‘My scrip,’ insisted the friar, more strongly. ‘Where is it? It is vital I have it!’
‘We will find it,’ said Bartholomew comfortingly, although he suspected that if the friar’s pouch had contained something valuable, then the chances of retrieving it were remote.
‘You must find it,’ breathed the friar, gripping Bartholomew’s arm surprisingly tightly for a man so close to death. ‘You must.’
‘Who did this to you?’ asked Bartholomew, reaching for his bag. His patient’s agitated movements were threatening to pull the stitches apart, and the physician wanted to calm him with laudanum. He eased the friar’s head into the crook of his arm and gave him as large a dose as he dared. ‘Do you know the names of the men who attacked you?’
‘Please,’ whispered the friar desperately. ‘My scrip contains something very important to me. You must find it. And when you do, you must pass it to Father Paul at the Franciscan Friary.’
‘Do not worry,’ said Bartholomew softly, disengaging himself from the agitated Carmelite and easing him back on to the bench. ‘We will look for it as soon as we can.’
He continued to speak in the same low voice, sensing that the sound of it was soothing the student. It was not long before the Carmelite began to sleep again. Bartholomew inspected the damage the struggle had done to the fragile stitching, and was relieved to see that it was not as bad as he had feared. Still, he realised it would make little difference eventually: the friar was dying. His life was slowly ebbing away, and there was nothing Bartholomew could do to prevent it.
Outside in the street, the Dominicans continued to lay siege to the Carmelite Friary opposite, although their voices sounded less furious and the missiles were hurled with less intensity and frequency. Bartholomew risked a quick glance out of the window, and saw that the beadles – the law enforcers employed by the University – had started to arrive, and that small groups of Dominicans were already slinking away before they were caught. There was only so long they could sustain their lust for blood when the Carmelites were safely out of sight inside their property, and common sense was beginning to get the better of hot tempers.
‘It will not be long now,’ said Bartholomew, moving away from the window and kneeling next to his patient again, where his sister still sponged the pale face. ‘The Dominicans are going home. We may yet be able to secure a Carmelite confessor to give this man last rites.’
‘He will die?’ asked Edith in a low whisper. ‘There is nothing you can do to save him?’
Bartholomew shook his head. ‘I have done all I can.’
Edith gazed in mute compassion at the friar’s face. Bartholomew did not know what to say, and was frustrated that for all his years of training at Oxford and then in Paris, his medical knowledge still could not prevent a young man from dying.
‘Richard is right,’ said Edith bitterly. ‘We always summon physicians when we are ill, but they make little difference to whether we live or not.’
‘Richard has changed,’ said Bartholomew, thinking about Edith and Oswald’s only son. ‘He is not the same lad who left for Oxford after the plague five years ago.’
‘It is good to have him home again,’ said Edith, declining to admit that her son had returned home lacking a good deal of his former charm. ‘He plans to remain here for a while, to assess the opportunities Cambridge has to offer. He says he may have to go to London, because he is a good lawyer and he wants to work on expensive land disputes and become very rich.’
‘He said that?’ asked Bartholomew, startled by the young man’s blunt materialism. He felt for the friar’s life-beat again. ‘I do not know why he wants to stay here anyway; he has done nothing but criticise everything about Cambridge ever since he returned.’
Edith did not reply, but Bartholomew sensed that she was as unimpressed by her son’s behaviour as was Bartholomew. Richard had gone to the University of Oxford to study medicine, but had returned with a degree in law instead, claiming that a legal training would provide him with the means to make more money than a medical one. Although he disapproved of Richard’s motives, Bartholomew knew the young man was right. Since the plague, there was work aplenty for those who were able to unravel the complexities of contested wills and property disputes arising from the high number of sudden deaths.
His lessons in legal affairs had done nothing to improve Richard’s character, however. Although he could hardly say so to Edith, Bartholomew had preferred the cheerful, ebullient seventeen-year-old who had set off determined to learn how to heal the sick, than the greedy twenty-two-year-old who had returned.
‘The streets are almost clear,’ he said, glancing out of the window and then resting his hand on the Carmelite’s forehead. ‘I will leave in a few moments to fetch a confessor. Will you stay with him?’
‘Of course,’ said Edith immediately. ‘This poor boy can remain here as long as necessary. Oswald will not mind.’
‘He will,’ said Bartholomew, imagining his brother-in-law’s disapproval. ‘He will not be pleased to return from his business meeting to learn that I endangered his wife by bringing an injured Carmelite to her, or to see that his panes have been smashed by vengeful Dominicans.’
He edged nearer the window, so that he could see into the muddy road below. There were definitely fewer dark-robed Dominicans in Milne Street now, and he wished the remainder would hurry up and return to their own quarters on Hadstock Way.
‘Look at him, Matt,’ said Edith softly, sponging the hands of the injured Carmelite. ‘He is about the same age as Richard.’
Bartholomew glanced down at his patient and saw that she was right. He had barely noticed the man’s face. When he had first caught sight of the wounded student, clutching his stomach in a spreading stain of blood, all Bartholomew’s attention had been taken with brandishing a hefty pair of childbirth forceps at the surrounding Dominicans and dragging the injured friar to the nearest safe haven. Then, once they had reached Stanmore’s property, Bartholomew had concentrated on tending the wound and ducking the splinters of glass.
For the first time, he studied the friar. He had a pleasant face, with a mouth that turned up at the corners, although already it had the waxy sheen of death about it. His fingers were deeply ink-stained, suggesting that he spent at least some of his time studying or scribing, rather than wandering the town with his classmates looking for Dominicans or Franciscans to taunt or attack. His hair was light brown and smelled clean, and his habit, although blood-soaked and marked with the signs of a scuffle, was neat and showed evidence of recent brushing. Here was no lout, but a man who took care over his personal appearance. The only unusual thing about him was the pale yellow sticky residue on one of his hands. It looked like some kind of glue, although Bartholomew had never seen anything quite like it before. He supposed it was some new import from Spain or France. Such items were becoming common again now that people were recovering from the impact of the plague and trade was resuming.
‘I wonder what was in his scrip that was so important to him,’ mused Edith. The sound of her voice pulled the physician from his reverie. ‘Whatever it was, he considered it more vital than telling you the names of the men who stabbed him.’
‘Perhaps he did not know them,’ said Bartholomew. He glanced out of the window again. ‘If I leave my Michaelhouse tabard here and borrow that cloak of Oswald’s, I should reach the Carmelite Friary unmolested–’
‘Matt!’ whispered Edith urgently, jumping away from the Carmelite in alarm. ‘Something is wrong with him!’
Bartholomew saw the friar’s eyes roll back in his head as he began to convulse, thrashing about with his arms and legs and pulling open the sutured wound. With Edith exhorting him to do something, Bartholomew attempted to control the fit with more of his sense-dulling potions, but to no avail. Gradually, the uncontrolled twitching and shuddering grew weaker, along with the friar’s heartbeat. The student was still for a few moments, gasping raggedly while the opened wound pumped his life blood into the rugs that covered the bench. And then he simply ceased to breathe. Edith took his hand and called out to him, but the Carmelite was dead.
‘They killed him,’ she said, tears welling up in her eyes. Unlike her brother, she was unused to the presence of sudden death and it distressed her. ‘Those Dominicans murdered him.’
‘They did,’ agreed Bartholomew softly. He stood, feeling defeated. ‘I will fetch one of the Carmelites to see to him.’
‘Fetch Brother Michael first,’ said Edith unsteadily. ‘He is the Senior Proctor, and it is his responsibility to investigate University deaths. I want to see those murdering Dominicans brought to justice.’
