A Plague On Both Your Houses

'It was not harmless for Augustus, Sir John, or Aelfrith,' said Bartholomew coldly.

Stanmore looked up sharply. 'Father Aelfrith? He died of the plague.'

'He was poisoned,' said Bartholomew bluntly.

Stanmore stared at Bartholomew in disbelief. "I did not know,' he said eventually. 'But I have not finished, Matt. For a while, it seemed as if the hostels' system of spies was having some success, for the deaths ceased.

Then, without warning, they started again. Two Fellows from the Hall of Valence Marie died, Sir John committed suicide, and then there were all those rumours about the commoners being killed for his seal. We have been meeting regularly and secretly to try to find out what is happening. In the last few months, most of the trouble has been at Michaelhouse. There is something going on there that none of us understand. Perhaps the entire conspiracy against the University is coming from Michaelhouse.'

He glanced up at Stephen, who nodded agreement Bartholomew kept his expression neutral, although his mind was teeming. Aelfrith had told him that there were deaths at King's Hall, Clare, and Peterhouse, and then a long gap before those at Valence Marie and Michaelhouse. Bartholomew wondered, since Stanmore's information coincided with Aelfrith's, if Stanmore's motives were pure after all.

'The University buys cloth from me rather than from other merchants,' Stanmore continued. 'In turn, I give them money to help them maintain their network of informants. But I have most certainly not been involved in murder, and I have never done anything that would harm you. That was one of the conditions on which I joined the hostels' group — that if there was anything that would affect you, I would be told first so that I could keep you out of it.'

'And what about the plan to dispose of Alcote?' asked Bartholomew.

Stanmore looked at him in shock. 'How do you know about that?' He put his head back in his hands again. 'Oh, God, no! We have a spy in our midst, too! Do not tell me our group is known of in Michaelhouse. If that is so,' he said, looking up at Bartholomew, 'then all our lives could be in danger.' He turned to Richard. 'Why did I involve you in this?' he cried, suddenly desolate.

Richard met his eyes with a level stare. 'You did not, Father. I was approached independently of you.'

He looked at Bartholomew. 'At Oxford, I can listen and learn, and I, too, can send back information that may help to put an end to this silly plot.'

Bartholomew ignored him. 'You did not answer my question,' he said to Stanmore. 'What about the plan… how was it put?… to take Alcote out of the equation?'

'It was you!' said Stephen suddenly. 'That noise we heard outside the window. It was you listening!'

Bartholomew continued to hold Stanmore's eyes.

'Well?' he said.

'Not what you think,' he said wearily. 'Our group does not condone murder. There are other ways. A word to the Chancellor to say that women have been seen coming out of his room early in the morning. Or even boys. A rumour that he has been drinking too much, or that his College has become riotous. It is not necessary to kill to remove a man from office. And if Alcote is a spy for Oxford, as our intelligence suggests, then he should not be in a position to run your College anyway, would you not agree?'

'But who are you to judge?' Bartholomew said quietly. He glanced round at the three men, and was suddenly sick of it all. He wanted to make for the door.

Richard barred his way. Bartholomew did not want to manhandle him and stopped in his tracks.

'We have done nothing wrong,' Richard said with dignity, 'except to try to sort out this mess, to stop more people from dying. I would do the same again. And I also want you to know that Father has been using the hostels' spies to try to find out about Philippa for you.

He has paid a good deal of money and spent a lot of his time following false leads and asking questions on your behalf. We all have. Father and I spent all of the night before last in that seedy King's Head because someone had told us that a traveller would be there who may have seen Abigny on the London Road.'

A memory flashed into Bartholomew's mind. He had thought he had seen Stanmore coming out of the King's Head after he had met his well-wisher by the plague pit.

So, his eyes had not deceived him after all.

"I am sorry,' Stanmore said. 'We found the traveller, but he could tell us nothing about Abigny.'

Bartholomew suddenly felt ashamed and bewildered.

He had become so confused by all the lies and deceit, and so accustomed to suspecting his colleagues of intrigues, that he had applied the same rules to his family. Perhaps he had also misjudged Philippa and Abigny. Stanmore's neat office was in total disarray, with scrolls scattered everywhere and a crossbow quarrel in the ceiling. Bartholomew sank down onto a stool, uncertain whether his weariness came from the fact that his family's apparent involvement appeared to be harmless after all, or from the battering his senses had taken in the past few hours.

In an unsteady voice, Stanmore said, "I dread to think what Edith will say if she ever learns that her beloved brother was shot at in her husband's office.'

'Your steward seems somewhat trigger-happy,' said Bartholomew, also shakily, when he recalled how Stanmore's quick reaction had saved his life. 'Remind me never to haggle over cloth prices in your office.'

'It is a dangerous game we play, Matt,' Stanmore said. 'You were attacked by the river; Giles Abigny pursues some strange business of his own under my very roof; and Richard and I were ambushed by footpads the other night. Hugh saved our lives, as he saved yours down by the river, and doubtless the responsibility is beginning to tell on him. He had never, in thirty years of service, been called upon to use his crossbow, and then, in a matter of days, he is required to use it three times.'

Bartholomew looked from Richard to Stanmore, bewildered. 'Ambushed?'

Richard nodded vigorously. 'When we left the King's Head. Four men ambushed us just outside the gates here.

Hugh shot one of them and captured another.'

'They were farmers from out Shelford way,' said Stanmore. 'They heard how easy it was to steal in Cambridge with so many dead of the plague, and thought to try it for themselves. Of course, it is easy to steal from the dead and dying, but these four fellows felt that was unethical, and decided to steal from the living instead.'

'The Sheriff should shoot anyone seen out after the curfew,' said Stephen. 'His laxity is the cause of all this villainy.'

'And what if he had seen you out last night as you returned from Bene't's?' retorted Bartholomew. "I am often called out to patients at night, and would not relish being shot at before I had a chance to explain myself.'

'We would not have been able to explain our business last night, Stephen,' Stanmore agreed. 'We swore an oath of secrecy, and we could hardly tell the watch where we had been and what we had been discussing.'

Stephen acquiesced with a sideways tilt of his head, and there was silence. As if it were a magnet, the gaze of all four lit upon the crossbow bolt.

'What will mother say?' Richard said, echoing his father's words.

'Why would she find out?' asked Bartholomew with a weak smile.

'Well, thank the Lord we have resolved all that!' said Richard heartily, his natural cheerfulness bubbling to the surface again. "I hated having secrets from you, Uncle Matt. We all wanted to tell you, but we were afraid it might put you in danger, being at Michaelhouse and all. We have tried hard to keep you away from it as much as we could, but I suppose it is your home.'

Bartholomew smiled at him. Richard was at an age where he could make astonishingly adult observations, but could still make things childishly simple.

Bartholomew could see that Richard considered that no lasting damage had been done by the scene in his father's study, and was quite happy to continue his life exactly the same way as before.