'No goodwill come of thinking about the matter before we have made a thorough examination of the facts. You did not seek to kill this man, Michael: it was an accident.
And who can say that if you had not thrown the poison jar, this friar would not have slain Matthew? Or both of you? It seems to me he was bent upon some kind of mischief. It grieves me to see such evil in a man of the cloth, but if you are determined to be a proctor you must inure yourself to such matters.'
It was sound advice, although Bartholomew was surprised to hear it from Kenyngham, a man whose gentleness and reluctance to believe ill of anyone sometimes proved a liability to his College.
Kenyngham continued. 'It is too late and too dark to begin inquiries into this mysterious powder now.
Sleep in Michael's room tonight, Matthew. I will send a porter to inform the Chancellor of what has happened immediately.'
Bartholomew followed Michael up the creaking stairs.
Michael was strangely subdued, and Bartholomew's mind whirled with questions as he lay under the coarse blankets of his borrowed bed. What had Edred been doing? Was his confession merely an excuse to get into the College to search Bartholomew's room? What was so important that he had been prepared to kill? And perhaps more important to his own peace of mind, why had Edred died so quickly and violently from his slight exposure to the oleander powder?
When Bartholomew awoke the next morning, the room was unfamiliar. The wooden ceiling was brightly painted and the bed was lumpy. He raised himself on one elbow, and in a rush the events of the previous night came back to him. Michael snored softly in his own bed, while Gray was on another, his tawny hair poking out from under the blanket. Gray had been concerned that some of the oleander might have landed on Bartholomew and had insisted on staying with him to be on hand lest he began to show symptoms of poisoning. After all, he had added, his blue eyes wide, Master Lynton and Father Philius had full classes already, so who would teach him and his friends medicine if Bartholomew were to die? Trying not to disturb them, Bartholomew stood up as quietly as he could.
Michael, a light sleeper, woke immediately.
Bartholomew pointed to the lightening sky. 'It is time for us to be about our business,' he whispered. 'We have a lot to do today, and there may be a riot tonight.'
Michael swung his large legs off the bed and sat up with a yawn.
Their voices woke Gray, who uncurled himself and watched Bartholomew. 'I will don a mask and gloves and clean the poison from your room,' he offered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Bartholomew thanked him. 'But do not let Deynman help — he is not to be trusted around poisons for his own safety. Ask Tom Bulbeck to assist you. I suppose someone will arrange for Edred to be returned to Godwinsson today?'
Michael shook his head. 'The Master heard from de Wetherset last night after you were asleep. He recommends that Edred be buried discreetly in St Mary's churchyard. He is afraid that the death of a scholar in a college other than his own might start another riot, and I believe he is right. I do not trust Lydgate to be sensible about this and so he shall not be told. Not yet, anyway.
Master Kenyngham will call a meeting of all our scholars this morning and order that last night's events are not to be discussed outside Michaelhouse. He will appeal to their sense of College loyalty in dangerous times, and I am sure they will comply.'
'But what did Edred want?' asked Bartholomew, his bewilderment of the night before surging back to him.
'What do I have that causes people to search my room — three times now — and lure us out in the depths of the night to attack us?'
'Medicines? Poisons?' suggested Gray, who had been listening with interest to their conversation.
'I have nothing that Jonas the Poisoner, Father Philius or Hugh Lynton do not have,' said Bartholomew, 'not to mention the infirmarians at Barnwell Priory and the Hospital of St John's.'
'The rings in your sleeve?' asked Michael, ignoring Gray's look of incomprehension.
Bartholomew shook his head. 'Edred saw me take the broken ring from my sleeve in the kitchen. Why bother to look in my room when he knew where they were?'
'Do you have letters from anyone, or documents?' said Gray, racking his brains.
'Not that I can think of,' said Bartholomew. 'I have records of the treatments given to patients and of medicines dispensed. But these cannot be important to anyone but me.'
'Whatever it was, Edred was prepared to kill for it,' said Michael. 'And he died for it. Are you certain it was the oleander that killed him?' Bartholomew saw the silent appeal in his friend's eyes and looked away.
'I am afraid so. He was most definitely poisoned, and I am sure the white powder that coated him was oleander from one of the jars you threw. His symptoms matched those usual in such cases, although Edred succumbed very rapidly to the poison's effects.'
'But why do you need such a foul powder?' cried Michael, suddenly agitated. 'You are a physician, not a poisoner! And you are usually so careful with toxins.
Why did you leave this one lying so readily to hand?'
'I use a diluted form of oleander for treating leprosy,' said Bartholomew. 'It works better on some forms of the disease than other potions. But it is a very diluted form and, as I said last night, I used the last of it several days ago.'
'You ordered more oleander from Jonas the Poisoner before your stars became so sadly aligned,' said Gray helpfully-'It came yesterday while you were out. I could not lock it in the storeroom because you were out with the key, so I put it on the shelf in your chamber so it would not be lying around too obviously. But it was powerful stuff, this oleander — much more so than the stuff you usually use. It seems to me that this friar died more quickly than he would have done had he been killed with your normal-strength powder.'
At his words, Bartholomew's stomach started to churn with a sudden, vile realisation. He sat down abruptly and looked up at Michael with horrified eyes. 'The Tyler family!' he said in a whisper. 'They are related to Jonas's wife!'
'So? Are you saying that the Tyler women are trying to poison you?' asked Michael, astounded.
They may have sent me some kind of oleander concentrate, instead of the diluted powder I usually order from Jonas. It would be easy enough to do, given that they would look the same.'
Michael thought for a moment and then sighed, raising his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. 'It is possible, I suppose. They are involved in all this business somehow, through Joanna. Maybe they felt you were coming too close to the truth about her and wanted you out of the way.'
'But I take great care with powerful medicines,' said Bartholomew, thinking uncomfortably of how Eleanor had tried to dissuade him from looking any further into Joanna's death. 'I am unlikely to be poisoned by them.' 'Perhaps they did not want to kill you at all,' said Gray.
He stiffened suddenly as a thought occurred to him. 'Not me, either! I swear to you that I did not lay a finger on her! Well, perhaps a little kiss, but she was willing enough for that.'
'What is this?' asked Michael, bewildered.
'Sam escorted Eleanor home after the Founder's Feast,' said Bartholomew. 'Are you sure you did nothing to anger her? Or her mother?'
'Nothing!' cried Gray. 'Honestly! I thought she had set her sights on you but you had put her off somehow during the Feast. I was singing your praises and she told me, rather sharply, to keep them to myself. That's when I decided to make a move. Well, just a kiss. Perhaps they i wanted you to dispatch one of your patients for them.
That would make sense.'
'But I only use oleander for treating leprosy,' objected Bartholomew. 'And all the lepers I attend are poor, pathetic creatures who have long since ceased to deal with affairs outside their own community.'
'Why should the Tylers know what you use oleander for?' said Michael. 'None of them are physicians or even apothecaries.'
Bartholomew spread his hands. 'We may be wronging them terribly,' he said. He thought back to the events of the previous night. 'Did Edred say anything to you after he was stricken?' he asked, recalling Michael kneeling next to the friar as Bartholomew attended to Cynric, before Michael realised that Edred's sudden collapse was more serious than a jar breaking in his face.
