Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

‘Not yet, Anna. He has enough sorrow to bear. Let him rest this evening.’ There was no predicting the man’s temper.

Getting up on to a stool, Lucie took one of the jars from the bottom shelf and drew out the gloves, tucking them inside her girdle, beneath her surcoat. When she stepped down, she crouched and gave Anna a hug. ‘Little Will is cooler tonight. But if he worsens again, send for Goodwife Claire.’ The woman had gone home to see to her own family.

‘He will get better?’

‘I believe it is a catarrh, nothing more.’

Lucie felt Eudo’s eyes on her as she made her way past Henry and Ned, and the overturned toy wagon they were repairing. The tawyer stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, legs spread, effectively blocking her way. His face was ruddy with drink, his eyes flinty.

‘I thank you for including me at the table today,’ she said. ‘It was good to hear how beloved Cisotta was by her friends and your fellows in the guild.’ Her breathless speech did not move him.

‘What did you tuck into your girdle?’ He moved his head, trying to see anything showing beneath the surcoat, which was cut low at the sides, allowing a glimpse of the girdle at her hips. ‘Something of my wife’s, was it? What are you and my Anna conspiring?’ Eudo brought his face uncomfortably close to Lucie’s, his jowls thrust forward, the pain of his loss visible in every line, every patch of swollen, reddened skin.

Lucie hesitated. Anna had joined her and watched her with a frightened expression. She must think of the child in dealing with Eudo, not herself. If he did not believe his daughter, he might beat the truth out of her. ‘I did not wish to give you any more to worry over today, Eudo. It is Cisotta’s day, when we remember her and pray for her soul.’ Though he was not doing much of that while tippling. But as he had asked, Lucie showed him the gloves and told him what she knew.

He stepped back and fell to studying the gloves. He held them close to his face, sniffing the leather, squinting at the decorative beads and stitching; then, with a gentleness she had not guessed possible with his large hands, he turned one of the gloves inside out, patiently working several of the fingers inside out as well. ‘Deerskin, tawyed by someone with skill. I thought at first it might be from a hide I had worked, but the oils are not mine. The stitching is fine.’

How he changed when talking of his work, what he knew well. How at ease he seemed, confident. ‘See how smooth the tips of the fingers are. These have been worn a long while.’ He held the glove up to Lucie.

Indeed, the nap had been worn smooth and darkened.

‘Though there is wear within, the stitching has held — the glover fitted these well,’ said Eudo. He turned the glove right side out again.

‘Can you identify the glover?’ Lucie asked.

Eudo shook his head. ‘Jet and silver thread — these were made to order, I’d wager, not the glover’s common work.’

‘If you wished to make gloves like these, to whom would you go for the hides?’

Eudo handed her the gloves. ‘I can tell you two merchants who trade in such hides — Peter Ferriby and of late Godwin Fitzbaldric.’

Out in Patrick Pool, Lucie found herself uncertain whether to return home or continue on to Emma’s house. She was anxious to see how her friend was taking the news of her boys’ transgression. But she was worried she would be tempted to show Emma the gloves and she was not yet convinced it was the time to do so. It was best that Owen saw them before she showed them to anyone else. She dreaded telling him that Eudo had seen them.

Yet she had learned much from Eudo’s comments, and Emma and Lady Pagnell knew far more about fine clothes such as the gloves than Lucie did. It would be helpful to Owen if they identified the glover or the former owner.

And if the gloves had belonged to Emma or her mother? There was the rub.

She turned down the street, heading for the Staithe. Watching the river might quiet her mind enough to think more clearly.

*

The rear door of the palace kitchen was wide open to the sunshine and what had calmed to a pleasant breeze. Inside, Owen found Maeve bent over a small brazier as she stirred a sauce and spoke in quiet tones to a maidservant who was cracking nuts and digging out the meats. They seemed absorbed in their work and Owen thought he might reach the screened corner unnoticed.

But he had not taken two steps when Maeve cried out, ‘Captain! Did you mean to pass through without so much as a greeting?’ Instructing the maidservant to take over the stirring, the cook hastened towards Owen while wiping her hands on her apron.

‘I did not mean to take you from your work,’ he said. ‘You have a large household to feed.’

‘That is the least of my worries, Captain.’ Her rosy face was pulled together in a troubled frown. She leaned close and whispered, ‘I do not like what is ado in my kitchen. The devil is in that poor man who lies beyond that screen, mark me, I am right about that, and the Riverwoman sees naught amiss in it — indeed, she encourages him in his evil confusion.’

Owen began to ask her what she meant, but she put a finger to her lips and motioned for him to follow her to the screen, then stayed him with an imperious hand while she peered round it. Drawing back, she whispered, ‘Look you, and hark what they say as well.’ With a last glance towards the screen, she crossed herself and left him to his spying.

He heard Magda’s voice. She spoke softly, with immense calm. He felt a humid warmth even before he spied a small brazier with a pot of water simmering on the top, caught the scent of lavender and mint. The elderly healer was gently unwrapping Poins’s stump while coaxing him to stretch out his fingers, ease the cramp in his hand. The stump moved a little. Poins groaned. As Magda turned to dip the cloth in the simmering water, she nodded to Owen. With a stick she stirred the cloth through the water so that it might soak in heat, then lifted it and held it dripping over the water to cool a little before wringing it out.

‘Rest a moment,’ she said over her shoulder to Poins. ‘When thy shoulder is warm again it will be easier to move thine arm.’ She regarded Owen. ‘Thou knowest this pain, Magda thinks. Thy friend Martin Wirthir suffered it when his hand was severed.’

‘Aye, his thumb it was that woke him in the night. It does so still, so he says. And if he hits his right elbow, he swears the fingers tingle.’

So this was the devil work Maeve feared, that Magda accepted Poins’s claim of pain in the severed arm.

‘I witnessed this in the camps as well, after a limb was severed,’ Owen added. ‘Not all suffer so. I never understood the cause.’

‘Neither does Magda, but the pain is real, thou canst be certain of it.’ She wrung out the warmed cloth, laid it gently on the stump.

Owen sat down on a bench and stretched his legs. Noticing the injured man regarding him from the depth of his bandages, he said, ‘Good-day to you, Poins. I pray God you make a full recovery.’

Poins turned away.

‘Does that ease it?’ Magda asked.

When Poins nodded, Owen rose and approached him. ‘Are you able to talk?’

Poins glanced towards him, then closed his eyes.

Owen wished there were a way to trick him into talking. But though he could think of ways to elicit a scream or a shout, he doubted he could make the man actually communicate until he so chose.

‘Would you walk out into the sunlight with me, Magda?’

‘Aye.’ Magda eased herself to her feet, whispering to Poins that she would return, then headed for the closed door. ‘Best not to pass through the kitchen. Maeve has much to say and none of it what thou seekest to know.’