A Grave Concern

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John Dallingridge did not know who had poisoned him. He only knew he would not live to be inaugurated as a Fellow in the University at Cambridge that October, something he had wanted to do ever since childhood. He sighed at the pity of it all. He would have made an excellent teacher – his students would have hung on his every word, his scholarly writings would have set the academic world afire, and his colleagues would have delighted in his mental agility.

He shifted restlessly in the bed. When he had first been afflicted by the griping pains in his innards, he had assumed that bad meat was responsible. He had been taken ill on Lammas Day after a feast at the castle, where the steward was notorious for making reckless economies. But as the days had turned into weeks and his agonies had only intensified, he began to realise that this was no innocent sickness – that someone had done him deliberate and serious harm.

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