A Killer in Winter полностью

‘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 more like 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 University’s coffers to the point of embarrassment. Michael confided to Bartholomew that William had fined more students in his first month of office than most other junior proctors caught in a year. However, Bartholomew also noticed that neither Michael nor the Chancellor had made any serious attempts to curtail the Franciscan’s fiscal enthusiasm.

On Bartholomew’s right was the last of the Fellows, Wynewyk. Wynewyk had been elected at the beginning of the Michaelmas Term, and was still clearly bewildered by some of the customs and practices of his new College. That day, he seemed puzzled by the fact that Clippesby had a fish under his arm. The other Fellows were used to Clippesby’s idiosyncrasies, and Bartholomew found that he only noticed them if someone else pointed them out.

‘Put it away, Clippesby, there’s a good fellow,’ said Langelee, following Wynewyk’s gaze to where glazed eyes and a gaping mouth leered from beneath the music master’s tabard. ‘You know we do not allow animals to join us for meals.’

‘This is not an animal,’ said Clippesby, placing the thing carefully on the table. Bartholomew saw Wynewyk glance uneasily towards the door, as if wondering whether he would be able to reach it unimpeded, should it become necessary. The other scholars were merely impatient, giving the impression they wanted Clippesby to have done with his antics so they could get on with their meal.

‘Is is an animal,’ argued Father William immediately. He detested Clippesby, partly because William was not a man to waste his meagre supplies of compassion on lunatics, but mostly because Clippesby was a Dominican, and William did not like Dominicans. ‘It is a fish, so of course it is an animal. It is not a stone or a vegetable, is it?’ He leaned back and folded his arms, pleased with this incisive piece of logic.

Clippesby did not concur. ‘This is an interesting philosophical question,’ he said, turning his mad-eyed stare from the fish to the friar. ‘Is a dead fish an animal? Or, since it no longer possesses life, is it something else?’

‘Just because it is dead does not mean that it has changed,’ argued William, determined not to be bested.

‘But it has changed,’ pressed Clippesby, waving the fish in the air, oblivious to the rotten scales that fell from it. ‘A dead fish cannot be the same as a live one.’