A Summer of Discontent (24 page)

‘Perhaps not, but it is you she admires. She was telling William how handsome and manly you are.’

‘Then she has better taste than I credited her with,’ said Michael, not sounding at all surprised that he had secured her
devotions. ‘However, she will be disappointed to learn that I am unavailable. She will just have to resort to William, or
someone equally inferior.’

‘She is a determined woman,’ warned Bartholomew, smiling. ‘You may find yourself powerless to resist her wiles.’

‘But I am a determined man. Still, I am more interested in her relationship with William than her perfectly understandable
attraction to me. That suggests a plot, sure enough.’

‘We will see,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps Mackerell can throw some light on the matter. Come on, Brother. The sun is beginning
to set and our fishy friend will be waiting.’

They had almost reached the priory’s back gate, beyond the neat rows of vines, when Bartholomew spotted someone walking ahead
of them. Normally, seeing another person in an area populated by about a hundred monks and their servants would not have been
cause for comment, but there was something about the way this figure moved that set
warning bells jangling in Bartholomew’s mind. He grabbed Michael’s arm and dragged him to one side. The vines were not tall,
so the two scholars were obliged to crouch in undignified positions.

‘It is Sub-prior Thomas,’ whispered Michael, parting the foliage like a curtain and peering out. ‘You were right to suggest
we keep out of sight, because he is moving in a way that says he is up to no good at all. I wonder what he is doing.’

‘Whatever it is, he must consider it important,’ said Bartholomew. ‘These vineyards represent a hard walk for a man of his
girth, and I cannot imagine he is doing this for fun.’

Thomas stood gasping for breath, fanning his cascading chins furiously in a vain attempt to cool himself down. Even from a
distance, Bartholomew could see the rivulets of sweat that coursed down the man’s face and made dark patches on his habit.

They did not have to wait long to find out what had enticed Thomas to leave the luxury and comparative cool of the monastery
buildings. Another figure emerged from the direction of the back gate. The person walked briskly towards Thomas, and they
embarked on a hurried conversation, during which a neat white parcel was passed to the sub-prior.

‘Who is that?’ whispered Michael urgently, trying to push leaves out of the way. ‘Can you see?’

Bartholomew eased himself forward. ‘No. But it is someone who feels obliged to wear his hood pulled over his face. That in
itself suggests something unusual, given the warmth of the evening. Should we try to get closer?’

‘Well, there is not much point in spying if you cannot see or hear what is going on, is there?’ snapped Michael irritably.
‘Hurry up, or they will have finished their business before we reach them.’

On hands and knees, Bartholomew and Michael edged towards the fat sub-prior’s trysting place. Crawling among
the vines was such a ludicrously incommodious situation for a University Doctor and a Senior Proctor to put themselves in
that Bartholomew started to laugh, thinking that he had not crawled around on all fours in the undergrowth since he was a
child. Michael chortled, too, but his mirth was cut short by a litany of vicious curses when he put his hand on a thorn.

As they inched closer they tried to ensure they kept their heads low, so that they would not be visible above the stumpy bushes.
Eventually, Bartholomew judged that they were within hearing distance, and risked a quick glance above the leaves. Neither
Thomas nor the man he was meeting were where he expected them to be.

‘Have you lost something?’ asked Thomas coldly, the proximity of his voice making both Bartholomew and Michael jump violently.
The physician was amazed that the obese sub-prior had been able to move so quickly and with so much stealth. His progress
through the vineyard just a few moments before had indicated that he was incapable of speed or silence. Now he towered above
the kneeling scholars, his large face flushed red from effort, anger and heat. He was still breathing hard, and the top half
of his habit was soaked in perspiration. Bartholomew supposed that although Sub-prior Thomas could move with haste when necessary,
the man’s body was neither accustomed to nor happy with sudden spurts of activity. It was a physique that would reward its
owner with a seizure if obliged to do it too often.

‘My ring,’ said Michael, thinking quickly and waving a hand sadly bereft of the baubles with which Benedictines usually liked
to adorn themselves. ‘I am so thin that it fell from my finger and Matt is helping me to look for it.’

‘What were you doing here in the first place?’ demanded Thomas, evidently unconvinced by such a flagrantly feeble excuse.
‘I sincerely hope you were not following me.’

‘Why would I do that?’ asked Michael innocently, using Bartholomew to haul himself up from his knees. ‘I am too
busy to spend my valuable time stalking my fellow brethren through the bushes.’

‘It is my understanding that you would go to any lengths to help de Lisle remove himself from this spike upon which he is
impaled,’ said Thomas accusingly. ‘It would not surprise me if you intended to have one of
us
blamed for Glovere’s death, merely to allow the Bishop to go free.’

‘That is unfair,’ objected Bartholomew, also standing and brushing dry soil from his hands. ‘Michael has devoted his entire
life at Cambridge to ensuring that justice is done.’

‘Justice as
he
sees it,’ said Thomas nastily.

‘But that is what justice is, is it not?’ pressed Bartholomew. ‘It is someone’s idea of fairness, be that person a proctor,
a judge, or even a sub-prior.’

‘I have no time to debate philosophical issues with you,’ said Thomas. ‘If I had wanted a university training, I would have
gone to Oxford.’

‘That would not have rendered you any less ignorant,’ retorted Michael rudely. ‘But since you feel the need to question me,
I shall question you: what are you doing here, when it is approaching the time for compline?’

‘That is none of your concern,’ replied Thomas icily. ‘However, I shall tell you, because I do not want to find my innocent
actions turned into something sinister in order to allow de Lisle to blame
me
for the murder
he
committed.’

‘Well?’ asked Michael when Thomas paused, evidently casting around for an excuse he felt the monk would believe.

‘I was taking bread to one of the town’s children.’ Michael’s eyebrows shot up, but Thomas either did not notice or did not
care. ‘I meet him here often of an evening, when I give him food for his family. I do not make my actions public, because
my acts of charity are between God and I.’

‘You mean “God and me”,’ interjected Bartholomew.

‘And did he give you anything in return?’ asked Michael,
ignoring Bartholomew’s grammatical pedantry and thinking about the white package that was safely packed away inside the sub-prior’s
scrip. Its outline could be seen, square and bulky, against the leather.

‘Of course not,’ said Thomas indignantly. ‘What could a shepherd boy give me, other than his gratitude?’ He poked at something
on the ground with his foot. ‘But here is your ring, Brother. It seems not to have rolled very far.’

‘Thank you,’ said Michael, leaning down to retrieve it from the dirt. ‘I knew it would be here somewhere.’

‘I shall wish you both good evening, then,’ said Thomas, taking a deep breath as he contemplated the long incline that led
towards the monastery buildings. ‘I do not want to be late for compline because I have been dallying with you. Do not stay
out here too long. It is not unknown for wolves to frequent these parts after dark, and I would not like to think of anything
untoward happening to you.’ He turned and began to huff his way up the hill.

‘Was he threatening us?’ mused Michael, replacing the ring as he stared thoughtfully after the sub-prior’s wobbling progress.
‘It sounded like a threat.’

‘It was ambiguous,’ said Bartholomew tiredly. ‘I have no idea what he meant.’

‘Wolves indeed!’ muttered Michael. ‘There have been no wolves here since the Conqueror’s days. What did you make of his reason
for being here?’

‘I did not see the person he met properly,’ replied Bartholomew, watching the sub-prior gradually lose speed. He was all but
crawling when he crested the brow of the hill and disappeared down the other side. ‘But it was no boy – unless it was a very
big one.’

‘A man, then?’ asked Michael.

‘It could have been a woman. And there is another thing, too.’

‘Yes,’ said Michael, nodding slowly as he anticipated what the physician was going to say. ‘Thomas carried no bread with him,
to give to a child or anyone else.’

‘But this “boy” gave
him
something,’ said Bartholomew. ‘And it was certainly not bread.’

The daylight had all but gone by the time Bartholomew and Michael reached the gate where they had agreed to meet Mackerell.
It was a pleasant evening, with a breeze that carried the scent of the sea that lay to the north. They propped open the gate,
so that Mackerell would be able to enter, and then found a comfortable spot in which to wait. They leaned their backs against
the wall of the great tithe barn, stretched their legs in front of them, and relaxed. They could see the gate from where they
sat, and knew they would spot Mackerell when he came.

‘Prior Alan agreed to my request for Mackerell to spend a few days in his prison,’ said Michael. ‘The man must be desperate,
if he considers that foul place preferable to home.’

‘He considers it safer,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘He said nothing about it being more comfortable. I wonder whether he really
does have something to tell us or whether he is playing games.’

‘I have been wondering that, too,’ said Michael. ‘The appearance of that dog – just when Mackerell’s tongue seemed to be loosening
– was rather too opportune for my liking.’

‘I agree. In fact, I wonder whether he really left a message for us at all: that pot-boy may have been lying. I find it strange
that Mackerell should be wary of us one moment, and then agree to meet us in dark and lonely places the next. And not only
did he tell
us
exactly where to meet him, but he gave the message to that slack-tongued pot-boy, who, by his own admission, will tell anyone
anything for a few pennies.’

Michael gazed into the twilight gloom. ‘I have been thinking about your claim that Blanche was with the gypsies yesterday.’

‘Yes?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Do you accept that I could be right?’

‘No, but I have been reconsidering the fact that the fourth gypsy declined to lower his hood the whole time he was in the
tavern. It was hot in there, and wearing a thick hood like that cannot have been comfortable. So, the question is: who was
he hiding from?’

Bartholomew blew out his cheeks. ‘We seem to be making this unnecessarily complex, Brother. Why would Goran – if indeed it
was Goran – go into a public place like the Mermaid, if he were trying to hide from someone? However, I am sure it was Blanche
I saw. But it probably has no relevance to our case, anyway, so we should not waste our time by speculating about it.’

‘If you are right, then it
is
relevant,’ argued Michael. ‘Blanche is here purely and simply to bring about the downfall of the man she hates. If she was
dressed in rough clothes and lurking in seedy taverns with low company, then you can be sure that she was doing so to damage
de Lisle in some way. But you are
not
right, and so all we can conclude is that Goran was probably up to no good.’

Bartholomew changed the subject, seeing they would not reach agreement on the matter. ‘Where is Mackerell? It is dark already,
and the dew is coming through.’

Michael shifted uncomfortably. ‘True. I do not want to return to the priory with a wet seat. Then my brethren would really
wonder what I had been doing!’

‘We should look for him,’ said Bartholomew, standing and offering Michael his hand. The monk grasped it, and Bartholomew only
just remembered in time that Michael was very heavy, and that he needed to brace himself if he did not want to be pulled off
his feet.

‘I hope he is all right,’ said Michael, growing anxious.

‘He is probably in a tavern,’ said Bartholomew, unconcerned because he had suspected the fisherman would not appear anyway.
‘I will check the Mermaid. You stay here, in case he comes.’

But Mackerell was not in the Mermaid, and the pot-boy assured Bartholomew that he had not been seen since the
previous day. Because he was out and felt like walking, Bartholomew glanced into the Lamb, the Bell and the White Hart, too,
but there was no Mackerell enjoying his ale. Puzzled, but not yet worried, Bartholomew started to walk back to the priory,
half expecting the man to have rendezvoused with Michael in his absence.

He was still on the Heyrow, deciding whether to return to the vineyard by walking through the priory grounds or by way of
the town, when the door to the Lamb flew open and Guido the gypsy tumbled out. He was closely followed by his two brothers,
all landing in a tangle of arms and legs in the street. Moments later, the door opened again and Eulalia emerged. A hand in
the small of her back precipitated her outside faster than she intended, and she turned to glower at the person who had manhandled
her. Bartholomew glimpsed Leycestre hurriedly closing the door, apparently unnerved by the glare of cool loathing shot his
way by the travelling woman.

‘What is going on?’ asked Bartholomew, hurrying towards her.

‘For some reason, Leycestre has taken against us this year,’ said Eulalia, turning awkwardly and brushing her back. ‘He has
not been like this before. I cannot imagine what has changed him.’

‘He accused us of taking wages that rightfully belong to Ely folk,’ growled Guido as he hauled himself to his feet. His words
were slurred, and Bartholomew supposed that he had been ejected before a drunken brawl could ensue. ‘We have taken no wages
from anyone: they cannot harvest their grain without our help and we are paid because they need us.’