‘It is working,’ said Bartholomew, aware that the bargeman had fixed the haughty quartet with angry eyes. ‘I had better send him and his friends home before there is a spat – the King’s Hall men have swords.’
For which we have His Majesty to thank, he thought sourly. Scholars were forbidden to bear arms in the town, but this stricture had been suspended by royal decree until the French threat was over. King’s Hall, which had always been warlike, was delighted to arm its scholars to the teeth.
Bartholomew knew Isnard and his cronies well, as all were either his patients or members of the Michaelhouse Choir. They had never been particularly patriotic, but the raid on Winchelsea had ignited a nationalistic fervour that verged on the fanatical. It would be forgotten when some other issue caught their attention, but until then, they were affronted by anything they deemed to be even remotely foreign. They met in disreputable taverns, where they nurtured their grievances over large flagons of ale.
‘No,’ snapped Bartholomew, seeing Isnard prepare to lob a handful of horse manure at the scholars. ‘If you make a mess on their fine clothes, they will fight you.’
‘Then they should wear English ones,’ retorted Isnard sullenly. ‘Right, lads?’
There was a growl of agreement, the loudest from a soldier named Pierre Sauvage. It was an unusual name for a man who had never ventured more than three miles outside Cambridge, but his mother had once rented her spare room to an itinerant acrobat from Lyons. Sauvage was so touchy about the possibility of having foreign blood that he was rabidly xenophobic. He told anyone who would listen that he had signed on at the castle purely because he wanted Tulyet to teach him how to kill Frenchmen.
‘Too right,’ he declared. ‘They have no right to strut around looking like the dolphin.’
‘He means the Dauphin,’ said Isnard, evidently of the opinion that the physician was unable to deduce this for himself. ‘Who we hate because it was his army what invaded Winchelsea and did all those terrible things. Is that not so, Sauvage?’
Unfortunately, his indignant remarks were overheard by the scholars from King’s Hall, who immediately swaggered over. Bartholomew shot an agonised glance at the smoke – he did not have time to prevent quarrels when he should be making sure the blaze represented no threat to the town.
‘Sauvage, Sauvage,’ mused one. ‘I think we might have a Frenchman here, boys. Shall we slit him open and see what is inside?’
‘Go home,’ ordered Bartholomew, cutting across the outraged response Sauvage began to make. ‘All of you. There will be nothing to see at the Spital.’
‘No?’ demanded the scholar archly. ‘Then why are you going there?’
Bartholomew thought fast. ‘Because the inmates have contagious diseases for me to treat.’
‘Lord!’ gulped Isnard. ‘I never thought of that. Come on, Sauvage. The Griffin broached a new barrel of ale today, and it would be a pity to let it go sour.’
He swung away on his crutches, and most of his cronies followed. The scholars stood fast, though, so Bartholomew began to describe some of the more alarming ailments he expected to be rife in the Spital, and was relieved when the King’s Hall men edged away and began to saunter back the way they had come.
‘Follow them,’ he told Cynric. ‘Make sure they go home – preferably without goading any more townsfolk into a spat along the way.’
By the time Bartholomew caught up with Michael, the monk and the triumvirate had passed the Gilbertine Priory with its handsome gatehouse and towering walls. Beyond it, the road was in a terrible state. There had been heavy rains the previous month, and carts had churned it into ruts. These had dried like petrified waves when the weather turned warm, so anyone hurrying risked a twisted ankle or worse. Bartholomew and his companions were obliged to slow to a snail’s pace, leaving Michael fretting about the nuns.
The Spital stood on what had, until recently, been nothing but scrubland. It comprised five buildings within a perfect walled square. In the centre was a hall that had a large room for communal eating below and a dormitory above. A chapel jutted from its back, placed to catch the rising sun at its altar end. The other buildings were in each of the four corners: a kitchen and accommodation for staff; a substantial guesthouse; the stable block; and a large shed-cum-storeroom.
The Spital’s gates were always closed, as not everyone was happy about lepers – or lunatics – living near the town, and the founders were cognisant of security. However, the gates stood open that day, as access was needed to the brook that ran along the side of the road for water. The scholars looked through them to see the blaze was in the shed – a temporary, albeit sturdy, structure used to store building materials. Smoke billowed through its reed-thatched roof, although the fire was so far contained, as there were no leaping flames.
‘The nuns are safe,’ breathed Michael in relief, seeing a black-robed gaggle near the stables. ‘Thank God!’
As everyone inside the Spital was busy with the fire, and no one came to greet them, de Wetherset began to relate its history to Aynton, who was a relative newcomer to the town.
‘A man named Henry Tangmer founded it to atone for sins committed by his niece. What was her name, Brother? I cannot recall.’
‘Adela,’ supplied Michael, who remembered her very well. ‘She is dead now, God rest her soul, and we have a leper hospital.’
‘I am no physician,’ said Aynton, ‘but I do know that one does not meet many lepers these days. So why did Tangmer dedicate his wealth to helping them, of all people?’
‘Lepers, lunatics, they are all the same,’ said Heltisle with a dismissive shrug. ‘Folk who cannot be allowed out, lest they infect the rest of us with their deadly miasmas.’
‘Lunacy is not contagious,’ said Bartholomew, not about to let such an outlandish claim pass unchallenged. ‘Nor are many kinds of leprosy.’
‘Regardless, the sufferers are still pariahs,’ retorted Heltisle, ‘so it is good that they are locked away, out of sight and mind.’
‘That is a terrible attitude towards–’ began Bartholomew hotly.
‘I have heard that Tangmer’s wife is very good at curing diseases of the mind,’ said de Wetherset, cutting across him. ‘She uses herbs, fresh air and exercise, by all accounts.’
‘Does she?’ asked Bartholomew, immediately intrigued.
‘Do not tell me that you have never been called out here,’ said Heltisle, then smiled superiorly. ‘But of course you have not. The inmates may be mad, but they will not want to be tended by a man who loves paupers and who insists on washing his hands at every turn.’
Bartholomew ignored him, knowing this would annoy him far more than any riposte he could devise on the spur of the moment. He asked de Wetherset to tell him more about Mistress Tangmer’s unusual therapies, but the Chancellor had had enough of the Spital.
‘They have the blaze under control,’ he said, watching two servants use fire hooks to haul down patches of smouldering thatch, where they could be doused with water. ‘The Bishop’s sister is safe and there is no danger to the University. I am going home.’
He, Heltisle and Aynton began to walk back the way they had come, Heltisle grumbling about the wasted effort. Bartholomew and Michael lingered though; Michael wanted to speak to the nuns, while Bartholomew’s interest was piqued by the Spital’s innovative-sounding treatment of lunacy and he hoped to learn more.
‘I asked Tangmer to show me around when I arranged for him to take my nuns,’ said Michael. ‘But he refused, lest my presence upset his patients.’