'You must eat,' said Michael gently, 'or you will be no good to yourself or to your patients. Drink some wine, and then try some of this beef. I swear to you, Matt, it is no older than eight months, and only a little rancid.'
Bartholomew smiled. Michael was trying to cheer him up. He took the proffered piece of meat and choked some of it down. He rifled through the apples, looking for one that was not home to families of maggots. Finding one, he presented it solemnly to Michael, who took it with equal gravity and cut it in half.
'Never let it be said that Michaelhouse scholars do not share their good fortunes,' he said, presenting a piece to Bartholomew. 'When do you think this will be over?' he asked suddenly.
'The plague or the murders?' said Bartholomew.
The strong wine on his empty stomach had made him answer without thinking.
Michael stared at him. 'Murders?' he asked, nonplussed.
Understanding suddenly showed in his eyes.
'Oh no, Matt! Do not start on that! We swore an oath!'
Bartholomew nodded. He had told no one, not even his sister or Philippa, about the conversation he had had with the Bishop, despite probing of varying degrees of subtlety by Wilson, Alcote, and Michael.
'But we know the truth,' he said quietly.
Michael was horrified. 'No! No, we do not,' he insisted. 'We never will. We should not be talking of this!' He looked over his shoulder as if he expected the Bishop to be there.
Bartholomew stood up and walked over to the window, where he stood staring out into the darkness of the yard.
'But murder is murder, Brother,' he said softly. He turned to look at Michael, whose fat face still wore an expression of disbelief.
'Perhaps so,' Michael said, nervously, 'but it is over and done.'
Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. 'Is it?' he asked gently, watching Michael for any slight reaction that might betray guilt.
'Of course!' Michael snapped. 'Over and done!'
Bartholomew turned back to the window. Michael had always loved the intricate affairs of the College, and took a strange delight in the petty plays for power.
On occasions, Bartholomew and Abigny had found his persistent speculations tiresome, and had actively avoided his company. Bartholomew wondered whether his refusal to discuss them now meant that he took the Bishop's oath very seriously and really believed that the murders were over, or whether he had other reasons for maintaining his silence. Did he know that Aelfrith had been murdered? Bartholomew decided he would gain nothing by questioning Michael further, except perhaps to arouse his suspicions. If Michael did know more than he was telling, then Bartholomew would be foolish indeed to allow his suspicions to show.
Michael went to sit next to the fire in the large chair from which Agatha usually ran her domain. He shifted his bulk around until he was comfortable, stretching his feet out as if the fire were blazing. Bartholomew went back to the bench and lay flat, folding his hands over his stomach, looking up at the cobwebs on the ceiling. He would rest just a little while before going to his bed.
'Not only have I missed a good many meals,' said Michael, 'but I have been too busy to complain about my perpetually cold feet!'
'Missed meals will do you no harm, my fat monk,' said Bartholomew drowsily. It was freezing in the kitchen, and they were both wet from being out in the rain all day.
They should not lie around in the cold, but should go back to their respective beds and sleep in the warm.
'When will it end?' asked Michael again, his voice distant, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
Did he mean the plague or the murders in the College? wondered Bartholomew a second time, his thoughts beginning to tumble through his tired brain again. He asked himself why he was lying in a cold kitchen alone with someone whom he thought might know more than was safe about at least one murder.
'Why was Aelfrith in your room?' Bartholomew asked sleepily. Gradually, he was relaxing for the first time in days; it was a pleasant feeling, and he felt himself beginning to fall asleep.
'Mmm?' said Michael. 'Oh, I took him there. He collapsed in the yard. His room was locked, so I took him to mine.'
'Locked?' asked Bartholomew, now struggling to stay awake.
'Yes,' came Michael's voice from a long way off. 'I thought it was odd, too. But locked it was, and I could not get in. Perhaps one of his students saw him collapse and did not want him brought to their room.'
Bartholomew thought about that. It was possible, and he knew that Aelfrith's three Franciscan novices had been concerned that the work he was doing among the plague victims might bring the disease to them.
'When do you think this plague will end?' he asked in response, wriggling slightly to ease the ache in his back.
'When the Lord thinks we have learned,' said Michael.
'Learned what, for God's sake?' asked Bartholomew, settling down again. 'If this continues, perhaps there will be no one left to learn anything.'
'Perhaps not,' said Michael. 'But if He wanted us all to die, He would not have bothered to send the signs.'
'What signs?' Bartholomew felt his eyes begin to close, no matter how hard he struggled to keep them open. He tried to remember when he had last slept; a couple of hours two nights before? 'When the plague first started in the Far East, there were three signs,' began Michael. Bartholomew gave up on keeping his eyes open, and just listened.
'On the first day, it rained frogs and serpents. On the second day, there was thunder so loud that people hearing it were sent mad, and lightning that came as sheets of fire. On the third day a great pall of black smoke issued from the earth, blotting out the sun and all the light. On the fourth day, the plague came.
'There have been other signs too,' Michael continued after a moment. 'In France, a great pillar of fire was seen over the Palace of the Popes in Avignon. A ball of fire hung over Paris. In Italy, when the plague arrived, it came with a terrible earthquake that sent noxious fumes all over the surrounding country and killed all the crops.
Many died from famine as well as the plague.'
'There have been no such signs here, Brother,' said Bartholomew, almost asleep. 'Perhaps we are not so evil as the French or the Italians.'
'Perhaps not,' said Michael. 'Or perhaps God does not want to waste His signs on the irredeemable.'
Bartholomew woke with a start. He was cold and very stiff, and still lying on the bench. Wincing, he eased himself up, wondering why he had not gone to bed to wake warm and rested. Daylight was flooding in through the window, and there was a crackle of burning wood.
He looked behind him.
'Oh, you are awake, lazy-bones,' grunted Agatha.
'Sleeping in the kitchen indeed! Master Wilson will not be impressed.'
The kitchen had been cleaned since the previous night: the food swept away and the dead rat removed.
One of the fireplaces had been cleared out and a warm blaze replaced the cold ashes. Stiffly, Bartholomew went to sit beside it on a stool, smelling the fresh oatcakes cooking on the circular oven next to the fire. Brother Michael still slept in Agatha's chair, black circles under his eyes and his mouth dangling open. Bartholomew's suspicions of the night before seemed unreasonable.
Even if Michael had been connected with the death of Aelfrith in some way, he obviously meant Bartholomew no harm, when he could easily have dispatched him as he lay sleeping on the bench.
Bartholomew stretched himself and filched an oatcake when he thought Agatha was not looking.
The sudden movement woke Michael, who sat looking around stupidly. 'What time is it?' he asked, blinking the sleep from his eyes and rubbing his cold hands together.
'A little before eight, I would say,' said Agatha. 'Now you sit down,' she continued, pushing Michael back in his chair. 'I have made you some oatcakes — if this greedy physician has not eaten them all.'
'But I have missed Prime,' said Michael, horrified.
