A Summer of Discontent (25 page)

‘It is true,’ said Eulalia to Bartholomew. ‘We are hired as additional labour, not to replace local people. Usually, the folk
here are delighted to see us, and always make us welcome. But it is different this year.’ She turned angrily on Guido. ‘And
you did not help matters! We do not want to earn a reputation for brawling, or we will not be welcome
here next year, either. You should not have risen to Leycestre’s baiting.’

The door swung open again, and Bartholomew turned to see Leycestre framed in the light. There were others behind him, and
some carried weapons. With a shock, Bartholomew realised that Leycestre’s relentless claims that the gypsies were responsible
for all manner of wrongs had finally come to fruition, and he now had a small army at his back.

‘I suggested you leave days ago,’ Leycestre said venomously, moving towards Guido. In the dim light, Bartholomew saw the dispossessed
farmer’s eyes were hot with anger, and the sweet smell of Ely’s bona cervisia around him indicated that the gypsies were not
the only ones who had been drinking.

‘We have a right to be here,’ objected Guido indignantly. ‘We come every year.’

‘Not any more,’ hissed Leycestre. ‘We have no room for liars and thieves in Ely.’

‘
You
should leave then,’ snarled Guido.

Eulalia put a warning hand on her brother’s arm. ‘We will be retiring to our beds now,’ she said to Leycestre in a low, reasonable
voice. ‘We want no trouble.’

‘Not so fast,’ shouted Leycestre, making a grab for the slack-jawed Rosel as the lad made to follow his sister. Rosel should
not have been given beer, because it made him unsteady on his legs. Leycestre’s lunge did the rest, and Rosel took a tumble
into the hard-baked mud of the street. There was an unpleasant crack as his skull hit a stone, followed by a frightened wail
as the boy saw bright blood spilling through his fingers. Eulalia gave a cry of alarm, and rushed to her brother’s side. Leycestre
misinterpreted her sudden move as an attack, and his hand came up fast. In it there was a dagger.

The altercation might have ended in more bloodshed if Bartholomew had not stepped forward and knocked the dagger from Leycestre’s
hand, so that it went skittering
across the ground. For an instant, Leycestre’s expression was murderous, but then the fury dulled and he had the grace to
appear sheepish. Even in his drink-excited state, Leycestre knew that there was no excuse for drawing a weapon on an unarmed
woman who was doing nothing more threatening than kneeling next to her sobbing kinsman. Without a word, he strode away down
the Heyrow. Someone retrieved the knife, and the small crowd quickly melted away into the darkness, as shamefaced as their
leader.

‘Thank you,’ said Eulalia unsteadily, cradling Rosel’s head in her lap. ‘I think they might have killed us had you not been
here.’

‘They could have tried!’ growled Guido belligerently, his own dagger in his hand now that the crowd had dispersed. ‘But they
would not have bested me!’

‘I do not know about that,’ said Goran uncertainly. ‘There were an awful lot of them and only four of us. I, for one, am grateful
the physician stepped in when he did.’

Guido’s angry red eyes shifted to his brother, and he took a firmer grip on his knife. ‘We do not need outsiders meddling
in our affairs …’

‘Help me, Guido,’ snapped Eulalia. ‘Do not stand there bragging like some great oaf when your brother lies bleeding.’

Bartholomew knelt next to her and examined Rosel’s head in the faint light that filtered through the open windows of the tavern.
It was only a scalp wound, which bled vigorously although there was little serious damage. He applied a goose-grease salve,
and delighted Rosel by wrapping the boy’s head in a bandage made from strips of white linen. Once the blood had been removed
and he had an impressive dressing to show for his discomfort, Rosel made a miraculous recovery, and pulled away from Eulalia’s
anxious embrace to join his brothers.

‘Goran is right,’ Eulalia said, watching the three of them stagger unsteadily towards their camp. ‘We would not have bested
that crowd. Leycestre’s blood was up, and he had
encouraged his cronies to do us harm.’

‘He thinks you are responsible for the burglaries,’ said Bartholomew.

‘And the murders,’ added Eulalia ruefully. ‘But I can assure you that we are not. Guido may seem like a fighter, but he is
a coward at heart.’

‘Is he a thief?’

She gave him a grin full of teeth that gleamed white in the moonlight. ‘Who is not?’

‘A good many people, I hope,’ replied Bartholomew, rather primly.

‘Then your understanding of human nature is sadly flawed. There is not a living soul – saints excluded – who has not taken
an apple from someone else’s tree or “borrowed” some unwanted thing that he has no intention of returning. Guido is no different
from anyone else.’

Bartholomew stared at her, not sure what she was saying with her philosophical commentary. ‘So, did he commit these burglaries
or not?’ he asked.

She smiled and shook her head, so that he did not know whether her answer was that of course he had, or whether the notion
of burglary was so ludicrous that she could not even bring herself to reply to such a charge.

‘Do you know Lady Blanche?’ he asked at last, seeing he would gain no more information on that matter – at least, none that
he was able to interpret.

‘Of course I do,’ she replied casually. ‘She dines with us most Sundays on hedgehogs and acorns. What a ridiculous question,
Matthew! How would
we
know such a person?’

‘Because I saw her with you yesterday,’ said Bartholomew, hoping that an honest approach would be more likely to gain honest
answers.

She gazed at him. ‘Do you mean in the Mermaid Inn? Are you talking about the person with the hood who was with us? That was
Goran.’

‘Then why did he look as though he was trying to disguise himself?’ pressed Bartholomew, unconvinced.

‘Because of men like Leycestre,’ said Eulalia, her voice suddenly harsh. ‘Like me, Goran is tired of being accused of things
he did not do.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Bartholomew gently. He sensed he was wrong to question Eulalia about her brothers’ affairs: he was only
making her think that everyone in the town believed the accusations, even those who attempted to befriend them.

‘You have not collected your black resin yet,’ she said, smiling at him in the moonlight, her irritation apparently forgotten.
‘Will you come for it now?’

Bartholomew gazed at the invitation in her dark eyes, and was already walking down the Heyrow with her when it occurred to
him that Michael would be wondering why he had not returned.

‘Damn!’ he muttered, stopping in his tracks. ‘Michael is waiting for me.’

‘Let him wait,’ suggested Eulalia. ‘He does not look like the kind of man who would stand in the way of a friend’s enjoyment.’

‘He is not,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But there is a killer on the loose and a bishop who will grow more dangerous the longer he
is cornered. I had better go.’

‘Please yourself,’ she said, clearly disappointed. ‘But remember that you are always welcome at our fire.’

‘Your brothers might not be so hospitable,’ said Bartholomew ruefully, glancing down the dark road to where the trio lurched
homewards. ‘Guido dislikes me.’

‘He will do as I ask,’ said Eulalia confidently. ‘He needs me a good deal more than I need him. I might have been king if
he had not been my elder.’

‘Can women be kings?’ asked Bartholomew, surprised that rough men like Guido and Goran might be prepared to accept the rule
of a woman.

‘Of course,’ she replied, as surprised by the question as he was by the answer. ‘I told you that “king” is a poor translation
of the word. But they will wonder what we are up to,
if I linger here much longer. Do not wait too long before taking me up on my offer.’

‘Black resin?’ asked Bartholomew.

‘Black resin,’ she agreed as she walked away.

Bartholomew retraced his steps along the darkened streets, swearing under his breath as he tripped and stumbled over potholes
and other irregularities. He had been some time, and hoped Mackerell had appeared in his absence and that Michael had the
man safely ensconced in the Prior’s cells. But Mackerell had not arrived, and Michael was fretting by the gate.

‘I was beginning to worry about you, too,’ the monk complained angrily, when Bartholomew reached him. ‘What have you been
doing? It only takes a few moments to run to the Mermaid and back.’

‘It is too warm for running. Besides, I did not think there was any hurry.’

‘Well, I have had enough of this,’ said Michael irritably. ‘We will go to the Quay, to see whether any of the bargemen there
have seen Mackerell today, and then I am going to bed.’

‘Good idea,’ agreed Bartholomew, deciding not to mention the incident outside the Lamb while Michael was in such a bellicose
frame of mind. The monk would assume Bartholomew had gone looking for Eulalia, blithely abandoning him to a lonely sojourn
in a deserted vineyard. Since Bartholomew was not in the mood for an argument, he elected to tell Michael about the gypsies’
altercation with Leycestre later, preferably after the monk had eaten and was in good humour.

They walked the short distance to the Quay, listening to the sounds of the night – the rumble of voices from the taverns,
the barking of a dog and the faint hiss of reeds in the wind. The air had the distinct tang of salt in it, overlain with a
powerful fishy odour. Gulls paddled silently in the river’s shallows, ducking and pecking at the water as they
ate their fill of the refuse that had been dumped there. When Bartholomew and Michael reached the Quay, a tiny prick of light
implied that someone was working late near the barges. Michael strolled up to it.

‘Has anyone seen Mackerell?’ he asked.

What happened next was a blur. One of the figures turned slowly, then swung out viciously with what appeared to be a hammer.
Michael jerked backwards, so that it missed his face, but he lost his balance and, after a few moments of violently whirling
arms, toppled backward to land heavily among a pile of crates. With an almighty clatter, the crates fell and crashed around
him, while the monk covered his head with his hands.

Bartholomew darted to his aid, but found himself confronted by three men, who seemed convinced that he was in their way. They
rushed him in a body before he could reach into his medicine bag and draw one of the knives he carried. All four went thudding
to the ground, and Bartholomew laid blindly about him with his fists, not really able to see and only knowing that anyone
near him was not a friend. He grazed his knuckles several times, although whether his blows landed on a person or on the sacks
of grain over which they struggled he could not tell.

The first of his assailants broke free and ran. The others followed, and Bartholomew leapt spectacularly on to the back of
one in an attempt to prevent him from escaping. The man was larger than Bartholomew had anticipated; all at once he started
spinning around, so that the physician lost his grip and went flying to land on Michael. He heard a hammering of receding
footsteps as the last of them fled.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Bartholomew, climbing off the monk and peering into the darkness. There was little point in giving
chase: he could not see, and he did not know the area well enough to guess where the three men might have gone.

‘No thanks to you,’ muttered Michael ungraciously,
reaching out and using Bartholomew to haul himself to his feet. His weight was enormous, and the physician almost fell a
second time. ‘You should have landed on those bags of wheat or the crates. You did not have to aim for me. You are heavy,
Matt!’

‘I needed something soft to fall on,’ said Bartholomew, smiling at the monk’s vehemence. ‘But did you see their faces? They
were not the gypsies, because I saw them only a few moments ago, heading in the opposite direction.’

‘They could have doubled back,’ said Michael. ‘Are you sure it was not them?’

‘No,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘But Rosel has a cut head, and I do not think any of our attackers were swathed in bandages.’

‘He could have taken it off since you last saw him,’ Michael pointed out. ‘And then they could have followed you here. There
are three brothers, and three men attacked us.’

‘But these people fought us because we disturbed them at something,’ Bartholomew reasoned. ‘They were not lying in wait for
us.’

‘They did not really fight, either,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘They pushed and struggled. No weapons were drawn, or you
would have been a dead man. And they had all been drinking.’

Bartholomew stared at him. ‘How do you know that?’

Michael tapped his nose. ‘The smell, Matt. They had beer on their breath. They may not have been drunk, but they had certainly
enjoyed a jug of ale.’

‘That does not help,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Virtually every man in the city seems to have been in a tavern this evening. I even
saw Almoner Robert and Symon the librarian in a secluded alcove of the Bell. Mackerell, you and I are probably the only ones
to have abstained tonight.’

‘So what were that trio doing among the reeds to have warranted all that belligerence?’ asked Michael, walking to where the
three men had been working, and peering into
the inky darkness of the river. There was nothing to see. One of them had dropped the torch he had been using and it still
burned. Bartholomew picked it up and looked around carefully, but there was nothing to suggest why they had been so reluctant
to be caught.

‘This may sound ridiculous, but when the first one lunged at me, I half supposed that we had stumbled on Mackerell’s murder
taking place,’ said Michael.

Bartholomew stared at him. ‘Why did you think that?’

‘Because so many people know we are meeting him – the pot-boy at the Mermaid, Tysilia, William and the Bishop – that I wondered
whether someone might try to reach him first and ensure that he follows in the footsteps of Glovere and the others: floating
face-down in the river with a fatal slit in the back of his neck.’