Susanna GREGORY: A Killer in Winter

Next to Peterhouse was a church. A sharp new statue of the Virgin Mary stood on a plinth atop what was clearly a recently finished chancel, her blank stone eyes gazing across the road and her hand raised in benediction. An older, chipped statue stood forlornly down in the churchyard, and Josse recognised the characteristic square face and curly beard of St Peter. Here was something that had happened frequently since the plague: an old church – in this case St Peter’s – rededicated to St Mary, because many believed she was more likely to intercede on their behalf should the pestilence ever come again.

But it was no time for thinking about the Death and the changes it had brought, because Josse had at last reached the town gate. He started to make plans, his terror at almost being swallowed by the storm already receding. First, he would deliver his letter to the friar, then he would find a cosy inn, hire a pallet of straw near the fire and sleep until dawn the following day. And then he would set off towards home – to London, Bess and her tavern.

He hammered on the gate, hoping that the guards had not gone home early, secure in the knowledge that no sane person would want access to the town on an evening when a blizzard raged. He was in luck. The sergeant on duty was Orwelle, a reliable man who slept little because his dreams still teemed with memories of the Death – especially of the dear son he had lost. While his companions dozed, Orwelle usually stayed awake, idly rolling dice in games of chance against himself. He had finally managed to banish the chill from his feet, and was not pleased when a knocking meant that he was obliged to go outside.

Because it was bitterly cold, and Orwelle did not want to spend longer than was necessary away from the fire, his questioning of the messenger was brief. He asked to see the money that Josse carried and, satisfied that he could pay for his needs and would not beg, Orwelle opened the gate and allowed him inside.

Josse made his way up the High Street, drawing level with another of the town’s Colleges, this one identified by a long and complex name that was carved into the lintel over the door. The title involved guilds and saints, and Josse could not make sense of the snow-filled letters. Someone, however, had taken a piece of chalk and had written a simple ‘Bene’t College’ next to it. Josse rested there for a few moments, catching his breath and offering another prayer of gratitude to St Josse for a safe deliverance while he fingered the letter he was going to deliver.

As he stood, feeling his heartbeat slow and his breathing become more regular, he saw he was not the only man braving the elements that night. A scholar wearing a black tabard was struggling through the drifts towards him. The fellow glanced at Josse as he joined the messenger in the dim pool of light filtering through the College’s glass windows. With a start, recognition passed between them, but before they could speak a peculiar hissing sound distracted them both.

At first, Josse did not know what had made the noise, but, suddenly, something of colossal heaviness landed on top of him, blotting out all light and wrapping him in an icy, wet coldness. He was too startled to do anything, but then he tried to move and found he could not. With a sharp stab of horror, he realised exactly what had happened: the snow from the roof of Bene’t had fallen, probably loosened by the fire the scholars were burning in their hall. It had sloughed off like sand, and Josse had been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He was held fast. He could wriggle one finger, but he could not move his arms or legs. He opened his mouth to shout to the fellow in the tabard to dig him out, but snow immediately poured into it, and he found he could not breathe, either. He became frantic, trying to draw air into his lungs. But he was helpless. His mind screamed in terror, even as a peculiar lethargy crept over him. His last thoughts were of bitter regret. He had almost delivered his message, and he could have spent Christmas with Bess, in London.

20 December 1354,

Cambridge

Josse was not the only man to die as the small market town prepared to make the best of the miserable weather and celebrate Christmas. The icy winds had abated somewhat since he had reached Cambridge, and there had been no blizzards for several days. It was still cold, however, and the snow that had already fallen stood in large, odorous heaps, speckled brown, yellow and green with sewage, dirt and any other rubbish that could be caught in the wheels of carts or the hoofs of horses and flung up. Many of the drifts, including Josse’s, had solidified into mounds of hard, unyielding ice, and the man who had recognised him was comfortable in the knowledge that it would be some time before the messenger was released from his icy tomb.

The parts of the river and the King’s Ditch that had fast currents had broken free of the ice, and were once again ferrying their sinister olive-black contents around the town’s edges. Offal, dead animals and discarded clothing bobbed past, turning this way and that, while shelves of ice jutted tantalisingly across the more sluggish sections, inviting the foolish or unwary to skate on them. The rutted surfaces of the town’s roads froze nightly, creating a series of ankle-wrenching furrows that were then mashed into an icy sludge by the feet and wheels that ploughed along them during the daylight hours – a dismal cycle of freeze and thaw of which Cambridge’s citizens had grown heartily weary.

Christmas was not the most important festival of the year, but it was one people enjoyed nonetheless. The celebrations began on Christmas Day and lasted twelve nights. Churches were decked with greenery – although some priests balked at pagan traditions being allowed in houses of God – and special foods were cooked by those who could afford them. However, Norbert Tulyet could not help but notice that the icy weather had made the town strangely subdued that year, and that the atmosphere of pleasurable anticipation was uncharacteristically lack-lustre.

Norbert had spent an agreeable evening in the company of a woman who had flattered him and made him feel important. Being told he was intelligent, handsome and worthy was not something that happened very often, and while he considered the woman right in every respect, it also engendered feelings of resentment that more people did not share her opinions. He felt particularly angry with his uncle, who claimed that Norbert was a disappointment to him, and constantly asked why he was not more like his own son, Richard. Richard Tulyet had been Sheriff for some years, but had recently been obliged to relinquish the post in order to help with the family business. Richard had not complained overtly, but he had made it clear that he would not have had to resign if his dissolute cousin had done what was expected of him.

Determined that Norbert should possess the means to support himself before he was turned loose on the world, his uncle had taken him to Ovyng Hostel, so that he might learn the skills necessary to become a clerk or a lawyer: the number of contested wills since the plague meant that there was no shortage of work for such men. But Norbert had not enjoyed his letters when he was a boy, and he did not like studying grammar, rhetoric and logic now that he was a man. He soon discovered that Ovyng was not a suitable place for a pleasure-loving fellow like himself.

Ovyng was a hostel for Franciscans who, not surprisingly, deplored Norbert and his excesses. In return, Norbert loathed everything about the Grey Friars – from their shabby habits and leaking boots, to their tedious lessons and preaching about morality. Fortunately for Norbert, Ovyng’s principal was very grateful for the fees the Tulyets paid for their kinsman’s education, and intended to keep their reluctant pupil for as long as possible. This meant that most of Norbert’s bad behaviour went unreported, and the young man was free to do much as he wanted. His uncle continued to pay for the privilege of a University education, the friars made valiant but futile attempts to teach Norbert the law, and cousin Richard watched it all with thinly veiled contempt.