Bartholomew 09 - A Killer in Winter

by Susanna GREGORY

  Bartholomew stared at him. ‘You are afraid of falling? Is that what this is all about?’

  William gave a shudder and, for a moment, there was a haunted expression in his eyes. Bartholomew had only ever seen the more base of human emotions in William – rage, indignation, fanaticism – and he was intrigued to see that William was genuinely afraid of something.

  ‘I do not like ice,’ whispered the friar hoarsely, looking furtively over his shoulder. ‘I saw a man fall through some once. He struggled, and it cut through his hands and arms like daggers. I was standing on a bridge, and I could see him quite clearly screaming for help under the surface as he was swept to his death, scrabbling with bloodied hands as he tried to break through.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Bartholomew sympathetically. ‘It must have been terrible.’

  ‘It was,’ agreed William fervently. ‘His body was never found, and he was wearing three perfectly good emerald rings. But you understand, do you not, why I dislike bitter winters?’

  ‘People say it is the worst they can recall,’ said Bartholomew, not sure the traumatic loss of three emerald rings was really a valid excuse for William abandoning his University duties.

  William snorted in disdain. ‘Then they are wrong. I recall many winters that have been worse than this one, and I remember them better than most, since I hate them so. So, if you leave my splint until I tell you my leg is no longer broken, you will make me a happy man.’ He noticed

  Bartholomew’s reluctance to condone a lie and his expression became crafty. ‘The Franciscan Friary has a copy of Thomas Bradwardine’s De proportione velocitatum in motibus that is seldom used. I can suggest it be given to you.’

  Bartholomew was tempted. Bradwardine was a famous scholar at Oxford University’s Merton College, which had been producing new and dynamic theories relating to the natural universe for the past fifty years. Bartholomew was a great admirer of Bradwardine’s work, but what William was asking …

  ‘It is all about successive motions and resistance,’ added William enticingly.

  Bartholomew wavered, and recalled that Bradwardine was the man who had challenged the traditional Aristotelian principle that half the force that caused an object to move would not necessarily mean half the velocity, and that twice the resistance that caused an object to slow down would not necessarily mean the speed was twice as slow. It was heady stuff, and even thinking about it sent a thrill of excitement down Bartholomew’s spine. But even so …

  ‘It is illustrated,’ said William desperately. ‘In colour.’

  ‘Done,’ said Bartholomew, offering the friar his hand.

  ‘You timed your injury well, Father,’ said Langelee, coming up to them. ‘You can spend your day here, next to a blazing hearth, while the rest of us have business to attend out in the cold.’

  William nodded smugly. ‘I know.’

  ‘Deynman gave me this for the College library,’ said Langelee, reaching across to the table to retrieve a book that had been lying there. Bartholomew immediately recognised the cheap wooden covers and sparse pages, and wondered what his student had been doing in the King’s Head associating with Harysone. ‘Perhaps you can read it, Father, and let me know whether it is suitable material for us to keep.’

  ‘You mean you want me to work?’ asked William indignantly. ‘I have a broken leg, man!’

  ‘We do not need our legs to read,’ said Langelee. He glanced uncertainly at the friar, as though he was not sure that such a generalisation applied to the Franciscan. ‘It is not long, and it will only take you an afternoon. You do not want heretical books in our library, do you?’

  William growled something under his breath, unable to think of a suitable answer, and began to flick listlessly through the pages.

  ‘Cann a Fishe enterr Heaven?’ read Clippesby, peering over his shoulder. He appeared especially manic that morning, with his hair standing up in all directions and his eyes wide and bright in his pale face. Bartholomew could not help but wonder whether he cultivated the look just to unsettle William, who was eyeing him nervously, not liking the sensation of a Dominican so close behind him. ‘Yes, read that, William. You may learn something.’

  ‘Did everyone survive the night?’ asked Langelee, cutting off William’s indignant response. ‘Wynewyk should check each staircase to make sure no one froze to death, while I imagine Bartholomew will want to visit his patients to do the same. We shall keep fires burning in the hall and conclave today, and I recommend we all stay inside as much as possible. This is no weather to be out unnecessarily.’

  ‘We will all go skating on the river,’ declared Deynman excitedly in his capacity as Lord of Misrule. ‘I have already been to inspect it. It is set like stone, and it is possible to walk from one side to the other. And then we can go sliding.’

  ‘Sliding?’ asked Wynewyk doubtfully. ‘I do not like the sound of that.’

  ‘It is where you sit on a flat piece of wood and skid down a hill,’ explained Clippesby. ‘Cows do it all the time.’ He glanced out of the window. ‘However, there is not much scope for that activity in Cambridge, Deynman. It may have escaped your notice, but there is a paucity of hills around here.’

  ‘There is the one at the Castle,’ said Deynman.

  ‘True,’ said Langelee. ‘But that is part of the town’s defences, and is manned by soldiers with bows. They would shoot you. Now, I know I agreed not to interfere, but I cannot allow anyone to venture on to the river yet. Did you not hear what happened to the husband of Bartholomew’s lover? He fell clean through the ice and died.’

  ‘But that was two days ago,’ protested Deynman, crestfallen, and speaking before Bartholomew could object to Langelee’s description of Turke. ‘It is different now – harder and firmer. None of us will fall in. Turke was fat and heavy, but we are not.’

  ‘No one skates on the river,’ said Langelee firmly. ‘We do not want anyone to end up like Turke – or like Father William.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Clippesby in distaste. ‘Or you might make us read that horrible book!’

  Michael was already in the church when the rest of the scholars arrived for prime. He declared he had had no intention of freezing in his bed the previous night, and had visited his fellow Benedictines at Ely Hall, where there were plenty of fires and an abundance of warm woollen blankets. He had even inveigled himself the use of half a feather bed, as evidenced by the fact that he was still picking down from his habit when the mass had finished, breakfast had been eaten and the scholars were free to spend their day – the Feast of the Holy Innocents – as they chose. The physician went to his room to don as many clothes as he could fit under his cloak in anticipation of a morning outside.

  ‘What shall we do first?’ Michael asked, watching Bartholomew struggle to pull his Michaelhouse tabard over his thickest gipon and two wool jerkins. It was a tight fit, and the physician could barely move when he had finished. ‘Shall we investigate the death of Gosslinge by hunting down his missing clothes? Shall we see whether anyone saw Turke skating on the Mill Pool? Or shall we continue to probe into the insalubrious affairs of Harysone or Norbert?’

  None of the options appealed to Bartholomew. ‘There are patients I need to see, Brother. Langelee is right: this weather may well have killed some of the less hardy.’

  ‘Then there will be little you can do for them,’ retorted Michael practically. ‘So I shall come with you, lest any of them need my services, rather than yours.’

  Since the physician could not move his arms high enough to fasten his cloak without the sound of tearing stitches, the monk helped him, then they walked together across the yard. The gate’s leather hinges had frozen solid, and needed to be treated with care to prevent them from snapping off completely.

  There was a narrow gorge in St Michael’s Lane, where the scholars had trodden a path through the drifts when they had attended mass that morning. On either side, the snow reached head height or more, towering above them in uneven white cliffs.
Bartholomew and Michael trudged along in single file until they reached the High Street. It was now fully light and, for the first time that day, Bartholomew could see how much the storm had changed the town.

  Snow had been blown in great white waves against buildings, and some of them were virtually invisible. Here and there, people toiled with shovels or bare hands, trying to dig their way out of – or into – their homes. Carts had been abandoned, and formed shapeless white humps all along the road. Some had been excavated by looters, in the hope that their owners had not had the chance to unload their wares before the blizzard had struck. A woman darted along the street with a tear-stained face, asking whether anyone had seen her father. From the way she eyed various lumps under the snow, it was clear she expected to find him dead.

  Bartholomew had not gone far before he was spotted and urged to attend the home of a potter who had slipped on ice and damaged his arm. When he had finished, a scruffy boy clamoured for him to visit the shacks on the river bank, where he said he could hear horrible moans coming from the home of Dunstan and Athelbald.

  It was impossible to run on the slippery, treacherous streets, but Bartholomew and Michael struggled along as quickly they could. When they reached the hovels that overlooked the

  river, well away from the sensitive eyes of the wealthy merchants of Milne Street, Bartholomew’s heart sank. There was smoke shifting through the walls of most of the houses – not the roofs, because these were blanketed by snow – indicating that warming fires burned within, but not from the one occupied by Dunstan and Athelbald.

  ‘Oh, no!’ breathed Michael, his green eyes huge with horror. ‘Not Dunstan!’

  ‘He has been ill for weeks now,’ said Bartholomew, wanting his friend to be prepared for what he was sure they would find. ‘A cold winter is hard for a man well past three score years and ten.’

  He tapped on the screen of woven willow twigs that served as Dunstan’s door, and pushed his way into the hovel’s dim interior, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. The shack was freezing, and smelled of ancient smoke and rancid grease. The beaten-earth floor was sticky underfoot, and Bartholomew thought he saw a rat glide through some of the darker shadows. A soft sob in the darkness made him turn to where two shapes were sitting together on a bench. One was crying, and the other was frozen where it sat.

  Oddly, it was not the ailing Dunstan who had died, but his brother. Bartholomew closed his eyes in despair, wondering how the old man would possibly manage without his lifelong friend and companion. Behind him, Michael coughed and left the house quickly, pretending a tickling throat so that no one should witness his own distress.

  Bartholomew gathered the blankets from the beds and wrapped them around Dunstan’s shaking shoulders. Then he gave the urchin a penny for firewood and told him to hurry. While he waited, he lifted the light, ice-hard body from the bench and laid it gently on one of the wretched straw pallets, wishing he had something to cover it with.

  Athelbald looked peaceful in death, and there appeared to be a slight smile on his face, as though his last thought had been an amusing one. In one hand he clutched an inkpot, and Bartholomew supposed he had been telling some tale about it when he had died. Without knowing why, he prised the thing from the rigid fingers. Dunstan took it from him and cradled it to his chest like a talisman.

  Michael forced himself to return and began to chant a final absolution in an unsteady voice, anointing the body with a phial of chrism. Dunstan’s sobs grew louder, and Bartholomew sat next to him, drawing him close as he attempted to offer warmth as well as comfort.

  ‘We shall bury him in St Michael’s churchyard,’ said Michael hoarsely, keeping his face in the shadows. The boy arrived with the kindling, and the monk set about lighting a fire that was so large in the tiny room it threatened to choke them all. ‘He was in my choir from the very beginning, and he deserves that honour.’

  ‘With a cross,’ whispered Dunstan, raising watery eyes to look at him. ‘Just a small, wooden one. And all the choir to sing for him. He would like that.’

  ‘I shall arrange it,’ promised Michael.

  ‘What shall I do without him?’ asked Dunstan, clutching Bartholomew’s sleeve. With a shock, the physician saw the man expected an answer. Dunstan needed someone to tell him how to pass his days now that his brother had gone.

  ‘You should not be alone,’ Bartholomew said feebly, evading the question. ‘Can I fetch someone to be with you?’

  ‘There is no one I want,’ said Dunstan bleakly. ‘No one understands me like he did. He liked to talk with me, and speculate on all manner of things that happened in the town. Like that lad you found buried in the snow before Christmas Day. Athelbald had his ideas about him.’

  ‘What were they?’ asked Bartholomew, more to encourage Dunstan to speak than for information. Both the old men had enjoyed regaling the physician with grossly speculative rumours when he had visited them in the past, most of which he disregarded for the nonsense they were. But if Dunstan gained solace from repeating what he and Athelbald had fabricated about Norbert’s death, then Bartholomew was prepared to listen for as long as the old man wanted to talk. He emptied his flask of medicinal wine into a pot, and set it over Michael’s fire to warm. There was not much of it, but he thought it might drive some of the chill from the old man’s bones.

  ‘Norbert,’ said Dunstan, valiantly trying to reproduce the salacious tones he had used while gossiping with his brother. ‘He was a fellow who did his family no credit.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Michael, forcing himself to smile. ‘Athelbald was right about that.’

  ‘He guessed what happened to the weapon that killed Norbert,’ said Dunstan, his eyes glittering with proud tears. ‘The beadles have spent days looking for it, but Athelbald knew where it went. He used logic, you see, like you University men.’

  ‘What did he reason?’ asked Michael, lowering his considerable weight gingerly on to the bench and sharing his cloak with Dunstan while Bartholomew tended the fire.

  ‘He heard the killer used a knife,’ said Dunstan, carefully wiping his runny nose on the inside of Michael’s cloak. ‘Because Norbert was stabbed. And he concluded that the killer had to get rid of it. But the killer knew if it was thrown away in the snow, it would be discovered – if not by beadles, then when the thaw came. Knives are personal things, and it would have given him away instantly.’

  ‘True,’ said Bartholomew, who had reasoned much the same thing. Dunstan started to cough, so he opened the door a little, to let some of the smoke out. ‘But the killer may just have wiped it clean and put it back in its sheath. Daggers are expensive, and people do not discard them just because they have been between someone’s ribs.’

  ‘If you believe that, then you are wrong,’ said Dunstan knowledgeably. ‘Athelbald and I have seen many murders in our time, and we know people do not want to keep weapons that have killed. Some believe it was the weapon, not them, that performed the foul deed, you see.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Bartholomew, nodding acceptance of the point. He poured some of the warmed wine into a beaker and watched the old man sip it. ‘So, the killer dispensed with the knife. Not in the snow, where it would be discovered, but somewhere else.’

  Dunstan nodded. ‘And where would you throw a weapon, to get rid of it for ever? He gazed meaningfully towards the open door.

  ‘The river,’ said Bartholomew, understanding. ‘Of course! All the killer needed to do was toss the thing in the water. Is that what you think happened?’

  ‘It is what Athelbald thought happened,’ said Dunstan, glancing at the frozen form on the pallet. ‘He heard that commotion when you were here to visit me last week. Remember? The bells were chiming to mark the late night offices. He believes the commotion was Norbert’s murder.’

  ‘The timing ties in with what I know from my other enquiries,’ acknowledged Michael. ‘We have been reliably informed that Norbert left the tavern around midnight.’

  ‘It wa
s cold that night,’ Dunstan went on. ‘So, not many folk attended the mass, including Ovyng’s other scholars. If they had, then Norbert would have been discovered sooner – before he was buried by the snow that fell later that night.’

  ‘But it was clear then,’ interrupted Bartholomew. ‘The moon lit the towpath. I remember it very well.’

  ‘It clouded over and snowed before dawn,’ corrected Dunstan impatiently. ‘I was awake for the whole night, whereas you went home to sleep. Now, to continue. Athelbald heard from the servants at Ovyng that Norbert was injured but travelled some distance before he was struck on the head. He reckoned what happened was this: Norbert met his attacker nearby, probably at the Mill Pool, which is deserted at that time of night, and had some kind of discussion. They argued and Norbert was stabbed. Norbert struggled along the towpath to Ovyng, but was brained just as he reached the door. Athelbald said that would explain all the sounds he heard.’

  ‘And what about the man who pushed me over, and the tench?’ asked Bartholomew.

  ‘The fish was Norbert’s,’ replied Dunstan confidently. ‘Athelbald heard he won it in a game of dice. Obviously, if Norbert was stabbed and was fleeing for his life, then he would drop such a burden as soon as he could. It was then retrieved by a beggar.’

  ‘Athelbald was undoubtedly right,’ said Michael kindly. ‘His theory fits the facts precisely.’

  The conversation ended when Dunstan began to sob again. Bartholomew looked helplessly at Michael, then tried to persuade the old man to go to Michaelhouse with them, sure Langelee would let him stay until the weather broke. But Dunstan refused to leave his home, claiming he could never rest easy under a strange roof. In the end, sensing he would bring about the elderly fellow’s demise even sooner if he forced the issue, Bartholomew relented. He checked the contents of his bag, and found he had enough money to buy firewood for another day. Michael said he had more at Michaelhouse, which could be stretched for a week if used prudently.