‘But you have an unnatural constitution, Matt. I keep telling you that green things are bad for me, but you will not listen. Now I am proven correct. Again.’
‘Take this,’ said Bartholomew, groping in his bag for the remedy for over-indulgence and indigestion he frequently dispensed to Michael. ‘And then go back to sleep.’
‘Matthew,’ came Alcote’s tremulous voice in the darkness. ‘I am ill. Help me!’
‘Summon Master Eltisley, then,’ said Bartholomew, unmoved. ‘He can give you some of his goat urine and cloves to drink.’
Alcote retched suddenly, so Bartholomew went to his aid, holding his head while the goat’s urine made its reappearance, along with the rest of Alcote’s dinner.
‘I feel dreadful,’ he wept, clutching Bartholomew’s hand. He raised fearful eyes to Michael. ‘You will have to grant me absolution, for I shall not live to see the light of day. Help me, Matthew!’
‘But you have no faith in my medicine,’ said Bartholomew, feeling vindictive. ‘You said so at dinner, while you were eating the hare that was swimming in grease.’
Alcote retched again, and when he had finished, Bartholomew helped him to lie back with a water-soaked bandage across his forehead.
‘We have been poisoned by vegetables,’ said Michael, still holding his stomach.
‘You have been poisoned by greed, and Roger has been poisoned by Eltisley’s foul concoction,’ said Bartholomew. ‘That will teach him to drink something prepared by a man who does not know what he is doing.’
But it was not a lesson Alcote would remember for long. It was not the first time Bartholomew had been summoned to tend Alcote in the dead of night because he had swallowed some potion that promised miraculous results, and it would probably not be the last. He mixed poppy juice and chalk in a little water, and handed it to the Senior Fellow to drink.
‘Thank you,’ said Alcote, pathetically grateful with tears glittering in his eyes. ‘I shall never take medicines from anyone except you ever again.’
‘Until next time,’ muttered Bartholomew, who had heard this before. ‘Now rest, and you will feel better in the morning.’
‘You should go,’ said Michael. ‘It feels later than midnight to me. William should know better than to trust you to wake up on time. You sleep the sleep of the dead, even when you are not tired.’
‘Go to sleep,’ Bartholomew whispered. He pushed Michael on to his back, sorted out the tangle of blankets, and pulled them up under the monk’s chin.
He dressed in the darkness, crept out of the bedchamber, tiptoed down stairs that seemed to creak louder the more quietly he tried to walk, and let himself out of the front door. A breeze that smelled of the sea whispered in the trees, and somewhere a dog barked once and then was silent. He glanced up at the sky. The moon was a thin sliver, and the only other light was from the mass of stars that glittered above, dancing in and out of clouds that drifted westward.
He groped his way down the lane, past still, dark cottages. When he stumbled in a pothole, he realised how familiar he was with Cambridge’s uneven streets. The raucous call of a nightjar close by made him jump, and he tripped again, wishing he had borrowed a candle to light his way.
Eventually, he arrived at the green and walked across the grass to one of the fords. He leapt across it, landing with a splash in the shallows on the far side, and aimed for the church. It was in darkness, and Bartholomew saw that someone, probably Cynric, had closed all the window shutters. He was raising his hand to the latch when a voice at his elbow almost made him leap out of his skin.
‘Easy, boy!’ said Cynric softly. ‘I just wanted you to know that I am here.’
‘I wish you would not do that,’ said Bartholomew, clutching his chest. ‘Is William inside?’
Cynric nodded. ‘He is not pleased that you are late. He wanted me to fetch you, but I told him you had instructed me not to leave him alone. I think he was rather touched.’
‘Touched is a good word for him,’ mumbled Bartholomew. ‘Are you coming in, or do you want to stay here?’
‘I think I will stay outside,’ said Cynric. ‘I like to see the stars. They remind me of home.’
‘Wales?’ asked Bartholomew, feeling sympathy for a man who was homesick.
‘Cambridge,’ said Cynric, sounding surprised. ‘It is where I live, boy. And where that Rachel Atkin lives – your brother-in-law’s seamstress. Do you think I should wed her?’
It was a question that caught Bartholomew off guard. ‘If it will make you both happy,’ he said carefully. ‘Have you asked her yet?’
‘She asked me,’ said Cynric. ‘I said I would let her know.’
‘I hope you sounded a bit more enthusiastic than that. I am no expert with women, as you well know, but you should not regard an offer of marriage in the same way that you would consider some kind of business deal.’
‘Why not?’ asked Cynric. ‘That is what marriage is, is it not? A business deal? Anyway, you should be going inside, or Father William will be after your blood.’
Father William, however, was sleeping. He sat with his back against one of the smooth white pillars, and snored loudly with his mouth open. Bartholomew did not blame him. It had been a long day, Bartholomew had been late in coming to relieve him, and it was always difficult to remain wakeful in a silent church. The physician knelt next to the parish coffin, bent his head and began to recite the offices for the dead.
It was not long before dawn began to break. The sky changed from black to dark blue, then grew steadily paler until the church was filled with a dim silvery light that flooded through the clear glass of the east window. Bartholomew stood stiffly, and went to open the shutters, waking William who looked around him blearily. He gave a sudden yell of terror that made Bartholomew spin round, and Cynric come rushing in from outside.
‘I am swathed in a shroud!’ the Franciscan howled, struggling to free himself from the sheet that was wrapped round him.
Bartholomew went to his aid. ‘You were shivering and there was nothing else to use. I had already put my tabard under your head.’
‘But a shroud, Matthew!’ cried William aghast, flinging it from him in revulsion and scrambling to his feet. ‘It was like waking up in a grave!’
‘It is only a sheet,’ said Bartholomew, surprised that the friar could be so easily unnerved. ‘It will not be a shroud until it is wrapped around Unwin, later today.’
‘A woman is due to come and do all that this morning,’ said William with a shudder. ‘Wash the corpse and put the shroud round it.’
‘The woman is here,’ came a voice from the back of the church. Bartholomew recognised her as the matronly figure who had been chaperoning the young people the night befofe.
‘Mother Goodman?’ asked Bartholomew politely, recalling that Tuddenham had said that the midwife usually took care of the village’s dead. ‘Can I fetch anything you might need?’
The woman shook her head. ‘You are the physician,’ she said, looking him up and down appraisingly, and making him feel like some piece of meat at the market. ‘Although you do not look like a physician – you are too shabby.’
‘That is because he likes to work among the poor,’ said Father William. ‘He, like me, does not care for fine clothes and possessions. Such things are nothing but vanity.’
‘Well, I have no time for physicians, rich or poor,’ said Mother Goodman, pushing past them. ‘Nor for pompous friars. So you two stay out of my way, and we will get along very well. Where is the corpse?’
‘Unwin’s earthly remains are in the coffin, madam,’ said William coldly. ‘I am going for some breakfast. I would stay to say prime, but I do not think I would be able to concentrate with all your chatter. I will see you later, Matthew.’