Gray intervened, and Bartholomew admired his poise and confidence. 'I was just returning from Bene't's, and I saw flickering coming from the Master's room. I was worried there was a fire, so I went up the stairs and listened outside the door. I could not smell any smoke, but I could hear someone crying. He was crying with so much pain that it almost hurt to hear. I went to fetch Doctor Bartholomew, because I thought maybe the Master had lost his mind like poor Gregory Colet, and the Doctor might be able to help. Brother Michael was with him, so he came too.'
Michael took over. 'I heard no crying,' he said, 'but moaning. Then there was a crash, which must have been the Master knocking that table over, and the table had the lamp on it. We were just in time to put out the flames. It seems the Master was busy burning documents.' He held up a handful of charred remains for Alcote to see.
Alcote stepped dubiously inside the room. The floor was awash with spilled ale and wine, and cinders of Wilson's parchments lay everywhere. 'Why was he burning his documents?' he demanded. 'Why did he knock the table over? It is heavy. He could not knock it over with ease.'
'He probably fell against it,' said Bartholomew, looking up from his patient. 'He has the plague.'
Alcote gasped and shot back outside the room, fumbling for a piece of his robe with which to cover his mouth and nose. 'The plague? But that is not possible!
He has been in his room since it started and no one has touched him!'
Bartholomew shrugged. 'He has it nevertheless.
Come and look.'
Alcote shrank back further still, and disappeared into the group of students that had assembled outside.
Bartholomew rose from Wilson's bed.
'It is all over,' he said to the onlookers. 'There was a fire, but it is out now. Go back to your beds.' He nodded to Gray, indicating that he should disperse them. Alyngton and Jerome stared in horror at one of Wilson's burned feet that stuck out of the end of the bed. Jocelyn bent down to pick up one of the pieces of burned paper.
'I have heard the plague turns people's minds. Poor man. He has burned the College accounts!' He took the arms of his fellow commoners, and led them away gently.
Bartholomew wondered if Jocelyn had been a soldier, for he was remarkably unmoved by the ghoulish foot that poked out, red and blistered.
Michael closed the door and came to peer over Bartholomew's shoulder. 'How is he?' he asked.
Bartholomew bent to listen to Wilson's heart again.
It still beat strongly, but his injuries were terrible. The fire had caught the edge of his gown, and had spread quickly up to his waist before Bartholomew had been able to put out the flames. Wilson's legs were a mass of blackened flesh and bleeding blisters, and even now his toes felt hot to Bartholomew's hand. As if that were not enough, Wilson had great festering buboes under his arms, on his neck, and in his groin. One had burst, and a trickle of pus and blood dripped onto his burned legs.
'Will he live?' asked Michael, deliberately not looking at Wilson's legs.
Bartholomew moved away, so that if some part of Wilson's brain were conscious, he would not be able to hear. 'No,' he said. 'He will die before the night is over.'
Michael looked over at Wilson's still figure. 'Why did he burn the College accounts?' he asked.
'Evidence of payments to people he wished kept secret?' mused Bartholomew, without really considering the implications.
'Such payments would not be written down,'
Michael said scathingly. 'They would come out of a separate account, the records of which any sensible master would keep only in his head. These accounts,' he continued, waving a fistful of charred parchment in the air, scattering tiny cinders, 'are nothing. They are only records of the College's finances. There is nothing here to warrant burning!'
Bartholomew shrugged, and turned his attention to his patient. He guessed Michael had expected to find some documents relating to this miserable University business. Wilson lay quietly, and Bartholomew moistened his lips with the few drops of water remaining at the bottom of the pitcher. He placed a clean piece of linen over Wilson's burned legs, but saw no point in putting him through painful treatment when he was going to die in a few hours. If he regained consciousness, Bartholomew could give him medicine that would dull his senses.
Since Gray was still busy dispersing the curious scholars, Bartholomew went to his storeroom to fetch the medicine himself. Recently, he had rarely needed to use such powerful potions — he did not use it for victims of the plague because it tended to make them vomit.
He kept all such medicines in a small, locked chest at the back of the room and usually carried the key on his belt. He took it now, and leaned down impatiently when it would not fit. He turned the small chest to the light and looked in horror.
The lock on the chest was broken. Someone had prised it off completely. With a feeling of sick dread, Bartholomew opened the box and looked inside. He kept a very careful written record of these medicines, with dates, times, and amounts used. Most of the potions were still there, with one glaring exception.
Bartholomew looked in shock at the near-empty bottle where the concentrated opiate had been. Was this what had been used to kill Aelfrith? There was certainly enough missing to kill.
Bartholomew leaned over the chest, feeling sick. Was all this never going to end? Had Wilson sneaked down to Bartholomew's room in the depths of some night to steal poison with which to kill Aelfrith? If Wilson were the murderer, he did not have long to wait before he was judged for it. Feeling appalled at the pointlessness of it all, he put a few grains of the remaining white powder in a spare bottle, marked it down in his record book, and returned to Wilson.
He told Gray to find another chest in which to lock the poisons and sat next to Wilson. Michael went to fetch the accoutrements he needed to give Wilson last rites.
Bartholomew dipped a corner of a cloth into some water, and wiped Wilson's face with it. He noted that even on his deathbed, Wilson still managed to look pompous. Bartholomew tried to stop himself thinking such uncharitable thoughts, and wiped Wilson's face again; to his shock, Wilson opened his eyes.
'Rest now, Master Wilson,' he said, trying not to think about whether the man had murdered Aelfrith.
'Try to sleep.'
'Soon, I will sleep all too much,' came the whispered reply. 'Do not try to fool me, Physician. I know I have only a short while left.'
Bartholomew did not argue. He rubbed the soaking end of the cloth over Wilson's parched lips, and reached for the medicine that might give him some relief. Wilson's white hand flapped about pathetically.
'No! I want none of your medicines!' he grated. 'I have things I must say.'
'Brother Michael will be here soon,' Bartholomew said, putting the stopper back on the bottle. 'You can make your confession to him.' 'I do not want to talk to him,' said Wilson, his voice growing stronger as he spoke. 'I have things I want to say to you alone.'
Bartholomew felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and he wondered whether Wilson was about to confess to murder. Wilson's hand flapped again, and enveloped one of Bartholomew's. The Physician felt revulsion, but did not pull his hand away.
'It was me,' said Wilson. 'I fought with you in the dark on the night of Augustus's death. It was me who pushed you down the stairs.'
Bartholomew snatched his hand back. 'Then it was also you who murdered Brother Paul!' he said. 'Poor Brother Paul! Murdered while he lay defenceless on his pallet bed!'
Wilson gave an awful grimace that Bartholomew took to be a smile. 'No! You have that wrong, Physician.
You always were poor at logic. Listen to me and learn.'
Bartholomew gritted his teeth so that he would not allow his distaste for the lawyer to show.
Wilson continued wheezily. 'After I left the feast, I went back to the room I shared with Alcote. We talked for a while, and he went to sleep, as we told the Bishop the next day. But I did not sleep. Alcote was almost senseless with the amount of wine he had drunk. It was a simple thing to slip out of the room once it began to ring with his drunken snores. He woke only when Alexander came to fetch us when you had raised the alarm, and by then I was back in my bed. There was my alibi!'
He stopped speaking, and lay with his eyes closed, breathing heavily. After a few moments, Wilson opened his eyes again, and fixed Bartholomew with an unpleasant stare.
