A Summer of Discontent

Once he had steeled himself to the distressing sight of crushed, ripped, gnawed and broken books, Bartholomew began to enjoy having the freedom of the library, delighting in the fact that every pile he excavated contained all manner of treasures that he had not anticipated. He spent the rest of the day refreshing his memory with parts of De Regimine Acutorum, then graduated to Honien ben Ishak’s commentary on Galen, Isagoge in Artem Parvam. It was a pleasure to read with no interruptions from students or summonses from patients, although a drawback as far as his treatise was concerned meant that the experience of having a stretch of time to himself led him to explore secondary issues that he would normally have been forced to ignore. He decided he should make more time for leisurely reading, and determined to revisit the cathedral-priory and its treasure-store of knowledge at some point in the future — assuming, of course, that he would be welcome and had not played a role in the downfall of a bishop.

The library was an airy room, located above the main hall of the infirmary. Its thick, oaken window shutters were designed to seal the room’s valuable contents from the ravages of the weather — although one or two of them had rotted and needed replacing — but Symon had thrown them all open, so that sun poured through the glassless openings and bathed everything in light. Desks with benches attached to them were placed in each bay window, affording the reader a degree of privacy, as well as permitting him to work in the maximum amount of daylight. Bartholomew, who was used to his shady room in Michaelhouse, found the light too bright, and its reflection on the yellow-white parchment of the pages was vivid enough to dazzle him. He found he was obliged to look up fairly frequently, to rest his eyes.

The desk Symon had cleared for him — by taking one hand and sweeping its contents to join the chaos on the floor — overlooked the monks’ cemetery. The cemetery was a pleasant place, given its purpose, and comprised an elongated rectangle that backed on to a garden at one end and was bordered by the cathedral and various priory buildings on the other sides. Shielded from the worst of the Fenland winds, it was a comfortable haven for several exotic bushes and trees. Someone had planted posies of flowers here and there, some bright in the sun and others sheltered by the waving branches of willow and yew trees. The graves were mostly lumps in the smooth grass, although one or two monks had warranted something more elaborate, and there were a few stone crosses and carved slabs.

Bartholomew remained in the library until long after the sun had set, and did not leave until it was so dark that he could barely make out the shape of the book he was reading, let alone the words on the page. Disaster almost occurred when he heard the soft sound of the key turning in the lock, but he bounded across the floor and hammered until Symon returned to undo it again. Apparently, the librarian had forgotten about his visitor, and had only remembered that he needed to secure his domain when he was ready to go to bed. Bartholomew coolly suggested that in future he might like to ensure that it was empty before locking the door, but Symon was unrepentant, and informed Bartholomew that he should not have been there after dark anyway.

Symon followed Bartholomew down the stairs, so close that the physician felt Symon would dearly liked to have pushed him in order to prevent another invasion the following day, and then locked the outer door with a key of gigantic proportions.

‘I would like to start work as early as possible tomorrow,’ said Bartholomew, deciding he had better make that clear before he and Symon parted, unless he wanted to waste part of the next day exploring the latrines, too. ‘A week is not long when a library is as richly endowed as yours.’

‘You cannot come before prime,’ warned Symon sharply. ‘That would be ungodly.’

‘It would also be too dark,’ said Bartholomew dryly, seeing that Symon did not venture into his domain very often if he was unaware of such a basic fact. ‘Immediately after would be good.’

‘We shall see,’ replied Symon, giving the door handle a vigorous shake to ensure it was properly secured. Without further ado, he strode away into the night, a tall, upright figure with a military strut and a lot of vigorous and unnecessary arm-swinging.

Bartholomew watched him go, and then turned to head for his own bed. It felt too late to venture into the town alone, and he imagined that Michael would be more interested in the priory’s endless supplies of wine than in talking to him. But the physician did not feel like sleeping; his mind was buzzing with questions and ideas from the reading that he had completed, and he felt restless and alert.