Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

By the time Owen returned, the children had been tucked in for the night and Lucie had run the gamut of emotions about his absence from irritation through anger to fear, the latter having won out. Phillippa had given up and eaten with Kate, then gone to bed. Jasper was not so easily discouraged, though he sat nodding across the table from Lucie. When Owen stepped into the lamplight Lucie saw the deepened lines on his forehead and down alongside his mouth, the shadows beneath his eyes, the slump of his right shoulder, where an old wound bothered him when he was weary, and she tried to hold her tongue about the guards who had disappeared when she most needed them.

But she snapped when he gathered her into his arms and she smelled ale on his breath. ‘All the while I worried and prayed, you were drinking?’ Hearing her own voice, she hated herself for sounding like a shrew, but the words were out, there was no taking them back now.

‘You know what I have been about, my love.’ Owen’s voice was gravelly with a long day of talking. ‘Let’s not quarrel over the time. The day began badly — if I can even consider yesterday to have ended.’ He drew up a stool near the brazier at the end of the table, doffed his cap and shook out his hair, which was curled from the damp. Lucie took the cap, asked Jasper to help Owen with his boots. ‘You know I slept precious little.’ He leaned back to brace himself for Jasper’s tugs. ‘In truth, I wanted to put my thoughts in order so that we might talk of what I have heard today, so I stopped at the tavern. But I fell asleep where I sat. Bess just now discovered me and pushed me out of the door. Jasper said you were unhurt. Was he wrong?’

‘No, Eudo pushed me aside and I stumbled, but I was not hurt.’

One boot dropped with a thud.

‘God’s blood that feels good,’ Owen said as he lifted the still booted foot to the boy.

‘I was so frightened for Jasper,’ Lucie said. ‘Eudo was so angry I did not know what he might do. I ran for the guards, hoping they might scare him into his senses.’

Owen rubbed his hands over the brazier. ‘They should not have deserted their posts. They will be punished for it, do not doubt it.’

Lucie noted how he kept his eye averted. He sensed an argument in the making. ‘I should not have spoken to you like that,’ she said.

He glanced up, nodded. ‘My arms make a sorry pillow. I have suffered for my truancy.’

‘We have not yet eaten. Have you?’

‘You waited for me? No wonder you were angry. Jasper, too?’

Lucie called after Jasper, who was headed for the kitchen with Owen’s boots. ‘Ask Kate to serve us now. Come, sit with us.’ To Owen she said, ‘He is anxious to hear what happened after he left the palace, what is to become of Eudo.’

‘I can eat in the kitchen,’ Jasper offered.

‘No, eat with us,’ said Owen. ‘Then I need tell my tale but once.’ When Jasper had disappeared through the door, Owen leaned over to take Lucie’s hand. ‘I confess I am glad to be rid of Poins tonight. Perhaps at least the time we are together will be peaceful.’

‘Aye.’ She kissed his hand. ‘How is he?’

‘Much the same, despite Eudo’s intentions. Are you not relieved to have him gone?’

‘I am, my love.’ Lucie knelt beside him and kissed him warmly.

Jasper and Kate interrupted them with a steaming pot of stew, two trenchers of brown bread a few days old and a pitcher of ale.

‘The ale is from Tom Merchet,’ said Kate. ‘He brought it over — said you had little chance to drink at the tavern tonight.’ She bobbed a curtsy. ‘I’ll go up to the children and see that they are not a bother to Dame Phillippa.’

Lucie, Owen and Jasper talked as they ate.

Owen recounted his altercation with George Hempe, the bailiff. ‘We shall hear more from that, I warn you,’ he said in such a weary tone that Lucie wondered he did not speed his meal and seek his bed.

But Owen waited until Jasper could no longer keep his eyes open, then suggested to Lucie that they take the remainder of the ale up to their bedchamber. Sitting on the bed, sharing the last cup, they spoke of the storm, and the cost of the sweet vinegar and barley sugar at the market. As Lucie was beginning to think Owen would fall asleep with his next sentence, he perked up a little, downed the rest of the ale and told her what he had learned from the masons.

‘Ivo and John were the culprits? Merciful Mother, what were they thinking?’

‘They were having a bit of fun and were not thinking. It is the masons I fault, they should have spoken up at once.’

‘They would have saved themselves much trouble, for now Wykeham will wonder at their silence.’

‘Did you have any sense that Emma was worried about the boys?’

‘I saw no sign that she knew of it. But I had noted that John and Ivo were unusually subdued and solemn today. Emma ascribed it to their missing Sir Ranulf.’ Lucie thought of Gwenllian, how anxious she became about hiding anything from her parents for long, her imagination creating a far worse punishment than a parent could bear to inflict. ‘What must the boys have suffered, isolated with their secret? They must have been affrighted — and no one to comfort them.’

Owen set aside the cup, rubbed some salve into his scarred left eye, a little more into the puckered skin on his shoulder. ‘Aye. Peter seemed most worried about their silence.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He fears Lady Pagnell is poisoning the boys’ minds. He asked whether I would tell the bishop. Which I must, of course.’

‘Of course you must.’

Owen slid down on to the pillows.

‘I am more sorry than I can say for my temper this evening,’ Lucie said, slipping down beside him.

Owen pulled her to him. ‘And in the morning I face Wykeham with the tale — after Cisotta’s service.’

‘You will attend?’

‘Aye. I loved her for what she did for you.’ Owen kissed Lucie on the neck.

They lay quietly for a moment.

‘What will the bishop do with John and Ivo?’ Lucie asked.

‘I pray that his abiding interest in the education of boys will guide his decision.’ Owen’s voice had softened to a rasping whisper. ‘I must sleep.’

Lucie settled her head in the crook of his arm, enjoying the warmth of his body.

A dog barked outside, a church bell tolled, fiddle music drifted from the tavern next door. When Lucie had first come to the city from Freythorpe Hadden to live at the convent of St Clements the night noises broke her sleep, or if she did not waken they grew and invaded her dreams. The bells swelled, filling the sky; faces thrust out from the walls screaming and shouting curses; animals with teeth bared chased her down endless avenues of trees. She had not expected ever to grow accustomed to the night sounds of the city. Now she found them reassuring, a sign of life, the promise of tomorrow.

It was also oddly comforting to have Owen fall asleep before she did — a touch of normality in a hideous time — but Lucie had hoped she would sleep well tonight. She had been up since before dawn, more active than in many a day, yet although the pain in her lower abdomen had eased with several cups of wine and her body was heavy with fatigue, her mind spun through the previous night and the day past, round and round, as if by frequently circling past her anxieties she might control them.

She folded her hands and whispered a ‘Hail Mary’, and another, but by the third prayer her mind was wandering again and her cheeks were aflame.

Pushing back the covers, she sat up at the edge of the bed, dangling her feet over the side. As she slid down to touch the cool floor she felt a warmth between her legs and all at once realized what she had been feeling — her flux had begun once more. How her fear had blinded her. Smiling to herself, she pulled a shift over her head and draped a wool scarf over her shoulders. She must fetch a rag to absorb her flow. Then she would make a warm tisane of gaitre berries and wild lettuce to soothe the cramps, perhaps adding a little valerian to help her sleep.