Read A Plague on Both Your Houses for Free Online Page A

were not his
    students, and he had never had to deal with them for
    any disciplinary breaches. He found it hard to believe that all the hatred that Henry had put into that look
    came from the incident outside the church. The mob
    had been in an ugly mood, and he had averted what
    might very easily have turned into a bloodbath. So what had he done to earn such emotions?
    He tried to put it out of his mind. He was tired,
    and was probably reading far too much into Henry
    Oliver’s looks. He sipped at the fine wine from France that Wilson had provided to toast his future success as Master, and leaned his elbows on the table. Abigny, his story completed, slapped Bartholomew on the back.
    “I heard you have secreted a woman in the

College
    Abigny’s voice was loud, and several students looked
    at him speculatively. Brother Michael’s eyebrows shot
    up, his baggy green eyes glittering with amusement.
    The Franciscans paused in their debate and looked at
    Bartholomew disapprovingly.
    ‘Hush!’ Bartholomew chided Abigny. ‘She is in the
    care of Agatha, and not secreted anywhere.’
    Abigny laughed, and draped his arm round Bartholomew’s shoulders. Bartholomew pulled away as
    wine fumes wafted into his face. “I wish I were a
    physician and not a philosopher. What better excuse
    to be in a woman’s boudoir than to be leeching her
    blood.’
    “I do not leech the blood of my patients,’ said
    Bartholomew irritably. They had been down this path
    before. Abigny loved to tease Bartholomew about his
    unorthodox methods. Bartholomew had learned medicine
    at the University in Paris from an Arab teacher who
    had taught him that bleeding was for charlatans too lazy to discover a cure.
    Abigny laughed again, his cheeks flushed pink with
    wine, but then leaned closer to Bartholomew. ‘But you
    and I may not be long for our free and easy lives if
    our new Master has anything to say. He will have us
    taking major orders as he and his two sycophants over
    there plan to do.’
    ‘Have a care, Giles,’ said Bartholomew nervously.
    He was acutely aware that the students’ conversation
    at the nearest table had stopped, and Bartholomew
    knew that some of the scholars were not above telling
    tales to senior College members in return for a lenient disputation, or spoken exam.
    ‘What will it be for you, Matt?’ Abigny continued,
    ignoring his friend’s appeal for discretion. ‘Will you become an Austin Canon and go to work in St John’s
    Hospital? Or would you rather become a rich, fat
    Benedictine, like Brother Michael here?’
    Michael pursed his lips, but humour showed in his
    eyes. Like Bartholomew, being the butt of Abigny’s jokes was nothing new to him.
    Abigny blundered on. ‘But, my dear friend, I would
    not want you to take orders with the Carmelites, like
    good Master Wilson. I would kill you before I would let that happen. I …’
    ‘Enough, Giles!’ Bartholomew said sharply. ‘If you
    cannot keep your council, you should not drink so much.
    Pull yourself together.’
    Abigny laughed at his friend’s admonition, took
    a deep draught from his goblet, but said no more.
    Bartholomew sometimes wondered about the philosopher’s behaviour. He was fair and fresh-faced, like
    a young country bumpkin. But his boyish looks belied
    a razor-like mind, and Bartholomew had no doubt that
    if he dedicated himself to learning he could become one of the foremost scholars in the University. But Abigny was too lazy and too fond of the pleasures of life.
    Bartholomew thought about Abigny’s claim. Most
    Cambridge masters, including Bartholomew, had taken
    minor holy orders so that they were ruled by church
    law rather than secular law. Some, like Brother Michael and the Franciscans, were monks or friars and had taken major orders. This meant that they could not marry or
    have relations with women, although not all monks and
    friars in the University kept these vows as assiduously as they might.
    As a boy, Bartholomew had been