The Cross Legged Knight (Owen Archer Book 8)

by Candace Robb

  ‘Mistress Wilton. I have come to help Eudo ready the children for the funeral.’

  ‘The captain will have my hide for sleeping,’ the young man said.

  Lucie did not know him. ‘I, too, should find it difficult to stay awake in a dark alley. Perhaps you would fare better standing where you were posted, out in Patrick Pool.’

  ‘Aye, mistress,’ he mumbled, lowering his gaze to the ground.

  It was not her habit to reprimand Owen’s men, but her abandonment yesterday still rankled. Ignoring the young man’s exclamation as he stepped out into the windy street, Lucie hurried on down the alleyway, the sound of her footsteps echoing between the two buildings. The quiet unnerved her. She was glad to hear a child’s petulant wail as she stepped into the kitchen yard, a sound of normality.

  Eudo and a guard had their eyes trained on the alley as Lucie appeared.

  The guard sheathed his knife. ‘Mistress Wilton,’ he said, bobbing his head.

  ‘Good-day to you, Mistress Wilton,’ said Eudo. He had shaved and combed his thinning hair, and wore his best tunic and leggings. A pair of boots with no creases or scuffs in the polished leather were either new or had been oiled for the occasion.

  The guard nodded to her.

  ‘I have come to help with the children,’ Lucie explained.

  ‘Goodwife Claire is helping Anna,’ Eudo growled. ‘Not a moment to ourselves, folk inside, outside.’

  It was no mystery why the tawyer had trouble finding support in the guild with such outbursts when offered help.

  But it was the guard who said so. ‘You should be grateful that neighbours are coming to your aid, Master Tawyer. They might have shunned you after your folly yesterday.’

  ‘Are you my protector or my warden?’ Eudo demanded.

  The guard shrugged and turned away.

  ‘Come within, Mistress Wilton, I meant nothing by my complaint,’ said Eudo. ‘I can hear Anna and the goodwife struggling with the lads.’

  What Lucie heard most keenly was Anna’s cough. She stepped inside, pausing to adjust to the dimness, then crouched to catch the youngest who was careening towards her, one leg kneeling in a low, wobbly wheeled cart, the other pushing alongside. He saw her at the last moment and tried to brake, but the rushes slipped beneath his bare foot. The impact almost knocked Lucie backwards. She lifted him by his skinny shoulders and set him on his feet. He felt feverish and his breath indicated a sick stomach.

  ‘Will!’ The shout came from a woman who held tight to a naked boy squirming to escape. Lucie thought it was Henry, though he and Ned looked much alike. ‘Oh, Mistress Wilton, I am sorry.’

  Anna had run to grab little Will. ‘Bad boy, you almost knocked Mistress Wilton over.’

  The boy screwed up his face and stuck a fist in his mouth.

  ‘He did not hurt me,’ Lucie assured Anna and the goodwife. She bent to hug the girl. ‘I am sorry about your mother.’ It was not the thing one might say to most children, but Anna was a grave girl, old before her time. Still, Lucie was glad the din of the other boys hid the tremor in her voice.

  ‘I keep hoping it was a mistake, it wasn’t Ma in the fire, she’s just away at a birthing, maybe outside the city.’ Anna smoothed her brother’s hair. ‘He’s in a temper,’ she said. ‘Because of his fever he is going to Goodwife Claire’s for the day.’

  ‘But the rest of you are going to St Sampson’s?’

  Anna nodded. ‘Pa is not pleased. He says we’ll embarrass him.’

  No more than he does himself. ‘What can I do to help?’

  ‘Would you fuss over Will while Mistress Claire and I dress Henry and Ned? Pa just shouts at Will and makes him worse.’

  Lucie tested the boy’s weight, judged him light enough for her to carry – he was much smaller than Hugh, who was about his age. ‘Go on, see to the others.’

  Will held himself stiff in her arms, watching her with an uneasiness that could quickly turn to tears. She walked over to the dresser with him, where a lamp glowed warmly, and searched for something to entertain him. The shelves were full of Cisotta’s jars and bottles, but it was a thin string that she chose. Setting him down while she drew a stool over, she then lifted him up to sit astride it and sat facing him, knotting the string and stretching it between her hands. ‘Do you know any string games, Will?’

  Still with one fist in his mouth, he shook his head.

  Though he mastered none of the games it wasn’t for lack of trying.

  Soon Mistress Claire came to scoop him up. ‘Anna is dressing. I shall take little Will next door. Come, Will,’ she cooed.

  The boy shoved his fist into his mouth once more.

  Lucie tidied the dresser while she waited for Anna. The jars and bottles lined up on the main shelf had no markings on them; though she had known Cisotta could not read, she had expected some symbols or marks. Opening them at random, she found rosemary, a powder mixture with valerian root as the strongest scent, rue, a jar of feathers, a bottle of lavender oil, a jar with a small amount of blood at the bottom, a tray of stones. She moved on to the other items on the dresser. A scale was tucked on a higher shelf, along with small rolls of cloth tied with laces and strings. Lucie did not fuss with them. A dozen or more small boards tied together caught her eye. Untying them, she found pressed flowers, hairs, what looked like fingernails. She pressed them back together and tied them, wanting no part of Cisotta’s charms. The boards would not slide back where she had found them. Pulling the bench over, she climbed up to inspect the obstruction. Tucked at the back of the shelf was a delicate pair of gloves, made of butter-soft leather. Stepping down from the stool, Lucie held the gloves towards the lamplight. Tooled leather, with jet beads on the outer wrist of each and, tracing some of the tooling, they seemed too fine for Cisotta.

  ‘I should give them to Papa, I guess.’

  Lucie started. ‘These are your father’s work?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘Ma said they were a surprise for Papa, a pattern he could copy.’ Her eyes were on the gloves.

  ‘Was she saving them to give him for a special day?’

  ‘Nay. Just until she had the hides to give him, so he could make a few pairs using these for a pattern. I thought that was where she was going that night, for the hides.’

  Lucie turned the gloves over and back. ‘They are very fine, Anna. Where did your mother get them?’

  ‘As payment, I suppose.’

  ‘From whom?’

  Anna did not know. ‘She showed them to me a few days ago.’

  ‘When, Anna?’

  ‘I think it was the afternoon we found the stranger waiting out in the kitchen yard.’

  ‘Was he a stranger to your mother?’

  ‘Anna!’ Eudo shouted from the doorway. ‘If you must come, come now.’

  ‘Henry! Ned!’ Anna called.

  The boys hurried up to take her hands, squirming in their good tunics, their hair slick from an unaccustomed combing. They would be handsome lads, when the terror in their eyes faded.

  A sharp wind whipped down the narrow, shaded streets, irritating Anna’s cough. Through the maze of signposts and overhanging storeys Lucie glimpsed high, thin clouds scudding across a blue sky. The city streets were not so crowded today, it not being a market day, and most of those passing along were too busy holding on to their hats and manoeuvring with billowing clothing to gossip, though they did notice Cisotta’s family, especially when the boys grew bold and veered away, returning only after much shouting by their father. But all the party hushed as they approached the door of St Sampson’s. Anna used both hands to muffle her relentless cough. Bowing their heads, they entered the candlelit nave, standing still for a few moments to become accustomed to the gloom.

  There were a dozen lay people standing about, a few others kneeling in chantry chapels in the north aisle. Two couples approached Eudo, both women with arms outstretched, weeping. He moved away from their embraces while introducing them to Lucie as Cisotta’s sister and her husband
from Easingwold and his own cousin with her husband who lived in York. Once Cisotta’s sister began to speak, Lucie saw the resemblance. Though stouter and a good five years older than her sister, the woman had her liveliness, her musical voice.

  Eudo’s cousin looked nothing like him, sweet-faced and petite. She knelt to the children and hugged them one at a time, then scolded her cousin for bringing them. ‘It is too much for them, can you not see?’

  ‘It is all too much for all of us,’ Eudo mumbled. ‘They begged to come.’ He nodded to his sister-in-law. ‘Where is Mistress Agnes?’

  ‘Our poor mother cannot eat or sleep for grief. I did not think it wise for her to risk the journey.’

  ‘If she had wished to come she would have found a way.’

  ‘You would not have wished her here,’ she said, stepping closer so as not to be overheard by the folk milling past them.

  Eudo’s response was lost in the noise of others who wished to express their condolences.

  Lucie gathered the children and took them up close to the front of the worshippers. As the mass began, Eudo joined them.

  Anna handed Lucie the embroidered cushion she had brought with her. Lucie shook her head, thinking Anna’s knees were far bonier than her own. But the girl insisted. ‘I always carried it for Ma,’ she whispered.

  Lucie accepted, but in return she gathered the boys, one on either side of her, to give Anna and her father some peace during the mass. As it proceeded, Eudo fought a fierce battle with his emotions. Anna slipped her hand in his but he shook it off and lifted it to shade his eyes, even though the interior of the church was but dimly lit. What had Lucie been thinking, to fear Eudo so when he came to the house? He would not have harmed her or the children.

  By the time Owen arrived at the church the Eucharist was past, the mass nearing an end. There was not such a crowd as to hide the mourners at the front. Eudo’s hunched shoulders reminded Owen of how lost he had felt when he feared Lucie was dying. The pain had been physical, a tearing through the centre of his being, as if his heart were being ripped from him. It frightened him to think of it, more than the memory of any battle, for he had glimpsed the void that would open up and swallow him if Lucie died before him. His children had been a comfort, but they could not replace their mother.

  Realizing he was staring at Eudo, Owen turned his head. Near the centre of the small crowd of mourners stood Alain, Wykeham’s clerk. Approaching him, Owen caught sight of Lucie kneeling with Cisotta’s boys on either side. Anna’s slight figure stood woodenly between the trio and her father, her head lifted towards the ceiling of the church, tears glistening on her cheeks. Owen wondered at Lucie’s involvement with Cisotta’s family.

  ‘You are here representing the bishop?’ he asked Alain.

  ‘Bishop William wishes to know the temper of the people.’

  ‘He expects something other than sorrow at a funeral?’

  ‘He is concerned that the people might blame him for the tragedy.’

  ‘Why should he worry? He is surrounded by guards.’

  ‘He is afraid of much these days, Captain Archer.’

  As the priest intoned the final blessing, the wind moaned without and from the open church doors a draft sent the candles around the nave flickering, the guild banners snapping. As the worshippers crossed themselves and bowed their heads, the stained glass rattled and the sacristy door slammed shut. Heads turned and a murmur passed among the people. Perhaps it was because the coffin bearers had lifted their burden and begun the procession to the churchyard, but Owen sensed a shift in the mood of the mourners, as if the wind had brought to mind the gossip about the woman whose body was being borne past them.

  At the edge of the churchyard a group of women held their skirts and veils, watching the procession. They had not been in the church, and one of them Owen recognized as a midwife. Suspecting trouble brewing, he approached them, but at the same moment George Hempe entered the yard and nodded to the women, who bobbed their heads briskly and dispersed.

  Lucie had noticed Owen at the edge of the mourners as she had turned to follow the coffin from the church. Now she started as he reached for her hand. When the priest had withdrawn and Eudo knelt with his children beside the grave, Lucie and Owen moved away from the mourners. Owen had just begun to tell her something about midwives watching from the market place when Henry and Ned ran past, with Anna in pursuit. Lucie abandoned Owen for the chase, cursing the need, for she had seen such concern in her husband’s eyes that it had frightened her.

  ‘Here, lads. What will your mother think if she is gazing down upon you from heaven?’ Hempe crouched by the boys, each hand firmly gripping the shoulder of a tunic.

  Henry tilted his head back and searched the clouds with frightened eyes. Ned held his hands out to Anna, who backed away, then ran to Lucie.

  Perhaps it was the bailiff’s presence that worried Owen, as Hempe clearly frightened the children. ‘You have nothing to fear from the bailiff,’ Lucie assured them.

  ‘Here now,’ Eudo called out, brushing off the knees of his leggings. ‘They are good lads, there is no need to frighten them.’

  Hempe let go of the boys, looking bemused as Eudo’s extended family joined them, his cousin and Cisotta’s sister scooping up the boys, who looked cowed and on the verge of tears. ‘I merely thought it would be best that they quieted down and did not run from the churchyard.’

  ‘It was kind of you to help,’ said Lucie.

  ‘Aye, I did not understand,’ said Eudo, his face averted. ‘I am grateful you kept them from the street or the market.’ He bobbed his head towards Hempe.

  Lucie looked round for Owen and saw him striding away. Could his job never rest, even at the burial of a woman they had known so well? She returned to the mourning family, knelt to Anna and warmed the girl’s hands in her own.

  Thirteen

  A LADY’S

  COMPOSURE

  As Owen made his way towards the palace he tried to push aside thoughts of Eudo’s emotion, his frightened boys, his daughter’s frail dignity. He was impatient with the need to spend the rest of the morning pandering to Wykeham and Thoresby when Cisotta’s death and the grief it had caused were so fresh in his mind. But Owen must tactfully tell them of the Ferriby boys’ role in the tile incident and reassure them that it had been an accident. No doubt Wykeham would refuse to accept the boys’ innocence, but Owen must try to convince him. As he mounted the steps of the palace porch he passed Alain descending. The clerk nodded to him and Owen had just begun to ask where he might find His Grace and the bishop when Wykeham called out to him from the doorway of the archbishop’s hall in a peremptory tone. Owen swore beneath his breath. Alain must have failed to convince his lord that those attending the funeral were mourning, not plotting against him. Owen began to think parliament right in blaming Wykeham for the setbacks in the war – the war that had cost him his eye. The bishop could not act for all his anxieties about his good name.

  ‘We must talk,’ Wykeham said.

  ‘My Lord Bishop …’

  ‘Now, Captain.’

  As soon as Owen shut the door behind him Wykeham rounded on him and demanded, ‘When did you intend to tell me the truth about the falling tile?’

  ‘The truth?’ Owen muttered, wondering what Wykeham had heard.

  ‘The Ferriby boys.’

  ‘I have just come to tell you the truth of it.’ Damn the gossips.

  ‘Walter, the master mason’s assistant, came to the palace last evening,’ Wykeham said. ‘Why did I hear it from him first, Captain, why not you?’

  Cursed mason. ‘I considered it important to get the tale from the lads before I came to you, My Lord. And to tell their parents.’

  ‘And then you went home?’

  ‘I have had much else to attend to. You were in no danger.’

  ‘In no danger?’ Wykeham’s voice crackled with anger. ‘They are the grandsons of Sir Ranulf Pagnell and his widow, that viperous woman who would suck me dry i
f she could. Their uncle Stephen Pagnell has Lancastrian connections. I should have been told at once.’

  ‘My Lord, they are but boys. As a father I thought how frightened they must be.’

  ‘How kind of you. And their parents feigned surprise, I’ve no doubt.’

  ‘My Lord, they did not know.’

  By the time Wykeham released him, Owen was shaking with anger. He headed for the barracks and drank his fill from a barrel of ale, then slept it off on Alfred’s bed.

  Owen woke in mid-afternoon with a headache and marched back to the palace, telling a disapproving Michaelo that he must speak to the archbishop.

  Interrupting a meeting with the mayor to speak to Owen, Thoresby was plainly irritated to hear Owen’s story of the Ferriby boys and complaints about Wykeham. ‘I don’t expect you to like the bishop. Your mission is to investigate the recent incidents involving him and his property.’ He held up his hand to stop Owen from interrupting. ‘If you are satisfied that the tile incident was an accident, then that matter is closed. Now I must return to Mayor Gisburne. Have a care, Archer. Convince me you are yet trustworthy.’

  Still cursing under his breath, Owen came upon Godwin Fitzbaldric in the palace garden, sitting on the very bench from which Wykeham often studied the minster. The merchant sat stiffly straight, his hands resting on his thighs. His eyes were not fixed on the magnificent structure, but rather downcast. He looked despondent – as he should, having almost cost his serving woman her life. More likely he mourned the goods lost in the fire. Owen slowed his pace and studied Fitzbaldric. According to the Dales, the merchant had disappeared to the garden for a long while before the servant brought news of the fire. Here was someone on whom he might exercise his irritation. He continued his approach with more energy than he truly felt, allowing crunching pebbles to announce him. Fitzbaldric brought his head up, nodded once at Owen and then rose with care, a cautionary hand on his lower back.

  ‘Good-day to you, Master Fitzbaldric.’

  ‘And to you, Captain Archer.’