Michael was not standing helplessly in the doorway like some dim-witted maiden but was hurling anything that came to hand at Edred.
While the friar's attention strayed, Bartholomew leapt at him, catching him in a bear-like grip around the legs.
Edred tried to struggle free, dropping the sword as he staggered backwards. Michael continued his assault and Bartholomew could hear nothing but smashes and grunts.
Suddenly, Edred collapsed.
Bartholomew squirmed to free himself from Edred's weight. Michael came to his aid and hauled the unresisting friar to his feet. Edred's knees buckled and Michael allowed him to slide down the wall into a sitting position.
Bartholomew scrambled across the floor to where Cynric lay.
The Welshman's eyes were half open and a trickle of blood oozed from the wound on the back of his skull.
Bartholomew cradled him in his lap, holding a cloth to staunch the bleeding.
'So, I am to die from a coward's blow,' Cynric whispered, eyes seeking Bartholomew's face. 'Struck from behind in the dark.'
'You will not die, my friend,' said Bartholomew. 'The wound is not fatal: I have had recent personal experience to support my claim.'
Cynric grinned weakly at him and closed his eyes while Bartholomew bound the cut deftly with clean linen, praying it was not more serious than it appeared.
'Matt!' came Michael's querulous voice from the other side of the room. Bartholomew glanced to where the monk knelt next to Edred.
'I have killed him,' Michael whispered, his face white with shock. 'Edred is dying!'
Bartholomew looked askance. 'He cannot be, Brother.
You have just stunned him.'
'He is dying!' insisted Michael, his voice rising in horror. 'Look at him!'
Easing Cynric gently on to the floor, Bartholomew went to where Michael leaned over the prostrate friar. A white powder lightly dusted Edred's black robe and the smell of it caught in Bartholomew's nostril's sharply. The powder was on the friar's face too, it clung to the thin trail of blood that dribbled from a cut on his cheek and stuck around his lips. Bartholomew felt for a life-beat in the friar's neck and was startled to feel it rapid and faint.
Puzzled, he prised open Edred's eyelids and saw that the pupils had contracted to black pinpricks and that his face and neck were covered in a sheen of sweat.
'Do something, Matt!' said Michael desperately. 'Or I will have brought about his death! Me! A man of the cloth, who has forsworn violence!'
The noise of the affray had disturbed those scholars whose rooms were nearby and they clustered around the door as Bartholomew examined Edred. Gray and Bulbeck were among them, and he ordered them to remove Cynric to his own room, away from the strange white powder that seemed to be killing Edred. He grabbed the pitcher of water that stood on the window-sill and washed the powder from the cut on Edred's face and from his mouth.
The friar was beginning to struggle to breathe.
'What is happening? What have you done?' Roger Alcote, still a little pale from the aftermath of the Founder's Feast, forced his way through the scholars watching at the doorway, and stood with his hands on his hips waiting for an answer.
'I threw a jar,' said Michael shakily, backing away from where Edred was labouring to breathe. 'It struck him full in the face and broke, scattering that powder everywhere.' He turned on Bartholomew suddenly. 'What was it? Why do you keep such deadly poisons lying so readily to hand?'
'I do not,' protested Bartholomew. He went to considerable trouble to keep the few poisons he used under lock and key in his storeroom. He shook his head in disbelief.
'The powder is oleander, judging from its smell. I keep a small quantity locked in the chest in the storeroom but I used the last of it several days ago.'
'So where did it come from?'
Bartholomew ignored Michael's question. More important at that moment was that he did not understand why Edred was reacting to the poison so violently. Edred's breathing was becoming increasingly shallow, and Bartholomew forced his fingers to the back of the friar's throat to make him vomit. He doubted whether it would help, since the oleander had also entered the friar's body through the cut in his head and had probably been inhaled when the jar had smashed, but he had to try. He dispatched Michael to fetch the charcoal mixture he had used successfully against oleander poisoning — although admittedly a very mild dose — in the past, and forced Edred to swallow it. But it was all to no avail. Bartholomew felt the friar's heartbeat become more and more rapid, and then erratic. He tried to ease him into positions where the student might be able to breathe more readily, but he was fighting a lost battle.
'Matt! He is dying!' pleaded Michael. 'Do something else! Make him walk. Let me fetch eggs and vinegar.
That worked with Walter last year.' Without waiting for Bartholomew's reply, he thrust himself through the silent group of watching scholars at the door and they heard him puffing across the yard towards the kitchens.
Bartholomew stood and turned to face them. 'It is too late.'
'How did this happen?' asked Master Kenyngham, shocked. 'Who is he? And what is he doing in our College?'
Bartholomew wondered how he could begin to explain, but at that moment Michael returned, his hands full of eggs and a pitcher of slopping vinegar. He sagged when he saw Edred's half-closed eyes and waxen face.
'Is he dead?' he asked hoarsely.
Bartholomew nodded. 'Oleander is a powerful poison.
There was nothing I could do.'
Alcote elbowed him out of the way to look at Edred. 'I wonder you ever have any patients, Matthew. You always seem to be losing them. First Mistress Fletcher, and now this friar.'
Bartholomew flinched. While he had a better rate of success with his cures than most of his colleagues, he was only too aware that there were diseases and injuries when a patient's demise was inevitable, no matter what treatment he might attempt. Knowing that his skills and medicines were useless in such cases was the part of being a physician he found most difficult part to accept.
'You did not even consult his stars,' Alcote was saying, kneeling next to the dead man, and preparing to give him last rites.
'He had no time,' Kenyngham pointed out, rallying to Bartholomew's defence. 'It all happened rather quickly.
And how could the man answer questions about his birth- date anyway, when he lay fighting for his last breath?'
Alcote declined to answer, and traced vigorous crosses on Edred's forehead, mouth and chest. The sudden movement created a puff of the white dust and Alcote raised his hand to his mouth as he prepared to cough.
Bartholomew leapt forward and dragged him away.
'Wash your hands, Roger,' he said firmly. 'Or you will be discovering first-hand how my medical skills cannot save a man from poisoning.'
Colour drained from Alcote's face and he scurried hastily from the room to act on Bartholomew's advice.
Kenyngham ushered everyone out and closed the door behind him.
'There is nothing more to see,' he said to the still-curious scholars. 'Go back to your chambers. Fathers William and Aidan will pray for this man's soul.' He watched them disperse to do his bidding and turned to Bartholomew. 'It is clearly not safe to be in your room with that white poison floating around, so we will deal with the friar's earthly remains in the morning when we can see what we are doing. '
Bartholomew leaned against the door wearily, wondering what nasty turn the investigation would take next, and whether he and Michael would live to tell the tale. Meanwhile, Michael was trying to explain to Kenyngham what had happened. The placid Gilbertine listened patiently to Michael's brief summary of his inquiries into the death of Kenzie and the involvement of Lydgate, but refused to allow the monk to dwell too deeply on the details of Edred's death. He took the distressed Benedictine firmly by the shoulder.
