Susanna GREGORY - A Summer of Discontent

‘Because he told tales?’ asked Bartholomew doubtfully. ‘I can see that would make him unpopular, but I cannot see that it would lead to such heartlessness regarding his mortal remains.’

‘Apparently he was a liar, too, whose uncontrolled tongue caused a lot of unnecessary heartache. Alan told me that his malicious stories resulted in a young woman committing suicide last winter.’

‘How?’

‘He started rumours that she was with child, which led her intended husband to marry someone else. It transpired that Glovere’s accusations were wholly unfounded, and were based on the fact that he had seen the girl sewing clothes for a baby. The clothes were for her sister’s child.’

Bartholomew regarded the monk uncertainly. ‘But if Glovere was a known liar, why did this husband-to-be believe him in the first place?’

‘Because he was a foolish man with too much pride and too little trust. It was one of those silly affairs that would have righted itself, given time. Unfortunately, the intended groom acted immediately, and Glovere’s spite thus brought about a tragedy. But the city has not forgotten the story and Glovere remains friendless and graveless.’

‘And the body is in a church somewhere?’ asked Bartholomew, wishing he had not agreed to help Michael after all. The last ten days had been gloriously hot, and a corpse of that age was not going to be pleasant company.

‘Lord, no!’ said Michael. ‘No sane parish priest would agree to hosting a corpse for that length of time in the summer. Glovere resides in the Bone House.’

‘What is a bone house?’ asked Bartholomew dubiously. ‘It sounds horrible.’

Michael started to explain. ‘When the foundations of the Lady Chapel and the Church of the Holy Cross were laid, we kept unearthing bones. The whole area to the north of the cathedral – where these buildings were being raised – is the lay cemetery, you see.’

‘I hope plague victims were not buried there,’ said Bartholomew immediately. ‘I do not think it will be safe to unearth those bodies for a long time yet.’

‘Most were found thirty years ago. But there were so many remains that it was decided a bone house should be erected to store them until they could be reburied.’

‘Why not inter them straight away? Why keep them above ground at all?’

‘Because we did not want to lay them to rest only to dig them up later when more foundations were needed. It is better to stack them safely, then bury them with due ceremony when we are sure they will not be disturbed again. Look – there it is.’

Michael pointed to a two-storeyed lean-to building near the north wall of the priory, between the Steeple Gate and the sacristy. It was sturdily built, but was little more than a long house with one or two very small windows and a thick, heavy door. It was evidently anticipated that the occupants would not require much in the way of daylight, because the shutters had been painted firmly closed, giving the whole building a forlorn, secretive appearance that did not encourage visitors. For some peculiar reason, the Bone House had also been provided with a chimney, although Bartholomew could not see why. He could not imagine anyone – living, at least – tarrying inside for long enough to warrant the lighting of a fire.

‘It is obvious it was built for laymen, and not monks,’ said Bartholomew, critically eyeing its crude lines and unprepossessing appearance. ‘It is hardly the grandest edifice in the area.’

‘It is a storeroom, Matt,’ said Michael irritably. ‘It is not intended to be a final resting place.’

‘I hope I do not end up in a place like this,’ said Bartholomew, as Michael took a hefty key from his scrip and fitted it to the lock on the door. ‘My skull at one end of a room and my feet at the other, all mixed with someone else’s limbs, and my ribs still buried in the churchyard.’

‘I shall see what I can do to prevent it,’ said Michael, evidently anticipating that he would last a good deal longer than his friend. ‘You should approve of Glovere being stored here, Matt. It means he is well away from living people.’

‘But he is also out of sight and therefore out of mind. Perhaps the Prior is hoping that he will turn into bones if left long enough.’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Michael, leaping backwards as he opened the door. ‘What a stench!’

‘I am not surprised the monks do not want this in their cathedral,’ said Bartholomew, recoiling, despite the fact that he had prepared himself for the olfactory onslaught. ‘Such a vile smell cannot be good for the health of the living.’

‘It does not say much about the health of the dead, either,’ muttered Michael. ‘I have never known a corpse to stink so.’

He took a step forward, but then hesitated when he became aware that flies buzzed within. Pulling a face, Michael produced from his scrip a huge pomander stuffed with lavender and cloves, placed it over the lower part of his face, and indicated that Bartholomew was to precede him inside. Bartholomew obliged, taking care to breathe through his nose. It was a popular belief that inhaling through the mouth was the best solution for dealing with foul odours, but Bartholomew had learned that did not work for especially strong smells: he ended up being able to taste the foulness as well as smell it.

It was dark inside the Bone House, and the two scholars waited a few moments for their eyes to adapt to the gloom. Someone had placed a lamp on a shelf to one side, and as Michael lit it, Bartholomew looked around curiously.

A row of shelves in front of him was stacked with grinning skulls, most with missing teeth that lent them rakish expressions. To his left was a pile of long bones – arms and legs – in various states of repair, while to his right lay a heap of broken coffins. Some revealed a glimmer of white inside, while others had apparently been emptied of their contents. An old barrel near one shuttered window was filled almost to the brim with bone fragments – flat pieces of cranium, and tiny carpals and tarsals that had once been living hands and feet.

‘I suppose this must be him,’ said Michael, stepping forward to a human shape that lay on the bare stone of the floor. It had been covered with a filthy piece of sacking, but that was all. Glovere had no coffin, no shroud, and no one had performed even the most basic cleansing of his body. The sacking was too small for its purpose: a bristly stack of hair protruded from one end, and a pair of legs from the other. Michael grabbed the material and pulled it away, backing off quickly when the movement aroused a swarm of buzzing flies.

‘This is horrible!’ he choked through his pomander. ‘Why are we doing this?’

‘Because you promised your Bishop you would,’ replied Bartholomew, flapping at the insects that circled his head as he knelt next to the bloated features of the dead man.

In the summer months, most corpses were laid in the ground within a day or two of their deaths, and it was unusual to see one that had been left for so long. The face was dark, with a blackish-green sheen about it, and was strangely mottled. The eyes were dull and opaque, half open beneath discoloured lids, while the mouth looked as though it had been stretched, and gaped open in a lopsided way that Bartholomew had never observed in the living.

He studied Glovere for a moment before beginning his examination, trying to see the man who had lived, rather than the corpse that lay mouldering in front of him. He saw a fellow in his middle thirties who had been well nourished, and who had sported a head of brown hair and a patchy beard. His skin was puckered in places, as though his complexion had been spoiled by a pox at some point. His clothes were dirty and stained, but of decent quality.