by Candace Robb
He handed her the cup of honeyed physick.
She pushed it away. ‘I have drunk enough of that for many a day.’
‘You have not.’
‘Honeyed words, honeyed drinks. Perhaps I should not have been so quick to apologize. You do treat me like a child now.’
‘Lucie, I want you well.’
‘So do I,’ she snapped, then lay down, with difficulty, avoiding the use of her right hand. She pulled the covers over her head.
Owen turned down the lamp and sat for a long while, wondering whether Lucie was truly beset by some devilish spirit. Perhaps it was time he went to his friend Archdeacon Jehannes and asked his advice in this. He fell asleep listening to the sounds of the night.
‘Owen, wake up.’
Lucie stood over him, shaking his arm. Morning light streamed from the open shutters. ‘The bailiff, George Hempe, is sitting in the hall with a grim face. He will not tell me all until you have come down.’
Owen groaned. ‘What has he told you?’
‘He has shown me my scrip, my cut girdle and the gloves. But he will say nothing of how he comes to have them.’
‘He has a rigid sense of order, that is all,’ Owen said, pulling on his leggings and slipping into his tunic.
She handed him a cup of ale. ‘I thought you might need some strength.’
‘Aye, it seems the day begins apace.’
Sixteen
AN UNYIELDING
MAN
As Owen entered the hall, he saw through the garden windows that it was later than he had imagined, for the children were already at play. Alisoun sat calmly by and Phillippa, who tended to be a late riser, was seated as close to the windows as she could manage and yet still move, seeking light for her sewing.
‘Tell Alisoun to take the children to the kitchen,’ Owen said quietly to Lucie as they paused at the bottom of the steps.
‘I thought we might talk in the kitchen.’
‘No, it’s best we see Hempe in the hall, else he will suspect a slight. Where is Jasper?’
‘In the shop, where I should be but for my hand.’
‘You were to remain abed for a week.’
Lucie was ashen, her face pinched with pain. She held her bandaged hand protectively close to her. ‘After the bailiff departs I’ll lie down. Jasper, Alisoun and Kate do seem quite capable.’
Hempe perched on the edge of a chair a distance away from the children and Phillippa, hat in hand, his eyes fierce in his hawk-nosed face, his balding pate doing nothing to dispel the impression of a predator. At his feet was a hide sack.
He rose as Owen crossed the hall to him. ‘Captain Archer.’
The children glanced back at the bass voice as Alisoun herded them to the kitchen door.
‘Good-day to you,’ Owen muttered, distracted by the sound of Lucie and her aunt in an argument. Phillippa did not wish to withdraw from the daylight.
‘I did not think to find you yet asleep at this hour,’ Hempe said.
Like a predator, he struck before Owen got his bearings.
‘I have had little opportunity for rest since the fire,’ Owen said, drawing himself up to full height so that he was more than a head taller than the bailiff.
Hempe’s face hardened.
Owen checked his mood. He did not yet know the man’s purpose. A more courteous tone might be to his advantage. ‘I pray your pardon for the wait. I know you are a busy man.’
‘I am busy of a sudden,’ Hempe said.
Lucie joined them. ‘Master Hempe, I pray you, tell us now how you recovered what was stolen from me yesterday.’
The bailiff fixed his gaze on Lucie. ‘Your injury, Mistress Wilton. Would you describe for me how you received it? Did you attempt to stop the thief?’
‘I was not aware that he had …’ Lucie began.
Owen could see that Hempe meant to bully her. ‘What is your purpose in questioning my wife?’
‘I had not thought it necessary to discuss this with Mistress Wilton in private. Was I wrong?’
‘You waited until I was present, Hempe. What game are you about?’
‘I am a city bailiff, Archer, it is my duty to arrest those who break the laws of the city.’
‘Owen, I pray you, let Master Hempe be about his business.’ Lucie sank down on to a stool, all colour drained from her face. ‘Forgive me, I am not well.’
‘I am sorry to disturb you,’ Hempe said in a quieter tone.
‘For what offence are you questioning my wife?’
‘I merely wish to understand the order and the character of yesterday’s events.’
‘First let us see whether you do indeed possess the goods stolen from my wife, and tell us where you found them,’ Owen demanded.
‘That does seem reasonable,’ Lucie agreed. ‘But I can tell you briefly, I thought my scrip had caught on something in the press of the crowd. I reached for it, something sliced my hand, and my girdle with the scrip was gone.’
Hempe nodded, resumed his seat, lifted the sack, opened it and drew out the contents. They were indeed Lucie’s scrip, the girdle – cut neatly – and the gloves. But the latter were now stained.
Lucie lifted them. ‘They were so soft. What did the thief do to them?’
‘That is blood, Mistress Wilton,’ Hempe said coldly. ‘The blood of a lad with cropped blond hair, a skinny fellow perhaps a head shorter than you. Your thief?’
‘He was blond and smaller than I am,’ Lucie whispered. ‘This is his blood?’
Hempe gave a curt nod. ‘He was found in a ditch near the King’s Fishpond this morning, with his throat slit. The weapon still lay beside him.’ He drew a little knife from the sack.
It was Lucie’s knife.
‘God help us,’ she whispered, crossing herself with her bandaged hand, which was shaking so badly that she truncated the gesture when Hempe looked her way and tucked the hand behind her.
‘Do you recognize it?’ Hempe asked.
‘Of course she does.’ Owen could not bear the man’s taunting when the horror of his revelation was writ so clearly on Lucie’s pale face.
‘It is uncommonly sharp for a lady’s knife, is it not?’
‘That is enough.’ Owen bent to Lucie and lifted her in his arms.
Caught by surprise, Lucie did not begin her protestations until they were across the hall and on the first step. ‘Owen, please, you are only angering him.’
Indeed, Hempe rushed after them. ‘I am not finished.’
Neither was Owen, but he had no intention of allowing Hempe to subject Lucie to more of his interrogation. He continued up the stairs. ‘I won’t have you treated in such wise.’
Hempe stopped at the foot of the stairs.
Owen eased Lucie down inside their bedchamber and kicked the door closed behind him, holding her until she was steady on her feet. ‘Lie down and stay warm. I’ll come up when he is gone.’
Lucie sat down on the edge of the bed holding her injured hand. ‘My knife, Owen. Someone slit the boy’s throat with my knife and left the gloves to soak up his blood.’ Her eyes were wells of sorrow in a face pinched with pain. ‘His questions – does he think I murdered the boy?’
‘If he does he’s a madman. Why would you have run off without your possessions?’
She dropped her head.
‘It is proof the lad’s murder has nothing to do with you,’ Owen went on, speaking the words as the thoughts came. ‘Whoever went after him knew nothing of the gloves, else he or she would have taken them, surely. It was thieves fighting among themselves, no more. Rest now.’
God had been watching over Lucie, that she was not the corpse.
As Owen descended to the hall he went over what Hempe had told them so far and questions curled round each other. The bailiff did not bother to rise when Owen took the chair opposite him.
‘The gloves are bloody, but not the scrip,’ Owen said. ‘So you did not find both items together?’
Hempe’s eyes bored into him. ‘A
re those the first questions that come to your mind on hearing about a boy’s murder, where were the gloves, where was the scrip?’ He shook his head as at a foolish child.
‘Your time would be better spent asking such questions than finding fault with all I say,’ Owen snapped. ‘It may be important.’
Warring emotions played across Hempe’s face. He turned away for a few heartbeats, then settled back, facing Owen. ‘The gloves lay on the lad’s chest, the scrip, emptied, at his feet. The blood did not pool so far as his feet.’ He glanced towards the steps. ‘What is your wife’s complaint?’
Owen wanted to shout that it was none of Hempe’s business, but he, too, would be better to set aside his dislike. ‘She had a fall a while ago and lost the child she carried. The Riverwoman says she lost much blood then, and yesterday’s wound has drained her further. She is weak and still mourning the loss. I too am in mourning.’ With his eye and his posture he dared Hempe to make an inappropriate comment.
But the bailiff rubbed his balding head and looked aside. ‘I did not know about the child.’
‘Aye.’
Hempe sighed. ‘Are you certain these items are Mistress Wilton’s?’
Owen lifted the flap on the scrip, pointed to the initials and the apothecary rose. ‘And the knife, aye, she always carries that. I shall buy her another. I doubt she’ll ever eat with that again.’
‘The belt and the gloves?’
‘They are hers.’ Owen ignored his conscience, which nagged him with the truth about the gloves. How could he say whose they were, not knowing himself? Still, the lie made him uneasy.
‘You must see that you and Mistress Wilton are at present the only suspects in the thief’s murder.’
‘What?’
‘I am headed for the archbishop’s palace now to present the case.’
‘The council will not care about the death of a thief.’
‘I am being fair with you, Archer. If Archbishop Thoresby vouches for both of you, I shall look elsewhere.’
‘Anyone in York could vouch for us, Hempe, and you know it.’
‘Then I waste my time. It is mine to waste.’
‘The aldermen might not agree. And while you chase the innocent, the guilty one goes free. Have you thought of that?’
‘I shall attend my business in my own way.’
‘Aye, no doubt. I can imagine what His Grace will say about this.’
‘Accompany me now and you need not merely imagine it.’
‘I must see to my wife.’
Hempe shrugged. ‘As you wish.’
When the bailiff was gone, Owen asked Kate and Alisoun to see to Lucie. ‘And take these items up to our chamber, tell your mistress they are safely away from the children.’ The gloves he stuck in his scrip.
Thoresby was standing in the porch between the halls having a discussion with Wykeham when they were interrupted by George Hempe. He looked a shrewd man, but he proved to be a simpleton with a ridiculous claim that Owen and Lucie had executed a thief. Thoresby sent him away with little courtesy.
‘Such an angry man,’ said Wykeham. ‘A poor choice for a bailiff. I do not like the mood of the city.’
‘All the more reason to withdraw from York for a few days.’
Thoresby had proposed an expedition to his manor at Bishopthorpe, wanting Wykeham’s advice on a building project he was about to undertake. More importantly, he hoped a brief absence would provide some relief from the uncomfortable tensions in the palace and Wykeham’s paranoia. He also planned to take Maeve, who was complaining about the Riverwoman’s presence in the kitchen, wanting the healer and her patient moved above the kitchen. It was too smoky up there for a man in such condition.
Unfortunately, Wykeham was hesitant to leave until after his meeting with Lady Pagnell, to which she had not yet agreed.
Thoresby resumed his effort to reason with him. ‘You had been planning a longer trip to the ruin of All Saints in Laughton-en-le-Morthen, taking Archer along.’
‘He is needed here now. So much has changed since the fire. I am uneasy, John, Lancastrians are all around me.’
‘You were a fool to lash out at the Duke of Lancaster. What did it profit you?’
‘I regret it every waking moment. But I was so angry – they’d taken everything from me, all I had worked for.’
‘Far from everything. You are Bishop of Winchester – do you forget so soon how hard won your bishopric was, how the king fought the pope for you?’
Wykeham paced to the edge of the steps, his hands clasped behind him, his eyes on the minster that rose just past the walled garden.
Thoresby did not wait for his response. ‘There were already the rumours of his lowly birth between you.’
‘I had nothing to do with that.’ But he had done little to discount them. ‘I should have thought you would weigh every word in the duke’s presence.’
‘All the more reason to go to Bishopthorpe,’ said Thoresby.
‘Perhaps. I have this morning sent a messenger to the Ferribys suggesting a meeting with the boys tomorrow.’
‘The lads? Why?’
‘Only after I make peace with them will Lady Pagnell likely agree to see me and settle our business. But if she still holds to keeping me at bay until after her husband’s month’s mind, I shall gladly ride with you to Bishopthorpe.’
‘Come into the hall, we shall … Ah, here comes Archer.’ Good Lord, let him bring news of some resolution, the murderer caught, Lady Pagnell ready to meet with Wykeham.
‘Perhaps we have news at last,’ the bishop said.
Thoresby disapproved of the ashy stains on his captain’s livery, but he said nothing, seeing a smouldering anger in Owen’s eye and his fisted hands.
‘I guess by the condition of your clothing you have examined the ruins of my house this morning,’ Wykeham said.
‘Aye, My Lord.’ Owen’s tone was sharp.
Thoresby informed him of Hempe’s visit and their vouching for him and Lucie. He thanked them grudgingly, it seemed to Thoresby.
Owen described the layer of damp ash covering everything in the ruins, the parts of the upper floors that were compromised, where the roof and walls needed shoring up. All reported in a toneless voice. ‘So far I’ve found nothing in the house to assist my investigation,’ Owen concluded, then withdrew to the great hall to tell the Fitzbaldrics that they might enter the house with caution.
John Ferriby’s feelings about Wykeham and the possibility that parliament was right in blaming him for the setbacks in the war that had cost Owen his eye, this and more had been brewing in Owen’s head as he approached the palace. He had fought to speak courteously to Thoresby and now he saw he must proceed without a respite in which to cool his anger, for Godwin Fitzbaldric stood in a corner of the hall, watching the door, his eyes wide with interest.
On the table beside the merchant was a chessboard with the gaily painted pieces in place. ‘My wife thought this might distract me from my worries. Adeline will be here presently.’
‘They are handsome pieces,’ Owen said, trying to sound at ease.
‘Bishop William is a man of taste,’ Fitzbaldric said.
Owen felt the merchant’s eyes on him as he fiddled with one of the knights.
‘Why was the bailiff here?’ Fitzbaldric suddenly asked. ‘What has happened now?’
‘It was merely a territorial dispute,’ Owen said.
When the silence had stretched on for a while, Fitzbaldric asked, ‘Do you play?’
‘Would that I had the leisure.’
‘You studied it so closely, I thought perhaps it was how you honed your skills. Did you wish to speak with me?’
‘Aye. Forgive my silence. It is not yet mid-morning and already the day seems long. I have been at the bishop’s house. I am afraid I can tell little of what was in the undercroft.’
‘I feared it was all a loss.’ Fitzbaldric sounded as if he had held some hope, now dashed.
‘It could be of use to me to k
now what you had stored in the undercroft of the bishop’s house. Might we sit?’
‘Oh yes, of course.’ Fitzbaldric nodded towards the chair across the table and dropped into his. ‘I would be a poor merchant not to know my goods. I had wool cloth, wine, jet, hides – some furred – a few silver bowls and a dozen spoons stored down there. I hope to recover at least the bowls and spoons.’
‘Hides, you said? Are you certain that Cisotta had not approached you about trading her services for hides? Or buying some? Small hides, suitable for gloves? Perhaps you do not remember the name –’
Fitzbaldric was shaking his head. ‘I have not yet established a shop, Captain. I trade with other merchants, not individuals.’
Owen held out the gloves. ‘Have you ever seen these before?’
Fitzbaldric shook his head. ‘They are not familiar.’ He felt the scalloped edge, his gesture hesitant, but whether it was because he recognized the gloves or because he realized what had stained them, Owen could not judge. ‘They are well made,’ he said, ‘the workmanship and the materials.’ He glanced up at Owen with a wary look. ‘First you showed the belt, now these. What is the significance of these items, Captain? What has stained them? Is it blood?’
‘Aye, it is. The thief who stole these has been murdered, left to bleed to death in a ditch near the King’s Fishpond.’
‘Another murder?’ Fitzbaldric searched for a place to set his gaze. He did not seem to wish to look on Owen or on the gloves. ‘I never dreamed when we decided to move to York that violence was such a common occurrence. Is that why the bailiff was here?’
‘He protests His Grace’s authority in all of this.’
‘Do you think this latest incident has aught to do with the other… ?’ He stopped as Adeline joined them.
Owen rose and greeted her.
‘Captain.’ She nodded, then resting a hand on her husband’s shoulder, asked, ‘The other what, Godwin?’
Fitzbaldric patted her hand and rose. ‘The captain was admiring Bishop William’s chessboard and pieces. We shall not be long – I am providing him with a list of what I’d stored in the undercroft. I’ll come for you in the garden.’