King's Bishop (Owen Archer Book 4)

by Candace Robb

  A weeping maidservant opened the door. Thinking the worst, Thoresby pushed past her into the room.

  ‘My lord Archbishop, are you come to rescue me?’ Alice asked sweetly. She sat on a bench near the hearth. Ned stood behind her, one dagger to her throat, the other to her breast. Her arms appeared to be pinned at her side by a length of cloth.

  Thoresby regretted the drama of his entrance. How did one reason with a cut-throat when it was plain one knew precisely what he meant to do? Why should Ned believe Thoresby would give him clemency? How could he possibly guess Thoresby would thank him for the murder of the common upstart? Or would he? Damn the woman, her soft brown hair undone, the gauzy shift. ‘Forgive me, Mistress Perrers, but it is Ned Townley I would save.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I swore to Captain Archer that I would give you such protection as I was able, allow time to investigate the matter. But I warn you, Townley, should you commit any violence on Mistress Perrers, the King will have your head, no matter your reason, no matter my argument.’

  ‘He means to have it—’ Ned stopped as Thoresby raised a hand to silence him.

  ‘If my secretary speaks true, you have Bardolph and Crofter, the very men you claim can prove your innocence. Save your martyrdom for another time, a nobler cause. Mistress Perrers is not worth your life.’

  Ned’s eyes suddenly moved to the door. ‘Your secretary? So it was Michaelo betrayed me?’

  Michaelo stepped into the house. ‘I followed you from the inn.’

  Alice shifted slightly, gave a little cry as the dagger grazed her neck. ‘Sweet Heaven, if you mean to slit my throat, do it and be done with me!’

  The prick had drawn blood. Ned glanced at it, grinned. ‘Not long now, Mary,’ he whispered.

  Thoresby must think how to dissuade Townley from injuring Alice. It was difficult, once tempted, he knew.

  ‘God bless you for your effort on my behalf, Brother Michaelo,’ Alice said, ‘though it may yet come to naught. Could Agnes bring a cloth and see to my throat?’

  Thoresby stared at Alice. The woman was remarkably calm.

  Once over the Thames, Rufus had led Owen and company straight to Alice Perrers’s house, where they found guards standing watch. Owen identified himself as Thoresby’s captain.

  ‘The Lord Chancellor is within, Captain Archer,’ the guard whispered, ‘and his secretary.’

  ‘And Mistress Perrers?’

  ‘Aye. Captain Townley with her. He is in a murderous rage.’

  ‘Why are you not inside?’

  ‘His Grace ordered us to stay without and listen for his call. He has not called.’

  ‘Townley has a skill with daggers,’ the other guard said. ‘If we were to rush in, he would use them, I’ve no doubt.’

  ‘Is there a rear door?’

  ‘Aye. By the kitchen.’

  ‘Any others?’

  ‘Nay.’

  ‘Alfred. Come with me. Rufus, choose two men to guard the back.’

  Alfred and Owen moved round the house to the back. As they drew close to a shuttered window, a woman’s tearful voice cried, ‘The mistress is bleeding! Lord have mercy on us sinners! Help her!’

  The back door, hung so that the cook did not struggle with it, swung easily inward. Owen and Alfred entered the house silently.

  *

  Ned pressed the knife closer, drew another trickle of blood, glanced up at Thoresby, smiled to see him wince. ‘Why should Bardolph and Crofter admit to anything?’

  Thoresby tried to keep his face impassive as he watched Owen creep into the room behind Ned. ‘They will confess to save their souls.’

  ‘Why worry about their souls now? They knew they were committing sin when they—’ Ned stiffened, began to turn his head.

  Blind on the left, Owen chose to grab Ned’s right hand, the one holding the dagger at Alice’s throat.

  Ned stumbled backwards. Owen spun him round, knocked the dagger from his left hand, and threw him to the ground.

  ‘Alfred, keep him down,’ Owen commanded.

  Alfred dropped onto Ned.

  Alice had slumped forwards. Agnes knelt before her, weeping and dabbing at something with a cloth.

  Owen pulled the maid away, saw a crimson stain blooming on the cloth that bound Alice’s arms. When he untied the cloth, her upper left arm bled freely.

  Alice touched it. ‘It is nothing, Captain. I expected far worse.’

  ‘You are a brave woman, Mistress Perrers. I know something about wounds. Both that and the cut on your throat are causing some pain.’

  Thoresby noted the light in Alice Perrers’s cat eyes as she studied the scarred face bent towards her.

  ‘A little, yes, Captain. But I can bear it.’

  Twenty-six

  Owen Interrogates

  Unable to sleep, Owen paced his bedchamber in the great castle of Windsor. His sleeplessness was not lack of comfort. He had been given an officer’s billet in the lower ward with a brazier that heated the room and two small windows that aired it. It was rather Ned’s fate that set him to pacing. Ned had attacked the King’s mistress, wounded her, no matter that the wounds were superficial, and had therefore been taken into custody. It was impossible that he should be spared. The fool. Had he but stayed with the company he might have been proved innocent and set free.

  He might still have a chance. With Bardolph and Crofter under lock and key in Winchester Tower there was the possibility of a confession. Owen’s hope lay in Bardolph. That moment in York when the man had risked discovery to beg Jehannes’s blessing. Panic? The right words, the right mixture of sympathy and suggestion might coax the truth from him. Owen must try.

  *

  Hands idly playing with the papers strewn before him, Thoresby listened to Owen’s proposal, a smile gradually brightening his face.

  ‘You are amused?’ Owen asked.

  Thoresby pushed the papers aside, leaned across the table with an excited air. ‘If you managed a confession, naming names …’ The deep-set eyes shone. ‘Do your best, Archer. If you can get him to state that Wyndesore gave him the orders—’ head flung back, a throaty chuckle.

  Owen thought the Archbishop had gone mad. ‘I do not understand this mood, Your Grace.’

  The dark eyes levelled at Owen. ‘The King could not ignore such an accusation. This would bring Wyndesore down.’

  ‘I had no idea you had such an animosity for the man.’

  ‘Not him. Alice Perrers. The ambitions of both were at stake in this deadly game. The King would cast her out.’

  His petty court intrigues again. ‘I do this for Ned and justice, Your Grace. Not to bring down a lady I barely know.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Thoresby said, waving aside Owen’s protest. ‘Michaelo will arrange for your meeting with Bardolph. And he will be your witness. There is a room in Winchester Tower partitioned with a thin wall. Michaelo will be your invisible scribe the other side.’

  Bardolph had haunted eyes and stank of fear. He winced when Owen handed him a cup of ale, as if expecting a blow.

  ‘Rest easy. I want to talk, no more.’ Owen was grateful for the half-dozen lamps Michaelo had provided. The high window did nothing to freshen or light the tower room. Even here at ground level it was damp, dark, cold. What must the dungeon be like? As Owen studied the man who had spent the past several days down below, he held his breath, listening for Michaelo. Silence. ‘Go ahead. Drink.’

  Peering at Owen, disbelieving, Bardolph shakily raised the cup to his cracked lips.

  ‘They have denied you drink?’ Owen asked.

  Bardolph gulped, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, shook his head.

  ‘Your lips. I thought perhaps …’

  ‘Nay. I lick ‘em in the cold.’

  Or when nervous, more like. ‘I have a balm that would help.’

  ‘’Tis no matter.’ Bardolph drained the cup.

  Owen raised the pitcher. ‘More?’

  ‘Won’t say no.’ But as Owen brought the pi
tcher forward, Bardolph frowned, as if remembering something, and covered his cup. ‘Men say you’re Townley’s old friend.’

  ‘Aye, that I am.’

  A shake of the shaggy head, as if warding off flies. ‘How do I know you don’t mean to poison me?’

  ‘Why would I do that, Bardolph?’

  Bardolph’s eyes slid sidewise. ‘Being in gaol makes a man wary.’

  ‘No doubt. But why would I poison you?’

  Bardolph sniffed, said nothing.

  ‘Have you done something to Captain Townley?’

  The shadowed eyes blinked. Bardolph gripped the cup, confusion clouding his face momentarily. ‘Our last meeting was not friendly.’

  Owen nodded. ‘No, not friendly. But I could see you meant to smoke him out, not burn him alive. Go on. I’ve shared this pitcher with you and we’re neither of us on the floor, eh? I want to talk to you is all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I would like to understand what drove my friend to attack the King’s mistress.’

  Bardolph shook his head. ‘I know naught what’s between them.’ He lifted his hand from the cup, held it out to Owen.

  While Owen poured, he considered his next words. Bardolph was no subtle thinker, but neither was he stupid.

  ‘I thank you, Captain,’ Bardolph said, raising the cup and nearly draining it. He belched with satisfaction as he set it down. But the hands still trembled.

  ‘What was your business in York?’

  Bardolph squinted. ‘Eh?’

  ‘You were in York?’

  The man squirmed. ‘Who says I was?’

  ‘Don Jehannes, the Archdeacon of York. Was he mistaken?’

  Bardolph’s lower lip dabbed at the sweat beading on his upper lip. ‘I passed through York.’

  ‘And you asked the Archdeacon’s blessing – and forgiveness.’

  A wince. The eyes searched the room for a safe reply. ‘We are all of us sinners in this world, Captain.’

  ‘Aye. That we are, Bardolph, that we are. And you were feeling the weight of your past that day, were you?’

  ‘Sommat like.’

  Owen nodded. ‘As soldiers we live with troubling memories.’ He rubbed the scar beneath his patch. ‘Killed the woman who did this to me. And her man.’

  Bardolph studied Owen with sympathetic eyes. ‘I remember the night you told the tale in York Tavern. You had reason to kill them.’

  Owen took a long drink, placed his cup carefully on the table. ‘Doesn’t help in the middle of the night, when I lie awake wondering about the state of my soul.’

  Bardolph squirmed. ‘Aye. ‘Tis worst in the dark.’ The lower lip dabbed at the sweaty upper. The eyes looked even more haunted.

  ‘Fair is fair. I’ve told you my nightmare. What’s yours?’

  A shake of the head. ‘I did not ask for your confession.’

  Owen settled back on the bench, leaning his head against the wall, stretched out his legs, closed his eyes. ‘Sometimes a scent brings it back. Blood, salt air and damp earth.’ He was quiet a moment, listening to Bardolph’s laboured breathing. ‘Sometimes I hear them. In my sleep. Their cries. I suppose that’s God’s way of making sure we don’t forget our sins. The memories that haunt us.’

  ‘Some folk aren’t bothered.’ The voice trembled.

  Still with his eyes closed, Owen shook his head. ‘I don’t care to be round a man with no conscience. No better than a beast, to my mind.’

  ‘Beasts. He calls us that.’

  ‘Who?’

  Sharp intake of breath. ‘No one.’

  ‘Someone calls you and Crofter beasts?’

  ‘Train us till we snarl and snap like mad dogs, pet us when we kill the right folk, prod us with a pitchfork back into the pit when we act on our own. ‘Tis ever the same.’

  ‘Is that what you were doing? Acting on your own?’

  The brows came together, lower lip over upper. Shake of the head. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Someone called you beasts because you acted on your own?’

  A shrug. ‘Trouble in Dublin. Got drunk. We didn’t know who he was.’

  ‘And Sir William called you beasts?’

  ‘Aye.’

  So Wyndesore had something on them. Promising.

  ‘You would have nightmares about Gervase and Henry had you seen them after they had been left up on the moor.’ Owen took his time describing the bloated, torn bodies. It made his own stomach lurch. Bardolph sweated freely now in the chilly room, his trembling worsened. ‘I cannot believe Captain Townley would murder them,’ Owen said, ‘leave them like that, then lead me to the site and show me what he had done. Can you, Bardolph?’

  The head hung low. ‘You buried ’em?’

  ‘Aye. Up there on the moors.’

  ‘God ha’ mercy,’ Bardolph muttered, crossing himself.

  ‘What I cannot understand is why? Why did Gervase and Henry die?’

  ‘Ask your friend.’ An attempt at a sneer, but Bardolph almost choked on the words.

  ‘How can you be so certain it was Townley? For that matter, did you see him murder Don Ambrose? What makes you think he’s such a – beast? I have known him’ – Owen shrugged – ‘a score of years? Almost. And in that time he never to my knowledge committed such a deed.’

  ‘They say he attacked Mistress Perrers.’

  ‘Aye. He did. Scratched her throat and arm, no more than that. He holds her responsible for the drowning of his ladylove. Have you ever been in love?’

  ‘I’ve had my sport.’

  ‘But love?’ Owen poured himself more wine, held the flagon towards Bardolph. ‘You look thirsty.’

  Bardolph held the cup out for more, took a long drink. His nose reddened. ‘Don’t know as I’ve ever found that sort of woman. Crofter did. He’s got wife and children.’

  Owen nodded. ‘Why were you ordered to murder Don Ambrose?’

  Bardolph shook his head. ‘You mean to confuse me.’

  ‘I’ve no need to confuse you. I know you are guilty, Bardolph. You killed Gervase and Henry because they discovered you’d killed Don Ambrose. But why did you kill the friar?’

  ‘I did not kill him. Nor the other two.’

  ‘We’ve found a shepherd who swears he saw you and Crofter dragging Gervase and Henry to the stream.’ A lie, but God would surely forgive him.

  The head shot up, eyes wide with shock. ‘No one saw’ – he ducked – ‘Lord ha’ mercy.’ Bardolph crossed himself.

  ‘If it wasn’t because of Don Ambrose, then why did you murder them, Bardolph? They were your comrades.’

  Bardolph shook his head. ‘Nay. Hardly knew ‘em. But we didn’t plan it. Swear to you, Captain.’

  ‘Then why?’

  Bardolph frowned into his cup, breathing shallowly and blinking as sweat dripped on to his eyelashes. ‘We heard them talking about us. Thought something stank about the friar’s disappearance, you see. And Crofter said when we caught up with Townley those two’d want to take him straight to Windsor. But we did not mean him to reach the castle.’

  ‘Why?’

  A shrug. ‘Crofter said so.’

  ‘Who gave Crofter his orders?’

  ‘No one.’

  But Wyndesore. Say it, dammit. ‘You told Abbot Richard that Sir William of Wyndesore sent you north to watch Townley, just in case he had murdered the page.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘But he sent you north to murder the friar and Townley, eh?’

  A sharp shake of the head. ‘No.’

  Who was he protecting? ‘You are marked for death, Bardolph. Don’t you want to confess your sins?’

  ‘You’re not a priest.’

  A deep breath. ‘So you dumped Henry and Gervase near the monks’ road, hoping Abbot Richard would accuse Captain Townley?’

  A nod.

  Owen remembered Michaelo listening, writing. ‘Do I have that right?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Owen rose, paced back and forth a while,
sat down, raking his hand through his wiry hair. Bardolph peered at him over the rim of his cup, his breath a laboured wheezing.

  ‘No.’ Owen shook his head. ‘It does not fit together.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were sent north to eliminate Don Ambrose and Captain Townley, weren’t you?’

  A pause as Bardolph wiped his glistening face on his sleeve. ‘Crofter said we must.’

  At last. ‘Why?’

  Bardolph shook his head slowly back and forth, back and forth, like some great woolly beast. ‘As God is my witness, I do not know, Captain. I do not know.’ He reached up his large hands to his head and pulled at his greasy hair. His eyes seemed to grow larger, his face crumpled. He sobbed, ‘I am damned for all eternity and I don’t know why!’ He dropped to his knees on the stone floor and rocked, sobbing.

  Owen found it difficult to pity the man with so much blood on his hands. ‘Sir William ordered you to do this. And because of that accidental slaying in Dublin, you obeyed.’

  ‘No.’ The woolly head rocked from side to side. ‘He knew naught of this.’

  ‘Why did these men need to die?’

  ‘Ask Crofter.’

  ‘I am asking you, Bardolph.’

  ‘Something to do with honour. And ours, being his men. Crofter said we must do this.’

  ‘Wyndesore’s honour?’

  ‘He is our lord.’

  ‘And you did all this without his knowing?’

  ‘Aye. Crofter said we must.’

  ‘And you do all Crofter tells you?’

  ‘He’s smart.’

  ‘I am surprised, Bardolph. You seem to be a man with a conscience.’

  A shrug.

  ‘Did you tell the friar something to make him fear Townley?’

  ‘Nay. ‘Twasn’t us. But we used his fear.’

  ‘Mary and Daniel. What of them?’

  Bardolph stopped rocking. His eyes slid to the partition. ‘What was that noise?’

  ‘Rats. Surely they visit you below?’

  ‘’Tis a hellish place.’

  ‘What did you have to do with the deaths of Mary and Daniel?’

  ‘We didn’t touch those two. Had others see to them.’