Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

‘Thief!’ Lucie shouted, trying to lunge after him. ‘Stop him!’ She elbowed her way towards the disturbance in the crowd, her fury lending her strength.

‘You’ll never catch him,’ a man muttered as he tried to make room for her, but failed.

Another growled to her to be quiet.

A woman offered Lucie a cloth in which to wrap her hand. ‘It’s bleeding all over you. You’ve ruined your gown.’

‘I’ve lost sight of him. I’ve lost …’

‘Come, give me your hand.’

As Lucie lifted her right hand, she saw that blood had soaked her sleeve to the elbow. ‘God help me,’ she whispered.

‘I’d say he’s the one started the fight, or the comrade of the one,’ said the woman as she wrapped. ‘Then it’s easy pickings.’ She looked up at Lucie. ‘You’re Mistress Wilton the apothecary, aren’t you? Well, you’ll know what to do with this hand when you reach home. Folk are moving away now, the play is over. Can you make it home?’

‘Yes,’ Lucie said, though she had begun to tremble so badly it had been difficult to keep her hand still, and there was a roaring in her ears that made her unsure of her balance. ‘Did you see the thief’s face?’

‘Young one, he was. I’ve seen him before, always watching for a chance at a purse.’

Lucie began to move away, shielding herself from the shifting crowd with her left arm. Someone bumped her wounded hand as they passed and she almost crumbled to the ground in pain, but with a deep breath she kept going. Something was wrong at home, she felt the prick of fear. She must get home.

Having failed to change Maeve’s belief that Magda was encouraging the devil’s work, Owen made his way home, where he found Phillippa napping in the kitchen and Alisoun Ffulford in the garden working on an embroidery while Gwenllian and Hugh slept on a blanket beneath the fruit trees. Kate was tidying the apothecary workroom.

‘Is your mistress in the shop?’

‘No, Captain. She has not yet returned.’

Through the beaded curtain Owen peeked into the shop. Jasper was seeing to Master Saurian, a physician with a loose tongue. Wishing to give him no new gossip, Owen departed through the workroom door and took the side pathway out of the gate and round to the York Tavern.

Tom Merchet greeted him from the doorway. ‘Wind is rising again. Rain by nightfall.’

Owen paused, torn between asking for Bess so he might gather some information and sitting down to talk with Tom about Lucie and the household. Bess won out.

‘Wife is up above, searching for a cushion that has vanished.’ Tom shook his head. ‘Her efforts will come to naught, I trow. But she will not believe one of our best customers would steal a cushion. Ruined it and hid the damage, that is what I think.’

Owen mounted the steps, following the sound of furniture being dragged across creaking floorboards. Finding Bess struggling to move a heavy chest, he hurried to her aid, lifting one end. And there lay the ruined pillow, torn and spilling its down and straw.

‘Bless you, Owen.’ Bess crouched to the mess. ‘It can be mended. In truth, the straw needed changing. But the coward who put me through this will pay, I promise you. He will learn to face up to the damage he does sleeping with a knife beneath his pillow.’ She sat down on the bed, dabbed her forehead with the cloth wrapped round her sleeve, protecting it. ‘God bless you for lifting the chest. Did Tom fetch you, or are you God’s blessing?’

‘The latter, though I do not feel I am God’s chosen today.’ Owen moved to replace the chest.

‘No, leave it where it is for now, I pray you. Look at the dust beneath it.’ She fanned herself. ‘I pray it isn’t Lucie who cast such a pall over you. Is she unwell?’

‘She seemed much improved this morning, though Dame Phillippa gave her a difficult night.’

‘Walking in her dreams again?’ Bess tsked when Owen nodded. ‘And you’ve not found the man who used that belt on Cisotta?’

‘No. I came to ask where I might find the midwife Margaret Dubber.’

‘Why?’

He told her of the group of midwives who had stood outside St Sampson’s churchyard. ‘I thought she might tell me things about Cisotta that a fellow midwife might know. Though why should anyone confide in me, eh? Do I look trustworthy?’

‘In my eyes you look as tasty as sin itself.’ Bess smiled as she regarded him. ‘Trustworthy is another matter. But John Thoresby would not retain you had he any doubt of your talents, my friend. You’ve been his salvation many a time. You are weary, that I can see, and no wonder. Let me think now. Margaret lives in Lady Row, the second door in the row.’ She lifted her chin, sniffed the air. ‘That man will burn down the kitchen one of these days.’ She groaned and held the small of her back as she rose from the low bed. ‘Good fortune walk with you, my friend.’ As she departed she was muttering, ‘I have never known a cook so bemused by drafts.’

Owen lingered in the room, caught in the memory of his sojourn long ago at the inn, when he was still adjusting to the loss of his eye, restless with the physical idleness of his new life as Thoresby’s spy. He had been quick to tell Magda yesterday that he would change nothing in his life, but sometimes he missed his soldiering days, when women delighted and confounded him but never let him see their devils. He remembered how beautiful Lucie had been, and how exciting, untouchable. Cursing himself for yearning for the past, he abandoned the room.

As he descended the steps he could not only smell but see the smoke wafting from the kitchen, where Tom’s voice roared in uncharacteristic anger. He went quickly to assist, but saw from the doorway that the fire had been dowsed. He judged it best to leave them alone to deal with the offender. Besides, he had enough on his mind.

He would see Margaret Dubber in what was left of his day, then relieve Lucie in the shop so she might have time to talk to Alisoun. Jasper would appreciate time away from the counter, too. They all needed some semblance of life as usual.

He made his way from Petergate to Goodramgate via an alley between the buildings that crossed over one of the great ditches of the city. The water was clearer than usual thanks to the run-off from the buckets thrown on the blaze a few nights before.

Margaret Dubber was sitting in her doorway, stretching a stained fustian tunic between her hands. It had a ragged hem and as she held it up to the light several slashes round the middle were apparent. She nodded to Owen. ‘To be mended,’ she said, dropping it on to a small pile. ‘My nephew the dubber pays me a pittance for my sorting of what are truly rags from what might be mended and given to the poor. He is of late concerned for his soul.’ She rolled her shoulders about, stretched her back. ‘You are here about my presence at the funeral today, I’d wager.’

‘I am.’

She lifted another piece of cloth, frayed and thin, dropped it on to the larger pile beyond the mendables. ‘Rag.’ Then she folded her hands on her lap and raised her fleshy face, veiny cheeks and nose flushed, the late afternoon sun silvering her eyes. ‘We thought to pay our respects to one of our own, but the looks we received from some made it plain we were not welcome. We are not the ones spreading rumours of her charm weaving, Captain. Others may be, but not my companions of the morning.’

On tiptoe Lucie could see the house that bordered the cross street of Little Shambles. With that as her goal, she clutched her bandaged hand to her chest, bent her head and slowly shouldered her way through the folk. Some pushed back, most did their best to move out of her way. The woman had been right, the crowd was lightening. Lucie raised her head several times to get her bearings. Her mouth was dry, her breath painful — she could not get enough air. Reaching the edge of the crowd at last, she let down her guard and promptly stumbled, pitching into a friar, his brown robe coarse and smelling of smoke and river water, like Magda’s clothes. He steadied her and then assisted her to the corner of Little Shambles, bending close to ask her how he might help her.