A Killer in Winter

Michael reached for another piece of bread before the servants cleared the tables. ‘I am glad I did not listen to your advice about how to eat, or I would be facing a morning without breakfast.’

‘Gobbling is not good for you,’ said Bartholomew stubbornly. ‘It unbalances the humours and gives rise to pains in the stomach.’

‘Christmas is a wonderful time for men with healthy appetites,’ said Michael, thinking fondly of the gobbling that was to come. ‘Twelve days with no teaching and plentiful food and wine.’

‘But then come January and February,’ said Bartholomew gloomily. ‘I dislike those months, They are dark and cold, and it is painful to lose patients from afflictions of the lungs – like Dunstan the riverman. He will not see Easter.’

Michael was silent. Dunstan had been a loyal, if toneless, member of his choir for many years, and he was fond of the old man. It was hard for him to see Dunstan’s suffering and be powerless to help.

‘These are strange times,’ announced Suttone, walking out of the hall with them. ‘The Devil stalks the land, and God and His angels weep at what they see. Sinful men fornicate in holy places and debauchery, lust and greed are all around us. The river freezing in November is a testament to the fact that the end of the world is nigh. Things were different when I was a boy.’

‘People always think the past was better than the present,’ said Bartholomew, who had grown used to the Carmelite’s grim predictions. ‘But I do not think they are very different now – except for the Death, of course.’

‘The Death,’ pronounced the Carmelite in a booming voice that was sufficiently sepulchral to send a shiver of unease down Bartholomew’s spine. ‘It will come again. You mark my words.’

‘But not before Christmas,’ said Michael comfortably. ‘We shall at least have a good feast before we die.’

Bartholomew found he could not dismiss Philippa from his thoughts, and barely heard Suttone regaling Michael with details of the plague’s return as he walked across the yard to his room. He recalled how she had admired the fine oriel window in the hall, but had thought Bartholomew’s chamber cold and gloomy. He remembered walking with her through the herb garden, when the summer sun warmed the plants and sweetened the air with their fragrance. And he was reminded of the times he had climbed over the College walls like an undergraduate after the gates had been locked, because assignations with her had made him late.

‘I thought you might like this,’ said the insane Clippesby shyly, breaking into his thoughts by sidling up and offering him a stained and lumpy bundle. Bartholomew could see a glistening tail protruding from one end of it. He was being offered the fish that Clippesby had taken to breakfast.

‘He has just eaten,’ said Michael. ‘He does not need to consume a squashed pike just yet, thank you. And anyway, it has been dead far too long already. It stinks.’

‘It is a tench,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Where did you find it, Clippesby?’

Clippesby was pleased by the physician’s curiosity. ‘On Milne Street, near Piron Lane. It had been tossed there, probably by someone walking past.’ He turned a resentful gaze on Michael. ‘Matt knows perfectly well that I am not bringing this for him to eat. It is common knowledge that tench have healing powers.’

‘Do they?’ asked Michael of Bartholomew doubtfully.

Bartholomew nodded. ‘Pliny says that tench applied to the hands or feet can cure fevers, jaundice, head pains and toothache. But, more importantly, I am sure this was the fish I saw the night Norbert died. Whoever pushed me over grabbed it before he escaped.’

‘Then how did it end up abandoned on Milne Street?’ asked Michael. ‘It is a wretched thing – already rotten, despite its salting. Why would your attacker risk capture for it?’

‘Perhaps he did not know its state when he acted,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘He only learned it was bad when he took off the wrappings – at which point he discarded it.’

‘It was thrown into some bushes,’ added Clippesby helpfully. ‘I would not have noticed it, but one of the cats mentioned it was there, so I went to look.’

‘A cat told you to ferret about behind some shrubs?’ asked Michael dubiously. ‘You should choose your friends more carefully, man. You do not know what you might unearth, foraging around in places like that.’

Bartholomew surmised that Clippesby had observed a cat expressing an unusual interest in the spot where the fish had been thrown and had gone to investigate. The mad musician’s claims about talking to animals nearly always had some rational explanation behind them.

‘We have already deduced that Norbert’s killer and the man who pushed me were not the same,’ the physician mused. ‘So, I suppose this means that the tench is also irrelevant.’