Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

The boys climbed the pile, with one of the apprentices calling out advice about the best footholds, and once at the top they took turns attempting to stand, but gave that up when Luke shouted a warning that some of the tiles at the edge had begun to shift.

The boys dropped to their knees, then sat down to enjoy the view, and the masons and their crew left them to their play, forgotten until Bert, working higher on the scaffolding than the others, called out that the Bishop of Winchester approached.

‘Did the bishop hear him?’ Owen asked John.

The boy shrugged. ‘If he did, he chose not to raise his eyes to us, nor did he hesitate.’

The lads lay flat on their bellies and began to slither forward to see the bishop pass by.

‘The tiles started moving beneath us,’ said John, ‘and one began to fall. Someone cried out for Bishop William to drop down, and he did so, dropped to his knees, covering his head with his hands. He must have heard the stones, too.’

‘So more than one fell?’ Owen asked.

‘I think only one went all the way,’ said John. ‘Then the pile shifted and settled.’

Bert had described the boys splayed atop the mound like they were clinging on for life, though John made little of it.

‘And then the bishop was surrounded by guards,’ John continued, ‘and the masons said nothing. Later they said that since the bishop was unharmed, there seemed no need to expose us to questioning.’

John’s account followed the masons’, though the boy added some small details, such as Ivo’s inability to control his bladder as he lay flat on the pile, a weakness he related with much blushing on Ivo’s part, and his own loss of the penknife as they scrambled off what they then understood was a dangerously unstable mound.

‘Why did you not tell us?’ Peter cried. ‘How could they allow you up there?’

Owen turned to Ivo, with whom he had much more eye contact than with the stolid John. ‘Do you agree with your brother’s account?’

The boy nodded energetically. ‘It was as he said.’

Owen believed him — so far. But John’s dispassionate accounting was disturbing.

‘I am sure you have been taught to own your errors, face your penance with good grace, eh?’ Owen paused, waited for the nods, which were slow in coming. ‘Why then did you not climb down and admit to the bishop what had happened?’

Ivo was increasingly uncomfortable, pressing his arms against his sides, playing with a button just above his belt. ‘I was frightened. Bishop William is a wicked man.’

‘Who told you that?’

Ivo glanced over at his brother with a look of dread. John did not acknowledge him.

‘It is a simple question, Ivo,’ Owen said. He caught the boy’s eye, held the gaze.

‘He heard it from my mother-in-law, to be sure,’ said Peter from behind them.

Ivo nodded. ‘And I was afraid,’ he mumbled.

‘No doubt you were. But if the falling of the tile was truly unintentional, I think the bishop would have believed you. He had no cause not to.’

‘Will he have us put in the stocks on Pavement?’

‘I do not think so, Ivo.’

The boy sighed.

‘And you, John.’ The elder boy raised his eyes to Owen. ‘Why did you not speak up after the accident? Why did you wait for someone else to reveal your part in the incident?’

The elder boy covered a nervous cough with a trembling hand. ‘Dropping the tile was an accident. We had no purpose in climbing the pile of stone but to see the view.’

‘Answer the captain’s question,’ Peter said, in a quiet but firm voice.

The boy glanced back at his father, who nodded to him.

John took a deep, shivery breath and, pressing back his shoulders, faced Owen squarely. ‘All the time we waited for Grandfather to come home, thinking King Charles refused to negotiate, the bishop was offering him only half the ransom we sent, so little he insulted him, while the bishop spent the other half on his palace in Winchester.’ He paused for a breath. ‘For the suffering he has caused our mother, he deserves punishment.’

‘Dear God,’ Peter groaned.

Owen observed the boy in silence for a moment, then turned to Ivo. ‘Do you agree with your brother?’

The boy pursed his lips, looked down at his hands. ‘Aye, Captain. My family has been wronged.’

‘You have no need to lie for me,’ John said evenly. ‘Ivo thought it was cowardly. But I am the eldest and he follows me. He would have told the truth of the matter that very day if I had not sworn him to secrecy.’

‘Tell me this, John. Had the bishop been injured, would you still have stayed silent?’

‘No.’ John shook his head. ‘No. Because then my family might be blamed for it.’

‘But your family has by rumour been blamed for what happened.’

‘The bishop was not hurt. And no one believed that a Pagnell would have left it unfinished.’

‘They did believe it, John, they did,’ Ivo cried. ‘You heard what Grandmother said.’

Now John’s reserve began to crack, colour rose in his cheeks. He was a stubborn lad, set in his opinions. True heir to Lady Pagnell. He turned to his brother. ‘Well, now it will be all the worse.’

Ivo looked up at Owen. ‘The bishop will let it be known that we dropped the tile?’

‘I cannot think what purpose it would serve him. Still, I cannot speak for him.’

‘It would serve him to darken the Pagnell name,’ John said. It seemed a bitter attitude for one so young. ‘He let my grandfather die.’

‘It is for your elders to deal with the bishop.’

Peter came forward, shook his head at the boys. ‘Go up to your mother now. I have heard enough.’

The boys stumbled out to the stairway and disappeared.

Up in the solar, Lucie and Phillippa had two gowns out on the bed, discussing which Lucie should wear to Cisotta’s funeral on the morrow. Her light-blue one, the better of the two, might seem too cheerful for such an occasion, but the dark-blue was missing several buttons near the waist, where she had stressed it while pregnant. She did not want to spend the evening sewing on buttons. She had hoped to rest a little, talk to Owen of his day and hers.

‘Sewing on buttons is a chore I can yet manage,’ Phillippa offered. ‘I must tidy my better gown. I so seldom go out, folk will be curious, they will inspect me and I do not want them to think I am no longer presentable.’ She patted her cap as she said it, smoothed her apron. ‘A few buttons will not take me long to sew.’ Her face was alight with anticipation. It seemed to Lucie that the elderly took funerals in stride.

Phillippa’s words gave her pause. She had not considered the possibility of her aunt accompanying her to the funeral. She had planned to go early in the morning to Eudo’s so that she might help ready the children. It seemed the least she could do. But her aunt dragged one leg a little and, though not as much as a year ago, still she was a slow, awkward walker, dependent on her cane for support, having much to do to watch where she placed her feet and what she needed to avoid with the rest of her body.

‘I thought to help Cisotta’s children dress in the morning,’ Lucie said. ‘Can you manage the extra distance?’

‘I can, and I shall be happy to be of use.’

Jasper appeared, carrying a lighted lamp. ‘Kate asked whether you want to eat with the children or to wait until the captain is home.’ He set the lamp on a shelf by the door.

Lucie wished to dine with Owen so that she might ask what was to become of Eudo and whether anything yet pointed the finger of guilt towards a particular person, and so she told Jasper.

‘Could I join you at dinner? I would hear the captain’s news,’ Jasper said.