by Candace Robb
‘Have we forgotten a feast day?’ Sir Robert wondered. ‘God forgive me if I have.’
Michaelo shook his head. ‘St David’s Day is past. We are in Lent, but not so far.’
Owen’s attention was drawn to a clutch of men who huddled about a point just without the gate. He lingered long enough to hear that at dawn the porter had found a body there. Everyone must now expound their theories and dire predictions.
‘It must have been brought here during the night,’ said one man. ‘But why did the porter not spy the activity?’
‘The man had been gutted, they say,’ another whispered.
‘There will be war now among the Marcher lords.’
‘They say that a shepherd in Ceredigion once ate a box of hosts – the Lord split him open like a gutted pig so that the faithful might witness his sin.’
‘What is it?’ Sir Robert asked at Owen’s side. ‘Of what do they speak in such hushed voices?’
Thank God Sir Robert knew no Welsh. ‘An argument, is all. It means naught to us.’ Owen wanted neither Michaelo nor Sir Robert to learn of the body – one would panic, the other would interfere.
As they passed through the gate, they all paused and exclaimed. Without the gate they could see but the top of the cathedral’s central tower. Now, tumbling down the steep hill and spread in the valley below was a small city with cottages and great halls, all clustered within the walls and round two huge and magnificent structures straddling either side of the River Alun, the Cathedral of St David and St Andrew, and the bishop’s palace beyond.
Brother Michaelo was most impressed by the palace. ‘See the scalloped arcading? That is Bishop Henry Gower’s work. Was he not the most ingenious man? Is it not as I described it?’
Geoffrey laughed. ‘You mean as Owen described it.’ Owen was the only member of the company who had ever been to St David’s. ‘Though I grant you have often repeated tales of the palace’s splendour.’
Years ago, when Owen was thirteen, his mother had brought him here with his baby brother Morgan. He remembered workmen atop scaffolding, adding clean stone to peeling, mossy walls. His mother had explained how they would then clean the older stone and apply fresh colour. Now Owen saw for the first time the completed result of Gower’s work. As he walked down the steep slope along the north side of the cathedral, he admired the sunlight playing on the reds, blues, greens and golds of the palace walls below. He shielded his eye against the brightening sun and gazed in wonder upon the delicate arcading atop the walls, with a chequer-work pattern of alternating small squares of purple and white stone. It was a decorative lace, serving no purpose but beauty – the palace was protected by the wall that enclosed the entire complex, cathedral, palace and additional residences. There was no need for guards to pace the palace roofs.
‘It is peaceful here,’ Geoffrey said as he paused before the stone bridge over the small, placid River Alun.
‘God grant that I find peace here,’ said Sir Robert.
Owen observed the unhealthy flush on his father-in-law’s cheeks and forehead and prayed that their lodgings at the bishop’s palace would be warm and dry. But he said nothing, not wishing to call attention to a weakness that Sir Robert found humiliating. ‘Even before St David founded his monastery in this vale, it was a holy place.’
‘A heathen holiness,’ Michaelo reminded them.
The bridge was a great slab of marble ten foot long, six foot wide, a foot thick. Its surface had been polished by the shuffling feet of hundreds of pilgrims, and was cracked down the middle.
‘They might provide a better bridge,’ Michaelo muttered.
‘You do not replace such a bridge, not until it no longer serves,’ Owen said. ‘Have you not heard the legends of this bridge?’
‘It is but a plain bridge. There is no art to it.’
‘This bridge that you so despise is called Llechllafar – the singing stone,’ Owen said. ‘Once, as a corpse was being carried across it, Llechllafar burst forth with a reprimand so passionate it cracked with the effort. Ever since, it has been forbidden to carry the dead across this stone.’
‘A stone cannot speak,’ Michaelo protested.
Owen paid him no heed. ‘Merlinus predicted that a king of England, upon returning from the conquest of Ireland, would be mortally wounded by a red-handed man as he crossed the stone. Henry Plantagenet crossed it unscathed on his return from his successful campaigns in Ireland; he declared Merlinus a liar.’
‘The Lionheart’s father was here?’ Michaelo said, suddenly more interested.
‘Aye, that he was. Come, let us cross over.’
But now Michaelo looked wary as he considered the stone. ‘Your people tell tales about everything.’
‘Everything has its tale.’
‘What happened when the King called Merlinus a liar?’ asked Sir Robert.
‘Someone in the crowd laughed at the King and said, “Perhaps the prediction spoke of another king, yet to come.” It is said that Henry was not pleased, but said no more.’
‘Foolish pride,’ Geoffrey muttered.
It was a nervous group that crossed the bridge.
The courtyard of the bishop’s palace appeared to be a meeting place for pilgrims and the various clerics who lived in the close. From their furtive gestures and excited whispers Owen guessed they, too, discussed the body that had been left at the gate.
But the courtyard in which they stood claimed Michaelo’s attention. ‘How magnificent,’ he said, gazing round.
Sir Robert reluctantly agreed.
Two great porches, approached by broad stone stairways, led to separate wings. Directly in front, the expanse that housed the great hall presented a deep red ochre façade; at a right angle to the left, the wing that held the bishop’s private quarters was rendered and whitewashed. Owen and Geoffrey stepped aside to allow Brother Michaelo and Sir Robert to ascend to the porch of the great hall first. They were, after all, the pilgrims.
The porter perked up at Sir Robert’s name. ‘His Grace left word that you should dine with him this evening, Sir Robert. And this will be Brother Michaelo? Secretary to the Archbishop of York?’
Brother Michaelo bowed low, beaming.
‘His Grace requests your presence this evening also. And Master Chaucer.’
Geoffrey started at his name and made a sweeping bow.
But the porter was already looking beyond Geoffrey. ‘Captain Archer?’
Owen gave a curt bow.
‘My lord Bishop would see you at once, Captain.’
‘At once?’ Sir Robert said. ‘But he has made a long journey––’
Owen shook his head at his father-in-law, silencing him. ‘Did His Grace say anything else?’ he asked the porter.
‘No, Captain.’
A clerk appeared behind the porter and asked Owen to accompany him down into the courtyard to the bishop’s wing. Michaelo began to follow.
The porter raised a restraining hand. ‘Brother Michaelo, His Grace wishes a private word with the Captain.’
Michaelo turned back, indignation colouring his cheeks. Geoffrey coaxed him back up the stairs to the waiting porter.
Owen followed the clerk down the broad steps and up the matching set to the bishop’s porch. An image of St David greeted him as he drew level with the great door that led into the bishop’s hall, a painting larger than life. Proud it made Owen, to see the patron saint of his people so honoured. Liveried servants flitted about their duties with curious glances at the two who moved swiftly through the brightly painted hall into a parlour with a window overlooking the gateway of the palace. The voices in the courtyard were muted in here. The figures seemed a dumb show.
‘Would you care for wine?’ the clerk wheezed, drawing Owen’s attention from the window. The man’s round face was red with exertion from the short walk. A pampered lot here.
‘I would be most grateful. But you must not trouble yourself.’ A mere courtesy. Owen knew the poor young man was under orders to give
him refreshment.
Alone, Owen went back to his study of the courtyard. But it offered up no explanation for the bishop’s summons. Did Thoresby’s reach extend so far? Had he found yet another task for Owen?
Bishop Adam de Houghton paused in the doorway as two servants preceded him, carrying wine and goblets. Tall, fair, with aquiline features and a friendly demeanour, Houghton need only stand there smiling to put a stranger at ease. When the servants had ceased their fuss and slipped away, the bishop entered, making the sign of the cross towards Owen. ‘God be with you, Captain Archer.’ Houghton spoke in Welsh.
Owen was surprised – though Houghton had been born nearby, in Caerforiog in the parish of Whitchurch, he was of old English stock. He was the first Englishman Owen had encountered to extend the courtesy of speaking the native tongue to a Welshman. Owen bowed low and replied in Welsh. His speech was embarrassingly halting. He had become more careful of his words since he left this country, and he must now not only search for phrases in his rusty Welsh but also weigh and consider each word.
The bishop motioned for Owen to be at ease. ‘Presently we shall sit and have some refreshment while we talk of your journey and your mission, but first I would explain my purpose in commanding your presence without the courtesy of allowing you to rest from your journey.’ His voice, soft and with a raspy character, seemed at odds with his appearance. ‘The Duke of Lancaster has spoken highly of your work for him and Archbishop Thoresby. God sent you at a time when I have great need of your talents. We have had a most unfortunate incident today. I do not like to think of it as an omen, but––’
‘There was a body.’
Houghton’s pleasant countenance darkened. ‘Someone told you of it?’
‘I heard people discussing it.’
The bishop relaxed. ‘Of course. I suppose it is to be expected. Well then, as you may have heard, this morning the porter discovered a body without Tower Gate.’
‘A violent death?’
‘The sort of wound that – well, you must be accustomed to it. I am sure you have heard many theories about why you lost your eye.’
‘My sight, my lord. I still have the eye.’ Owen supposed he meant divine retribution for some sin, as with the tale he had heard at the gate.
Houghton squinted at Owen’s patch. ‘Do you indeed? Well, they would make a moral tale of that, too.’ Heavens but the man jabbered. ‘My clerk will show you the corpse. You can be the judge of the condition of the body.’
‘I––’ Owen shook his head. ‘Forgive me, Your Grace, but I must disappoint you. I am here––’
‘As my guest,’ Houghton said in a louder, firmer voice. ‘And representing the Duke of Lancaster. I am quite certain he would expect you to assist me in this.’
The sudden assumption of his compliance momentarily robbed Owen of speech. Was this to be his lot in life, ever to drop to his knees and sniff out any pests that discomfited the nobility? A clerk appeared behind the bishop – not the same poor, overheated lump of flesh who had shown him in.
‘Ifan, this is Captain Archer, a man who has solved many problems such as ours for both the Duke of Lancaster and the Archbishop of York. Show him the poor soul below. I shall await you here.’
Owen bowed. ‘Your Grace.’
The young clerk bowed to Owen and motioned for him to follow. They crossed the room, slipped behind a hunt tapestry on the east wall, through a door and down a narrow passage into a tower lit by wall sconces, descending stone steps to an undercroft that echoed as a guard moved from the shadows barking a challenge.
‘It is Ifan, with an emissary from the Duke of Lancaster,’ the clerk announced.
The guard took a good look at Owen, nodded. ‘You may pass.’
‘You have had no trouble?’ Ifan asked.
From whom, Owen wondered, if the victim was dead. Pilgrims staying in the other wing of the palace?
‘All is quiet, God help us,’ the guard said.
The clerk led Owen into a room lit with many candles.
The warring scents of beeswax, incense, smoke and decaying flesh assailed Owen. ‘He has been dead some days.’
‘We have done our best to mask the odour.’
‘There is nothing hides that stench.’ Owen approached the well-lit table on which the corpse lay beneath a loose shroud. He nodded to the clerk to pull the cover aside. An ugly, gaping wound. If it had originally been a simple knife thrust to the belly, then something had been eating at the flesh. ‘Have you cleaned the wound?’
‘No. We removed the clothes, that is all. The body is very clean, I know.’
The man had lain exposed for some time after being wounded, Owen guessed. One at a time, he lifted the hands, studied the nails and palms. The nails were dark with what might be blood, the palms abraded. Bruises on the face and arms suggested a struggle. The knees, too, were rough with abrasions. The man had been in his prime, muscular, no deformities. His hair, a pale blond, had been neatly trimmed, though now it was wild, stiff with sea water.
‘Where are his clothes?’
The clerk stepped back, picked up a basket, which he handed to Owen. Lancaster’s livery, with the emblem of Cydweli. Owen poked through the items. ‘There was nothing else? No weapon?’
‘No.’
Owen lifted the tunic. The tear proved the knife thrust. Whatever had eaten into the wound had no interest in the cloth, which was stiff with blood round the wound, but the remainder of the cloth was rough and brittle, too. Owen lifted the leggings. They also had the feel of having been soaked in brine. The knees were rough. The boots – they were of good quality, sturdy, slightly worn. Owen tilted them. Sand rained down on the stone floor.
‘This man lay on the beach. Crawled along the beach, I think. But the tide found him. And he fed the crabs for a time.’ Owen stooped, brought a candle close to the pile of sand. He knew of one beach very near with sand of such dazzling colour. ‘Whitesands.’
Owen noticed how the clerk peered down, glanced up at him, then quickly away, as if uncertain what to think. That Owen saw too much, even blinded in one eye? Devil take the bishop for putting such thoughts in his head.
Owen straightened. ‘Let us ascend to fresh air, Ifan. Warm ourselves with wine.’ Though at first it had felt stuffy in the undercroft, that had been the illusion of the smoke of incense and candles. Slowly the underlying chill had seeped through Owen’s leather travelling clothes. This valley had once been a marsh. Man’s stones and mortar could not keep out the damp chill.
The clerk bent to cover the dead man, then led Owen back whence they had come.
Bishop Adam de Houghton paced as he listened to Owen’s assessment. ‘He died of the knife wound?’
‘I believe he did, though how quickly I cannot say. It may have been a slow death. I believe his wound bled as he lay in the water. The crabs––’ He stopped, seeing the bishop blanch. ‘Forgive me, my lord bishop.’
‘You deserve your reputation. Whitesands.’ Houghton was quiet a moment but for the whisper of his costly gown and his velvet shoes on the tiles. ‘It is far to carry a body from Whitesands to Tower Gate. Why? Why was he brought to the bell tower?’
Owen neither knew nor cared. ‘Your Grace, do I have your permission to join my companions now?’
Houghton looked first surprised, then apologetic. ‘Of course. God help me, I am forgetting my duties as a host. You have ridden far, and I have kept you from a well-earned rest. Go in peace, Captain. And tonight, when we dine, we shall not speak of this, eh?’
‘Of course not, Your Grace.’
Owen must have slept, for his thoughts as he opened his eyes in drowsy confusion were of York. He had been telling his daughter Gwenllian the tale of the Water Horse of St Bride’s Bay, and now she shook him for another story. As he woke he realised it was Sir Robert who gently shook him.
‘His Grace sends for you.’
‘Again?’ Owen groaned, rose slowly, made his way to a table with an ewer and dish for washing.
‘Houghton mistakenly believes that I care about his problems,’ Owen said, splashing water on his face. He departed before Sir Robert had a chance to ask more questions. Geoffrey waited in the main hall, speaking with much gesturing and wagging of the head to a woman who was richly dressed and fair of face. She covered her mouth daintily when she laughed.
‘We are summoned,’ Owen said to Geoffrey.
The woman’s eyes drank Owen in and she smiled brightly, forgetting to cover her bad teeth.
‘Mistress Somery of Glamorgan,’ said Geoffrey.
‘God go with you, Mistress,’ said Owen. ‘I pray you forgive me, but the bishop is expecting me and Master Chaucer.’
‘Captain,’ she said with a flirtatious tilt of her head, a flutter of her lashes. ‘I look forward to making your acquaintance.’
Geoffrey hurried away with Owen. ‘It is not fair how they look on you.’
The man had peculiar priorities. ‘Have you any idea why the bishop sends for us?’ Owen said.
‘Not the least.’ With his short legs, Geoffrey had practically to skip to keep up with Owen’s long strides, which made him breathless.
Owen relented, slowed down, told him of the body.
Geoffrey was fascinated, but did not see what it had to do with them.
That made a pair of them. ‘I cannot but think that the bishop has learned something to link the body with us. What of John de Reine? Do you know anything of his appearance?’
Geoffrey paused, understanding Owen’s suspicion. ‘I do not like to think––’
‘Neither do I. Was he fair?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Let us hope I am wrong.’
They marched in silence through the corridor leading from the great hall to the bishop’s hall.