Susanna GREGORY - A Killer in Winter

‘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.