Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

Owen reached out for her in his sleep. Lucie kissed his forehead. Strange how she could distinguish the smell of the smoke in his hair as something foreign, not from their own hearth fire. She reached out to trace the lines that had lately deepened on his forehead, but stopped herself, not wanting to wake him. She wished she had been able to stay awake last night, alert enough to ask what he was keeping from her. He had learned something troubling, she could see that in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Now she might need to wait until the end of the day to learn what it was, when they were alone again. But he must sleep. Gently she slipped out of his grasp, rose to dress herself.

She opened a shutter wide enough to see the dawn. A soft rain had begun to fall, but to the east the sky was bright. She used the light to examine the clothing Owen had worn the previous night. Sometimes it helped to do ordinary things. He had worn his own clothes, not the livery of the archbishop. The simple russet tunic was singed and grimy with water and ash, the leggings past saving, she feared. His boots had been soaked, but they could be worked back into good condition. She lifted them to the chest, catching his belt with them. The scrip that hung from the belt slipped along the leather and she caught it as it was about to fall. She wondered at its heft as she set it down beside his boots and turned to leave. But curiosity pulled her back. She drew the leather flap out of the long loop that held it and gently shook the scrip to free the contents, not too far, just a glimpse. A leather band set with large glass beads slipped out. Lucie caught her breath.

It was Cisotta’s new girdle, but only part of it, the edges charred, crumbling as Lucie touched them. She sank to her knees, running her fingertips over the glass beads.

Cisotta had been wearing it yesterday. Lucie could see it clearly, on the young midwife’s blue dress.

Lucie had come through the beaded curtain from the back workshop to find Jasper ducking his head and laughing in the self-conscious manner he had of late when a pretty woman was around. But there seemed to be no one in the shop. ‘Jasper?’

‘Lucie?’ Cisotta’s voice had risen from somewhere in front of the counter.

Jasper had blushed. ‘She is fetching a jar for this.’ He had pennyroyal measured out on a piece of parchment. ‘Her basket is on the floor.’

A brightly veiled head rose then, blue eyes, blonde hair in braided rolls on either side of a lovely face. Cisotta’s gown matched her eyes and the beaded girdle called attention to her narrow waist, how the gown was cut to cling at her hips. The effect had not been lost on Jasper. Lucie had mixed feelings about her presence. Though thankful for the care Cisotta had given her, seeing her touched wounds still raw. She had felt ungrateful — after all, the midwife had baptized her stillborn child.

Cisotta stood with jars in hand, studying Lucie. ‘You still lack some spark. Is the Riverwoman satisfied with your improvement?’

‘She does not say.’

‘Then she is not. Jasper might help you more. And Dame Phillippa.’ She set the jars on the counter.

‘You have been a stranger,’ Lucie had said. ‘I thought you might have deserted us for another apothecary.’

Cisotta’s face had dimpled in a brief smile. ‘I should be a fool to do so, my friend.’ She glanced behind, checked that they were indeed alone. ‘I have been busy trying to feed my family, spreading the word among women about the births I have attended, particularly among merchant’s wives — they pay the best.’

Lucie had heard why Cisotta needed work. The cordwainers were angry with her husband, Eudo, for making shoes of tawyed leather for a neighbour. He had been reprimanded by his guild and had lost the business of most of the guilds in the city, a loss he could not afford, for he offended so many who came into the shop with his silence, rarely sparing a moment for a civil word, that many left without buying. Cisotta complained of it often.

It was not Magda’s custom to gossip, but she distrusted Cisotta, saying she did not have the soul of a healer. Though she had been relieved to see Cisotta at Lucie’s bedside when she returned from the countryside and heard of the fall, the miscarriage, she had lost no time in sending the younger woman on her way. ‘She depends too much on charms,’ Magda had said.

But Cisotta had been good to Lucie, so she had tried to comfort her. ‘Eudo is skilled with hides. The glovers will return to him when the tawyed leather they buy elsewhere stretches and tears as they work it.’

‘You are kind to say so.’ Cisotta crouched to place the filled jars in her basket.

‘I could carry that for you,’ Jasper had said.

‘Stay here to help your mistress. My daughter is sitting without, we shall share the handle.’

Lucie had wondered about that. Eight-year-old Anna was a wraithlike child who had been racked by illnesses from birth.

‘Eudo is so harsh with her,’ Cisotta had said as she lifted the basket, leaning back a little to cope with the weight. ‘He calls her lazy, expects her to fetch and carry. He needs another apprentice, but he has no one to back him in the guild. I look forward to the day when my boys are big enough to help him. God forgive me for complaining, he is as good a husband as most, all in all. God go with you, Lucie, Jasper.’ She had headed for the door, her beaded leather girdle jingling as she walked unevenly with the load.

Lucie pressed the scrap of girdle to her heart. Owen’s scrip dropped to the floor, spilling the rest of the contents.

The bed creaked. ‘Lucie?’

‘You said you did not know her.’

Owen sat up. ‘Who?’

‘The beaded girdle. It was in the fire. Was it on the woman they took from the undercroft?’

‘One of the men found it on the ground. He thought it had fallen from her when they carried her from the fire. Do you recognize it?’

‘You do not?’

‘No. Tell me.’

‘You saw this every day after my accident.’

Owen was shaking his head. He had the look on his face she had come to know all too well of late. He would speak softly to her now, trying not to anger her, attempting to reason with her.

‘It is Cisotta’s girdle,’ she said, speaking before he had the chance, ‘the one Eudo made for her.’

‘Cisotta?’

She watched him take it in, realize what it meant to her. He threw aside the bedding and hurried to her, kneeling as she knelt. He reached to pull her into his arms.

She resisted. She did not want comfort. ‘Did you see her?’

‘Lucie, I am so sorry. But I did not know. I could not — ’ he stopped himself.

He need not have. She heard the rest of it — it echoed in the room as loudly as if he had shouted it. ‘She is that badly burned?’

‘Aye,’ he whispered, looking down at his hands. ‘But it is worse than that.’

‘Did you not recognize the bright blue of her dress?’

‘What was not burned was smeared with mud and ashes. I swear I have never seen the beaded girdle.’

Lucie looked down at the belt that had fallen from the scrip. It, too, had been in the fire, but it was not familiar. She reached down.

‘Do not touch that.’ Owen did not use the gentle voice meant to soothe her. He sounded edgy and hoarse from the fire and lack of sleep.

‘What did you mean, worse than that?’ She joined him on the bed, shook her head at the wine he proffered. ‘What did you keep from me last night? What happened to Cisotta?’

‘I have told only Thoresby, Wykeham, and Magda. You must speak of this to no one else, not Jasper, not Phillippa — ’

‘You have never hesitated to tell me anything before.’

He said nothing.

‘I swear I shall tell no one.’