A Plague on Both Your Houses by Susanna Gregory Read Free Book Online

quickly.
    ‘Alexander says Augustus is dead,’ Bartholomew
    replied tersely.
    Michael stopped abruptly, and gripped Bartholomew’s
    arm. ‘But he cannot be!’
    Bartholomew peered at Michael in the darkness of the
    courtyard. His face was so deathly white that it was almost luminous, and his eyes were round with horror.
    “I went to see him after I had finished with those town lads,’ Michael went on.’ He was rambling like he does, and I told him I would save him some wine from the feast.’
    Bartholomew steered Michael towards Augustus’s
    room. “I saw him after you, on my way to the hall. He
    was sound asleep.’
    Together they climbed the narrow wooden stairs to
    Augustus’s tiny chamber. Alexander was waiting outside the door holding a lamp that he passed to Bartholomew.
    Michael followed the physician over to the bed where
    Augustus lay, the lamp and the flames from the small
    fire in the hearth casting strange shadows on the walls.
    Bartholomew had expected Augustus to have slipped
    away in his sleep, and was shocked to see the old man’s eyes open and his lips drawn back over long yellow teeth in a grimace that bespoke of abject terror. Death had not crept up and claimed Augustus unnoticed. Bartholomew
    heard Michael take a sharp breath and his robes rustled as he crossed-himself quickly.
    Bartholomew put the lamp on the window-sill and
    sat on the edge of the bed, putting his cheek to Augustus’s mouth to see if he still breathed - although he knew
    that he would not. He gently touched one of the staring eyes with his forefinger to test for a reaction. There was none. Brother Michael was kneeling behind him
    intoning the prayers for the dead in his precise Latin, his eyes closed so he would not have to look at Augustus’s face. Alexander had been sent to fetch oil with which to anoint the dead man.
    To Bartholomew it seemed as if Augustus had had
    some kind of seizure; perhaps he had frightened himself with some nightmare, or with some of his wild imaginings - as when he had tried to jump out of the window two
    nights before. Bartholomew felt sad that Augustus had
    died afraid: three generations of students had benefited from his patient teaching, and he had been kind to
    Bartholomew, too, when the younger man had first
    been appointed at Michaelhouse. When Sir John had
    arranged Bartholomew’s fellowship, not all members
    of the College had been supportive. Yet Augustus, like Sir John, had seen in Bartholomew an opportunity to
    improve the strained relationship between the College
    and the town; Bartholomew had been given Sir John’s
    blessing to work among the poor and not merely to
    pander to the minor complaints of the wealthy.
    The gravelly sound of Michael clearing his throat
    jerked Bartholomew back to the present. Sir John was
    dead, and so, now, was Augustus. Michael had finished
    his prayers, and was stepping forward to anoint Augustus’s eyes, mouth and hands with a small bottle of chrism that Alexander had fetched. He did so quickly, concentrating on his words so that he would not have to see Augustus’s expression of horror. Bartholomew had seen many such
    expressions before: his Arab master had once taken him to the scene of a battle in France, where they had scoured the field looking for the wounded among the dead and
    dying, and so Augustus’s face did not hold the same
    horror for him as it did for Michael.
    While waiting for Michael, Bartholomew looked
    around the room. Since the commotion two nights
    before, Wilson had decreed that Augustus should not
    be allowed the fire he usually had during the night.
    Wilson said, with good reason, that it was not safe, and that he could not risk the lives of others by allowing a madman to be left alone with naked flames.
    Bartholomew suspected that Wilson was also considering the cost, because he had questioned Sir John on
    several occasions about the necessity of the commoners having a fire in July and August. Michaelhouse was built of