concerned.’
‘Poaching,’ said Michael immediately. ‘It might not affect our agreement, but as Senior Proctor I cannot stand by and watch you entice away our best students.’
‘As luck would have it, he proved unsuitable,’ said Heytesbury. ‘I will not be taking him with me after all.’
‘What business could possibly bring a Cambridge monk and an Oxford philosopher together?’ asked Richard curiously. ‘Especially since Master Heytesbury told me today that he had never been to Cambridge before.’
Then Heytesbury was lying, thought Bartholomew, listening to the philosopher explaining to Richard that the correspondence between him and Michael had been by letter. Bartholomew remembered very clearly the last time he had seen Heytesbury – at a clandestine meeting on some wasteland in Cambridge the previous year. Heytesbury had been trying to learn from a mutual acquaintance whether Michael was a man to be trusted. Fortunately for Michael, the friend put allegiance to Cambridge above an ancient friendship, and had encouraged Heytesbury to proceed in his negotiations with the monk. Heytesbury, quite rightly, had been suspicious of an offer that seemed to favour Oxford, but the monk was hoping the man’s natural greed would encourage him to sign anyway.
Bartholomew noted that Heytesbury was as vague about their business as Michael had been, and supposed such subterfuge came naturally to men like them. He wondered what would happen if Heytesbury discovered that a number of people in Cambridge already knew that something was afoot between Michael and the scholar from Merton. Michael had been discreet, but the news had been announced the previous November – when Ralph de Langelee had wanted to make sure Michael was not elected Master of Michaelhouse and had used the Oxford story to stain the monk’s reputation – and it had not taken long for the word to spread. But Michael would not want Heytesbury to discuss the case with Richard, who knew that the monk was no bumbling incompetent whose sole ambition was for personal power, but a skilled manager of intrigues who would best even a clever man like Heytesbury, given the chance. Michael wanted Heytesbury lulled into a false sense of security, so that he would sign the agreement without his suspicions being raised.
‘You have explained why you came to Cambridge,’ said Michael, smiling politely at the Oxford man. ‘But you have not told us how you know Richard.’
‘I tutored him during his time at Merton,’ replied Heytesbury. ‘It was I who persuaded him to give up the notion of becoming a physician and to study law instead. It is safer than poking around with leprous sores and more stimulating than inspecting flasks of urine. And there is always a need for good lawyers these days.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Richard fawningly. ‘Ever since the Death, large numbers of wills have been contested, and so there is always work for those who understand the law.’
The conversation turned to legal matters, although Heytesbury did not join in. It was clear to Bartholomew that Heytesbury was uncomfortable with the notion that Michael might cheat him, and so had travelled to Cambridge to make more enquiries before he accepted the terms the monk was offering. Michael also said little, although his eyes gleamed as he sensed Heytesbury was worried enough to try to investigate him. Bartholomew saw that the monk anticipated a challenge, and was relishing the prospect of locking wits with one of Oxford’s greatest thinkers.
‘The food is ready,’ said Edith, entering the room from the kitchen, flushed from the heat of the fire that was roaring there.
‘Then let us begin,’ said Michael, rubbing his hands in gleeful anticipation. Bartholomew was not sure whether his words referred to the food, or to the impending battle of minds with Heytesbury.
Michael had been wise to inveigle an invitation to Edith’s house that night: the fare she provided was infinitely superior to anything that would have been on offer at Michaelhouse. There was trout stuffed with almond paste, pike in gelatine surrounded by roasted vegetables, followed by fried fig pastries, raisin slices and butter custard. Stanmore broached one of his barrels of best wine, a rich red from southern France, while Richard provided a flask of something that he claimed was the height of fashion in Oxford. It was a colourless liquid that tasted of turnips and that burned Bartholomew’s throat and made him cough. He wondered whether Richard would sell him some to use on those of his patients with painful bunions.
‘Is it true?’ asked Michael of Heytesbury, tilting his goblet and inspecting the drink inside doubtfully. ‘Do Oxford scholars really drink this?’
Heytesbury drained his cup in a single swallow. ‘It is a brew the King is said to like.’
‘Then no wonder the country is in such a state,’ muttered Michael. ‘I am surprised the man has any wits at all, if he regularly imbibes this poison. What is your opinion, as a medical man, Matt?’
Bartholomew shrugged, reluctant to engage in treasonous talk with Heytesbury present. For all Bartholomew knew, Heytesbury could be the kind of man to report any rebellious sentiments among Cambridge scholars to the King’s spies, and Bartholomew had no intention of losing his Fellowship for agreeing that any man who regularly drank the potion Richard had provided was not fit to be in control of a plough, let alone a country. He was surprised that Michael was not similarly cautious.
‘I always knew Cambridge men had weak stomachs,’ said Richard, tossing back the contents of his goblet and then fighting not to splutter. ‘We are made of sterner stuff in Oxford.’
‘We will see about that,’ said Michael, downing the remains of his own cup and then pushing it across the table to be refilled. ‘Will you accept my challenge?’
‘He will not,’ said Edith firmly. ‘This is supposed to be a pleasant family meal, not some academic drinking game. I do not want either of you face down on your trenchers or ruining the occasion for the rest of us by being sick on the table.’ She snatched up the flask and rammed the stopper into it so hard that Bartholomew wondered whether Richard would ever be able to prise it out.
‘You are quite right, madam,’ said Heytesbury smoothly. ‘I drink little myself and do not enjoy the company of those who lose their wits to wine and have no sensible conversation to offer.’
Bartholomew looked at Heytesbury’s unsteady hands and the way the man was able to swallow Richard’s poison as though it were water, and was not so sure. The fact that Richard claimed the first thing he had done when he had met Heytesbury was to visit the Laughing Pig indicated that Heytesbury was not being entirely honest. Bartholomew watched as the Oxford man took a small package from his scrip, pulled a piece of resin from it and stuffed it in his mouth. He saw Bartholomew watching curiously and slipped the packet across the table for him to see.
‘Gum mastic,’ said Bartholomew, inspecting the yellow substance closely. ‘This has only recently come to England, but it has many uses. For example, it makes an excellent glue and is a powerful breath freshener.’
‘Do not tell the students this,’ said Michael, taking it from Bartholomew and regarding it without much interest, before flinging it back to Heytesbury, ‘or they will all be swallowing it, and we shall never be able to prove that they have been drinking.’
Heytesbury caught the package deftly, and changed the subject. ‘Tell me about Cambridge. Is it a pretty town?’
Michael gave Bartholomew a hefty kick under the table to attract his attention, then winked, letting the physician know that Heytesbury’s untruthful statement about this being his first visit to Cambridge had not gone unnoticed. Bartholomew supposed that Heytesbury had no reason to know that the physician had personally seen him meeting scholars from Bene’t College in a place where he assumed – wrongly, as it happened – they would not be observed. Michael’s face was unreadable when Heytesbury looked at him, and Bartholomew saw the monk was content to let Heytesbury continue in his belief.
‘Cambridge is God’s own kingdom on Earth,’ announced Stanmore warmly. ‘I have lived here all my life, and I have never seen a lovelier spot.’
‘Have you travelled much, then?’ asked Heytesbury with polite interest.
Stanmore nodded. ‘Yes, indeed. I have been several times to Saffron Walden – a good fifteen miles to the south – and once I went to London. But neither compares to Cambridge.’
‘I see,’ said Heytesbury. ‘Have you ever been to Oxford?’
Stanmore shook his head, barely able to suppress a shudder. ‘I was not pleased that Richard decided to study there when we have a perfectly good University here, but he was insistent. Still, I suppose his choice was a wise one, given that he is now a lawyer, rather than a physician.’
‘At least I will make my fortune,’ said Richard. His face was flushed and sweaty from drinking too much wine
