Free A Plague on Both Your Houses by Susanna Gregory Page B

and Gilbert had
    evidently been dispatched to fetch Robert Swynford
    and Giles Abigny.
    Wilson swept importantly past Bartholomew, paused
    briefly to look into Augustus’s ransacked room and
    stopped as he saw Brother Paul’s body. Bartholomew
    had left him as he had been found, the knife
    protruding from his stomach, and Wilson paled at
    the sight.
    ‘Cover him up, damn you,’ he snarled at
    Bartholomew. ‘Leave the poor soul with some dignity!’
    Bartholomew drew the bedcover over Paul’s body,
    while Wilson looked around at the commoners in disdain.
    ‘They are all drunk!’ he proclaimed. ‘We will not have such debauchery while I am Master!’
    Bartholomew barely restrained himself from telling
    Wilson that if they were drunk, it was due to the copious amounts of wine he himself had supplied the night
    before, and that such ‘debauchery’ would most certainly not have been tolerated under Sir John’s Mastership.
    ‘Now,’ Wilson said, sweeping some discarded
    clothes from a bench and sitting down, ‘tell me what
    happened.’
    Bartholomew looked at Aelfrith. As Senior Fellow, it
    was his prerogative to speak first. Aelfrith shook his head sorrowfully. “I cannot begin to say what evil has walked in these rooms,’ he began. Alcote and Swynford, in
    anticipation of a lengthy explanation, followed Wilson’s lead and sat on the bench. Father William stood next
    to Aelfrith, silently offering his support, while Brother Michael, his black robes askew, leaned against the door.
    Abigny, less the worse for wear than Bartholomew would have expected, slipped into the dormitory noiselessly and stood next to him. All the Fellows were present.
    Wilson folded his arms over his ample paunch and
    waited imperiously. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
    ‘It is complex,’ Aelfrith began. Bartholomew edged
    his way nearer to Montfitchet, partly so he could keep an eye on the old man, and partly so he would be able to see all the faces of the gathered Fellows. It was possible that one or more of them had committed some terrible acts,
    and he wanted to watch them all closely. He felt rather ashamed: these were his colleagues, and some of them,
    like Michael and Abigny, his friends whom he had known for years. None of them had any history of violence that he knew. He thought of Sir John, and his mangled body, and he looked across at the covered body of Paul, and
    steeled himself. They would be no friends of his if they had killed Sir John and Brother Paul!
    ‘This is what I perceive to have happened,’ Aelfrith
    continued. He looked over at Bartholomew. ‘You must
    interrupt if you think I have left something out. Augustus died during the feast, and Matthew came to check
    the body at Master Wilson’s request. He declared
    Augustus dead, and Brother Michael came to pray
    for his soul. Michael returned to the hall first, and
    Matthew came later.’
    Wilson snorted, his eyes boring into Bartholomew.
    The physician had not realised that the Fellows had been so intrigued as to why he had taken so much longer than Michael. Well, he was certainly not going to reveal that he suspected Augustus had been murdered. Aelfrith
    continued.
    ‘He made his report to the Master, and asked if
    I would keep vigil for Augustus. I went to Augustus’s
    room, and kept vigil there until I was attacked from
    behind and knocked senseless. I have the wound to
    prove it. When I came round, Matthew was helping me
    to rise. Augustus’s body was gone, and his room had been ransacked. I have no idea as to the reasons for either.
    Matthew and I made a quick search of this part of the
    building for Augustus and for the attacker. It was then that Matthew discovered that the commoners, who had
    been remarkably oblivious to all these goings-on, had
    been drugged. While examining them, he found that
    Brother Paul, God rest his soul, had been murdered.
    And that is all I know.’ His story completed, he stood with head bowed and hands folded in front of him.
    There