A Summer of Discontent

He took Bartholomew’s arm and steered him to where the Lamb stood on the corner of Lynn Road and the Heyrow. A substantial building on two floors, it had stables at the back that hired out horses as well as looked after those of its guests, and a huge kitchen with one of the largest chimneys Bartholomew had ever seen. Smoke curled from the top of it, wafting the scented aroma of burning logs and cooking meat across the green.

‘Perhaps I could manage a morsel of something,’ said Michael as they opened the door and his keen eyes spotted a sheep that was being roasted in the hearth. ‘A slice of that mutton should suffice, along with a loaf of bread. It is not good for a man to be without sustenance for too long.’

Bartholomew picked his way across a floor that was strewn with sedge and discarded scraps of food. Several dogs and a pig rooted happily. But as soon as Bartholomew and Michael stepped across the threshold, the animals abandoned their scavenging and came as a pack to greet the newcomers, winding enthusiastically around their legs and waving friendly tails, so that Michael almost tripped. He grabbed a table to save himself and glared at the offending animal, which slunk away. The others remained, however, pushing up against the scholars and pawing at their legs.

‘Damned things!’ muttered Michael, trying to push them away with a sandalled foot. ‘What is wrong with them? Can they smell the eggs I put in my scrip earlier? I thought I gave all those to you.’

‘They know we have been near corpses,’ said Bartholomew, pulling a face of disgust when he raised the sleeve of his shirt to his nose. ‘But you do not need the nose of a dog to tell you that. I imagine everyone from here to Cambridge will know exactly what we have been doing.’

‘How horrible!’ exclaimed Michael, shooing away a particularly demanding specimen that clearly considered itself in paradise. ‘Dogs really are revolting creatures.’

Bartholomew looked around him as Michael selected a quiet bench near the rear door. The main part of the tavern comprised a large room with a low ceiling that obliged Bartholomew and Michael to duck as they walked. The walls had been painted, but not recently enough to remove all the traces of the food that evidently sailed through the air on occasion. The benches were polished shiny by the generations of seats that had reclined on them, and the tables were almost white from the number of times they had been scrubbed. In all, the tavern curiously managed to be both scrupulously clean and rather dirty.

The landlord came to see them, wiping his hands on an apron that was covered in a mass of cut hairs of various colours, lengths and textures. On one wall hung a fearsome array of knives and scissors, and Bartholomew recalled Father John mentioning that the landlord of the Lamb was also the city’s surgeon. Like many in his trade, the surgeon also cut hair and trimmed beards, although most did not usually run a tavern, too.

‘Brother Michael,’ said the landlord, greeting the monk as he took his seat. ‘And you must be Doctor Bartholomew.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Bartholomew curiously.

The landlord smiled. ‘I am an innkeeper — Barbour is my name — and I make it my business to know everything that happens in Ely.’

‘One of his pot-boys also works in the priory kitchen,’ said Michael, unimpressed by the landlord’s knowledge. ‘I imagine he informed Master Barbour about the two visitors from Cambridge. And, of course, I am well known in this town anyway. Ely is my Mother House, and I am one of its most important monks.’

‘You are not well known, because you are not here very often,’ contradicted Barbour. ‘But, yes, you have correctly guessed the source of my information. And now I will tell you something else: this morning you have been looking at the two bodies in St Mary’s Church.’

‘Who told you that?’ asked Michael, without much interest. ‘Your pot-boy again?’

‘You stink of the dead. If you have no objection, I shall open a door to allow the air to circulate. I do not want the stench of you to drive away my other customers.’

‘I told you that is why we are so popular with these dogs,’ said Bartholomew to Michael.

‘Well?’ asked Barbour, as he opened the rear door and stopped it with what appeared to be a lump of fossilised dung. Immediately, a pleasant breeze wafted in, filled with the warm scent of mown grass and sun-baked horse manure from the yard beyond. ‘What did you learn from your examination of Chaloner and Haywarde? There is a rumour that Haywarde took his own life.’

‘Why are you so keen to know?’ asked Michael. ‘And while you tell us, you can cut me a slice of that mutton. I am starving.’