The Hand of Justice by Susanna Gregory

Valence Marie, which was rutted with water-filled potholes deep enough to drown
     a sheep. Isnard’s home was on the river bank, overlooking the Mill Pool.
    The bargeman’s residence was not in a good location. It was near both the Cam and the King’s Ditch, both of which were stinking
     open sewers that contained all manner of filth. Being by the Mill Pool did not help either, since the current slowed there,
     causing the foulness to linger rather than being carried away. The pool was fringed with reeds and, in the spring and summer,
     Bartholomew imagined the bargeman would be plagued with swarms of insects. The house was near the town’s two largest watermills,
     too, and, although Bartholomew supposed their neighbours would grow used to the rhythmic clank and rumble of their mighty
     wheels, he did not think he would ever do so. As he picked his way along the muddy path to Isnard’s home, he studied them.
    The King’s Mill was a hall-house located a few paces upstream from the Mill Pool. It spanned an arm of waterthat had been artificially narrowed to make it run faster and stronger. Its vertical wheel was of the undershot style, designed
     so that water struck its lower blades to set it in motion. The power generated was transferred to the mill itself by means
     of an ‘axle tree’ – a shaft connected to a series of cogs and wheels. It was not just the swishing, clunking sound of the
     wheel as it turned that was so noisy, but the rattle of the machinery, too.
    Standing a short distance from the King’s Mill was Mortimer’s Mill, owned and run by the man who had injured Isnard. It was
     smaller than its competitor but just as noisy, and a good deal more filthy. The King’s Mill ground grain for flour, but Mortimer’s
     Mill had recently been converted for fulling cloth, a process that entailed the use of a lot of very smelly substances, all
     of which ended up in the river. The bargeman would be able to see Mortimer’s enterprise from his sickbed, and Bartholomew
     wondered what he thought as he lay maimed and fevered, while the author of his troubles continued with the work that was making
     him a very wealthy man.
    As Bartholomew listened to the repetitive rattle coming from the King’s Mill, he became aware that it was slowing down. There
     was not as much water in each of the wheel’s scoops, and the busy sound of its workings faltered, as though it had run out
     of energy. By contrast, Mortimer’s Mill was operating at a cracking pace, and, if anything, was going even faster. He saw
     people hurry from the King’s Mill and start to inspect their wheel, as if they could not understand why it had lost power.
     He watched their puzzled musings for a moment, then turned to enter his patient’s home.
    The house was poor and mean. Its thatched roof was in need of repair, and plaster was peeling from its walls, exposing the
     wattle and daub underneath. A chamber on the ground floor held a table, a bench, a hearth and ashelf for pots; an attic, reached by a ladder, was where Isnard usually slept. Since the bargeman’s injury meant he could
     not climb the steps, Bartholomew had carried his bedding downstairs the previous day.
    The physician was fully expecting him to develop a fever that might kill him, and was surprised, but pleased, to discover
     that the burly bargeman had not succumbed. He was even more surprised to find him sitting up and talking to a visitor – a
     man named Nicholas Bottisham, who was Gonville Hall’s Master of Civil and Canon Law. Bottisham was regarded as one of the
     finest scholars in the University, possessing a mind that retained facts and references and made him a superb disputant. He
     had recently taken major orders with the Carmelites, and his new habit was still pristine. His complexion was florid and uneven,
     as a result of a disfiguring pox contracted in childhood, and his hair was cut high above his ears in a way indicating that
     Barber Lenne had been at it. He