'There are scars on her face. She will not let anyone see them, and she refuses to speak to anyone. She wears a veil all the time, and they have to leave her food outside the door… where are you going?'
Bartholomew was already at the door, drawing his hood over his head. 'Can I borrow a horse?' he said.
Stephen grabbed his arm. 'This is difficult for me to say, Matt, but she specifically asked that you not be allowed to see her. She does not want to see anyone.'
Bartholomew shook him off. 'I am a physician.
There may be something I can do.'
Stephen grabbed him again. 'She does not want you to go, Matt. She left a note saying that you were not to come. No one has seen her for the past week.
Leave her. In time she will come round.'
'Can I borrow a horse?' Bartholomew asked again.
'No,' said Stephen, maintaining his grip.
'Then I will walk,' said Bartholomew, pushing him away and striding out into the yard. Stephen sighed, and shouted for an apprentice to saddle up his mare.
Bartholomew waited in silence, while Stephen chattered nervously. 'Richard is back,' he said. Bartholomew relented a little, and smiled at Stephen.
'Thank God,' he said softly. 'Edith must be so happy.'
'As a monk in a brothel!' said Stephen grinning.
The apprentice walked the horse over and Bartholomew swung himself up into the saddle. Stephen darted into his house and returned with a long blue cloak. 'Wear this, or you will freeze.'
Bartholomew accepted it gratefully. He leaned down to touch Stephen lightly on the shoulder, and was gone, kicking the horse into a canter that was far from safe on the narrow streets.
Once out of the town, he had to slow down out of consideration for Stephen's horse. The road to Trumpington had been well travelled, and the snow had been churned into a deep slush. The weather was warmer than it had been before Christmas, and the frozen mud had thawed into a mass of cold, oozing sludge. The horse slipped and skidded, and had to be urged forward constantly. Bartholomew was beginning to think he would have to lead it, when the path became wider, and he was able to pick his way around the larger morasses.
He tried not to think about what he might encounter when he reached Edith's house. He thought, instead, of Gray's amazement when he discovered that Bartholomew did not own a horse. He wondered, not for the first time since his recovery, whether Gray was the kind of person he wanted to teach.
Bartholomew knew that he owed Gray his life. It was doubtful whether Bartholomew would have recovered without Gray's clumsy surgery and constant care. The student had taken quite a risk in lancing the swellings himself; he had not done it before, and had only seen Master Roper do it once. Bartholomew would bear the scars of Gray's inexperience for the rest of his life.
But Bartholomew remained unsure of Gray. He did not like the fact that it had been Gray who had been sent to bring him to meet Philippa, and did not like the feeling of being in debt to the flippant young man. In fact, he did not like Gray. He was confident to the point of arrogance, arid was perpetually estimating how much each patient should pay as opposed to how much Bartholomew charged. Bartholomew's charges usually fell short of the cost of the medicines, and he was constantly aware of Gray's disapproving presence in the background. It was like having Wilson with him.
At last he reached the village and Edith's house.
Richard came racing out to meet him, and Bartholomew was almost knocked off his feet with the force of the embrace. Richard was only seventeen, but was already almost as tall as Bartholomew. Richard chattered on in his excitement, forgetting the dignity, as befitting an undergraduate at Oxford, that he had been trying to cultivate.
Bartholomew listened, Richard's descriptions bringing back vivid memories of his own time in Oxford.
Edith hurried out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron before giving him a hug, and Stanmore came to slap him on the shoulders.
'Matt, you look thin and pale,' Edith said, holding him at arm's length. She hugged him again. 'It was horrible,' she whispered, so that only he could hear.
'We heard you were ill, and there was nothing we could do. I was so afraid for you.'
'Well, I am fine now. But you have been ill, too?'
Edith waved a hand dismissively. 'A couple of days in bed, that is all. But you should not have come.' Her face grew fearful, and she clung onto his arm. 'We told Stephen not to tell you,' she said.
'My lord, Matt! What on earth have you been doing with Stephen's horse?' Stanmore, for whom horses were a passion, was looking in horror at the bedraggled, mud-spattered mare.
Bartholomew groaned. He had not realised what a state the horse was in. 'Stephen will have my hide. Can you clean it up?'
Richard went off with the stable boy to supervise, and Bartholomew followed his sister and her husband into the house. Once away from Richard, all three grew serious. Edith explained how she had gone to check on Philippa immediately after Bartholomew had left, and had found her feverish. Edith had become ill the same night, and the three servants by the following day. The fever had not seemed as intense as that of some of the plague victims, but had included a rash of black spots.
Edith showed Bartholomew some faint pink marks on her arm.
Philippa's spots had been mainly on her face.
She had asked Edith for a veil, and since then had locked herself in her room. That had been seven days before. Edith had spent many hours trying to get her to unlock the door, but she had eventually refused even to speak.
Bartholomew stood. 'She will not see you, Matt,' said Edith. 'She left a note that you specifically should not come to see her. Poor girl. I cannot imagine that she can be so badly scarred.'
Neither could Bartholomew. At least, not so badly scarred that he would not still want her. He thought of Colet. What terrible things this pestilence was doing to people's minds. He gave his sister the faintest of smiles before making his way up the stairs to Philippa's room.
Edith did not try to stop him; she knew him too well.
At the back of her mind lingered the hope that the sound of his voice might serve to pull Philippa out of her depression.
He stood outside the door for a few moments before knocking. There was a rustle from inside the room, and then silence.
'Philippa?' he called softly. 'It is Matthew. Please open the door. There is no cause to be afraid.'
There was silence. He knocked again.
'Philippa. If you open the door and talk to me, I promise I will not try to touch you or look at you,' he called. 'Just give me a few moments with you.'
There was nothing. Bartholomew sat on the chest that was in the hallway and reflected. He would not have normally considered invading someone's privacy, but he wondered whether Philippa's mind, somehow affected by her illness, might mean that she was unable to look after herself properly. If this were the case, then she needed help, even though she might not know it herself.
Edith had married Stanmore when she was eighteen, and had come to live in Trumpington. Bartholomew had been eight, and whenever he had been permitted out of the abbey school in Peterborough, he had come to stay in Edith's rambling house. He knew every nook and cranny, and also knew that the lock on the door, behind which Philippa hid, was faulty. He knew that a sharp stick in the right place would open the door in an instant because he had played with the lock on many a wet afternoon as a boy.
He decided to try once more. 'Philippa. Why will you not answer me? Just let me talk to you for a few moments, and I promise to leave when you ask.'
There was no sound at all, not even a rustle.
Bartholomew was worried, and was sure that there must be more wrong with her than a few scars. He took a sharpened piece of metal that was part of his medical equipment, and pushed it into the lock the way he had done so many years before with a stick.
He had not lost his touch, and the door sprung open with ease.
Philippa jumped violently as he took a step towards her, and Bartholomew stopped. She huddled on the bed,
