Death of a Scholar

There was another reason why his objections had diminished, too: familiarity with cadavers had taught him that there was much to be learned from them. He felt this knowledge made him a better physician, and he was sorry the study of anatomy was frowned upon in England. He had watched several dissections at the University in Salerno, and it was obvious to him that they should form part of every medicus’s training.

‘Lawrence doubtless hopes that you will do for Elvesmere what you did for Potmoor,’ Ratclyf went on. ‘Namely raise him from the dead.’

‘Potmoor was not dead,’ said Bartholomew shortly. Reviving such an infamous criminal had earned him almost universal condemnation, and he was tired of people berating him for it. ‘He would have woken on his own eventually.’

‘So you say,’ harrumphed Ratclyf. ‘But you should have let him-’

‘Enough, Ratclyf,’ interrupted Provost Illesy irritably. ‘Potmoor has been very generous to our new College, and it is ungracious to cast aspersions on the way he earns his living.’

‘I am not casting aspersions on him, I am casting them on Bartholomew. If he had not used magic potions, Potmoor would have stayed dead. It was witchcraft that brought him back.’

‘Actually, it was smelling salts,’ corrected Lawrence with one of his genial smiles. ‘We call them sal ammoniac. Like me, Matthew buys them from Eyer the apothecary, whose shop is next door.’ He gestured down the High Street with an amiable wave.

‘Well, he should have left them in his bag,’ grumbled Ratclyf. ‘Potmoor might give us princely donations, but that does not make him respectable. It was God’s will that he should perish that night, and Bartholomew had no right to interfere.’

‘Certain ailments produce corpse-like symptoms,’ began Bartholomew. He knew he was wasting his time by trying to explain, just as he had with the many others who had demanded to know what he thought he had been doing. ‘One is catalepsia, which is rare but fairly well documented. Potmoor was suffering from that.’

‘I came across a case once,’ said Lawrence conversationally. ‘In a page of Queen Isabella’s. They were lowering him into his grave, when he started banging on the lid of his coffin.’

‘Yes, but he was not a vicious criminal,’ sniffed Ratclyf. ‘Bartholomew should have found a way to keep Potmoor dead.’

Bartholomew disliked people thinking that physicians had the right to decide their patients’ fates. ‘I swore an oath to-’

‘You saved one of the greatest scoundrels who ever lived,’ interrupted Ratclyf. ‘And if that is not bad enough, Potmoor believes that his glimpse of Heaven means he is favoured by God. Now his wickedness will know no bounds.’

‘How can you call him wicked when he gave us money to build a buttress when our hall developed that worrying crack last week?’ asked Illesy reproachfully. ‘There is much good in him.’

‘You would think so,’ sneered Ratclyf. ‘You were his favourite lawyer, and it was your skill that kept him out of prison for so many years.’

‘How dare you!’ flashed Illesy, irritated at last by his Fellow’s bile. ‘You had better watch your tongue if you want to continue being a Fellow here.’

Bartholomew was embarrassed. Most halls kept their spats private, and he did not like witnessing rifts in Winwick. Lawrence saw it, and hastened to change the subject.

‘I was probably the last person to see Elvesmere alive,’ he told his fellow physician. ‘It was late last night. He said he felt unwell, so I made him a tonic. He was not in his room when I visited at dawn, so I assumed he was better and had gone to church, but I found him here a little later.’

‘He is cold and stiff,’ remarked Bartholomew. ‘Which means he probably died hours ago. Why was he not discovered sooner? Latrines are seldom empty for long, even at night.’

‘Because no one uses this one except him and me,’ explained Lawrence. ‘The seats are not fixed yet, you see, and have a nasty habit of tipping sideways when you least expect it.’

‘The rest of us prefer the safety of a bucket behind the kitchen,’ elaborated Ratclyf. He addressed his Provost archly. ‘Do you think Potmoor will pay to remedy that problem, or is it beneath his dignity as a member of the Guild of Saints and an upright citizen?’

‘Is something wrong, Bartholomew?’ asked Lawrence quickly, thus preventing the Provost from making a tart reply. ‘You seem puzzled.’

‘I am. You say Elvesmere has not been moved, yet I doubt he died in this position.’

‘He must have done,’ said Illesy. ‘You heard Lawrence: he and Elvesmere are the only ones who ever come here. And Lawrence is the one who insisted that nothing be touched until you came, so you can be sure that he has not rearranged anything.’

‘His position looks natural to me,’ said Lawrence, frowning. ‘The fatal seizure caused him to snatch at his clothes in his final agony, which is why they are awry.’

‘His final agony was not the result of a seizure,’ said Bartholomew. He eased the body forward to reveal a dark patch of red. ‘It was because he was stabbed.’