‘I was relieved to see them go – it means I can give the remaining ones more time and attention. The rich are better off with Paxtone or Rougham anyway. They are good at calculating horoscopes while I am happier with people who have a genuine need.’
‘Like Isnard,’ said Michael, his thoughts returning to the stricken singer. ‘He is one of my most loyal basses. Can I do anything to help?’
Bartholomew refrained from suggesting that he could ensure the choir – infamous for its paucity of musical talent – should practise well out of the ailing man’s hearing, and shook his head. ‘Say masses for him. You might try reciting one for Thomas Mortimer, too, and ask for him to be touched with some compassion. He is a wealthy man, and could have offered a little money to see Isnard through the first stages of his illness.’
‘But that might be construed as the act of a guilty man,’ Michael pointed out. ‘And Mortimer maintains the accident was not his fault. Did I tell you that I went to see Lenne’s wife – widow – last night?’
‘She has a sickness of the lungs,’ said Bartholomew, recalling her soggy, laboured breathing from when her husband had shorn him of hair two days before. ‘Who will care for her now he is gone? Widows sometimes take over their husbands’ businesses, but she is too ill. Lenne was a barber, anyway, and shaving scholars and trimming tonsures is scarcely something she can do in his stead. The University would not permit it.’
‘And neither would I!’ exclaimed Michael in horror. ‘God’s blood, man! Women barbers would slit our throats because their attention is taken with the latest style in goffered veils or the price of ribbon. Barbers have always been men, and they should always remain men.’
‘Barbers must be male. Surgeons must conduct cautery,’ remarked Bartholomew dryly. ‘I had no idea you were so rigidly traditional, Brother. How will we make progress if we remain so inflexible? Many of our greatest thinkers have been deemed heretics merely because they dare to look beyond that which is ordained and accepted, but they are nearly always proven right in the end. Take Roger Bacon, the Oxford Franciscan, who was persecuted for “suspected novelties” and his works censored some fifty years ago. These days everyone acknowledges the validity of his ideas.’
‘Not everyone,’ argued Michael, thinking about Bartholomew’s medical colleague Rougham, who made no secret of his contempt for Bacon’s theories. ‘He is still regarded as anathema to many, although I noticed you reading his De erroribus medicorum the other day.’
‘Paxtone of King’s Hall lent it to me.’ Bartholomew became animated, his tiredness forgotten at the prospect of discussing an exciting text with a sharp-minded man like Michael. ‘Bacon relies heavily on Arabic sources, especially Avicenna’s Canon, which, as you know, I regard as a highly underrated work. Regarding rhubarb, Bacon contends that–’
‘You have never hidden your esteem for Arabic physicians,’ interrupted Michael. ‘And I know the one you admire over all others is your own master, Ibn Ibrahim. But not everyone believes foreign thinkers are as good as our own, and you should be more cautious with whom you discuss them.’ He hesitated and shot his friend an uncertain glance. ‘Did you mention rhubarb?’
‘This is a University and we are scholars,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘Why should I suppress my ideas just because ignorant, narrow-minded men might not like them? It does not matter whether we agree, only that we discuss our theories so we can explore their strengths and weaknesses.’
‘Matt!’ exclaimed Michael in exasperation. ‘That will be no defence when Rougham accuses you of heresy. I thought you had learned this, but now you insist on flying in the face of convention again. Rougham is jealous of your success: do not provide him with an easy means to destroy you.’
Bartholomew gazed at him in surprise. ‘He is not jealous of me.’
‘He does not like you, despite the superficial friendship you both struggle to maintain. He will make a poisonous enemy, and you should take care not to provoke him. Damn! That unbearable student of yours is waiting for us.’
The ‘unbearable student’ was Martyn Quenhyth. Quenhyth was a gangly lad of about twenty-two years, with a thatch of thick brown hair that he kept painfully short. He had a long, thin nose that dripped when it was cold, and sharp blue eyes. His hands were bony and always splattered in ink, and his nails were bitten to the quick. He was fervently devoted to his studies, and there was scarcely a moment when he was not reading some tome or other. This made him joyless, pedantic and dull, and Bartholomew’s feelings toward him were ambiguous. On the one hand he admired the lad’s determination to pass his disputations and become a qualified physician, but on the other it was difficult to find much to like in his humourless personality.
‘He accused his room-mate of stealing again yesterday,’ muttered Michael as they approached the student. ‘Does he have a case? Is Redmeadow a thief?’
‘If so, then he confines his light fingers to Quenhyth’s belongings,’ said Bartholomew, who was obliged to share a room with them both, since student numbers in the College had finally started to rise again after the plague. He liked Redmeadow, who was an open, friendly sort of lad with a shock of ginger hair, although he had a fiery temper to go with it. ‘He has taken nothing of mine.’
‘Isnard wants you again,’ said Quenhyth, when Bartholomew reached him. ‘I was about to go to him myself, but now you are here, I shall have my breakfast instead.’
‘You can come with me,’ said Bartholomew, deciding that if he was to forgo a meal, then Quenhyth could do so, too. He was not overly dismayed by the prospect of sacrificing breakfast. Michaelhouse fare had seen something of a downward turn in quality over the past ten days or so, and he knew he was not going to miss much. ‘And Redmeadow, too. We are going to discuss fevers this week, and this will give you some practical experience. Roger Bacon asserts the superiority of experience over authority and speculation, after all.’
He shot a combative glance in Michael’s direction and the monk sighed, but declined to argue. If his friend wanted to play with the fires of heresy, and would not listen to advice about how not to burn himself, then Michael could do no more to help him. While Quenhyth sped across the yard to fetch his fellow student, Bartholomew leaned against the gate and surveyed the College that was his home.
The centrepiece was Michaelhouse’s fine hall-house. It boasted a lavish entrance with the founder’s coat of arms emblazoned above it, which opened to a wide spiral staircase that led to the hall and conclave above. Below were the kitchens and various storerooms and pantries. At right angles to the hall were a pair of accommodation wings, both two storeys tall and with sloping, red-tiled roofs. A wall opposite the hall made an enclosed rectangle of the buildings, and its sturdy oaken gate meant that the College was well able to protect itself, should it ever come under attack. There was a second courtyard beyond the first, but this comprised mostly stables, storerooms and lean-to sheds, where the servants lived and worked. Past that was a long strip of land that extended to the river.
Michael also decided to accompany Bartholomew, content to miss a Michaelhouse breakfast on the understanding that they ate a better one in a tavern later. He was just asking for more details about Isnard’s health when there was a sudden commotion in the kitchens. First came a screech of rage from Agatha the laundress – Agatha was the College’s only female servant, and she ran Michaelhouse’s domestic affairs with ruthless efficiency – and then a cockerel crowed. Within moments, the bird came hurtling out of Agatha’s domain in a flurry of feathers and flapping wings, followed by the laundress herself, who was brandishing a long carving knife. Agatha was an intimidating sight at any time, but being armed and angry made her especially terrifying.