Gray winced and took a step back. "I know,' he said defensively, 'but I know how much she can have.
I watched Roper giving it out to one of his sons when he had a similar wasting disease. I measure it out and put it in little packets for Emelda to give her.'
'Oh, lord!' groaned Bartholomew. 'What have I done to deserve a student like this?' He looked at Gray.
"I suppose you knew my supply was running low, and that I have been wondering where it had gone, and that is why you have chosen now to tell me?'
The answer was in the way Gray hung his head and refused to meet his eyes.
Bartholomew began walking again. Gray followed.
On the one hand Bartholomew was relieved that his medicines had not been the cause of Aelfrith's death; on the other hand, he was disturbed that Gray had stolen such a powerful drug from him and prescribed it to someone.
'You are a disreputable rascal, Gray. You lie and steal, and I cannot trust you. We will go to Jonas now, together, and replenish my stocks of this wretched stuff.
Then will measure it out for your mother, and we will go together and discuss with Emelda what else we can do to make your mother's life more bearable. Medicine is not just giving out potions, you know. There are many other things that can be done to effect a cure or to relieve symptoms.'
Detecting that a lecture was about to begin, Gray skipped a little to catch up to him to listen properly. He would need to work hard to gain the trust of his teacher, but at least he knew Bartholomew was prepared to allow him to try.
Bartholomew, meanwhile, glanced at Gray walking beside him — a liar and a thief. He could not possibly confide in the student, and, excluding his family, there was not a single person left in the world whom he could trust.
It was dusk by the time Bartholomew and Gray arrived back at Michaelhouse. The rain had turned the beaten earth of the yard into a quagmire, and the honey-coloured stones of the buildings looked dismal and dirty in the fading light. Like a skull, Bartholomew thought suddenly, and the windows and doors were like eyeless sockets and broken teeth. He pinched himself hard, surprised at his morbid thoughts; he was becoming preoccupied with death.
As if to reinforce his thoughts, Father William emerged from the staircase leading to the plague room.
He was dragging something behind him, a long shape sewn into a blanket. Bartholomew went to help.
'Who is it?' he asked, taking a corner of the blanket and helping William to haul it through the mud. He wondered what he would have thought of this manhandling of the body of a colleague before the plague had struck and inured him to such things.
'Gilbert,' said William shortly, oblivious to the muddy puddles through which he dragged the body.
'Like his master, isolation did not keep him from the Death.'
The stables, used as a mortuary for College plague victims, smelled so strongly of death and corruption that William backed out so fast he fell. Bartholomew went to help him up.
'Holy Mother!' the friar exclaimed, clambering to his feet with his wide sleeve firmly pressed to his nose.
'Thank the Lord we have no horses! They would have died breathing that stench!' He walked away as quickly as he could, turning to shout at Bartholomew, 'Get rid of the corpses, Doctor. Do your job!'
Bartholomew went back into the stables, covering his nose and mouth with his cloak. William was right: the odour was terrible. The porter, hearing William's shouting, came over to say that the carts had not been for the bodies for several days, and so it was not surprising that they were beginning to smell. Bartholomew tipped rushes from a hand-cart so he could begin to load the bodies onto it. The scholars would have to take their colleagues to the plague pit themselves if the official carts did not come.
Gray came to help, but gagged and complained so much that Bartholomew told him to wait outside.
Bartholomew hated what he was doing. These ungainly lumps sewn tightly into rough College blankets had been people he had known. There were five College students, two of the commoners, and now Gilbert. Eight College members who had been his friends and colleagues.
But there were nine shrouded bodies. He frowned and counted again, running through the names of the dead scholars one by one. He must have forgotten someone.
He took a body by the feet, and began to drag it to where Gray waited outside by the empty cart.
'Who has died since we buried Wilson?' Bartholomew asked.
Gray looked taken aback. "I thought you kept a note of all these things,' he said. Seeing a flash of annoyance pass across Bartholomew's face, he recited the names.
'Eight,' said Bartholomew. 'Who died just before Wilson?'
Gray named the others, nineteen in all. He thought he saw which way the conversation was leading, assumed he was being criticised, and began to object. 'You told me to take them to the plague pit, and I did. Ask Cynric. He helped. We took all of them!'
Bartholomew held up his hand to quell Gray's indignant objections. "I believe you,' he said. 'But we seem to have an extra body here now.'
Gray looked at the one Bartholomew still held by the feet. 'One of the townspeople probably slipped it in here so that we would take it to the pits with the others,' he suggested.
'Unlikely,' said Bartholomew, 'unless they stole one of our blankets as well.'
Gray and Bartholomew looked at each other for a moment, and then back to the stables. Bartholomew began to drag the body back inside again.
'This had best be done out of sight,' he said over his shoulder to Gray. "I do not want anyone to see what I am going to do. Will you bring a lamp?'
Gray was gone only briefly, returning with a lamp and a needle and thread. He lit the lamp and closed the door against prying eyes. 'You cut the shrouds open, and I will sew them up,' he said, swallowing hard as he steeled himself for the grisly task.
Bartholomew clapped him on the shoulder, and made a small cut along the seam of the first body. It was Gilbert. He sat for a moment, looking at his face, more peaceful than most of his patients, but blackened with the plague nevertheless. Gray, kneeling next to him, nudged him with his elbow.
'Hurry up,' he urged, 'or someone will come and ask what we are doing.'
He began stitching the blanket back together while Bartholomew moved to the next one. It was one of the law students who had been studying under Wilson. He resisted the urge to think about the scholars as their faces appeared under the coarse blanket-shrouds, and tried to concentrate on the task in hand. The third was another student, and the fourth one of the old commoners. As he came to the fifth, he paused. The blanket was exactly the same as the others, but there was an odd quality about the body inside that he could not define. Instinctively, he knew it was the one that did not belong to Michaelhouse.
Carefully he slit the stitches down one side of the blanket, noting that they were less neat than the others he had cut. He peeled it back and cried out in horror, leaping backwards and almost knocking the lamp over.
'What? What is it?' Gray gasped, unnerved by Bartholomew's white face. He went to look at the body, but Bartholomew pulled him back so he should not see.
They went to the door for some fresh air, away from the stench of the bodies. After a few moments, Bartholomew began to lose the unreal feeling he had had when he looked into the decomposed face of Augustus, and rubbed his hands on his robe to get rid of their clamminess. Gray waited anxiously.
Taking a last deep breath of clean air, Bartholomew turned to Gray. 'It is Augustus,' he said. Gray looked puzzled for a moment, and then his face cleared.
'Ah! The commoner who disappeared after you had declared him dead!' He looked at the stables. 'He is dead now, is he?'