planned to cook tonight, to celebrate Richard’s return to Cambridge. However, the offerings at Michaelhouse are more of that revolting fish-giblet stew and bread I saw Agatha sawing the green bits from this morning. If you were any kind of friend, you would see my predicament and invite me to dine with Edith.’
‘I wondered what was behind all this uncharacteristic concern for my safety. It is not my well-being that preoccupies you: it is Edith’s trout with almonds, raisin bread and pastries.’
‘You have convinced me to come,’ said Michael, reaching for his cloak. ‘I took the precaution of hiring a couple of horses yesterday. We will ride. It will leave more time for eating.’
‘And what do you think Edith will say when she sees you have invited yourself to her family reunion?’ asked Bartholomew, sure that his sister would not be pleased to see Michael on her doorstep determined to make short work of her cooking.
Michael gave a smug grin. ‘She will thank me for my devotion to you – for accompanying the brother she adores along a dangerous road so that he can spend an evening in her company. And anyway, I want to meet your nephew again. It is five years since last I saw him.’
‘He has changed,’ said Bartholomew, walking with the monk across the courtyard to where Walter, the surly porter, was holding the reins of the two horses Michael had hired. ‘He abandoned medicine to study law and it has made him pompous and arrogant. Perhaps he has just spent too much time with lawyers.’
‘Or perhaps he has just spent too much time with that band of mongrels at Oxford who call themselves scholars,’ said Michael with an unpleasant snigger.
‘Brother Michael!’ exclaimed Oswald Stanmore, as the Benedictine and Bartholomew walked into his manor house at the small village of Trumpington. ‘What are you doing here?’ His eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. ‘You have not come about the murder of that Carmelite, have you? Matt was wrong to have brought him to my property.’
Edith sighed crossly. ‘Really, Oswald! What was Matt supposed to do? He could hardly carry Faricius all the way back to Michaelhouse.’
‘But by taking him to my house, he endangered the lives of you and my apprentices,’ said Stanmore sternly. ‘It was a thoughtless thing to do.’
‘I am sorry, Oswald,’ began Bartholomew, knowing the merchant had a point. ‘I did not–’
Edith raised a hand to silence him. ‘Matt was right to do what he did, Oswald, and any decent man would have done the same. Those louts murdered a priest right outside our door. Would you rather he turned a blind eye to such an outrage?’
‘From what I hear, the killers were priests, too,’ retorted Stanmore. ‘And so I imagine that turning a blind eye would have been a very prudent thing to do. But prudence is not something that runs in your side of the family, it seems. Thank God Richard does not take after you two.’
‘No one could ever accuse me of imprudence,’ said Richard lazily from his position in the best chair in the house – a cushion-filled seat that was placed so close to the fire that Bartholomew was surprised his nephew did not singe himself.
Bartholomew saw Michael regard Richard with interest. Richard had indeed changed from the gangling seventeen-year-old who had marched away to Oxford University some five years before with dreams of studying medicine. He possessed the same unruly black curls and dark eyes as Bartholomew, and had grown tall. But there the likeness ended. Richard’s face was plumper than it should have been for a man of his age, and there were bulges above his hips that testified to too much good living. His hands were pale and soft, as though he scorned any sort of activity that would harden them, and there was a decadent air about him that certainly had not been there when he had lived in Cambridge.
His clothes presented a stark contrast to those of his uncle, too. Whereas the physician’s shirt and tabard were frayed and patched, Richard’s were new and the height of fashion. He wore blue hose made from the finest wool, a white shirt of crisp linen, and a red jerkin with flowing sleeves that were delicately embroidered with silver thread. On his feet were red shoes with the ridiculously impractical curling toes that were currently popular at the King’s court, and in his ear was the gold ear-ring to which Edith had taken such exception. His beard was in the peculiar style that covered the chin and upper lip, but left the sides of the face clean shaven, and was so heavily impregnated with scented oil that Bartholomew could smell it from the door. The physician resisted the urge to comment on it.
‘Well,’ said Michael, wrinkling his nose and smothering a sneeze. ‘You are not the awkward youth I remember from the black days of the plague.’
‘And you are not the slender monk I once knew, either,’ retorted Richard promptly, his insolent eyes taking in Michael’s considerable bulk.
Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. ‘If you recall a slender monk, Richard, then your memory is not all it should be. Michael has never been slender.’
‘When I was a child, I was so thin that my mother was convinced I was heading for an early grave,’ said Michael. ‘She took me to see a physician, who bled me and dosed me with all manner of vile potions. I have spent the rest of my life ensuring that I never warrant such treatment again.’
‘Most physicians are charlatans,’ agreed Richard, throwing Bartholomew a challenging stare. ‘They claim they can cure you, but their powdered earthworms and their lead powder and their paste of sparrows’ brains no more heal the sick than do the expensive horoscopes they insist on working out.’
‘You are right,’ said Bartholomew, wondering why his nephew was trying to goad him into an argument when it would only spoil Edith’s evening. ‘I have long believed that horoscopes make no difference to a patient’s health. However, I have also learned that a patient’s state of mind is important to his recovery – if he believes a horoscope will provide a more effective cure, then he is more likely to get well if I use one.’
Richard yawned and reached out to take some nuts from a bowl that had been placed near him. ‘If you say so.’ He lost interest in his uncle and turned his languorous gaze on Michael. ‘But what brings you to Trumpington on this cold and windy night, Brother? It would not be the fish-giblet stew that Agatha is simmering at Michaelhouse, would it?’
Michael regarded him coolly, and if he were surprised that Richard had guessed the real reason for his visit he did not show it. ‘The Trumpington road is haunted by outlaws. I merely wanted to ensure that your uncle arrived safely.’
‘So, will you be returning to Cambridge now?’ asked Richard with feigned innocence. ‘You have discharged your duty and he is here in one piece.’
‘I thought I might stay a while – at least until the rain stops,’ said Michael, smiling comfortably. Bartholomew knew that Michael allowed very little between him and a good meal, and it would take far more potent forces than the irritating Richard to make him abandon one. And Michael knew perfectly well that the rain had settled in for the night, and that it was unlikely to abate until the following day. ‘You seem to have had an interesting sojourn at Oxford; I would like to hear more about it.’
‘Perhaps later,’ said Richard, reaching for more nuts. He smiled ingratiatingly at Edith. ‘Is the food ready?’
Edith returned her son’s smile. ‘Almost. I will tell the servants that we have two more guests.’
‘Two?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Who else did you invite?’
‘Not me,’ replied Edith as she left the room. ‘Richard asked a friend to come.’
‘Who?’ asked Stanmore of his son, surprised. ‘You have only been back a few days, and you have spent most of that time in bed, recovering from your “arduous journey”.’
‘It is no one from Cambridge – and certainly no one from Trumpington,’ said Richard, with a contrived shudder. ‘I do not know why you live here, father. It is little more than a few hovels stretched along a muddy track, and it is occupied almost entirely by peasants. If I were you, I would live in the house in Cambridge.’
Bartholomew found he was beginning to dislike his nephew. The manor Stanmore and Edith occupied was luxurious by most standards and certainly by anything Richard was likely to have experienced at Oxford, if Bartholomew’s memories of the place were anything to go by. It was a large hall-house near the church, which looked out across strip fields and orchards. It had red tiles on the roof, and the walls were plastered and painted pale pink. Inside, the house was clean and airy. Wool rugs covered the floor, rather than the more usual rushes, and the walls were decorated with wall hangings. There were plenty of cushioned benches to sit on, and the table at which the Stanmores and their household ate was of polished wood – of the kind that did not puncture the
