The Nun's Tale: An Owen Archer Mystery

by Candace Robb

  Agnes needed no coaxing. She blessed them and hurried away.

  Dame Joanna lay with her hands crossed over her chest. The white bandage round her neck looked like a gorget, nothing more, it was so clean. Her face was pale from loss of blood and a month in bed, but the haggard look was gone.

  ‘’Tis a shame to wake her,’ Owen whispered.

  Joanna opened her eyes. ‘I am thirsty.’ Her voice was raspy, not unusual in one who has just awakened.

  Owen sat on the stool beside her bed, reached over and poured her some wine and water. ‘Shall we lift you to drink?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Owen handed the cup to Lucie, who went to the other side of the bed. As Owen lifted Joanna, Lucie put the cup to her lips. She sipped the wine, frowning a little with each swallow.

  ‘Your throat – is it still very sore?’ Lucie asked.

  ‘Better,’ Joanna whispered.

  Lucie met Owen’s eye, explaining, ‘She pressed down so hard with the dull knife she bruised her throat. That is taking longer to heal than the cuts.’

  Joanna pushed the cup away. ‘Enough.’

  Owen gently lowered Joanna’s head.

  Joanna closed her eyes.

  Owen leaned towards her. ‘I am returned from my pilgrimage of disgrace, Dame Joanna.’

  She opened her eyes, so startlingly green. ‘A pilgrimage?’ Her face was expressionless, her voice too hoarse for Owen or Lucie to read the nuances.

  ‘You called it that, do you remember? A pilgrimage of disgrace?’

  ‘I say foolish things.’

  ‘I have been to Scarborough. Where you travelled with Stefan and Edmund.’

  Joanna closed her eyes. ‘I have been ill.’

  ‘You tried to take your life. I know.’

  The eyelids shot open. ‘I am bedevilled. The Devil is strong. Even wrapped in the Virgin’s mantle he reaches me.’ Joanna’s eyes flashed with anger, her cheeks flushed.

  Owen thought it odd she felt anger rather than fear. He glanced up at Lucie, who raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together as if to say, ‘Who knows?’

  ‘A pilgrimage of disgrace. Whose disgrace, Joanna?’

  Still angry. ‘You do not listen.’

  ‘I do. I listen well, and I remember. Perhaps it is you who forgets. Let me remind you of something. Hugh was murdered. In his house near Scarborough.’

  ‘My knight. My champion.’ Joanna’s eyes filled with tears.

  It was a quiet response, sad, not shocked. ‘Who is your champion, Joanna? Hugh?’

  She closed her eyes, looked away. Tears wet her lashes, dampened her cheeks.

  ‘Who are you thinking of as your knight and champion?’

  Joanna took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Hugh is dead. There is nothing more.’

  ‘You and Stefan left Scarborough at the same time that Hugh was killed. Why?’

  Joanna turned back to Owen, looked at him, offended. ‘You cannot think I wished him dead.’

  ‘What should I think?’

  ‘The Devil wants me dead, too.’ Her eyes challenged him.

  ‘Who killed your brother?’

  Joanna blushed. ‘I am thirsty.’

  She played with them. Owen would have liked to withhold the wine, make her uncomfortable. But she needed the wine to speak. He sighed, lifted her up and Lucie helped her drink.

  When Joanna was settled again, Owen tried another path. ‘You have spoken of someone buried alive. Who did you think was buried alive, Joanna?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Who else, Joanna?’

  She frowned, dropped her eyes to her hands. ‘He used me.’

  ‘Who did?’

  Joanna rocked her head back and forth on the pillow. ‘I should never have left St Clement’s.’

  Owen touched her head gently, stilling it. ‘Why should you not have left? What happened to you while you were away?’

  Tears again. ‘I am not worthy to be called Dame Joanna. I cuckolded my divine bridegroom.’

  She moved away from Owen’s purpose. ‘It is Longford who was buried alive. But I am certain you know that,’ he said.

  Joanna’s eyes changed, grew wary. She clutched the Magdalene medal. ‘Will Longford?’

  ‘He was buried beneath his servant, Jaro.’

  ‘No.’ Joanna turned away.

  Owen grasped her chin, made her face him. Her neck was rigid with fear. Owen did not let that stop him. ‘Longford’s leg was crushed and his spine had been damaged. I think he could barely move from the waist down, if at all. His tongue had been cut out so he could not reveal his torturers if someone found him.’

  Joanna’s head trembled in his hand. She gasped for air.

  ‘We must lift her chest and head, Owen,’ Lucie said, leaning over to help.

  While Owen held Joanna up, causing a coughing fit, Lucie added pillows, then helped her sip some wine. Owen lowered her.

  Joanna still clutched the medal. ‘Why do you tell me this?’

  ‘About Will Longford? Because you knew that he was not dead when he was put in that grave. How did you know, Joanna? Who told you? Who committed this careful, cruel murder?’

  Joanna held the medal up to Owen. ‘Christ was cruel to Mary Magdalene.’

  Owen bit back a curse. ‘You may rest now, Joanna. But I shall be back tomorrow.’ He went to the door, called for Dame Agnes.

  But it was the Reverend Mother who came hurrying down the hall. ‘I have sent Agnes to bed. I shall stay with Joanna today.’

  ‘She is agitated, Reverend Mother. Perhaps someone should stay with you.’

  Isobel peeked in the room, saw Lucie patting Joanna’s face with a damp cloth. ‘No doubt you are right, Captain. Would you ask Brother Oswald to send for Prudentia?’ As Owen turned to do so, Isobel stayed him with a touch on his arm. ‘But first, please tell me what has agitated her. Agnes said she had had a peaceful night.’

  Owen told her of the news they had been forced to impart.

  The Reverend Mother crossed herself, whispered a prayer, then tucked her hands in her sleeves, shaking her head. ‘This is a terrible business. I thought I was a strong woman, but this has given the lie to that. It is your wife who is strong. Called out so early in the morning, in her condition, to deal with the horror of what Joanna had done. All that blood …’ Isobel took a step backwards. She had never noticed what a piercing eye Owen had. Perhaps that is why God took one away.

  Owen trembled with rage. ‘Lucie was called in the middle of the night to tend Joanna?’ He worked hard to keep his voice low. ‘Do you realise that my wife is with child? And you called her out in the middle of the night to a woman around whom people have been dying in unusual numbers?’

  Isobel crossed herself. ‘I make no excuse for my weakness, Captain Archer. But it was Abbot Campian who sent for Mistress Wilton, not I.’

  ‘He sent an escort?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  Lucie would have been blind not to see Owen’s anger as they walked back to the shop. The expression on his face was murderous, the hand that did not support her was balled into a fist, his strides kept lengthening until she was forced to ask him to slow down, and all the way the ominous silence. It had not taken her long to guess what had transpired. Owen had returned to Joanna’s room with Dame Isobel. By then his temper had flared. The Reverend Mother must have told him of Lucie’s early morning visit. It was the very thing that would put him in such a temper, which was why Lucie had not told him. There was nothing for it now but to let him stew about it and finally burst out. To bring it up would only make things worse.

  Lucie was perversely relieved when Tildy met her with the news that Thomas the Tanner was worse, and the physician, Master Saurian, had been called in. He had left a prescription for her to make up, a poultice to be applied after blood-letting.

  ‘I must do this at once, Owen.’

  He nodded, turned on his heel, left the shop. Lucie and Tildy exchanged a look.

  ‘He’s
in such a temper, Mistress Lucie.’

  ‘That he is, Tildy, but it’s naught to do with you, so don’t fret about it. I shall be in the shop.’

  As Lucie scurried about the shop gathering the ingredients, she began to hum. When Owen was in such a temper, it was a blessed relief to be away from him.

  Tom Merchet brought two tankards to the table in the kitchen where Owen stood. ‘Before you put one of those big hams through a wall, sit down and have your say. Bess is upstairs teaching Kit the proper scrubbing of a floor or some such. She’ll not bother us.’

  Owen lowered himself onto a bench. ‘There are things I should be doing.’

  Tom pushed the tankard under his friend’s nose, then paused, his hand hovering above it. ‘Pity, wasting good ale on one who is not of a mind to appreciate it.’ He shrugged, settled his hands about his own tankard. His round, pleasant face was creased with worry. ‘Though if it’s to do with the baby, I shall be of no use to you, having none of my own. As the babe gets older I might be useful. Bess came to me with little ones. I know what they’re about.’ Tom smiled into his cup. ‘As well as a man ever does.’

  Owen finally looked up at his companion. ‘What did you say?’

  Tom shrugged, took a long drink and nodded with satisfaction as he lowered his tankard. ‘Never you mind, just tell me what’s to do.’

  ‘Lucie went to the abbey in the middle of the night to take care of that nun.’

  ‘Last night? When you’d just come home?’

  ‘No. While I was gone.’

  Tom pulled on his bottom lip, thinking. ‘Middle of night, you say? But abbeys have infirmarians and all manner of folk about. What did they need with Lucie?’

  Owen shook his head, disgusted. ‘And in her condition, Tom.’

  Tom made properly indignant noises.

  ‘Worse than that, Lucie did not tell me. I thought she had seen Joanna once she had been cleaned and bandaged. But Lucie examined her, Tom. Got her hands in all that blood. What will that do to the child, Lucie looking at all that blood? And the horror of it all? The nun stabbing herself.’ Owen put his head in his hands. ‘Dear Lord, Lucie is impossible.’

  ‘Drink up, Owen.’

  Owen raised the tankard to his lips, stopped. ‘Do you remember when she took a boat over to the Riverwoman in the midst of the flooding last year?’

  ‘At night.’ Tom nodded. ‘I remember. Drink up, my friend.’ He smiled as Owen tilted the tankard and drank deep. Another good gulp like that and the man would feel a bit smoother. Tom knew just how Owen felt. Lucie and Bess were nothing alike and every bit alike. Stubborn, clever women. Bess’s sturdy body and loud mouth did not inspire quite the same protective feelings Owen had for Lucie though Tom had his moments of wishing Bess were not so forward with strangers. When Owen clanked the tankard down, empty, Tom reached for the pitcher and filled it again. ‘Now. Did Lucie go of her own accord, just having a feeling that something was wrong, or was she summoned?’

  ‘Summoned. But that –’ Owen paused as Tom shook his head.

  ‘It makes all the difference, my friend. Lucie is an apothecary. She has the cure of bodies as the vicar has the cure of souls. Not like a physician, I grant you that, but Dame Isobel and His Grace ask for Lucie because she calms Joanna as no one else can. ’Tis a God-given gift, Owen, and Lucie must not hold it back.’ Tom took a breath. It was an uncommonly long speech for him. He winced as the hawk-like eye bored through him. ‘I just say what you know yourself.’

  Owen leaned his head back against the wall, rubbed his scar, grabbed the tankard and took another drink. ‘At least I had the sense to come to you before I opened my mouth to Lucie and let my spleen come tumbling out. I would not let her see that, not now.’ He stretched his foot out and rested it on a stool.

  Tom judged it time to change the topic. ‘I saw Sir Robert head over to the garden a while ago. How does he get on with Lucie – about Corbett’s house?’

  Owen made an embarrassed face. ‘I’ve not asked.’ He sat up straighter, frowning. ‘Now why did Sir Robert not stop her that night?’

  Tom sighed. His ale had been wasted in this effort to calm Owen. ‘That one I cannot answer. You must needs speak with your wife.’

  Lucie was closing the door to the shop when she saw Owen outside, leaning against the wall. ‘Why are you standing out there?’

  Owen shrugged and followed her in, closing and barring the door for her. Lucie, smiling, kissed him.

  He frowned. ‘What was that for?’

  ‘For worrying about me as you do.’ She picked up the broom to sweep the stone floor behind the counter.

  Owen grabbed the broom from her. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You were angry after speaking with the Reverend Mother. I know what she might tell you to make you so. And I am sorry I did not tell you.’

  Owen paused as he began to sweep. ‘Jasper should be doing this.’

  Lucie shrugged. ‘Either of you. You are both my apprentices.’

  Owen shook his head, went back to sweeping, stopped again. ‘Tell me this. Why did Sir Robert not stop you?’

  ‘Because I convinced Daimon that Sir Robert need not know. In truth, Brother Sebastian led us with such urgency that Sir Robert could not have kept up with us.’

  ‘And you in your condition? Are you to be running down the streets in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I did not run.’ Lucie took off her apron. ‘And now I must go and lie down before supper. If you wish to continue this, you must come up.’

  Owen followed her.

  She lay down on the bed and asked him to pile several cushions under her feet. He sat beside her, took her cap off and smoothed back her hair.

  ‘Tell me what you saw.’

  Lucie described the room, the overwhelming odour of blood, the neck, the womb.

  ‘Why her womb?’

  ‘I do not know, Owen. I feel that I know nothing about Joanna. I have spoken to her so often, yet I cannot even tell you what makes her laugh, what she likes to eat … I do know what she hopes for – death.’

  ‘You should not be with such people now.’

  Lucie closed her eyes. ‘I am not about to break apart, Owen.’

  ‘She will give you nightmares.’

  ‘She already has.’

  ‘You see?’

  Lucie propped herself up on her elbows. ‘Stop a moment, listen.’ She described the dream.

  ‘You see? What will the baby be like with you dreaming such dreams?’

  ‘Owen, for pity’s sake, you are going to drive me mad! Can you imagine what sort of thoughts my mother had while she carried me? Do you think in all that time she did not remember the soldiers raping and torturing the women in her convent? And her brother impaled on a pike? What of all the women of Normandy who gave birth while they trembled in their houses wondering if their village would be the next one put to the torch? I am not ill! Your mother had many children. You tell me she barely paused in her daily chores to give birth.’

  ‘She was not dealing with madwomen.’

  ‘She was dealing with you!’

  ‘Well, if I am mad, it’s you who has driven me to it.’

  Lucie suddenly felt laughter bubbling up from deep within. She grabbed both sides of Owen’s beard and pulled him down to kiss him.

  He raised himself a little, stared into her laughing eyes. ‘It is you who is going mad.’

  ‘No. I am just content. This is more in the tradition of your homecomings.’ She pulled him down again.

  Dame Isobel jerked awake. Joanna moaned and squirmed in her sleep. Brother Wulfstan had advised a strong sleeping potion tonight, and Isobel had duly given it to Joanna. Her dream must be troubling indeed. Merciful Mother, do not let her harm herself. Isobel leaned over Joanna, took her hands. ‘’Tis but a dream, Joanna. Mary and all the angels protect you. And the mistletoe. We have put the mistletoe in the doorway.’

  Side to side, side to side the head thrashed. ‘Evil. Evil. Evil. Evil. Evil.
Evil. Evil …’

  Twenty-one

  Steadfastness

  It was early morning and Tildy bustled about the kitchen while Lucie, Owen, and Edmund argued about Edmund’s meeting with Joanna.

  Edmund sat stiff and rigid, carefully groomed for the occasion, his thinning hair smoothed down with perfumed oil. He wore a houppelande of light brown, plain, but well cut and almost new. ‘I would rather be alone with Joanna. She will be distracted by others in the room.’

  Lucie admitted that might be true, ‘But Joanna is easily thrown into confusion. She is comforted by my presence. You will be the better for it.’ She wondered about Edmund’s feelings for Joanna.

  ‘I should be there,’ Owen said to Lucie. ‘I know Edmund’s story.’

  And had perhaps become too fond of him to judge him. ‘You are too abrupt with Joanna,’ Lucie said. ‘She will be agitated, no matter how well we plan this. But with me there is a chance she will stay calm longer.’

  Edmund tapped the table nervously. ‘It is a private matter. I wish to speak with her alone.’

  Owen shook his head. ‘Nothing in Joanna’s life is a private matter until we learn what she knows about the deaths that have occurred in her wake. She teases us with knowledge of them. We must come to an understanding.’

  Lucie knew she should have more faith in Owen’s ability to handle Joanna, but she could not shake the feeling that he would frighten her deeper into her shell and they would be back where they had begun. ‘We must not swoop down on her like hawks,’ Lucie warned, ‘or we will frighten her.’ She turned from Owen’s irritated glare and faced Edmund. ‘Still, you must see that either Owen or I should be there. We must observe how Joanna behaves when she sees you, what she says. Perhaps she was not so when you were with her, but now she speaks in riddles and digressions. It would be difficult for you to remember all of it, and you might forget something of great significance to us. Your purpose is different. You seek your friend; we seek to learn much more.’

  Edmund looked down at his hands. ‘I had hoped to see her alone.’ His voice rang with disappointment. Again Lucie wondered about his feelings for Joanna.

  Owen stretched his legs out beside the table, leaned against the wall, his arms folded. Lucie noted that he had removed his earring, a sign that he was settled back into his life in York. She smiled to see it. Owen caught her eye, nodded. ‘You are thinking that it is most appropriate that a woman be with Joanna in the room, and thus you win your plea.’