by Candace Robb
‘I should perhaps question Brother Michaelo,’ Thoresby said. His secretary had accompanied Owen to Wales, though he had returned to York before Owen was delayed in St David’s.
It was plain Owen must humble himself, not give Thoresby cause to probe. ‘I’ll speak to my men, Your Grace, impress upon them the importance of the bishop’s safety.’
Thoresby lowered himself down into his cushioned chair. ‘Good.’ He pushed the crumbled stone aside. ‘How is your wife?’
‘She has regained much of her strength, Your Grace.’
‘I keep her and all your family in my prayers,’ Thoresby said in a quiet voice that held no threats.
Crouching atop the masons’ scaffolding, Owen Archer looked down on the pile of stones and tiles stacked in the south yard of York Minster, more than thrice a man’s height. He was looking for signs that someone had climbed the mound and waited for the Bishop of Winchester to walk past two days earlier. But it was no good – Owen needed to get closer. Holding on to the scaffolding with one hand, he stepped down on to the pile and balanced there, testing its stability. A few tiles moved, but he was able to find a reasonably firm footing. Slowly shifting his weight, he lowered himself into a crouch on the stones and tiles.
‘I cannot see you now, Captain,’ shouted Luke, a mason who stood below.
So someone could have hidden up here, out of sight of the bishop as he walked by.
‘Now back up towards the south transept,’ Owen shouted.
Shortly, Luke came into view. ‘I see you now.’
On hands and knees, Owen pressed lower.
‘Gone now.’ The mason laughed self-consciously.
Grabbing a tile, Owen crawled forward with an uneven motion. ‘Now walk towards the chapel again,’ he called.
The mason soon reappeared, and Owen rose a little and tossed the tile, then flattened again. He felt the pile shift beneath him, but kept his head down.
‘Just missed, Captain, and I do not think I would have seen you if I had not known to look.’
Owen sniffed, rolled over onto his side, eased up on his knees. Unless his sense of smell had weakened with his easy life, it was human urine he smelled. A long watch challenged a man’s bladder. Someone might have lain in wait here, though they would have risked being seen. As Owen crawled back towards the scaffolding he was visible to several of the masons at work on the chapel. Surely they would have noted an intruder in such an unusual place. They claimed they had been working on a different wall that day, further down, but the supposed attacker could not have foreseen that. Most baffling was the question of how the person had hoped to predict precisely when Wykeham would wander towards the masons. With his well-known passion for building it was inevitable the bishop would frequent the site while he was staying at the archbishop’s palace next door, but someone would have needed to lurk on the stack indefinitely. Owen thought it unlikely.
‘I am coming down,’ he called.
Once more on the scaffolding he had a view of the city, the Ouse Valley, the Forest of Galtres. He looked away and climbed down. In his youth such heights had not bothered Owen, but since losing the sight in his left eye he did not trust his judgement of just where the edge lay, doubting what he thought he saw.
Some placed the blame for the accident at the feet of Sir Ranulf’s family. Owen could not believe they were involved. Proud they were, and angry about what had befallen Sir Ranulf, but surely they would not stoop to such depths to seek vengeance. Wykeham himself suspected John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. With the king in his dotage and Prince Edward an invalid, the king’s second living son was eager to establish his power, and weaning the king from Wykeham was rumoured to be a high priority. But Owen could not imagine the duke behind such an act, either. In fact, he thought the incident had probably been an accident, with no one but a careless worker to blame for it.
Luke was waiting at the foot of the scaffolding. ‘I heard you moving around up there. But I do not suppose the bishop would have made note of such noises. He would have thought it was one of us.’
‘You stand by your statement that you saw no one lurking about?’
Luke stiffened. ‘Why should I lie, Captain?’
‘Why indeed.’ Owen silently noted that the mason had answered a question with a question.
Luke reached up – Owen was taller than most men – and touched the beard that followed Owen’s jaw line. ‘Your hair’s so dark, the stone dust shows. It’s on your curly pate as well.’
Brushing dust from his hair, Owen thanked the mason for his assistance and headed for the minster gate. He suspected the mason was holding something back, perhaps the clumsiness of a fellow worker, but Owen had wasted enough of this fine day. There was much to do in the apothecary garden before the first frost, and he did not want Lucie to grow impatient and see to it herself. She was still weak. Bending still sometimes made her dizzy.
Just before Lammas day Lucie had fallen from a stool while replacing a large jar on a shelf in her apothecary. The jar had badly bruised her left hand and cut her arm as it shattered. But far worse, she had lost the child who would have been born a few months hence. She had bled much during and after the accident, particularly when she lost the child, and her strength had been slow in returning despite Magda Digby’s tisanes of watercress, nettle and beetroot, and her Aunt Phillippa’s additional concoctions of eggs and cabbage. The physicks could not restore her spirit.
For days Lucie lay in bed whispering prayers of contrition. Cisotta, the young midwife who had attended Lucie in those first days, had assured Owen that women often behaved so after losing a child, some even after having a healthy baby. But when Magda Digby had returned from a birthing in the country and took over Lucie’s care, Owen could see her concern.
Long after they had closed the account books, Lucie and Owen lingered at the table in the hall in the pool of lamplight. Jasper, Lucie’s apprentice and their adopted son, had gone to see a friend, and Phillippa and the children were in bed. Such a quiet moment seemed rare to Owen these days. Lucie did not seem to welcome idleness, but sought activity until she dropped on to the bed, exhausted. He knew she did not wish to think of the child they had lost. Even now her hands were not idle, she was tying mint sprigs together, her long, slender fingers moving quickly. The ghost of a smile touched her lips, in fact, her pretty face was alight with a calm contentment. She loved her garden almost as much as her first husband had, found in working with the plants a peace much as Owen’s mother had so long ago in Wales. He wished Lucie might have known his mother – they had much in common, a gift for healing, for knowing the right combination of herbs and roots for a person’s ailments. His mother would have liked the level regard with which Lucie viewed the world – though of late there was a darkness in her gaze.
Tonight Owen noted deep blue shadows beneath her eyes. ‘You should have left the mint harvest to me,’ he said.
‘I took joy in it.’ She lifted one of the sprigs, held it close so he could smell it. ‘A few more days and it would be too late. Perhaps if Wykeham forgets about his mishap the other day you can help me with some of the other autumn chores.’
‘I am afraid he means to keep me occupied.’
‘I am sorry for that.’ As Lucie reached for another clump of mint she winced, withdrew her hand and pressed the other to her shoulder.
‘It is painful?’
‘It aches, yes, but lying abed will not mend it.’ She shook her head at him. ‘And your worry weakens me.’ She had made this argument before. ‘You think – she fell once, she shall fall again. You think the accident has changed me for ever.’
He did not know how to answer this. It was true and not true. He knew now that it could happen. ‘I meant nothing but that I had promised to harvest the mint. Guarding the Bishop of Winchester put it out of my mind. He wishes to ride to his former parish of Laughton. He means to rebuild the church.’
‘Where is that?’
‘At the south end of the shire
. Near Sheffield.’ Several days’ ride, he guessed.
‘He wishes to go soon?’
‘Aye. He had thought to leave it until his business with the Pagnells was concluded. But Lady Pagnell refuses to see him yet. The journey would fill the time.’
‘Poor Emma. Her mother’s presence is making everyone in her household ill at ease.’
‘She is a difficult woman?’ He had met Lady Pagnell only at formal events.
‘Yes, both she and her steward are intrusive guests. Emma came today, asking for a sleep potion for herself. I shall make up something to soothe her – Jasper!’
Their fourteen-year-old adopted son had come rushing in, panting and flushed from a good run, skidding to a halt by the table. Lucie steadied the pile of books as he dropped his hands on to the table, leaning, catching his breath. He raked his pale hair back from his face with an impatient gesture. ‘There is a fire in Petergate. The house of the Bishop of Winchester.’
‘God have mercy.’ Owen got to his feet. So did Lucie. He leaned across the table, took her hand. ‘Stay within, eh? One of us heading into danger is enough.’
She shook her head. ‘I can help those who breathe too much smoke. Passing round a soothing drink is not dangerous.’
He did not like it, but he saw she was determined. ‘Aye, you are right.’ He grabbed a cloth from a basket of laundry by the door to the kitchen, thinking he might need something to protect his nose and mouth from smoke, then headed for the door.
Jasper was right behind him with a bucket.
Two
A FIRE IN
PETERGATE
Smoke already masked the October smells when Owen stepped out into St Helen’s Square. Shouts drifted down from the scene. Owen looked up, expecting to see the glow of fire in the sky above Petergate. But the sky was a deep blue, the stars silvery white. Perhaps God was with them and the fire had been caught early. People ran past him. By the time Owen reached the top of Stonegate several chains of folk stretched along Petergate passing buckets of water from the nearest wells. A boy clutching an empty bucket emerged from the smoke near the burning house and headed down one of the lines. Another followed close behind.
Owen stopped him. ‘Where is the fire? I see no flames.’
‘The fire is down below, in the undercroft, Captain. They pulled out a servant – his clothes ablaze. They doused him with water and rolled him in the dirt. The other is dead, they say. A maidservant.’
Owen let him go, hurried on. The street was already slippery with spilled water. As he moved closer, the vision in his one good eye blurred with the smoke that belched from the undercroft doorway. The walls of the undercroft were stone and the roof tile, but the support posts and the storey above were of timber. Near the door stood Godwin Fitzbaldric, the bishop’s new tenant, here in York only a few months. He was calling out orders, hurrying the bucket wielders along. His face was streaked with soot, his shirt torn. He was a tall man, leaning towards fleshiness, almost bald but for a dusting of dull red hair running from temple to temple across the back of his head.
‘Is everyone out of the house?’ Owen asked him.
Fitzbaldric drew an arm across his broad brow. His wide sleeve was heavy with water and torn, the tight sleeve of the shift beneath soiled. ‘They pulled two of my servants from the undercroft. They were alone in the house.’
‘You were not at home when it began?’
‘No. We dined at a neighbour’s.’
‘Did you ask the injured servant whether any others were in the house?’
‘He is past speaking.’
‘Not dead?’
‘Not yet, but how he can survive with such burns –’
‘Has anyone searched the upper storey?’
Fitzbaldric shook his head. ‘They were …’
Owen did not wait to hear the man’s repeated assurance. Anyone in a crowded city knew to search a house on fire. Servants had friends, neighbours might be visiting. Having moved from a village near Hull a few months ago, perhaps Fitzbaldric did not understand that – fires were a regular occurrence here. Owen pushed past the human chain passing buckets, dipping the cloth he carried into one of the pails of water. Tying the wet cloth over his nose and mouth, he mounted the stairs, which were shielded so far from the flames by the stone wall of the undercroft, pushed open the door and shouted, ‘Is anyone here?’ Stepping within, he found the crackle of fire and the shouts of the people muted. His voice echoed loud in the hall as he called again. Smoke seeped up through the floorboards, a flame licked over in the front corner. Two lamps were alight on the trestle table, and a lantern on a wall sconce. Already their flames were blurred behind the smoke in the air.
Something clattered up in the solar at the far end of the hall. As he rushed towards the steps his eye watered from the smoke coming up from below. ‘Come down! The undercroft is ablaze!’
A foot appeared on the steps, then a second. So much for Fitzbaldric’s stubborn certainty. It was a woman, her skirts hitched up to descend. She moved slowly, looking about her as if confused. Her cap was askew, her dark hair tumbling down her back.
‘Poins?’ The woman’s voice trembled.
‘Hurry. This is too much smoke for anyone to breathe.’
Seeming only now to focus on him, she crouched down on the steps and reached towards his outstretched arms as if she thought to take his hand, but she was now so unbalanced that she lost her footing and slipped down the last few steps, landing in Owen’s arms. She had fainted.
He pulled her away from the steps, crouched, lifted her up and hoisted her over his shoulder as he rose. His back would wreak vengeance for that on the morrow. Pray God he lived to suffer it. He blinked against the smoke, took a step forward, checked himself. The smoke was obscuring his vision. He cursed the Frenchwoman who had cost him the sight in his left eye. Trying to establish the angle at which he had approached the steps to the solar, he prayed he was headed in the right direction. The cloth over his mouth and nose had dried in the heat. The smoke burned deep in his chest. He felt from the vibration of the floorboards someone striding towards him.
Alfred, his second in command, materialized. ‘This way, Captain.’
Out on the porch Owen crouched down and slid the woman from his shoulder. He did not trust himself to bear his own weight and hers down the stairs, not with his lungs on fire. He ripped the cloth from his face and gasped the cool air.
Alfred took up the woman. ‘Mistress Wilton awaits you below, Captain. She has been passing round a syrup for our raw throats.’
Fitzbaldric met them halfway up the steps. He lifted the woman’s head. ‘But this is May, my maidservant. I thought … What was she doing up there?’
Owen wiped his face. ‘Sleeping, from the look of her. Turn round, the steps will catch any time.’ Alfred had already continued down, keeping well to the outside edge. Nearer the house, the steps were catching sparks from the upper storey.
Fitzbaldric turned, shouted, ‘Wet the steps!’
One of the human chains shifted direction.
Lucie awaited Owen on the ground, standing still in the roiling sea of people, too close to the fire for his liking. When he reached her, she embraced him, hugging him tightly, then stepped back, plucked off his cap, ran her fingers through his hair, took up his hands and examined them. ‘Thank God you are unharmed.’
‘I did nothing foolhardy.’ He gladly accepted the flask she offered. ‘Did you see where Godwin Fitzbaldric headed?’
‘Across the way. Come.’ Lucie guided him through the crowd passing buckets, shouting, away from the house, the smoke, the sound of cracking timbers.
The Fitzbaldrics stood beneath the overhang across the way, watching Alfred. With the maid in his arms, he was following Robert Dale and his wife Julia to their house at the corner of Stonegate and Petergate.
Lucie had paused in a pool of torchlight set in the wall of one of the houses opposite the bishop’s, far enough from the Fitzbaldrics that they would not be abl
e to hear her. ‘The Dales hosted a banquet to introduce the Fitzbaldrics to some of their acquaintances this evening,’ she said. ‘Now they have offered the couple a bed for as long as they need, as well as the maid and cook.’
‘You have spoken to them?’
‘A little.’
‘What of the injured manservant?’
Lucie did not answer at once. She watched not Owen but the mass of people working on the fire.
Owen touched her arm. ‘Lucie?’ He had come to dread her silences.
She pressed his hand, a gesture she had made seldom of late. ‘They might yet save the upper floors. Listen. It is quieter now.’
It was difficult for him to block out the sound of the people, but gradually he was able to hear what she did – the fire hissed rather than roared. Yet he remembered the burning corner in the hall. ‘I do not think we can hope for that.’
Still facing the burning house, she said, ‘I told them to take the manservant to our home.’
He had forgotten his question and did not at first grasp what she was saying.
Lucie turned to him. ‘Owen?’
Her meaning dawned on him. ‘We cannot care for him. You are yet weak –’
‘It is done. He is on his way and Magda Digby with him.’
In the torchlight Owen could see the set of Lucie’s jaw, the challenge in her eyes, and against all reason he was glad of it, for he had not seen that spirit in her for a month. ‘So be it.’
She pressed his arm. ‘Come home?’
‘Not yet. I want to see the dead woman.’ He shook his head at her. ‘Why would you do this? You do not know these people.’