undoubtedly already watching with disapproval the presence of a woman on Michaelhouse soil. He could not take her to the hall or the conclave because they would be in use for teaching, and he was reluctant to send her away when she obviously needed his help. The only possible place for a consultation was the kitchen, where the hefty laundress Agatha could act as chaperon and preserve Frances's reputation and his own.
He ushered her across the yard towards the main building. Michaelhouse comprised several buildings, joined in a three-sided structure around a courtyard.
The south and north wings, where the scholars lived, were two-storeyed buildings. The hall linked the two wings and was a handsome house built by a merchant.
The house had been bought in 1324 by Hervey de Stanton, Edward II's Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he founded Michaelhouse, and was dominated by the elegant porch topped with de Stanton's coat of arms. A spiral staircase led from the porch to the hall on the upper floor, while a door below led to the kitchen.
Frances in tow, Bartholomew made his way through the servants scurrying to prepare the main meal of the day, to the small room where Agatha kept her linen. She sat in a chair, legs splayed in front of her, snoring loudly in the sunlight that flooded the room. Agatha was a huge woman, almost as big as Brother Michael. Women were not usually allowed to work in the University's Colleges and hostels, but Agatha was exempted since she was unlikely to attract the amorous attentions of even the most desperate scholar. As Bartholomew entered, she awoke, and looked balefully at him, and then at Frances behind. It was not the first time Bartholomew had used her services when female patients had arrived unannounced, and she said nothing as she scrubbed at her eyes and heaved her bulk into a less inelegant position.
'You can trust Agatha to be discreet with anything you might say,' he said, as Frances looked nervously at Agatha's formidable form.
Agatha smiled, revealing an array of strong yellow teeth. 'Never mind me,' she said to Frances. 'I have things to be doing, and nothing you can say to the Doctor will shock me.' 'I am with child!' Frances blurted out. Agatha's jaw immediately dropped, and the hand that was reaching for some sewing was arrested in mid air. Bartholomew was startled. Her father, who had allowed Frances a free rein since the death of her husband, would be furious; especially so since Stanmore had told Bartholomew that arrangements were already in hand to remarry Frances to a landowner in Saffron Walden, a village south-east of Cambridge.
Bartholomew collected his tumbling thoughts when he saw Frances was waiting for an answer with desperate eyes. 'I cannot help you,' he said gently. 'You must seek out a midwife to advise you about the birth. Physicians do not become involved in childbirth unless there is danger to the child or the mother.' He smiled at her reassuringly.
'And I am sure that you need have no worries on that score. You are young and healthy.'
'But I do not want it!' cried Frances. 'It will ruin me!'
Agatha, seeing the girl's tears, gave her a motherly hug.
Bartholomew looked at them helplessly. 'I can do nothing to help,' he said again. 'I can only advise you to see a midwife to secure the safe delivery of the child.' 'I want you to get rid of it for me,' said Frances, turning a tear- streaked face to Bartholomew. 'I do not want it.' 'I cannot do that,' said Bartholomew. 'Quite apart from the fact that I do not know how, it would be a terrible crime, and dangerous for you.' 'I care nothing for the danger,' cried Frances. 'My life will be worth nothing if I have it, so I have nothing to lose. You must be able to help me! I know there are medicines that can rid a woman of an unwanted child.
Of all the physicians in the town, you are the one most likely to know them, since you learned your medicine in dark and distant lands from foreign teachers.'
Bartholomew wondered if that was how all his patients saw him, endowed with knowledge of mysterious cures alien to physicians who had studied in England. 'I do not know how to make potions for such purposes,' he said, looking away from Frances and out of the window, hoping that she would not see he was lying. He did know of such a potion, and it was indeed Ibn Ibrahim who had shown him writings by a woman physician called Trotula where such remedies could be found: equal portions of wormwood, betony, and pennyroyal, if taken early, might sometimes cause the foetus to abort. He had seen it used once, but that was because the mother was too exhausted from her last birthing to manage another. Even then, Bartholomew had been confused by the ethics of the case.
'You do know!' said Frances, desperation making her voice crack. 'You must.'
'Go to a midwife,' said Bartholomew gently. 'They understand, and will help with your baby.'
'Mistress Woodman killed Hilde's younger sister,' said Frances bitterly, meeting his eyes. 'Did you know that?'
'Hilde the prostitute?' asked Bartholomew. 'The one who was killed?'
Frances nodded. 'Her sister was three months with child, and she went to Mistress Woodman, the midwife, to rid herself of it. Mistress Woodman tried to pluck the child out with a piece of wire. Hilde's sister bled to death.'
Bartholomew knew such practices occurred — many dangerous poisons were used, and if these failed, operations were attempted that invariably left the mother either dead or suffering from infection. He turned away and looked out of the window. There was no disputing that it was wrong to kill, but what if Frances went to Mistress Woodman and died of her ministrations? 'What of the baby's father?' he asked. 'Will he marry you?'
Frances gave a short bark of laughter. 'He cannot,' she said, and would elaborate no further. Bartholomew assumed the father must already be married.
'Do you have money?' he asked. Frances nodded, hope flaring in her eyes, and she showed him a heavy purse.
'You have relatives in Lincoln. Tell your father you are going to stay with them. If you can trust them, have the baby there. If not, there are convents that will help you.'
The hope in Frances's eyes faded. 'You will not help?' she said.
Bartholomew swallowed. 'Think about going away to have the child. Come to talk to me again tomorrow, but do not go to Mistress Woodman for a solution.'
Frances sighed heavily, and turned to leave. 'I will give it thought,' she said, 'and I will come tomorrow. But my mind is already made up.'
As she left, Agatha sank down in her chair. 'Poor child,' she said. 'One rash act will cost her everything, while her paramour lives on to sully another.'
'That is not fair, Agatha,' said Bartholomew. 'Frances is twenty-four years old, and has been married. She is no green maiden taken unawares.'
'But the outcome is the same,' growled Agatha. 'The woman suffers, and may even die, while the man merely selects another for his attentions. Perhaps I will tell her how to rid herself of the baby.'
'How?' demanded Bartholomew disbelievingly. Agatha never ceased to amaze him with her assertions.
'You take two parts of wormwood to one part of crushed snails, add a generous pinch of red arsenic, and grind it into a poultice. You then insert the paste into the private regions, and the babe will sicken and die.'
'And so might the mother,' said Bartholomew, cringing.
'Where did you learn such a dangerous recipe?'
Agatha grinned suddenly and tapped the side of her nose. Bartholomew wondered whether she might have made it up, but the use of wormwood was common to effect cures of women' s ailments, and crushed snails were also popular. The thought of medicines reminded him that he was supposed to be teaching. Thanking Agatha for her help, he walked quickly back through the kitchen, and up the wide spiral staircase that led to the hall on the upper floor. Father William, the dour Franciscan teacher of theology, was holding forth to a group of six or seven scholars on the doctrine of original sin, his voice booming through the hall to the distraction of the other Fellows who were also trying to teach there. Piers Hesselwell, Michaelhouse's Fellow of Law, was struggling valiantly to explain the basic principles of Gratian's Decretum to ten restless undergraduates, while Roger Alcote, probably tired of competing with William's voice, had ordered one of his scholars to read Aristotle's Rhetoric to his own class. As Bartholomew passed him on his way to the conclave at the far end of the hall, Alcote beckoned him over.
'What is the news?' he asked. 'Are these rumours true about dead friars in the chest?'
Bartholomew nodded, and tried to leave, reluctant to engage in gossip with the Senior Fellow. He was a tiny, bitter man who fussed like a hen and had a fanatical dislike of women that Bartholomew thought was abnormal.
'What House?' Alcote asked.
