He walked across the courtyard, stopping on the way to look in on Augustus. The commoners shared a large dormitory on the upper floor of the southern wing, but because Augustus talked to himself and kept the others awake, he had been given a small room of A pLAGUE ON BOTl) YOUR l)OUSeS his own, an unusual privilege for any College member, but especially a commoner. The commoners' room and Augustus's chamber were dark, but Bartholomew could make out Augustus lying on the bed, and could hear his slow, rhythmic breathing. In the main dormitory, Brother Paul, another commoner too frail to attend the feast, coughed wetly and muttered in his sleep.
Satisfied, Bartholomew made his way to the hall, and tried to slip as unobtrusively as possible into his seat at the high table at the raised end of the hall. Wilson leaned forward and shot him an unpleasant look. Next to Bartholomew, Giles Abigny had already had far too much to drink, and was regaling Brother Michael with a story of his experiences with a prostitute in London.
For a monk, Michael was showing an unseemly interest.
On Bartholomew's other side, the two Franciscan friars, Aelfridi and William, were already deep in some debate about the nature of original sin, while Wilson, Alcote and Swynford huddled together plotting God knew what.
Bartholomew ate some of the spiced venison slowly, realising that he had grown so used to plain College fare, that the strongly flavoured meats and piquant sauces were too rich for him. He wondered how many scholars would over-indulge and make themselves sick. The ever-growing pile of gnawed bones and the grease-splattered table near Michael indicated that he had no such reservations.
A roar of laughter from the students jolted him from his thoughts. Members of the College usually spoke Latin, or occasionally court French, at the few meals where speaking was permitted, and the conversation was generally learned. But tonight, as a gesture of courtesy to his secular guests, Wilson had decreed that the conversation might be in any language. Bartholomew glanced around the hall, noting the brightly coloured tapestries, begged and borrowed from other Colleges for the occasion, that adorned the walls. The walls were normally bare so as not to distract scholars from their studies, and the benches, now draped with rich cloths, were plain wood. The guests from the town added splashes of colour among the students' black gowns.
Servants scurried here and there bearing large jugs of wine and platters of food that left trails of spilled grease.
In the gallery normally occupied by the Bible scholar, a small group of musicians fought to make their singing heard over the hubbub.
Down the table, Brother Michael chortled with unmonklike delight as he listened with rapt attention to Abigny. Fortunately for him, his imprudent laughter was screened from the austere Franciscan Fellows by another roar of laughter from the students.
The Oliver brothers were the centre of attention, a group of younger students gathering round them admiringly. Bartholomew heard Elias telling them how he had been the last one through the gates to make sure that all the others were safe inside. At that moment, Henry looked up towards the high table, and stared at Bartholomew, his blue eyes blazing with hatred. They held each other's gaze for a moment, before Henry, with a sneer, looked away.
Bartholomew was puzzled. He had had very little to do with the Oliver brothers — they were not his students, and he had never had to deal with them for any disciplinary breaches. He found it hard to believe that all the hatred that Henry had put into that look came from the incident outside the church. The mob had been in an ugly mood, and he had averted what might very easily have turned into a bloodbath. So what had he done to earn such emotions?
He tried to put it out of his mind. He was tired, and was probably reading far too much into Henry Oliver's looks. He sipped at the fine wine from France that Wilson had provided to toast his future success as Master, and leaned his elbows on the table. Abigny, his story completed, slapped Bartholomew on the back.
"I heard you have secreted a woman in the College Abigny's voice was loud, and several students looked at him speculatively. Brother Michael's eyebrows shot up, his baggy green eyes glittering with amusement.
The Franciscans paused in their debate and looked at Bartholomew disapprovingly.
'Hush!' Bartholomew chided Abigny. 'She is in the care of Agatha, and not secreted anywhere.'
Abigny laughed, and draped his arm round Bartholomew's shoulders. Bartholomew pulled away as wine fumes wafted into his face. "I wish I were a physician and not a philosopher. What better excuse to be in a woman's boudoir than to be leeching her blood.' "I do not leech the blood of my patients,' said Bartholomew irritably. They had been down this path before. Abigny loved to tease Bartholomew about his unorthodox methods. Bartholomew had learned medicine at the University in Paris from an Arab teacher who had taught him that bleeding was for charlatans too lazy to discover a cure.
Abigny laughed again, his cheeks flushed pink with wine, but then leaned closer to Bartholomew. 'But you and I may not be long for our free and easy lives if our new Master has anything to say. He will have us taking major orders as he and his two sycophants over there plan to do.'
'Have a care, Giles,' said Bartholomew nervously.
He was acutely aware that the students' conversation at the nearest table had stopped, and Bartholomew knew that some of the scholars were not above telling tales to senior College members in return for a lenient disputation, or spoken exam.
'What will it be for you, Matt?' Abigny continued, ignoring his friend's appeal for discretion. 'Will you become an Austin Canon and go to work in St John's Hospital? Or would you rather become a rich, fat Benedictine, like Brother Michael here?'
Michael pursed his lips, but humour showed in his eyes. Like Bartholomew, being the butt of Abigny's jokes was nothing new to him.
Abigny blundered on. 'But, my dear friend, I would not want you to take orders with the Carmelites, like good Master Wilson. I would kill you before I would let that happen. I…'
'Enough, Giles!' Bartholomew said sharply. 'If you cannot keep your council, you should not drink so much.
Pull yourself together.'
Abigny laughed at his friend's admonition, took a deep draught from his goblet, but said no more.
Bartholomew sometimes wondered about the philosopher's behaviour. He was fair and fresh-faced, like a young country bumpkin. But his boyish looks belied a razor-like mind, and Bartholomew had no doubt that if he dedicated himself to learning he could become one of the foremost scholars in the University. But Abigny was too lazy and too fond of the pleasures of life.
Bartholomew thought about Abigny's claim. Most Cambridge masters, including Bartholomew, had taken minor holy orders so that they were ruled by church law rather than secular law. Some, like Brother Michael and the Franciscans, were monks or friars and had taken major orders. This meant that they could not marry or have relations with women, although not all monks and friars in the University kept these vows as assiduously as they might.
As a boy, Bartholomew had been educated at the great Benedictine Abbey at Peterborough, and, as one of their brightest students, had been expected to take his vows and become a monk. His sister and brother-in-law, acting in loco parentis, had other ideas, and a marriage was planned that would have benefited their cloth trade.
Bartholomew, however, had defied them both, and had run away to Oxford and then Paris to study medicine.
Since leaving Peterborough, Bartholomew had not given a monastic vocation another thought, other than taking the minor orders that would protect him from the rigours of secular law. Perhaps, a few months ago, the prospect of never having a relationship with a woman would not have mattered, but Bartholomew had met Philippa Abigny — Giles's sister — and was not at all sure that a vow of chastity was what he wanted.