Death of a Scholar

‘Dead?’ asked the monk unsteadily, when the medicus sat back on his heels, defeated.

‘I am afraid so, Brother.’

Chesterton, the Feast of St Michael and All Angels

(29 September) 1358

John Potmoor was a terrible man. He had lied, cheated, bullied and killed to make himself rich, and was hated and feared across an entire region. No crime was beneath him, and as he became increasingly powerful, he recruited more and more like-minded henchmen to aid him in his evil deeds. Yet it was a point of pride to him that he was just as skilled a thief now as he had been in his youth, and to prove it, he regularly went out burgling.

Although by far the richest pickings were in Cambridge, Potmoor did not operate there — he was no fool, and knew better than to take on the combined strength of Sheriff and Senior Proctor. Then an opportunity arose. Sheriff Tulyet was summoned to London to account for an anomaly in the shire’s taxes, and Brother Michael went to Peterborough. Potmoor was delighted: their deputies were members of the Guild of Saints, as was Potmoor himself, and guildsmen always looked after each other. He moved quickly to establish himself in fresh pastures, and they turned a blind eye to his activities, just as he expected.

Not every guildsman was happy with his expansion, though: Oswald Stanmore had objected vociferously to Potmoor’s men loitering around the quays where his barges unloaded. Then Stanmore died suddenly, and those who supported him were quick to fall silent. By the time Brother Michael returned, Potmoor’s hold on the town was too strong to break, and the felon was assailed with a sense of savage invincibility. But he had woken that morning feeling distinctly unwell.

At first, he thought nothing of it — it was an ague caused by the changing seasons and he would soon shake it off. But he grew worse as the day progressed, and by evening he was forced to concede that he needed a physician. He sent for John Meryfeld, and was alarmed by the grave expression on the man’s normally jovial face. A murmured ‘oh, dear’ was not something anyone liked to hear from his medicus either.

At Meryfeld’s insistence, Surgeon Holm was called to bleed the patient, but the sawbones’ expression was bleak by the time the procedure was finished. Unnerved, Potmoor summoned the town’s other medical practitioners — Rougham of Gonville, Lawrence of Winwick Hall and Eyer the apothecary. The physicians asked a number of embarrassingly personal questions, then retreated to consult their astrological tables. When their calculations were complete, more grim looks were exchanged, and the apothecary began to mix ingredients in a bowl, although with such a want of zeal that it was clear he thought he was wasting his time.

A desperate fear gripped Potmoor at that point, and he ordered his son Hugo to fetch Matthew Bartholomew. Although the most talented of the town’s medici, Potmoor had resisted asking him sooner because he was Stanmore’s brother-in-law. Potmoor did not know the physician well enough to say whether he had taken his kinsman’s side in the quarrel over the wharves, but he had been unwilling to take the chance. Now, thoroughly frightened, he would have accepted help from the Devil himself had it been offered.

Hugo rode to Cambridge as fast as his stallion would carry him, but heavy rain rendered the roads slick with mud on the way back, and Bartholomew was an abysmal horseman. Hugo was forced to curtail his speed — the physician would be of no use to anyone if he fell off and brained himself — so the return journey took far longer than it should have done.

They arrived at Chesterton eventually, and the pair hurried into the sickroom. It was eerily quiet. The other medici stood in a silent semicircle by the window, while Potmoor’s henchmen clustered together in mute consternation.

‘You are too late,’ said Surgeon Holm spitefully. He did not like Bartholomew, and was maliciously gratified that his colleague had braved the storm for nothing. ‘We did all we could.’

Hugo’s jaw dropped. ‘My father is dead? No!’

‘It is God’s will,’ said Meryfeld gently. ‘We shall help you to lay him out.’

‘Or better yet, recommend a suitable woman,’ said Rougham. It was very late, and he wanted to go home.

‘But he was perfectly well yesterday,’ wailed Hugo. ‘How can he have died so quickly?’

‘People do,’ said Lawrence, an elderly gentleman with white hair and a kindly smile. ‘It happens all the time.’

‘How do you know he is dead?’ demanded Hugo. ‘He might just be asleep.’

‘He is not breathing,’ explained Meryfeld patiently. ‘His eyes are glazed, he is cold and he is stiff. All these are sure signs that the life has left him.’