Bartholomew 08 - A Summer of Discontent Read online

  ‘It was an interesting experience,’ replied Bartholomew guardedly. ‘I am used to masses conducted a little more quietly.’

  Leycestre chuckled. ‘I imagine there are few who are not.’

  ‘I have been instructed not to speak to you,’ said Bartholomew, looking to where Father John’s determined advance on the chattering lay-brothers had been brought to a halt: Agnes Fitzpayne, the prodigious drinker in the Mermaid the night before, had intercepted him and had his arm gripped in one of her powerful hands. Thus occupied, John had not yet noticed that his earlier command was being ignored, and that Bartholomew was conversing with Leycestre and his companions.

  ‘By Father John, I suppose,’ said Leycestre, shaking his head. ‘He is always trying to prevent us from speaking to the strangers who pass through our city.’ He indicated the two young men with a wave of his hand. ‘These are my nephews, Adam Clymme and Robert Buk. They are of the same mind as me as regards the pitiful circumstances our peasants have been forced into by greedy landlords, but Father John dislikes us spreading the word.’

  ‘I imagine he is trying to protect you,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You are very vocal about your beliefs, and he probably does not want you telling one of the King’s spies that Ely is a hotbed of insurrection.’

  ‘Unfortunately, it is not,’ said Leycestre bitterly. ‘I wish it were, because then we might be able to set about rectifying the unjust situation that prevails here. But although everyone complains about high taxes and crippling tithes, no one is prepared to do anything about them.’

  ‘And you are?’

  Leycestre regarded him warily. ‘That is a blunt question. Perhaps Father John was right to try to prevent us from speaking to you.’

  ‘Perhaps he was. Not everyone feels the same way as you do.’

  Leycestre went back to his preaching. ‘All the folk here resent the heavy taxes and the fact that they owe at least three days’ labour each week to the Bishop or the priory – depending on who owns the land – before they can even begin to see to their own crops. But no one except us has the courage to speak out.’

  ‘Father John is certainly vocal in his way,’ said Bartholomew with a smile. ‘He must have spoiled the monks’ morning mass.’

  Leycestre did not smile back. ‘It is a matter of principle that we do not allow those fat, wealthy clerics to gain the better of us poor folk. It is a pity, though: I used to find prime in the cathedral a restful time, and now it has become a battle.’

  ‘Then do not take part in it,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘I am sorry if I offend you, but competing to see who can shout the loudest is no way to behave. It is very childish.’

  ‘That is because you do not understand what is at issue here,’ said one of the nephews, pushing forward and thrusting his heavy, ruddy face close to Bartholomew’s. The physician was startled: he had forgotten the youths were there. ‘You only heard a lot of shouting, but—’

  ‘That is enough!’ came a sharp voice from behind them. Bartholomew turned to see that Agnes Fitzpayne had abandoned John, and was approaching them. She glowered menacingly at the hapless young man. ‘I have warned you about this kind of thing before, Adam!’

  Adam fell back, reddening in embarrassment at the admonition.

  ‘Mistress Fitzpayne,’ said Leycestre pleasantly. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘A “good morning” for talking rebellious nonsense, you mean,’ she snapped. ‘Go on! Be off! All three of you have work to do in the fields, and making nuisances of yourselves in the cathedral will not get the crops harvested.’

  ‘Priory crops!’ spat Adam in disgust. ‘The monks have no right to force us to work in their fields for no pay. We have families to feed and bread to earn, and we have no spare days for labouring just so that the likes of them can get fat on our sweat.’

  ‘That may be so, but it is not for you to try to change things,’ said Agnes briskly, cocking her head meaningfully at Bartholomew in an unsubtle warning that strangers were present. ‘Go away before I take a broom handle to you.’

  Reluctantly, the nephews slunk away, casting resentful glances over their shoulders to show their displeasure at being dismissed like schoolboys. Leycestre lingered, although he was evidently not in Agnes’s good books for spinning his disaffected thoughts to the priory’s visitors, because she turned her back on him when she addressed Bartholomew. She looked the physician up and down before speaking, as she might examine a fish she was considering buying.

  ‘I am surprised to see you here so early this morning,’ she began rudely. ‘You and your fat Benedictine friend trawled every tavern in the town last night, asking about Glovere. I did not expect to see you until at least noon, given that Ely ale is stronger than that pale stuff served in Cambridge.’

  ‘We did not drink that much,’ said Bartholomew, blithely ignoring the fact that he had felt less than lively when he had awoken that morning. ‘We wanted information, not ale.’

  Agnes nodded. ‘I know what you wanted. You are trying to find evidence that Thomas de Lisle did not drown Glovere in the river.’

  ‘Much as I despise the man for oppressing the people he is supposed to care for, I do not think de Lisle killed Glovere … ’ began Leycestre.

  Agnes said tiredly, ‘No, we all know what you think, Leycestre. You blame Glovere’s death on the gypsies. Personally, I do not know what to believe, so I suppose we will just have to wait and see what the official investigators – Brother Michael, Bishop Northburgh and Canon Stretton – discover.’ She turned her penetrating gaze on Bartholomew. ‘But meanwhile, I would be obliged if you would forget what you just heard.’

  ‘And you would be wise to oblige her,’ Bartholomew thought he heard Leycestre murmur.

  ‘Forget what, precisely?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘The fact that I have just witnessed the unedifying spectacle of rival clerics trying to yell each other hoarse? Or the fact that Ely’s young men, like those in Cambridge, do not like harvesting crops?’

  Agnes put her hands on her hips and regarded him closely. ‘You are one of that rabble of scholars from the University in Cambridge. I hear that the masters there engage in unnatural acts with animals, and that the students practise satanic rites in the churchyards after dark – when they are not murdering townsfolk, that is.’

  ‘Only when they are not roasting babies on spits in the Market Square,’ replied Bartholomew, wondering what scholars had done to earn such a peculiar reputation. From what he had observed during his brief sojourn with the residents of Ely, he thought they should concentrate on improving their own image before launching attacks on those of others.

  ‘Come, Leycestre,’ Agnes ordered, apparently uncertain whether or not the newcomer was jesting with her and not inclined to stay to find out. ‘We should make sure those feckless lads go to the priory’s fields and do their duty, or there will be trouble.’

  As Bartholomew watched them hurry away, a sharp voice made him turn. It was Father John, his face dark with anger. ‘I told you not to talk to Leycestre and his nephews,’ he snapped, seizing Bartholomew’s arm angrily.

  The physician pulled away, irked that the man should manhandle him. ‘You can tell me whatever you like, but I am not obliged to follow any of your orders. And they spoke to me first, not the other way around.’

  ‘They came to ascertain whether you are one of them,’ said John bitterly. ‘Foolish men! It is the surest way to place a noose around their necks – and mine, if they implicate me in their plans. It was lucky Agnes arrived when she did. Doubtless she stopped them from saying anything that might have been dangerous.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Bartholomew testily, weary of the threats and assumptions that Ely’s citizens seemed happy to bandy about. ‘What is so dangerous about a conversation in a church?’

  ‘Rebellion,’ said John in a whisper, glancing around him as if the King’s spies might be lurking behind the cathedral’s pillars. ‘Sedition and bloody uprising. The people have grown tired of bendi
ng under the yoke of harsh landlords, and they are ready to rise against them. Leycestre and his nephews are the leaders of the movement in Ely. I am not with them, of course; I shall have to wait to see which side will win before I choose one faction over the other.’

  ‘Very wise,’ said Bartholomew dryly. ‘But I am no rabble rouser, and I do not want to become involved in any such venture. You can tell your trio of rebels to leave me alone.’

  ‘Not my trio,’ said John hastily. ‘But you will say nothing of this to the monks, especially Almoner Robert, or he will have them imprisoned. So, the matter is closed. Are we agreed? I see you carry a medicine bag. Are you a physician?’

  ‘Yes – I am here to read in the monks’ library; I have no time to work on horoscopes,’ Bartholomew said quickly before he was inundated with requests in that quarter.

  ‘I do not believe in such nonsense,’ said John dismissively. Bartholomew warmed to him a little. ‘I am interested in acquiring your services on another matter. I will pay you for your time; I know how physicians like their gold. Are you interested?’

  ‘It depends what you want me to do,’ said Bartholomew warily. ‘I do not cut hair or shave beards like a surgeon, and I certainly do not bleed people.’

  ‘I want you to give me your opinion,’ replied John mysteriously. ‘I want you to tell me whether a man died from his own hand or by accident. Can you do that? I know University men use dead bodies to further their knowledge of anatomy, so you must be familiar with corpses.’

  ‘Ask a local physician,’ said Bartholomew, reluctant to spend his precious time examining bodies when he could be in the library. ‘What about Brother Henry?’

  ‘Henry is a good man, but he knows nothing about the dead,’ said John.

  ‘Then what about a surgeon? There must be one in Ely.’

  ‘Barbour, the landlord of the Lamb, bleeds us and cuts our hair while we recover. But I do not trust a surgeon who is better with hair than he is with veins. I would rather hire you.’

  ‘Who do you want me to look at?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily. ‘I have already examined Glovere in the Bone House.’

  ‘And what did you find?’ asked John with keen interest. ‘Did he drown by accident, was it suicide, or did someone do away with him, as Lady Blanche would have us believe?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ asked Bartholomew, wishing Michael were with him. He did not like the fact that the priest already seemed aware that Glovere’s death was not all it seemed, and he did not like to imagine how.

  ‘Because Glovere’s demise may be relevant to the deaths of my two parishioners. Ely is a small town, and we have had three deaths by drowning within the last ten days. Do not tell me that is not a little odd!’

  * * *

  Bartholomew did not want to begin an investigation into the other two suspicious drownings without Michael present, so he asked Father John to wait while he went to fetch the monk. Michael was in the refectory, enjoying a substantial breakfast with the Prior and several other high-ranking Benedictines. Not for the brethren the grey, watery oatmeal that most people were obliged to consume: each of their tables was laden with fresh bread, smoked eels and dishes of stewed onions. The Prior and his officers, as befitted men of their superior station, also had coddled eggs and a baked ham.

  ‘Is it a feast day?’ asked Bartholomew, astonished by the quality and quantity of food that was being packed inside ample girths all around the refectory. No wonder Michael was so large, he thought; there seemed to be an informal competition in play to see who could eat the most. People often joked about the amount of food that was available to Benedictines, and Bartholomew had always put this down to a natural jealousy of an institution that treated its members well. However, he realised that he had been wrong to dismiss the popular claims as wild exaggerations when he saw what was being devoured by the men in black habits.

  ‘I must apologise for the paucity of the fare today,’ said the swarthy Almoner Robert, as he rammed a large piece of cheese into his mouth. ‘It is a Monday, and we always breakfast lightly on Mondays.’

  Bartholomew studied him hard, but the intent expression on the almoner’s face convinced him that the man was perfectly serious.

  ‘Yes, there is almost nothing here,’ agreed Michael, casting a critical eye across the table. ‘I shall be ready for my midday meal when it comes.’

  Bartholomew had no idea whether he was being facetious. Aware that Father John was waiting for him, he opened his mouth to ask Michael to accompany him, but he had hesitated and the conversation at the breakfast table suddenly took off. Bartholomew realised that besides having ample food with which to start the day, the monks also enjoyed talking, and there was none of the silence he had observed at mealtimes in other abbeys and his own College.

  ‘These are hard times,’ said Robert, still looking at the table in a disparaging manner. ‘We are reduced to eating much smaller portions, and I sometimes wonder how much longer we will be able to continue dispensing alms to the poor. They are always hungry.’

  ‘They are always hungry because they work hard,’ said Henry sharply, giving the almoner a disapproving glance. Bartholomew saw that he and Alan were the only ones who were not snatching and grabbing at the breakfast fare as if they would never see its like again. Alan seemed to possess the kind of nervous appetite that did not allow him to eat rich food, while the infirmarian took only bread and ale. They were by far the slimmest members of the community.

  ‘I cannot say I enjoyed prime this morning,’ said Michael, loading his knife with coddled eggs and transporting the quivering mass to his mouth. So much of the implement disappeared inside his maw that Bartholomew thought he might stab the back of his throat. ‘There was far too much noise. Can you not ask that parish priest to lower his voice?’

  ‘I do not attend prime, for exactly that reason,’ said Prior Alan. ‘I cannot hear myself think with all that yelling, let alone pray. I am obliged to delegate prime to Sub-prior Thomas, while I celebrate the office in my private chapel.’

  ‘I do not mind,’ said a vast man, whose jowls quivered with fat as they munched on his smoked eels. Bartholomew had never before seen a man of such immense proportions. He noted that the sub-prior had been provided with a sturdy seat of oak, probably so that his enormous weight would not tip the bench and precipitate the others on to the floor. His Benedictine habit was the size of a tent, yet was still stretched taut across his chest and stomach, and a series of wobbling chins cascaded down the front of it. Even the process of sitting and devouring a monstrous meal seemed too much exercise; beads of sweat broke out across his red face and oozed into the greasy strands of hair that sprouted from his neck.

  ‘Personally, I have always felt there is far too much mumbling at prime,’ Sub-prior Thomas went on, slicing himself a slab of ham the size of a doorstop. ‘I like a bit of noise myself. All that soft whispering gives people the impression that we are still half asleep, and prime is much more rousing when we can put a little enthusiasm into it.’

  ‘There was certainly a good deal of that,’ muttered Michael, repeating the operation with the knife. This time, several monks watched with evident fascination, probably anticipating that he would either stab himself or choke, Michael did neither, and when he spoke again, it was through a mouth full of eggs. ‘Young Julian yelled himself completely hoarse, while the altos in the choir were screeching, not singing.’

  ‘I am glad Julian can do something worthwhile,’ Bartholomew thought he heard Thomas mutter as he reached out and grabbed a loaf of bread. The physician expected him to cut a piece and replace the rest, but the sub-prior proceeded to tear off lumps and cram them into his mouth with the clear intention of devouring the whole thing himself. As he ate, he cast venomous glances at the back of the hall, where the novices were seated. The young men did not seem happy to be the object of the sub-prior’s hostile attention, and Bartholomew had the impression that there was no love lost between Alan’s deputy and his young charges
. Julian gazed back with brazen dislike, although the others seemed more cowed than defiant.

  ‘De Lisle never bothers with prime when he is in Ely,’ observed Robert sanctimoniously. ‘I imagine he is too busy counting his money.’

  ‘I sincerely doubt it,’ said Hosteller William. He had washed his hair that morning, presumably because Blanche was visiting and he wanted to make a good impression. He kept running his hands through it so that it would dry, and it sat around his head like a giant grey puffball. ‘He does not have any. That is his problem.’

  ‘How is Lady Blanche this morning?’ asked Alan of his hosteller, tactfully changing the subject so that Michael would not be obliged to hear his fellow monks denigrating their Bishop. ‘I invited her to celebrate prime in my private chapel, but she informed me that she does not like to rise while the dew still lies on the ground.’

  ‘Her retinue follow her example,’ said Robert disapprovingly. He helped himself to a chunk of cheese that would have fed an entire family of peasants. Bartholomew tried hard not to gape at him. ‘Bartholomew was the only one of our guests in the cathedral this morning. However, I did not like the fact that he chose to sit with the town rabble, in preference to us.’

  ‘I did not expect that to be an issue,’ said Bartholomew, indignant at the criticism, when no one had bothered to forewarn him. ‘I assumed the townsfolk would attend St Mary’s, or listen to your offices from the nave. I was not anticipating that two masses would be celebrated in the same church at the same time.’

  ‘There is something of a rivalry between priory and city,’ explained William. ‘And Father John is always looking for opportunities to exacerbate the problem. I saw him whispering secretly to you after he had finished howling his miserable Latin. What did he want?’

  ‘He was not whispering and his request was not secret,’ said Bartholomew, resenting the implication that he was engaging in subterfuge. He wondered whether the monks were in the habit of making inflammatory remarks to all their guests, or whether he had been singled out for that particular honour.