An Unholy Alliance by Susanna Gregory

wormwood was common to effect cures of women’ s ailments, and crushed snails were also popular. The thought of medicines reminded him that he was supposed to be teaching. Thanking Agatha for her help, he walked quickly back through the kitchen, and up the wide spiral staircase that led to the hall on the upper floor. Father William, the dour Franciscan teacher of theology, was holding forth to a group of six or seven scholars on the doctrine of original sin, his voice booming through the hall to the distraction of the other Fellows who were also trying to teach there. Piers Hesselwell, Michaelhouse’s Fellow of Law, was struggling valiantly to explain the basic principles of Gratian’s Decretum to ten restless undergraduates, while Roger Alcote, probably tired of competing with William’s voice, had ordered one of his scholars to read Aristotle’s Rhetoric to his own class. As Bartholomew passed him on his way to the conclave at the far end of the hall, Alcote beckoned him over.
    ‘What is the news?’ he asked. ‘Are these rumours true about dead friars in the chest?’
    Bartholomew nodded, and tried to leave, reluctant to engage in gossip with the Senior Fellow. He was a tiny, bitter man who fussed like a hen and had a fanatical dislike of women that Bartholomew thought was abnormal.
    ‘What House?’ Alcote asked.
    ‘Dominican,’ answered Bartholomew, guessing what was coming next.
    Alcote shot him a triumphant look. ‘Dominican! A mendicant!’ Bartholomew gave him a look of reproval.
    If the Fellows harboured such unyielding attitudes, what hope was there that the students would ever forget their differences and learn to study in peace?
    Alcote had recently taken major orders with the
    Cluniacs at Thetford, and had immediately engaged upon a bitter war of attrition with the mendicant Franciscans. Michaelhouse had been relatively free from inter-Order disputes until then; Brother Michael, the one Benedictine, picked no quarrel with the strong Franciscan contingent there, while those who had taken minor orders, like Bartholomew, had no quarrel with anyone.
    Most scholars at the University took religious orders.
    This meant that they came under the jurisdiction of Church, rather than secular, law. This division between scholars and townspeople was yet another bone of contention, for secular law was notoriously harsher than Canon law: if Alcote or Bartholomew stole a sheep, they would be fined; if a townsman stole a sheep, he was likely to be hanged. Being in minor orders meant that Bartholomew had certain duties to perform, such as taking church services, but the protection it offered was indisputable. Other scholars, like William, Michael, and now Alcote, had taken major orders, which forbade marriage and relations with women.
    Bartholomew left Alcote to his nasty musing, and made for the conclave. It was a pleasant room in the summer, when the light from the wide arched windows flooded in.
    The windows had no glass, and so a cool breeze wafted through them, tinged with the unmistakable aroma of river. The coolness was welcome in the summer, but in the winter, when the shutters had to be kept firmly closed against the weather, the conclave was dark and cold. The limewashed walls were decorated with some fine wall-hangings, donated by a former student after a fire had damaged much of the hall two years before, and, at Bartholomew’s insistence, there were always fresh rushes on the floor.
    Bartholomew’s students were engaged in a noisy
    dispute that he felt certain was not medical, and they quietened when he strode in. He settled himself in one of the chairs near the empty fireplace and smiled round at his students, noting which ones smiled back and which ones studiously avoided his eye because they had failed to prepare for the discussion he had planned.
    Sam Gray was one of the ones looking everywhere but at his teacher. He was a young man in his early twenties with a shock of unruly, light-brown hair. He