Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

In the retainers’ hall the fire circle lured him, as it had beckoned the pair he was after. It was plain from the looks on their faces when they recognized the newcomer that they had heard of the incident at Owen’s house. Making straight for them, Owen flung a stool aside that blocked his path to them and kicked over a flagon one had resting by his foot, letting the ale soak the young man’s leggings.

‘Who gave you permission to desert your posts, leaving my family unprotected?’

They interrupted each other trying to explain. Owen dragged one of them up by the collar and reached out to stop the other, who had begun to move sideways on the bench. ‘You will take the first watch at the tawyer’s house.’ In the storm, it would be good for them. ‘And you will not move from your posts until your replacements arrive for the night watch, is that clear?’ He let go of them. ‘You know the house in Patrick Pool? Good. I am going above to talk to Alfred. I do not want to see you here when I return.’

Being the top-ranking retainer living in the barracks, Alfred enjoyed the privacy of a solar room, though it was only partitioned off by flimsy wooden screens that did not keep out noise. As Owen had expected after Alfred’s watch through the night and into the morning, he was in bed, though sitting up, grinning at the treatment of the renegades. Up here right beneath the roof, the rain thundered.

‘They would have been looking forward to a good meal and dry beds.’ Alfred rubbed his face, bringing the blood back to the sallow surface, then raked a hand through his fair, thinning hair.

‘They will have their comforts in good time, but I want them miserable first. I need you to organize the watch list. We now have men here at the palace and at Eudo’s house.’

‘Aye, Captain. Did Eudo harm anyone in your household?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want another guard on your house?’

‘The men will get little rest if we spread them further. Word will soon be out that Poins is no longer at my house. I shall trust to God and the gossips.’

Alfred looked uncertain.

‘Eudo was looking for Poins and he found him.’ It was now late afternoon and Owen’s head grew heavy as he sat on the edge of Alfred’s bed. ‘I have more folk to see before I rest this day.’

Alfred’s gaze had strayed to the pouch in Owen’s hands. ‘What is that?’

‘Gleanings from the mound of tiles. They say they found nothing of worth, but I’ll be the judge of that.’

‘God go with you,’ said Alfred.

An odd thing for him to say. Owen wondered whether his lack of sleep was showing.

He departed from the barracks, walking out into the storm, which he was disappointed to see was passing, the rain gentler now. The guards’ punishment would not be as severe as he had wished. He must devise some further unpleasantness for the lazy pair. The earth smelled rich and loamy. Raising his eye to the great minster, he remembered scrambling on the pile of rubble. It seemed so long ago, and so unimportant now. But it was with that incident that Wykeham’s fear had taken root. Perhaps he should not ignore it.

He paused in the palace kitchen to enquire how Poins had weathered the intrusion. The screen had been righted and the injured man was asleep.

‘He understood that Eudo might have killed him,’ said Magda. ‘He stared after the men for a long while and would drink nothing for his pain. But in the end, he cried out for relief.’

‘He must fight hard to survive,’ Owen said. ‘Does he have the will?’

‘Thou knowest better than to pose Magda such a question. Only time will tell thee what Poins intends.’

‘You will spend the night here?’

‘Aye. A few nights, perhaps. Then Magda will teach the Fitzbaldrics’ cook to watch over him.’

Owen had settled on a bench and opened the pouch. Magda joined him. A button, a battered shoe, a crushed tin cup, a penknife.

‘Hast thou a use for these?’ Magda was amused.

Not so Owen. He lifted the penknife towards a lamp, studied the crest carved on the sheath. ‘For this, aye.’ He rose abruptly. ‘Perhaps I do not need Poins’s witness, now I have this.’

He passed out into the strange half-light of the sun setting beneath the clouds, heading for the masons’ lodge on the south side of the minster.

The storm had driven people into their homes, giving Lucie quiet time in the shop. While she poured the cough syrup into pots she kept hearing the tune of a Breton ballad in her mind’s ear. It was the first song Owen had ever sung for her, of love and betrayal. She remembered only some of the words, picked up over time, though the language was unknown to her. It was the tune that haunted her now, filling her with sadness. She could not remember when Owen had last picked up the lute that had been her mother’s. That, too, saddened her. Though the children often clamoured for a song, they grew impatient while Owen plucked and listened, adjusted the tension of the strings and plucked, proof of how seldom the instrument was played.

Her fingers must have moved with the memory and the pot she was filling began to slip in her hand. She jerked to catch it, regretting the sharp movement as her shoulder twinged, her groin ached.

She thought about the last time Owen had played the lute. She had been lying abed a few days after her fall. He had played to cheer her, but succeeded only in making her weep. Cisotta’s effort to explain to Owen how the memory of joy might sadden Lucie had irritated him, as he took it to imply that he did not know his own wife. He had kissed Lucie and withdrawn.

Setting the pots aside, she sought the open door to St Helen’s Square and breathed in the damp, rain-fresh air. The storm had passed but for a fine mist. In St Helen’s churchyard the stones glistened in the brightening sky. Lucie spied Jasper at the end of Stonegate talking to a neighbour. Seeing her, he waved and came running through the churchyard, his clothes clinging to him damply, his face aglow. He began at once to tell how Eudo had been captured in the palace kitchen.

Hearing how close the tawyer had come to attacking Poins, Lucie crossed herself and said a prayer of thanks that he had been stopped. Had he succeeded, Thoresby would not have shown mercy in dealing with him. But there was yet hope.

Standing on the rush-strewn floor, dripping and steaming, Jasper became aware of his surroundings, noticed Lucie’s progress on the electuary — and also her tear-streaked face. His expression changed to one of concern — or perhaps embarrassment, for he did not ask Lucie what had made her cry, but instead offered to take over the sealing of the pots.

‘Yes, do,’ Lucie said, wishing he would ask about her tears, but understanding that a fourteen-year-old boy did not discuss such things. ‘While you are busy with that, I shall explain the working of dwale to you, as I promised, how it is that the briony purges the patient of the dangerous hemlock and henbane, leaving the quiet sleep of poppy.’ It was a safe topic for both of them.

*

The stonemasons’ tale gave Owen no joy. As he left the lodge and headed back into the city he had no appetite for what he must do. But he was determined that when he stepped across his own threshold for the night he would know whether or not the falling tile had been an accident.

Walter, the assistant to the master mason, had come forth from the lodge to enquire what Owen wanted, intent on preventing him from intruding. But when Owen had shown him the penknife and explained the significance of where it had been found, Walter had escorted him into the shelter. Luke, the mason who had co-operated with Owen on his search of the pile, glanced up from the rough stone along which he had been guiding a young man’s hand. Two other masons paused in their discussion of a corbel.