A Poisonous Plot

The soldiers were heavily armed, but were under strict orders not to use their weapons. Dickon ignored the edict, and scampered around with a drawn sword. Townsmen and scholars alike fell back whenever he was near, all eyeing the red-faced figure uneasily. Bartholomew took the opportunity afforded by the distraction to approach Wayt and Dodenho.

‘Take your men home,’ he begged. ‘Without them, the other Colleges will give up and-’

‘And the hostel rabble will escape,’ snapped Wayt, eyeing the opposition with icy disdain. ‘Which I refuse to allow.’

‘You cannot keep them here against their will,’ argued Bartholomew.

‘Oh, yes, I can,’ averred Wayt. ‘Personally, I would just as soon be rid of the scum, but we cannot let them establish a rival studium generale elsewhere. It might grow bigger than our own, and we have carved a nice niche for ourselves in Cambridge.’

‘It is not just selfishness,’ added Dodenho hastily. ‘We may not survive if half of us defect, especially if Oxford takes advantage of our weakness and comes to poach our remaining best thinkers.’

‘These hostel men are fools,’ declared Wayt, ‘driven to recklessness by the mealy-mouthed nonsense spouted by Nigellus, Morys and the Austins. It is for their own good, as much as ours, that we intend to stop them from going.’

‘The Austins?’ asked Bartholomew in surprise. ‘They are no fanatics.’

‘They are less bombastic than the rest,’ conceded Wayt. ‘But they still think the University would be better off in the bogs. The damned imbeciles!’

It occurred to Bartholomew that King’s Hall’s arrogance might have done more to drive the hostel men away than anything the Austins had said. And when he glanced at the fleshy, dissipated faces around him, he wondered if the rebels were right to think the University would fare better away from the town and its worldly distractions.

‘Hamo getting himself killed did not help either,’ said Dodenho. ‘Prior Joliet should have done more to prevent another murder in his domain, especially given what happened to Frenge.’

‘Hamo probably poisoned Frenge,’ spat Wayt venomously. ‘Which is why a townsman invaded the convent and dispatched Hamo in his turn. It is a pity the man did not use his dying breath to identify his assailant. I heard all he did was blather about the Almighty.’

‘I suppose he was in pain,’ surmised Dodenho. ‘And did not know what he was saying.’

‘Nonsense — the killer would have used a sharp knife,’ argued Wayt, ‘which means that Hamo would have felt nothing at all. And it was remiss of him to go to his grave without sharing the name of his murderer.’

Bartholomew started to tell Wayt that being fatally stabbed certainly would hurt, sharp blade or no, but the Acting Warden ignored him and began haranguing the hostel men again. Unwilling to stand next to him while he did it, Bartholomew slunk away.

Yet Wayt’s words sparked a sudden memory of Poitiers, when men with terrible injuries had still found the strength to fight on and even celebrate when the battle was over. In some cases, it had been hours before they had complained of pain, so perhaps Wayt was right to claim that Hamo had not felt much. A solution began to unfold in his mind, so he grabbed Michael’s sleeve and pulled the monk away from the howling mob, where he could make himself heard.

‘Hamo lived for some time after he was stabbed,’ he began. ‘Long enough to lurch from the chancel to the porch, and then to whisper his dying words. Or rather, word, in the singular.’

‘A word that made no sense,’ said Michael distractedly. He tried to pull away. ‘I cannot talk about this now, Matt. We are on the verge of a riot, in case you had not noticed.’

Bartholomew gripped his arm harder. ‘The other morning, Langelee jabbed my hand with his letter-opener, but I did not feel it bite because the blade was so sharp. The same thing happened to Hamo — I think there was no or little pain when he was first stabbed. He was weakened certainly, but still able to move about. It was only when we found him that the agony struck and he died.’

‘What are you talking about?’ cried Michael. ‘Please, Matt! We have more serious matters to consider right now — such as the survival of our University.’

‘I think Hamo did see his killer,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘But the culprit did not care — he left him to die, confident that he would not live long enough to talk. He was the strategist, Michael — a man so sure of himself that he thinks he is infallible. He-’

Tulyet bustled up at that moment, to make a terse report. ‘The hostel men are retreating, thank God. Order King’s Hall to stand down, Brother, and I will deal with the townsfolk. However, it is only a temporary reprieve: the hostels will try to leave again, and the Colleges will attempt to stop them. Tonight, probably.’