The Guilt of Innocents (Owen Archer Book 9)

by Candace Robb

  Hubert shook his head. ‘I’ll not come yet, Captain. I will stand by Ma if our lord makes much of this.’ He was not so confident as before, but Owen admired the boy’s spirit. He would grow up to be a fine lad, like Jasper.

  Ysenda rose. ‘Have you asked the man’s family? Was there anyone else he might have given it to?’

  ‘That is what I must discover back in York,’ said Owen, ‘now that I know what was lost, what I’m looking for.’

  They took their leave quickly, and were mounted and into the town of Weston before anyone might ride after them. Owen needed distance and time in which to ponder all he’d learned.

  ‘Did she mean to lie about the cross?’ Jasper asked when they stopped to warm themselves by a fire while enjoying the food and wine Lady Gamyll had ordered prepared for their journey.

  ‘Does your asking that question mean that you think she did?’ Owen asked.

  ‘That’s Dame Magda’s trick, answering a question with a question,’ Jasper said. He looked healthy and content, thought Owen. Lucie should be proud of the life she’d given the lad, an apprenticeship that had given him a sense of his own place until he’d felt part of the family.

  ‘I expected Dame Ysenda to lie, or to avoid directly answering us. Something warned her that she would regret that and she took back the lie. Or traded it for another.’

  ‘She’s canny,’ said Rafe. ‘I could see that yesterday.’

  ‘I feel sorry for her husband,’ said Gilbert. ‘I do not think she would be an easy woman to live with.’

  ‘Certainly not an easy woman to leave!’ said Rafe, slapping Gilbert on the thigh.

  Perhaps that was what bothered Owen about Aubrey’s absence. ‘You heard what Sir Baldwin said, the man talked of his lovely wife all the while he was away from her. He is a most contradictory man to abandon her once he’s returned to her, don’t you think?’

  All three of his companions nodded. Owen wondered what Aubrey was up to.

  Six

  A RIDDLE OF A MAN

  Hubert observed his mother humming as she swept up the snow and mud that the captain and Jasper had tracked in; her happy mood disturbed him. He’d thought she would be humbled and worried about the loss of Sir Baldwin’s cross, and worried about Aubrey’s disappearance as well, even though at the same time glad he was not there. But she appeared to be light of heart. That bothered Hubert.

  He was sick at heart for having taken something that had not even belonged to his mother. His relief about the possibility that the cross might yet be found and returned to Sir Baldwin was quickly fading. His having lost what not only belonged to their lord but was also of value to the entire parish felt like an unbearably heavy guilt. He’d already feared he’d never make amends for having worn the scrip, tempting the pilot and unwittingly leading him to the action that caused his death. He wondered whether Drogo had shown the cross to someone, and they’d decided they wanted it for themselves and killed him for it. Perhaps Drogo had meant to return the cross in the scrip, but by then the other man had taken it and cut Drogo with the poisoned blade. Hubert felt like he’d awakened in a nightmare and could not find his way out, but it was even worse, for it wasn’t just a horrible dream, it was real.

  Worst of all was his confusion about his mother’s state of grace. Jasper had been right when he’d said that parents did not credit their children with half the knowledge they possessed – his mother didn’t. He was as certain as he could be that his mother had not lost a child of late. She had not been large with child before he departed for York – he knew that because he’d hugged her often, and tightly, and he’d also caught sight of her bathing in the beck on Sir Baldwin’s manor grounds. He would have seen or felt if she’d been with child, and he’d felt nothing out of the ordinary. It followed that he could not account for her having the birthing cross hidden among her things. She should not have had it. And he would be willing to make a bold wager that women had needed the cross in that time, and yet no one had come to her seeking it, so that meant to him that no one had known of her supposed pregnancy. Hubert did not like what he was thinking, that his mother was up to something sinful, even if it was only wanting a pretty thing that wasn’t hers.

  To his shame he found himself regretting that he had not departed with the captain and Jasper.

  He picked up the buckets to take to the well, but his mother asked him to stay a moment. Setting aside the broom she came to sit near where he stood and patted a stool nearby.

  ‘Just a moment, Hubert. Someone the three of you talked about, the bargeman who stole the scrip. What was his name?’

  She had to look up at him because he had not sat down. He itched to escape into the fresh air.

  ‘His name was Drogo,’ he said. ‘Why?’ He could not make out her expression as she craned her neck, but he did not wish to sit. ‘Do you know a Drogo?’ He did not really want to hear more, but he must know.

  She shrugged, trying to seem indifferent, but she’d reacted almost as if it hurt to hear the name. ‘I was merely curious. Now off with you. I can see that you are eager to be without, to stretch your growing bones.’

  Hubert hitched up the buckets and continued out, but once he’d passed the outbuildings, he set down his load and breathed great lungs full of the brisk air, trying to ease his trembling and nausea. He prayed that he was wrong about his mother, that she hadn’t stolen the cross.

  In the morning Kate had called Alfred inside to break his fast with the family, and then Magda had ordered him off to the barracks to sleep.

  ‘Thou needst not watch Magda and the captain’s family during the day,’ she’d assured him. ‘Nosy neighbours will keep the household safe.’

  Shortly afterwards, when Lucie and Edric had gone to the shop and Alisoun off to school, Magda settled down with her old friend Phillippa, who was still quite clear in her head this morning. She chose a spot not too far from the children, who were quietly playing with Kate, though far enough that she and Phillippa could quietly discuss Alisoun. By merely observing Alisoun for the past few hours Magda could see that the children loved her and responded to her with an ease that bespoke a firm but loving hand on her part, so as a children’s nurse she was satisfactory. But that came as no surprise as Alisoun had held that post in the households of several of her kin before she’d insisted that she wanted only to apprentice to Magda.

  Why she wished to be a midwife and healer was a puzzle to Magda, for Alisoun seemed judgemental and impatient with the fully grown. She had followed Magda’s orders in nursing Lucie back to health, but she had not managed it without complaints from her patient and others in the household. When Magda instructed her in preparing healing potions and powders she would often argue, skip steps, or pay no heed to the order in which she added ingredients. But what most disturbed Magda was her apparent lack of any compulsion to be of help to people. She must be told that someone needed help, she did not see that and act of her own will. And yet Magda’s usually reliable feelings were that there was a healer somewhere within Alisoun.

  Phillippa told Magda how Alisoun had shifted her affections from Jasper to Edric, and how plainly jealous she was of Edric’s admiration for Lucie.

  ‘She is causing much unease in this house morning and evening,’ said Phillippa.

  ‘She knows that a wet nurse is soon to supplant her,’ said Magda. Once again she resolved to talk to the girl.

  ‘I do hope that the wet nurse can also take care of Gwenllian and Hugh,’ said Phillippa. ‘God has made it so that I cannot be counted on to help with them, though I love them with all my being.’

  Magda patted her friend’s bony hand. ‘Thou wast a mother to Lucie most loving and skilled in healing. Thou hast done thy part. Magda has also done her part. She has arranged for Kate’s cousin Maud, who was recently widowed and has an infant to raise, to be nurse for all three children, and wet nurse if Lucie’s milk ceases. Kate has promised to keep it a secret until Magda feels the time is right to tell thy niece.’ The we
t nurse requirement had been an excuse to let Alisoun go. Lucie had always nursed her own children, which she had the freedom to do having not wed a knight like her father. ‘Maud is eager to meet the children and join the household in which her cousin serves.’

  ‘Kate’s sister was a great help to me at Freythorpe. God be praised, they seem a hardworking family,’ said Phillippa. ‘I know you’re going to say God had nothing to do with it, but I believe otherwise.’

  Magda sniffed. It was exactly what she’d been about to say. She must be growing old if she repeated herself so often that Phillippa knew what she would say. Maybe she did need an apprentice. But was Alisoun the one? She’d waited for more than a year for the girl to prove herself compassionate and perceptive, but she’d seen no sign in all that time. Yet she must now discuss Alisoun’s future with her.

  A knock at the street door sent Gwenllian and Hugh racing to answer it, but Kate had reached the door first and shooed the two in Magda and Phillippa’s direction.

  From the doorway Magda heard Kate say, ‘No, the captain is away.’

  Sensing a tension, Magda hurried to the door. Kate began to explain, but Magda recognised the woman on the doorstep.

  ‘Dame Alice. What a pity thou hast crossed the river to see Captain Archer and he is not here. Might Magda help thee? Or Dame Lucie?’ She wondered what the tanner’s wife wanted with Owen.

  Alice was a timid woman, but she knew Magda, having needed her as midwife many times, though most of her many children had not lived past their first years, being a sickly family. She stood apologetically hunched into herself, her eyes wide with the anticipation of trouble, though she tweaked her mouth into a brief smile on seeing Magda.

  ‘I heard about the apprentice who died last even, pulled from the river,’ she took a deep breath, ‘and that Captain Archer might be looking for the murderer.’

  Well aware that Owen could have no knowledge of the most recent murder, Magda said, ‘Thou hast guessed rightly. If thou hast something to tell him, thou canst trust it to Magda.’

  ‘God bless you, Dame Magda, for it was all I could do to find a friend to watch the children once.’

  Magda invited her to step into the hall, and sat down on a bench near the door.

  Alice shuffled in, and only then did Magda realise she was with child again, poor woman. It might be time to teach her how to avoid quickening. Her boots were worn to nothing – and she a tanner’s wife. She shook out her skirts as she sat down, shedding mud and what looked like dried vomit onto Kate’s clean floor.

  Phillippa limped over to ask whether Alice would like something warm to drink, and receiving a shy nod she went to fetch it.

  ‘Now, Dame Alice, what dost thou know about the dead man?’

  ‘I don’t know that it’s of use, but it seems to me it was likely him I saw yesterday afternoon. Two men were down on the bank near the Old Baile just as the tide was boiling up the river – a storm surge it looked like. I thought to warn them.’ Alice paused to take the bowl of mulled cider Phillippa brought her. ‘Bless you, Goodwife,’ she said, tears forming in her frightened, tired eyes.

  Phillippa smiled, bobbed her head, and limped away. Magda sensed that her old friend was about to slip into confusion again.

  But it was Alice she must attend. ‘Who was on the riverbank, Dame Alice?’

  ‘Two men. Arguing. One was finely dressed, a youngish man, and the other I guessed to be his servant, perhaps the same age, perhaps a wee bit younger, dressed plainly. They were flailing their arms as they argued and I thought it best not to call out. But I was curious and looked again, and now I did not see the plainly dressed one, just the fine young man climbing up from the mud and brushing off his gloved hands.’ She stopped abruptly to sip the cider, wiggling her toes which must have begun to thaw.

  ‘How many weeks toswollen art thou?’

  Alice pressed her lower back with her free hand. ‘This one will come in mid-spring, I think.’

  Too late to stop it safely for such a worn woman. ‘Magda will bring thee a rub for thy back, to ease it as thou swells.’

  ‘God bless you, Dame Magda.’ Alice took another sip.

  ‘Thou dost not know either man?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘No.’ After weak laughter she said, ‘I heard the one who died was a goldsmith’s apprentice. Why would I ever meet such a one? But I reckon he was the one I thought a servant. The other –’ She shook her head again. ‘Such a man did not notice me even when I was my prettiest, many bairns ago.’

  ‘Canst thou describe the finer one?’

  ‘He was straight-backed and quick on his feet, and it might be that he is fair-haired, but it might have been part of his hat that looked so. It was trimmed in fur and feathers.’

  She might be describing any one of a number of men in York. ‘Why hast thou come to tell the captain this? Thou didst not know either man, nor wast anyone to know of thy witnessing the argument.’

  With a little shrug, Alice said, ‘I hoped Dame Lucie would give me a draught for my night cough. It wakes me all the night. My husband says I have no need to spend what little we have on that.’

  Magda silently cursed the man who valued his cock over all else. ‘That will be thy digestion, not unusual in thy condition. Tell Dame Lucie what thou hast done and she will not charge thee.’

  ‘You are kind, Dame Magda.’

  ‘Thou hast done a good deed that should be repaid,’ said Magda.

  They talked a while longer, Alice describing how that part of the riverbank was seldom busy with people because the mud was particularly deep there, and then Magda saw her out with a promise to tell Owen all Alice had said. She would, too, for it was possible that poor Alice had been the last to see Nigel the apprentice alive. She wondered who the gloved man with the fancy hat might be. For if the other had been Nigel, this one might be the murderer. She wondered how many men with feathered and furred hats had been seen in the city recently.

  ‘Amélie is late. Why does she linger so long in the garden? What can she be thinking, letting Lucie run wild?’ Phillippa had risen to pace the hall, wringing her hands and worrying about something that had happened in the past. Amélie was Lucie’s mother, who’d died long ago.

  ‘Who is Amélie?’ Gwenllian asked Magda. ‘Why is Aunt Pippa so angry?’

  ‘Thy aunt is confused,’ said Magda. ‘Shall we sing to soothe her?’

  Gwenllian shook her head so hard her dark curls wildly danced about her head, and her dark eyes were frightened. Magda knew that the child’s curiosity would only confuse Phillippa more, so she drew her friend out to the kitchen, asking Gwenllian to mind her little brother.

  ‘Magda would like thy company whilst she talks to cook, old friend,’ she said to Phillippa.

  ‘I should never have let her marry,’ said Phillippa as they crossed the walkway to the kitchen, still within the hearing of those in the hall.

  Magda chuckled. Gwenllian would drive Kate mad with questions when next she fed her.

  ‘Who is this girl?’ Phillippa demanded when she spied Kate rolling out dough. ‘Are you the new kitchen maid?’

  Kate was accustomed to the elderly woman’s confused states. ‘I’m a hard worker, Dame Phillippa, and not so above myself that I complain about scrubbing and fussing with the straw.’

  Phillippa sniffed. ‘I’ll be watching you, and I’ll be the judge of your value.’

  With a smile and a little curtsey, Kate acknowledged her comment and returned to her dough. Magda approved of her and was glad that the young widow Maud, soon to join the household as the children’s nurse, was her kin. Kate’s sister Tildy had worked in the house before her. They were a poor family, all entering into service as soon as they were old enough. Tildy was now living at Freythorpe Hadden, Lucie’s inheritance, the manor young Hugh would claim when he was of age. Tildy had married the steward and in a short while had borne several healthy children. It was a pity that Phillippa could not manage that household, as she had for her br
other, Lucie’s father, for many years. Magda knew that with this elderly confusion it was best if the person could remain in their most familiar surroundings. But Phillippa needed closer watching than Tildy could manage, and Lucie was very good with her.

  A sack of roots and dried herbs that Magda had brought as trade for Lucie’s hospitality soon absorbed Phillippa with the very familiar routine of tying the herbs to the rafters and brushing the roots clean, then storing them.

  They’d not been there too long when through the open doors Magda heard George Hempe’s deep voice. She patted Kate on the arm and went out to meet the man, shutting the hall door so that Phillippa would not get curious and wander in.

  The hawk was almost humorously angry, standing with legs wide, hands on hips, as though he ruled there. He’d apparently been civil to Gwenllian and Hugh, who seemed proud to have greeted him at the door.

  Magda asked Gwenllian to entertain Hugh at the far end of the hall for just a little longer. The girl’s dimpled smile was reassuring. She was enjoying the responsibility.

  ‘You should have sent word that you’d come here last night, Dame Magda,’ Hempe said once Gwenllian had led Hugh away.

  ‘Was it not a wise decision, Bailiff?’

  ‘The matter is not whether it was wise, but that I’ve wasted the morning searching for you.’

  ‘Thou wilt be repaid with helpful news. Sit down and listen to Magda.’ She told him about Nicholas Ferriby’s odd visit to Lucie and Alice Tanner’s tale of the men on the riverbank. ‘The one might well be the murderer.’

  His face relaxed as he listened. ‘A hat like that has surely been noticed by someone. I am most grateful to you, Dame Magda.’ He rose. ‘Will you stay here for a few more nights?’

  ‘Until the captain returns. Alfred has vowed to set night watches on this house until such time.’

  ‘Owen’s return will not make your solitary home safe,’ said the hawk. ‘I suggest you stay here until we have Nigel’s murderer.’