Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

A strap for documents. It changed the way she imagined the scene on the night of the fire. And that gave her an idea. ‘Emma, I would see Bess Merchet. Would you fetch my scrip and walk with me to the tavern?’

Pulled from her own thoughts, Emma at first agreed, then took a good look at Lucie. ‘Your colour is much better for being out in the air. But do you have the strength to go so far?’

‘It is not so far, just past our garden wall,’ Lucie said.

In a short time they were crossing the yard at the York Tavern. Lucie tried not to lean too much on Emma, though her balance was unsure and her hand was throbbing. She should have supported it in some way, but she disliked the encumbrance of binding up her arm. Once within the tavern, she sank down on a bench and let Emma search for the innkeeper.

Bess’s ruddy face darkened as she saw Lucie. ‘I heard what happened in the Shambles.’ She stood back and studied Lucie, shaking her head at what she saw. ‘You are not so feeble as I feared, but your face boasts of its bones and I can see your veins through your skin.’ She sat down on the bench opposite Lucie. ‘I am making a pottage with meat for you. You need your strength. And Tom will bring a cask of ale to put some flesh on you.’

Bess’s mothering of Lucie was one of the reasons she did not know as much as Emma did about the past few months. Lucie wearied of advice. She did not wish to hear more about what she should be eating and, seeing that Emma was about to voice her own opinions on that, Lucie took out the strap and laid it before Bess, pre-empting a lecture.

‘I’ve seen that,’ Bess said, ‘and I know why you are so keen to know who wore it. I’ve already told Owen that I see so many belts, I cannot say whose it might be.’

‘But what of a strap round rolls of parchment?’ Lucie asked.

Arms crossed before her as if to restrain herself from touching it, Bess bent close to the buckle, then leaned back to gaze round the room.

Emma moved to speak, but Lucie silenced her with a touch and a shake of her head. She could see by the movement of Bess’s eyes that she was reviewing her memories. Suddenly Bess rose, crossed to the door of the tavern, paused with an ear cocked as if listening, frowned and shook her head, then crossed to the kitchen door and looked around.

With a great sigh she returned to the table, where she propped up her elbows and rested her forehead on her hands. ‘There is something, but — ’ Her head snapped up and she pointed to a corner table. ‘Aye, there was a man that evening, before the fire, an hour or two before, so he was an early customer. I’d seen him before, and since, and know to say naught to him, for he will not speak to the likes of me except to demand service. He had a leather strap like this round three or four rolls, perhaps two straps now I think of it, though I cannot be certain. He tapped on a buckle to his own tune — I thought him strange to fight the rhythm of the man who was singing in exchange for supper.’

‘Can you describe him?’ Emma asked.

‘A proud bearing, cold eyes and a mouth that I’ve never seen smiling, light-brown hair that lies straight beneath his cap, dressed in the colours of earth, nothing to draw attention, but of good cut and cloth. Who is he, then?’

‘My mother’s steward.’

‘Is he the murderer?’ Bess crossed herself.

‘We do not know,’ Lucie said.

‘But if he is …’ Bess glanced at Emma.

‘You wonder whether the fire was my family’s vengeance after all.’ Emma shook her head. ‘If Matthew did this, he acted on his own, for his own purposes.’

‘I am glad to hear that,’ Bess said, but there was doubt in her voice.

Lucie and Emma departed in an uncomfortable silence, nodding to passers-by in St Helen’s Square, returning to the house rather than the garden. The hall was deserted, everyone still outside. Lucie took refuge in a well-padded chair, resting her head against the high back and closing her eyes.

‘Shall I help you up the stairs?’ Emma asked. ‘You should lie down.’

‘What if Matthew lit the fire to gain your mother’s gratitude?’

Emma sank down near Lucie. ‘I have thought of that, don’t think that I haven’t.’

‘If he is guilty …’ Lucie sat up, took Emma’s hand. ‘A man who could kill so ruthlessly might do so again to hide his guilt. Your household — all of you are in danger.’

‘He had no cause to murder Cisotta,’ Emma said. ‘That is the sticking point.’

‘Such a crime committed in Wykeham’s house — ’

‘The blame would more naturally fall on the tenants.’

Emma was right. Lucie’s thoughts were growing muddled.

‘I have poisoned your judgement with my distrust of Matthew,’ Emma said.

Lucie was searching for what felt wrong to her. It was the timing. ‘On the night on which your family was dining with Stephen, who is now Matthew’s lord, Matthew dined or at least drank at the York Tavern, carrying with him rolls of parchment. Why?’

Emma did not respond at once. ‘I don’t know,’ she finally admitted.

‘You must ask Edgar what he recalls about Matthew that night. And I must speak with Owen.’

Emma crossed herself.

Owen found no solace in the palace garden, partly because his conscience kept pushing him back towards Magda Digby. In order to heal Poins she must understand his state of mind as well as his body. He returned to the kitchen.

‘Here again?’ Maeve said. ‘Has the crone cast a spell on you now?’

‘She casts no spells, Maeve.’

‘That is what you all pretend. But I trust my own eyes and ears.’

Magda greeted Owen from the small entrance between screens.

Maeve said a ‘Hail Mary’ as she bent back to her work.

Safely out of Maeve’s sight — and hearing, Owen hoped — he told Magda of Poins’s reaction to his questions.

She seemed impressed. ‘Thou hast coaxed much from him. Magda has heard so little of his voice she would be unable to pick it out among the voices of others.’

‘He sleeps a great deal?’

‘Aye. He escapes his pain by retreating from his ruined body. Nor does he have aught he wishes to say to Magda.’

‘Will he survive?’

‘Not if he continues to despair. It is the great destroyer. Already one of the burns that had begun to heal is oozing bad humours.’

‘Is that what causes the stench?’

‘Aye, as well as some of the healing burns.’

Owen left the palace feeling responsible for Poins’s failure to thrive. His presence as an inquisitor — surely that caused Poins despair as well as the wounds. Or it could be a guilty conscience. He was tired of questions and ready to work in the garden, touch the earth, get soil beneath his fingernails, but his conscience nagged that Jasper had been left in charge of the apothecary by himself too much of late.

The hall was quiet. Lucie sat on a bench, her back resting against the wall beneath the garden windows, playing string games with Gwenllian and Hugh. Through the window he could see Phillippa and Kate spreading laundry on the lavender hedge to dry.

He had expected Lucie to be abed. ‘Why are you watching the children? Where is Alisoun?’

Lucie smiled to see him. ‘How pleasant to see you here in mid-afternoon.’ The children hurried to him, demanding hugs. Lucie rose, her movements stiff. ‘Alisoun is helping Jasper modify Magda’s tonic to allow me more waking hours. I am merely sitting here playing with Gwenllian and Hugh until she returns. It is not tiring.’

‘Magda ordered bed rest. You will undo yourself.’

‘Put that aside. I have news. The fragment of belt that you found — it was not a belt but a strap, one that keeps rolled parchments together. Matthew had been using a pair of them to hold the documents Wykeham’s clerks brought to Lady Pagnell, but now has only one. Bess …’