Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

‘Aye, and the archbishop, who is satisfied that it was an accident.’

‘God is merciful.’ She crossed herself. ‘Thank you. My mind is much eased.’

‘I’ve come about another matter.’ He told her about the theft of the gloves.

She crushed the silk in her hand. ‘I cannot believe it. Her mother’s gloves, something so precious to her.’

Owen prayed that his face did not betray his surprise.

Emma tucked the silk squares into her girdle and held out her hands to grasp his. ‘Such a loss is hard to bear.’ He saw sincere concern in Emma’s face and was glad Lucie had such a friend. ‘And her hand. It is too much, all she has been given to bear this autumn.’

‘Your family has also had sorrow.’

Emma squeezed his hands and bowed her head. ‘Yes.’ A world of sorrow echoed in that one word.

‘I hoped you might help me. I have never seen the gloves, or I made no note of them if I have — that is what I fear. Could you describe them to me?’ He thought by Emma’s frown that she saw through his ruse.

But then she laughed. ‘Peter is the same. Even though he sells the silks and wools with which my gowns are made, he will express surprise again and again at the same garment.’ She closed her eyes and described the gloves in such detail it was as if she could see them inside her eyelids. ‘Do you mean to catch the thief before he can sell them?’ She had opened her eyes and now studied his face so intently he felt himself blush.

‘Would they be worth selling?’ he asked.

‘They were a little worn, but a dubber might pay tuppence, perhaps more. The jet beads alone are worth something. You are angry — is Lucie badly injured?’

‘She is wounded, that is enough, and weak — ’ He turned away, uncomfortable under her keen regard. ‘She has lost so much blood of late.’

‘Mother would say that is good.’

‘Magda thinks it too much. She says Lucie must stay abed for a week.’

‘I shall come to her tomorrow, Owen.’

‘I cannot imagine why anyone would steal them.’ Except Eudo, but how? ‘Still, might anyone have seen her showing you the gloves?’

‘Come with me to the garden. I shall show you where we sat.’ Emma led him out of the courtyard and into an alley bordered on one side by the warehouse, on the other by another multi-storey house — Hosier Lane was an affluent street, as was Pavement beyond, despite the presence of the city stocks.

As Emma opened the gate in the garden wall Owen noted a lock on the iron grille, which seemed a good caution. ‘When do you lock the gate?’

‘At night, or when we are all away. But as you will see, no one could have entered the garden without one of us seeing them this afternoon.’ She led him to a bench that did indeed have a complete view of the small garden. ‘Sit down.’

He found himself grateful to rest his legs, but the sun was setting and the damp was rising. It would not long be pleasant to sit here. ‘Do you know Lucie’s mind in this? Why she showed the gloves to you today?’

‘She thought it might cheer her to have a pair made like them. She asked whether I recognized the glover’s work, which I did not, and whether Peter might have such hides.’ Emma drew the silk squares from her girdle. ‘It grows too dark. I was going to ask your opinion.’

‘Might Peter have the hide to make the gloves?’

‘I asked when I borrowed these from the shop. He has no hides at present.’ She turned fully towards him. ‘Do you think to have a new pair made for her?’

She looked so delighted at the thought of a conspiracy that would please Lucie that Owen was caught up in the idea. ‘I fear she thought of that first.’

‘But I could help you. I remember them so clearly.’

He noticed Emma’s son John standing in the doorway to the hall, anxious about Owen’s presence, he had no doubt. In the shadow of the house the details of the boy’s clothing were indistinct, but Owen and Emma, sitting in the late-afternoon sun, would be clearer. ‘What of someone observing you from the house as you talked?’

‘Do you truly think the thief wanted the gloves?’

Owen inclined his head towards John, who withdrew at once.

‘Peter has forbidden them to step outside the gate.’ Emma rose. ‘Perhaps we should leave them to what little land they are permitted to walk on.’ There was disapproval in her tone.

Owen’s legs felt stiff as they walked to the gate. ‘So no one interrupted your conversation with Lucie?’

‘My mother’s steward, Matthew.’ A sharpness entered Emma’s tone as she paused to open the gate. ‘But he stayed near the doorway to the hall.’

‘Were the gloves visible to him?’

He felt her eyes on him, though it was now grown too dark near the alley to read her expression clearly.

‘I am not certain.’ She said it softly, as if to herself.

He made his way home in the gathering darkness, alert to every footfall, every shadow. He found a quiet household, the children listening to one of Phillippa’s long tales before bedtime, Alisoun assisting Kate in the kitchen.

Lucie was sitting up and reached her arms out to him as he approached her. ‘Forgive me for my temper,’ she said.

He bent down and tried to embrace her, awkward in his attempt to avoid her bandaged hand. He thanked God for Magda’s skill and her timely presence. ‘You had been frightened.’ The change in her mood made him uneasy.

‘Did you speak to Emma?’

‘Aye, and glad I was that I did not say more than a few words before she mentioned a different tale of the gloves and who had worn them.’

‘Sweet heaven, I had not thought to tell you. Does she know of my lie?’

‘No. And I reassured her that Thoresby is relieved that the tile was not meant as a threat to Wykeham.’

‘Meaning Wykeham is not so comforted.’

Owen shrugged. He touched the bandage, saw no stain. ‘Are you in much pain?’

Lucie shook her head. ‘And the shivering has passed, so I feel more easy in myself. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight, Owen. Could you help me up the stairs?’

Owen caught Alisoun’s look of concern. He was not about to let the children’s nurse rule their household and, if it cheered Lucie, it would be done. ‘I’ll not stop at helping you, I’ll carry you. But first you must eat, and I’ll take my meal with you.’

They did not speak of the theft and their separate investigations until they were alone in their chamber, and by that time Lucie was fighting sleep, though she tormented herself so about the loss of the gloves that he wondered how well she would rest.

‘For all we know the thief has searched the scrip, taken the few coins, perhaps the knife, and left the gloves and scrip where someone may find them. With your initials and the apothecary rose burned into the scrip’s flap, it might be returned to you. And perhaps the gloves with it. Or the finder could show us where they are.’

He handed her the cup of honeyed physick.

She pushed it away. ‘I have drunk enough of that for many a day.’

‘You have not.’

‘Honeyed words, honeyed drinks. Perhaps I should not have been so quick to apologize. You do treat me like a child now.’

‘Lucie, I want you well.’

‘So do I,’ she snapped, then lay down, with difficulty, avoiding the use of her right hand. She pulled the covers over her head.

Owen turned down the lamp and sat for a long while, wondering whether Lucie was truly beset by some devilish spirit. Perhaps it was time he went to his friend Archdeacon Jehannes and asked his advice in this. He fell asleep listening to the sounds of the night.

‘Owen, wake up.’

Lucie stood over him, shaking his arm. Morning light streamed from the open shutters. ‘The bailiff, George Hempe, is sitting in the hall with a grim face. He will not tell me all until you have come down.’