A Killer in Winter (7 page)

Godric turned apologetically to Michael. ‘I am only trying to help. Dympna
did
send him a message that afternoon, and he
did
go out soon after he read it, but perhaps I should not have assumed the two were connected.’

‘Do you still have this letter?’ asked Michael. ‘It might help if we were to see it.’

Godric shook his head. ‘He either took it with him or threw it away. We have searched his belongings, but it is not there
– not that note or any of the others.’

‘Was this relationship with Dympna a recent affair?’ asked Michael. ‘Or one that had been going on for some time?’

‘I think recent,’ replied Godric. ‘We first saw a note about a week ago, but there could have been others before that.’ He
smiled suddenly, so that his loutish face softened and became almost attractive. ‘You are wondering why we pried so unashamedly
into Norbert’s personal life, Brother. Being friars, none of
us
receive notes from young ladies, and we were naturally curious about a man who does.’

‘Naturally,’ said Michael expressionlessly. ‘Did you meet this woman, or see Norbert with her?’

‘We saw him with women,’ replied Godric precisely. ‘But since we do not know what Dympna looks like, we do not know which
one of them was her. However, I doubt whether any of the rough ladies he courted openly was Dympna. I think he only ever met
her in secret.’

‘Why?’ asked Michael curiously. ‘You have just said you do not know what she looks like, so she could be any of the prostitutes
Norbert enjoyed. God knows, he was fined enough times for that.’

Godric’s expression was earnest. ‘I think she is better than the others. She
wrote
to him – on
parchment
, using a
pen
!’

Parchment was expensive, and while some people could
read, far fewer extended their education to the more skilled process of writing. The very act of putting pen to parchment
suggested a woman who was a cut above the average.

‘Did you read these personal notes?’ asked Bartholomew of Godric. ‘You know what was in them and who they were from, so you
must have done.’

‘Really, Godric!’ exclaimed Ailred in horror. ‘I thought you had more honour. Did no one ever teach you that it is wrong to
pry into the personal missives of others?’

‘I am sorry, Father,’ muttered Godric, red-faced with embarrassment. ‘We meant no harm. We were just curious.’

‘Being nosy is not an excuse,’ said Ailred sternly. ‘But since you have already broken faith with a colleague by reading letters
not intended for your eyes, then I suppose there is no further harm in telling us what was in them. What did they say?’

‘Nothing much,’ said Godric, still shamefaced. ‘They were rather curt, actually, and not at all like the kind of love-letters
we have heard sung about in ballads. They just mentioned her name, and a time and a place for a meeting, followed by a series
of numbers.’ He brightened. ‘They were probably astrological observations, to do with the best time for practising love.’

‘You seem to have a very rosy view of Norbert’s love affairs,’ said Bartholomew, trying not to laugh at the notion of the
lazy, hedonistic Norbert engaging in anything as orderly as running his life according to the alignments of the celestial
bodies. Godric, like many men who entered the priesthood young, had some very odd ideas about courtship.

‘You said these notes specified a meeting place,’ said Michael, ignoring the friar’s embarrassed reaction to Bartholomew’s
observation. ‘Where was it?’

‘St Michael’s Church,’ replied Godric.

‘Our church?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘Are you sure?’

Godric nodded. ‘I know Norbert spent his last night at the King’s Head, but it was Dympna’s call for love that sent him out
in the first place. He went to meet her!’

Godric and the others could tell them no more about the mysterious Dympna, nor could they identify anyone in particular who
wanted to harm Norbert, so Bartholomew and Michael made their farewells and walked back to Michaelhouse. As soon as they opened
the gate they saw Bartholomew’s slight, dark-featured book-bearer picking his way across the yard towards them. The yard’s
rutted, potholed surface was a danger at the best of times, but it was worse when snow camouflaged its hazards. Cynric gave
a nervous grin as he approached, and Bartholomew felt a wave of apprehension that the normally nonchalant Welshman was so
clearly uneasy.

‘It is cold today,’ said Cynric, glancing up at the heavy-bellied clouds above. ‘It will snow again tonight.’

‘What is wrong?’ demanded Bartholomew. Cynric never wasted time with idle chatter about the weather. ‘Is my sister unwell?’

‘No, but I have a message from her,’ replied Cynric. ‘Well, not her. From her husband, Oswald Stanmore. You know that I am
married to his seamstress, and that my wife and I have a room at his business premises on Milne Street. He asked me to come
here to see you.’

‘You are gabbling, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew, becoming alarmed. His book-bearer was never garrulous, and certainly did not
normally waste breath telling people things they already knew, such as the names of their own brothers-inlaw and their servants’
domestic arrangements.

‘Sir Oswald has an unexpected guest,’ said Cynric. ‘A woman. Well, a woman and two men, actually. They arrived in Cambridge
more than a week ago, but Mistress Stanmore only met them yesterday. They asked her to recommend a decent tavern, because
they had been staying at the King’s Head, but one of the gentlemen found it was not to his taste.’

‘I am not surprised,’ said Michael, wryly. ‘The King’s Head is no place for decent folk.’

‘Mistress Stanmore felt obliged to invite them to stay with
her,’ Cynric continued nervously. ‘She said it would have been rude not to, because the best inns are full at this time of
year.’

‘Who are these folk?’ asked Michael, amused by Cynric’s rambling. ‘Joseph and Mary?’

‘I do not think the lady is pregnant,’ replied Cynric, quite seriously. ‘I could not tell under her cloak, but her husband
is not a man who would turn a lady’s head.’ He scratched his nose. ‘Although I suppose he must have turned hers at one point,
or they would not have wed.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Bartholomew, wondering whether Cynric had started his Christmas celebrations early, and had been at the
ale. ‘Do I know him?’

‘Sir Walter Turke,’ said Cynric. ‘I do not believe that you have met.’

The name meant nothing to Bartholomew. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ he asked.

‘You knew Turke’s wife during the pestilence,’ replied Cynric uneasily. ‘She had the disease, but survived.’

‘There were not many of those,’ said Michael, unnecessarily unkind. ‘This woman should come leaping to your mind.’

But she did not, and Bartholomew gazed blankly at Cynric, searching the half-forgotten faces in his memory for a woman who
had married a fellow called Turke. He tended to suppress thoughts of those black, dismal days, when his painstakingly acquired
skills and experience were useless in the face of the wave of sickness that swamped most of the civilised world, and nothing
came to him.

‘Actually,’ said Cynric, speaking reluctantly when he saw Bartholomew was not going to guess who he meant. ‘You were betrothed
to her yourself. But after the Death, she went to London and wed Sir Walter Turke instead. Her name was Philippa Abigny.’

His message delivered, Cynric escaped to his other duties with obvious relief. A private man himself, he disliked witnessing
the rawer emotions of others, and he had had
no idea how the physician might react to the news. He need not have worried. Bartholomew did not react at all, too startled
by the sudden incursion of his past into the present to know what he thought about the prospect of the beautiful Philippa
Abigny touching his life again.

‘Philippa Abigny,’ echoed Michael in astonishment, watching Cynric all but run in the direction of the kitchen before Bartholomew
or Michael could question him further. ‘I did not think she would ever show her face here again. What she did to you was not
right.’

‘You mean because she broke our betrothal to marry someone richer?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps it was for the best. Who knows
whether we could have been happy with each other?’

‘You can probably say that about most things,’ said Michael philosophically. ‘But she was wrong to abandon you so abruptly.
You could have applied to the Pope to have her marriage annulled, you know. You would have been within your rights, given
that your betrothal had been of several years’ duration.’

‘But then I would have had to marry her,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘And I am not sure that is what I wanted.’

Michael chuckled. ‘You prefer the lovely Matilde these days, I suppose. Well, whatever you think, it will be interesting to
see Philippa again and to assess what you have missed by allowing her to slip through your fingers.’

Bartholomew nodded absently. He stood in the middle of Michaelhouse’s yard, with Michael sniggering lustfully beside him,
and wondered how the sudden and unexpected arrival of someone who had played such an important part in his past would affect
his future.

B
ARTHOLOMEW WOKE IN AN UNEASY MOOD THE NEXT
morning, with Philippa Abigny at the forefront of his thoughts. It was the last day of Advent – the period of fasting and
prayer before Christmas – and the time when people readied themselves for Christmas. Long before dawn, Michaelhouse buzzed
with activity. Servants scurried here and there, carrying pots, pans and supplies of various kinds, watched over by the critical,
all-seeing eyes of that most illustrious and feared of College servants, Agatha the laundress.

Women were rarely employed by the University, because it was a domain inhabited by men, many of whom had taken priestly vows
of celibacy. In order to avoid unnecessary temptation, the University ensured that contact between scholars and ladies was
minimal, and its beadles patrolled assiduously, aiming to prevent long-deprived students from straying to taverns or other
town venues where they might encounter members of the opposite sex.

Laundresses, however, were a necessity, and to surmount the problem, the University stipulated that any ladies hired should
be so physically unattractive that they would repel even the most desperate of scholars. Ugly, but competent, washer-women
were highly prized commodities, and Colleges and hostels guarded them jealously. Michaelhouse had Agatha, a mountain of a
lady with a bristly chin, powerful arms, mighty hips and an unshakeable conviction that she had survived the plague because
she was a favourite of God’s. She took her College duties seriously, and, as the Twelve Days approached, no member of Michaelhouse
could expect to find himself exempt from running her errands or from becoming embroiled in her frenzied arrangements.

The scholars left the early-morning chaos and attended mass. On the way back Michael fretted that the fuss was likely to mean
a delayed breakfast, but he had underestimated Agatha, who was quite capable of producing meals and overseeing festive preparations
at the same time. The undercook rang the bell to announce the beginning of breakfast at precisely seven o’clock, just as Master
Langelee was leading his scholars through the gate into Michaelhouse’s yard.

When the College had been founded in 1324, no expense had been spared by Hervey de Stanton in establishing the institution
that he hoped would pray for his soul in perpetuity. It comprised a pair of accommodation wings, each two storeys high, linked
by a central hall. Below the hall were kitchens and a selection of storerooms and pantries. The servants’ wing stood behind
these, along with outbuildings that included a barn, a brewery, a bakery and a series of sheds that were used for storage.
Thirty years had taken their toll, however, and some of the once fine buildings were in dire need of repair. The north wing,
where Bartholomew lived, had a leaking roof and faulty guttering, so that students and their masters were regularly doused
with icy water in wet weather, and the walls were so slick with damp that mould marched up them in thick green columns.

While Bartholomew studied some loose tiles on the stable roof, Michael headed for the hall, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on
the door beyond which his breakfast was waiting. He was not happy to find his progress interrupted by the appearance of Beadle
Meadowman. Meadowman was looking flustered. In one hand he held the arm of a student, while the other gripped a smirking woman.
The woman was called Una, and she was one of the town’s prostitutes, while the student was one of Bartholomew’s aspiring physicians.
Bartholomew regarded the lad with weary resignation. Martyn de Quenhyth was always in some kind of trouble, although the physician
thought that even dealing with Quenhyth’s silly scrapes was preferable to dwelling on his impending encounter with Philippa.

Quenhyth had arrived in Cambridge the previous September, determined to become a physician. Langelee had accepted him at Michaelhouse
because he was able to pay the requisite fees, but Bartholomew had been less than impressed, and found Quenhyth arrogant,
intense and joyless. The lad was no more popular with his fellow students, and was constantly the butt of their practical
jokes. Bartholomew suspected that the teasing would stop if Quenhyth made an effort to be pleasant, but Quenhyth was just
not the pleasant type.

He was tall and gangly, with long, ink-stained fingers that were tipped with gnawed nails. A thatch of brown curls had been
hacked with a knife to reduce it to the length required of scholars, and his uniform was worn exactly according to the College’s
prescription. He possessed a mean, thin nose and a pair of pallid eyes that he turned accusingly on a group of his classmates,
who just happened to have gathered nearby to study a psalter – something that immediately aroused Bartholomew’s suspicions.
He guessed they had adroitly manoeuvred themselves into a position where they would be able to hear what was happening. Among
them were Sam Gray, a bright student with a cruel sense of humour, and Rob Deynman, a dull-witted lad who was tolerated at
Michaelhouse because his wealthy father paid double fees.

‘What have you done this time?’ Bartholomew asked of Quenhyth, glancing at Una and hoping it was nothing too indecent. She
giggled and winked at him.

‘I have done nothing wrong,’ declared Quenhyth primly. ‘I am sure you know who is to blame, and it is not me!’ He cast another
venomous glower in the direction of the sniggering lads who vied for positions around the psalter. ‘Your other students do
not appreciate that I am here to learn, not to take part in their pranks. They are always trying to get me into trouble.’

‘And what have they done now?’ enquired Michael, giving Gray and Deynman a glare of his own to indicate what he thought about
behaviour that kept him from his breakfast.

‘They put a whore in my bed while I was asleep,’ replied Quenhyth resentfully, giving Una a look that was every bit as black
as the ones he had given the students. ‘She was there when I awoke this morning.’

‘I am not a whore,’ objected Una hotly. The amused smirk was gone, replaced by an expression of righteous indignation. ‘We
call ourselves “Frail Sisters” these days. That means I have a trade, and am every bit as good as any other craftsmen. Lady
Matilde – you know her, Doctor.’ Here she gave Bartholomew a lascivious leer. ‘She organised us into a proper guild, and said
we should not let people look down at us when we are only earning an honest crust.’

‘Frail Sisters?’ asked Bartholomew, regarding Una uncertainly. ‘I have not heard that expression before.’

‘It is nicer than “whore”.’ She glowered at Quenhyth.

‘The Honourable Fraternity of Frail Sisters should have told you that scholars are off limits for your many charms,’ said
Michael drolly. ‘And so are the insides of Colleges and hostels.’

Una waved a dismissive hand. ‘We are in and out of those all the time, Brother. Why should Michaelhouse be any different?’

‘Because it is the place where both the Senior and the Junior Proctor reside,’ replied Michael mildly. ‘And unless you want
to lose your night’s earnings in fines, you would do well to remember that.’ He snapped his fingers at the sniggering Gray.
‘See the Frail Sister off the premises, Sam. And if I catch her here again, I shall hold
you
personally responsible.’

Quenhyth shot Gray a triumphant sneer when he saw that Michael had correctly identified the author of his troubles. Una blew
Michael a salacious kiss before flouncing away on Gray’s arm, accompanied by whistles and cat-calls from the psalter-reading
students.

‘I went to bed after compline – as Master Langelee said we should – and when I awoke
she
was there,’ explained Quenhyth unpleasantly as Una left. ‘She told me she had
been there all night, and that we had had all manner of fun. She is lying, of course: I would remember doing the things
she
described.’ He gave a fastidious shudder, and Bartholomew struggled not to laugh.

‘I caught him trying to usher her out through the back gate,’ said Meadowman disapprovingly. ‘He spun me this tale about finding
her when he awoke, but that does not sound very likely to me. A red-blooded man does not sleep when there is a handsome whore
in his bed, especially a fine, strong lass like Una. Do you not agree, Brother?’

Wisely, Michael declined to enter that sort of debate while there were students listening with unconcealed delight. He fixed
the hapless Quenhyth with a glare. ‘You shall spend the day in the proctors’ prison, while we shall give this matter some
thought. Take him away, Meadowman.’

Quenhyth’s indignant wails could be heard all across the yard as he protested his innocence to anyone who would listen, and
a good many others besides.

‘I do not know how you tolerate that self-righteous youngster in your classes without boxing his ears,’ said Michael to Bartholomew
as he resumed his walk to the hall. ‘And I do not blame Gray and Deynman for trying to cut him down to size.’

Bartholomew wholly agreed with him.

The bell had finished chiming by the time the scholars had ascended the spiral staircase to the hall. A huge fire roared in
the hearth, so that the room felt airless and stuffy after the chill of the morning. Fresh rushes were scattered across the
floor in readiness for Christmas, and the sweet scent of them mingled pleasantly with the aroma of burning wood and the baked
oatmeal that was being readied behind the servants’ screen. Bartholomew and Michael walked to the dais and took their places
at the high table, facing the ranks of assembled students in the body of the hall.

Presiding over the meal was the Master, Ralph de Langelee. He was a powerfully built man, who looked more
like a mercenary than a scholar, and many who knew him believed he should have remained a soldier and left the business of
education to those capable of independent thought. But despite his intellectual failings, Langelee was proving to be a fair
and capable Master, which surprised many people. The College had been infamous for its mediocre food and chilly, fireless
rooms before Langelee had arranged for himself to be elected. Two years on, Michaelhouse had wood and peat aplenty for the
common rooms, and the quality of the food had improved. This was due at least in part to the fact that he had delegated the
College finances to Michaelhouse’s newest Fellow, John Wynewyk, who was good at driving hard bargains with the town’s tradesmen.

To Langelee’s left was Thomas Kenyngham, an elderly Gilbertine friar with fluffy white hair, a dreamy smile and a mistaken
belief that all men were as good and kindly as him. The cadaverous theologian Thomas Suttone perched on Kenyngham’s left,
turning his unsmiling face towards the students, like Death selecting a victim. At the end of the table sat the Dominican
music and astronomy master, John Clippesby. It was common knowledge that Clippesby was insane, although Langelee maintained
there was no reason why this minor inconvenience should interfere with his teaching duties.

Bartholomew and Michael sat on Langelee’s right, with Father William, who was also Michael’s Junior Proctor. William was a
stern, uncompromising Franciscan, whose inflexible beliefs and bigoted interpretation of the rules he was paid to enforce
were swelling the University’s coffers to the point of embarrassment. Michael confided to Bartholomew that William had fined
more students in his first month of office than most other junior proctors caught in a year. However, Bartholomew also noticed
that neither Michael nor the Chancellor had made any serious attempts to curtail the Franciscan’s fiscal enthusiasm.

On Bartholomew’s right was the last of the Fellows, Wynewyk. Wynewyk had been elected at the beginning of
the Michaelmas Term, and was still clearly bewildered by some of the customs and practices of his new College. That day,
he seemed puzzled by the fact that Clippesby had a fish under his arm. The other Fellows were used to Clippesby’s idiosyncrasies,
and Bartholomew found that he only noticed them if someone else pointed them out.

‘Put it away, Clippesby, there’s a good fellow,’ said Langelee, following Wynewyk’s gaze to where glazed eyes and a gaping
mouth leered from beneath the music master’s tabard. ‘You know we do not allow animals to join us for meals.’

‘This is not an animal,’ said Clippesby, placing the thing carefully on the table. Bartholomew saw Wynewyk glance uneasily
towards the door, as if wondering whether he would be able to reach it unimpeded, should it become necessary. The other scholars
were merely impatient, giving the impression they wanted Clippesby to have done with his antics so they could get on with
their meal.

‘Is
is
an animal,’ argued Father William immediately. He detested Clippesby, partly because William was not a man to waste his meagre
supplies of compassion on lunatics, but mostly because Clippesby was a Dominican, and William did not like Dominicans. ‘It
is a fish, so of course it is an animal. It is not a stone or a vegetable, is it?’ He leaned back and folded his arms, pleased
with this incisive piece of logic.

Clippesby did not concur. ‘This is an interesting philosophical question,’ he said, turning his mad-eyed stare from the fish
to the friar. ‘Is a
dead
fish an animal? Or, since it no longer possesses life, is it something else?’

‘Just because it is dead does not mean that it has changed,’ argued William, determined not to be bested.

‘But it
has
changed,’ pressed Clippesby, waving the fish in the air, oblivious to the rotten scales that fell from it. ‘A dead fish cannot
be the same as a live one.’

‘I agree with Clippesby,’ said Bartholomew, earning himself a hostile glare from Michael for prolonging the debate, and an
equally irate one from William for supporting
his opponent. ‘If you accept Aristotle’s philosophy, you would argue that the fish has undergone what he termed “substantial
change”. This can occur in all substances that are composed of matter and form in the terrestrial region and, of course, all
these forms and qualities are potentially replaceable by the other forms and qualities that are their contraries. That is
what has occurred in Clippesby’s fish.’