The Guilt of Innocents (Owen Archer Book 9)

by Candace Robb

  Seeing the frustration in the set of his jaw and his shoulders she knew his response before he gave it. ‘I wish I knew,’ he said. ‘I hope that George Hempe has spoken to Edward Munkton about Nigel.’

  ‘Hempe was here today,’ said Lucie. ‘Magda spoke to him.’ A yawn escaped her and she realised how sleepy she was. ‘Now go have some food and ale, and Magda will tell you about all that has happened while you’ve been away. I look forward to hearing about it all in the morning.’

  As Owen was about to leave Lucie said, ‘Jasper looks happy.’

  Owen’s smile bespoke his own happiness. ‘Aye. We both are. Now sleep, my love. I can see that your eyelids are ready to close.’

  ‘God be praised for bringing you both home safely.’ She loved them so fiercely at this moment.

  Owen crossed himself. ‘God be praised for keeping my family safe while I was away. Now rest, Lucie my love.’ He closed the door behind him.

  She lay in bed turning over what Owen had said about his inquiry in order to quiet her emotions. A gold cross belonging to Ysenda’s lord. Drogo finding it in the scrip, perhaps going to Nigel for advice on what it was worth. She’d heard from Julia Dale that the goldsmith’s journeyman was unpleasant, and suspected of theft. As Lucie drifted towards sleep, she floated between concern over Edric’s gullibility and wonder about whether Drogo had been equally gullible, to have shown his spoils to Nigel, a man of such negative reputation.

  When Hubert heard the horse he groaned to think Captain Archer and Jasper had returned, but he soon saw that it was worse than that.

  ‘Ma, it’s Master Osmund.’

  She had been chopping roots at a table in the far corner and now paused, the knife in mid-air, glancing over her shoulder towards the door with a worried expression. Her reaction was not at all what he’d expected. ‘Stay close to me, Hubert. I would not be alone with him.’

  ‘But you always want to be alone with him.’ It had been her custom to shoo him out of the house when Osmund appeared. In fact Hubert had believed his mother to be in love with their lord’s son though her behaviour was usually more anxious than delighted. Osmund had spent much of the past summer in their home. Hubert suspected that Osmund had spent even more time there while he was at school. They’d been lovers – he was almost certain of that. But now the expression on his mother’s beautiful face was fear. ‘What has frightened you? Has he hurt you? Does it have to do with the cross?’

  ‘No!’ his mother said. ‘I would not have your father walk in on us, just the two of us. You know how he makes up his own story of what is happening. He might hurt someone.’

  Hubert did not respond. Aubrey’s ‘own story’ would be accurate. She thought Hubert didn’t know. It hurt that she could think he did not have a good idea that Osmund was her lover, that she could think she had fooled him. Osmund had so far shown none of the virtues of Sir Baldwin. He hadn’t even run the estate while his father was gone. Hubert did not trust him, and he’d heard enough gossip about others feeling likewise, including Aubrey, that he felt he was right not to. But his mother had not seemed to see that in him at all. Had something newly opened her eyes? He wondered whether Osmund had given her the birthing cross, but pushed that thought aside, not wanting to believe his mother would have accepted it knowing that the women of the village and the manor might need it.

  Osmund knocked on the door.

  ‘See him in,’ said Hubert’s mother, staying by the table.

  Hubert opened the door and stepped back. ‘Master Osmund,’ he muttered with the slightest bow he could manage. He found himself wondering where Aubrey was, wishing he would appear.

  ‘Young Hubert! I did not think to find you here. When did you return from school? Are you ill?’ Osmund Gamyll surprised Hubert by sounding and looking sincerely concerned.

  ‘He was worried about me,’ said Ysenda, ‘working the farm without his father. He had not heard that Aubrey has returned –’ She did not move from her corner.

  Osmund handed his hat, gloves and cloak to Hubert. ‘Take care of these, and then find some occupation elsewhere.’

  ‘No, son. Stay here with us. You might tell Master Osmund how you like school. What you have learned, and how comfortable it is at the Clee.’

  Hubert grumbled to himself as he carefully put the gloves in the hat and hung it over the cloak.

  ‘Will you not leave your work to welcome me home, Ysenda?’ said Master Osmund.

  His mother had left her corner and stood at the far end of the fire, brushing the roots off her hands and her sleeves and skirt. ‘I am so untidy. I had not expected you.’

  ‘Where is Aubrey?’

  Hubert hoped she would tell him the truth, for Osmund probably already knew from Sir Baldwin that Aubrey had disappeared.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ said his mother.

  ‘What happened?’

  Ysenda sank down on a bench, looking weary, one hand to her forehead. ‘We argued and he walked out the door. It’s been several days since he left. I cannot think where he might be.’ She looked truly worried, and sounded tearful. Hubert wondered whether this was a ruse to get Osmund’s sympathy, or whether she had changed her mind about Aubrey.

  ‘Have you looked for him?’

  She had not, as far as Hubert knew, and neither had he, nor had they asked the men who worked the fields. One of them should have.

  ‘I was angry at first,’ she said to Osmund. ‘Now I’m worried. It’s best that you go.’

  Osmund took a seat instead, reaching his hands out to warm them at the fire, playing the lord. ‘When does Hubert return to school?’

  ‘Not until Aubrey is home.’ She rose and went around the fire to Osmund, cocking her head and giving him an uncertain smile. ‘He will go back to school. He’s doing very well, aren’t you, son?’

  Hubert shrugged.

  Osmund sat back and nodded to Hubert to sit. He reluctantly did so, but stayed close to the door, in case he needed to escape.

  ‘I heard that you’d lost something in the city, lad, and that it caused trouble,’ said Osmund. ‘I’m curious about it. What was it that the bargeman kept from you?’

  Hubert searched for a lie though he knew Osmund would learn the truth soon enough, if he did not already know. He could not bring himself to tell him now, in the house, with his mother already frightened. He could not look at her face, he must think. ‘A badge I’d won in school. The first thing I’d ever won,’ he said, hating how breathless he sounded.

  ‘How odd that a bargeman would want such a thing.’ Osmund’s tone was mocking, as if he did not believe Hubert but meant to play along with him until he slipped.

  ‘He hoped I had money, Master Osmund. He probably threw away the badge.’

  ‘Tell him what the badge was for, Hubert,’ said his mother.

  They both turned to look at Hubert, and he felt himself getting warm with anger. He looked from one to the other. She wanted him to lie even more. She’d never before even wanted him in the house when Osmund came, but suddenly he was expected to be the entertainment and also her saviour. He rushed for the door and was out of the house before either of them had a chance to say a word.

  After sunset, when it was too cold to remain wandering in the fields, Hubert returned home. His mother cursed him for his discourtesy to Master Osmund despite Osmund’s having been clear about wanting Hubert out of the house, and then sat by the fire and proceeded to drink bowl after bowl of cider until she grew sloppily drunk and cruel. Hubert had witnessed her attacks on Aubrey before, but it was his first experience being her target, her butt. She droned on and on about how he’d embarrassed and humiliated her.

  ‘Are you afraid of Master Osmund?’ he asked.

  For a moment there was a glint in her eyes, a softening in her face that made him think he’d guessed the truth, but then she changed. ‘I’m afraid of what he’ll think of us.’

  ‘Why do you care, Ma? Master Osmund might never be your lord. Sir Baldwin’s new wife will keep h
im healthy for a long while, you said so. And if Master Osmund does become your lord someday, he’d have forgotten my running out of the house by then – though I don’t believe he minded at all.’ Hubert rarely made such speeches to her, but she was not making sense and he hoped to reach her. He hated to see her drunk. It made her ugly. She frightened him.

  ‘Why do I care?’ she shouted. ‘Why do I care, you ask me.’ She contorted her face as if she were being tortured. ‘Because Osmund Gamyll sponsored you at St Peter’s this year, you ungrateful wretch, and you’ve made him think that was a mistake.’

  That washed over him like icy water. ‘I thought St Mary’s Abbey sponsored me.’

  ‘No, you fool. What would they care about you?’

  Hubert felt sick to his stomach. ‘Did he say I couldn’t go back?’

  ‘Not yet. But he will. You stupid boy.’

  There was worse to come. Once she’d begun her attack, she became infatuated with her power to inflict pain.

  ‘Do you want to know why your da never smiles? Do you know what he’s gnawing on like an old bone that he sucked dry long ago? The pestilence took his two children and not you. You were spared, the bairn that wasn’t his, the one I used to trick him into wedding me.’ She sat back with her hands to her hips, her head cocked to one side, a sickening grin on her sweaty face. ‘There. How do you like that?’

  Not at all. He did not like that at all. He felt alone, unloved. He snapped with her taunting attitude and, picking up a pot, he rushed at her, lifting the pot to bash in her head and be done with her.

  ‘How dare you threaten your mother?’ she shouted, throwing up her arms to deflect the blow.

  Her shout brought Hubert to his senses. He might have killed her. ‘You’re drunk!’ he shouted as he dropped the pot, just let it drop and bounce on the earthen floor thinly covered with rushes.

  He covered his ears, but she tore his hands away. Her breath smelled foul, her face was red and swollen, her eyes wild, and in that moment he hated her with all the fervour with which he’d loved her before.

  ‘So who’s bastard am I?’ he shouted.

  She slapped him on the cheek. ‘Don’t use that word in my presence.’

  ‘You’re the one who made me a bastard, aren’t you?’ He was crying, blubbering, and hated himself for it.

  ‘You don’t deserve to know who your father is, you with your foul mouth.’

  How he could have adored the slovenly woman before him, stinking of sweat and cider, her hem filthy, her cap crumpled, spewing such hateful words, he could not now understand.

  ‘I’ve learned foul words from you when you use them on Aubrey,’ he said.

  She slapped him again. He grabbed her wrist and squeezed, but she was strong and broke away.

  ‘You ruined all my hopes when you stole the cross, you snivelling sneak.’ She stopped for a moment, her head turned slightly away and her gaze towards the floor, as if trying to catch a faint sound. With a little cry, she took an oil lamp and knelt before the chest in which she kept her clothes and little treasures. Opening it and precariously balancing her lamp on a corner she began digging through her things. She rose to lean over farther and the lamp fell, fortunately out and onto the floor. Hubert rushed over to shove the rushes away and stamp on the ones already caught. He took the lamp back to the fire, but hurried back to lift his mother’s skirts from the pooling oil.

  ‘Look what you’re doing. You might have burned down the house.’ He was weeping again, frightened by this woman he’d called mother. He clawed at her, trying to pull her up. He didn’t understand what he’d done for her to turn on him so. He would never have thought the cross could mean so much to her.

  She pushed him away, letting the lid of the chest drop with a dull thud, and then struggled onto her feet. Her expression had changed dramatically. Now she looked as if ready to weep, suffering a terrible sorrow.

  ‘The scrip also. The one –’ Her voice caught and she stumbled to the bench on which she’d sat. She shook the jug, checking for more cider. ‘I should send you to town for more. You’ve done this to me. All this time, trusting you, feeding you.’ She dropped her head into her hands and wept. After a short while she cursed him and then curled up on the bench. Soon she was snoring.

  He let her stay there, sleeping till the wee hours when her cries woke him – he didn’t know how he’d managed to fall asleep. She’d tumbled off and burned a hand on the smouldering fire. Experienced from years of tending her injuries he greased her hand with celandine and goat’s grease and wrapped it for her. She crawled to bed moaning about the pain in her head, whimpering that she needed water. He broke the ice on a bucket outside and brought in a bowl for her, sitting beside her to help her sip it. He tended her without feeling, without any of the tenderness he’d always felt for her, the comfort of being needed by her.

  In his mind he felt as if he’d been looking at her upside down all his life, and suddenly he’d been righted and saw that she was the very opposite of all he’d believed her to be. He tried to retrieve his old love, but her smell, her cruelty, her lies kept crowding his head.

  The morning dawned with a brittle sun, and Jasper suggested that he wait until the following day to return to school. But Owen would not hear of it.

  ‘I’ve kept you from your lessons long enough. I’ll walk there with you to tell your Master John that you’ve been away with me in the service of the archbishop.’ Owen could see that appealed to Jasper.

  ‘How much will you tell him?’ Jasper asked. ‘I would know what I can say.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll tell him more than that we spoke to Hubert, and he intends to return after spending some time with his father. I’m considering whether to mention the cross – he might be able to help us if he knows what we seek. Do you agree?’

  Jasper frowned a moment. ‘I doubt he could help you with the answers you still need, so I see no gain in telling him what was in the scrip or any more about the family.’

  ‘You’ve a good mind, son. I still might tell him about the cross, but we shall see.’ Owen noticed Lucie watching them with quiet joy. She knew how much he’d hoped this journey would bring them closer once more.

  An icy wind tore at their cloaks as they walked down Stonegate. Jasper tried to speak but the wind forced him to cover his mouth with one hand. The few people who were out in the street were bundled and bent against the wind. A woman’s empty basket was suddenly lifted from her crooked arm and became airborne. Jasper leaped to catch it, handing it back with a mute nod to her thanks. Owen was glad to catch sight of St Peter’s School past the scaffolding around the minster’s lady chapel, and even happier once inside. The students who boarded in the Clee had not yet arrived, so Owen was able to take Master John aside to explain Jasper’s absence.

  The schoolmaster nodded throughout Owen’s explanation. ‘I heard a rumour to that effect,’ he said in response. ‘His absence was for a good cause. God be praised that Hubert reached home safely. He is a good lad, and I can understand that he would want to spend time with his father. After all, he’d thought him dead. His homecoming must have been cause for great joy and thanksgiving.’

  It had certainly not seemed so to Owen, but he smiled. ‘I do hope the abbey does not withdraw their support of the lad now that his father has returned. The farm does not appear prosperous. In fact, Sir Baldwin hinted at that.’

  Master John glanced over at Jasper. ‘May we speak freely, Captain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Abbot Campian’s sponsorship is the public story. His mother did not wish Hubert to know of his benefactor, though I could not see why not, for he is their lord, after all, and Aubrey accompanied him to battle.’

  This was an unexpected twist. ‘Sir Baldwin sponsored Hubert here?’

  ‘His son Osmund arranged it in his father’s name, yes, as his father had requested.’

  Owen wondered whether that had something to do with his sense that Ysenda was not telling him everything. But the l
ad had also seemed secretive. ‘You are certain Hubert doesn’t know?’

  ‘We’ve taken care that he should not, Captain. Tell me, did you discover what the lad had in his scrip?’

  Hesitating, Owen decided that the schoolmaster might have some insight, and he knew the man to be trustworthy.

  ‘It was a small gold cross, a pendant,’ said Owen, indicating that it was but a few inches long and one wide, small enough to cup in the palm of his hand. ‘Something belonging to his mother.’

  ‘That small?’ Master John shook his head. ‘But you saw the size of the scrip, it must be at least six times that size. Why had he worn that to carry something so small? He might have worn the cross round his neck on a chain or leather thong.’ He sighed. ‘But it is like a lad to not think things through. I see it all the time. Poor lad. His mother will not be happy to lose a piece of gold.’

  ‘No. They can ill afford to replace it.’

  ‘I’d wager Drogo hoped for a better catch than that,’ said Jasper.

  Owen was glad he’d listened.

  ‘I wonder whether he even saw it in the scrip?’ Master John wondered, scratching his chin.

  Master John’s comments about the size of the scrip and the size of the cross gave Owen pause. There had been an elaborate buckle on it – might the boy have thought it of value? Or perhaps there was a hidden pocket. ‘Where is the scrip now?’ he asked.

  ‘Why, here.’ The schoolmaster lifted a leather box from a high shelf and set it down on a bench. ‘I keep my scholars’ forgotten items in here.’ He eased off the tight-fitting lid and rummaged through a collection of scarves and gloves, then looked up, perplexed. ‘It isn’t here. I am certain this is where I put it.’

  Owen bit back a curse. ‘You live in the chamber behind this hall, do you not?’ he asked.

  John’s face flushed as he nodded.

  ‘Do you spend time in here in the evening?’

  ‘God help us.’ Master John removed his felt hat and mopped his head with a cloth. ‘I do spend some evenings in here, when I’m preparing lessons. I know what you’re thinking, I was a fool to leave it in an unguarded schoolroom. But I can’t imagine when someone might have felt sure they would not be caught. God’s blood, this is – I can’t believe –’ His face crumpled.