A Summer of Discontent (32 page)

He bowed elegantly, and moved away. Seeing the excitement was over, the crowd began to disperse, although Bartholomew noticed
that the Bishop’s calm, sober manner and his reluctance to become embroiled in a public fight had won the admiration of many.
As de Lisle walked up the hill towards the cathedral, a large proportion of the townsfolk followed him, evidently willing
to take him up on his invitation. Blanche saw she had been bested, and surged away in the opposite direction, a much smaller
train of people in her wake.

‘That is one reason why I am in de Lisle’s service, Matt,’ said Michael, staring after him. ‘He is a remarkable man.’

‘He is a complicated man,’ Bartholomew corrected. ‘He is unpredictable.’

‘He can be arrogant, overbearing and demanding,’ agreed Michael. ‘But other times, he demonstrates a compassion that I have
rarely seen in a cleric. If we were to listen to his mass for Robert, you would not detect a single insincere word in it –
which is more than could be said if any of the monks were to officiate.’

‘Why does he care about Robert so?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Do you think Blanche is right, and he did murder the man?’

‘I do not believe so. But we should go to the cathedral, too, so that you can inspect Robert as soon as the mass is done.’

‘Are you available now, Brother?’ came Tysilia’s voice from behind them. She gave a bright beam and sidled up to Michael,
fluttering her eyelashes alluringly.

‘Lord help us!’ breathed Michael. ‘If it is not one thing, it is another.’ He moved away from her; she followed, aiming to
stand as close as possible. He took another step, and they
began a curious circular dance that gathered momentum as each was determined to achieve his objective.

‘Not here, Tysilia,’ ordered Michael, becoming hot with the sudden vigorous exercise. ‘It is not seemly with one of my brethren
lying dead.’

‘Are you saying that it would be seemly if he were not?’ asked Bartholomew, amused.

‘If not here, then where?’ demanded Tysilia, interpreting his words as a veiled invitation. ‘I can meet you at any place,
at any time.’

‘Not at mealtimes,’ suggested Bartholomew, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘He has far more important business to attend
then.’

Michael shot him an agitated glance, then quickly turned his attention back to Tysilia: his loss of concentration had enabled
her to extend one lightning-fast hand towards his person. He yelped and looked more outraged than Bartholomew had ever seen
him. When the monk’s normally pale face turned red, the physician began to laugh.

‘Tysilia!’ The exclamation came from Ralph, the Bishop’s steward. Like Michael, he was horrified by her behaviour in such
a public place. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’

Tysilia regarded him sulkily. ‘I am having a privy conversion with Michael. Go away.’

‘She means a private conversation,’ said Bartholomew, when the steward looked bemused.

‘Well, he does not look as though he wants to finish it, so make your farewells and come away. The Bishop has decided that
you will be safer with him than with Blanche.’ Ralph turned to Bartholomew and Michael. ‘That comment about throttling has
deeply worried him, and he wants Tysilia in his own quarters.’

‘Good idea,’ said Michael flatly. ‘I imagine Blanche is at the end of her tether as caretaker. We would not want an accident,
would we?’

‘Blanche does not wear a tether,’ supplied Tysilia helpfully. ‘Her lap-dog does, though.’

‘The Bishop would do well to invest in one, too,’ said Ralph to Michael, casting a meaningful glance at Tysilia. ‘And I do
not mean a lap-dog.’

‘You can inform the Bishop that any future meetings between him and me will be in the priory,’ said Michael, moving away quickly
as Tysilia advanced. ‘I am not coming to his house.’

‘But
I
will be at his house,’ said Tysilia, surprised. ‘If you do not come there, you will not see me.’

‘No,’ said Michael grimly.

‘Well, I shall just have to come with Uncle to the priory, then,’ said Tysilia, undeterred. ‘But he said he was going to that
big church to pray, so we have some time to ourselves before he returns. Come to his lodgings with me, and we will—’

‘Go with Ralph,’ ordered Michael brusquely, bringing the conversation to an abrupt end. ‘And behave yourself.’

‘Come with me,’ she invited coyly. ‘And then you can make sure that I do.’

‘God’s teeth!’ muttered Michael, twisting away quickly as she lunged at him. Ralph seized her arm and hustled her up the hill,
although she struggled and fought every inch of the way. It was as well Ralph was a strong man, because she was a tall, vigorous
woman and would have escaped from anyone weaker.

‘I do not know why you are not making the most of this,’ said Bartholomew, laughing as he saw the alarmed expression on the
monk’s face. ‘It cannot be every day that a pretty woman favours you with her undivided attention.’

‘I am a monk,’ said Michael, as if he thought that explained it all. It did not. The vow of celibacy was not one to which
he often gave much regard, and he used it only when it suited him.

‘What is the real reason for this aversion?’ asked Bartholomew curiously. ‘I have never known you run from this sort of situation
before.’

‘De Lisle would not be amused if he thought I had
tampered with one of the few people he feels any affection for,’ said Michael. ‘He is very protective of her, as you probably
gathered from the conversation between him and Blanche.’

‘It is not Tysilia who needs the protection,’ said Bartholomew, laughing again. ‘It is you, and the hundreds just like you
who have passed through her pawing hands.’

‘That is not how de Lisle would see it. And I will not risk his displeasure for a quick romp under the bedclothes with a woman
like Tysilia. It would not be worth it.’

‘I just hope you know what you are missing, Brother. It may never happen again.’

‘It will,’ said Michael, confident that he was every woman’s dream. ‘Only it will be with a lady of my choice, who does not
have an uncle with an unproven charge of murder to his name.’

They walked slowly, to allow the monks time to carry the body up the hill and deposit it in the Lady Chapel, where it would
be washed, dressed in a clean habit and prayed for until it took its final journey to the monks’ cemetery. Bartholomew was
certain that Robert would not be obliged to wait above ground like Glovere, Chaloner and Haywarde. No sooner had the thought
gone through his mind than he spotted Father John. He decided to ask whether the parish of St Mary’s was still blessed with
two festering corpses.

The priest was walking with Leycestre, while Leycestre’s nephews – Clymme and Buk – and Agnes walked some distance behind,
as though intent on preventing anyone else from hearing what the priest and the disinherited farmer had to say to each other.
Not surprisingly, given that their obsession was not with murdered monks, Leycestre and his cronies were among the few who
had not followed de Lisle to the cathedral.

‘Father John!’ called Bartholomew, increasing his stride so that he would catch up with the priest. He was startled to find
his arm grabbed, very firmly, by Clymme. He gazed
at Leycestre’s nephew, too astonished that he had been manhandled to do anything about it.

‘I want to speak to the priest,’ he said, trying to free himself. The grip was a strong one, and he saw that the other nephew
was ready to add his own brawn to the struggle if Clymme proved unequal to the task.

‘Let him go,’ snapped Agnes sharply.

‘But you said—’ began Clymme.

‘Release him!’ repeated Agnes, this time more forcefully. ‘He wants to speak to Father John.’

Bartholomew disengaged his arm from the bemused Clymme, and saw that his supposition had been right: the nephews and Agnes
were indeed a sort of rearguard, whose duty was to prevent the discussion taking place between labourer and priest from being
overheard. John, who had turned as soon as Bartholomew called his name, saw exactly what Bartholomew had deduced.

‘Leycestre and I were just talking about what could be done for poor Robert,’ he gabbled unconvincingly. ‘The violent death
of a monk is a terrible thing.’

‘But no one liked Robert,’ Michael pointed out immediately. ‘And why should
you
do anything for him? You have done little enough for the other victims.’

‘That was before a fellow cleric had died,’ said John defensively. ‘We will do something now. Flowers, perhaps. Or candles.
We have some candles left over from Haywarde’s mass.’

‘Then they belong to
me
,’ declared Agnes immediately. ‘
I
paid for his mass, God rot his soul, and any candles remaining are mine. They will
not
be used for Robert.’

‘You would give one for the cause,’ wheedled John, his eyes uneasy. Bartholomew had seldom seen behaviour that was more indicative
that its perpetrator was up to no good.

‘“Cause”?’ Michael pounced immediately. ‘And what “cause” would that be? Inciting the populace to riot?’

‘No!’ declared John, a little too quickly. ‘But I am on my way to the cathedral to pray with de Lisle and cannot stand
here talking all day. What did you want from me?’

‘I wanted to make sure that the other bodies had been buried,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But Agnes said she paid for Haywarde’s mass,
which means that he, at least, is below ground, where he should be.’

‘So are the others,’ said John. ‘Blanche gave me sixpence for Glovere, which only left Chaloner. And Bishop de Lisle provided
the funds to get rid of him.’

‘De Lisle?’ asked Michael. ‘Why did he do that? It is not his concern.’

‘Blanche has been telling folk that he wanted his victims underground before the next new moon rises,’ said Leycestre. ‘Murdered
folk walk abroad then, if there is no layer of soil to keep them down. But I think de Lisle was just being charitable.’

‘He
was
being charitable,’ insisted John. ‘He has no ties to Chaloner, but no one else came forward and offered to take responsibility
for his body, so the Bishop gave me a shilling.’

‘Did you ask him for it?’ said Michael.

‘He was praying in St Mary’s – it is quieter than the cathedral these days, which tends to be full of angry pilgrims who cannot
pay Robert’s entrance fee to St Etheldreda’s shrine – when he became aware of the smell of Chaloner’s corpse. He said a mass
there and then, and we had the man buried in an hour.’

Leycestre smiled. ‘De Lisle is often maligned because he is proud, but he has more goodness in his little finger than any
of those wicked monks – present company excepted, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Michael dryly.

‘His kindness was a great relief,’ said John. ‘I was beginning to think that the parish would have to pay, and I am trying
to save all our money to buy bread for the poor when winter comes.’

‘John should be careful,’ said Bartholomew, as the priest ushered his seditious parishioners away. ‘He is terrified of
being accused of fuelling this rebellion, but he does nothing to calm troubled waters.’

‘No,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘Indeed, it seems to me that he is doing a good deal of splashing.’

Robert lay in some splendour in the cathedral’s Lady Chapel, and by the time Bartholomew and Michael arrived the wet habit
had been stripped from him and he had been covered with a clean white sheet. A coffin was ready, leaning against one wall,
but Robert still dripped, and the lay-brothers did not want to spoil a fine box by having water leaking in it. So, Robert
was draining: he lay on two boards balanced on a pair of trestles with several bowls underneath him. In the nave, the part
of the cathedral that was deemed the town’s, de Lisle was busy with his mass. Michael’s prediction was right: the Bishop was
praying with considerable conviction.

Michael dismissed the lay-brothers who had been charged with laying out the body, then indicated to Bartholomew that he should
begin his examination. The physician leaned hard on Robert’s chest, to see whether water bubbled from his lungs. It did not,
so he deduced that Robert had been dead when he had entered the water: the wound on the back of his neck had killed him, not
the river. Next, he rolled the body to one side and examined the small injury that was visible just above the line of the
almoner’s hair. It was slightly larger than that on the others, and had evidently bled, for the silken pillow under the corpse’s
head was stained red. Bartholomew supposed that either the killer had been in a hurry and had not been as careful as he might,
or Robert had struggled, despite being held still with a foot or a knee on his head.

Next, he examined Robert’s once-fine habit, which was now a sodden mess caked in mud and slime. The greenery that adhered
to it was not just water vegetation: there were vine leaves, too. Bartholomew deduced that Robert had met his end in the vineyard,
where he had been searching for William, and then had been taken to the water and pushed in.

Finally, he inspected Robert’s hands. He saw that the
fingers were slightly swollen and that blood encrusted the nails. Robert, unlike the others, had struggled hard against what
had happened to him. There were grazes on his knees, too, and one or two marks on his arms and body that might have resulted
from some kind of skirmish.

Bartholomew did not want to linger in the cathedral, where he felt he was being watched by spectators who wanted to see a
murdered monk for themselves; it would be better to discuss his findings in the infirmary, where he would also be able to
help watch over the ailing Thomas. When they arrived, Henry glanced up from his position near the sub-prior’s bed. He looked
tired already, and Bartholomew suspected that the infirmarian would see little of his own bed until Thomas either recovered
or died. He wanted to ease Henry’s burden as much as possible, although he suspected that Henry would still want to undertake
most of Thomas’s care himself.

Henry informed them that Thomas had stirred from his unconsciousness when the bell had sounded for the afternoon meal, at
around three o’clock – Bartholomew thought this was probably because of some deep-rooted instinct – but had found himself
unable to talk. As he had been on the verge of confessing to being involved in something untoward, Bartholomew was sceptical
about an illness that so conveniently deprived the offender of coherent speech. However, Thomas was so clearly terrified by
the sudden impairment that his hysterical panic went a long way in convincing the physician that he was not bluffing.