A Poisonous Plot

‘How will I know if they are on our side?’ asked Dickon, not unreasonably. ‘You heard what Prior Joliet said about not trusting anyone. Moreover, they might kill me for being the Sheriff’s son. So you do it, while I stay here and watch.’

Bartholomew was halfway to the gate when he had second thoughts. It might be some time before he managed to waylay scholars who would help him, and it was clear that Morys and Robert intended to kill Michael quickly before moving on to the next part of their plan. He stopped and hurried back again. He would just have to devise a way to best four armed and cunning men using a set of childbirth forceps and an unpredictable boy.

‘I would not have stopped you from leaving, Robert,’ Michael was saying. There was a tremor in his voice: he could not swim, and had a mortal terror of drowning. ‘There was no need to destroy the town and tear the University apart.’

‘Of course there was,’ retorted Robert shortly. ‘The Colleges enjoy a comfortable existence here, and will never abandon it willingly. But after tonight, the town will be so enraged by the University’s antics that no scholar will be able to stay.’

Morys smirked. ‘It will not be long now before all our dreams are realised.’

Robert nodded to Morys, and the axe began to rise. Bartholomew braced himself to race forward, regardless of the unfavourable odds, but Michael spoke quickly to delay the inevitable. Desperately, Bartholomew tried to think of a rescue plan, but his mind was frighteningly blank, and all he could do was listen with mounting horror.

‘So you poisoned Frenge,’ Michael said. ‘A townsman killed on University property was sure to cause discord, especially one who had already invaded King’s Hall.’

‘And it did cause discord,’ said Robert smugly. ‘Although that was not why we did it. The truth is that he came to bring Father Arnold some sucura — unlike you, we guessed it came from the brewery, and I secured a good price for the stuff in return for keeping Peyn’s little secret.’

‘Which explains why Frenge sneaked across the King’s Ditch in the boat,’ surmised Michael. He glanced down. ‘This boat. You did not buy his brewery’s ale, so he could not come here openly, claiming you as customers. He was obliged to visit slyly, using the back gate …’

‘Where he overheard Morys and me discussing our plans. The fool tried to blackmail us — to raise the money he would need to buy lawyers to defend him from King’s Hall, ironically.’

‘So we agreed to pay and offered wine to seal the pact.’ Morys took up the tale. ‘Wine dosed with a toxic substance taken from the dyeworks. Unfortunately, one sip was not enough, so we had to force him to finish the rest. Then we left him here, where his corpse proved very useful in furthering our designs.’

‘You helped, Brother.’ Robert’s smile was gloating. ‘With the tale about him being a cattle thief — an accusation that infuriated the town. And another truth will circulate tomorrow — one that will reveal it was poison from the dyeworks that claimed his life.’

‘It will be our parting gift to the town,’ said Morys. ‘A story that will see that place closed down once and for all.’

Bartholomew’s stomach lurched at the notion that Edith should be so used, and he looked around frantically for something that might help him defeat them. There was nothing.

Robert’s expression turned earnest. ‘But you must see we are right, Michael. The town has never wanted us. Its residents fight us constantly, despite all we have done to win their affection — such as starving ourselves last winter so that the poor could eat — but still they hate us. And their antipathy turns our scholars aggressive, arrogant and overbearing.’

‘So you set out to make it worse,’ said Michael in distaste. ‘You identified folk with grudges and manipulated them — to add fuel to the fire.’

Robert nodded. ‘It was easy. I persuaded Shirwynk that his son had suffered an injustice when he was rejected from the University; I wrote letters to the greedy and selfish Stephen; I sent Kellawe, Gilby and Hakeney to stir up trouble at the dyeworks …’

‘Using Stephen was a clever touch,’ bragged Morys. ‘He gossiped, as we knew he would, and made scholars think that a move to the Fens was being discussed at the very highest levels.’

Michael ignored him and addressed Robert pleadingly. ‘How can you think of abandoning the paupers who rely on you? And what about the commissions for the murals that you have won? I thought you were pleased by them?’

‘We shall still execute those,’ said Robert. ‘But on buildings in the marshes. And I am afraid the poor will have to manage without us. It might have been different if they had sprung to our defence when the trouble started, but they stood back and watched in delight.’

‘The cross that created such a rumpus,’ said Michael quickly, as Morys fingered the axe. ‘Did you buy it in London?’