by Candace Robb
Owen did not know the falconer well, having had little cause to talk to him in the past, for he had no interest in hawk hunting, preferring to fell the prey with his arrows. He saw no sport in being the beast of burden for a bird’s entertainment. Ravenser had assured him that the falconer could be trusted to stay within any bounds that Owen ordered, but it was Princess Joan who had overruled him.
Joan had asked to hunt with the largest female hawk, and to carry her from the start. Owen watched with fascination as the dark-eyed, sharp-beaked hawk perched on the princess’s leather-clad forearm threateningly flapped her wings, as if testing the princess. Rather than extend the forearm on which the bird sat to keep it at a distance, Joan folded her arm in closer and gently stroked the hawk’s chest while softly talking to her. Staring into the princess’s unblinking eyes, the hawk quieted. It appeared that Joan had won her trust and respect, and, as the party began to ride, the reddish-gold hawk and the straight-backed princess in her deep green gown and hat moved as if they had hunted together for years.
Elegantly garbed in leather leggings and a leather tunic over a deep green shirt and sporting a peacock feather in his leather cap, John Holand had also chosen to ride with a hawk, and he, too, handled it with the ease of an accustomed hunter. Apparently, hawk hunting was a passion mother and son shared. Lewis Clifford had his servant carry his bird until he was ready to hunt. He looked even less rested than he had the previous day. Owen wondered what had kept Lewis awake.
With a flirtatious smile and posture but serious eyes, Joan had requested that Owen ride beside her. Sir Lewis had teased that Owen was a married man, and she’d teased Lewis that she detected a touch of jealousy in his protest. Reaching back into his former life, Owen had dredged up laughter and an appreciation for court banter, a lightness that did not come easily for him in the midst of his very serious responsibility for the princess’s safety.
Now, as they paused for the falconer and his boys to flush out some game, the princess tapped Owen’s thigh to catch his attention. It proved most effective. Owen was immediately drawn to her.
‘You are highly regarded by all. Are you aware of that, Captain Archer?’ Her lips teased, but Joan watched him with a humourless intensity. He was learning to rely on her eyes for the accurate reading of her message. The rest was her public performance.
‘You are kind to tell me so, my lady.’
She made an impatient sound. ‘My purpose in telling you is not to be kind, Captain. Two families with great ambition reside in the north, the Percies and the Nevilles.’ With her forefinger, she stroked the hawk’s breast as she spoke. ‘I have need of someone up here whom I can trust to listen to and watch these families, and to inform me of their activities – particularly their pursuit of alliances. Their wooing, if you like.’ Her smile was almost impish as she glanced sideways at him. ‘Several men have recommended you to me.’ She paused for his reaction.
He tried to hide the uncomfortable confusion of interest and alarm pulsing through him. ‘I am honoured to hear that, my lady.’ As Owen was about to ask who had recommended him, the hawk twitched and ruffled her feathers, something on the ground catching her eye. Several coneys stumbled out of the underbrush.
‘Before I depart Bishopthorpe, we must discuss this more fully.’ Joan bestowed on Owen a last, enigmatic smile. ‘For now, the hunt begins.’ She let go of her bird, who immediately spread her majestic wings and swooped towards a hesitating coney.
Not interested in watching the attack, Owen quietly dismounted and handed his reins to one of the servants. He stretched and twisted a little until his back felt usable; he did not ride often enough these days to be as at ease astride as he’d been when in the old duke’s service. Thoresby had little need to send Owen on long missions away from York. He wondered whether he would travel if he were to spy for the Princess of Wales. He was surprised to feel a little thrill at the thought of joining her household.
Joan’s beautiful laugh was followed by an intimate, cooing monologue; Owen guessed that her hawk had killed and returned to her. To so delight in death seemed obscene to him. He’d seen too much of it. He walked away from the hunting party, scanning the woods for his men. He had ordered that half of them be on foot, half mounted – those on foot were quieter and might observe more, those on horseback were faster. Walking very slowly, his eye trained about ten strides beyond the company, he gradually picked out with his half-vision three men, the centre one mounted. All were still but alert, their eyes on the hunting party. He became aware of a fourth, another mounted guard, but this one with his back to the hunting party, watching for intruders. If the circle continued so, and Owen had no cause to think it did not, he was well satisfied. He heard a flutter of wings, the strangled cry of an animal. At least he knew the game would not be wasted. Thoresby’s cook would use any game brought to her kitchen.
Through the canopy of leaves, a dappled sunshine awoke and the mist began to writhe up from the ground, causing the woodland to shimmer and pulse. Owen closed his eye, the tricks of the rising mist disturbing him. Since he’d lost the sight in his left eye, he’d disliked anything that blurred or negatively affected his vision, uncomfortable about how vulnerable it made him feel. Archdeacon Jehannes had once suggested that this disquiet arose from the very lack of faith that might have caused God to blind him – that God may have blinded him in order to strengthen his faith in his ability to see beyond physical sight. Owen found that interesting but unlikely. God was too busy to play such games with each soul.
‘Captain!’
Owen moved in the direction of the shout. As the mist shifted, he seemed to see his mirror image approaching him, but realised it was Tom, one of his guards, much younger than Owen, with the same curly dark hair, unusual height and broad shoulders. Some teased that Tom was Owen’s bastard, though no one believed it – at least he was reasonably sure that neither his fellows nor Tom did. As he picked his way along the uneven, mist-shrouded ground, the hairs on the back of his neck and a twitch in his blind eye warned him that Tom had found trouble.
‘Up there, Captain, in the tree.’ His eyes raised up to the canopy, Tom spoke softly, almost reverently.
The woods were unusually quiet, Owen realised. Leading his horse, Gilbert was moving forward on Owen’s right. Still unable to see what they were looking at, Owen stepped closer until he saw what spooked the birds to silence. A body hung from a tree, a few feet above the ground, the man’s legs gently swinging. He could just make out the groan of the rope against the green wood, a sound that he felt more than he heard.
‘God help us.’ Owen crossed himself and then motioned to the converging guards to halt. ‘Touch nothing.’ As Owen made his way through the underbrush, another man came into sight, lying on the ground beneath the hanging man, curled in a foetal position, absolutely still. He wore the robes of a Benedictine monk, the elegantly tailored robes of Brother Michaelo. Owen cursed, and his scarred eye tingled with dread.
The ground beneath the tree, a damp mixture of leaf mould and earth, had been churned up by a horse’s hooves. Owen saw no horse but Gilbert’s. An old ladder lay on its side nearby, as if the hanging man had kicked it away.
Twisted and swollen and shadowed by incongruously beautiful autumn leaves, the face did not at once reveal the victim’s identity, but the clothes and the fair curls suggested to Owen that Dom Lambert had joined his servant. He drew nearer until he could see the distorted face, indeed the wreckage of Lambert’s once-beautiful visage. Owen crossed himself and prayed for the emissary’s soul. Whoever had failed to kill him by damaging the wrong saddle would be most pleased.
As for the body curled up near the dead man, Owen could not tell whether or not Michaelo was breathing. For the obsessively tidy monk to lie in the rotting vegetation so startled Owen that he feared he, too, was dead, and he crossed himself as he picked his way across the churned ground to crouch beside Michaelo, gently resting his hand on the monk’s neck to feel for a pulse. He was relieved to fin
d a strong pulse, and the flesh warm. God be thanked. But it was even more puzzling that Michaelo did not respond either to Owen’s touch or to his own name.
Tom moved closer.
‘Had you expected this?’ Owen asked him. ‘Had someone directed you here?’
Tom, looking frightened, shook his head. ‘No, God help them, I just now noticed something odd in the tree. I did not see Brother Michaelo on the ground at first. Is he dead as well?’
‘No.’
‘Thank God.’
As Owen searched his mind for a flaw in his organisation of the guard around the manor, a horse and rider came up behind him, and he held up his hand for them to halt as he turned.
‘Deus juva me,’ Lady Sybilla cried.
Owen silently cursed to see that it was she who had witnessed this darksome sight. She tightly clenched the reins with her gloved hands, her small eyes round with shock. Her mare, sensing her unease, danced a little, and Sybilla let go of the reins with one hand to stroke the horse’s mane. At least there was no hawk on her arm to react to her emotion; she’d accompanied the hunting party solely to assist Princess Joan in any way she might.
‘Who is it?’ she asked, her voice surprisingly steady.
‘My lady, return to the others. This is no sight for you,’ said Owen, running his hand along the horse’s neck to reassure her and then catching the front loop of the rein to turn her around. But Sybilla halted the motion by leaning to one side, the soft, rich fabric of her short green cape pooling over Owen’s arm as she peered up to see the hanging man. She smelled of rosewater and her breath was warm and sweet as she turned to speak to Owen.
‘Dom Lambert? Sweet Jesu, it is him, isn’t it? That beautiful man.’
Absurdly, Owen felt a stab of jealousy as he steadied her horse. He doubted any woman had ever called him beautiful, scarred as he was. Perhaps before he was wounded, but not likely. Christ, he was a fool to care. His grisly find here in the wood had unhinged him. ‘I pray you, say nothing to the others, Lady Sybilla.’
‘Why say nothing? Who is it?’ Sir John came striding up beside Sybilla’s horse. He was on foot, still carrying his hawk, who was beating his wings as if distressed by being taken away from the hunt.
Sybilla leaned forward over her horse’s head, as close as she dared, and, when she’d made sure of Owen’s attention, pretending to address the horse, she whispered, ‘The brooch is a moonstone in silver.’ After making a slightly louder calming comment to the horse, she straightened.
Her brief look had been intent, serious and disturbing, and, with her mentioning it, now the lost brooch took on a new, ominous dimension. He must later ask what it signified. At present he must see to Lambert’s body, and have someone help Michaelo back to the palace. Lady Sybilla and Sir John must leave so that he could concentrate on observing all that he might before the guards released the corpse from the tree.
‘My lord, I would be grateful if you would have the servants go ahead to fetch Master Walter and Archdeacon Jehannes while you escort your mother and her lady safely back to the palace.’
Both the young man and his hawk were eyeing the swinging man. ‘Dom Lambert, is it? Too humiliated to face Bishop William, I suppose.’ His tone was mocking.
Owen felt like slapping him, the pampered pup, but he did not want to deal with the uproar such an attack would cause. ‘Please send for Master Walter and Archdeacon Jehannes.’
‘What is Brother Michaelo doing there?’ Sybilla asked. ‘Is he hurt?’
‘I cannot tell. I pray you, bring help.’
‘Dear Lord, watch over them,’ she murmured, as she began to move back towards the hunting party.
‘What is the archbishop’s secretary’s part in this?’ John had stepped closer to him.
Owen stepped between Michaelo’s inert body and the princess’s son. ‘I will find out, I assure you.’ He stared at the young man until, with a snarl, John withdrew.
As the lady and the knight moved away, two more guards approached, one on horseback. Owen sent the horseman to ride back to the palace with the hunting party and return with Jehannes and Walter, as a reinforcement in case Sir John found the assignment beneath his dignity. Owen ordered Gilbert to keep his horse outside the area beneath the hanging tree while he studied the churned ground.
Now that Owen knew Michaelo was alive, his mind was awash with questions, implications, suspicions and concerns, as if a great dam had burst. If Lambert had taken his own life, Owen faced an uncomfortable question: had he pushed the emissary too hard, a man who had been desperately fumbling for his balance after having been felled by his weaknesses? He had not sensed such a profound despair in Lambert, but perhaps he had not wanted to acknowledge it. Owen had been angry that his prayer for calm in Thoresby’s last days had been rejected, an anger aimed most passionately at Wykeham for sending trouble with the princess. It had been Lambert’s misfortune to represent Wykeham – Owen might have been gentler with a member of Princess Joan’s household.
My sweet Lord, forgive me if I had any part in this man’s despair.
And Michaelo – what was Owen to make of his presence beneath Lambert’s body? Had he anything to do with the man’s death? Remembering the looks exchanged between Lambert and Michaelo, their whispered conversation, Owen was sick at heart. He’d often feared that Michaelo’s discipline to forgo sins of the flesh was but a varnish, and, as it aged, might become dangerously brittle. Perversely, he was also irritated about the inconvenience if Michaelo could not supervise the household – it was just the sort of ridiculously mundane concern that often came up in moments of crisis, as it was more comfortable to complain about day to day frustrations than to face the larger implications.
Owen forced his attention to the evidence before him. He considered the toppled ladder, an old thing dark with damp and moss. It would have sunk into the damp woodland floor beneath Lambert’s weight, but there was no mud clinging to it. But for the moss, it was quite clean. There had been a thick covering of leaf mould that might have protected the legs from sinking, acting as a carpet over the mud, but the horse had disturbed it – unless the horse had come afterwards. It was also possible that Dom Lambert had not taken his own life, but that his executioner had placed the short ladder there to make it look as if the emissary had done so. A chilling possibility, for it suggested danger for all at the palace. Brother Michaelo? Had he gone mad and murdered Lambert, then swooned to see what he’d done? Owen did not think a madman would have the forethought to bring the ladder, nor did it seem possible that such a brief acquaintance could inspire Michaelo to cold-blooded murder. He had spent too many years in deep penance for that.
Or had he dammed up his passions for so long that it had taken little for the dam to break? Who could ever answer such a question but God? Owen was certainly not up to the task.
Gazing up, he realised that Michaelo could not have managed it alone. Yet Michaelo was a solitary soul, and the thought of him recruiting someone to assist him in hanging Lambert was ludicrous.
If it had been suicide, the horse that had churned up the ground would be found wandering. Now there was something Owen could search for – the horse. A horse that had returned without a rider.
But a rider had taken it from the stable sometime in the night, and no one had yet come forward to report it. Owen had surrounded the manor with guards and posted them at intervals within the grounds. More than one of his men should have witnessed Lambert’s movements from palace to stable to tree. And Michaelo’s movements should have been noticed, though he was so ubiquitous it was almost understandable if a guard had discounted it – but all the guards he’d passed? How careful had Lambert and Michaelo been to move without stirring the air? Why?
Murder or suicide, it was a violence that should not have been possible during this vigil. Someone should have interrupted it.
But, stare as he might, he could not tell whether there had been one horse or several – if Lambert had used the horse to help him into the t
ree, he might have fussed with it, causing quite a lot of movement.
Crossing over to where Gilbert stood beside his horse, Owen told him to take a good long look at the scene. ‘I want you to question the men on duty last night. Describe to them what happened here on their watch. Describe it in all its horror. God help us, that should make them talk.’
Gilbert, grim-faced, nodded. ‘I will, Captain.’
Owen turned back to Brother Michaelo. In all this while, he had neither moved nor made a sound.
‘Come help me, Tom.’
They picked him up – he was awkwardly limp – and carried him to an undisturbed area well away from the tree. Although he remained limp as if in a deep sleep or faint, he’d begun to murmur something. Owen caught fragments of Latin prayers. Perhaps Michaelo had an injury he could not see, or had been sedated with something similar to the concoction that had caused Will’s fatal fall. Michaelo’s breath revealed nothing unusual, but hours might have passed. Stains were difficult to detect on his dark habit, but it smelled strongly of leaf mould, so he might have been lying there for a good part of the night. Gently Owen felt his skull, and lo and behold, discovered a substantial lump which could explain Michaelo’s faint – indeed, moderate pressure elicited a moan. Owen would see that he was watched for signs of serious injury. Now he considered yet another possibility – that Michaelo had witnessed a murder, in which case, he might be the next victim – unless it seemed he was presumed the murderer or the cause of Lambert’s suicide. For now, at least, he was safe with them, but Owen would need to arrange for him to be under constant guard. He must think how to protect him. Christ, he must think how to protect His Grace and the princess as well.
Leaving Michaelo still murmuring disjointed prayers, Owen motioned for Gilbert to bring the horse close so they could ease Lambert down onto its back. He was still slightly warm and not yet rigid. Owen guessed he’d died several hours before dawn. He checked whether the knot was unusual, but found nothing to distinguish it.