Susanna GREGORY - A Killer in Winter

He stopped suddenly and turned to face her. They were near St Mary the Great, where hundreds of candles sent a flickering orange glow through the traceried windows to make intricate designs on the snow in its graveyard. People were gathering to celebrate the first Sunday after Christmas. She faced him with a wary expression, evidently anticipating what he was about to say.

‘Those scars on Walter’s legs,’ he said. ‘Why did you not want me to see them?’

Her face darkened. ‘I have already told you. I do not know how he came by those marks, but he disliked them being seen by others. Of course I did him the service of keeping them from curious eyes when he lay dying. Why do you want to know, anyway?’

‘Because there are questions about his death that remain unanswered,’ said Bartholomew, standing his ground. ‘You say he would not have gone skating on thin ice, and yet that is how he died. Why? And why did Gosslinge choke to death on a piece of vellum? Was he trying to eat it? Was he hiding it from someone? Was the vellum what the two intruders in our church were looking for?’

Philippa glared at him. ‘Most of your questions pertain to Gosslinge’s death, not Walter’s. But why do you persist in meddling when I have asked you to leave us alone? I have already told you that Walter and I were not a happy couple. Is that not enough for you? Perhaps I should leave Edith and hire a bed in a friary or a convent until the roads clear and I can escape from this miserable little town.’

‘All the friary guest halls are full, and I doubt you want to revisit St Radegund’s Convent. The only place I know with spare rooms is the Gilbertine Friary, but their guest wing is close to the King’s Head, which makes it noisy and sometimes dangerous.’

‘Why do you mention the Gilbertine Friary, specifically?’ she demanded coldly. ‘What is it about that particular institution that makes you associate me with it?’

‘It is the one with the vacant beds,’ said Bartholomew, wishing he had never mentioned Walter’s legs. ‘Do not abandon Edith. She will be upset, and then she will be angry with me.’

‘You would deserve it,’ said Philippa, starting to walk again, this time without holding his arm. She skidded on slick ice, but stubbornly refused his help.

‘I understand you hired the Chepe Waits last summer,’ said Bartholomew, not wanting to walk in silence and so trying to make conversation. The words were only just out of his mouth when he realised this was not a topic entirely without contention either. It was something else he had suspected her of lying – or at least not being wholly truthful – about.

‘Did I?’ She sounded coolly uninterested as she negotiated her way around a sludge-filled morass that spanned most of the High Street. It was deep enough for a duck to swim on, and the bird poked under its lumpy surface in search of edibles with its tail in the air. ‘Walter liked to provide music when colleagues from the Fraternity visited, so I suppose I may have employed them on his behalf.’

Since she sounded indifferent about the Waits, Bartholomew pressed on, grateful for any topic they could discuss without unpleasantness. ‘Did they steal anything?’ he asked. ‘We have been told they remove things from the houses in which they work, and that they have amassed a fortune.’

She was surprised. ‘Of course they stole nothing. Walter was very possessive of his property, and would not have tolerated any kind of theft by Frith and his cronies.’

‘You know his name,’ said Bartholomew, puzzled. ‘A few moments ago, you barely recalled hiring them, and now you mention Frith’s name.’

She gave a gusty sigh, to indicate she was unimpressed with the way he was reading so much into what was a casual discussion. ‘It just came to me,’ she snapped. ‘Frith of Lincoln. And the woman with him is called Makejoy. I thought they seemed vaguely familiar at the feast, and you have just told me I had hired them. I suppose connections formed in my mind, and the names were suddenly there. Why are you interested in these Waits? Because they come from Chepe and may have known Gosslinge?’

‘Did they know Gosslinge?’

‘I have no idea,’ she said, becoming exasperated. ‘Chepe is more like a village than part of a large city, and residents do know each other. Gosslinge liked to go out and meet folk – Giles would say his motives were more commercial than friendly, but I do not know about that. All I can tell you is that Gosslinge knew a good many people.’

‘What did Gosslinge think about Fiscurtune’s death?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Did he believe Walter was justified in stabbing him in Fishmongers’ Hall?’

‘Gosslinge was loyal,’ she said simply. ‘It would not matter what he thought, because he always supported what Walter did or said. But we are at St Michael’s, and your friends are waiting for you. Goodbye, Matthew.’

‘You do not seem to be wooing your widow with much skill,’ said Clippesby critically, watching Philippa enter the Stanton Chapel to kneel by Turke’s coffin. Suttone was with him, waiting for the morning mass to begin. It was peaceful in the church, which still smelled of the greenery that bedecked it. ‘She is angry with you. If you want to attract her to your bed, you need to flatter and cajole her, not send her away like a swarm of angry bees.’

‘I am not wooing her,’ snapped Bartholomew, irritably. ‘We do not even like each other.’

‘That is a sign of love,’ said Suttone knowledgeably. Bartholomew regarded him warily, and wondered why a pair of celibate friars thought they were in a position to advise him about romance.

‘Antagonising her is a risky strategy, nonetheless,’ Clippesby preached. ‘Women are complex creatures, and sometimes do not grasp that bad temper is really an expression of love. I have seen more than one promising affair fail because of such misunderstandings, especially in the world of cats.’

‘You should take her a lump of marchpane,’ suggested Suttone. ‘Women like sweet things, and marchpane should have her swooning in your arms.’

‘He does not want her swooning,’ said Clippesby practically. ‘It is better she is conscious, so she can appreciate the full extent of his manly charms. I shall lend him my best shoes tonight. And my second-best cloak. Then he will look the part for lovemaking.’

‘I have some scented oils he can douse himself with,’ said Suttone, addressing Clippesby. ‘And we can ask Cynric to buy him some tincture of borage in the Market Square. Master Langelee tells me that borage encourages amorous feelings and gives a man plenty of strength for his exertions. She will soon be begging him to take her to the marriage bed.’

‘Gentlemen, please!’ begged Bartholomew, too appalled by their images of courtship to ask why the Master and the Carmelite friar should have had such a conversation in the first place. ‘Why are you so intent that I marry? It is because you want me to resign my fellowship, so that Michaelhouse no longer offers a secular subject like medicine? Or are your jealous eyes on my room? I am not particularly attached to it. We can change, if you like.’

‘That is not why we are trying to help,’ said Suttone, offended. ‘We are thinking of your happiness.’ He slipped a fatherly arm around the physician’s shoulders, and his voice became gentle. ‘You see, Matthew, whatever Michael and Langelee tell you, there is no future in your affair with Matilde. She will never consent to marry you. She mentioned it to Yolande de Blaston. Yolande told Prior Pechem of the Franciscans at one of their sessions, and Pechem told William. So, you see, we are only trying to find you an alternative.’