A Killer in Winter

CHAPTER 1

22 December 1354,

Cambridge

Matthew Bartholomew studied the man brother Michael pointed out to him. The fellow’s narrow face was framed by long grey hair that glistened with a generous coating of grease, and his unevenly bushy beard was dappled with white. He had moist hazel eyes and a set of enormous horse-like teeth, so large that his lips would never cover them without considerable effort and concentration from their owner. His clothes, however, were well-cut and elaborate, and he carried himself with a self-satisfied swagger, indicating that he considered himself to be the height of sartorial elegance and dashing good looks, even if the reality was somewhat different.

‘So?’ asked Bartholomew, bemused as he turned his attention to the dark-robed monk who knelt beside him. ‘What do you want me to say?’

Michael sighed in exasperation. ‘I have already told you. Were you not listening? I need you to give me your medical opinion of the man.’

Bartholomew regarded the burly Benedictine uneasily. ‘You want me to examine him? On what pretext? I cannot just march up and foist my attentions on him out of the blue. He would complain to the Sheriff – and he would be quite right to do so.’

‘Of course I do not want you to examine him,’ snapped Michael impatiently. ‘Well, not up close, at least. I want you to study him from a distance, and tell me what you think.’

Bartholomew laughed, amused by the bizarre nature of the request. They were crouching in the churchyard of St Mary the Great, peering over a lichen-encrusted tomb to the Market Square, where the object of Michael’s attentions was purchasing ink and parchment from one of the stall holders. The man was apparently unaware that he was being observed, although Bartholomew suspected it would not be long before he found out, given that the monk was far too large to be properly concealed by the ancient stone, nor was he making any effort to keep his voice low. Michael had already attracted curious glances from several passers-by, while a small dog cocked its head with pert interest as it watched his antics.

The Market Square was lively that morning, despite the bleak weather, as traders competed to sell their wares. Folk were more inclined to spend their money with the prospect of twelve nights of festivities looming ahead of them, so competition between vendors was fierce. The stalls’ awnings snapped and hummed in the wind, people shouted, and animals neighed, bleated, crowed and honked. The air was rich with the odour of manure, fish and spices, and the market was a bright, cheerful rainbow in a town dominated by winter browns and greys. There was another splash of colour near Holy Trinity Church, where a troupe of entertainers dressed in red and gold juggled and tumbled for pennies, accompanied by a musician who played a pipe and tabor. The trill of the whistle and the thud of the drum were all but drowned out by the bustle and noise from the Market Square, and only the highest notes were audible.

Abruptly, Bartholomew stood up. It was a bitterly cold morning, with a frigid wind slicing in from the north-east and the threat of more snow in the air. Underfoot, the frozen ground crackled, and ice glazed the puddles in the High Street. It was no kind of weather to be hiding behind tombs in churchyards, and he decided it was time he returned to Michaelhouse, the College at the University where, as a Fellow and Master of Medicine, he lived, taught his students and saw his patients. Michaelhouse was not the warmest of places to be, either – there were fires in the kitchen and the communal halls, but not in the scholars’ private rooms – but it was preferable to being outside.

‘Agatha is making spiced oatcakes this morning,’ he said, confidently anticipating that the mention of food would induce the fat Benedictine to abandon his peculiar fascination with the oily man in the Market Square.

He was wrong.

‘Later,’ said Michael, grabbing his friend’s sleeve with a meaty hand. ‘I need to know what you think about him. Can you see signs of incipient madness in his behaviour? Is there a hint of criminal intent in his movements?’

Bartholomew shook his head in exasperation before walking away across the graveyard, not deeming either question worthy of an answer. His feet were so cold that they felt as though they belonged to someone else, and he moved unsteadily across the spiky, crisp carpet of snow. Reluctantly, Michael abandoned his ‘hiding’ place and followed, tugging his thick woollen cloak around him. They reached St Mary’s newly completed porch, and Bartholomew paused.

The University Church seemed to grow grander and more elegant each time the physician studied it. It had recently been renamed ‘St Mary the Great’, because the smaller church of St Peter Without had been rededicated as St Mary the Less. While Bartholomew examined its pleasing lines and handsome tracery, Michael glared back towards the Market Square. His quarry was still visible, the dark cloth of his hat bobbing among the stalls as he made his purchases.

‘Well?’ demanded Michael, determined to have an answer and aware that his friend had so far avoided giving one. ‘What do you think? Can I instruct my beadles to arrest him on the grounds that his insanity makes him a danger to himself and to others, and have him evicted from the town?’

‘I cannot tell such things from watching someone buy ink, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, reluctant to be party to that kind of activity. ‘We could stalk him all day and still not know the state of his health. I would need to talk to him, ask him specific questions – and even then insanity can be difficult to diagnose. Why do you want to know, anyway?’

‘He arrived in Cambridge a week ago,’ replied Michael, his green-eyed glare still firmly fixed on the hapless figure in the Market Square. ‘He says his name is John Harysone, but I am sure he is not telling the truth.’

‘Why would he lie?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘And why does he warrant this kind of attention from you? Surely, you should let your beadles watch suspicious characters, not crawl around in cold cemeteries to spy for yourself.’

‘I am not spying,’ said Michael tartly. ‘I am observing. You think that being Senior Proctor of the University of Cambridge means just counting fines and subduing rowdy undergraduates, but I can assure you I do a good deal more than that. It is my duty to ensure that the town is peaceful and trouble-free.’

‘I thought that was the Sheriff’s responsibility,’ remarked Bartholomew. ‘You are responsible for law and order only insofar as it affects the University.’

‘If there is unrest in the town, then there is disorder in the University,’ preached Michael. ‘It has been a year since we have had any serious strife – and that is entirely due to me and the way I have organised my beadles. The Sheriff has nothing to do with it. He would not know how to avert a riot to save his life.’

Bartholomew agreed. ‘Stephen Morice is not the Sheriff that Dick Tulyet was. It is a pity Dick was obliged to resign in order to help with his father’s business.’

‘Dick is a good man, and he and I worked well together,’ said Michael gloomily. ‘But Morice uses his office solely to make money for himself.’ He grabbed Bartholomew’s arm in a sudden, vicelike grip that made the physician wince. ‘Harysone is heading towards St Michael’s Church. He is going inside!’

The horror in Michael’s voice as Harysone walked purposefully towards the small building that belonged to the scholars of Michaelhouse made Bartholomew smile. ‘Visiting a church is not illegal, Brother. But I have lectures to prepare; I cannot spend all day stalking innocent men with you.’

‘Harysone is not innocent,’ said Michael with grim determination, watching with narrowed eyes as the man wrestled with the awkward latch on the church door. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’

‘That is the cold weather,’ said Bartholomew practically. He broke away from Michael and headed for St Michael’s Lane. ‘I am going home. It is too chilly for this kind of thing.’

‘Come with me to speak to him,’ ordered Michael peremptorily. ‘I shall only leave when we have assured ourselves that he has no sinister purpose in daring to set foot in St Michael’s. For all you know, he may be planning to steal our silver.’

‘He would be hard pressed to do that. We only use it on special occasions, and the rest of the time – like now – it is safely locked away. And anyway, he does not look like a man who needs to steal from churches. He is well dressed and appears to be wealthy.’

‘I was at the Trumpington Gate when he arrived,’ said Michael, watching Harysone give the door a vigorous shake in an attempt to open it. He was not successful. ‘He had a cart with him, loaded down with what he claimed were philosophical texts written by himself. He said he was going to sell them here.’ The monk turned to Bartholomew and raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Have you ever heard a less convincing story?’

Bartholomew had heard a good many less convincing stories, and he told the monk so. It seemed to him that Harysone’s reason for being in Cambridge was a perfectly valid one: if anyone wanted to sell academic texts, then Cambridge and Oxford were good places to be. They were full of scholars hungry for new knowledge and ideas, and Harysone could expect not only that copies would be purchased, but that they would be read and discussed by clever minds. Harysone might even learn ways to improve on his work.

‘Well, I do not believe him,’ declared Michael. ‘I know his type. He is one of those men who makes his living by preying on the weak and the trusting. He will cheat widows, orphans and the weak-witted out of their inheritances, and will have every scrap of silver out of our churches before he melts away into the night.’

Bartholomew gave a startled laugh, astonished by the list of crimes Michael was blithely laying at the door of a man he did not know. ‘Really, Brother! Do you have any evidence to suggest that he is a trickster?’

‘Not yet,’ admitted Michael. ‘But I will. I have been watching him for the best part of a week now, and he will make a mistake before long. And then he can enjoy his Yuletide celebrations inside the proctors’ prison!’

Bartholomew was nonplussed. ‘I do not understand this at all. It is not like you to take a rabid dislike to visitors to our town without cause.’

‘I have cause. Harysone disturbs me. I feel with every fibre in my body that there is something sinister about him.’

‘That does not sound like you, either,’ said Bartholomew doubtfully. ‘You do not usually give credence to something as insubstantial as a “feeling”. You usually demand solid evidence before judging a man.’

‘I cannot explain it,’ replied Michael impatiently. ‘But I have been Senior Proctor for five years now, and I know a rotten apple when I see one. That man is a prince among villains, and I do not want him in my town.’

Bartholomew could think of nothing to say, but accepted that the Benedictine had gained enough experience to be able to identify potential troublemakers. Still, Michael was not immune to making mistakes, and the physician did not condone persecuting a man on the basis of a mere ‘feeling’.

Harysone was still tussling with the sticky church door when Tom Meadowman, Michael’s chief beadle, approached them, red faced and slightly breathless. The beadles were the proctors’ private army, a stalwart band of men employed to keep hundreds of unruly and feisty scholars under control, as well as patrolling the taverns to prevent explosive combinations of students, townsfolk and ale from occurring.

‘Master Tulyet is looking for you, Brother,’ said Meadowman, addressing Michael. ‘His cousin Norbert has been found dead – murdered, he says – and he wants you to look into it.’

Richard Tulyet was a small man with a pale, fluffy beard that made him look like an adolescent. He was intelligent and well organised, and it had been a sad day for the town when he had announced his resignation from the office of Sheriff. His dissolute cousin Norbert was generally acknowledged to be the major factor in this calamity, and it had not earned the sullen youth any friends. It was widely believed that Norbert had deprived Cambridge of the best, fairest and most efficient Sheriff the town had ever had. Few believed that his replacement, Stephen Morice, could emulate him, and it had not been many weeks before people saw that Morice was worse than inefficient: he was corrupt, too.

Michael, particularly, missed Tulyet. Relations between town and University were invariably strained, and he had enjoyed working with a man whose priority was to create a city that was safe for everyone – scholars included. He had also appreciated the fact that Tulyet had not competed with him for authority, and was happy to let the University deal with its own miscreants. He mourned Tulyet’s resignation, and seldom allowed an opportunity to pass without pointing out that the town was less safe without Dick sitting in his office at the Castle.

Tulyet was waiting for them in St Michael’s Lane, where snow lay in shoulder-high drifts in places. To the left was the steeply gabled roof of Ovyng Hostel, while the tall stone walls of Michaelhouse stood to the right. Although Michaelhouse owned Ovyng, the hostel functioned as an independent institution with its own rules and regulations. It was not large, and its numbers had declined even further since the plague, but it boasted eight scholars – a principal, his assistant and six undergraduates – with two servants who cooked and cleaned. Five students, with Norbert being the exception, had taken vows with the Franciscan Order, and the hostel was reasonably well behaved by Cambridge standards – or at least Michael was not often obliged to visit it in his capacity of Senior Proctor.

‘It is a pity Norbert is – was – not more like his cousin,’ said Michael, as they made their way through the slush to where Tulyet and Nobert’s classmates waited in a disconsolate huddle near Ovyng’s main door.

‘Everyone thinks that,’ said Bartholomew. ‘When he came to live here, after the plague took his own family, his uncle immediately assumed he would inherit the family business, since Dick was intent on remaining Sheriff. But I suspect Norbert was never asked what he wanted.’

‘Norbert was a nuisance,’ said Michael unsympathetically. ‘He was on his final warning – one more night of drunken debauchery would have seen him banished from the University for ever. Still, it looks as though he will not be troubling us any more now.’

They reached the knot of people – Tulyet in his fine winter cloak, and the Franciscans shivering in their thin grey robes – and joined them in a wordless inspection of the body that lay, still partly buried, in a mound of snow near the door. Blood had flooded from an injury in the dead man’s back and spread like wings into the snow around him. Bartholomew saw that Tulyet was right to assume his cousin had been murdered: there was no way the man could have inflicted such a wound on himself.

‘Norbert might have remained covered until spring, if stray dogs had not sniffed him out,’ said Ovyng’s principal, Father Ailred, gesturing to several yellow mongrels that lurked hopefully nearby. As if the mangy beasts reminded him of his students, he turned and flapped large-knuckled hands at his flock, shooing them back inside the hostel. However, the death of a classmate was an interesting event, and Bartholomew noticed they did not go far. They hovered out of sight, but within earshot, on the other side of the door.

The physician turned his attention to Ailred. He had known the Franciscan for some years, and saw him almost daily, since Ovyng used St Michael’s Church for its offices, although neither had sought to develop the acquaintance beyond a nod and a polite word when their paths crossed. Ailred was tall, with an ugly, blunt face and a lot of yellowish white showing at the bottom of his eyes. His head was bald, except for a frizzy grey crescent that hugged the back of his skull. He had a reputation for sober, painstaking scholarship that was precise and rarely in error. Bartholomew also knew that he was from Lincoln, and that he never tired of making comparisons between his grand city and the squalor of Cambridge.

‘Norbert told me he was going to visit his uncle’s house,’ Ailred was saying, watching Tulyet nervously out of the corner of his eye as he addressed Michael. ‘When he did not return, I assumed he had found somewhere warmer and more comfortable than our hostel.’

‘When was this?’ asked Michael. ‘Last night?’

‘It was not,’ said Tulyet, shooting Ailred a cool glance of reproach. ‘I have just learned that Norbert has not been seen since Tuesday – the day before yesterday. I was not even aware that he was missing.’

‘Neither were we,’ objected Ailred miserably. ‘He often left and did not return for days. You know that. I used to report his absences, but you seemed as tired of hearing about them as I was of telling, and I thought we had reached a tacit agreement not to bother each other with his transgressions.’

‘I suppose we did,’ said Tulyet with a sigh. ‘But it is unfortunate he was not missed sooner. Then he might have been saved.’

‘It would have made no difference,’ said Bartholomew, kneeling to inspect the body. ‘Both injuries are fatal ones, and finding him sooner would not have changed the outcome.’

‘Both injuries?’ questioned Michael. ‘I only see a wound to his back.’

Bartholomew parted Norbert’s hair, frozen like old fur, to reveal an indentation in the skull. ‘It looks as if he was stabbed and tried to run away – there is enough blood to suggest he did not die immediately and that he spent his last moments on the move. His assailant delivered the blow to the head when he reached the hostel door, although the knife wound would have killed him anyway.’

Tulyet closed his eyes. ‘Horrible! It seems that whoever did this was determined that poor Norbert should die. But I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky to find the body today.’ He cast a mournful glance at the leaden sky. ‘More snow will fall this afternoon, and who knows when it will melt?’

‘I have never known such weather,’ agreed Ailred, obviously grateful to discuss something other than the awkward subject of the death of a student in his care. ‘I am certain winters were not so hard when I was a boy in the fair city of Lincoln.’

‘Who do you think did this?’ asked Michael of the friar, indicating the corpse with a nod of his head. ‘Norbert made a nuisance of himself with my beadles, and few regarded him as pleasant company – I am sorry, Dick, but it is true – but can you think of anyone who disliked him sufficiently to want him dead?’

Ailred was startled. ‘Why are you asking me? It is obvious that Norbert visited some tavern, and his drunken tongue landed him in trouble with a townsman.’

‘That is not obvious at all,’ said Michael sharply. ‘And I shall be obliged if you keep those kind of thoughts to yourself, Father. We do not want the University rioting because it believes one of its number has been killed by an apprentice – especially now.’

‘Why especially now?’ asked Ailred, puzzled.

Michael made no secret of his exasperation. ‘Because it is only three days before Christmas, when students traditionally elect a Lord of Misrule to lead the festivities for the Twelve Days. Some of these might just as well be called “Lords of Incitement to Riot”, since they urge their fellow students to engage in all sorts of michief against the town. I do not want to give them an excuse to justify violent behaviour.’

Ailred was disdainful. ‘I had forgotten that unseemly custom. We do not indulge in pagan traditions at Ovyng; we are friars!’

Michael grimaced, knowing perfectly well that clerics were just as likely to misbehave as secular students, but he declined to argue. ‘Regardless, keep your accusations to yourself until we understand what really happened. For all we know, one of his classmates may be the killer.’

‘No!’ exclaimed Ailred, appalled.

‘My suggestion has as much evidence to support it as the solution you proposed,’ said Michael crisply. ‘So, I suggest we all refrain from jumping to conclusions before we have the facts. What can you tell me about Norbert?’

Ailred cleared his throat and glanced at Tulyet, clearly unhappy with the whole situation.

‘It is all right, Father,’ said Tulyet wearily. ‘Norbert’s failings were no secret, and we all know what kind of man he was. However, giving him virtues he never possessed will help no one, so you may be honest.’

‘If you insist,’ said Ailred reluctantly. He turned to Michael and spread his large hands, as though in apology. ‘Norbert mocked our Order. He did not enjoy lessons, and he disrupted any he attended. He was lazy, disrespectful and selfish, and I do not think any of my students will claim him as a friend.’

‘Then why was he tolerated here?’ asked Bartholomew, who imagined that most masters would dismiss a student who was so badly behaved.

Ailred hesitated again.

‘Money,’ supplied Tulyet dryly. ‘My father paid handsomely to have Norbert tutored here, and Ovyng is not a wealthy institution.’ He turned to Michael. ‘I want Norbert’s killer caught, Brother. Since he was a student, his death is a University matter, and must be investigated by proctors rather than the Sheriff.’ Bartholomew was certain he heard Tulyet add ‘thank God’ in an undertone. Tulyet was obviously as unimpressed by his replacement as was the rest of the town.

‘I shall do my best,’ said Michael. ‘But this will not be an easy case to solve. Norbert was not popular, and I shall have to sift through all kinds of petty rivalries and dislikes in order to identify who took a fatal dislike to him.’

‘I know,’ said Tulyet tiredly. ‘But I will help you in any way I can, and so will Ailred and the Ovyng students. I take it I am right to promise this, Father?’

‘Of course,’ said Ailred with a sickly, anxious smile. ‘You can question them now, if you like, Brother. They are inside, waiting for lessons to begin.’

Bartholomew glimpsed a shadow flicker inside the door when the students were mentioned, and saw they were still eavesdropping on the discussion. He wondered whether Norbert’s killer was among them.

‘Who first saw the dogs uncovering the body?’ asked Michael, who fully intended to interview Ailred’s students, but in his own time.

‘My assistant, Godric,’ replied Ailred. ‘We were returning from celebrating a mass when he spotted the dogs digging. When he went to drive them away, he saw they had unearthed a hand. He fetched a spade and we all watched while he completed what the mongrels had begun.’

‘Did you observe any particular reactions among your charges?’ asked Michael, without much hope. ‘Any guilty glances or unease?’

‘We were excavating a corpse, Brother,’ replied Ailred acidly. ‘Of course there was a degree of unease. We did not know whom we were about to discover. However, I can tell you for certain that I saw no “guilty glances”. We were shocked, but none of us will prove to be your culprit.’

Michael watched while Bartholomew carefully pared away the rest of the snow that covered Norbert, hoping that the killer might have abandoned the weapon he had used, and that it might lead them to its owner. However, the culprit had done no such thing, and the physician had nothing to show for his painstaking excavation. The student had died face down, probably after a violent attack from behind. There was nothing to suggest he had known his assailant, but nothing to suggest he had not. The stab wound was wide and deep, indicating that it had been caused by a fairly large blade, but not one of abnormal size that would be easily identifiable.

Bartholomew sat on his heels and tucked his frozen hands under his arms in a vain attempt to warm them. He thought about the fear the young man must have felt, as he staggered towards the hostel already fatally wounded, and wondered why he had not shouted for help. The thought jarred something buried deep in his memory.

‘You say he failed to come home on Tuesday night?’ he asked. Ailred nodded.

‘Why?’ demanded Michael immediately. ‘What have you found?’

‘Nothing, but I was summoned to tend Dunstan the riverman then. He has an affliction of the lungs that produces an excess of phlegm, and–’

‘We know,’ interrupted Michael, forestalling what might prove to be a detailed description of some particularly unpleasant symptoms. ‘You have been dragged from your bed for Dunstan several times since the weather turned sour. Did you see Norbert on Tuesday night?’

‘I heard something: a screech. Then a man jumped out of the shadows and knocked me over. I told you about it the next day.’

‘You did,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘But if you heard this scream, and an instant later someone knocked you head over heels, it was not the killer you encountered: he was murdering Norbert at that precise moment.’

‘And there is no reason to assume the killer had an accomplice,’ acknowledged Bartholomew. ‘At least, not one that would be lurking so far away. It was just a thought; I was wrong.’

‘It may be important,’ said Tulyet, reluctant to abandon what might be a clue. ‘Perhaps Norbert called for help, and you were the only one who heard him. Was it very late?’

‘Past midnight,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘But the sound I heard may have been from an animal, not a person.’

‘There is no reason to assume it was not Norbert,’ pressed Tulyet doggedly. ‘I know he left the King’s Head at midnight on Tuesday, because the landlord hunted me down yesterday and insisted I pay the debts he had incurred. It must have been him you heard, and he was murdered as he walked home. Damn! Why did he have to die like this?’

Bartholomew was surprised to see the glitter of tears in Tulyet’s blue eyes before he turned away to look towards the High Street – not surprised that Tulyet should show compassion, but that a man like Norbert should warrant it.

‘Even if I had gone to his aid I could not have saved him from wounds like this,’ he said gently. ‘The man who pushed me was probably a beggar looking for somewhere to sleep, who had nothing to do with Norbert’s murder.’ He winced as he rubbed his frozen hands together. ‘But I have done all I can here. The killer has left us no clues.’

Ailred dispatched a student to fetch a bier and offered to have Norbert delivered to Tulyet’s house. Tulyet nodded his thanks, looked one last time at the place where his cousin had died, and then walked away with Michael and Bartholomew on either side of him.

‘My father may feel obliged to ask Sheriff Morice to look into the matter, since Norbert was our kinsman – the nephew of a prominent town merchant,’ he said as they walked. ‘I shall do my best to dissuade him, but do not be surprised if you find a secular investigation in progress, as well as your own.’

‘Thank you for the warning,’ said Michael. ‘But I am not worried by anything Morice might do. He is no Dick Tulyet.’

Tulyet smiled wanly. ‘I trust you to find the truth, Brother. You will not fail me.’

‘Lord, Matt!’ said Michael uneasily, as Tulyet went to break the news of Norbert’s death to his father. ‘I shall do my best to oblige him, but Norbert had many enemies. I am not sure Dick’s confidence in me is warranted this time.’

Bartholomew expected Michael to begin making enquiries immediately into Norbert’s death, but the monk had different priorities. The physician was surprised to find himself being manoeuvred in the direction of St Michael’s Church, away from Ovyng Hostel and the scholars who were anticipating being interviewed about their classmate’s murder.

‘He will not be there now, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, astonished to think that Michael should even begin to imagine that Harysone had spent half the morning in that frigid little building. ‘There is not much to do inside, so he will have looked around and left.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Michael firmly. ‘There was real purpose in his movements as he fiddled with the lock. He was determined to enter, and I conclude that there was some specific task he wanted to perform. He will still be there and we shall catch him in the act.’

‘You sound deranged,’ said Bartholomew accusingly. ‘You follow him all over the town because you do not like the look of him, and now you assign him some dark and sinister purpose for entering a church. He may have gone inside to pray. People do, you know.’

‘Not him,’ said Michael with conviction. ‘He is not the type for prayers.’

‘Enough, Brother!’ said Bartholomew irritably. ‘I have been up much of the last two nights with Dunstan, and I am too tired for this. It is also freezing out here. I have humoured you long enough today: it is time to go home.’

‘Just a few more moments,’ said Michael, not to be diverted from his purpose just because his companion was weary and cold. He smiled when a familiar figure emerged from the north porch as they approached. It was Beadle Meadowman, huddled deep inside his cloak. ‘I left a guard here when we went to see Norbert, to make sure Harysone did not escape.’

‘He has not come out,’ said Meadowman, flapping his arms vigorously in a futile attempt to drive the chill from his body. His usual good temper was gone, and he clearly did not appreciate being ordered to lurk in north-facing porches when there was a bitter wind blowing. ‘But then, I did not see him enter, either.’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Michael peevishly. ‘You must have done. We all saw him battling with the latch.’

‘I took my eyes off him for a moment – just a moment – but when I looked again, he had gone,’ said Meadowman. He was not at all intimidated by Michael’s irritation, and was not going to apologise for his lapse, either. He was obviously as frustrated and bemused by Michael’s obsession with Harysone as was Bartholomew, and had had enough of orders to stalk the man when there were better and more productive ways to pass a morning. He gave a careless shrug. ‘So, maybe he entered, and maybe he did not.’

‘Did you look inside?’ asked Michael testily. ‘To see whether he was there?’

Meadowman pursed his lips disapprovingly. ‘You told me to watch the door. You did not say I should search for him.’

Bartholomew grinned at Michael’s exasperation, while Meadowman looked defiant. Michael glowered at both of them, then turned to the church.

The latch on the porch of St Michael’s was notorious for being temperamental. Michaelhouse scholars, who came at least once a day for prayers, were used to its peculiarities, and most were able to open it with a minimum of jiggling. The scholars of Ovyng, Garrett, St Catherine’s and Physwick hostels, who paid Michaelhouse a fee to use the building on a regular basis, were also familiar with it. But to anyone unaware of its idiosyncratic nature, the latch presented a formidable barrier, and more than one would-be visitor had been thwarted by it in the past. Michael gave it one or two expert shakes, and the door sprung open.

The two scholars walked through the timber porch and entered the short nave, while Meadowman seized the opportunity to slip away to his other duties. It was even colder inside the church than it was out, which was probably the real reason why the beadle had declined to search it for Harysone. The air was still and damp, and ice-glazed puddles showed where water had leaked through the roof during the last sleety downpour and had collected in depressions on the floor. Most of the window shutters were open, but the glass was thick and opaque, the building shadowy, and the winter day dull and grey, so it was difficult to see anything at all.

The church smelled of cheap incense and damp plaster, with an underlying musty odour emanating from an array of ancient vestments that were hanging on a row of hooks near the porch. Michaelhouse’s scholars believed that these grimy robes, which were liberally spotted with mould, should be either cleaned or thrown away, but the Master always demurred, claiming that they might ‘come in useful one day’. Bartholomew supposed they would remain festering on their rusty hooks until they turned to dust, since he could not imagine anyone willingly donning the things when there were newer and less odorous ones available.

Harysone was not in the nave, so Bartholomew and Michael walked towards the chancel, their feet on the flagstones making the only sound. The church comprised the nave and chancel, two aisles and two chapels. The south chapel was usually called the Stanton Chapel, named for Michaelhouse’s founder who was buried there. It was one of the finest examples of modern architecture in Cambridge, but the chancel was the building’s crowning glory. It was larger than the nave, and boasted simple, but elegant, tracery in its arched windows, while its walls were painted with scenes from the Bible in brilliant reds, blues, yellows and greens. When the sun shone, light pooled in delicate patterns on the creamy-white of the floor, although that day the whole building was gloomy, and no lights pooled anywhere.

Bartholomew noticed that one of the candles on the high altar had wilted, and that wax was dripping on the floor. He went to straighten it and scrape away the mess with a knife, while Michael gazed around in agitation.

‘Harysone is not here!’ he muttered angrily.

Bartholomew shrugged as he worked. ‘We were at least an hour – probably longer – with Norbert. I am not surprised that your quarry has left.’

Michael was disgusted. ‘Now we shall never know what he was doing.’

‘Meadowman said he may not have come in at all. Perhaps he gave up on the latch and went away. Or perhaps he exited through the south door.’

‘Why would he do that?’ called Michael testily, prowling around the lovely Stanton Chapel, as though anticipating that Harysone might be hiding behind the founder’s tomb.

‘Because the latch jammed and he found himself unable to leave through the north one?’ suggested Bartholomew, giving the pewter candle-holder a quick polish on his sleeve.

‘You are right!’ exclaimed Michael triumphantly, when he went to inspect the exit in the south aisle. It was larger than the north door, but using the smaller entrance tended to keep the building warmer. The south aisle was occasionally employed as a mortuary chapel for parishioners, but most of the time it stood empty and its door was permanently barred. ‘Someone has been out this way.’

The door had been left ajar, and the monk opened it fully to peer out, before shutting it again. A stout plank of wood prevented anyone from entering from the outside, and he studied it thoughtfully before replacing it in its two metal clasps. Bartholomew pointed out that anyone might have opened it, and that its use did not necessarily imply wrongdoing on Harysone’s part. Michael listened patiently, but did not agree. Seeing neither was going to accept the other’s point of view, they abandoned the discussion and headed to the north door. As Bartholomew jiggled the latch, the monk forgot his tirade against Harysone, wrinkling his nose and indicating the row of robes that hung nearby.

‘The stench of those things is growing stronger by the day. They are too rotten ever to wear again, and I cannot imagine why Master Langelee does not throw them away.’

‘Langelee never throws anything away if he thinks it may be useful. Michaelhouse is not wealthy, and he is just being prudent, I suppose. Shoes.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Michael, confused.

‘Shoes,’ repeated Bartholomew, pointing at the robes. ‘I think someone is hiding from you.’

Michael followed the line of the physician’s outstretched finger and his lips compressed in grim satisfaction. Poking from under the untidy, bulky folds of material was a pair of scruffy leather shoes. Someone had evidently slipped in among the albs and chasubles in the hope that he would be hidden – as he would have been, had he not left his feet in full view. Michael marched across to the line of hooks, and ripped the gowns aside.

The face that looked back at him was not Harysone’s. Nor was it the face of any living man. It was a corpse, with a pallid blue tinge about its mouth and lips, and unseeing eyes that were half open, half closed.

Michael leapt back with a yell of alarm, bouncing into Bartholomew and almost knocking the physician from his feet. The sound was loud in the otherwise silent church, and it startled some pigeons that had been roosting in the rafters. They flapped in agitation, showering the floor below with dried droppings and floating feathers.

It was odd to see a corpse standing as though it were alive, and even Bartholomew – no stranger to sudden and unusual death, thanks to his association with the University’s Senior Proctor – found it disconcerting. Carefully, he pushed a fold of cloth away, and saw that several of the robes were wrapped around the man’s arms and upper body, holding it upright. The hood of an alb lay in a tangled chain across the corpse’s chin so that its head was raised, as though looking forward.

‘Who is it?’ demanded Michael, as if Bartholomew should know.

‘He looks like a beggar,’ said Bartholomew, pointing at the man’s threadbare clothes. ‘He must have come here to escape from the cold.’

‘He should have chosen another church, then,’ remarked Michael, placing a flabby white hand across his chest to indicate that the presence of a corpse among the decaying ceremonial robes had given him a serious shock. ‘Everyone knows St Michael’s is the chilliest building in Christendom. Is that what killed him? Cold? Not Harysone?’

‘Harysone?’ echoed Bartholomew, startled by the question. ‘Why should he kill a beggar?’

‘To prevent him from revealing Harysone’s intention to steal from our church. You saw for yourself that one of the candles had been tampered with.’

‘Harysone is well-dressed and has been spending money on inks and parchment in the Market Square,’ said Bartholomew impatiently. ‘If he is a thief – and there is nothing to suggest that he is, other than an irrational suspicion on your part – he would not be interested in our paltry pewter. He would go to St Mary the Great and help himself to gold crosses and silver patens.’

‘Those are guarded,’ countered Michael. ‘One of my beadles is always on duty there, and it would be impossible to steal anything.’

Bartholomew made a dismissive gesture. ‘You are quibbling, Brother. My point is that a well-heeled thief would not choose St Michael’s when other places offer better potential. And you certainly cannot accuse Harysone of killing this man. He might have been here for hours before Harysone arrived – assuming Harysone entered at all, that is.’

‘Then you have some work to do,’ said Michael, indicating the body with a peremptory wave of his hand. ‘This fellow died on University property, and his death must be investigated by me.’

‘You will have to find someone else to help,’ said Bartholomew wearily. ‘As I told you, I was up most of the last two nights with Dunstan, and I have already examined one corpse for you today.’

‘This cannot wait,’ said Michael sternly. ‘I need to know how this man died and whether someone – such as Harysone – gave him a helping hand to Paradise. You would not want a killer to evade justice just because you are chilly and had an interrupted night of sleep, would you?’

With a long-suffering sigh, Bartholomew moved the robes away from the slight figure that nestled inside them. It would have been simple for the beggar to escape the enveloping folds had he wanted to do so, and Bartholomew supposed that he had wrapped them around himself in an attempt to be invisible and keep warm at the same time. It was a clever ploy, and would probably have ensured that he would not be evicted to spend the day – or night – outside.

Bartholomew shivered and wondered whether he should experiment to see whether the particular angles of the cloth would reveal whether the man had wrapped them himself, or whether someone else had done it for him. But he was so cold that he could barely think, and he did not feel like inserting himself among the damp, smelly robes to assess the varying ways in which they might end up around him. Instead, he unravelled the folds and forced them to release their grisly burden. It did not take long, and he soon had the body resting on the floor.

Trying not to rush, just because he wanted to return to Michaelhouse and huddle near the fire, he sat back on his heels and studied what lay in front of him. He realised that thicker clouds must have massed outside, because the church was so dark he could barely see the body, let alone examine it. Michael fetched the candle from the altar, but its cheap tallow did little to help, and its main contribution to the task was to release an oily, pungent odour that competed valiantly with the stench of rotting cloth.

Bartholomew leaned close to the corpse in a vain attempt to inspect it. The man had not been wealthy: his clothes were frayed, patched and woefully inadequate for the rigours of a Fenland winter. His hands were soft, however, and notably uncalloused, suggesting that his ill fortunes had not forced him into manual labour to earn his bread. One thumb was missing, but the wound had healed long ago, and Bartholomew supposed some ancient accident had robbed him of it.

Satisfied he had learned all he could by looking, he began his physical examination, suspecting this would reveal little more and that he was lingering in the church for nothing. The corpse felt icy cold, but Bartholomew’s own hands were not much warmer, and he decided the temperature of the body would tell him little about when the man had died. Struggling to see, he checked quickly for wounds, then inspected the neck to see whether the man had been strangled. His brief examination revealed nothing. He stood, trying to rub the ache from his knees, and shrugged helplessly at Michael.

‘I do not know what killed him, Brother, but I am guessing it was the cold. I cannot tell you when, though. It is so chilly that the usual methods for estimating time of death – body coolness, stiffness, decay and so on – are useless. He might have crept in here this morning, but could equally as easily have been here for a couple of days.’

Michael grimaced. ‘That is an unpleasant notion, Matt. I do not like the thought of saying my prayers while corpses peer at me from decaying albs.’

‘I imagine there are few who would. But all I can tell you is that this man was poor and that he probably suffered miserably from the weather. There is no injury that I can detect, so I doubt that your friend Harysone had anything to do with his demise.’

‘What about poison?’ suggested Michael hopefully.

‘There are no lesions or bleeding in the mouth. He did not scratch or claw at his throat. I suppose he might have been given something soporific, but I really do not see why anyone would kill a beggar using potions that are usually expensive.’

‘And there is nothing on his body to tell us who he is?’

‘As you see,’ said Bartholomew, indicating the sad remains that lay in front of them. ‘He owned no purse – or none that is with him now.’

‘I will ask my beadles to make some enquiries,’ said Michael. He cocked his head. ‘But the bells are ringing to announce the midday meal. Meadowman can deal with this poor fellow’s remains, and this afternoon I shall set about trying to discover what happened to Norbert.’

‘And what about Harysone?’ asked Bartholomew archly. ‘Has he been granted a reprieve now that you have Norbert’s murder and identifying the beggar to take up your time?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Michael haughtily. ‘Master Harysone has not heard the last of me yet.’

After the midday meal, Bartholomew went to prepare the lecture he was to give that afternoon, while Michael delegated a student to read part of Duns Scotus’s Ordinatio to his small group of sombre, erudite Benedictines. The monk rubbed his chin as he left Michaelhouse, wondering whether to concentrate his attention on the violent murder of Norbert or on discovering the identity of the beggar who had died in the church. Duty told him he should go to Ovyng and speak to Norbert’s classmates, but the unsettled, albeit irrational, feeling he had experienced ever since he had first set eyes on Harysone made him more inclined to look into the death of the beggar, since a nagging suspicion told him that Harysone was involved.

Michael was not normally a man given to wild and unfounded prejudices against people he barely knew, but he liked to think he had developed an ability to single out at least some folk whose intentions were not entirely honourable. And all his instincts screamed at him that Harysone’s presence in the town was one he could do without. Bartholomew might have been unable to prove that the beggar had come to harm at Harysone’s hands, but Michael knew there were ways to kill that defied detection, and some deep, feral instinct convinced him that Harysone had not been tussling with the sticky door merely to admire St Michael’s dented pewter.

He pondered for a moment more before turning left and striding up St Michael’s Lane towards the High Street. Norbert’s murder would be difficult to solve, given that the fellow had so many enemies in the town, and the investigation did not appeal to Michael in the slightest. He decided to leave Norbert until the following day and interview Harysone instead: Norbert was dead and nothing could change that, but Harysone represented crimes to be committed in the future – and they might be prevented.

Harysone, however, was not at his lodgings in the King’s Head, nor was he browsing among the stalls in the Market Square. Michael scratched his head thoughtfully, then began a systematic trawl of the town’s taverns, becoming more determined to find the man with each unsuccessful enquiry. When he met Meadowman near the Brazen George, the beadle informed him that Harysone had been in the Hall of Valence Marie, selling copies of his manuscript.

‘He is doing what?’ spluttered Michael, outraged. ‘Peddling his inferior scholarship to some of the greatest minds in the country?’

‘I do not know about that,’ said Meadowman stoically. ‘But he sold Valence Marie two copies of his treatise, and then went to Bene’t College.’

‘And what would this “treatise” be about?’ demanded Michael archly. ‘Harysone was never a student here, and I doubt even Oxford would accept the likes of him into their midst.’

‘Valence Marie’s porter told me it was about fish,’ said Meadowman. ‘And suchlike.’

‘Fish?’ echoed Michael in astonishment. ‘Harysone told me it was a philosophical tract. And what do you mean by “and suchlike”?’

Meadowman shrugged, glancing up the High Street to where he could see two undergraduates emerging nonchalantly from the Brazen George. If he caught them, he could fine them fourpence, and he itched to be away after them.

‘You will have to read it yourself,’ he said. ‘You know I am not a man for words.’

‘I shall never read it,’ vowed Michael, abandoning his beadle and heading purposefully towards Bene’t, which was all but hidden behind a vast bank of snow. A great mass of icy slush had sloughed from its roof ten days before, and the mound had grown even more when snow shovelled from the street had been added to it by students who were too lazy to haul the stuff away.

But by the time Michael reached Bene’t, Harysone had already left, taking with him four marks from scholars interested in reading the treatise and leaving two copies of his work behind. No one knew where the man intended to go next, and Michael was forced to admit defeat. Midwinter Day was looming, and the few hours between dawn at eight and dusk at four passed far too quickly. Michael was running out of daylight. He decided to return to Michaelhouse for the evening, to sit by the fire and allow a cup of mulled wine to banish the chill from his limbs.

The following morning, Ralph de Langelee, Master of Michaelhouse, made a decision that was very popular with most of his students. Because there were only two days left before Christmas, he declared that lectures would be limited to mornings only, while afternoons were to be spent in preparations for the festivities to come. Some undergraduates were dispatched to gather firewood, so that the scholars could relax in rooms that had at least had the chill taken out of them, while others were sent to barter for special foods in the Market Square. Most were delighted by the unexpected reprieve, and Langelee was generally declared to be the best Master since Michaelhouse’s foundation.

Bartholomew was both pleased and frustrated by the enforced break. The two free afternoons would allow him to work on his treatise on fevers and visit his family, but there was a huge amount that his students needed to know if they wanted to be decent physicians, and he hated wasting time. Ever since the plague, there had been a chronic shortage of trained medical men, and Bartholomew was working hard to redress the balance. Teaching was suspended altogether during the Twelve Days, and he fretted that his students were being deprived of too much valuable learning time.

He attended morning mass in the church, although his mind bounced between worrying about his students’ poor grasp of Maimonides and considering the beggar he had found the previous day. He wondered who the man could be, and why he had chosen frigid St Michael’s in which to die. Michael said that Meadowman’s enquiries among the town’s other beggars had so far revealed nothing, so it seemed that the fellow would be buried in a pauper’s grave and be forgotten for ever if no one came forward to claim him as kin.

Bartholomew glanced across to the south aisle, where the body lay under a sheet, and then started to think about whether there would be enough ready-dug graves to last the winter. Digging frozen ground was almost impossible, and he had taken it upon himself to arrange for each church to prepare a few holes before the weather turned bad that year. If there were many more cases like the beggar’s, then they would soon run out.

After breakfast, he had planned to lecture his students on the part of Roger Bacon’s Antidotarium that dealt with mint, but Michael had other ideas. The monk had reluctantly conceded that he needed to forget Harysone for a while and begin his investigation into Norbert’s murder, but he wanted Bartholomew with him when he interviewed the students at Ovyng. Although he was a skilled investigator, it always helped when the physician was there to gauge reactions and observe suspicious behaviour. Michael believed Ovyng represented his best chance of catching Norbert’s killer, and hoped to discover that one of Norbert’s classmates had tired of his cruel tongue and dissolute behaviour, and done away with him. With luck, the case would be resolved quickly and without the need for a complex investigation that would give rise to rumours and speculation about whether a townsman was responsible. Michael did not want Norbert’s murder to spark fights or ill feeling between the University and the town during a volatile period like the Twelve Days.

It had snowed again during the night, but the fall had been light, and many feet had already trodden a groove between the ice-cliffs along St Michael’s Lane. The wind sucked dried pellets of ice from the ground and hurled them in the scholars’ faces as they walked, causing Michael to claim that a more severe winter had not been experienced since the Creation. Bartholomew argued that there was no way to tell, and they were still debating the issue when they arrived at the hostel.

Ovyng was a large house that had been bought for Michaelhouse in 1329, using funds left over from the founder’s will. Michaelhouse could have used the building as accommodation for its own members, but numbers had been low since the plague, and instead Langelee leased it to Ailred for a modest fee. Ovyng was a pleasant place, with a large chamber on the ground floor that served as lecture hall and dining room, and two attic rooms that were used as dormitories.

When Bartholomew and Michael arrived, they found the five students sitting on wooden benches, listening to a lecture given by Ailred himself. It was on Thomas Aquinas’s Sermones, and was a careful exegesis of one of the more difficult sections. It was solid scholarship, but not exciting, and the students looked bored. Three gazed out of the window at the lumpy white blanket that smothered the vegetable patch, while the other two sat bolt upright in an effort to stop themselves from falling asleep. Ailred’s assistant slouched at the back of the class, checking logic exercises that had been scratched into wax-covered tablets.

‘You know why I am here,’ said Michael, as Ailred faltered into silence and the students regarded the monk expectantly. ‘Norbert.’

‘We did not kill him,’ said Ailred’s assistant immediately. He was a large, raw-boned fellow with a ruddy face and teeth that had been chipped into irregular points. He was not much older than his charges, and Bartholomew supposed he had been hired because his youth and inexperience meant that he was cheap. ‘We did not like him, but we did not touch him.’

‘I am accusing no one,’ said Michael, although the cool green gaze that rested on the face of each Franciscan in turn suggested otherwise. ‘I merely want the truth. Does anyone know anything that may help us find the perpetrator of this dreadful crime?’

‘Not really,’ said the assistant. ‘He was not one of us, you see.’

‘Godric means that he was not a Franciscan,’ elaborated Ailred, when the monk’s face indicated that there were several ways this comment could be interpreted, all of them incriminating.

‘It was not just that,’ persisted Godric. ‘He never even tried to be friendly, and he slept more nights away than here.’

‘Godric!’ whispered Ailred in exasperation, closing his eyes and giving them a hearty massage. He looked exhausted, as though the murder of his student had deprived him of sleep. Bartholomew wondered whether the friar’s tiredness derived from the fact that Norbert’s death represented a sizeable loss of income, or whether there were deeper, more sinister reasons for it. ‘When I said we should answer the Senior Proctor’s questions truthfully, I did not mean that you had to betray every one of Norbert’s misdemeanours.’

‘Betray away,’ said Michael, beaming at Godric. ‘A catalogue of Norbert’s indiscretions may prove very useful.’

‘I do not see how,’ said Ailred. ‘But Godric is right about Norbert’s sleeping habits: he was not often found in his own bed. In fact, his repeated absences were one of the reasons why he was not missed for two days. He often stayed away – sometimes with whores, sometimes in taverns and sometimes at his uncle’s house.’

‘I knew he flouted the rules,’ said Michael. ‘But I did not realise he did so on such a regular basis. Why did you not tell me this before?’

Ailred shot him a pained glance. ‘The fees paid by his family were important to us. We did not want him dismissed, although God knows he had no business here. As long as we kept him, the Tulyets would continue paying for his tuition.’

The other Franciscans had been talking among themselves while the exchange between Ailred and Michael took place; now they seemed to have reached a consensus. They nodded encouragingly at Godric, who was evidently their spokesman.

‘Unfortunately, we have little to tell that will help you catch your culprit,’ he began apologetically. ‘Norbert was unfriendly, lazy and refused to comply with our rules. He made offensive remarks about our Order and he stole our ink and parchment. We think he took them in order to write to Dympna.’

‘Dympna?’ asked Michael, puzzled. ‘Who is he?’

‘She,’ corrected Godric. He glanced at his colleagues, suddenly unsure. ‘Well, we assume it was a she. She sent him notes, which we sometimes saw. She always asked him to meet her in the same place.’

‘I do not see how this is relevant,’ said Ailred impatiently. ‘Norbert liked women – ask any of the town’s whores – but I do not see how investigating a particular one will lead you to his killer.’

‘I am not so sure,’ said Michael thoughtfully. He turned to Godric. ‘When did this woman last write to Norbert?’

Godric ignored the pained expression on his principal’s face. ‘He had a letter from her the evening he disappeared.’

Ailred sighed. ‘This kind of speculation is dangerous, Godric. It may lead the good brother along the wrong road entirely, and cause him to waste time and effort.’

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.