next

to be struck down? The regular assembling for meals

began to break down, and food was left in the hall

for scholars to take back to their rooms to eat alone.

Bartholomew wondered whether unchanged rushes on

the floors and discarded scraps of food in the scholars’

rooms might be responsible for the sudden increase in

the number of rats he saw around the College. Master

Wilson withdrew completely, and remained in his room,

occasionally leaning out of his window to shout orders.

Swynford left to stay with a relative in the

country, and Alcote followed Wilson’s lead, although

Bartholomew occasionally saw him scuttling about in

the dead of night, when everyone else was asleep. The

three clerics did not shirk from their religious duties, and were tireless in burying the dead and giving last rites.

Abigny made Bartholomew move out of their room

and sleep on the pallet bed in his storeroom.

‘Nothing personal, Matt,’ he said, his face covered

with the hem of his gown as he spoke, ‘but you are a

dangerous man to know since you frequent the homes

of the sick. And anyway, you would not wish me to visit Philippa if I had been near the Death.’

Bartholomew was too tired to argue. Master Wilson

had tried to isolate the College so that no one could

enter. There were plenty of supplies in the storeroom, he had called to the assembled College members from

his window, and clean water in the well. They would

be safe.

As if to belie his words, one of the students suddenly pitched to the ground. Bartholomew ran over, and noted the symptoms with despair. Wilson’s shutters slammed

abruptly, and the plan was not mentioned again.

College members began to die. Oddly, the old

commoners who Bartholomew thought would be the

first to succumb, because they were the weakest, were the last to become infected. The Frenchman Henri d’Evene

died on the eve of his planned departure for France. He had been careful to touch nothing that might have been infected by plague bearers; he had drawn his own water from the well, and ate little from the kitchens. He bribed Alexander to let him use Swynford’s room while he was

gone, because the room faced north, and it was said that north-facing rooms were safe from the plague.

But, as the bell was ringing for Compline,

Bartholomew heard a dreadful scream from d’Evene’s

quarters. He ran up the stairs and hammered on

the door.

D’Evene opened it, his face white with terror. He

was shirtless, and Bartholomew saw the swellings under his armpits, already turning black with the poisons

within. He caught the young man as he swooned in his

arms and laid him on the bed. D’Evene tossed and turned with a terrible fever for two days, Bartholomew tending him as much as he could, and died as dawn broke,

writhing in agony.

Bartholomew had noticed that the swellings took

two forms. If they were hard and dry, and emitted little putrescence when lanced, the patient might survive if

he could withstand the fever and the pain. If they were soft, and contained a lot of fluid, the patient would

invariably die, regardless of whether the swelling was lanced or not.

Bartholomew and Colet not only had to tend the

sick, they had to oversee the removal of bodies from

houses and streets. Both knew that if these were not

removed as quickly as possible, the streets would become so unhealthy that people would die from other diseases.

The first few men who took on the unwholesome, but

handsomely paid, task of removing the dead, quickly

caught the plague and died, and it became more and

more difficult to find people willing to take the risk.

Bartholomew, walking along the wharves one night

after tending people in the rivermen’s homes, heard

shuffling and muttering at one of the small piers. Going to investigate, he found two dead-collectors dumping

their load into the river so that they would not have to go to the cemetery in the dark.

Bartholomew watched the pathetic corpses bob off

downstream as they were caught in the current.

‘You have committed them to an unhallowed grave,’

he whispered. The dead-collectors shuffled uneasily.

‘And now their bodies might carry the Death to villages down the river.’

‘It is already there,’ said one of the men defensively.

‘It is at Ely already. At least fifteen monks have

died so far.’

When they had gone he walked to the churchyard

and peered into the pit. It would soon be full. He and Colet had asked that a larger pit be dug, just outside the Trumpington Gate, because the cemeteries of the parish churches were too small to cope with the dead, and there was not enough available labour to dig individual graves.

Since no one knew how the plague spread, Bartholomew

did not want bad humours seeping from the bodies into

the river from where some people, despite his warnings, drew their drinking water. There were fields outside the Gate that were well away from the river and its ditches, and away from homes.

As he reached the gates at Michaelhouse, the porter

greeted Bartholomew cautiously, a huge pomander

stuffed with herbs over his mouth.

‘Brother Michael asks if you will go to his room,’

he said, backing away as far as possible.

Bartholomew nodded. He did not blame the man.

Perhaps Bartholomew was doing more harm than good

by visiting the sick in their homes. Perhaps he was aiding the spread of the Death by carrying it in his clothes or in the air around him.

Slowly he climbed the stairs to Michael’s room and

pushed open the door. Brother Michael knelt next to

his bed giving last rites to Father Aelfrith.

‘Oh, no!’ Bartholomew sank down onto a stool and

waited for Michael to finish. ‘When?’

‘He was well enough this morning, but collapsed

in the yard just as I came home,’ said Michael, his voice muffled.

Bartholomew went over to the bed, and rested his

hand on Aelfrith’s brow. He was barely breathing, but

seemed to have been spared the terrible agony that

some victims went through. It was a risk, visiting the sick and giving last rites, and physicians and clerics had all known that they too might be stricken. Seeing Aelfrith so near the end reminded Bartholomew, yet again, of his own mortality. His thoughts went to Philippa, hopefully secure in the convent, and of their brief spell of happiness at the end of summer.

“I will go again to see if I can find William,’ said

Michael, furtively rubbing a sleeve over his eyes.

Bartholomew tried to make Aelfrith more comfortable.

He had found that stretching the arms out helped

relieve pressure on the swellings, and so caused the

patient less pain. He was surprised to find that Aelfrith had no swellings. He looked again more carefully,

inspecting his neck and his groin. There was no trace

of swelling anywhere, and none of the black spots that afflicted some victims, although there was evidence that he had been violently sick. Bartholomew hoped this was not some new variation of the plague.

Aelfrith’s eyes fluttered open. He saw Bartholomew

and tried to speak. Bartholomew bent closer to hear him, straining to hear the voice that was no more than a rustle of breath.

‘Not plague,’ he whispered. ‘Poison. Wilson.’

He closed his eyes, exhausted. Bartholomew wondered

whether the fever had made him delirious. Aelfrith

waved his hand weakly in the air. Bartholomew took it

and held it. It was cold and dry. Aelfrith’s eyes pleaded with Bartholomew, who bent again to listen.

‘Wilson,’ he whispered again.

Bartholomew, his mind dull from tiredness and

grief, was slow in understanding. ‘Are you saying that Wilson poisoned you?’ he asked.

Aelfrith’s lips drew back from his teeth in an awful

parody of a smile. And then he died. Bartholomew

leaned close and smelled Aelfrith’s mouth. He moved

back sharply. There was an acrid odour of somethingvile, and he noticed that Aelfrith’s tongue was blistered

and swollen. He had been poisoned! By Wilson?

Bartholomew could not see how, because the lawyer had

not left his room for days. Bartholomew sometimes saw

him watching the comings and goings in the courtyard

through his window, although he would slam the shutter if Bartholomew or any of the clerics so much as glanced up at him.

Bartholomew felt all the energy drain out of him

as the significance of Aelfrith’s death dawned on him.

Another murder! And now of all times! He thought that

the plague would have superseded all the dangerous

political games that had been played in the summer.

And what was Aelfrith doing in Michael’s room anyway?

Had Michael poisoned him? He began to look around

for cups of wine or food that Michael may have enticed Aelfrith to take, but there was nothing.

He almost jumped out of his skin as the door flew

open and Michael came back with Father William in

tow.

‘Sweet Jesus, we are too late,’ groaned Michael,

visibly sagging.

‘Too late for what?’ asked Bartholomew, his tone

sharp from the fright he had just had.

‘For Father William to give him the Host,’ said

Michael.

“I thought you had already done that,’ said

Bartholomew. Surely Michael would not have poisoned

the Host? He would surely be damned if he had chosen

that mode of execution for one of God’s priests.

“I am a Benedictine, Matt,’ said Michael patiently.

‘He wanted to have the last rites from one of his own Order. I looked for William, but could not find him. I gave Aelfrith last rites because he was failing fast and I thought he might die before William was back.’

Bartholomew turned his attention back to Aelfrith.

Was he being unfair to Michael? He thought back to

Michael’s reaction at the death of Augustus. Was Michael one of those scholars so dedicated to the future success of Cambridge that he would kill for it? Or was he one

of those who wanted to see Cambridge fail and Oxford

become the foremost place of learning in the land? Or

had Wilson slipped out of his room in the dark and left poison for Aelfrith? Was Aelfrith telling him he should go and tell Wilson that he had been poisoned?

Bartholomew was just too tired to think properly.

Should he go to Wilson? Or would the wretched man

think Bartholomew was trying to give him the plague?

Bartholomew could not blame people like Wilson, Swynford, and Alcote who hid away to save themselves. Had

he not been a physician, he might well have done the

same thing. The College had divided down the middle,

four Fellows going among the plague victims to do what they could, and four remaining isolated. In the other

colleges, the division was much the same.

He felt his mind rambling. What should he do?

Should he tell Michael and William that Father Aelfrith had been poisoned, and had not died of the plague at

all? And then what? The Bishop had his hands too full

with his dying monks to be able to investigate another murder. And he probably would not want to investigate

it. He would order it covered up, like the others. Well, let us save the Bishop ajourney, then, thought Bartholomew wearily. He would say nothing. He would try to see Wilson later, and he would try to question Michael. He wondered why someone had gone to the trouble of committing