by Candace Robb
‘I see much of my blood in you, Clarice,’ he said. ‘My daughter.’
She dared to meet his eyes, blushed, and quickly dropped her gaze. ‘I do not deserve your kindness.’
‘You are my daughter, Clarice, flesh of my flesh. You deserve more than kindness, you deserve my love, my guidance. I regret that I had no opportunity to share your life.’
She frowned, his words obviously not what she had expected. ‘I feel responsible for what happened here. Dom Lambert’s emissary concerned my birth—’
‘No more of that. I would celebrate your existence, not seek cause to regret it.’
‘I have been an ungrateful wretch, Your Grace.’
‘Perhaps you’ve had some cause.’
‘Lady Eleanor tried to help me see how good my life is, how much freer I am than she has been. But I envied her – her lovers, her beauty, her silks and jewels.’ She lifted tear-filled eyes to his. ‘She cannot be evil. She reached out to me, to teach me how to be grateful for my life.’
‘She spoke to you?’ He saw in his mind’s eye the proud face framed with raven-black hair, the defiant carriage, and then the self-inflicted wound, the blood. ‘Then she gave you a precious gift, and I pray that God was listening when she did so. Now, Clarice, let us talk of happier things. I would not waste my last days dwelling on Lady Eleanor’s self-destruction. How goes your mother?’
‘She is well, Your Grace, and will be most curious to hear of our meeting.’ Clarice blotted her eyes and cheeks with a prettily embroidered cloth.
Thoresby smiled at the little vanity. ‘I am glad to hear it.’
‘Do you remember my mother?’
‘A little.’ Thoresby described dancing with her, the mischievous grin and teasing words and gestures that had stirred him. ‘But I am confused. Princess Joan said she was sent away to give birth, so as not to ruin marriage negotiations, but I remember a more mature woman—’ It seemed a better choice than ‘not a virgin’.
‘She was a widow at the time,’ said Clarice.
‘Ah. Yes, that fits my memory.’
They grew more comfortable with one another as they talked, and Thoresby tried to ignore the weakness that hoarsened his voice and prevented him from lifting his mazer. He was both sorry and relieved when Dame Clarice noticed that he was having difficulty breathing. She called out for Alisoun’s help.
‘A soothing tisane, Your Grace,’ said Alisoun, helping him to drink. ‘You must rest now.’
Working together, Clarice and Alisoun shifted his cushions so that he lay back with more ease, added covers and placed a warm stone at his feet.
‘Rest, Father,’ Clarice whispered, kissing him on the forehead.
For a moment Thoresby thought his heart would break, to feel her warm lips, her breath on his face. He did not want her to leave, he felt a surge of regret to have known her for such a brief time.
‘If it please Your Grace, I would sit with you a while,’ said Clarice, as if she had read his thoughts.
He felt a warm rush of peace and contentment. ‘Yes, it would please me.’
He might never have met her, never have spoken to her, never have seen her hatred turn to love – or at least affection. God’s grace was upon him.
The pain and unhealthy cold in his knees eventually convinced Owen to rise from his prayers for the souls of Lady Eleanor, Gilbert, Dom Lambert and his servant, Will, Brother Michaelo, Thoresby – his list had no end. As he lifted his head, his gaze rested on Gilbert lying prostrate before the altar, arms outspread in a mirror of the crucifixion, with several of his fellow guards from the night watch surrounding him, kneeling on the stone floor with heads bowed. Gilbert had begged Owen’s forgiveness. Seeing the shame in the man’s eyes, witnessing his torment, Owen had forgiven him and promised to pray for his soul. In truth, he felt responsible for having failed to notice Gilbert’s discontentment. But Gilbert said he’d not been discontented but greedy and anxious about the future. He’d steadfastly refused to name those who had cooperated with his betrayal, insisting that he had lied to them and tricked them into disobeying Owen’s orders. Nor were any guilty of murder.
‘I take full blame, Captain,’ Gilbert had insisted. ‘You can trust the others without me to lead them astray.’
Owen was not entirely comfortable with that logic, having thought he’d chosen men for the guard who could be trusted to reject any orders contrary to what they’d heard from either Owen or Alfred, but he had given Gilbert more responsibility of late. He knew that, with Alfred’s help, he could pick out the unreliable ones. Not that it would matter for long. The archbishop was dying, and, with him, the composition of the archbishop’s guard.
‘Had Sir Lewis anything to do with it?’ Owen had asked. ‘Did he assist Lady Eleanor in any way?’
Gilbert shook his head. ‘No.’
Owen thought Geoffrey would be glad of that.
Leaving the chapel, Owen walked out into a gentle rain and the dim light of early evening. He tried to recall all that had happened since he’d given up on sleep and talked to Jehannes in the chapel very early that morning, but his thoughts spun out of reach. He needed food and rest, but he had no appetite and could not imagine quieting his mind enough to sleep. He thought of returning to the hall to ask after Lady Eleanor’s condition, but he did not have the heart.
He headed, instead, towards the stables. As he passed the kennels, the happy sounds of the romping dogs reminded him of Lady Sybilla, and he turned in that direction, thinking it possible he might find her there, that it was a likely place in which she might seek solace. Owen had yet to talk to her about Dame Clarice and Thoresby’s letter, having had no heart for it after what had come to pass in His Grace’s chamber. He did not think that Sybilla would react with such violence, but he had not imagined for a moment that Eleanor would take her own life. Strange, he had understood why Dom Lambert might try to end his own life, he had understood the humiliation that the man had suffered in Thoresby’s chambers, but he could not quite sound the depths of Lady Eleanor’s humiliation or despair. That she had murdered, and had that on her conscience, he understood. But she had implied a much deeper despair.
On a bench in the little shed that housed the kennels sat Lady Sybilla, her gaily coloured clothes subdued in the light of a solitary torch. Two dogs sat at her feet, their attention riveted on her. She stared down at them, but did not seem to be watching them.
Owen stood in the doorway for a moment, waiting for her to notice him. But, when moments went by and the dogs began to whine, he said, ‘My lady, are you unwell?’
As if waking from a dream, she turned her head slowly towards the sound of his voice, not focusing on him at first. He stepped into the light. Now she blinked and gave a slight start, concentrating her gaze on him.
‘Captain Archer. Have you heard? They could not save Eleanor.’ Her voice was flat, without life.
‘God have mercy on her soul.’ Owen bowed his head and crossed himself. ‘I had not heard. I’ve been long in the chapel.’
Sybilla nodded, a jerky, graceless gesture.
‘You were a good friend to her,’ he said, moving closer and crouching to pet the two dogs.
‘Not good enough. I had promised her I would say nothing of Roger Neville. Would that I had been more frank with you about my concerns, that I had broken my ill-considered promise.’ She lifted her face, tear-streaked and swollen. He realised she must have wept a long while. ‘You were there, Captain. Do you understand? What drove her to such despair? Was it the child?’
A wave of pinpricks across his blind eye robbed him of breath for a heartbeat. ‘Child?’
‘Dame Magda will have noticed. Her courses had not come, and she grew ill in the mornings. That is why I went hawking in her place. Forgive me. I’m talking too much.’ She pressed a hand to her mouth.
‘A child. God have mercy. It does not sound as if her husband would believe it his.’
Sybilla shook her head. ‘No. She would not say whose it wa
s, but I knew about her slipping away to see Roger. Would she have been put to death for her crimes? Surely Her Grace would not have allowed that.’
‘We cannot know what might have happened.’ He needed wine. This last piece of the tragedy sickened him. ‘My lady, I would not have you suffer more, but I must ask about Dame Clarice and the letter.’
‘Forgive me for lying to you. But, when she fell ill, I was frightened. God forgive me. And it was all for nothing. The letter was not what I had hoped. I knew that Dame Clarice had a secret. I knew that someone had a purpose in including her in our company.’
‘So you took it upon yourself to spy on her?’
‘Sweet Jesu, no! As Lady Eleanor was here for the Nevilles, I am here for the Percy family. I am a Neville, but my aunt was married to the Earl of Northumberland. She has passed on, but the Percy ties remain.’
‘What were you to prevent?’
‘Nothing. I was merely to listen. They wanted to know whether Her Grace intended to suggest a southerner for York. They are not fond of Alexander Neville, but they believe it is important to have a northern family in control, as the Thoresby family has been.’
‘A vigil of spies,’ Owen muttered. Ravenser had said that is what Thoresby had called the princess’s visit.
He left Sybilla in the company of the dogs, gentle, playful souls to whom she might whisper her sorrow. He drank good wine, talked to his men, ate a little, drank more wine, and slept the sleep of the exhausted. Dreamless.
In the morning, Owen woke to find Geoffrey sitting cross-legged at the foot of his pallet, his ink-stained fingers moving quietly along a string of paternoster beads, his eyes closed, his face relaxed, peaceful. Apparently sensing Owen’s eye on him, he lay down his beads and reached for a mazer on a stool beside him, handing it to Owen.
‘Alfred and Sir John’s man, Douglas, have organised the men, constructed a gallows, and Dom Jehannes has spent the night with Gilbert, shriving him. They await us now in the clearing beyond the river garden.’
Hanging. It was a fitting form of execution, as Gilbert had done unto Dom Lambert. But Owen’s stomach cramped at the thought of the man he had trained hanging from the gibbet. He crossed himself, then took a long drink of the ale.
‘They tell me this is Tom Merchet’s finest ale, and that he is your neighbour,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Jehannes brought back a fresh barrel yesterday.’
‘What of Lady Eleanor’s body?’
‘Sir Richard has arranged for Roger Neville, Dame Katherine and Master Walter to accompany her by barge to Lincoln. Her family will join her there. Her Grace is not pleased with Sir Lewis’s insistence on joining the journey to Lincoln, but he reassured her that he will return with the barge on the morrow, when she intends to depart.’
‘So soon?’
‘She believes that she has disturbed His Grace’s last days enough.’
‘Amen,’ said Owen. He drank down the rest of the ale and rose to face the sad conclusion to Wykeham’s mission.
Although Thoresby had prayed for inspiration about whom to advise Princess Joan to trust, he seemed left to his own common sense. Perhaps God paid him a compliment – he did not need divine intervention.
The experience of her was once again a heady treat for his senses. How beautiful she was, how graceful, how sweet her temper, how gentle her touch. He drank her in with what senses he had left to him. The previous day had taken much of his strength.
‘My lady, it is good to see you again after the storms of yesterday.’
Her smile was a benediction. ‘Your Grace, you do me great honour to say so. And I am much relieved. I had feared that my delay in revealing Dame Clarice’s identity might have offended you beyond forgiveness. But I believed it best to have the documents safely here before I spoke, and Clarice wanted you to hold the proof in your hands rather than merely being told that she was your daughter. Perhaps I should not have agreed to assist Wykeham by letting Dom Lambert join our company and stopping at Nun Appleton for Dame Clarice, but I did not imagine the tragedy that would unfold. Still, you must regret your hospitality.’
‘At this late point in my mortal existence, I hold no grudges, my lady. Nor do I care to dwell on the tragedies that have befallen your company in my palace.’
‘God bless you.’ She settled with a silken grace into the chair beside his bed. Again she wore the comforting blue, and he felt quite certain that she knew its calming effect. In her lovely eyes he saw remnants of weeping, a redness that artful powder had not quite erased, a puffiness that a soothing compress could not entirely ease.
‘I will say only that I grieve with you for Lady Eleanor, and I pray that God grants her peace,’ he said.
‘My poor benighted lady,’ Joan whispered. ‘I cannot understand her violence – it is as if she emulated her beloved falcons.’ She crossed herself. ‘How I could be so blind to her suffering – it frightens me, Your Grace. I sensed a rift among my women and I withdrew from them instead of extending my hand to help. I responded to a threat when I should have offered solace and support.’ She bowed her head. ‘May God forgive me.’
What blinkers she wore – Eleanor’s lying with Lambert on the journey, slipping away to Roger Neville, and her flirtation with Clifford. But surely she must have noticed something. ‘Lady Eleanor must have neglected her duties to have dallied with Lambert and her cousin on the journey. How did you reconcile that?’
‘I told myself she was with Clifford. I knew of their attraction to one another.’ Joan sighed. ‘I was too fond of her. I shall not be so lax in future.’
Thoresby doubted that the princess would actually allow herself to become more involved in the lives of her ladies. In an effort to change the mood before cynicism overtook his good intentions, he noted, ‘You move with more ease than when you departed my chamber yesterday.’
Joan looked up with a relieved expression. ‘I am most grateful for the skill of Magda Digby, who has soothed my discomfort and convinced me to move about more and consume less. I would welcome her into my household, but she is unavailable.’
‘She refused you?’
‘With such wise words I would have sounded a fool to argue with her.’
Thoresby could well imagine the exchange. ‘I cannot think of another I trust more than I do Dame Magda, yet I know almost nothing about her. Not for want of prying questions.’ Despite the shadows of last night’s grief, he’d noticed a glow to Joan’s complexion and a sense of fresh air when she moved. ‘You have been walking?’
‘Oh, more than that – I have been assisting your falconer – he is training a young hawk. Dame Magda inspired me to take advantage of your beautiful estate. I am curious – the young hawk – who is it for?’
‘Owen Archer’s children – my godchildren. On my death my falconer has instructions to move several of my birds to Freythorpe Hadden, the manor young Hugh will inherit.’
‘Captain Archer’s children? You have curious affections.’
‘They are mine to have.’
She raised an eyebrow, but did not comment. ‘The young hawk is fierce and graceful. He will please them.’ She smiled on him. ‘But you did not invite me here to talk of godchildren and hawking. Have you advice for me?’ Her lovely eyes studied him, no longer smiling.
‘I have prayed much on this, and I believe that John of Gaunt is a man who understands that his path in life is to support the king.’ Her husband’s brother, the powerful Duke of Lancaster, second living son of King Edward. ‘I cannot say that I have ever sensed in him a man who believes he’s destined to be king of England.’
‘There are many who would disagree.’
‘His power and wealth frighten many, my lady. But you did not come to Bishopthorpe to hear their opinions.’
‘No.’
‘He is not always a pleasant man, or easy to deal with, but his sense of honour is profound and steady. I believe you would be wise to keep him near you.’
‘I am relieved to hear you say so, Your Grace, fo
r I’ve ever felt I could depend on John, as has my Edward.’
‘I would warn you about your son John.’ He raised a hand to quiet her apology. ‘He needs discipline, he needs to learn respect for his fellow men. Some time in the company of a man like Owen Archer would do him much good.’
‘I have asked Geoffrey Chaucer to stay behind, talk to the captain about his joining my household,’ said Joan.
‘Good.’ Thoresby nodded. ‘Yes. That would be good. As for whom to avoid, I warn you against Alice Perrers and her friends at court.’
‘Even the Nevilles?’
‘I’ve come to accept that they are a necessary power in the north. But of those in Perrers’s circle, beware.’
She nodded. ‘What of Alexander Neville? If he is named your successor, who in the Church might I trust?’
That was simple. ‘Put your trust in William Whittlesey. The Archbishop of Canterbury is a good man. And Brantingham, Bishop of Exeter.’ Thoresby coughed and paused for a sip of honeyed water, which she kindly handed him. ‘As you have witnessed here, be wary of William Wykeham. As Bishop of Winchester, he is powerful, but you will have support in resisting him.’
She nodded. ‘Any others?’
‘I do not wish to name too many, Your Grace, for you’ll have Lancaster to guide you, and he will have the pulse of the nobility.’
Now she grew even more serious. ‘And the other matter, Your Grace? The curse on my family?’
Thoresby took her hand. ‘I cannot believe that God would curse Prince Edward for the sins of his grandparents. Nor do I believe that God would hold King Edward and Queen Isabella solely responsible for the crises of their reign. They were caught up in currents that each believed threatened their ability to fulfil their duty. As your own husband has, I am quite certain, itched at times to escape the long shadow of his most noble father the king, so must have your husband’s grandfather squirmed in the shadow of his father, Edward Longshanks, a most formidable man. But that earlier Prince Edward had not the blessed counsel and gracious example of a mother such as was Queen Philippa, your husband’s late mother. As for Queen Isabella, though I respect your affection for France, I suggest that, in that realm’s court, she had been raised to believe herself superior to her fellow mortals, and was, therefore, unable to bear her husband’s slights, nor did she consider it necessary to temper her own lust and ambition. I pray I have not offended you.’