Master Wycliffe's Summons by Mel Starr

Author:Mel Starr
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782643487
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2021-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I awoke with the dawn as the Angelus bell sounded from the tower of St. Peter-in-the-East. I was eager to seek the kitchen for a loaf and a cup of ale, then prowl the wood and hedgerows to the east of St. John’s Hospital.

The bell fell silent, but a few moments later rang again. I knew why, and crossed myself. The sexton was announcing a death in the parish, for this peal was a passing bell. Was another Queen’s scholar taken, or was this the death of a townsman? I thought Master Wycliffe might know and hastened to his chamber. Sir Jaket and Thomas fell in behind me as I approached Wycliffe’s chamber door.

“One of the carpenters,” Master John said when I asked the reason for the passing bell.

“One of those repairing the roof?” I asked.

“Aye. Took to his bed with a cough yesterday, I was told, and was found dead this morning, his pillow drenched in bloody sputum. When the pestilence settles in a man’s lungs he will not survive long.”

I told Wycliffe what I had learned the evening before, and said ’twas my intention to prowl the wood and lanes and hedgerows to the east of the hospital of St. John this day.

“I’ll go also,” Master John said. “Let’s fetch loaves from the kitchen and be away.”

Wycliffe was as excited as a child with a new toy. He was convinced, he told me and Sir Jaket as we munched our loaves, that we were close on the trail of whoso murdered Richard Sabyn. We were not so near as Master John thought.

A plan was needed. If we four simply wandered the wood to the north and east of the hospital without some design to our steps we would likely pass by some places which should be inspected and mayhap search another area twice. I told Sir Jaket and Thomas to explore east of the river, along the north side of the road across East Bridge. Master Wycliffe and I would seek to the east of Sir Jaket for any sign of ashes now cold. We would meet at Queen’s for dinner and describe what we had seen. Or not seen.

We saw forests and hedgerows and meadows where sheep grazed. We saw fields planted to barley and oats and wheat. Also peas and beans. We saw no evidence that any quantity of wood had been burned in some hidden location.

The pottage this day was flavored only with leeks and onions, as ’twas a fast day. Dinner was a somber meal. Three men having some association with Queen’s College – though for two of them it was tenuous, to be sure – had perished of plague in but a few days. No man could be reproved for considering his own mortality. As scholars bent over their meal I saw that hung about several necks were lengths of twine. This string likely supported bags of sweet-smelling herbs hidden under the scholars’ gowns, to perfume the air and ward off pestilence.

When

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