The Nun's Tale: An Owen Archer Mystery

by Candace Robb

  ‘Was there anything else?’ She smiled, but she knew it could not possibly look friendly.

  ‘No. No, this will do.’ The physician gathered his pouches and departed.

  The bead curtain rattled as Owen stepped through from the kitchen. His dark eye had an apologetic cast to it. ‘Bad news?’ Lucie guessed.

  Owen squeezed her shoulders. ‘I am off to Leeds in the morning.’

  ‘But you just arrived. And Sir Robert arrives tomorrow. I hoped you would be here.’ Owen hugged her to him. He smelled of smoke and fresh air and Owen. Lord, she did not want him to leave again so soon.

  ‘His Grace is set on it,’ he whispered.

  Lucie leaned her head against Owen’s shoulder. ‘How vigorously did you protest?’

  He held her away from him, lifted her chin so he might see her eyes. ‘Do you think I wish to be away from you so often?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I miss you all the time I am away. And worry about you.’

  ‘But you enjoy the adventure.’ She stopped his protest with a finger to his lips. ‘Peace, my love. I do not blame you. I said from the beginning that you would chafe at the bit in the shop. But just now it is particularly hard. With Sir Robert coming. And the child …’ She looked away as tears welled up. The damnable tears that were so ready to flow these days.

  Owen pulled her back into his arms, but the moment was interrupted by the shop bell. More than the moment, Lucie realised with dismay. Sir Robert had arrived a day early.

  Eight

  Family Tensions

  A house full of dinner guests on Owen’s second and last night home. It seemed he never had time alone with Lucie except in their bedchamber. And it would be worse with children. Owen tried to dismiss the thought, but it persisted. What did he know of children besides what he could remember of being one? He stared at the floor, his leggings half off, pondering. There was Jasper. He enjoyed Jasper. But the boy had joined their household just this year, at the age of nine. What would it be like with infants about?

  Lucie bustled in the door, flushed from rushing about supervising Tildy’s cooking, setting up the table, and checking that all was prepared in the extra chamber, where Sir Robert and his squire would sleep. She paused as she caught sight of Owen, shirt discarded, leggings half off. ‘I know that the day is warm, but really, my love, you must do better than that!’ Then, with a worried, almost frightened expression, she asked, ‘What is it? What troubles you?’

  It was no time to admit his doubts. Instead, Owen grabbed Lucie and toppled backwards onto the bed with her squealing in his arms. Pulling off her cap, he let her soft hair tumble into his face.

  Lucie tried to wriggle away, gasping for breath. ‘No time!’ she managed. ‘Owen, please!’

  With a sigh, he helped her sit up. ‘Could we not send word to Lief and Gaspare that your father has arrived, we have no room for so many at table?’

  Lucie shook her hair, fluffing it, then went over to the small table where she kept her brushes and hairpins and a small mirror. ‘There would still be Sir Robert and his squire. It is not possible to rid ourselves of them. So I should prefer your friends at least this night. Some cheerful company.’ She began to arrange her hair.

  Owen lounged on the bed, watching her lazily. ‘Sir Robert seemed cheerful enough.’

  Lucie turned round to Owen, letting the coil of hair in her hands cascade down her back. ‘He is in good spirits.’ She rose, picked up the gown and surcoat Tildy had laid out, considered them, turning them this way and that. ‘Shall I wear this tonight? Or the blue?’

  Owen frowned. The gown she held was a soft green, the surcoat gold and green, colours that brought the gold out in her hair. The blue gown – well, it did bring out her blue eyes. And the bodice was low cut … ‘This one, to be sure. Unless you mean to flirt with my comrades?’

  Lucie pressed her thickened middle and laughed. ‘In this state?’

  ‘Some men think a woman great with child is most delicious.’

  ‘You are wicked!’ Lucie wriggled into the gown, turned to let Owen lace it for her. Then she spun round. ‘Truly. Am I presentable?’

  How could she doubt it? ‘Most enchanting. Too tempting already.’

  She kissed him on the forehead.

  ‘So there is no remedy? I must dress?’

  ‘Indeed you must. I certainly cannot entertain Lief and Gaspare without you.’

  ‘I met Joanna Calverley today. She tried to kiss me.’

  Lucie sank down on the bed beside him. ‘What had you said to her?’

  Owen told Lucie of the incident. ‘Dame Katherine whisked me out of there, much embarrassed.’

  Lucie giggled. ‘I can imagine! But truly, what had you done so to delight Joanna?’

  ‘I was my own charming self.’

  Lucie punched his bare chest.

  ‘Dame Katherine believes Joanna is simple, childlike.’

  Lucie shook her head. ‘Not at all. Her escape from St Clement’s took thoughtful planning. No. Not simple, Owen. And not innocent!’

  Owen liked the way her hand lingered on his bare chest.

  The evening began pleasantly. Sir Robert’s squire assisted Tildy, allowing Lucie to relax and listen to Gaspare and Lief telling tales of their adventures in France. It was not until halfway through the meal, when Lief had gone on for a while about the pleasures of parenthood, that Sir Robert changed the mood.

  Lucie’s father had listened quietly to the banter. Owen liked his father-in-law, a retired soldier with a gruff, straightforward manner. When the older man lifted his cup to toast the gathering of friends and family, Owen knew something was up.

  ‘My steward was in the city a while back and heard that your neighbour John Corbett had died and his house was empty,’ Sir Robert began. He tugged at his fashionably forked beard.

  ‘Yes,’ Lucie said, sipping her wine, unsuspecting. ‘Poor John fell in the snow on his way to the privy one night. By the time a servant found him, he had frozen to death.’

  ‘They say ’tis a painless death,’ Lief said. ‘The chill makes you sleepy and you just lie down to sleep.’

  Sir Robert crossed himself. ‘I understand the Corbett children have offered the property for sale.’

  Now Lucie looked up, studied her father’s face. ‘I have heard something of the sort. What is your interest in the matter?’

  Sir Robert smiled. ‘It is a nice piece of property. And a sound house.’

  Lucie and Owen exchanged a look.

  ‘I mean to purchase it for you,’ Sir Robert announced.

  Owen’s blind eye reacted with a shower of needle pricks almost before his mind registered the insult. Corbett’s house was large, the house of a prosperous wine merchant. Sir Robert meant to give Lucie a house worthy of a knight’s daughter, a house that Owen could not afford to give her. He was merely an apprentice and a spy, freeman though he may be. Even worse, he had no pedigree. He had not even given Lucie this house – it was hers from her first marriage. Owen looked round to see whether the others noted his humiliation. There was indeed an uncomfortable silence at the table.

  Two spots of colour stood out on Lucie’s cheeks. Her slender neck was poker straight. Her silk veil trembled. ‘This is our home, Sir Robert,’ she said quietly.

  Sir Robert tilted his head and studied his daughter’s face. His white brows drew together, then smoothed as he smiled and said, ‘Indeed. It is a lovely home, daughter, I meant no criticism. And the garden – I have seen no finer in all my travels. But with the child coming, and young Jasper about to begin his apprenticeship, and perhaps more children in the years to come, you will soon burst through the walls.’

  Owen, seeing Lucie’s jaw freezing, jumped in. ‘We have talked of building a separate kitchen at the back, which would give us more room here.’

  Sir Robert nodded. ‘An excellent solution if it were not for the garden. Such a new structure would deprive you of some of the garden, which is vital to your business. Use
Corbett’s house to expand. Connect the houses, or at least take down the fence and make it all one property.’ Sir Robert dabbed at his beard, looked back and forth between Owen and Lucie. ‘I have done so little for you, I feel this is too little too late. But it is something …’ He trailed off as he met tight faces.

  The moment was saved by Gaspare, who chided them in a cheery voice for bringing family matters to the table with guests, and began the story of Owen’s troubles with Lady Jocelyn, a lady-in-waiting to Blanche of Lancaster. Soon the table rang with polite laughter.

  After Gaspare and Lief had departed for the castle and Sir Robert and his squire had retired, Lucie and Owen walked out into the garden and sat under the stars, silently regarding the dark bulk of Corbett’s house.

  ‘I am being selfish,’ Owen said quietly. ‘He is only offering you what he knows I cannot.’

  ‘The shop is doing well. And His Grace, for all your complaints about him, does reward you handsomely for your efforts on his behalf.’ Lucie’s voice was still tight with indignation.

  Owen turned to her, took both her hands in his. ‘Lucie, I do not understand. Why are you offended? It is my part to be so. But in truth, it is the generous offer of a fond father.’

  Lucie squeezed Owen’s hands, lifted them to her lips, kissing one at a time. ‘Too little too late, Owen. He said it himself. You realise what he is about. He is bored with the manor and thinks to spend more time in the city. What could be more convenient for him than a house in the city, with a permanent staff?’

  Owen had not even considered that.

  Lucie nodded. ‘Grandchildren to bounce on his knee, an apothecary to see to his health – it is too perfect for him. But what of us, Owen? We shall have no peace, no privacy.’

  ‘We have precious little of that as it is.’

  Lucie pressed Owen’s hands to her heart. ‘I know. And soon we shall be up all hours with the baby …’ She sighed.

  Owen’s heart lightened. She, too, had misgivings about the coming event. He drew her into his arms and held her tight. She clung to him. When at last they went inside they were at peace.

  Owen left early, after a quiet breakfast, for Sir Robert had gone to Mass. Feeling at odds, Lucie went out to the garden.

  It was a cloudy, humid morning, hinting of a warm day to come. The air was heavy with the scent of early roses. Nicholas had loved those roses. With the little knife she wore with her keys at her belt, Lucie cut a few blossoms and placed them on Nicholas’s grave. Then from the garden shed she got a basket, the old, rusty dagger she favoured as a weeding tool, and the woven mat for kneeling, and settled herself at the edge of the mint garden to weed and think before she opened the shop. She did some of her best thinking out here, attacking the weeds and turning problems and plans over in her head. Her pregnancy made bending more awkward, but if she straightened often and stopped when the dull ache in her back became more noticeable, she still found this one of the most pleasant moments of her day.

  Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem and the garden, came over to see what Lucie meant to do in the mint bed. The cat was partial to mint and had the sweetest breath in York, so Lucie’s pose above the bed, with dagger and basket, required careful watching. When Melisende had verified that Lucie was not harvesting this morning, merely pulling the weeds that got in the way, she bit off a small sprig of peppermint and settled down beside Lucie to chew her snack.

  Lucie rubbed Melisende’s head until the cat began a rumbling purr and stretched her front paws out in contentment. Then Lucie fell to her work and her thoughts.

  Sir Robert. She hardly knew him. What had possessed him to make this visit? And such an offer as the Corbett house? What was she to do with him while he was here? He said he would help with the heavy work while Owen was away, but he was a frail old man. And what did an old campaigner know of the work in a shop or garden? Sir Robert’s visit was the gesture of a father who wished to make amends for his neglect of Lucie and for his sins against her mother. He had wrested Amelie from her home in Normandy and left her with strangers in Yorkshire, blamed her when she bore but one daughter and no son, and by his neglect inspired the despair that killed her. He was trying to work off his guilt.

  It was his widowed sister, Dame Phillippa, who had impressed on Sir Robert the effect his behaviour had had on his only child. Phillippa had stayed with Lucie when Nicholas was dying. When she had returned to Freythorpe Hadden, where she was housekeeper for her brother, she had told Sir Robert how the torment of Amelie had affected Lucie’s life. Since that time, Sir Robert had prayed for Lucie and showered her with gifts.

  But by then Lucie had not the habit of loving Sir Robert. To her he would ever be the loud soldier smelling of leather and horse sweat who had never remembered her name as a child, who had sent her to bed without answering her terrified questions the night her mother died, and who had sent her off to St Clement’s and forgotten her there.

  What was she to do with him in the small house? He had no idea what her work as master apothecary entailed. He was not yet reconciled to her having married beneath her – and twice, at that. He could not understand her pride in being a master apothecary.

  What would he think of her summons to St Mary’s to examine Dame Joanna? Or the Reverend Mother’s plea for help?

  Perhaps she should do more for Dame Isobel. Perhaps that was God’s plan in having Sir Robert visit now: he would witness Lucie’s service to the Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England. He would realise that she had not wasted her life, nor was she her mother, dependent for everything on a man she hardly knew, terrified that if she did not bear him a son she would be discarded, and so destitute. He would see that she had no time to be his nursemaid.

  Melisende’s head jerked up. Lucie looked round. Sir Robert stood behind her, dressed simply. ‘Now, you see? I brought practical clothes. Put me to work!’

  Brother Michaelo found Lucie in her garden, explaining the arrangement of the beds to a white-haired man who listened politely, occasionally stealing an odd, emotional look at the apothecary. Though old, the man had the bearing of a soldier. Michaelo saw something in the face that made him guess this must be Sir Robert D’Arby; there was a resemblance to Lucie, though in which aspect he could not say exactly. Perhaps – yes, the jaw. And the level gaze.

  ‘Mistress Wilton, forgive the interruption,’ Michaelo said with a bow, ‘but His Grace the Archbishop requests the honour of your father’s presence at supper this evening. He understands Sir Robert D’Arby is staying with you and, of course, extends the invitation to yourself.’

  Lucie’s blue eyes widened in surprise. Her already straight back managed to straighten more. She touched the elderly gentleman’s hand. ‘Sir Robert, this is Brother Michaelo, secretary to John Thoresby, Archbishop of York and the King’s Lord Chancellor.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Sir Robert glanced at his daughter with a puzzled frown.

  ‘Brother Michaelo, this is my father, Sir Robert D’Arby.’

  Michaelo bowed to them both. ‘Sir Richard de Ravenser and Jehannes, Archdeacon of York, also dine with His Grace this evening.’

  Sir Robert, recovering his poise, inclined his head. ‘We shall be honoured to dine with the chancellor.’

  After Brother Michaelo departed, Sir Robert turned to his daughter. ‘John Thoresby, Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England. Why does he so honour me, I wonder?’

  Lucie wondered, too. And so hard on the heels of Owen’s departure.

  Refusing to let the archbishop’s summons fluster her, Lucie closed the shop at the usual time, deliberately making no change in her routine. So little notice. As if their plans for the evening were presumed to be nothing. But perhaps this invitation was for the best. She had dreaded the first evening alone with Sir Robert.

  When Lucie stepped into the kitchen, she found her father already waiting down by the fire, grandly dressed. Tildy followed Lucie up to her bedchamber. ‘I’ve aired your blue dress and veil, Mistress Lucie, and heate
d water for you to wash.’

  ‘Tildy, I am not meeting the King.’

  ‘He is Lord Chancellor of all England, Mistress Lucie! ’Tis almost as much an honour.’

  ‘Owen never fusses when he eats at His Grace’s table.’

  ‘Oh, Mistress, it is an honour, no matter what you say. And I must hear about everything. What you eat, how Lizzie serves, what hangings are in the hall – everything.’

  Lucie laughed, despite herself. ‘Would that I could send you in my stead. You would be a much more appreciative guest. But I am curious to meet Archdeacon Jehannes. Owen speaks of him fondly.’ Lucie lifted the blue veil, to be worn with a simple gold circlet to hold it in place. She frowned. ‘In faith, is this appropriate, Tildy?’

  ‘He is accustomed to the ladies at court, Mistress. This is most fitting.’

  Lucie fingered the soft wool of her gown, also a lovely pale shade of blue. Her Aunt Phillippa had had the dress and veil made for her on her last birthday. Fortunately, the slightly darker surcoat would hide the tightening of the gown round her five-month waist. Not that she had reason to be embarrassed about her condition, but she did not care to flaunt it.

  Tildy fussed over Lucie, winding her mistress’s hair into coils on cither side of her head, arranging the veil, adjusting the surcoat over the gown. As Lucie turned to let Tildy admire her handiwork, there was a knock on the kitchen door. Tildy hurried down, Lucie right behind her. Sir Robert had made no move to open the door himself, accustomed to a grander household with many servants.

  A man in the archbishop’s livery stepped inside. With a bow, he introduced himself. ‘I am Gilbert, Mistress Wilton. His Grace has sent me to escort you and Sir Robert to his palace.’ A sword hung at his side, a dagger was tucked into his belt.

  ‘Escort us? But it is not yet sunset. We can find our way. And we have Sir Robert’s squire.’

  ‘His Grace insisted.’

  About to protest again, Lucie thought better of it. The weapons suggested that the archbishop was in earnest about something. She extended her hand. ‘Then come, Gilbert. We must not keep His Grace waiting.’