A Killer in Winter (21 page)

‘How?’

‘They stole a silver chalice. Well, they claimed they did not, and the thing was not among their possessions when
they were searched, but they were the culprits, nevertheless.’

‘How do you know those Waits and ours are the same people?’

Quenhyth gave him a weary look. ‘I remember their names: Frith, Makejoy, Yna and Jestyn. They wear each other’s clothes, so
the men are women and the women men. They say it is to make people laugh, but I think it is because they encourage men to
seduce the “ladies”, then demand payment for their silence. You know how severely lewd acts are punished these days.’

‘How do you know they stole your father’s chalice?’ asked Bartholomew, thinking it would have to be a desperate man who would
try to seduce one of the stubble-chinned ‘ladies’ of the Chepe Waits. Still, he recalled, Langelee had been fooled, and there
was no accounting for taste.

‘The Waits were the only strangers to enter the house that day, and the chalice was found to be missing after they left. I
tried to tell Langelee about it, but he would not listen. I confess I am surprised to see them in Cambridge – I thought they
confined their activities to London.’

‘If they steal from every household they visit, they will not stay in business for long,’ said Bartholomew, thinking Quenhyth
was mistaken. ‘Even in a large city.’

‘I followed them for a while, hoping to reclaim our property. They do a lot of business in Chepe, with fishmongers, cordwainers
and other wealthy merchants. Later, they went to Kent, presumably to help with the harvest.’

‘Fishmongers,’ mused Bartholomew, thinking about the Waits’ claim that they had been hired by Turke. Philippa had mentioned
that she lived on Friday Street, and he wondered whether her house was anywhere near the Waits’ territory. ‘Is Friday Street
close to Chepe?’

‘Yes,’ said Quenhyth, looking disdainfully down his long nose at Bartholomew. ‘Friday Street is part of Chepe. Do you know
nothing about London?’

‘Not much,’ said Bartholomew, who had found it dirty, dangerous, noisy and crowded on his few brief visits.

‘Friday Street is dominated by the fishmongers’ homes. It is near Fishmonger Row and Thames Street. Chepe, obviously, is on
the river and convenient for bringing supplies of fish to the city. It is near Quenhyth, where my family live. My father is
a fishmonger, too, although he is not as rich and powerful as Master Turke was. Turke did not remember me when we met at the
feast, but his wife did, and she asked after my family. She is a good woman.’

Bartholomew regarded his student thoughtfully. Did the fact that Philippa lived in Chepe mean the Waits had indeed been telling
the truth when they claimed they had performed for her? Or were they lying, because they were dishonest folk who regularly
stole from the people who hired them? Impatiently, he pushed the questions from his mind. All of this was irrelevant. Philippa’s
choice of entertainers – and her willingness, or otherwise, to acknowledge them – was none of his affair. But he had a patient
to attend, and that was his business.

‘Chepe is a place of contrasts,’ Quenhyth chattered, while the physician collected his bag. ‘The merchants’ houses – like
the ones on Friday Street – are among the finest in the city, while some of the alleys are a foretaste of Hell in their filth
and debauchery. Of course, violence is not always confined to alleys. Only a few weeks ago, Walter Turke himself stabbed a
man in Fishmongers’ Hall.’

‘So I heard. But how do you know about it?’

‘My father was there and he saw it all. The victim was called John Fiscurtune. Incidentally, he was the same fellow who recommended
the Chepe Waits to my father. I later informed Fiscurtune that they were not the sort of people he should be advising honest
folk to hire, but he told me to mind my own affairs. He was not a pleasant person, and I am not surprised Turke took a knife
to him. No one liked him, not even his own family. It was rumoured that his son found him so vile he tossed himself in the
Thames to avoid future encounters with him.’

‘So, Fiscurtune knew the Waits, too?’ asked Bartholomew,
baffled by the complex social connections that were emerging as Quenhyth gossiped.

‘I do not know if he knew them personally, but he certainly told my father to hire them. Perhaps he liked bad juggling and
hairy women. By the way, I saw Frith talking to Norbert in the King’s Head the night he died, so you should tell Brother Michael
to question
him
about that particular murder.’ His eyes gleamed with spite.

‘You tell him,’ suggested Bartholomew.

‘I have,’ replied Quenhyth resentfully. ‘But he said the Waits talked to lots of folk the night Norbert was murdered, because
they were looking for someone to hire them. He is a fool to dismiss them from his enquiries so readily, though. He will find
them responsible, you mark my words.’

Bartholomew sensed Quenhyth felt the same about the Waits as Michael did about Harysone. Quenhyth believed the jugglers had
wronged him, and he was not a lad to forgive and forget: he was determined to make life uncomfortable for them. Bartholomew
listened with half an ear as Quenhyth described what had happened when he had made himself known to the Waits in Cambridge.
He claimed they had been appalled to learn of his presence, although Bartholomew suspected that they had merely warned the
boy to mind his own business. Frith did not look the kind of man to be cowed by someone like Quenhyth.

‘I also saw them at the King’s Head with Giles Abigny,’ added Quenhyth, still talking, even though Bartholomew was already
out of the gate and starting to walk up the lane. ‘Since they “entertained” his sister in Friday Street, I suppose they were
hopeful he might buy their services a second time. That was before Master Langelee hired them for Michaelhouse, of course.’

The physician turned. ‘How do you know the Waits played for Philippa?’

‘I told you,’ said Quenhyth impatiently. ‘I watched them very carefully after they stole from my father, and one of their
engagements was in the Turke household. But I could
tell Abigny had not hired them this time. They made rude gestures as he walked away. I saw them with another fellow in the
King’s Head, too – a man with huge teeth and a habit of showing off his dancing skills. Perhaps they were trying to recruit
him.’ He sniggered nastily.

‘Harysone?’

‘The man who has summoned you? I did not know they were one and the same.’

‘What were you doing in the King’s Head?’ asked Bartholomew archly, wondering how the student came to be in possession of
so much information. If Quenhyth had been in the tavern long enough to see the Waits with Abigny, Gosslinge and Harysone,
then he must have been there for some time.

Quenhyth’s face puckered into a scowl. ‘Gray told me there was a messenger waiting with a letter from my father. I should
have known better than to believe him, because he had played exactly the same trick on me the week before. And, sure enough,
Father William appeared as I waited for the “messenger” to arrive. It cost me fourpence. But before I left, I saw Harysone
sitting with Frith. However, the tavern was busy, so I could not hear what they were saying.’

‘Are you sure they were speaking, not just using the same table?’ asked Bartholomew, recalling that the Waits had denied exchanging
words with Harysone.

Quenhyth’s expression became uncertain. ‘I think they were talking. Why? Is Harysone a criminal? He looks like one.’

Bartholomew rubbed his chin, wondering what was truth and what was malicious gossip intended to harm the Waits. ‘Why did you
notice all these things?’

‘If you had been the victim of a vile theft, then been made to look foolish when you could not prove your accusation, you
would notice every move the Waits made, too,’ said Quenhyth bitterly. ‘I hate them.’

* * *

As always, when there was a deviation from the expected in terms of weather, those in authority at the little Fen-edge town
were wholly unprepared for the consequences. In the summer, they were taken aback when there was a drought; they were stunned
by the floods that regularly occurred in the spring; and they were aghast when rains interfered with the harvest. Snow was
no different. Even though some fell most years, the town officials never thought about it until it arrived. Spades and shovels
for digging were always in short supply, while no one stocked firewood so that ice could be melted in sufficient quantities
to meet the demand for water.

This year was the same. Morice’s soldiers had been pressed into service to clear pathways through the larger drifts, but,
in the absence of proper equipment, their progress was slow. There was a particularly vast bank outside Bene’t College, but
the soldiers had decided this was simply too daunting to tackle, and so dug their path around it. Carts stood where they had
been abandoned by their owners, some buried so deeply that only the very tops were visible. In one, a horse had been left,
frozen where it had died between the shafts.

People also seemed bemused by the fact that the river had iced over, and that some traders were experiencing difficulties
in transporting their goods along the waterways that wound through the Fens. It was as if it had never happened before, and
people discussed the weather at every street corner, remarking that it was the most severe winter they had ever known, and
that times were changing for the worse. Friars and lay-preachers were out in force, exhorting all who would listen that the
climate was a sign from God that evil ways had not been sufficiently mended after the warning of the plague. The world would
end in ice and fire, they claimed, if folk did not repent, wear sober clothing, give away all their possessions to the poor,
cut their hair and wear sackcloth, be kind to animals and avoid the town’s prostitutes.

Cynric met Bartholomew on the High Street, and when
he heard that the physician intended to visit the King’s Head to tend Harysone, he insisted on accompanying him. Bartholomew
did not object, glad to have Cynric and his ready blade behind him when he entered the notorious tavern. They passed through
the Trumpington Gate, and walked the short distance to the inn, which stood opposite St Edmund’s Priory. The priory doors
were firmly closed, suggesting the Gilbertines wanted no part in the noisy Christmas revelry that was taking place in the
rest of the town. The King’s Head, on the other hand, was bursting at the seams. As Bartholomew and Cynric approached, two
men hurtled through the door and rolled across the trodden snow of the road, where they climbed groggily to their feet. The
door slammed behind them.

‘Now look what you have done,’ said one. ‘You got us thrown out.’

They walked away arm in arm, although their progress was unsteady. Bartholomew drew his cloak more tightly around his shoulders
to disguise the fact that he wore a scholar’s tabard underneath, and opened the door with some trepidation.

He need not have worried. The inn was full of people he knew, all of whom raised their goblets to him in festive salutation.
Some were patients, who came to mutter weepy-eyed gratitude for past treatments, while others worked at Michaelhouse. Although
taverns were not places where women were found with much regularity, Agatha was different. She sat in a large seat near the
fire, and held forth to a group of townsfolk who nursed ale in calloused hands and prudently nodded agreement from time to
time.

‘You know you cannot come in here,’ said the taverner to Bartholomew with a sanctimonious expression on his face. ‘The University
forbids me to sell ale to scholars.’

‘So I understand,’ said Bartholomew, looking hard at a group of young men who were attempting to make themselves invisible
by huddling into their cloaks. They were the Franciscan friars from Ovyng, and the burly Godric was at
the head of their table. Godric flushed deep red when he saw he had been recognised, and buried his face in his jug. ‘I was
summoned by Master Harysone. Is he here?’

‘Oh,’ said the taverner, relieved. ‘I thought Brother Michael had sent you to see whether I would sell you a drink. It is
Harysone you want, is it? He is in his chamber, unwell. It is not because of my cooking, though – and you can tell him that.’

Bartholomew climbed the stairs and knocked at Harysone’s door. A weak voice told him to come in. He flipped open the latch
and entered one of the tavern’s more pleasant rooms. Fresh rushes were strewn on the floor, and the walls had been painted
with hunting scenes. A huge pile of books near the window caught the physician’s attention. They were crudely made, with heavy
wooden covers sandwiching a thin layer of parchment. There were at least thirty copies, and he wondered how many of the things
Harysone intended to sell in Cambridge.

Harysone lay on the bed, fully dressed, even though there was a fire blazing in the hearth and the room was stuffy. For the
first time, Bartholomew was able to study him at close quarters. Harysone’s teeth were his most arresting feature: they were
long and yellow, and it did not seem possible that they could be real. His next outstanding characteristic was his eyes, which
glittered like a rodent’s, and Bartholomew sensed something highly unpleasant about the man. Even the thought of those moist
orbs settling on Matilde made him nauseous.

‘Are you the physician?’ Harysone asked. ‘Close the door; you are letting the cold air in.’

Bartholomew complied. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘In a moment, in a moment,’ said Harysone testily. ‘First, I must establish whether you are sufficiently well qualified to
treat me. Where did you train, and what books have you read?’

‘I studied at the universities in Oxford and Paris,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘And I cannot possibly provide you with a
list of all the books I have read. However, if you would like someone who can, I can suggest one or two names. Robin of Grantchester
will not overwhelm you with medical knowledge.’

‘Not a surgeon, thank you very much,’ said Harysone with a shudder. ‘I do not like men who poke about inside men’s bodies
with sharp knives. It is not natural. Are you a local man?’