Susanna GREGORY - A Killer in Winter

‘Did you discover the identity of the man we found dead among the albs?’ he asked of William, pulling his mind away from his reverie.

‘No one knows him. Not even Bosel the beggar, who works on the High Street.’

‘You have spoken to Bosel?’ Michael was disappointed. ‘Damn! He was my best hope.’

‘I even asked the Dominicans whether they had killed him,’ William went on airily.

Bartholomew regarded him in disbelief. ‘But there was nothing on the body to suggest he was murdered. I told you I thought he had died of the cold.’

‘How did the Dominicans respond to this subtle probing?’ asked Michael curiously. ‘Did they confess?’

William grimaced. ‘They did not. However, unlikely though it may seem, I believe they were telling the truth.’

‘And why is that, pray?’ asked Michael, amused.

‘Because most have not been outside their friary since this sudden cold spell began,’ replied William. ‘Dominicans are soft and weak, and need to crouch in their lairs with roaring fires and plenty of wine.’ He took a deep draught of his claret and stretched his feet closer to the flames with a sigh of contentment.

‘I can cross the Dominicans off my list of suspects, then,’ said Michael wryly. His expression hardened. ‘However, there is one man I cannot dismiss: Harysone.’

‘Not this again,’ groaned Bartholomew. ‘There is no reason to think that Harysone had anything to do with this death, either.’

‘Only the fact that we saw him go into the church, and then moments later we discover a corpse in it. What more do you want?’

‘We did not see him go into the church,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘We saw him fiddle with the lock, but then we went to see Norbert’s body and we do not know if he entered or not. The latch sticks, and Harysone would not be the first would-be visitor to be thwarted. He may have given up and gone elsewhere.’

‘Well, it was not to another church,’ said William authoritatively. Bartholomew and Michael stared at him questioningly, and the Franciscan looked pleased with himself. ‘I made a few enquiries about that, too. I asked in all the churches whether a man matching Harysone’s description had visited on Thursday, and was told he had not.’

Bartholomew was doubtful. ‘But most would have been empty,’ he pointed out. ‘It was daytime, and people were working.’

‘Not so,’ said William, bristling with pride at his cleverness. ‘It is Christmas, and the time when peasants deck out the churches with greenery. All of them were busy, except ours: in a scholars’ church like St Michael’s such pagan practices are not permitted.’

‘I heard Langelee giving my choir – which comprises mostly townfolk – permission to deck it out this evening,’ said Michael wickedly. ‘It will be as green with yew and holly as any other, come tomorrow.’

William shot out of his chair and looked set to stalk to the hapless building and strip it bare there and then. He faltered when Michael pointed out that there was a frost outside, but a fire and wine inside. It did not take much to persuade the Franciscan to sit and resume their discussion.

‘So,’ concluded Michael. ‘We do not know why Harysone wanted to enter St Michael’s, but we do know that he did not visit another church. Therefore, I suspect that he did enter St Michael’s, and that his business there was successful.’

‘You cannot be sure about that,’ said Bartholomew, thinking that the monk was allowing his dislike of the man to interfere with his powers of reason. ‘And anyway, if folk were merrily pinning holly to rafters, who knows what they did and did not see? Harysone is not particularly noticeable; he could easily slip past people unobserved.’

‘We will know tomorrow, Brother, because you have me to help with the enquiry,’ said William confidently. He stood and stretched, unsteady from the amount of wine he had drunk. ‘But we should go to bed, and snatch an hour of sleep before Angel Mass. Tomorrow you and I will catch a killer, and Matthew can face the woman who should have been his wife.’

Bartholomew winced and went to fill his cup again, feeling that he needed yet more wine to dull the peculiar sensation of unease and dissatisfaction that gnawed at him. He heard a sudden yell, and whipped around just in time to see William shoot across the floor in a blur of flapping habit and windmilling arms. The Franciscan collided with the door and went down hard. For a moment, no one said anything, then William released a litany of curses that would have impressed the most foul-mouthed of stable-lads. Bartholomew exchanged a startled glance with Michael, wondering how the friar had acquired such an extensive vocabulary of secular oaths.

‘My leg,’ shouted William, more angry than in pain. ‘It is broken!’

‘It is not,’ said Bartholomew, inspecting it. ‘It is bruised.’

‘But you do not know the agony it is giving,’ bellowed William, outraged. ‘It is growing more painful by the moment.’

‘Bruises are painful,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘But it will feel better in a day or two.’

‘It is broken,’ said Michael with a wicked smile. ‘You will be confined to College for the next two months while it heals, William. What a pity! It will be hard to lose my Junior Proctor for so long and the fines chest will suffer. Shall I fetch wood and bandages for a splint?’

‘It is not broken,’ declared Bartholomew, wondering what the monk thought he was trying to achieve by contradicting his diagnosis. ‘So it does not need a splint.’

‘It is and it does,’ said William firmly. ‘And I shall want crutches, too, although I cannot venture out of the College as long as there is ice on the ground. I might slip and do myself an even greater mischief.’

‘Just splint it, Matt,’ advised Michael, preparing to fetch the equipment the physician would need. He lowered his voice, so that William could not hear. ‘You will be doing us all a favour. I do not want his “help” to solve Norbert’s murder, and this is a perfect chance for me to be rid of him without embarrassing tantrums.’

Reluctantly, Bartholomew set about immobilising the damaged limb, becoming even more certain as he worked that William was exaggerating the seriousness of his injury. William made a terrible fuss, however, and his unfriarly shrieks soon had scholars hurrying to the conclave to see what was happening. The other Fellows formed a silent circle around the stricken friar, while the students jostled each other at the door in an attempt to see what was going on.

‘Langelee will pay for this!’ William howled, snatching with ill grace the goblet of wine Suttone offered him. ‘I told him he should pay a carpenter to mend the floor, and not just hide the damage with a rug.’

‘I will hire one tomorrow,’ said Langelee tiredly. ‘We can probably raise the funds somehow.’

‘We cannot,’ said Wynewyk immediately. ‘We have spent every last penny on supplies for the Twelve Days, and our coffers will be empty until Ovyng pays us rent for next term.’

‘Hiring a carpenter will not be necessary,’ said Kenyngham. ‘I had some training with wood before I became a friar. I shall mend the floor – but not until the Twelve Days are over.’

‘Very well,’ said Langelee, although he did not seem happy with the notion of entrusting saws, hammers and nails to the other-worldly Gilbertine, even if it would save the College some money. He turned to William. ‘Your leg will confine you to your room for some days, but we shall have the floor mended by the time you have convalesced.’

‘Convalesced,’ mused William with a gleam in his eye. ‘I shall certainly convalesce – with good food and wine! But I cannot abandon Michael completely. He can bring suspects for interrogation here, to Michaelhouse.’