A Killer in Winter by Susanna Gregory Page A

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 toldme 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 declaredto 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