The Franciscans paused in their debate and looked at Bartholomew disapprovingly.
'Hush!' Bartholomew chided Abigny. 'She is in the care of Agatha, and not secreted anywhere.'
Abigny laughed, and draped his arm round Bartholomew's shoulders. Bartholomew pulled away as wine fumes wafted into his face. 'I wish I were a physician and not a philosopher. What better excuse to be in a woman's boudoir than to be leeching her blood.' 'I do not leech the blood of my patients,' said Bartholomew irritably. They had been down this path before. Abigny loved to tease Bartholomew about his unorthodox methods. Bartholomew had learned medicine at the University in Paris from an Arab teacher who had taught him that bleeding was for charlatans too lazy to discover a cure.
Abigny laughed again, his cheeks flushed pink with wine, but then leaned closer to Bartholomew. 'But you and I may not be long for our free and easy lives if our new Master has anything to say. He will have us taking major orders as he and his two sycophants over there plan to do.'
'Have a care, Giles,' said Bartholomew nervously.
He was acutely aware that the students' conversation at the nearest table had stopped, and Bartholomew knew that some of the scholars were not above telling tales to senior College members in return for a lenient disputation, or spoken exam.
'What will it be for you, Matt?' Abigny continued, ignoring his friend's appeal for discretion. 'Will you become an Austin Canon and go to work in St John's Hospital? Or would you rather become a rich, fat Benedictine, like Brother Michael here?'
Michael pursed his lips, but humour showed in his eyes. Like Bartholomew, being the butt of Abigny's jokes was nothing new to him.
Abigny blundered on. 'But, my dear friend, I would not want you to take orders with the Carmelites, like good Master Wilson. I would kill you before I would let that happen. I…'
'Enough, Giles!' Bartholomew said sharply. 'If you cannot keep your council, you should not drink so much.
Pull yourself together.'
Abigny laughed at his friend's admonition, took a deep draught from his goblet, but said no more.
Bartholomew sometimes wondered about the philosopher's behaviour. He was fair and fresh-faced, like a young country bumpkin. But his boyish looks belied a razor-like mind, and Bartholomew had no doubt that if he dedicated himself to learning he could become one of the foremost scholars in the University. But Abigny was too lazy and too fond of the pleasures of life.
Bartholomew thought about Abigny's claim. Most Cambridge masters, including Bartholomew, had taken minor holy orders so that they were ruled by church law rather than secular law. Some, like Brother Michael and the Franciscans, were monks or friars and had taken major orders. This meant that they could not marry or have relations with women, although not all monks and friars in the University kept these vows as assiduously as they might.
As a boy, Bartholomew had been educated at the great Benedictine Abbey at Peterborough, and, as one of their brightest students, had been expected to take his vows and become a monk. His sister and brother-in-law, acting in loco parentis, had other ideas, and a marriage was planned that would have benefited their cloth trade.
Bartholomew, however, had defied them both, and had run away to Oxford and then Paris to study medicine.
Since leaving Peterborough, Bartholomew had not given a monastic vocation another thought, other than taking the minor orders that would protect him from the rigours of secular law. Perhaps, a few months ago, the prospect of never having a relationship with a woman would not have mattered, but Bartholomew had met Philippa Abigny — Giles's sister — and was not at all sure that a vow of chastity was what he wanted.
The evening dragged on, speeches were made, and the candles gradually dipped lower in their silver holders.
The guests began to leave. First the Bishop made his exit, sweeping out of the hall in his fine robes, followed as ever by his discreet chain of silent, black-robed clerics.
The Chancellor and the Sheriff left together, and Bartholomew wondered what they had been plotting All evening. Edith, Bartholomew's sister, earned a nasty look from Wilson when she kissed her brother on the cheek and whispered an invitation to dine with her and Sir Oswald the following day.
The noise level in the hall rose as more wine was consumed, especially by the students and the commoners.
Bartholomew began to grow drowsy, and wished Wilson would leave the feast so he could go to bed. It would be considered bad manners for a Fellow to leave the high table before the Master, and so Bartholomew waited, struggling to keep his eyes open and not to go face down in his food like Francis Eltham.
He watched expectantly as Alexander, the College Butler, made his way to Wilson, hoping that some urgent College business might draw him from the hall, so that the Fellows might leave. Wilson spun round in his chair to gaze at Alexander in shock. He then looked at Bartholomew, and whispered in the Butler's ear. Alexander nodded, and moved towards the physician.
'Begging your pardon, sir,' he began softly, 'but it is Master Augustus. I think he is dead.'
2
Bartholomew stared up at Alexander in disbelief. He half suspected a practical joke by Abigny, but realised that even Abigny's sometimes outrageous sense of humour would not allow him to stoop to such a prank.
'What happened?' he asked hoarsely.
Alexander shrugged, his face pale. 'I went to take him and Brother Paul some wine, since Master Wilson thought they were too ill to attend the feast.'
Bartholomew grimaced. Wilson did not want Augustus at the feast because he was afraid the old man's ramblings might embarrass him. I went to Brother Paul first, but he was already asleep. Then I went in to Augustus. He was lying on his bed, and I think he is dead.'
Bartholomew rose, motioning for Brother Michael to go with him. If Augustus were dead, then Michael would anoint the body and say prayers for his soul, as he had for the two men outside the College gates.
Although Michael was a monk and not a friar — and would therefore not usually have been authorised to perform priestly duties — he had been granted special dispensation by the Bishop of Ely to give last rites and hear confessions. This was because, unlike the Franciscan and Dominican friars, Benedictine monks were scarce in Cambridge, and the Bishop did not want his few monks confessing their sins to rival Orders.
'What is going on?' panted Michael, as he hurried to keep up with Bartholomew. Michael was a man who loved his food, and, despite Bartholomew's advice to moderate himself for the sake of his health, he was grossly overweight. A sheen of sweat glistened on his face and soaked into his lank brown hair just from the exertion of leaving the hall so quickly.
'Alexander says Augustus is dead,' Bartholomew replied tersely.
Michael stopped abruptly, and gripped Bartholomew's arm. 'But he cannot be!'
Bartholomew peered at Michael in the darkness of the courtyard. His face was so deathly white that it was almost luminous, and his eyes were round with horror.
'I went to see him after I had finished with those town lads,' Michael went on.' He was rambling like he does, and I told him I would save him some wine from the feast.'
Bartholomew steered Michael towards Augustus's room. 'I saw him after you, on my way to the hall. He was sound asleep.'
Together they climbed the narrow wooden stairs to Augustus's tiny chamber. Alexander was waiting outside the door holding a lamp that he passed to Bartholomew.
Michael followed the physician over to the bed where Augustus lay, the lamp and the flames from the small fire in the hearth casting strange shadows on the walls.
Bartholomew had expected Augustus to have slipped away in his sleep, and was shocked to see the old man's eyes open and his lips drawn back over long yellow teeth in a grimace that bespoke of abject terror. Death
