A Poisonous Plot

Meanwhile, the boat was sinking fast, and even with the silt, Bartholomew knew that Michael’s head would not clear the surface once the vessel settled on the bottom. He surged towards it, but a hand caught his shoulder. It was the student he had knocked into the ditch. Bartholomew lashed out with a punch that hit home more by luck than design, then resumed his agonisingly slow journey towards Michael.

‘Matt!’ shrieked the monk in terror. ‘Cut me free!’

Bartholomew reached for his medical bag where he kept several surgical blades, only to find he no longer had it — in the panic following Nigellus’s confession he had left it on the High Street. Then he remembered the axe — Morys had dropped it into the boat before leaping to safety. He plunged beneath the surface, cold-numbed fingers groping wildly in the blackness. It was not there! Had it fallen out? Then his questing fingers touched the handle. He took hold of it and stood.

‘Hurry!’ howled Michael. The water had reached his chin.

Both took breaths at the same time, Michael as the ditch surged towards his nose, and Bartholomew as he dived, desperately hoping that the axe would be sharp enough to hack through the ropes. He found Michael’s legs, then groped for the cords, sawing frantically at one that was stretched taut from the monk’s frenzied struggles to break free. He could not tell whether it was working, and was about to surface for air when he was thrust down so hard that his head cracked against the gunwale.

He tried to push upwards, but someone was holding him down. He struggled, violently at first, but with decreasing vigour as he felt himself begin to black out. Then, just when he thought his lungs would explode, he was released. He surfaced, gasping, to see that he must have cut enough of the rope to let Michael snap the rest, because the monk was standing up.

He looked around wildly, and saw it had been the student who had tried to drown him; Michael had knocked him away with his shoulder, and the lad was floating face-down nearby. Morys was clawing at the mud that filled his eyes and nose, while Dickon and the other student were still engaged in their deadly dance. Bartholomew looked for Robert.

‘Behind you, Matt!’ howled Michael.

Bartholomew spun around to see that the almoner had managed to grab the axe. With a vengeful grin, Robert raised it above his head in readiness for the fatal blow. Bartholomew threw up an arm to defend himself, but then came an imperious voice.

‘What is going on?’

Bartholomew sagged in relief. It was Prior Joliet. Robert lowered the axe, while on the bank, Dickon and the student stopped fighting.

‘You are making too much noise,’ said Joliet angrily. ‘Do you want the beadles to rush in and see what is happening?’

Numbly, Bartholomew noticed that the Prior’s arm was no longer in its orange sling, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with it.

‘So you are the strategist!’ spat Michael in disgust. ‘I might have guessed.’

‘Might you?’ mumbled Bartholomew, hating the sour taste of defeat. It had not occurred to him that the jolly, round little Prior should be involved in such a wicked scheme. ‘Why?’

‘The mural in our hall,’ said Michael. ‘What does it depict?’

‘Aristotle, Plato, Galen and Aquinas,’ replied Bartholomew, struggling to understand why the monk should consider the painting relevant. ‘Teaching under a tree.’

‘Quite,’ said Michael. ‘Under a tree — not in an academic hall or a church. I wondered from the start why that should be, but now I understand. It was Joliet’s idea to move the University to the Fens. He painted his vision of the future.’

Many things became clear to Bartholomew as the last clue fell into place, but there was no time to analyse them, because a fury of sound from the High Street suggested that a pitched battle was in progress. There would be injuries and deaths, particularly among the townsmen, whose sticks and tools were no match for the scholars’ swords and bows.

He glanced at Joliet and saw satisfaction in the plump face. It was exactly what the Prior wanted: no scholar could stay in a place that burned with resentment over the uneven number of casualties, so the University would have to flee to the Fens, where his dream of a studium generale away from the trappings of a town would be realised. Bartholomew felt a small spark of satisfaction, though: the sacking of the Austin Priory would not contribute to the trouble, because the bar he had placed across the door would keep looters out — at least until Joliet and Robert realised what he had done and went to remove it.

‘Pull that student out of the water,’ instructed Joliet, when the clamour had eased and he could make himself heard again. ‘Or he will drown.’

Robert tossed the axe to Morys and went to oblige, although Bartholomew could see it was too late. So could Joliet, who scowled angrily.