When they arrived, Wayt gave reluctant permission for Bartholomew to examine the men who were ill. There were seven in total, exhibiting symptoms as varied as nausea, stomach pains, headaches, insomnia and dizziness. One lad, who had been ill longer than the rest, showed Bartholomew how his foot dropped when he tried to walk, a peculiar problem that had afflicted Cew, too.
Cew, on the other hand, was considerably improved. His gait was back to normal, there was colour in his cheeks, and he seemed much stronger. Unfortunately, he was again convinced that he was the King of France.
‘The metal has gone,’ he confided. ‘We cannot taste it any longer. It must have been in the oysters. They were brought here on the river, you see, and we all know the Seine is poisoned.’
‘He means the Cam,’ put in Dodenho helpfully. ‘The Seine is in France.’
‘Our sucura is imported via the Seine,’ Cew went on. ‘Our courtiers adore sweet things, and it is our pleasure to indulge them, especially as they put extra in our own soul-cakes as a reward. King’s Hall is awash with it, although Wayt will tell you otherwise. But Frenge knew.’
Bartholomew glanced at the Acting Warden, and when he saw the expression of weary exasperation on the hirsute face, something suddenly became abundantly clear.
‘You lied!’ he exclaimed. ‘You did not argue with Frenge about Anne the day he died – you quarrelled about sucura.’
Wayt opened his mouth to deny the accusation, but Cew clapped his hands in delight. ‘You have it! You have it! What a clever fool you are!’
Wayt cast a venomous glare at his colleague, who rocked back and forth, grinning wildly. There was a moment when Bartholomew thought the Acting Warden would attempt to dismiss the claims as the unfounded ravings of a lunatic, but then he threw up his hands in resignation.
‘Very well,’ he sighed irritably. ‘Yes – Frenge threatened to tell the Sheriff that we bought illegal sucura, and King’s Hall cannot afford to be seen breaking the law. However, I did not kill him. I merely informed him that if he ever breathed a word of our doings to another living soul, I would sue him for slander.’
‘You should have told Michael the truth,’ said Bartholomew accusingly. ‘It was–’
‘And risk him betraying us to Tulyet? Do not be stupid! However, you cannot go running to him with this tale, because physicians are morally bound to keep their patients’ ramblings quiet. Ergo, anything that Cew brays is confidential.’
‘No one from Michaelhouse would blab about sucura anyway,’ interposed Dodenho. ‘Being so affluent, they purchase it by the bucket load themselves.’
Bartholomew regarded him thoughtfully. Every College and wealthy hostel in the University had reported cases of the debilitas except one: Michaelhouse. Was it because no one there could afford sucura – that it was the illegally imported sweetener that was making everyone ill? Had it become contaminated somehow, perhaps from the dyeworks? Was that why no pauper had been afflicted by the debilitas, and why it remained exclusively a ‘disease’ of the rich?
He pulled the little packet that Cynric had given him from his bag, ignoring Dodenho’s triumphant hoot that he had been right, and poured some into his hand. He licked it cautiously. It did not taste as though it would do him harm, but only a fool thought that everything with a pleasant flavour was safe to eat.
‘Your theory is flawed,’ said Wayt, when Bartholomew explained tentatively what he was thinking, careful not to reveal that while Agatha had used sucura in the Hallow-tide marchpanes, all the other cakes had been made using the considerably cheaper honey. ‘Osborne of Gonville Hall has the debilitas, but he never touches sweet foods.’
‘The same is true of Lenne and the Barnwell folk,’ said Dodenho. ‘They had the debilitas so badly that it killed them, but they never ate sweetmeats either.’
But the more Bartholomew pondered the matter, the more he was sure that sucura had played a central role in the sudden rise of the debilitas. He decided to experiment, and sent to Michaelhouse for more Royal Broth. When it arrived, he gave instructions that the sick men were to consume nothing but it and boiled barley water for a week. Assuming they followed his advice, he might soon have the beginnings of a solution.
Michael was waiting for him outside King’s Hall, gloomily reporting that none of the Austins had remembered anything new. The killer had probably entered the convent at dusk, when there had been deep shadows to hide in, and there were no witnesses to the crime – at least, none that he had been able to find.
‘And now Kellawe has disappeared,’ the monk added. ‘Morys came to me in a panic about it an hour ago, although I suspect the fellow has just joined the exodus to the Fens.’
‘Have you checked the dyeworks? He may be making a nuisance of himself there.’
‘Come with me, then,’ said the monk tiredly. ‘Even I do not feel safe walking alone today, but the company of the Hero of Poitiers should serve to protect me.’
Bartholomew winced. Cynric had been with him when the tiny English army had met the much larger French one, and gloried in the fact that he and the physician had played a part in the ensuing battle. Bartholomew’s contribution to the fighting had been adequate at best, although he had been invaluable in tending the wounded afterwards. However, Cynric, with the blood of bards in his veins, had exaggerated their performance to the point where the rest of the Black Prince’s troops might as well have stayed at home.
They arrived to find the dyeworks closed. Unusually, there were no protesters outside, so Water Lane was strangely quiet. Then Edith appeared, Cynric hovering watchfully at her side, with a complex explanation about how long woad needed to soak, and as the previous day’s trouble had caused delays, the next stage of the process could not start until noon. It was midday now, so her women were beginning to trickle in. Anne de Rumburgh was among them, sensuously seductive in a new scarlet kirtle, which was not Bartholomew’s idea of obeying Edith’s instruction to ‘stay in the back and keep a low profile’.
‘We will be busy this afternoon with the first batch of Michaelhouse tabards,’ chattered Edith as she unlocked the door. ‘We dyed them with weld – yellow pigment – yesterday, so now we will overdye them with woad to make them green. Of course, we had to treat them with … certain substances first, because the garments are black.’
‘Toxic substances?’ asked Bartholomew archly. ‘Which produce nasty residues?’
Edith glared. ‘Of course not. But do not ask me for details, because they are a trade secret.’
At that moment, Anne flung open the rear door, and then gave a cry of horror when light flooded in to reveal what had hitherto been in darkness. The entire back half of the dyeworks’ floor was submerged in a multicoloured lake – one that had seeped under the door and oozed towards the river in trails of yellow, red and orange. Her howl brought the other women running, and they stood at the edge of the spillage, gazing at it in stunned disbelief.
‘Our crimson!’ wailed Yolande. ‘Some spiteful beast has emptied out every bucket we made! And the weld, too! Who could have done such a terrible thing? It represents weeks of hard work!’
‘The window has been forced again,’ said Cynric, going to inspect it.
‘By the same villain as last time, I imagine,’ said Anne angrily. ‘For spite, because we almost caught him.’
‘He did it to “prove” that we pollute the river,’ said Edith in a strangled voice, while Bartholomew wondered if Kellawe had returned to finish the mischief he had started two days ago, before disappearing to the Fens to avoid another fine. ‘That we let our colorants escape into the water. And how can we deny it when the “evidence” is here for all to see?’