The Master said grace and announced that conversation would be allowed that day, but it was to be exclusively in Latin. This was because some students had disputations the following day, and the Master thought academic debate during meals would allow them more practice. The Franciscans frowned disapprovingly and maintained their own silence. It was the usual custom for a Bible scholar to read during the silence of meals for the scholars' spiritual edification, and the new Master's occasional breaks from this tradition were causing friction between the friars and the others.
For Bartholomew and Michael, this afforded an opportunity to discuss what they would ask the clerks at St Mary's that afternoon.
'How was your lecture?' asked Michael, leaning over Bartholomew to peer suspiciously at a dish of salted beef.
'Grim,' said Bartholomew. He looked down to where his students sat together at the far end of one of the tables.
Gray shot him an unpleasant look, and Bartholomew knew his words had been taken seriously.
He picked up a piece of bread and inspected it dubiously. Since the plague, staple crops like barley, oats, and wheat had become scarce. College bread was made with whatever was cheapest and available, which sometimes included flour that was too old even for pig feed. Today, the bread was a grey colour and contained dark brown flecks. It tasted worse than it looked, ancient flour vying for dominance with rancid fat. The salted beef was hard and dry, and there was a large bowl containing lumps of something unidentifiable smeared with a blackish gravy.
Michael gulped down a large goblet of ale and crammed bread into his mouth. He gagged slightly, his eyes watering, and swallowed with difficulty.
'You will choke one day if you do not eat more slowly,' said Bartholomew, not for the first time during their friendship.
'You will be able to save me,' said Michael complacently, reaching for more meat.
Bartholomew chewed some of the hard College bread slowly. The ale, he noticed, was off again, and the salted beef should be thrown away before it poisoned everyone.
The thought of poison brought his mind back to the business with the University chest. He had heard of such devices that were designed to kill unwanted meddlers, but never thought he would see one in action. He wondered who had put it there. A thought suddenly struck him and he almost choked on the bread in his eagerness to tell Michael.
Michael pounded on his back, and Bartholomew was reminded that the monk might look fat and unhealthy, but he was a physical force with which to be reckoned.
"It looks as if I will be the one to save you,' Michael said with malicious glee. 'Do not gobble your food, Doctor.
You will choke.'
'Buckley,' gasped Bartholomew. 'His hands!'
Michael looked at him blankly. 'What about his hands?'
Bartholomew took a gulp of the bad ale, and resisted the urge to spit it out again. "I treated Buckley for a skin complaint. He has weeping sores on his hands.'
'Please!' Michael looked disapproving at such matters mentioned at the table.
'He wears gloves, Michael! Not because the disease is infectious, but because the sores are unpleasant to see and he is embarrassed about them. Can you not see?' he cried, drawing the unwanted attention of the Franciscans. He lowered his voice. 'He probably wears his gloves when he unlocks the chest!'
Michael stared at him for a few moments, thinking.' So,' he said slowly, 'we cannot be certain when this poisonous lock was placed on the chest, since de Wetherset says Buckley is the one who usually opened it, and he has been protected by his gloves. It may have been there for weeks or even months before it did its gruesome work.
Buckley may even have put it there himself knowing that he would be safe from it if he wore gloves.'
Bartholomew thought for a moment. 'Possibly,' he said, 'although I do not think so. First, that was a very small cut on the friar's hand. He may not even have noticed it, which suggests a very concentrated form of poison. It would be a brave man who would risk touching such a lock, even wearing gloves. Second, perhaps the poison was meant for Buckley, if it were known that he was the one who regularly opened the chest, and not the Chancellor.'
Michael rubbed his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully.
'But that would mean that someone so wants Buckley dead that he has been to some trouble to plant that poisonous lock on the chest. I have never bought one of those things, but I warrant they are not cheap.'
'So perhaps Buckley has fled, not because he planted the lock and was responsible for the death of the friar, but because he was in fear of his life. Although,' Bartholomew added practically, 'most men fleeing in fear of their lives do not take tables and chairs with them.'
The conversation was cut short as the Master rose to say grace at the end of the meal, and the Fellows filed in silence from the hall. As soon as they were out, Michael winked at Bartholomew and headed off towards the kitchens to scavenge left-overs. The students clattered noisily down the stairs into the yard, followed by the commoners. There had been ten commoners at Michaelhouse before the plague, but the numbers were now down to four, all old men who had devoted their lives to teaching for the College and were rewarded with board and lodging for the remainder of their lives. Bartholomew went to pay his customary call on one of them, a Cistercian in his seventies called Brother Alban. Alban grinned toothlessly at Bartholomew as the physician rubbed warmed oil into his arthritic elbow, and began to talk in graphic terms about the murder of the prostitutes. As always, Bartholomew was amazed at how the old man managed to acquire his information. He never left the College, yet always seemed to be the first to hear any news from outside. Occasionally, Bartholomew found his love of gossip offensive, but tried to be tolerant since the poor man had little else to do. Although he could still read, Alban's elbow7 prevented him from producing the splendid illustrated texts for which he had once been famous. Bartholomew occasionally saw the old man leafing wistfully through some of his magnificent work, and felt sorry for him.
'There will be yet more murders,' Alban said with salacious enjoyment. 'Just you see. The Sheriff is less than worthless at tracking this criminal down.'
'And I suppose you know who the murderer is,' asked Bartholomew drily, finding the discussion distasteful. He poured more oil into the palm of his hand, and continued to massage it into the swollen joint.
Alban scowled at him. 'Cheeky beggar,' he muttered.
'No, I do not know who the murderer is, but if I were your age, I would find out!'
'And how would you do that?' said Bartholomew, more to side-track Brother Alban from his lurid and fanciful descriptions of the killer's victims than to solicit a sensible answer.
"I would go to the churches of St John Zachary or All Saints'-next-the-Cas tie, and I would find out,' said Alban, tipping his head back and fixing Bartholomew with alert black eyes.
'Why those churches?' said Bartholomew, nonplussed.
The old monk sighed heavily and looked at Bartholomew as he might an errant student. 'Because they have been decommissioned,' he said.
After the plague, the fall in the population meant that there were not enough people to make use of all existing churches, and many had been decommissioned. Some were pulled down, or used as a source of stone; others were locked up to await the day when they would be used again. Two such were St John Zachary and All Saints'-next-the-Castle. At the height of the plague, the entire population north of the river next to the Castle had died. Bartholomew had burned down the pathetic hovels there so that they would not become a continuing source of infection for the town. People claimed that the site of the settlement and All Saints' Church were haunted, and few people went there.