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of the pennyroyal was not necessarily sinister,
     although the notion that anyone could wander into the storeroom and help himself to whatever he pleased was disturbing.
    It was cold and wet in the yard, and his students had taken refuge in the porters’ lodge. The slow-witted Librarian, Rob Deynman,
     was with them. Deynman had been a medical student himself, until the College had offered him a ‘promotion’ in order to prevent
     him from practising on an unsuspecting public. They looked around as Bartholomew approached, and he saw they were all grinning,
     except Risleye whose face was infused with rage.
    ‘Tell him, sir,’ Risleye cried, outraged. ‘Tell Valence that garden mint should not be given to teething children, because
     it is a herb of Venus, and so stirs up bodily desires. That is bad for babies.’
    ‘I said it can be used to remedy colic,’ corrected Valence patiently. ‘I did not say you should feed it to brats in the kind
     of quantity that will drive them wild with lust.’
    His cronies laughed, and Risleye flushed even redder, clenching his fists.
    ‘I knew a man who ate an entire patch of mint once, in the hope that it would make him lusty,’ said Deynman, ever amiable.
     ‘He was obliged to remain in the latrine for the next two days, and his wife was deeply vexed.’
    The students laughed again, but Bartholomew was not in the mood for levity. ‘Did any of you use concentrated poppy juice in
     a remedy this week?’ he demanded. ‘Or take any of my pennyroyal?’
    ‘You told us not to touch the stuff on the top shelf,’ said Risleye virtuously. ‘And I
never
disobey orders. Tesdale does, though.’
    ‘All I took this week was some yarrow to treat Dickon Tulyet’s cold,’ said Tesdale, shooting his classmate a weary look. ‘Why?
     Have you lost some?’
    Bartholomew scratched his head. Perhaps the stain on the workbench
had
been there when he had polished it the day before; he had been preoccupied with all the teaching he was due to do, so his
     mind had not been wholly on the task in hand. And the pennyroyal? There was no explanation or excuse for that: it had gone,
     and that was all there was to it.
    Once prayers had been said, and breakfast served, eaten and cleared away, Michaelhouse’s masters and their students gathered
     in the hall for the morning’s lessons. Bartholomew spoke on
De proprietatibus rerum
, the author of which listed a number of herbs and their uses, and although pennyroyal was on the physician’s mind to begin
     with, he had all but forgotten about it by the time the noonday bell rang some hours later.
    He was hoarse from trying to make himself heard. Wynewyk had declared himself indisposed, so Master Langelee had taken his
     class instead, and as he knew nothing about law, he had passed the time by talking about local camp-ball ratings instead –
     he was an avid camp-ball player, and loved nothing more than a vicious scrum in which it was legal to punch people. The ensuing
     discussion had grown cheerfully rowdy, and Bartholomew had not been the only one struggling to teach over the racket.
    Langelee was a burly man, with muscular arms and a thatch of thick hair, who looked more like a warrior than the head of a
     Cambridge College. Before becoming a scholar, he had worked for the Archbishop of York, and there were details about his previous
     life that Bartholomewstill found unsettling. But his rule was just and fair, and his Fellows were satisfied with his leadership. One of the most
     astute things he had done was to delegate his financial responsibilities to Wynewyk, who had a good head for figures and an
     unerring eye for a bargain.
    ‘Lord!’ muttered Michael, coming to join the physician and casting a venomous look in the Master’s direction as the students
     clattered out of the hall. ‘That was tiresome. My theologians were not interested in camp-ball when we started out this morning,
     but they are gripped by it now. They tell me