On several days they attended the great Stourbridge Fair, which ran for most of September and drew huge crowds of people from the countryside for miles around.
They saw fire-eaters from Spain, jugglers from the Low Countries, and jongleurs from France, who sang of deeds of daring. Men and women hawked pies, pastries, drinks of fermented apple, crudely made wooden flutes, and cloths and ribbons of all colours. The smell from roasting meat mingled with that of damp straw and horse manure.
Animals bleated and squealed, children screamed in delight, jousting knights clashed their weapons, and here and there a lone voice shouted warnings of the terrible pestilence that swept over Europe and would soon claim all whom God deemed unholy.
The threat of the coming plague cast a grim shadow over their lives. Stories came to Cambridge of settlements like Tilgarsley in Oxfordshire where every inhabitant had died, leaving behind a ghost village. A third of the population of the city of Bristol was said to have perished, and in October the first cases began to appear in London. Bartholomew spent long hours consulting his fellow physicians and surgeons about how to deal with the pestilence when it came, although the truth of the matter was that they really did not know. The town officials tried to impose some sort of control on who was allowed into the town in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading, but it was impossible to enforce, and those barred from entering merely crossed the ditches, swam the river, or hired a boat.
The first snows fell early, powdering the ground with white before the end of November, and Bartholomew saw an increasing number of elderly patients with chest troubles brought on by the cold. Then, just before term ended, he saw his first case of the plague.
It was a cold morning, with a raw wind howling from the fens, with the promise of more of the persistent drizzling rain that had been dogging Cambridge for the past three days. Bartholomew had risen at five, while it was still dark, and attended Father William's high-speed mass. Lectures started at six, and his students, perhaps sensing the role they might soon have to play, bombarded him with questions. Even Francis Eltham, whom Bartholomew doubted would ever make a physician, had joined in the lively discussion.
Lectures finished around nine, and the main meal of the day was at half-past ten. It was a Friday, and so the meal was fish, freshly baked bread, and vegetables.
Bartholomew tuned out the reading of the Bible scholar and thought about the debate on contagion in which he had just led his students. He wondered how he could convince them that there was a pattern to whom infectious diseases affected, and they were not merely visitations from God. He had risked the wrath of the clerics by refusing to allow the students to consider 'struck down by God' as a determinant for contagious disease. They had to think for themselves. 'Struck down by God' was a convenient excuse for not working out the real causes.
After the meal, all members of College were obliged to attend the midday service in St Michael's Church.
Bartholomew walked back to the College with Michael, who was grumbling about the cold.
'Right! I am away,' said Abigny, coming up behind them and slapping them both on the shoulders. 'It is too damned cold at that College. I am going over to St Radegund's, where they have warm fires to toast pretty little feet.' He raised an eyebrow at Bartholomew.
'Coming? Philippa specifically told me to ask you.'
Bartholomew smiled. 'Tell her I will come later. I have two patients to see first.'
Abigny tutted. 'But will she wait until later, Physician?
I, for one, would not wish to embrace you after you had been in those shabby hovels you like to frequent.'
'Then it is just as well you will not get the chance, Philosopher,' retorted Bartholomew.
Michael nudged him. 'Just go, man. Your patients will wait; your love might not.'
Bartholomew ignored them and went to collect his leather sack of medicines and instruments. He was in good spirits as he set off towards the Trumpington Gate, despite the bitter wind and the promise of rain. His first call was to the family of tinkers that lived near the river; the other call was on Bridge Street, near the church of the Holy Trinity, to one of Agatha's numerous relatives.
Afterwards, he could go straight to the Priory and visit Philippa while Abigny was still there, since the nuns would not allow Bartholomew to see Philippa unless she was chaperoned.
The first drops of rain were beginning to fall when he reached the tinker's house. A group of children waited for him, standing barefoot in the mud. He followed them to the ramshackle pile of wood and earthen bricks that was their home. It was cold inside, despite the fire that billowed smoke so that Bartholomew could barely see.
He knelt down on the beaten earth floor next to a child who lay in a tangle of dirty blankets, and began his examination. The child was obviously frightened, and Bartholomew found himself chattering about all manner of inane subjects to distract her. The other children clustered round, giggling at his banter.
The child was about six years old, and, as Bartholomew had thought, was suffering from dehydration resulting from severe diarrhoea. He showed the mother how to feed her with a mixture of boiled water and milk and gave her specific instructions about the amounts she should be given. He discovered that the child had fallen into the river two days earlier, and suspected that she had swallowed bad water.
The rain was falling persistently as he walked back along the High Street towards Shoemaker Row, and he was drenched by the time he reached Holy Trinity Church. It was the third time he had been soaked in a week, and he was running out of dry clothes. The only fires Wilson allowed in the College were in the kitchens and, on very cold days, in the conclave, and there was not enough room for all the scholars to dry their clothes.
Bartholomew began to invent a plan to warm stones on the hearths so that they might be wrapped round wet clothes.
The house of Agatha's cousin, a Mistress Bowman, was a small half-timbered building, with whitewashed walls and clean rushes on the floors. Mistress Bowman ushered him in fearfully.
'It is my son, Doctor. I do not know what is wrong with him, but he is so feverish! He seems not to know me!' She bit back a sob.
'How long has he been ill?' asked Bartholomew, allowing her to take his wet cloak.
'Since yesterday. It came on so fast. He has been down in London, you know,' she said, a hint of pride in her voice. 'He is a fine arrow-maker, and he has been making arrows for the King's armies in France.' "I see,' said Bartholomew, looking at her closely, 'and when did he return from London?'
'Two days ago,' said Mistress Bowman.
Bartholomew took a deep breath and climbed up the steep wooden stairs to the room above. He could hear the laboured breathing of the man before he was half-way up. Mistress Bowman followed him, bringing a candle because, there being no glass in the windows, the shutters were closed against the cold and it was dark. Bartholomew took the candle and bent down towards the man on the bed. At first, he thought his dreadful suspicions were unfounded, and that the man had a simple fever. Then he felt under the man's arms and detected the swollen lumps there like hard unripe apples.
He gazed down at the man in horror. So this was the plague! He swallowed hard. Did the fact that he had touched the man mean that he would now succumb to the disease himself? He fought down the almost overwhelming urge to move away and abandon him, to flee the house and return to Michaelhouse.
But he had discussed this many times with his fellow physician, Gregory Colet, and both had come to the conclusion — based on what little fact they could distil from exaggeration or rumour — that their chances of contracting the plague were high regardless of whether they frequented the homes of the victims. Bartholomew understood that some people seemed to have a natural resistance to it — and those that did not would catch it whether they had the slightest contact with a victim, or whether they exposed themselves to it totally.