Edith laughed. ‘Poor Michael. You should not tease him about his appetite, Matt. He is happy when he is eating, and unhappy when he is hungry. Which of the two conditions do you think is better for his health?’
‘True. But I did not come to talk about Michael, I came to see you.’
‘Do you want to come in?’ asked Stanmore, gesturing to the door. ‘We were about to visit Mayor Horwoode, but it will not matter if we are a little late.’
‘I will walk with you,’ said Bartholomew, taking Edith’s arm and escorting her across the courtyard. ‘Is this meeting with Horwoode business or pleasure?’
‘Business,’ said Edith promptly, casting a disapproving glance at her husband.
‘Pleasure,’ said Stanmore at the same time.
‘I see,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He has invited you both to his house to spend a pleasant evening with him, but will probably mention some matter of town politics at the same time?’
‘Not politics, exactly,’ said Stanmore. ‘I suspect he wants me to join his guild. Corpus Christi is one of the two organisations that founded Bene’t College, and rumour has it that the venture is turning out to be expensive. The old members are weary of the continual drain on their purses, and are busy recruiting new ones.’
‘Will you join?’ asked Bartholomew.
Stanmore smiled. ‘I shall eat Horwoode’s food, drink his wine and listen to what he has to say. But I can think of worthier places to squander my finances than Bene’t.’
‘It is a dreadful place, by all accounts,’ agreed Edith. ‘Its Fellows are always squabbling, and its students constantly try to goad our apprentices into fights.’
‘So what makes it different from any other College?’ asked Bartholomew. He did not intend the question to be humorous, but Stanmore and Edith laughed.
‘Nothing, really,’ said Stanmore. ‘But Michaelhouse does not let outsiders know about its internal rows and unseemly behaviour. Michaelhouse men take their oaths of loyalty seriously; Bene’t men do not seem to care who knows about their nasty quarrels.’
‘It is more than that,’ said Edith. ‘Bene’t has those dreadful porters – the rudest and most vicious I have ever encountered. One of them – Osmun – bumped into me as I was walking down the High Street the other day. I dropped my basket and spilled apples all over the road, but he just sneered and declined to apologise or even to help me pick them up.’
‘Perhaps I should join the Guild of Corpus Christi after all,’ mused Stanmore. ‘Then I could use my influence to have the man dismissed from his post. That will teach him to learn some manners.’
‘There is Adela Tangmer,’ said Edith urgently, pointing to the robust daughter of the town’s vintner who was riding towards them. ‘Quick! Duck in here before she sees us.’
Before her brother or husband could react, they found themselves bundled inside the workshop of Jonas the Poisoner. The apothecary glanced up from his work in surprise as three people suddenly exploded into his domain.
‘What?’ he demanded of Bartholomew nervously. ‘Has the Death returned? Is there fever in the city? Is Robin of Grantchester amputating limbs again?’
‘No, no,’ said Bartholomew hurriedly, embarrassed at having burst into Jonas’s property uninvited. ‘But I need more of your plaster of betony. I seem to have lost mine.’
‘I do deliver, you know,’ said Jonas, standing to select the salve from the shelf. ‘There is no need for you to come in person, or to drag your family here with you.’
‘We made it,’ breathed Edith, her eye to the gap in the door. ‘She did not see us.’
‘And what is wrong with meeting Adela Tangmer?’ asked Stanmore, watching as the untidily confident figure rode past. ‘If it were her father you were seeking to avoid, I would understand – the man is a disreputable villain who waters the wine he sells.’
‘Does he?’ asked Jonas, handing Bartholomew the jar.
‘I thought the last cask I bought from him tasted weaker than usual. Crafty old dog!’
‘She is a dreadful woman,’ said Edith, her eye still fastened to the crack. ‘She came bustling up to me in the Market Square yesterday, when I was in the middle of a conversation with the Prioress of St Radegund’s, and, without any kind of preamble, demanded to know which pardoner sells absolutions for the sin of lust.’
Bartholomew started to laugh, amused by Adela’s question, the fact that she had chosen Edith as someone who might be able to answer it, and Edith’s indignation that Adela had asked such a thing in the august presence of the Prioress of St Radegund’s Convent.
Edith regarded him coolly. ‘It is not funny, Matt. It left me completely speechless. She has all the social graces of a carthorse, and she looks like one, too!’
‘Well, she has gone now, and we should leave poor Jonas in peace,’ said Stanmore, opening the door and stepping outside. He glanced back and gave a longsuffering sigh. ‘Are you sure you have enough money to pay for that salve, Matt?’
Bartholomew had emptied the contents of his purse on to one of Jonas’s workbenches, and the apothecary was helping him to count out the mass of small change.
‘Penny and a half short,’ said Jonas eventually, looking hopefully at Stanmore.
‘I do not carry pennies,’ said Stanmore loftily. ‘I am not a peasant. Here is a shilling. Give Matt back his farthings, Jonas. From what I hear, he needs a regular supply of base coins to pay fines every time he is late for church.’
‘Who told you that?’ asked Bartholomew.
Stanmore tapped his nose and assumed a smug expression. ‘I have a very good network of informants in Cambridge, Matt.’
‘Did Runham tell you?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘When did you meet him?’
‘He paid me a visit,’ said Stanmore vaguely. He made a moue of disapproval. ‘I do not like that man, and I certainly do not want to be seen having scholars calling on me. What would my neighbours say?’
‘I take it that does not apply to me,’ said Bartholomew.
Stanmore clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘You are different – family. But I do not appreciate scholars like Runham visiting me in broad daylight, when anyone might see him.’
‘What did he want?’
‘Five marks for his new buildings,’ said Stanmore. ‘But here we are, at Horwoode’s house.’
Mayor Horwoode answered his door to Stanmore’s knock before Bartholomew could ask why his brother-in-law had parted with his money to a man like Runham. Five marks was a fortune – more than a year’s salary for Bartholomew.
The Mayor did not look pleased to see Bartholomew. He gazed coolly at the physician’s muddy cloak and patched tabard, and then glanced quickly up and down the street to see whether anyone had observed that a man as important as the Mayor of Cambridge should be visited by such a low fellow.
‘Have you resolved that matter of Wymundham’s death?’ he asked frostily, having apparently decided that no one was looking and that he could afford to indulge his curiosity. He did not, however, invite Bartholomew inside his home.
‘Not yet,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But Brother Michael’s investigation is continuing.’
‘He will discover nothing amiss,’ said Horwoode with great conviction. ‘Whatever you may have thought when you poked at the corpse the other night. I am certain the poor man flung himself to his death in despair after witnessing Raysoun’s fall.’
‘I am on my way to look at his body again,’ said Bartholomew.
‘Then you might like to know that St Bene’t’s Church lies in the south of the town, and you seem to be walking north. Is Michaelhouse still in its cups, celebrating the election of Runham as Master?’
‘It certainly is not,’ said Bartholomew, with more feeling than he intended to show.