Free A Killer in Winter by Susanna Gregory Page B

identified the author of his troubles. Una blew
     Michael a salacious kiss before flouncing away on Gray’s arm, accompanied by whistles and cat-calls from the psalter-reading
     students.
    ‘I went to bed after compline – as Master Langelee said we should – and when I awoke
she
was there,’ explained Quenhyth unpleasantly as Una left. ‘She told me she hadbeen there all night, and that we had had all manner of fun. She is lying, of course: I would remember doing the things
she
described.’ He gave a fastidious shudder, and Bartholomew struggled not to laugh.
    ‘I caught him trying to usher her out through the back gate,’ said Meadowman disapprovingly. ‘He spun me this tale about finding
     her when he awoke, but that does not sound very likely to me. A red-blooded man does not sleep when there is a handsome whore
     in his bed, especially a fine, strong lass like Una. Do you not agree, Brother?’
    Wisely, Michael declined to enter that sort of debate while there were students listening with unconcealed delight. He fixed
     the hapless Quenhyth with a glare. ‘You shall spend the day in the proctors’ prison, while we shall give this matter some
     thought. Take him away, Meadowman.’
    Quenhyth’s indignant wails could be heard all across the yard as he protested his innocence to anyone who would listen, and
     a good many others besides.
    ‘I do not know how you tolerate that self-righteous youngster in your classes without boxing his ears,’ said Michael to Bartholomew
     as he resumed his walk to the hall. ‘And I do not blame Gray and Deynman for trying to cut him down to size.’
    Bartholomew wholly agreed with him.
    The bell had finished chiming by the time the scholars had ascended the spiral staircase to the hall. A huge fire roared in
     the hearth, so that the room felt airless and stuffy after the chill of the morning. Fresh rushes were scattered across the
     floor in readiness for Christmas, and the sweet scent of them mingled pleasantly with the aroma of burning wood and the baked
     oatmeal that was being readied behind the servants’ screen. Bartholomew and Michael walked to the dais and took their places
     at the high table, facing the ranks of assembled students in the body of the hall.
    Presiding over the meal was the Master, Ralph de Langelee. He was a powerfully built man, who looked morelike a mercenary than a scholar, and many who knew him believed he should have remained a soldier and left the business of
     education to those capable of independent thought. But despite his intellectual failings, Langelee was proving to be a fair
     and capable Master, which surprised many people. The College had been infamous for its mediocre food and chilly, fireless
     rooms before Langelee had arranged for himself to be elected. Two years on, Michaelhouse had wood and peat aplenty for the
     common rooms, and the quality of the food had improved. This was due at least in part to the fact that he had delegated the
     College finances to Michaelhouse’s newest Fellow, John Wynewyk, who was good at driving hard bargains with the town’s tradesmen.
    To Langelee’s left was Thomas Kenyngham, an elderly Gilbertine friar with fluffy white hair, a dreamy smile and a mistaken
     belief that all men were as good and kindly as him. The cadaverous theologian Thomas Suttone perched on Kenyngham’s left,
     turning his unsmiling face towards the students, like Death selecting a victim. At the end of the table sat the Dominican
     music and astronomy master, John Clippesby. It was common knowledge that Clippesby was insane, although Langelee maintained
     there was no reason why this minor inconvenience should interfere with his teaching duties.
    Bartholomew and Michael sat on Langelee’s right, with Father William, who was also Michael’s Junior Proctor. William was a
     stern, uncompromising Franciscan, whose inflexible beliefs and bigoted interpretation of the rules he was paid to enforce
     were swelling the