‘I did not select him,’ said Bartholomew tiredly, straightening up from his inspection of the inflamed gums. ‘Una, there is a rotten tooth that needs to be pulled. Robin of Grantchester specialises in pulling teeth, or I can come to your house and do it tomorrow. You decide.’
‘She will think about it,’ said Matilde, before Una could reply.
‘She means we will see whether you are sober tomorrow,’ translated Yolande mischievously. ‘But we have a lot of business to discuss, so if you two have finished your wine, perhaps you would allow us to get on with it, or we will be here all night.’
Matilde opened the door and waited for Michael to extricate himself from the women on the bench. As soon as Michael had levered his bulk into the street and Bartholomew had followed on unsteady legs, she closed the door, plunging them into darkness.
Michael and Bartholomew began the short walk along the High Street, towards their College. Michael hailed one of his beadles, patrolling to prevent students from causing mischief in the town, to light their way with his lantern. It was raining and the streets gleamed in the faint glow of the lamp. Bartholomew raised his face to the cooling drizzle and wondered when he had last been so drunk. The thick-bellied clouds that slouched overhead seemed to roll and froth before his eyes, and the ground tipped and swayed. He promised himself that he would never touch Widow’s Wine again: it was no good for men used to watered ale.
‘You are not in Matilde’s good books,’ said Michael. ‘That will teach you to be remiss in visiting your friends. They do not like to feel that they are second best to spotty students and lancing boils.’
Michael’s beadle walked next to them, holding his lantern high so that the scholars would not trip in the treacherous potholes and fissures of the High Street.
‘All is quiet tonight,’ the beadle reported conversationally to Michael. ‘We had to pay a visit to Bene’t College earlier, though.’
‘Bene’t?’ echoed Michael immediately. ‘Why? Not another death, I hope?’
‘It might have been,’ said the beadle. ‘But we got there in time. Osmun the porter was fighting with one of the Fellows. We have him in our prison.’
‘Osmun!’ said Michael, shaking his head as they turned into St Michael’s Lane. ‘If Bene’t has any sense, they will dismiss the man before he does anything else to disgrace them. He is a lout.’
The beadle agreed. ‘None of us like him – he drinks in the King’s Head, and is always causing trouble. He is not the kind of man any respectable College would employ.’
‘It is difficult to get good staff these days,’ said Michael. ‘Labour has been scarce since the Death took so many people. I suppose Bene’t feels itself lucky to have porters at all.’
‘It should not feel itself lucky to be hampered with those porters,’ said the beadle with feeling. ‘They are the most offensive gatekeepers in the town, and no one can match them for rudeness or their love of brawling. But they are loyal, I will grant them that. They challenge anyone who utters the merest criticism of Bene’t. I heard Osmun claimed to be Justus the book-bearer’s cousin. Is that true?’
‘Why should it not be?’ asked Bartholomew.
The beadle peered at him, as if trying to tell whether the question had been asked seriously. He apparently decided it had, and his tone was condescending when he replied. ‘So that he could get Justus’s tunic and dagger. Why else?’
‘That would be a risky thing to do,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘He might be given a used tunic and a blunt dagger, but he also might have found himself obliged to bury Justus – and that would cost more than anything he was likely to inherit.’
‘Michaelhouse is obliged to do that,’ said the beadle promptly.
‘And Osmun’s claim is true anyway,’ said Michael. ‘I checked with the Master of Bene’t, who told me that Osmun brought Justus to him a year ago and asked if he might become a porter.’
‘I expect they refused because Justus was not rude enough,’ said the beadle with a chortle.
‘Bene’t did not have the funds to take on more staff, according to the Master,’ said Michael. ‘So Justus went to work for Runham at Michaelhouse instead.’
‘Working for Runham would lead me to kill myself, too,’ muttered the beadle fervently, as he stepped ahead to light the way over a particularly treacherous section of the road.
Finally they reached Foul Lane, the muddy runnel on which Michaelhouse’s main gate stood. Bartholomew’s head was pounding, and he wished he had never set eyes on the Widow’s Wine. Michael also did not look well; Bartholomew could see that his face was pale in the dim light of the beadle’s lamp.
‘This damned arm,’ muttered Michael, giving it another vigorous scratch. ‘It is driving me insane. I shall be as mad as Clippesby if it does not cease this infernal itching.’
‘Let me see,’ said Bartholomew, stopping to pull up the monk’s sleeve. He staggered slightly as he tried to focus in the feeble glow from the light.
‘Are you sure you are capable?’ asked Michael, stretching out his good arm to steady the physician. ‘I have never seen you so intoxicated.’
‘Look what you have done!’ cried Bartholomew in dismay, when he saw the red mess the monk had created with his eager fingernails.
‘You should have given me something to alleviate the itching,’ retorted Michael irritably, tugging his arm away. ‘I am not made of marble. No normal man would be able to resist such an agony of itches.’
‘If you had let it be, it would not have irritated you so,’ said Bartholomew. He rummaged in his medicine bag for a salve. ‘Let me put this on it – it should help.’
‘Will you treat me here, in the street?’ asked Michael in amusement. ‘We are only a few steps away from the College gate.’
‘I can apply ointment on self-inflicted sores just as easily here as I can in Michaelhouse,’ said Bartholomew tartly, slapping a healthy daub of the soothing plaster of betony on to the inflamed skin.
‘What is that?’ asked Michael, stiffening suddenly. Instinctively, he pulled Bartholomew away from the middle of the lane to the scrubby bushes that grew along the College’s east wall. The beadle quickly doused his lamp.
At first Bartholomew could see nothing. The familiar lane with its tall wall and great gate seemed deserted, and the town was absolutely silent. And then he saw what Michael had spotted. Someone was very slowly and carefully opening the wicket door in Michaelhouse’s front gate from the inside. A curfew was imposed by the University on its scholars, and students were not supposed to be out after dark. Needless to say many of them found inventive ways to avoid being incarcerated for the night, and it seemed Bartholomew and Michael were about to witness one such bid for freedom.
‘We are not the only ones who do not want to be in Runham’s new domain tonight,’ whispered Michael, smiling mischievously. ‘Let us hide here and see who it is. Then I will have my beadle pounce on him, and give him the fright of his life!’
There was not one escaping scholar, but two – dark-cloaked figures bundled up against the rain, who moved silently and furtively as they closed the door behind them.
‘Walter must be on duty tonight,’ remarked Bartholomew. ‘He is the one who sleeps, and the students know they can come and go as they please.’
‘Who are they, can you see?’ asked Michael, peering down the lane and chuckling to himself.
Bartholomew could not. His vision was too unsteady, the night was too dark, and all Michaelhouse scholars tended to look the same in black tabards and cloaks with hoods that covered their heads and faces. He shivered, feeling the rain soak through his clothes to form cold patches on his shoulders.