A Summer of Discontent

‘Can none of your other brethren identify that book Michael found in the granary?’ asked de Lisle of Alan, impatient with the digression. ‘It is a beautiful thing, and surely one of them must have come across it in his studies.’

‘Symon tends to restrict our access to the library, too,’ confessed Alan uneasily. ‘He says there are too many delicate volumes that might be damaged by the casual or careless reader.’

‘What a crime!’ said Michael fervently. ‘Monks should be encouraged to study, not barred from it by the likes of Brother Symon.’

‘I would send them to you in Cambridge, if any of the community revealed an academic bent,’ said Alan mildly. ‘But Thomas told me that no one warranted that sort of treatment.’

‘That is because Thomas was illiterate,’ said de Lisle bluntly. ‘He could barely write his own name, and how he managed the business of sub-prior is totally beyond me. I suppose he had scribes to work for him. But still, some good will come of this. You can now appoint a good man as your deputy.’

‘Lord!’ muttered Alan in alarm, as though fearful that he would not be able to meet such a challenge.

‘We should make a start, before anyone else dies,’ said Michael, raising his large arms in a weary stretch. ‘I will ask the brethren about these treasures.’

‘I am not sure I fully understood everything that passed in there,’ said Bartholomew, walking quickly to catch up with Michael, who was heading for the refectory, where he knew the monks would be massing. It was approaching the time for the midday meal, and black-robed figures were already emerging from every nook and cranny. The deaths of Robert and Thomas, and the mysterious absence of William, were apparently not matters that warranted any loss of appetite for or devotion to the priory’s rich fare for most of the brethren.

Michael chortled at his friend’s confusion. ‘You understood a good deal more than Alan did. What do you think you missed?’

‘Are we to understand that the basis of this feud between de Lisle and Blanche is an ancient love affair that turned sour?’

Michael chuckled a second time. ‘It did more than turn sour, Matt: it produced Tysilia. Apparently, Blanche did all she could to rid herself of the brat before she married the Earl of Lancaster, but nothing worked. She produced a baby girl, despite her best attempts not to do so.’

‘I wonder if those attempts resulted in the impairment of Tysilia’s mind,’ mused Bartholomew, intrigued by the possibility. ‘It would certainly explain why she is not normal.’

‘Blanche foisted the child on de Lisle as soon as she could, then went about her business with the Earl.’

‘And the Earl did not notice that his allegedly virgin wife had recently been delivered of a child?’ asked Bartholomew incredulously. ‘I know that most courtiers dwell in worlds of their own, and that their views of reality are somewhat different from those of the rest of us, but it would be astonishing if that little detail slipped past him.’

‘The union between the Earl and Blanche produced no heirs,’ replied Michael ambiguously, giving Bartholomew a meaningful wink. ‘And we know that was no fault of Blanche’s, given that she was able to produce healthy babies for amorous clerics.’

‘You think she did not produce any heirs for Lancaster because he discovered she had already provided someone else with one?’

Michael sighed, impatient with his slow wits. ‘No. You must remember that Lancaster was a member of the court of Edward the Second, and that Edward preferred men to women. It is generally believed that Lancaster never consummated his marriage with Blanche. When he died of the plague, all his possessions went to his sister. That partly explains Blanche’s bitterness.’

‘The fact that her marriage was unconsummated, that she lost her husband to the pestilence, or that she lost her possessions to her sister-in-law?’ asked Bartholomew, bewildered.

‘The last, of course,’ said Michael scornfully. ‘Blanche went from being the wife of one of the richest landowners in the country to being a widow with little property of her own — and that is why what she does own is important to her. De Lisle should not have set fire to her cottages at Colne.’

‘Well, all this is irrelevant anyway,’ said Bartholomew. ‘What the Duchess did with the Bishop more than two decades ago can hardly have any bearing on this case.’

‘Never dismiss anything, Matt,’ lectured Michael. ‘Who knows where this trail of murders may lead us? But the cooks are only just carrying the food from the kitchens, so it will be some time before it is ready for eating. Walk with me to the cathedral.’

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew suspiciously. A long queue was forming outside the refectory, and Michael was usually not a man who walked away from a meal that was about to be served.