A Killer in Winter

‘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.