A Summer of Discontent

She looked at him as though he had just committed the most frightful indiscretion. ‘He is my brother! Do I look like the kind of woman who would sleep with my brother? Anyway, it is Michael who has my heart, not William.’

Bartholomew thought she looked like the kind of woman who would take anyone to her bed, but decided now was not the time to mention it. ‘William is not your brother,’ he said instead, puzzled as to how she had managed to come up with such a ludicrous notion.

She pulled away from him. ‘He is,’ she declared with finality. ‘And what would you know, anyway? You are only someone who mixes herbs — an apoplexy.’

‘Apothecary,’ he corrected, before deciding there was little point in trying to educate Tysilia. She would not remember what he had said by the next time she met him.

The door to the Outer Hostry opened and the burly Blanche bustled out, hoisting her skirts under her bosom and gazing around as if the world had done her a serious injustice.

‘There is Lady Blanche,’ he said. ‘Wipe your nose again, before you go to her.’

‘I do not feel like going to her,’ said Tysilia sulkily, rubbing a sleeve across her face. ‘She is worse than the nuns at St Radegund’s Convent, and is always trying to keep me inside when I want to go out.’

‘I am sure she is,’ muttered Bartholomew, trying to attract Blanche’s attention.

‘It is very annoying, actually,’ Tysilia went on with another sloppy sniff. Her acute distress was forgotten, and she was already sounding like her normal self. Bartholomew envied her ability to recover from inconvenient emotions. ‘How can I make friends with charming men when she is watching me all the time?’

‘What were you going to discuss with William?’ asked Bartholomew. Blanche had her back to him, and did not see his energetic waving. ‘Do you know anything more about these murders? Does he?’

‘No,’ Tysilia said aggressively, pulling her arm away from him. She thought for a moment. ‘What murders?’

‘Do not lie, Tysilia,’ said Bartholomew softly. ‘I overheard you and William talking yesterday. I know he has charged you to discover whether Blanche killed Glovere.’

She beamed proudly and took his arm again. ‘William said it was a secret. But since you know, it is no longer a secret, so I can tell whoever I like. William trusts me. For some reason, some people think I lack wits, but he saw that I have quite a few of them.’

‘And he set you to put them to use,’ said Bartholomew, thinking that the hosteller was insane to have entrusted Tysilia with anything. At best, she had told Blanche that a member of the monastery thought her guilty of murdering her own steward to discredit de Lisle, and at worst, she might inadvertently reveal to the killer that William was on his trail.

‘He said I am an intellec … inteller … clever woman, and could be of great use to him. He is right, of course. I may not have paid attention to my studies, and I have no patience with staring at silly marks on smelly pieces of parchment, but I have spent time at a University, you know.’

‘You have?’ asked Bartholomew doubtfully, still trying to catch Blanche’s eye. As far as he knew, no universities accepted female scholars, and women who wanted a life of learning tended to do so in convents that had a reputation for their libraries. However, the notion that Tysilia had spent time in one of these was so improbable that it was humorous.

Tysilia nodded sagely. ‘I have been to the University of Life.’ She beamed her vacant grin, and Bartholomew wondered how, a few months earlier, he ever could have imagined that her slow-witted exterior hid a cunning mind. ‘That is a clever phrase, is it not? I invented it myself. It means that while you have had learning from books, I have been living a life.’

‘But you have spent most of your life in convents — or trying to escape from them — so how does that make you so worldly?’ asked Bartholomew, amused.

‘It just does,’ pouted Tysilia. ‘And do not wave your arm like that, or Blanche will think you are trying to attract her attention.’

‘You have not answered my question. Have you or William learned anything about the death of Glovere? Why did he think Blanche might know about it?’

Tysilia looked around her quickly, and then leaned close to him, so that her breath was unpleasantly hot against his ear. ‘William told me to keep my voice low when I talk about this, so that no one will overhear what I have to say.’

‘But that is not necessary here,’ Bartholomew said. ‘There is no one close by.’

‘Blanche is over there,’ Tysilia pointed out, reverting to her normal bellow, so that the King’s kinswoman turned around even though she was still some distance away. Blanche’s eyes narrowed when she saw Tysilia clinging to Bartholomew’s arm. She hoisted her skirts and powered towards them, her mouth set in a narrow, grim line. The physician was not sure whether the disapproval was directed at him or at Tysilia, and determined to extricate himself as soon as possible.