A Poisonous Plot

‘The timing of their maladies is irrelevant,’ said Nigellus sharply, annoyed that the reeve should dare presume to tell him his business. Did he dispense advice about harvesting crops or mending fences? No, he did not, and Birton should mind his tongue.

‘They both had headaches, pains in the innards and weak limbs,’ the reeve persisted. ‘And what about Canon Wrattlesworth? He is suffering from the same symptoms that-’

‘His illness is none of your affair. Now, do you want me to see your wife or not?’

Nigellus could see that Birton itched to send him packing, but the curmudgeonly reeve loved his wife, and would never do anything that might be to her disadvantage. Nigellus was glad: Birton was wealthy, and no physician liked to lose a good source of income. He followed the reeve to a pleasant bedchamber on the upper floor, where Olma lay grey-faced and barely conscious.

‘Did you rub her cheeks with snail juice, as I ordered?’ he asked, laying two fingers on her neck to assess the strength of her life-beat. He could barely feel it at all.

‘No,’ replied Birton in a strangled whisper, gazing at the woman who had shared his life for the past three decades. ‘She would not have liked it. She is a fastidious lady.’

‘Then it is your fault she has slipped into this fatal decline,’ said Nigellus brutally. ‘You promised to follow my orders, but this is the third time you have flouted them. How can you expect her to recover when you withhold the treatment that will save her life?’

Birton hung his head while Nigellus busied himself about the patient, but there was nothing he could do, and it was not long before Olma breathed her last. Nigellus left Birton to his grieving and rode to Cambridge, aiming to inspect his new quarters in Zachary Hostel — they were being redecorated and he was keen to ensure that the right colours were being used. He would collect his fee from Birton the following day: he was not so insensitive as to ask for it while the man was still in a state of shock.

‘I have had a trying morning,’ he sighed when he arrived at Zachary, hoping to find a sympathetic ear in John Kellawe, the hostel’s theologian. ‘Olma Birton died an hour ago, while Canon Wrattlesworth will follow her to the grave tonight.’

Kellawe raised his eyebrows. He hailed from the north, and was noted for his sharp tongue and brusque manners, along with a religious fanaticism that even pious men found alarming. He was an unattractive specimen, with a pugnacious jaw and wild eyes.

‘You lost two patients last week as well,’ he remarked. ‘The Prior’s cook and gardener. That makes four dead — a lot gone in so short a space of time. Especially in a small place like Barnwell.’

‘Five, not four,’ sighed Nigellus. ‘Birton’s uncle is dead, too.’

‘Of the same disease?’ asked Kellawe in alarm. ‘There are rumours that the plague is poised to return …’

‘These patients do not have the plague: they died of completely separate causes,’ declared Nigellus confidently. He glanced up as an exhausted messenger staggered through the door, breathing hard. ‘Yes? What is it?’

‘Prior Norton needs you again,’ gasped the lad. ‘Another canon is ill, suffering identical symptoms to Wrattlesworth. You must come at once.’

‘“Completely separate causes”, Nigellus?’ asked Kellawe sharply. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am sure,’ snapped Nigellus, nettled. ‘Norton is not a physician — he is not qualified to say whether the symptoms are identical or not.’

‘Then let us hope you are right,’ said Kellawe grimly.

CHAPTER 1

Cambridge, All Hallows’ Eve 1358

Matthew Bartholomew, physician and Doctor of Medicine at the University in Cambridge, had never liked the three-day festival of Hallow-tide. To him, it was a reminder that the warm reds and ambers of autumn were about to fade to the cold grey fogs of November, and that the days would soon grow depressingly short.

No one else at the College of Michaelhouse shared this opinion, however, and an atmosphere of happy expectation blossomed as the Master dismissed his scholars from the breakfast table. There would be a feast that night, and as such extravagance was rare, students, Fellows and servants alike could hardly contain their excitement. All Hallows’ Eve would be followed by All Saints’ Day and then All Souls, the latter of which was particularly important to Michaelhouse, as it was the anniversary of their founder’s death. Usually, they spent the day on their knees, saying masses for his soul, but things were going to be different that year.