Mystery in the Minster Read Online Free PDF

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 hadnever 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