9
February 1349
January ended in a succession of blizzards that coated everything in white. With February came wetter, warmer weather that turned the snow into icy brown muck that seeped into shoes and chilled the feet. Bartholomew still trudged around the houses of plague victims, incising buboes where he could, but mostly doing little more than watching people die. He and Gray had visited the last of Abigny's known haunts, and then revisited his favourite ones, but had learned nothing. Philippa and Abigny seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Bartholomew heard that Stanmore's older sister, her husband, and all seven of their children were dead, while at Michaelhouse he buried Roger Alyngton, two more students, and four of the servants. Colet still sat in St Botolph's Church and drooled his days away.
Bartholomew had lain in wait for him one day, and dragged him along when he went to visit his patients hoping to shock him back to rationality — but his patients had been disconcerted, and Colet had become so distressed that Bartholomew was forced to take him home.
It was mid-afternoon, but already growing dark because of the overcast skies, when Bartholomew and Gray were met on the way home by Master Burwell, who asked them to attend a student who was dying.
Bartholomew did all he could, but the student died without regaining consciousness. Three other Bene't Hostel students were ill, and Bartholomew helped Burwell set up a separate room in which they could be cared for. It was a large room compared to the others, and Jacob Yaxley, Master of Law, who had had it to himself since the death of his room-mates, clearly resented being moved. He muttered and grumbled as his students helped him carry his books and papers to another chamber.
As they walked back to the College, Bartholomew thought he saw one body, all wrapped in its shroud, move, and went to investigate. He took his knife and slit open the crude sheet. The woman inside was still alive, although barely. Her neighbour shouted that the woman had sewn herself into the winding sheet when she knew she had the plague, because there was no one left to do it for her.
'What about you?' Bartholomew shouted.
The neighbour crossed himself quickly, and slammed the window shut. The woman muttered incoherently as Bartholomew carried her back inside.
He had heard from Michael that some people, the last surviving members of their families, were preparing themselves for burial with their dying strength but he had dismissed it as yet another plague story intended to horrify. He sat back on his heels, patting the woman's hand abstractedly, unable to stop his mind running through the dreadful outcomes of such actions: supposing the cart had come while she was still alive, and she had been smothered in earth or burned by the quicklime? He wondered if others had not already suffered that fate. The woman slipped away quietly while he was thinking, and he and Gray resewed the shroud and left her on her doorstep again.
It was dark by the time they arrived back at Michaelhouse. Bartholomew went to see his patients in the commoners' room. Jerome had recovered from the plague, but it had weakened him, and he was dying slowly from the wasting disease in his chest. As Bartholomew entered the room, he saw Father William was helping one of the Benedictine novices to sew someone into a blanket.
A quick glance around the room told him it was Nicholas, at fifteen Michaelhouse's youngest student, who looked that morning as if he might recover. Bartholomew sat heavily on a stool.
'His end was so quick that there was no time to call you,' William said. The fanatical gleam that was usually in his eyes had dulled, and he looked exhausted. 'I have listened to so many dreadful confessions that hell will soon be running out of space.'
Bartholomew wondered if the Franciscan were making a joke, but there was no humour in his face.
'Then perhaps there will be an overspill into heaven,' he replied, standing up.
William grabbed at his sleeve and pulled him down again, whispering angrily in his ear. 'That is heresy, Doctor, and I advise you against such fanciful remarks!'
'So is your belief that hell has limited space,'
Bartholomew retorted. He remembered the rumours when William had first arrived at Michaelhouse that he had been an inquisitor for the Church.
William let go of Bartholomew's sleeve. 'Do not worry,' he said, and Bartholomew saw the gleam come back into his eye as his mind ran over the implications of Bartholomew's reply. 'I will not entrap you in a theological debate. But I miss the company of Aelfrith.
There was a man with a lively mind!'
Bartholomew agreed, and wished Aelfrith were alive, so that he could confide his thoughts and feelings to him at that moment. He could have trusted Aelfrith — unlike William or Alcote or Michael — with his concerns about the plague and the College. And thinking of Michael, Bartholomew had not seen him since the previous day.
He asked if William had.
A curious expression passed over William's face.
'No,' he said. 'He has gone somewhere. He has left me with quite a burden, you know.'
Bartholomew thought it curious that Michael had told no one where he was going, but let it pass. He stood up from his stool, stretched his aching limbs, and helped William to carry Nicholas downstairs and across the courtyard to the stables. They placed the body near the door and left as quickly as possible. Bartholomew knew he would never enter the stables again without thinking about Augustus.
The following day, as he walked back along the High Street with Gray, Bartholomew felt the first huge drops of rain from a storm that had been threatening all morning. Gray hailed a student he knew, who invited them into Mary's Hostel to shelter from the worst of the rain. Like Bene't Hostel, Mary's was warm, steamy, and smelled of boiled vegetables. The student brought them spiced wine, and Bartholomew began to relax from the warmth of the fire and the effects of the wine.
He was virtually asleep when he became aware that Gary was introducing him to someone. Embarrassed, he jumped to his feet, and bowed to the scholar who was being presented to him. From Gray's words, he found it was the new Principal of Mary's, Neville Stayne.
Bartholomew had known the previous Principal quite well, but he had died of the plague before Christmas.
His successor was a man in his forties with a shock of oddly wiry black hair that seemed to want to be as far away from his scalp as possible.
Stayne gestured for him to sit again, and perched on a stool next to him, asking him about the progress of the plague in the town. After a while, Stayne brought the subject round to Giles Abigny, who, it seemed, had also spent a good deal of time at Mary's. The members of the hostel were anxious for his safety.
'Have you any idea where he might be?' asked Bartholomew, expecting the same range of speculation and unfounded rumour he had been given everywhere else.
The fire popped and crackled, and Stayne watched it for a moment before answering. 'I do not know where he is now, but I believe I saw him two nights ago in Cambridge.'
Bartholomew's stomach lurched. 'Where? What happened?'
'Well, I think I saw him coming out of the alehouse near the Dominican Friary the night before last. I had heard about him taking his sister off somewhere, and so seeing him stuck in my mind.' The Principal leaned back and closed his eyes as he tried to recall what he had seen. 'He was wearing a heavy cloak, and he turned when I called his name. Then he began to walk away from me quickly. He turned a corner, and I ran after him, but when I got there, the street was empty.' He shrugged.
'That is all, I am afraid. If asked to swear in a court of law, I would not be able to say it was definitely Giles.
But it certainly looked like him, and he did turn and then run away when I called his name. Draw your own conclusions.'
Bartholomew and Gray took their leave as soon as the rain had eased. Stayne closed the door behind them and waited. From the small chamber to one side of the hallway, Burwell emerged. The two men spoke together in low tones for a short time, and then Burwell left, his face grim.
There were two alehouses near the Dominican Friary, but no one in either could remember Giles Abigny.
