The Cross Legged Knight (Owen Archer Book 8)

by Candace Robb

  ‘I understand that the new tenant in your townhouse has been a member for Kingston-upon-Hull. Wealthy?’

  Wykeham had been lifting his cup of wine. He took the time to drink before answering. ‘Not wealthy enough to buy a townhouse in York, or to build one.’ He placed the cup on the table and sat back, folding his hands. ‘Are you wondering whether he might be a donor for your lady chapel?’

  Thoresby deserved that. It had been a clumsy question. ‘As you have seen, there is still much to do.’

  ‘It will be a worthy monument to you and your predecessors,’ Wykeham said.

  ‘But I am also curious about Godwin Fitzbaldric,’ Thoresby said. ‘I know he must earn his standing in York, become bailiff and mayor at least before he has another chance at parliament.’

  ‘Why do I woo him, is that your question? Who are his friends? How influential is he? Can he help me regain the chancellorship?’

  Wykeham’s touchiness answered most of Thoresby’s questions. ‘I grow transparent in my old age.’

  ‘I needed a tenant, he and his wife found the space pleasing. That is all there is to know about Godwin Fitzbaldric.’

  Thoresby was relieved when the servants entered with the meat course and another flagon of wine. While they fussed with serving, Wykeham resumed his study of the fire, though now with cup in hand, sipping frequently. Thoresby let the meal continue quietly, his thoughts on Wykeham’s strained relations with Sir Ranulf’s family, how impatiently he awaited Lady Pagnell’s summons.

  As if reading his mind, Wykeham’s first words when the servants withdrew were, ‘I would be far wiser to befriend the Pagnells than the Fitzbaldrics. This property exchange – let us pray it softens the lady.’

  ‘You have gone forth with it?’

  ‘Alain delivered several deeds this morning. I trust one of them will be to her liking.’

  ‘I am glad you have done this.’

  Sir Ranulf, in keeping with his conceit of crusader, had borrowed money from a neighbour for some of the fittings he needed on his venture, signing a contract that if he died in France the land was forfeit, as a crusader would have agreed had he died in the Holy Land. The neighbour had legally, albeit greedily, exercised his right in seizing the land. Unfortunately, it was the piece of property on which Lady Pagnell had intended to build a small house in which to live as a widow. She did not care for her son Stephen’s wife and children, and wished to establish her own household. Thoresby had suggested that Wykeham offer Lady Pagnell a comparable piece of property that she might trade the neighbour for the land she desired.

  ‘You think much of the Pagnells,’ said Wykeham. ‘But tell me, did Sir Ranulf not bring much of this on himself, ignoring his age, pretending he was going off on crusade? The deeded property was unnecessary, that is evident from the quality of his tomb, the family’s chantry chapel – they are not lacking wealth. I have said it all along, his wits were blunted by time.’

  Thoresby was sensitive about this issue, having of late wondered whether his own mind grew dull. ‘The king chose Ranulf to spy on the French.’

  Wykeham shook his head. ‘I saw the correspondence. Sir Ranulf opened the discussion. He offered his services.’

  ‘To fight, not spy.’ Thoresby wondered whether the knight’s family had been aware of that. Emma had spoken as if her father had answered King Edward’s call and Thoresby had chosen not to correct her – it was true, in a sense.

  Wykeham watched Thoresby with lips pursed and a just perceptible nod. ‘Sir Ranulf had not mentioned spying in his offer, I grant you that. I think by your expression you had doubts about the wisdom of his undertaking the mission.’

  Thoresby had indeed been blunted by time if he was so easily read by Wykeham. ‘I thought it ill-advised.’

  ‘So, too, did his lady, if the gossip is true that she did not approve of the cross-legged knight carving for his tomb.’

  ‘Yes. But his daughter Emma understood. He was a pious man who wished, towards the end of his life, to devote himself to God. Lady Pagnell would not have him withdraw to a monastery, so he conceived of another way to dedicate his life, serving his king.’

  ‘Sir Ranulf chose a peculiar form of piety,’ Wykeham said.

  Coals shifted in the brazier, startling Thoresby from his reflection. It must be very late – he wondered whether Wykeham’s townhouse still smouldered.

  Owen sat for a while in bed beside Lucie, sipping his wine, but he was restless and worried that he would wake her. Slipping away to the kitchen, he found the patient alone, the door to the garden open. Poins lay still, breathing, but Owen knew from other such surgeries that for a few more days the man would balance between this world and the next. It would be a difficult time for the household. He had meant it when he said it was good of Lucie to take in the injured man, but he wondered what had possessed her to do such a thing when she was still weak, when the family was still worried for her. Surely she saw how frightened Hugh and Gwenllian had been by her illness, and now they must be kept from the kitchen or face a mutilated man with burns on his face, a gash in his head. And when in the morning he told Lucie the man might be a murderer, what might her reaction be? Two months ago he would have had no qualms, he would have known she would accept the news as God’s wish, that they shelter this man and not condemn him. But she was so changed.

  He wished Magda had waited to work on the arm until he had come home. Without the dwale, Poins might have been coherent enough to talk, if not tonight, surely in the morning. As it was, Owen must wait.

  Magda’s pack was on a pallet on the other side of the fire, but the covers had not been disturbed. She had set a pot to cool on a small table near Poins. Owen sniffed it – recoiled. It smelled like the tanners’ yard. Another bowl, covered with a cloth, smelled of rotten meat. Owen went out into the garden in search of Magda.

  Alfred whispered a greeting from his post beneath the eaves. Magda sat beyond him, on a bench that was being crowded out by rosemary, her head lifted to the starlit sky. How quiet the city was now, where just hours ago folk fought a conflagration that might have taken many homes as well as the bishop’s. Even the Fitzbaldrics were probably in bed by now. Owen wondered about the loved ones of the woman who lay in the shed on Petergate. Had they gone to bed knowing she was lost?

  ‘Thou art wakeful?’ Magda said, breaking the silence.

  Owen joined her, stretching out his legs, bending forward to ease his back. ‘I’m worried about Lucie, about Poins being here.’

  ‘Thy priests would say charity is ever right.’

  ‘You think not?’

  ‘Dost thou think Magda is a healer for her own amusement?’ The moonlight seemed to move along her multicoloured scarf and gown as she turned to him. ‘Dost thou mourn the loss of the babe?’

  ‘Why–?’ he stopped himself. Long ago he had learned not to answer Magda’s questions with questions, or she withdrew. And tonight he needed her wisdom. ‘I do mourn.’

  ‘Dost thou blame thyself?’

  ‘I was not in the shop when Lucie fell.’

  ‘Magda did not ask thee where thou wast.’

  He felt a tingling in the scar beneath his eyepatch. Without being aware of forming the thought, he said, ‘I should have been there.’

  Magda grunted. ‘Why? Dost thou no longer trust Lucie to go about her work?’

  ‘I should have arranged the shelves. She was with child, awkward …’

  Magda was shaking her head slowly. ‘Heal thyself and Lucie will heal.’ She shifted on the seat, looking down at her hands. ‘She is strong, thy Lucie.’

  ‘Every bow has a breaking point. This loss – it took her back to Martin’s death.’

  ‘But the bow did not break, eh?’

  They sat quietly listening to the wind sighing through the trees, dancing through the leaves already fallen.

  ‘Quiet thy mind and leave the women’s work to the women. Thou hast much trouble ahead of thee.’

  ‘What do you know?’


  ‘Know? Less than thou dost, but Magda senses an ill wind. Is she right?’

  ‘Aye.’ He told her how the woman had been killed.

  ‘Is this why thou art questioning thy wife’s charity?’

  ‘How will I tell her?’

  ‘Open thy mouth and speak. Thou canst not hide this from her. Describe to Magda how this poor creature looks.’

  Owen did so, surprised by how painful it was to recall his time in the shed.

  Magda let the night sounds settle about them before commenting, but Owen sensed her energy, knew she was thinking, not dozing.

  ‘Her burns sound far worse than his,’ she said at last. ‘So he came later.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  Magda stood stiffly. ‘Come, Poins must be cared for so that he might tell the true tale.’ She headed towards the kitchen, her gown flowing behind her.

  Owen rose to follow. ‘I’ll sit with Poins for a while.’

  Magda did not respond, but moved on through the kitchen door.

  ‘A canny crone,’ Alfred said as Owen reached the door. ‘Only a fool would attack a house when she was within.’

  ‘Then let us hope there are no fools in the city tonight.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Five

  THE RUINED GIRDLE

  In the kitchen, Magda bent over the sleeping man, her ear close to his mouth, then straightened, shaking her head. ‘The rhythm of his breath is not right.’ She handed Owen a cloth, gestured towards a bowl sitting near Poins. ‘Rub salt and vinegar on his temples while Magda attends to his burns.’ She took the bowl with the noxious concoction over to the fire to warm it.

  Owen eased down on the stool beside the injured man’s pallet, found it too low, sat instead on the edge of the straw-stuffed mattress, reached for the bowl. As he leaned close to the patient the smell of singed flesh conjured flashes of battlefields slippery with blood, men groaning, begging him to help them die. He crossed himself at the memories and then pushed them back before they sickened him. He wet the man’s temples, glad of the clean odour of vinegar. In a short while the man’s belly rumbled. The purge that was incorporated in the dwale was at last working, the poison leaving his body. When the sounds ceased, Owen lifted Poins’s legs and pulled the waiting cloth from beneath him.

  ‘It is good that he fouled himself,’ said Magda.

  Owen took the cloth out to the midden at the end of the garden, noting as he passed the corner of the house that Alfred was not at his post. Owen held his breath, listening. Gravel crunched near the roses, against the back wall of the garden. The night was still clear, with enough moonlight to outline shapes. The fruit trees shivered in the light wind, something skittered beneath the hellebore leaves, but other than that all was still, and he picked out no unexpected silhouettes.

  With a sudden rush of noisy movement, a shape emerged from his left, blocking the path.

  ‘Who goes there?’ Alfred demanded in a loud, resonant voice.

  ‘Your captain,’ said Owen, stepping into the light. ‘What were you doing back there?’

  ‘I thought I saw someone. Creeping along, staying low, as you were just now. But I can find no trace. If someone was here, he escaped over the wall.’

  At four feet high, that would not be difficult for an agile person.

  ‘I fear you were right that we should watch,’ said Alfred.

  He deserved to know just how dangerous this was. ‘Someone murdered that woman in the undercroft tonight. If the man in my kitchen is not the murderer, it might be the intruder you just frightened off.’ Or there might have been nothing in the garden but Alfred’s imagination. Owen must remember that.

  ‘I guessed her death was no accident when you set us up to guard, Captain. You are not an idle worrier.’

  ‘I intend to move him on the morrow’ – as soon as Owen told Lucie what they were dealing with. He hoped she would agree with him. ‘I commend you for your quick response.’

  ‘Get some rest, Captain. I’ll be watching.’

  When Owen returned to the kitchen, Magda had removed the cap that had held her grizzled braids from her neck and was pinning them high on her head.

  ‘Trouble?’ she asked.

  ‘Alfred fears we had an uninvited guest.’

  ‘It is good thou hadst the foresight to set a watch. Help Magda shift Poins on to his stomach.’ She tucked the light cover around the injured man, took her position at his feet.

  Her lack of concern regarding a possible intruder calmed Owen. He bent to slip his hands beneath the man’s chest, smelling the noxious lotion Magda had spread on the right side of his face. Poins shuddered with pain, cried out at the movement beneath his shoulders and the rasp of the rough cloth against his burns as they lifted and rolled him on to his stomach, the cover now beneath him. Here were the worst of the burns, on his upper back, the back of his head, his buttocks. Some of the flesh was blistered, some of it burned more severely.

  Magda began tucking folded cloths and cushions beneath Poins to ease the strain on his neck and allow him to breathe freely. Though her skin was a web of wrinkles, she was yet a strong woman, manipulating the man as if he were but a child.

  ‘Bring Magda the ointment she was stirring.’

  ‘It smells as if you mean to tan him.’

  ‘Magda must cleanse the wounds, prepare the flesh for healing. Adderwort, oak bark, lady’s mantle …’

  ‘… and urine.’

  ‘Dost thou suddenly have a weak stomach?’

  ‘No. We used it in the camps. But it is not a pleasant odour in the kitchen.’

  ‘Thou shouldst move him above the shop, keep him and the guards from thy children.’

  ‘I mean to move him at least that far.’

  The oil lamp was flickering, about to go out, when Poins groaned and blinked rapidly.

  Owen spoke his name.

  Poins struck out with his remaining arm, knocking aside the bowl Owen had left beside him.

  Owen caught his arm, held it down. ‘You are safe, Poins.’

  The injured man opened his eyes, staring wildly. He opened his mouth, but had little voice. Twisting away from Owen, he arched, trying to roll on to his back.

  ‘You do not want to do that,’ Owen said, holding fast.

  Magda appeared at Owen’s side. ‘There is sometimes this wildness after the dwale leaves the body. Magda is grateful thou wert wakeful.’

  Poins began to breathe shallowly. ‘I am burning,’ he moaned. His face contorted. ‘My arm.’

  ‘Thou art saved,’ Magda said. ‘Sleep now. Thou hast much healing to do.’

  His breathing slowed.

  Magda turned to Owen. ‘Take thee up to thy bed. Thou hast returned him to the living. For now.’

  Lucie lay in the darkness just before dawn. Owen had come to bed only moments ago and had fallen asleep at once. She listened to his deep, steady breathing, such a counterpoint to her own pounding heart. She fought against rising and going to see the children. Too often of late she had done so, only to wake them and spread her fear. They sensed a tension in her, that she was not the same, and she could see it frightened them. Even if they had been old enough for her to explain to them that she had lost a child, a half-formed soul, and now she woke each night terrified that God had taken another, she had no right to give them such a dark gift, rob them of all joy. They were too young to learn that life did not go on for ever. There was time enough for them to learn of death.

  She would go down to the hall and watch the dawn in the garden, but Magda was in the kitchen. She felt she had told Magda too much already.

  A cock crowed, a sound that both heartened and saddened Lucie, the end of the long night, another day in which her steps faltered, her attention wandered. People noticed her strangeness. Her friend Emma Ferriby had yesterday come for a draught to induce a dreamless sleep. Lucie had noted at Sir Ranulf’s requiem how her friend had stood with her gloved hands clasped tightly against her middle, her lips pinched, her back
too stiff, fighting the anger and grief that warred in her.

  ‘You are unwell?’ Lucie had asked.

  ‘I cannot sleep – no, that is not true. I fear sleep. I am plagued by bad dreams.’

  Lucie had searched her friend’s eyes for a desperation mirroring her own, but had seen only sorrow and exhaustion. ‘I can give you something to help you sleep, but I cannot promise it will be dreamless.’ She had taken Emma’s hands. ‘You must swear to me you will take only as much as I tell you.’

  How strange she must have sounded. Emma had tried to laugh, but it came out an uneasy sound. ‘Sweet heaven, of course. I fear the night, I fear the dreams and it is all the worse for knowing nothing can be done, nothing. But I would not harm myself.’ She had withdrawn her hands from Lucie’s. ‘I swear it.’

  ‘I did not think you would,’ Lucie said. ‘I shall mix something for you. But it is a potent sleep draft. Too much will make you senseless.’

  ‘You are looking pale. Should you be in the shop?’

  Lucie turned over in bed, dispelling the memory. The shop was precisely where she needed to be, mixing what she had promised Emma. The accounts and then the fire had distracted her from the task. But first she would check on the injured servant. She would tell Magda that is what had wakened her at dawn, concern for the man who lay so near death in her kitchen.

  Owen reached out for her in his sleep. Lucie kissed his forehead. Strange how she could distinguish the smell of the smoke in his hair as something foreign, not from their own hearth fire. She reached out to trace the lines that had lately deepened on his forehead, but stopped herself, not wanting to wake him. She wished she had been able to stay awake last night, alert enough to ask what he was keeping from her. He had learned something troubling, she could see that in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Now she might need to wait until the end of the day to learn what it was, when they were alone again. But he must sleep. Gently she slipped out of his grasp, rose to dress herself.

  She opened a shutter wide enough to see the dawn. A soft rain had begun to fall, but to the east the sky was bright. She used the light to examine the clothing Owen had worn the previous night. Sometimes it helped to do ordinary things. He had worn his own clothes, not the livery of the archbishop. The simple russet tunic was singed and grimy with water and ash, the leggings past saving, she feared. His boots had been soaked, but they could be worked back into good condition. She lifted them to the chest, catching his belt with them. The scrip that hung from the belt slipped along the leather and she caught it as it was about to fall. She wondered at its heft as she set it down beside his boots and turned to leave. But curiosity pulled her back. She drew the leather flap out of the long loop that held it and gently shook the scrip to free the contents, not too far, just a glimpse. A leather band set with large glass beads slipped out. Lucie caught her breath.