‘I will chop off your head next time, you filthy beast!’ she bellowed, waving the weapon menacingly but declining to enjoin an undignified chase that the bird would win. It fluttered to a safe distance, fluffed up its feathers, then crowed as loudly as it could. Agatha started towards it, furious at being issued with what was clearly a challenge.
‘Leave him alone!’
Walter the porter, who owned the cockerel, was out of the gatehouse and steaming across the yard, intent on rescuing his pet from the enraged laundress. He was a morose man, who seldom smiled and who cared for nothing and no one – except the annoying bird that had made an enemy of almost everyone who lived in the College. It crowed all night, keeping scholars from their sleep; it slipped into their rooms when they were out and left unwelcome deposits on their belongings; and it terrorised the cat, which people liked because it was friendly and purred a lot. The cockerel was not friendly, and did nothing as remotely endearing as purring.
‘Keep that thing away from the hens I am preparing for dinner,’ Agatha yelled at Walter. ‘It is a vile, perverted fiend, and if I catch it I shall serve it to you stuffed with eel heads and rhubarb leaves.’
Michael turned to Bartholomew in alarm. ‘Should we allow her control of our kitchens if she has the ability to devise dishes like that?’
‘You would not dare to stuff Bird!’ howled Walter in fury. ‘I will kill you first!’
‘You could try,’ snarled Agatha, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. She still waved the knife and was clearly ready to inflict serious damage with it, preferably on something avian.
Bartholomew stepped forward quickly. ‘Agatha, please. No harm has been done, and Walter will try to keep his bird out of your way in future.’
‘He had better do more than try, if he does not want me to wring its neck,’ she hissed, before turning on her heel and stalking back inside. The cockerel watched her with its pale, beady eyes and released a triumphant cackle. Fortunately for all concerned, the sound of smashing pottery came from the scullery at that point, and Agatha was more interested in what had been broken than in prolonging the duel with her feathered opponent.
‘Bird knows how to look after himself,’ said Walter to Bartholomew with considerable pride. ‘She will never catch him, no matter what she says.’
‘She might,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘I have seen her move like lightning in the past, and Bird is becoming overconfident. You should lock him away if you do not want him cooked.’
Walter strode to the tatty creature and scooped it under his arm. If anyone else had tried to do the same, there would have been a frenzy of flailing claws and snapping beaks, and Bartholomew marvelled that Walter had made a connection with such a surly beast. He supposed that each of them must have recognised a kindred spirit.
‘There now, Bird,’ Walter crooned, kissing the top of its feathered head with great tenderness. ‘You are safe now. I will not let anyone stuff you – and especially not with eels and rhubarb.’
‘I do not blame Agatha for wanting to dispense with Bird,’ said Michael, as the porter entered his gatehouse and slammed the door behind him. ‘It ate a page from the Insolubilia I am writing the other day – the part where I expand on dialectic being the only science to prove the existence of God. All that brilliance, and it ended up in the gullet of that foul creature.’
Bartholomew was not amused when Quenhyth arrived not only with Redmeadow, but with Rob Deynman, too. Deynman was a student tolerated at Michaelhouse because his father paid extra fees, but he was becoming an embarrassment, because he was the oldest undergraduate in the University and would never pass his disputations. Bartholomew had also learned from bitter experience that the lad could not be allowed near patients, either. That morning, however, he did not have the energy to send him on a different mission, so Deynman formed part of the small procession that hurried along Milne Street on its way to Isnard’s house.
‘There is that strange woman again,’ said Deynman, pointing towards the churchyard of St John Zachary. ‘She arrived here two or three weeks ago, and does not know who she is. People say she is looking for a lover who died in the French wars.’
Bartholomew followed the direction of his finger and saw a dirty, huddled figure sitting atop one of the tombs, rocking herself back and forth. She was so encased in layers of rags that it was impossible to tell what she looked like, but he could see long, brown hair that had probably once been a luxurious mane, although it was now matted with filth, and a white, pinched face that had a half-starved look about it. She was singing, and her haunting melody cut through the noise of the street, its notes sad and sweet above the clatter of hoofs and the slap of footsteps in mud.
‘Then she will not find him here,’ said Quenhyth unsympathetically. ‘She should visit Paris or Calais instead. We should hurry, Doctor. Isnard’s summons sounded urgent.’
‘She looks familiar,’ said Bartholomew, pausing to look at her and ignoring Quenhyth’s impatience at the delay. The student was hoping they would tend Isnard and still be back at Michaelhouse in time for breakfast; being impecunious, he tended to be less fussy about what he ate, especially when it was free. ‘But I cannot place her face.’
‘You cannot know her,’ said Deynman. ‘She is a stranger here.’
‘She should go to the Canons at St John’s Hospital,’ suggested Redmeadow, ready to foist the problem on to someone else. The kindly Canons often found a bed and a meal for those who were out of their wits, and all budding physicians knew they provided a quick and easy solution for some of their more inconvenient cases.
‘I took her there last week,’ said Quenhyth, grabbing Bartholomew’s sleeve in an attempt to drag him away. ‘She was in the Market Square talking to some onions, and it occurred to me that there might be something amiss with her wits.’
‘Such an incisive diagnosis,’ muttered Redmeadow. ‘She talks to onions, and it crosses his mind that she might be addled.’
Quenhyth did not dignify the comment with a reply, and continued to address Bartholomew. ‘I escorted her to the Canons, but she ran away from them the next day. They told me she will leave Cambridge when she realises that whatever she is looking for is not here, and will head off to haunt some other town. They say they have seen many such cases since the plague.’
Bartholomew pulled away from Quenhyth, not liking the way his student had taken to manhandling him on occasions. He rummaged in his scrip and found some farthings. ‘Give her these,’ he said to Deynman. ‘Or better still, go with her to Constantine Mortimer’s shop, and ensure she buys bread – not ribbons or some such thing.’
‘But by that time you will have finished Isnard’s treatment,’ cried Deynman in dismay. ‘And I will not have seen what you did.’
‘Go and help her, Deynman,’ said Bartholomew softly, moved by the sight of the pitiful creature who rocked and sang to herself. ‘She needs you.’
Reluctantly, Deynman did as he was told. Bartholomew saw him bend to speak to her, then politely offer his arm, as he might to any lady in his rich father’s house. Physician Deynman would never be, but he had better manners and a kinder heart than his classmates. Bartholomew was about to resume his journey to Isnard when Deynman issued a shriek of horror.
Bartholomew’s blood ran cold. The woman had seemed more pathetic than violent, and he had thought she was not the kind to harm anyone who might try to help her. But he could have been wrong – and if he were, then he had forced Deynman to pay the price for his misjudgement. He stumbled across the ancient graves towards them, fearing the worst. But it was not Deynman who had come to grief; it was Bosel the beggar. The alms-hunter lay curled on his side in the long grass of the churchyard, his skin waxy with the touch of death.