Helia shook her head. ‘But he sent me a message saying he intended to honour me with his presence on Saturday night. He never arrived.’
Probably because he had been murdered en route, thought Bartholomew, watching as Helia left to dance with Isnard. How the bargeman managed his wild skipping with only one leg was beyond Bartholomew, and seemed to defy the laws of physics.
As Michael was with Yffi’s apprentices, he went to sit with his fellow physicians until the monk had finished, surprised that the staid Rougham had deigned to attend such a riotous event. The man was a killjoy, and disliked seeing people having fun.
Rougham grinned, and raised his goblet in a happy salute. He was not usually friendly, and it did not take Bartholomew long to realise the man was drunk. So was Meryfeld, while Gyseburne was well on the way to joining them: Meryfeld’s hand-rubbing was approaching frenzied proportions, while Gyseburne was on the brink of cracking a genuine smile. Gyseburne offered Bartholomew a sip of wine from the goblet he was holding. It was remarkably good, and Bartholomew thought it a pity that it was being wasted on people who were too inebriated to appreciate it.
‘I am glad you are here,’ slurred Rougham. ‘Now we are all four physicians together, and that does not happen often. We are all too busy.’
‘We should talk about medicine, then,’ declared Gyseburne. ‘Because we are medici.’
The others agreed with the kind of exaggerated gravity often affected by the intoxicated. Bartholomew glanced at Michael, and hoped he would not be long – he did not like discussing medicine with Rougham when he was sober, and it would be worse when the man was drunk.
‘What did you give to Emma, to soothe her inflamed gums?’ Gyseburne asked Meryfeld.
Meryfeld tapped the side of his nose. ‘That is a secret.’
‘We should not have secrets from each other,’ said Rougham admonishingly. ‘We should share our knowledge, for the greater good of the profession. Except sorcery. I am not interested in learning diabolical cures, Bartholomew, so you can keep those to yourself.’
‘I do not know any,’ said Bartholomew indignantly. ‘My medicines are based on herbs that–’
‘I am not telling you my cure for sore gums,’ hiccuped Meryfeld. ‘My poultice of lettuce and rosemary is– Damn! Now look what you made me do! It was a secret!’
‘Her condition warrants a more potent remedy than that,’ warned Bartholomew, concerned. ‘It will not heal her, and the delay in extracting the tooth may cost her life.’
‘He is right,’ said Gyseburne. ‘It should have come out days ago. Personally, I am surprised she is still alive, because I have seen how quickly these things can poison the blood.’
‘Medicine is too contentious a subject for an occasion like this,’ said Meryfeld sulkily. ‘So let us debate something else instead. I have been thinking about our lamp, and I have devised a way to refine it. I think we used too much charcoal and not enough pitch. The reason for this is that pitch burns at a lower temperature than brimstone, and so will be more steady.’
‘Does it?’ asked Bartholomew, intrigued. ‘How do you know that?’
‘He does not know,’ said Gyseburne. ‘He is guessing. But it is worth a try. Shall we do it now?’
‘No!’ exclaimed Bartholomew, thinking they were likely to blow themselves up.
‘Yes,’ countered Meryfeld, struggling to stand. ‘We shall go while the notion is fresh in our heads, and I do not live far away. Next door, in fact. Which is quite close, I believe.’
‘Excellent!’ slurred Rougham. ‘Then let us grab the pig by the horns, and begin.’
With mounting alarm, Bartholomew saw he would have to go with them, because it would be too dangerous to leave them unsupervised. He shrugged apologetically at Michael as he left, muttering that protecting three-quarters of Cambridge’s medical fraternity was just as valuable a way to spend their precious time as demanding answers from uncooperative suspects.
Rougham, Meryfeld and Gyseburne linked arms as they left Celia’s house. They tried to include Bartholomew, but he did not like the notion of four physicians in a line, weaving their way along a public highway, even if only for a short distance, and lagged behind. When they reached Meryfeld’s home, no one was able to fit the key in the lock. They dropped it so many times that it became a joke, and even the sour Rougham was convulsed in paroxysms of laughter.
‘It is not a good idea to play with dangerous materials when you are drunk,’ said Bartholomew, snatching the key and opening the door himself. ‘You might do yourselves some serious harm.’
‘I am not drunk,’ declared Gyseburne indignantly, toppling inside. ‘Really, Bartholomew! What a horrid thing to say! I am as sober as the Queen of Sheba.’
‘And I am not drunk, either,’ added Meryfeld, making for his pantry and grabbing a selection of bowls and phials. Rougham helped, making seemingly random choices from the compounds on offer. ‘A tad tipsy, perhaps. But a long way from being drunk. Now, where is the oil?’
‘You should do this in the garden,’ said Bartholomew, rescuing the oil when Meryfeld whipped it around vigorously, threatening to slop some in the hearth, where a fire was burning.
‘I will bring a lamp – it is dark outside,’ said Gyseburne, tripping as he took one from a shelf. ‘Lord! You must get your flagstones levelled, Meryfeld. They are a hazard.’
Bartholomew followed them to the garden, stopping to collect two pails of water en route, then selected a spot where they would not be seen by prying eyes from next door. He fetched the wooden table they had used the last time, and his colleagues began to toss their ingredients down on it. He read the labels with growing alarm.
‘This is not sensible,’ he said, when Rougham contributed a large pot of lye, some wool fat and a bottle of distilled rock oil. ‘These are volatile substances, and–’
‘Nonsense,’ declared Meryfeld. ‘We are educated men and know exactly what we are doing.’
‘Actually, I have no idea what we are doing,’ said Rougham with an uncharacteristic giggle. He picked up a pot of saltpetre. ‘But intuition tells me a dose of this might produce some interesting results.’
‘That is far too big a bowl,’ objected Bartholomew, when he saw the size of the receptacle Gyseburne had brought for mixing. It was large enough to accommodate a fully grown sheep. ‘I thought we had decided to experiment with smaller–’
‘Do not be tedious,’ said Meryfeld, elbowing him out of the way and emptying something red into the cauldron. ‘If we use piffling amounts, the reactions will be too minute to assess.’
Bartholomew watched uneasily as the others began to add their own favourites to the concoction. They were all speaking much too loudly, embarking on a lively debate about the efficacy of tying dead pigeons around a patient’s feet to combat fevers.
‘I never use them myself,’ declared Rougham. ‘Pigeons belong in a pie, not wrapped around the soles, in my humble opinion.’ He sounded anything but humble.
‘They may have fleas,’ added Gyseburne with a shudder. ‘And I have enough of my own.’
‘Well, I enjoy great success with pigeons,’ declared Meryfeld. ‘And with surgeons, too. I tie their eyes around a patient’s neck as a remedy against sore throats.’
‘No wonder surgeons are loath to ply their trade in Cambridge,’ mused Gyseburne gravely.
‘He means sturgeons,’ said Bartholomew, heartily wishing he had stayed at Celia’s house. Gyseburne shot him a blank look. ‘Fish.’
‘I dislike eels,’ said Rougham, off on a tangent of his own. ‘My Gonville Hall colleagues assure me they are more akin to worms than fish, but I am not so sure. They are all slippery and vile.’