The Guilt of Innocents (Owen Archer Book 9)

by Candace Robb

  So he’d mentioned the boy by name. Owen wondered whether Drogo had known him or had learned the lad’s name after he’d taken the scrip. ‘Even if you’d looked right away, it sounds as if he quickly disappeared.’

  Geoffrey sighed. ‘He did. He was very fast.’ The sullen expression had softened into disappointment. ‘When I realised he’d tricked me I was glad he’d fallen into the river.’

  ‘Geoffrey!’ Dame Agnes need say no more, all the shock and disapproval clear in her tone.

  The young man crossed himself. ‘I didn’t feel that for long. I was just angry.’

  ‘I would have been angry to find I was holding an empty scrip,’ said Owen. ‘Did anyone else catch your eye? Odd behaviour? Someone out of place?’

  Geoffrey shook his head.

  ‘Do you know who Master Nicholas is?’

  ‘Who? Oh, yes. He was blamed for Drogo’s wounds.’

  ‘Did you see him on the barges? Take a moment to think back. They sound as if they were crowded.’

  The young man lifted his gaze to the ceiling, frowning as he thought, and finally shaking his head as he lowered his gaze to Owen once more. ‘No. Do you think it was Master Nicholas who was drinking with Drogo?’

  ‘I doubt it, though I can’t say why. If you hear anything or remember anything else that you think might be of use, I need to know.’ Owen was about to give him leave to go, but thought of one more question. ‘Were you at the abbey gate when Drogo bled?’

  ‘I was, Captain.’

  ‘Did you see Master Nicholas approach him?’

  ‘I did.’ Geoffrey frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Did he carry a weapon?’

  ‘Not that I could see.’

  ‘Did he try to sneak up to Drogo?’

  Geoffrey shook his head.

  ‘Did he seem worried? Frightened?’

  ‘No, Captain.’

  ‘I am grateful, Geoffrey. And – you might tell the other lads what I’ve asked. I would like to hear from anyone with anything to add.’

  Geoffrey nodded and hastened out.

  Hempe awaited Owen at the York Tavern, thoughtfully staring at the ceiling beam, a tankard of ale firmly in hand. As Owen greeted him he seemed to remember that he was cross, and pulled his brows together.

  ‘He’d been in the tavern, a cloaked man entered, said something and left, and then Drogo left.’ Hempe shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘Precious little in that.’

  ‘No one recognised the man?’

  ‘Cloaked and hooded.’ Hempe snorted and shook his head. ‘It could not be much more useless, could it?’

  ‘So it might have been a priest?’

  ‘I suppose it might have been a woman for all they could tell.’ Hempe cursed under his breath.

  ‘You are so caught up in this?’ Owen asked, curious about this man who was becoming a friend.

  ‘I don’t like the smell of it,’ said Hempe. ‘What did you learn?’

  Owen filled him in, by which time Hempe thought he ought to head home.

  ‘Being raised to a bailiff of the city has been a mixed blessing for my trade.’ Hempe was a mercer. ‘I have more business, but I’m far less efficient.’

  ‘You’re likely to hold public office for the rest of your life,’ said Owen. ‘You’re a worthy man, and it’s noticed.’

  Hempe grumbled something as he departed, but it was plain he appreciated the compliment.

  He was no sooner out the door than Bess Merchet joined Owen. She did not like to be seen socialising with the city officers – it made some customers uncomfortable. Over an ale she recounted for Owen her conversation with the two bargemen.

  ‘Already bleeding when he arrived,’ Owen said, realising Brother Henry might have been right about the attack happening elsewhere. ‘What else?’

  Bess told him how, to her thinking, Hubert’s carrying the scrip about with him was unusual.

  ‘I’d not considered that,’ Owen admitted, as much to himself as to her. He would ask Jasper what he thought of that. ‘Did the one who suggested someone having cause to be after the bargemen say why he thought that might be?’

  ‘That was Hal who suggested it,’ said Bess, glancing towards the corner of the room. ‘I did not ask, Bart was so certain it was about the lad’s scrip.’

  Owen followed her gaze, but saw only a pair of travellers and a young man in a goldsmith’s livery in the corner. ‘Are they still here?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Hal honoured my request to take Bart away before he grew restless. I could find out where they bide.’

  ‘Would you, my friend?’ Owen pressed her hand. ‘I may need them before I’m finished.’

  ‘Lucie looks herself again,’ said Bess, ‘you’ve naught to fret about there, though she’ll be less pleased than I am that His Grace has already set you to the task of finding Drogo’s murderer.’

  ‘He hasn’t,’ said Owen, leaning back to drain his tankard. Wiping his mouth, he rose. ‘But he will. Abbot Campian sent for me, and in the next day or so he’ll begin to worry about the safety of the abbey bargemen – after all, we have no idea why someone attacked Drogo, and he’ll ask His Grace for my assistance. His Grace will be only too happy to agree in order to bring peace to St Peter’s School. So I have begun to ask questions while folk still remember what they thought they witnessed. Though some are already confused.’

  ‘Not everyone has spoken sense?’ Bess leaned over to wipe the table top with one efficient flourish. She was eager for gossip.

  ‘No. A lad had told Dame Agnes at the Clee that he’d been standing beside the older scholar who pushed Drogo into the Ouse, but what he saw was the student help the man who dived in to save Drogo. He’d freed the man’s sleeve from a nail that had snagged it. Others had witnessed it and laughed at the lad’s mistake.’

  Bess laughed. ‘Poor chick! He’ll regret ever having said a peep.’

  ‘It’s a difficult lesson he’s learned, that he should not jump to conclusions,’ Owen agreed. ‘Keep your ears pricked, my friend.’

  He headed home, looking forward to discussing the evening’s events with Lucie, his most trusted advisor. He was still smiling about the lad’s mistake when he entered the hall. Lucie and Jasper were sitting at the table quietly talking. Dame Phillippa nodded by the fire – she seemed to sleep all the day of late. Alisoun’s voice curled down from the solar – she was softly singing to the children. He said a prayer of thanksgiving for the peace in his household. Lucie lifted her head, then rose to greet him, but he told her to sit and rest herself and went over to kiss her. The child in her womb slowed her steps and swelled her ankles. He admired Lucie’s courage in carrying this baby and tried not to think how with each pregnancy – this was her fourth in the eight years they’d been wed – she aged a little more. He thought God cruel in making them choose between children of their flesh and each other. He caught himself, wondering why his thoughts had gone from cheer to gloom so quickly. He turned to Jasper.

  ‘Are you rested? Might we talk of Hubert and what you saw today?’

  ‘I didn’t have a chance to tell you before – the best news is that Hubert’s da and Sir Baldwin are alive. Master Nicholas told me.’

  ‘God spared them? I am glad of that,’ said Owen. Nicholas had said nothing of this to him, but then he’d been worried about his own survival.

  Lucie rose again. ‘I’ll tell Kate to serve us.’

  ‘Let Jasper ask her. Then we’ll talk,’ said Owen, having known full well that he would be rewarded with the frown that she now gave him. ‘You are my beauty and my love, wife, and I’ll cherish you as I may.’

  Lucie blushed and could not hold the frown. She kissed Owen’s cheek.

  Jasper grinned as he rose. ‘The captain and his Welsh charm win the match!’

  Owen noticed Alisoun’s wax tablet beside where Jasper had been sitting. ‘Her schoolmaster is not easy in his mind this night.’

  Lucie studied Owen’s face for a moment. ‘You are involved e
ven before His Grace has commanded you.’

  ‘And how do you know whether or not I’ve spoken to Thoresby?’

  Her eyes twinkled. ‘You were smiling when you returned. He always leaves you in a temper.’

  Jasper rejoined them, sliding back onto the bench across the table. ‘Have you learned much else?’ he asked Owen, reminding him that he’d promised to let him know what he heard.

  ‘A little.’ Owen summed up his evening’s gleanings while Kate set trenchers of stewed fish and root vegetables before them. ‘Drogo was bleeding when he arrived at the staithe,’ he concluded. ‘And Bess reminded me that lads don’t often walk about with scrips. What say you?’

  Jasper rolled his eyes as he chewed a mouthful.

  ‘She is right,’ said Lucie.

  ‘He’s worn it every day since he returned to school,’ said Jasper. ‘Some teased him about it, those who bide in the Clee. They said he convinced the matron to let him sleep with it beneath his pillow.’

  ‘I should think many of the lads hid something dear to them such as that,’ said Lucie. ‘I did at St Clement’s.’ Lucie had lived at St Clement’s Nunnery after her mother died. Her father’s gift of the house had been in part an attempt to make amends for having sent her away.

  ‘Dame Agnes has some amusing rules,’ said Jasper. ‘Pillows must be flat on the pallet or the lads will grow crooked. She reminds them to lie on their backs in bed. Though no one checks them during the night.’ He chuckled.

  ‘She is a dear, God-fearing woman,’ said Lucie, ‘but I’m grateful she wasn’t my matron.’ She and Jasper laughed.

  Though he was enjoying the lightness of the conversation, Owen was very tired and wanted to hear what else Jasper knew so that he might head for bed. So once more he turned to his son. ‘Tell me about Hubert’s disappearance.’

  Jasper shrugged. ‘There is little to tell. Several days back Master John missed him in class. The lads said he’d awakened that day at the Clee. One was sent to ask Dame Agnes if he was ill. She’d thought he was in class. Then Master John sent word to his ma in Weston, hoping that’s where he’s gone, but he’s still waiting for a reply. They’ve had the crier and the parish priests in the city ask for news of him. None of the gatekeepers had noticed him passing through, but I know they don’t see all who pass. I was able to hide from them when I needed to.’ Jasper had witnessed a murder and had been on the run when Owen and Lucie took him in. ‘Some close to Hubert said he was that upset about losing the scrip it sickened him.’

  ‘Weston? That’s a long way for a lad to travel,’ said Owen. ‘And dangerous.’

  ‘And with his scrip stolen, he’s no way to pay the ferryman,’ said Lucie, pressing Jasper’s hand. ‘It takes me back to when you were on the streets.’

  Owen did not like the sound of this. He did not want Lucie sinking into fear for her children as she had the previous autumn. ‘Tell me about Hubert,’ he said. ‘He must be well liked for you lads to go to such trouble to help him.’

  ‘He’s one of the younger scholars, so I don’t know him well. As I said, he’s a charity student this term. His da was away fighting for the king in La Rochelle, but, as I said, he and his lord survived. But we didn’t know that earlier today. I wonder whether he knows?’

  ‘So you thought to help the family,’ said Lucie.

  ‘Yes. But I think we’ve made it all worse.’

  ‘What more do you know of the lad?’ Owen asked.

  ‘He lost a brother and sister to the pestilence, so his ma’s alone now – was alone. He thought his place was at his mother’s side, not at school.’

  ‘Sounds like a serious young man.’

  Jasper nodded. ‘He’s quiet, but he’s not strangely quiet. Everyone likes him.’

  ‘He sounds like a model student,’ said Lucie.

  ‘Master John does not favour him in any way. Too quiet, I think – the master likes the spirited ones.’

  ‘Where would you guess he is?’ Owen asked.

  ‘Trying to find his way home, if not there already,’ said Jasper. ‘It’s all about his ma, I think, and feeling like he’s all she has left.’

  ‘I would say you should go to Weston, my love,’ said Lucie, beginning to rise. ‘Young Hubert is the person you must talk to.’

  Owen bowed his head. Only last night he’d returned from a few days at Bishopthorpe and he was not keen to set off again.

  Lucie and Owen lay in bed the following morning bundled up so that they would not freeze with the shutters open, watching the first snow of the season in the soft early light. It was a sweet moment for Lucie, with her joy in being in the arms of her love and feeling their child move in her womb. Yet even so, there was a shadow on her heart; it had been on the day of the first snow nine years earlier that her late husband Nicholas had fallen ill and what she thought she knew of those she loved had been turned on its head.

  ‘I hate to speak and shatter the grace of this moment,’ said Owen, reaching for her hand and holding it in both of his, ‘but I am worried that you will spend the morning kneeling in the garden.’

  It was Lucie’s custom to honour this anniversary with a vigil at Nicholas’s grave. Archbishop Thoresby had consecrated a grave for Nicholas in the back of the garden, for the apothecary garden had been his master work. Lucie was not surprised that Owen worried about her. She knew he’d never been comfortable about the ritual because of the customary weather.

  ‘Not today, my love,’ she assured him, kissing one of his battle-scarred hands. ‘I would not risk the health of our child.’

  She drew his hand to her stomach and watched his expression as their child kicked him roundly. Owen’s eye opened wide in wonder, and his face crinkled into the most beautiful smile in God’s kingdom.

  ‘Now that’s a sturdy kick,’ he said in a voice tight with emotion.

  ‘Or a punch,’ said Lucie, enjoying the moment and wishing it could be prolonged.

  A knock on the street door down below distracted both parents, but not the baby, who flailed away.

  ‘Quiet,’ Lucie whispered, rubbing her great stomach.

  Someone clattered up the stairs.

  ‘Hugh,’ said Owen with a laugh. ‘Do you think he’ll ever walk a straight line?’

  The boy proceeded to pound on their door. When Alisoun called him away, he stomped in protest.

  ‘We’re awake,’ Owen called out. ‘Save the door and let Hugh in.’

  Lucie laughed with him, hiding her disappointment in Owen’s allowing the interruption.

  The door eased open and Hugh peered around it, his fiery red hair unmistakable for anyone else’s. Seeing Owen and Lucie watching for him, he squealed and raced into the room.

  From the hallway, out of view, Alisoun said, ‘I am sorry about Hugh. I was too slow to catch him. A messenger is here from His Grace the Archbishop. He said he is to bring Captain Archer to the palace at once.’

  Lucie and Owen exchanged looks of regret over the moving head of their son.

  ‘I told you he’d send for me.’

  ‘You’ve not broken your fast,’ Lucie said, wanting him healthy.

  ‘He’ll feed me,’ said Owen. ‘But I can’t go at once. I want to say good morning to Gwenllian.’ He was already up and dressing. ‘I’ll tell him I’ll come to the palace bye and bye.’

  The snow had stopped before Owen stepped out into Davygate, and already what had fallen was turning to a slippery slush underfoot, the sort of surface he’d hated since losing half his sight. Long ago, while in the service of the Duke of Lancaster, he’d been blinded by the leman of a prisoner of war, a debility that had ended his career as captain of archers. Neither the duke’s physician nor Magda Digby had been able to save Owen’s sight. It was then that he’d learned to read and write in order to be the duke’s ears in the court circles, and it was these abilities as well as his fighting skills that had interested Archbishop Thoresby when the old duke died – for as Lord Chancellor of England the archbishop also had need of
a spy. Owen had loved and honoured the old duke, Henry of Grosmont, a fine commander and a deeply pious man. Owen had not trusted the new duke, the husband of Henry’s daughter Blanche and a younger son of the king, and had therefore agreed to enter Thoresby’s service, naïvely believing that an archbishop would be as moral as the old duke. He’d quickly learned to his regret that although Thoresby was a man of God, he was also an ambitious man, a man who believed that it was often best to look the other way in order to protect strategic alliances. Falling in love with Lucie Wilton had tied Owen to the archbishop’s service. It was not only that in deference to his lord the guild had allowed Lucie to continue in her late husband’s apothecary upon marrying Owen, but even more importantly the circumstances of her husband’s death might have remained a blot on Lucie’s name but for Thoresby’s influence. For that, Owen owed him his allegiance.

  With his faulty depth-perception challenging him in the half-light of the snowy November streets, Owen picked his way past York Minster and into the grounds of the archbishop’s palace with a caution that frustrated him – he was aching to stretch and move. When he found that the stone steps leading up to the palace doors had already been swept of snow, he took them two at a time. He found Brother Michaelo, secretary to the archbishop, awaiting him in the doorway to Thoresby’s private hall in his characteristically spotless Benedictine habit, an amused expression on his aristocratically bony face.

  ‘You are restless in the city, Captain?’ he asked in his Norman accent. ‘Or were you impatient to reach the top?’

  ‘Both,’ Owen said, catching his breath. For that to have winded him meant he needed far more activity than he had managed of late.

  Michaelo responded with an elegant shrug. ‘His Grace awaits you in his parlour.’

  ‘This is about the drowning?’

  Michaelo lowered his head slightly, his manner of nodding. ‘I warn you, His Grace rose quite early and is not in good temper.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning.’

  Owen found Thoresby sitting by a brazier in his parlour, his hands steepled before him, staring out the glazed window opposite that opened onto the winter garden. He slowly turned to acknowledge Owen.