A Vein of Deceit (9 page)

‘Oh, be quiet, you silly little man,’ snapped Agnys, regarding him with utter disdain before turning her back on him. She
addressed her grandson, taking his hand in hers. ‘Joan’s death was an accident, Henry, so let us leave it at that. There is
no evidence of foul play, and you will only distress yourself further if you start making unfounded accusations.’

‘But she swallowed pennyroyal,’ said Elyan stubbornly, pulling away from her. ‘And I want to know why. How could she do such
a thing? Could she not taste it?’

‘It must have been disguised,’ said Edith quietly. ‘Perhaps with honey or wine. I am sure she did not know what she was drinking.’

‘Quite. So it was an accident,’ said Agnys, in the tone of voice that suggested the discussion was over. ‘But the servants
have finished now, and Joan is in the box. Go outside and help them put her on the cart, Henry, and then let us be away from
this sad place. I want to be home by this evening.’

‘I will help you, Elyan,’ said d’Audley, with the air of a martyr. ‘And then we shall visit Constable Muschett together and
order him to mount an enquiry into this grave matter.’

‘You will do no such thing,’ snapped Agnys, although her grandson looked as if he thought it a very good idea. ‘It is none
of your damned business. Help Henry with the coffin, if you will, but we shall speak no more of murders and enquiries – unless
you want to ride home alone. But I would not recommend it – the roads are hardly safe.’

D’Audley shot her a look of such loathing that Bartholomew was unnerved. Agnys glowered back,
unabashed, and it was d’Audley who looked away first. He turned on his heel and stalked out. Elyan followed, and it was not
long before the physician and his sister were alone with the old lady.

‘I am sorry if I upset them,’ began Edith apologetically. ‘But—’

‘They will survive,’ stated Agnys grimly. ‘Although in the case of d’Audley, I might wish otherwise. But I am sorry
you
have been subjected to all this sorrow. You have been more than kind.’

‘Is there anything more we can do?’ asked Bartholomew, before Edith saw in Agnys a sympathetic ear and tried to convince her
that Joan’s death was suspicious. ‘Fresh horses, perhaps, or the loan of a sturdier cart?’

‘Thank you, but we will manage. Did Joan … say anything before she died?’

‘Anything about what?’ asked Edith, bemused.

‘About her child,’ replied Agnys vaguely. ‘About Haverhill.’

‘A great deal,’ replied Edith. An expression of unease immediately flitted across the old woman’s face, although Edith did
not notice and chattered on blithely. ‘She said she had never been so happy, and was looking forward to being a mother with
all her heart.’

Agnys’s relief was palpable, although she struggled to mask it. ‘I am glad she died contented.’

‘That was an odd remark,’ said Edith, when Agnys had followed her grandson and neighbour outside, and she and Bartholomew
were alone again. ‘What did she mean?’

‘She is terrified that Joan might have swallowed pennyroyal deliberately, and loves her enough to want her buried in a churchyard,
not a suicide’s grave. Why do you think she is so insistent that it was an accident and that there must be no investigation?’

‘But it was
not
an accident,’ protested Edith. ‘And she
should
know that Joan was murdered.’

‘She was not murdered,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘There is no evidence—’

‘There is no evidence it was an accident, either,’ interrupted Edith, beginning to walk away from him, wearing the determined
face that told him argument would be a waste of time. ‘I know what I believe, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.’

Bartholomew left Edith with the guilty sense that he was deceiving her: that he should confess that her friend had died from
a dose of the same kind of herb that was missing from his storeroom. But he knew it would achieve nothing other than to fuel
her suspicions, and he was almost certain now it was
his
pennyroyal Joan had swallowed anyway. As he had told Michael, it was not a rare or unusual plant, and women often kept some
dissolved in vinegar, as a remedy against swooning. Perhaps she had swallowed some of that, either by accident or design.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts as he walked home that Paxtone of King’s Hall was obliged to prod him in order to gain
his attention.

Paxtone was a portly physician, whose ample bulk was perched atop a pair of ludicrously slender ankles; Bartholomew was always
expecting them to snap under the weight, and never knew what to say when his colleague complained of aching feet. Paxtone
was not a talented practitioner, for he refused to act on any theory that had not been penned by ancient Greeks, but he was
a decent teacher, and no one had a better grasp of Galen and Hippocrates.

That morning, he was with Warden Powys and another King’s Hall Fellow named Shropham. Shropham had been
in Cambridge long before Bartholomew had joined the University, but was one of those mousy nonentities who was hard to remember.
He was older than his two colleagues, but his demeanour towards them had always been deferential. He was slightly built, with
large, sad eyes and hair of an indeterminate colour, somewhere between brown and grey.

Wynewyk was with them, which Bartholomew thought was odd – the Michaelhouse Fellow rarely befriended scholars outside his
College. But then he recalled Wynewyk saying he enjoyed intellectual discussions with King’s Hall. It did not appear that
their discussion was intellectual that day, however: he and Powys were laughing fit to burst, Paxtone looked aggrieved and
Shropham dismayed.

‘Matthew can resolve this,’ said Paxtone stiffly. ‘Because the debate has turned absurd.’

‘It has,’ agreed the Warden, wiping tears from his eyes. ‘I have not laughed so much in years.’

Paxtone grimaced, then turned to his fellow physician. ‘We are debating whether knives keep their sharpness if you leave them
pointing northwards at night.’

Bartholomew failed to see what could be amusing about such a topic, or why Paxtone should be so obviously irritated by it.
‘Yes?’ he prompted warily.

Paxtone pursed his lips as he glared at Powys and Wynewyk. ‘And this pair
will
insist on guffawing every time I posit a notion – they say I am employing
a posteriori
reasoning to argue a baseless superstition. It is Shropham’s fault: he does not believe my contention that blades self-sharpen
under certain conditions.’

Shropham’s expression was one of abject mortification. ‘I am not saying you are wrong, Paxtone,’ he said, in something of
a bleat. ‘I merely remarked that I tried leaving
my dagger in the way you suggested, and it was still blunt the following morning.’

‘Then you did not aim it directly north,’ declared Paxtone. He took a small knife from the pouch he carried at his side. It
was identical to the ones Bartholomew used for surgery. ‘Look at mine. You could shave a pig with this.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’ asked Powys innocently. Wynewyk smothered a snigger.

‘It
is
sharp,’ acknowledged Shropham, ignoring them as he ran a tentative finger along the edge. ‘And I am not questioning whether
the trick works for you. I am only saying that I tried it, and it failed to work for me. I do not suppose you chanted a spell
at the same time, did you?’

‘A
spell
?’ squawked Paxtone, so loud in his horror that Shropham cringed. Wynewyk and Powys dissolved into more paroxysms of mirth,
although Bartholomew could not help but notice that the humour did not touch Wynewyk’s eyes; there was an odd expression in
them, which could only be described as bleak. He wondered what was going on. ‘Spells are for witches and heathens, but
I
am a
physician
!’

Bartholomew pulled his attention away from Wynewyk when he realised Paxtone was being inconsistent. ‘Believing knives retain
their sharpness when they point north is hardly scientific,’ he pointed out. ‘
Ergo
, it is not unreasonable to assume you invoke charms—’

‘There is a wealth of difference between a natural phenomenon that hones metal, and magic,’ countered Paxtone curtly. ‘I am
not
superstitious.’

‘What about you, Bartholomew?’ asked Powys, struggling to bring his amusement under control. ‘Do you sharpen your knives by
leaving them pointing northwards at night?’

‘No,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘I use a whetstone.’

‘Well, I suppose you would,’ said Shropham. ‘You use
yours for cautery, and I imagine slicing into a man’s entrails with blunt blades would be unpleasant for all concerned. You,
of all people, will want to be assured of a keen edge.’

‘Shropham has won this debate, Paxtone,’ said Warden Powys, before Bartholomew could inform them that he was
not
in the habit of slicing into entrails with sharp knives – at least, not as long as other viable options were available. ‘His
empirical test nullifies your contention.’

‘Good steel needs less whetting than cheaper metal,’ said Wynewyk kindly, seeing Paxtone’s vexed expression. ‘So, perhaps
we should conduct a series of experiments using different alloys. Personally, I think the debate is still in progress.’

‘I did not mean to cause trouble, Paxtone,’ said Shropham, eyeing his colleague uncomfortably. ‘You are almost certainly right
– I must have mis-aimed my knife. I would not have mentioned the matter at all, but it is my job to prepare the quills for
the students’ examinations, and—’

‘You take things too seriously, Shropham,’ said the Warden, flinging a comradely arm around his Fellow’s shoulders. ‘You are
a scholar, so you are supposed to be argumentative – there is no need to apologise because you question someone else’s ideas.
Look at Bartholomew – he does it all the time, even to medical theories that have been accepted as proven fact for hundreds
of years.’

Bartholomew watched the three King’s Hall men walk away, and supposed his attempts to be uncontroversial had not been as successful
as he had hoped.

‘Ignore him, Matt,’ said Wynewyk, seeing his dismay. ‘He was only trying to make Shropham feel better – he does not really
think you are an incurable nihilist. Incidentally, the Saturday Debate has been postponed for an hour because Langelee needs
to finish something. He would
not say what, but he has been in his office all morning. Perhaps he is devising a way to reclaim the Stanton Cups.’

‘I hope not. He is not subtle, and any plan he develops is almost certain to be violent.’

Wynewyk looked alarmed. ‘Do you think he would consider hurting someone, then?’

‘To reclaim valuable heirlooms for his College? Yes, of course! You know what he is like as well as I do. He is an avid player
of camp-ball, for a start – and the only purpose of camp-ball is to legitimise a lot of thumping, punching and kicking.’

Wynewyk crossed himself. ‘Do not be late for the debate, Matthew. Our Master has been in an odd mood all week, and I would
hate to see this violence unleashed on you.’

When Bartholomew arrived home, he was unimpressed to find his students involved in a quarrel about Risleye’s lost essay. It
had still not been found, and Risleye wanted to search his classmates’ possessions. They were outraged by the notion, and
had presented a united front against him.

‘If you were innocent, none of you would mind,’ Risleye was shouting. He was near tears.

‘It does not exist,’ jeered Tesdale provocatively. ‘You only claimed it was stolen, so you would be excused from handing it
in.’

‘Lies!’ howled Risleye. ‘But I
will
recover it, no matter what it takes. I will come at night, while you are all sleeping, and look then.’

‘You will do no such thing,’ ordered Bartholomew, not liking to imagine the commotion that would ensue should Risleye attempt
what he threatened. He was almost certain to be caught, and the resulting rumpus would wake the entire College. ‘You cannot
have forgotten all these brilliant ideas so soon. Write them out again.’

‘And make sure you keep them safe this time,’ gloated Tesdale, delighted that Risleye had effectively lost the argument.

‘Enough,’ said Bartholomew sharply. ‘I cannot believe how petty you have all become of late. What is wrong with you?’

‘It is not
me
,’ objected Risleye. ‘It is
them
. I am not the one who made the book explode—’

‘But you knew about it, and did nothing to stop us,’ countered Valence. ‘Complicity is—’

‘For God’s sake!’ cried Bartholomew, supposing he would have to find ways to keep them away from each other until the disputation
started, to give tempers a chance to cool. ‘You are like a lot of children. Risleye, go to Yolande de Blaston and collect
the forceps I left behind last week. Meanwhile, Tesdale can scrub that stain off the workbench in the storeroom.’

‘Scrub?’ echoed Tesdale, appalled by the prospect of physical labour. ‘
Me?
Let Valence do it – he is more junior than I.’

‘But it is my birthday,’ objected Valence. ‘I need to cut up the cake I bought, to distribute to my
friends
during this afternoon’s debate.’ He shot Tesdale a look that said he would not be getting any.

Bartholomew ignored them both. ‘The rest of you can visit patients and report back to me on their health. Valence, you can
have Isnard.’

‘Not Isnard!’ groaned Valence. ‘He will want to sing to me again. I cannot imagine why Brother Michael let him back into the
Michaelhouse Choir, because he cannot carry a tune.’

‘None of them can,’ said Tesdale. ‘But they think that if they bellow at the top of their lungs, no one will notice. And it
is true, by and large. I never realised before that
something can simply be too loud to hear. Why is that, sir? Is there a physiological—’

‘The cleaning materials are in the kitchen,’ interrupted Bartholomew, knowing perfectly well that lazy Tesdale was trying
to sidetrack him in order to avoid the chore he had been set. ‘You had better make a start, or you will miss the debate.’