Candace Robb: The Guilt of Innocents

That would make all the difference. Owen nodded, and was about to remind Jasper that he’d promised not to participate in the battles between the scholars and the bargemen — the latter being a rough lot — but he decided to hold his tongue until he heard more. ‘Why were you looking for him?’ he asked.

Jasper pressed his hands to his eyes and shook his head slowly, as if wondering that himself. ‘We wanted to recover a scrip that Hubert de Weston lost a fortnight ago. This Drogo had grabbed it and then refused to return it.’

A bargeman teaching a boy a lesson. It seemed innocent enough. ‘That’s all?’

‘Aye. But none of us would attack him with a poisoned blade.’

No, Owen did not think that likely. ‘How was Master Nicholas involved?’ he asked.

Jasper shook his head. ‘He wasn’t. Drogo was warm at last and the bleeding started again. But the people wanted to blame him. Is it such a terrible thing he did, to open a school in the minster liberty?’

‘No it is not,’ said Owen, ‘and I can’t think why most folk would care one whit about Nicholas Ferriby. Unless there’s a rumour I’ve not heard. I don’t know that I’d risk my soul’s salvation for the prestige of teaching in the liberty. If they say he’s up to something more than education …’

‘Has someone gone for the bailiffs?’ Alfred asked.

Jasper nodded. ‘And Abbot Campian told Master Nicholas to go into the abbey grounds to escape the crowd. They’ve taken Drogo to the abbey infirmary.’

Owen nodded. ‘The abbot is a sensible man. You look half-frozen yourself, Jasper. Go straight home. Tell your mistress what has happened and where I am.’ He shook his head as he saw the argument form in Jasper’s eyes. ‘You’ll hear all that I learn. Now go. I am off to Brother Henry.’

Shrugging his disappointment, Jasper slumped out of the barracks.

Lucie and Owen’s house sat on the corner of St Helen’s Square and Davygate, next to Wilton’s Apothecary, the shop Lucie carried on from her first husband, Nicholas. When he was alive and then when she and Owen were first wed the building that housed the shop had also been her home. Her father, whose manor of Freythorpe Hadden was in the countryside south of York, had purchased the large house across the garden so that he might spend more time in the city with his grandchildren, and on his death he’d left the town house as well as the manor to Lucie. It was a beautiful home in which to raise her children and provide a comfortable home for her aged aunt, Phillippa, who’d been crippled in body and mind by a palsy. Joining the gardens had allowed Lucie to grow a greater variety of materia medica for the apothecary. All in all she felt very blessed in her marriage, her children, her career, her life — and especially this healthy pregnancy.

The afternoon light faded quickly at this time of year in the North, and though the hall boasted casement windows looking out onto the extensive garden Lucie was glad of the light from the hall fire and several wall sconces. Phillippa napped by the fire near the table at which Lucie was working on the shop accounts. Alisoun Ffulford, the children’s nursemaid, had just risen from her seat across the way and lit an oil lamp, placing it beside Lucie — unasked for.

‘Bless you, Alisoun,’ said Lucie, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice, for she knew the young woman would take it as a subtle criticism.

It had taken some time, but Lucie had ceased fretting over the volatility of Alisoun’s moods, having witnessed how the young woman struggled to smooth them out. Certainly Jasper seemed immune to Alisoun’s moods except when she snapped at him — for he greatly admired her. Lucie suspected that Alisoun felt likewise about Jasper. She was consistent with the children, firm but kind and always ready to sing or read to them. It was in the idle moments, especially after Gwenllian and Hugh were abed, that Alisoun fought her devils, her resentment of the kin who were her guardians and her frustration with Magda Digby’s elusiveness. She’d wished to apprentice to Magda, but so far she’d had little opportunity to work beside the midwife and healer.

Lucie had never expected Alisoun to be so long a part of her household — she’d been Gwenllian and Hugh’s nurse for more than a year. Her understanding had been that the girl was temporarily assisting her after she’d fallen and miscarried and suddenly needed more help in the house. Indeed, at the moment Lucie shared some of Alisoun’s impatience with Magda. When Lucie had realised she was again with child she’d told Magda that it was time to replace Alisoun with a wet nurse. Magda had assured her she had already begun to look for one, and more recently that she had someone in mind. Yet not a word of Alisoun’s replacement had come in many a week. Lucie was quite satisfied with Alisoun most of the time, but she agreed with Owen that even if a wet nurse was not required, Alisoun was still too inexperienced to take on the care of a newborn in addition to Hugh and Gwenllian. Now, with only a month until she delivered, Lucie was growing anxious about the arrangements.

But it was not her wont to complain these days, so happy was she that she’d conceived again. The loss of the baby she’d carried the previous year had sent her into such a sinful despair that she had feared her penance would be to bear no more children. Then just as she’d set her mind to being content with Gwenllian and Hugh, her courses had stopped. Still she had feared saying anything to Owen or to Magda. It was Owen who had coaxed her to talk of it, noticing with delight her swelling breasts.

‘I fear to speak such hope,’ she’d whispered in the darkness of the night.

‘Hope, my love?’ Owen had said. ‘You are much farther along than hope might bring you. Would you not like to make a special offering in the minster for your safe delivery?’

Owen had known just what to say. Lucie did not think any woman could have a better husband.

This evening Alisoun’s woes concerned her grammar master. She was sitting at the hall table practising her letters on a slate while Lucie worked on the shop accounts. Kate, the cook and housemaid, had Gwenllian and Hugh in the kitchen feeding them an early supper.

‘If it were only Master Nicholas’s school being in the minster liberty I would not worry so,’ Alisoun said, sitting stiffly straight as was her habit of late, ‘but I’m certain that some of the students will gossip about the beliefs he holds that border on heresy.’

‘Heresy? Master Nicholas?’ This was the first Lucie had heard of heretical teachings. Word of this could get him stripped of his parish of Weston as well as his little school here in York.

It had been Owen’s inspiration to send Alisoun to Master Nicholas’s school. He’d noticed how closely she watched Lucie writing up the shop accounts and how eagerly she asked Jasper about his lessons. Owen’s guilt over his insistence that she leave her post when the baby was born was assuaged by her obvious appreciation of the gift. She was careful to fit her school work in around her duties in the household. She would be horribly disappointed if her grammar master brought ruin upon himself by insisting on keeping his school where it was — or, even worse, teaching heresy to his students. York had few good schools that accepted girls. How awful if Alisoun lost both her job and her school at the same time.

What a wealth of worry because of the girl’s chatter, Lucie thought, and in her condition she was a consummate worrier. She wished Alisoun would quietly work at her letters or at least take up a happier topic. Or that Aunt Phillippa would wake from her doze by the fire and join them. Lucie looked forward to the end of the children’s meal when Kate handed them over to Alisoun and she would be busy once more.