'It is already there,' said one of the men defensively.
'It is at Ely already. At least fifteen monks have died so far.'
When they had gone he walked to the churchyard and peered into the pit. It would soon be full. He and Colet had asked that a larger pit be dug, just outside the Trumpington Gate, because the cemeteries of the parish churches were too small to cope with the dead, and there was not enough available labour to dig individual graves.
Since no one knew how the plague spread, Bartholomew did not want bad humours seeping from the bodies into the river from where some people, despite his warnings, drew their drinking water. There were fields outside the Gate that were well away from the river and its ditches, and away from homes.
As he reached the gates at Michaelhouse, the porter greeted Bartholomew cautiously, a huge pomander stuffed with herbs over his mouth.
'Brother Michael asks if you will go to his room,' he said, backing away as far as possible.
Bartholomew nodded. He did not blame the man.
Perhaps Bartholomew was doing more harm than good by visiting the sick in their homes. Perhaps he was aiding the spread of the Death by carrying it in his clothes or in the air around him.
Slowly he climbed the stairs to Michael's room and pushed open the door. Brother Michael knelt next to his bed giving last rites to Father Aelfrith.
'Oh, no!' Bartholomew sank down onto a stool and waited for Michael to finish. 'When?'
'He was well enough this morning, but collapsed in the yard just as I came home,' said Michael, his voice muffled.
Bartholomew went over to the bed, and rested his hand on Aelfrith's brow. He was barely breathing, but seemed to have been spared the terrible agony that some victims went through. It was a risk, visiting the sick and giving last rites, and physicians and clerics had all known that they too might be stricken. Seeing Aelfrith so near the end reminded Bartholomew, yet again, of his own mortality. His thoughts went to Philippa, hopefully secure in the convent, and of their brief spell of happiness at the end of summer.
"I will go again to see if I can find William,' said Michael, furtively rubbing a sleeve over his eyes.
Bartholomew tried to make Aelfrith more comfortable.
He had found that stretching the arms out helped relieve pressure on the swellings, and so caused the patient less pain. He was surprised to find that Aelfrith had no swellings. He looked again more carefully, inspecting his neck and his groin. There was no trace of swelling anywhere, and none of the black spots that afflicted some victims, although there was evidence that he had been violently sick. Bartholomew hoped this was not some new variation of the plague.
Aelfrith's eyes fluttered open. He saw Bartholomew and tried to speak. Bartholomew bent closer to hear him, straining to hear the voice that was no more than a rustle of breath.
'Not plague,' he whispered. 'Poison. Wilson.'
He closed his eyes, exhausted. Bartholomew wondered whether the fever had made him delirious. Aelfrith waved his hand weakly in the air. Bartholomew took it and held it. It was cold and dry. Aelfrith's eyes pleaded with Bartholomew, who bent again to listen.
'Wilson,' he whispered again.
Bartholomew, his mind dull from tiredness and grief, was slow in understanding. 'Are you saying that Wilson poisoned you?' he asked.
Aelfrith's lips drew back from his teeth in an awful parody of a smile. And then he died. Bartholomew leaned close and smelled Aelfrith's mouth. He moved back sharply. There was an acrid odour of somethingvile, and he noticed that Aelfrith's tongue was blistered and swollen. He had been poisoned! By Wilson?
Bartholomew could not see how, because the lawyer had not left his room for days. Bartholomew sometimes saw him watching the comings and goings in the courtyard through his window, although he would slam the shutter if Bartholomew or any of the clerics so much as glanced up at him.
Bartholomew felt all the energy drain out of him as the significance of Aelfrith's death dawned on him.
Another murder! And now of all times! He thought that the plague would have superseded all the dangerous political games that had been played in the summer.
And what was Aelfrith doing in Michael's room anyway?
Had Michael poisoned him? He began to look around for cups of wine or food that Michael may have enticed Aelfrith to take, but there was nothing.
He almost jumped out of his skin as the door flew open and Michael came back with Father William in tow.
'Sweet Jesus, we are too late,' groaned Michael, visibly sagging.
'Too late for what?' asked Bartholomew, his tone sharp from the fright he had just had.
'For Father William to give him the Host,' said Michael.
"I thought you had already done that,' said Bartholomew. Surely Michael would not have poisoned the Host? He would surely be damned if he had chosen that mode of execution for one of God's priests.
"I am a Benedictine, Matt,' said Michael patiently.
'He wanted to have the last rites from one of his own Order. I looked for William, but could not find him. I gave Aelfrith last rites because he was failing fast and I thought he might die before William was back.'
Bartholomew turned his attention back to Aelfrith.
Was he being unfair to Michael? He thought back to Michael's reaction at the death of Augustus. Was Michael one of those scholars so dedicated to the future success of Cambridge that he would kill for it? Or was he one of those who wanted to see Cambridge fail and Oxford become the foremost place of learning in the land? Or had Wilson slipped out of his room in the dark and left poison for Aelfrith? Was Aelfrith telling him he should go and tell Wilson that he had been poisoned?
Bartholomew was just too tired to think properly.
Should he go to Wilson? Or would the wretched man think Bartholomew was trying to give him the plague?
Bartholomew could not blame people like Wilson, Swynford, and Alcote who hid away to save themselves. Had he not been a physician, he might well have done the same thing. The College had divided down the middle, four Fellows going among the plague victims to do what they could, and four remaining isolated. In the other colleges, the division was much the same.
He felt his mind rambling. What should he do?
Should he tell Michael and William that Father Aelfrith had been poisoned, and had not died of the plague at all? And then what? The Bishop had his hands too full with his dying monks to be able to investigate another murder. And he probably would not want to investigate it. He would order it covered up, like the others. Well, let us save the Bishop ajourney, then, thought Bartholomew wearily. He would say nothing. He would try to see Wilson later, and he would try to question Michael. He wondered why someone had gone to the trouble of committing murder now of all times, when they could all be dead anyway by the following day.
Michael and William had wrapped Aelfrith in a sheet while Bartholomew had been thinking, and together they carried him down the stairs. Bartholomew followed them.
What should he do about Aelfrith's burial? He had not died of the plague and so there was no reason why he should be put in the plague pit. He decided to ask Cynric to help him dig a grave in St Michael's churchyard.
The stable was being used as a temporary mortuary in which dead College members awaited collection by the plague carts. Bartholomew saw that there were already two others there, and closed his eyes in despair.
'Richard of Norwich and Francis Eltham,' said Michael in explanation.
'Not Francis!' exclaimed Bartholomew. 'He was so careful!' Eltham had been like Wilson and had shut himself in his room. His room-mates had left Cambridge, so he had been alone.
'Not careful enough,' Michael said. 'This Death has no rhyme nor reason to it.'