Before he could be throttled, Bartholomew quickly undid the clasp and slipped out of his cloak, leaving the startled porter with a handful of cloth. More determinedly than ever, he began to walk towards the hall again, aware that several students had emerged from their rooms and were watching the scene in the courtyard with nervous interest.
‘I have come to see Master Heltisle,’ he shouted to them. ‘Please fetch him.’
Osmun lunged, and Bartholomew deftly side-stepped him, so that the burly porter staggered and all but lost his balance. Seeing his comrade in difficulties, a second porter emerged from the lodge. Like Osmun, he was thickset and heavy featured, and wore the ugly striped hose and ridiculous blue cap that were the uniform of the Bene’t servants. Osmun had supplemented his with the peculiarly patterned tunic in which his cousin Justus had died, while at his waist hung Justus’s blunt dagger – although even that could cause a serious injury. The physician began to have second thoughts about his moral stand as the pair of them began to advance on him.
‘The Senior Proctor will not be pleased to hear that you laid hands on his agent,’ he blustered, backing away.
‘You are on Bene’t property,’ snarled Osmun, snatching at Bartholomew and missing again. ‘What I do to you here is none of the Senior Proctor’s business.’
‘And this is how you represent your College, is it?’ demanded Bartholomew. ‘By attacking Fellows of the University and disregarding the authority of the Senior Proctor?’
‘The Senior Proctor is not here, is he?’ said Osmun with a cold smile. ‘And the authority in Bene’t is me. What I say goes, and those who do not believe me must learn the hard way.’
‘Like the Fellow you fought last Saturday?’ asked Bartholomew, recalling Michael’s beadle telling of Osmun’s arrest for riotous behaviour. ‘Is that what you were doing? Teaching him a lesson?’
‘Maybe,’ said Osmun. ‘I spent a night in the proctors’ prison, but that miserable Henry de Walton learned something of College rules, so it was worthwhile.’
Bartholomew recalled that it was Henry de Walton whom Adela had described as a ‘snivelling little man’ who complained about the state of his health. The foppish Simeon had not liked him much either.
None of the students who ringed the courtyard had gone to fetch Heltisle, and Bartholomew realised he had been foolish to enter Bene’t College alone, when it was apparent that at least two of their number had met ends that were far from natural.
‘De Walton now does what he is told,’ said the second porter, circling Bartholomew like a dog with a cornered rat. ‘We do not tolerate Fellows who are critical, and who do not put their loyalty to the College above all else.’
The notion that Fellows at Bene’t were not permitted to express themselves freely sounded sinister to Bartholomew. Was that how Michaelhouse would be under Runham? Would Clippesby be the equivalent of Osmun, listening at doors to see whether his colleagues were voicing discontent, and meting out physical punishment to those who spoke out against him?
His thoughts had distracted him, and he did not move quickly enough to avoid Osmun’s sudden lunge. With an expression of intense satisfaction, the porter found himself in possession of a handful of the physician’s tabard. Bartholomew tried to struggle free, but Osmun was not about to let him go a second time.
‘I have him, Ulfo!’ he shouted, as the second porter darted to his assistance. ‘It does not take two Bene’t porters to rid the College of a worm like this.’
‘Osmun! What is all this unseemly skirmishing in our courtyard?’
With relief, Bartholomew glanced behind him to see the Master of Bene’t College standing there. Heltisle was a tall, handsome scholar with the easy confidence of a man born to power and wealth. He had been a clerk on the King’s Bench before he had forsaken law for academia, and was apparently a man destined for great things in the University, and perhaps beyond. One of his Fellows, a small, sharp-eyed man with stained teeth and a blotched complexion, hovered at his side, watching the spectacle in front of him with disapproval.
‘This man was trying to break into our College,’ said Osmun sullenly, before Bartholomew could reply. ‘Me and Ulfo were just throwing him out.’
‘His tabard suggests he is a Fellow from Michaelhouse,’ said the Fellow who stood with Heltisle. His voice had the soft burr of a local man. ‘You are right, Osmun: we want none of that filth in Bene’t. Get rid of him.’
With malicious vindictiveness, Osmun and Ulfo began hauling Bartholomew towards the gate. Bartholomew was not aware of particular ill-feeling between the two Colleges – other than the usual suspicion and rivalry that characterised any relationship between most academic institutions – and did not understand why the mention of Michaelhouse should evoke such a hostile reaction.
‘Wait,’ commanded Heltisle, striding forward to inspect Bartholomew as though he were a pig in a market. ‘Do you not recognise this man, Caumpes? He is Matthew Bartholomew, one of the two physicians who attended Raysoun when he fell from the scaffolding …’
‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew, trying to pull free of the porters. ‘Osmun summoned me on the advice of Master Lynton. I am sorry I was unable to do anything to save Raysoun.’
Heltisle regarded him curiously. ‘I am sure you did your best on that score. But you did not allow me to finish what I was going to say. After Raysoun died, both you physicians registered complaints with the Sheriff about the state of our scaffolding. You told him it was dangerous.’
Lynton had said he would do just that, Bartholomew recalled, and the fact that some of the scaffolding had already been dismantled suggested that Sheriff Tulyet had acted on it. If Heltisle had been informed that two physicians had voiced objections, then Lynton must have added Bartholomew’s name to strengthen his cause.
‘At the time, we thought the complaint was made out of concern for us and for public safety,’ Heltisle went on coldly. ‘But now we know the truth, and it has nothing to do with the well-being of anyone except the scholars of Michaelhouse.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘The only reason you complained to the Sheriff was so that you could poach our builders to work for you instead,’ answered Caumpes bitterly.
‘What?’ exclaimed Bartholomew, horrified. ‘I have poached no builders …’ But Runham might well have done, he realised suddenly. With a shock, he guessed exactly where some of the dismantled scaffolding had been re-erected, and why Michaelhouse’s had such a used look about it. It also explained why Runham was able to recruit so many workmen in such a short period of time – he had simply gone to an existing building site and offered the men wages that they could not afford to decline.
With a sinking heart, Bartholomew saw he should have guessed how Michaelhouse’s army of builders had been raised. There was Robert de Blaston, the carpenter, for a start. Bartholomew had known he was working for Bene’t, because at Matilde’s house Yolande had related how her husband said Raysoun was a drunk, given to clambering on the Bene’t scaffolding to seek out shirkers. And then Bartholomew had seen Robert de Blaston at Michaelhouse: it was he who had overheard Clippesby mention the big chest of gold Runham had gathered to pay the workmen’s wages. Blaston had been working at Bene’t, and Michaelhouse had poached him, just as Heltisle and Caumpes were claiming.
‘You have no answer, do you?’ asked Heltisle softly, as he hesitated. ‘You know you have done Bene’t a grave disservice, and you have no excuse to make.’
‘It was clever of you,’ added Caumpes. ‘First you urge the Sheriff to impose new safety measures on our workforce, hampering the speed of their progress, and irritating and frustrating them so that they are ripe for rebellion; and then you offer them new jobs at higher wages.’