A Summer of Discontent

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew, turning to glance at the people whom the priest indicated with a careless flick of his hand. As far as he could tell, they were perfectly normal, and had no obvious infectious disease that might be passed from close contact. Two were young men, who wore sullen expressions and exuded the impression that they thought the world owed them a good deal more than they had been given; the third was Richard de Leycestre.

‘Just do as I tell you,’ said John irritably. ‘Stay by the pillar and keep quiet until I finish. However, in future I would rather you attended mass with the monks. My parishioners do not take kindly to having the priory’s spies in their midst.’

‘Spies?’ echoed Bartholomew, startled. ‘I am not a spy. And anyway, what could there be to report to the monks — or anyone else — about a mass held so close to them that they will be able to hear every word anyway?’

‘I am sure you do not require me to elaborate on that,’ replied John obscurely. ‘And now you must excuse me, before my parishioners decide they have better things to do than watch me chattering to you.’

He bustled away, leaving the physician feeling like an unwelcome interloper. Bartholomew saw he was the subject of several curious gazes, not all of them friendly. The three men he had been forbidden to speak to regarded him with unreadable expressions before turning away to watch Father John.

Flinging a few tawdry receptacles carelessly on to the altar, John took a deep breath and began to bellow the words of his mass at the top of his lungs. Immediately, the volume of the monks’ singing increased, so John yelled louder still. In reply, the monks notched up the volume once again, so that it was difficult to concentrate on either. The air rang with noise, frightening two pigeons that had been roosting among the rafters; the sounds of their agitated flapping, and the shrieks of a woman as one flew too close to her, added to the general racket. The lay-brothers, who had been talking quietly in the transept at the end of the nave, began to speak more loudly in order to make themselves heard, and John’s congregation, unable to understand the priest’s abominable Latin, started to converse among themselves. Bartholomew watched open-mouthed from the base of his pillar.

And so it continued, with John abandoning the usual format of the mass in favour of repeating those parts that would provide him with the opportunity to shout. He crashed the chalice and patens so hard on the top of the altar that Bartholomew was certain they would have broken had they been made from anything other than metal. That the sacred vessels made such satisfying clangs reiterated the fact that the dispute between monks and parish was not a new one, and Bartholomew wondered whether John had ordered iron vessels specially manufactured for the express purpose of allowing him to use them like gongs.

Eventually, the monks completed their devotions, and their unnecessarily loud footsteps could be heard leaving the chancel and stamping towards the cloisters. Doors were slammed, wooden pews banged and bumped, and psalters and prayer books snapped shut in one of the noisiest exits from a church Bartholomew had ever witnessed. He was surprised that Prior Alan, who had not seemed to be a petty man, permitted such churlish behaviour among his monks.

John’s mass was completed as soon as the door to the vestries slammed for the final time and the last of the monks had left. Bartholomew had expected that John would merely lower his voice and complete the service at a more reasonable volume, thus instilling at least some degree of reverence into his restless, bored parishioners. But John merely devoured the Host, gulped down some wine, and gathered his iron vessels together in anticipation of a speedy completion. He raised his hand to sign a benediction over his assembled flock, although Bartholomew saw that the priest was more interested in the doings of the lay-brothers who were lurking among the shadows of the north aisle than in blessing his people.

‘Did you enjoy our mass?’ came a soft voice at Bartholomew’s shoulder. The physician turned to see Richard de Leycestre; the two young men were at his side.

‘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.