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killer in his town? It will do nothing to make it peaceful.’
    ‘True enough,’ said Michael. ‘But it is said that the killer fled to St Mary’s Church and claimed sanctuary. The Sheriff set a watch on the church, but the killer escaped, and now it looks as though he has struck again.’
    ‘How is it known that this man was the killer?’ asked Bartholomew curiously.
    ‘He is supposed to have killed his wife before fleeing,’
    said Michael. ‘It is rumoured that the Sheriff deliberately set a lax watch on the church so that the killer could continue his extermination of the prostitutes.’
    ‘Do you think there is any truth in these stories?’
    asked Bartholomew, watching the soldiers, frustrated with the sullen crowd, draw their swords to threaten the people away.
    ‘It is true that a man killed his wife and claimed sanctuary at St Mary’s, and it is true that he escaped during the night despite the Sheriff’s guards. Whether he is also the killer of Hilde, Fritha, and now Isobel, is open to debate.’
    The crowd, faced with naked steel, reluctantly began to disperse, although there were dark mutterings.
    Bartholomew was surprised that the crowd was sympathetic to the prostitutes. There were those who
    claimed that the plague had come because of women like them, and they faced a constant and very real danger from attack.
    ‘Come on, Brother,’ Bartholomew said, rising to his feet. ‘We must pay a visit to the ailing Master Buckley.
    Perhaps he will explain everything, and this University chest business will be over and done with before more time is wasted.’
    Michael assented and they walked in silence up the High Street, each wrapped in his own thoughts. Michael could not stop thinking about the face of the dead girl, while Bartholomew, more inured to violent death, was still angry that he was being dragged into the sordid world of University politics and intrigue.
    Towards King’s Hall the houses were larger than those near St Botolph’s, some with small walled gardens.
    Many homes had been abandoned after the plague,
    and the whitewash was dirty and grey. Others were well maintained, and had been given new coats of whitewash in honour of the Fair, some tinged with pigs’ blood or ochre to make them pleasing shades of pink, yellow, and orange. But all were in use now that the Fair had arrived.
    The street itself was hard-packed mud, dangerously pot-holed and rutted. Parallel drains ran down each side of it, intended to act as sewers to take waste from homes. By leaning out of the upper storeys of the houses, residents could throw their waste directly into the drains, but not everyone’s aim was accurate, and accidents were inevitable. Scholars especially needed to take care when walking past townspeople’s houses in the early mornings. On one side of the street, Bartholomew saw a group of ragged children prodding at a blockage with sticks, paddling barefoot in the filth. One splashed another, and screams of delight followed as the spray flew. The physician in him longed to tell them to play elsewhere; the pragmatist told him that they would find somewhere equally, if not more, unwholesome.
    King’s Hall was an elegant establishment that had been founded by Edward II more than thirty years before.
    The present King had continued the royal patronage, and it was now the largest of the Cambridge Colleges.
    The centre of King’s Hall was a substantial house with gardens that swept down to the river. Bartholomew and Michael asked for the Warden, who listened gravely to Michael’s news, and took them to Master Buckley’s room himself.
    ‘Many of the masters have a room to themselves now,’
    the Warden said as they walked. ‘Before the Death, we were cramped, but since that terrible pestilence claimed more than half our number, we rattle around in this draughty building. I suppose time will heal and we will have more scholars in due course. Master Kenyngham tells me that Michaelhouse has just been