Mystery in the Minster (4 page)

‘Yes,’ agreed Radeford, adding under his breath, ‘and then see about finding documents to prove our claim with all possible speed, because I do not want to miss the beginning of term for a pittance.’

Abbot Multone lived in a sumptuous two-storey building with a tiled roof. Its ground floor was given over to the clerks who carried out the complex business of running a foundation housing nigh on three hundred souls, while
the top floor comprised a bedchamber, private chapel and solar. Oustwyk conducted the visitors to the solar, an elegant room with a large hearth and religious murals. A shelf of books graced one wall, and bowls of scented leaves were on the windowsills.

‘The Abbot must have gone to pray,’ said Oustwyk, finding the place empty, so hauling random tomes off the shelf and shoving them into the scholars’ hands. ‘He will not be long. Read these until I come back.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Michael, startled that they were to be left alone.

‘Someone is knocking at the door downstairs,’ explained Oustwyk. ‘I cannot answer it and stay with you at the same time. So peruse these lovely books until I return. I am sure you will find them interesting. Most people do.’

‘I cannot imagine why,’ said Radeford, when the steward had gone. He gestured to the volume he had been given. ‘I was expecting a theological tract, but this is a list of tips for raising pigeons for the pot. Does anyone want to swap?’

‘No, thank you,’ replied Michael. ‘I have
Liber de Coquina
, a text famous for its tasty recipes, and I have just discovered one for chicken with dates. I am in the process of memorising it.’

‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew, who had been handed a manuscript on French pastries. A quick inspection of the shelf told him that Multone’s entire collection comprised books about food and how to prepare it. ‘I doubt it will transpire to be edible if you ask Michaelhouse to make it.’

‘God’s teeth!’ breathed Langelee, gazing in astonishment at the tome he had been given. ‘Did you know it is possible to eat cuckoo? With cherries?’

‘I think you will find
cuniculus
is rabbit, Master,’ said Bartholomew, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Cuckoo would be
cuculus
.’

Langelee was spared from further embarrassment when Oustwyk opened the door to admit two nuns in Benedictine habits. The younger, a novice, was pretty, with a heart-shaped face. There was a book under her arm, and sharp intelligence in her blue eyes.

Her companion could not have been more different. She had the baggy skin of a woman who had lived life to the full, and her worldly eyes said she was still far from finished with it. A ruby pendant took the place of the more usual pectoral cross, and her fingers were so cluttered with rings that Bartholomew wondered whether they were functional. The tendrils of hair that had been allowed to escape from under her wimple were dyed a rather startling orange.

‘Alice!’ exclaimed Langelee, regarding her in delight. ‘You are still here! I thought you would have been deposed by now … I mean, I assumed you would have moved to greener pastures.’

‘Ralph,’ purred Alice. ‘I did not think we would meet again. And I have missed you.’

Langelee treated her to a smacking kiss, while the novice gazed at the spectacle and Radeford gazed at the novice. Uneasily, Bartholomew saw the lawyer had been instantly smitten, and hoped it would not cause trouble – it was one thing for the Master to flirt with an old friend, but another altogether for a Michaelhouse man to fall for a woman intended for the Church.

‘Here!’ objected Oustwyk, hurrying forward to prise Alice and Langelee apart. ‘No nonsense in the Abbot’s solar, if you please. He will disapprove. And you do not want to be fined for licentious behaviour again, Prioress.’

‘No,’ sighed Alice. ‘I still owe the last one he levied. Of course, it was wholly unjust. It is hardly my fault that the vicars-choral like to visit me of an evening. They come for
the music, you understand. As you may recall, Ralph, I play the lute.’

Langelee laughed, leaving Bartholomew with the distinct impression that ‘playing the lute’ was a euphemism for something else entirely. Alice’s companion was not amused, however.

‘Your music sees you in far too much trouble, Mother,’ she said worriedly. ‘Perhaps it is time you abandoned it, and took up something more suited to your age. Such as darning.’

‘I am not your mother, Isabella,’ snapped Alice, as Langelee’s eyes fastened speculatively on the younger woman. ‘How many more times must I tell you not to call me that?’

‘You are to all intents and purposes,’ countered Isabella. ‘You promised my uncle that you would act
in loco parentis
to me after he died.’

‘Isabella?’ asked Langelee, peering at the young woman’s face. ‘Good Lord! I did not recognise you! Little Isabella – Zouche’s niece! And you want to become a nun?’

‘I do,’ replied Isabella, although Alice made a gesture behind her back that said this was by no means decided. ‘How else shall I be able to study theology? It is my greatest passion, and if I had been born a man, I would be enrolled in your University by now.’

Langelee seemed unsure how to respond to this claim, never having felt anything remotely approaching passion for an academic discipline. ‘What about Helen?’ he asked rather lamely. ‘I believe she was another of Zouche’s nieces. Was she your sister, too? I cannot recall.’

‘Cousin,’ replied Isabella. ‘She made an excellent marriage to Sir Richard Vavasours, so she is Lady Helen now. Unfortunately, he died on a pilgrimage to Canterbury four years ago.’

Remembering his manners, Langelee introduced his
colleagues, although Radeford became uncharacteristically tongue-tied when it was his turn to be presented. Bartholomew supposed Isabella was pretty, but he was in love with a woman named Matilde, and the novice paled in comparison to her. The fact that he had not seen or heard of Matilde in almost three years had done nothing to diminish his affection, or to soothe the heartache her disappearance had caused him.

‘Minding Isabella has not been easy,’ said Alice to Langelee, speaking as if the younger woman could not hear. ‘She will insist on accusing high-ranking officials of being greedy and corrupt.’

‘Because they are,’ asserted Isabella. ‘It would be disingenuous to say otherwise.’

‘Worse yet,’ Alice went on, ‘she had to answer to Archbishop Thoresby for apostasy.’

‘Apostasy?’ echoed Langelee, startled. ‘I thought she just said she wanted to be a nun.’

‘I do,’ declared Isabella. ‘But that does not mean I must meekly accept everything I read. And St Augustine’s concept of original sin is wrong. He says here that—’

‘Not now,’ said Alice wearily, as the novice began to fumble in the book she was carrying.

Langelee grinned in a manner that was distinctly predatory. ‘I shall discuss theology with you later, Isabella. As a philosopher, I am more than qualified to say whether or not you are an apostate.’

‘You will not have time, Master,’ said Radeford, finding his voice at last. He smiled shyly at Isabella. ‘He is not very interested in religious debates, anyway. But I am.
Very
interested.’

While Radeford proceeded to ingratiate himself with Isabella, and his colleagues listened with raised eyebrows – he had
never expressed a liking for the ‘queen of sciences’ before – Abbot Multone bustled in, all flapping habit and bushy white hair.

‘My apologies,’ he said breathlessly. ‘We are always busy in the mornings, because of obits – masses we are obliged to say for the souls of the dead.’

‘We know what obits are,’ said Michael, resenting the implication that he was some provincial bumpkin who did not know the ways of the Church. ‘Michaelhouse performs dozens of them each year, for the souls of our founder, our benefactors and their families.’

‘Well, we have thousands,’ countered Multone rather competitively. ‘Which means every priest in York must recite at least two a day.’

‘We charge for ours,’ interjected Oustwyk smugly. ‘People give us a house or a bit of land, and the rent pays for our devotions. And as we get to keep anything left over, we do not mind spending a few moments on our knees each day. It is very lucrative.’

Michael started to make a tart observation about avarice, but Multone’s eyebrows had drawn together in a frown when he saw Alice and Isabella, and he cut across him rather abruptly.

‘What are you two doing here?’ he demanded ungraciously. ‘I was hoping to speak to my visitors in private.’

‘I told them to wait outside until you were ready,’ said Oustwyk, when his Abbot turned to glare accusingly at him. ‘But Prioress Alice refused, on the grounds that it is raining.’

‘Well, it
is
raining,’ averred Alice. ‘And you said you wanted to question Isabella about what she announced in the meat-market yesterday. You asked her to select a play to be performed there,’ she added, when Multone regarded her blankly.

‘Oh, yes.’ Multone brought a steely gaze to bear on the novice. ‘I thought the exercise would keep your mind off theology, which is better left to men. But the title of the drama you have picked has the entire city in an uproar of anticipation. What were you thinking, to choose such a piece?’

‘
The Conversion of the Harlot
,’ said Isabella, while Langelee sniggered like a schoolboy and Radeford’s jaw dropped. ‘I do not see the problem, Father Abbot. Many people have told me that they are looking forward to it.’

‘I am sure they are,’ said Multone, his expression pained. ‘But we Benedictines cannot be seen staging ribald plays! We shall be a laughing stock!’

‘It is not ribald!’ objected Isabella, shocked. ‘It is by Hrotsvit of Ganderheim, a saintly nun.’

‘She is right,’ said Bartholomew, recalling a performance he had once seen in Paris. ‘It begins with a long and rather tedious discussion between clerics about harmony in the created world, and the rest is a debate between the harlot – who has since converted to Christianity – and her confessor. There is nothing remotely bawdy about it.’

‘That is even worse!’ groaned Multone. ‘There will be a riot, because the title suggests something rather more … entertaining. You must abandon it, and find another.’

‘But we cannot!’ cried Isabella, dismayed. It was unusual for a novice to defy an abbot, but she was the niece of an archbishop, which granted her a certain licence unavailable to others. ‘We have already hired players and started rehearsals. Or are you suggesting we cancel it altogether?’

‘No!’ gulped Multone. ‘The people of York are fond of their dramas, and depriving them of one is more than my life is worth. I suppose it will have to go ahead, although I think I shall change its title. How about
The Confessions of an ex-Whore
?’

‘I think you might find that has similar problems, Father,’ said Michael, maintaining a perfectly straight face, although Bartholomew, Radeford and Langelee were hard pressed not to laugh.

‘It is a fine play,’ said Isabella earnestly. ‘It is all about a greedy, debauched, sinful person, who repents her sins and is saved. And as so many people in York are greedy, debauched and sinful, it will touch their hearts and make them eager to atone for their vices.’

‘Do not hold your breath,’ muttered Multone. He turned to the scholars. ‘Forgive me. I did not intend our first conversation to comprise a discussion about lewd dramas. May I assume that you are here about Huntington? Sir William told me he had written to tell you what has happened.’

Langelee nodded. ‘It was kind of him to warn us, because otherwise we might have been too late. The vicars-choral have no right to claim what Zouche intended for Michaelhouse.’

Multone inclined his head, but was too politic to take sides, so confined himself to saying, ‘They are tenacious and determined, so you will have to produce plenty of documentation to defeat them.’

‘I can provide some,’ whispered Oustwyk in Bartholomew’s ear, tugging his sleeve to gain his attention. ‘I know some excellent forgers, who will do it cheap. Just let me know.’

‘I hope you win,’ said Isabella. ‘My uncle
did
intend Michaelhouse to have that church, because I heard him say so myself. And so did Cousin Helen. Besides, the vicars only want it so they can buy themselves more new shoes. Please tell me if I can do anything to help. I read well, and will help you trawl through as many muniments as you like.’

‘Yes, please,’ said Radeford eagerly, before anyone could refuse. ‘Thank you.’

‘And when you have finished pawing through dusty old deeds, you must come to my convent for a lute lesson,’ said Alice to Langelee. ‘It has been far too long since we made music together.’

Not long after, there was another knock on the door. Oustwyk went to answer it, while Multone began to hold forth about a letter he had just received from the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which the sin of pride was blamed for the plague that had swept across the country some ten years earlier. Isabella listened attentively to the pious reflections, but the others were bored, and Bartholomew hated being dragged back to the hellish time when his medicines had been useless and much-loved patients had died in his arms. He was startled from his gloomy reverie when two more Benedictines were shown in. Multone grimaced his annoyance.

‘How many more times must I tell you that visitors are to be kept downstairs until I send for them?’ he hissed in his steward’s ear. ‘It is getting ridiculously crowded in here!’