Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

They both turned as someone knocked on the door.

When Owen opened it, Adeline Fitzbaldric swept past him and into the hall clutching May by the arm.

Adeline’s face was brittle with tension, her posture that of one holding much back. May appeared to move solely by her mistress’s will. ‘Forgive me for intruding, Mistress Wilton, but I must speak to your husband.’

‘What has happened?’ Owen asked.

Adeline glanced at Lucie and the children who had paused in their play to study the newcomers.

‘Might I see you alone, Captain?’ Adeline asked.

‘My wife is privy to all my business,’ Owen said.

Lucie bent down to the children. ‘Gwenllian, take Hugh to the shop and stay there with Alisoun until Kate or I fetch you. Make certain he touches nothing in the workshop. I am entrusting him to you.’

Gwenllian rose and bowed to all of them, then took her little brother’s hand and moved away slowly.

With an uncertain glance at Lucie, Adeline hesitated, then laid a small bundle on the bench beside her. ‘Servants were able to enter the bishop’s house today and bring out much of our clothing and some of the furnishings. Among May’s things I found this.’ She unwound the wrapping, revealing a bloodstained cloth, two jars and a small cup.

Owen wondered how he had missed the rag. ‘What are they?’ he asked.

Adeline turned to May. ‘Tell him.’

The maid ducked her head and came forward, blinking and giving her head little shakes. She pointed to one jar. ‘There was blood in that — it’s caked now.’ She pointed to the other. ‘Cisotta called it a colliry.’ She touched the cup. ‘This was the little cup she used to hold the blood to my eyes.’

So it was a physick for the eyes. Lucie opened the jar of blood and sniffed. ‘Could this be bat’s blood?’ she wondered aloud. ‘Do you have difficulty seeing in the dark, May?’

May pressed her eyes. ‘I did not know it was the blood of such a creature,’ she cried.

Owen understood now. ‘Your clumsiness — your eyes are failing, aren’t they?’

May was on the verge of tears. ‘Aye,’ she whispered.

‘Not just at night?’ Lucie asked.

May shook her head. ‘Would that it were.’

‘That is not all she has concealed behind that timid countenance,’ Adeline said, taking a seat with a little huff. ‘May, tell them the rest.’

Lucie motioned for May to sit. She seemed in need of support. The maid sank down and for a moment buried her face in her hands.

‘She has been like this ever since I confronted her,’ Adeline said.

‘You did not know of her condition?’ Lucie asked in a tone of concern, not accusation.

Owen took note of it, for Adeline did not bristle, but only sighed.

‘I did not know the cause of her recent accidents. There has been so much to do with the move, and since May had never been so far from home, I thought it a passing problem. May, speak up, woman.’

Owen held his breath as Lucie moved the jars and cup closer to May and sat beside her. He feared May would be silenced by Lucie’s nearness.

‘May, have you told the Riverwoman about your eyes?’ Lucie asked.

May shook her head.

‘Do you fear her?’

Another shake of the head.

‘Do you visit Poins?’

Owen was about to tell Lucie that he had already asked May about that, but the maid raised her eyes to meet Lucie’s.

‘I don’t know what happened, what caused the fire.’

It was an interesting answer to the question.

‘I pray you tell us whatever you do know,’ Lucie said. ‘I was Cisotta’s friend. I would know what happened that night.’

Tears streamed down May’s cheeks. Lucie pulled a cloth from her sleeve and handed it to the maid.

‘My mistress’s visitors spoke of how Cisotta had sat by you day and night after you lost your child.’ May spoke in such a choked voice that Owen crouched down to hear. She started at his nearness.

‘He is my husband, May, and no one to fear,’ Lucie said softly. ‘So what you heard led you to seek Cisotta’s care?’

May pressed the cloth to her eyes, then wiped her nose. ‘I had given her my mistress’s old gloves in payment. I was so afraid when I saw them today.’ She sniffed. ‘That night she brought me the remedies and showed me how to soak my eyes in the blood, then rinse them once a day with the wash. Then I was to lie still with my eyes closed until I heard my master and mistress return.’

Owen asked, ‘Did you escort Cisotta out of the house?’

May shook her head. ‘She said she knew the way.’

‘Where was Poins?’ Lucie asked.

‘I don’t know.’ May shivered and hugged herself. The room was almost too warm for Owen, the brazier burning because of Lucie’s weakness.

‘Was anyone down in the undercroft that evening?’ Lucie asked.

May shrugged. ‘I was frightened about having Cisotta there. About what my mistress would say if — ’ She cut herself off.

‘But if you were so concerned, did you not check to make sure no one saw her arrive or leave?’ Lucie asked.

May looked down at her hands. ‘I did not think of that. I have never before lied to my mistress. I do not have the knack for it.’

Lucie looked up at Owen, her eyes questioning whether she should continue.

Adeline understood the expression. ‘She claims to have no idea where Poins was or whether anyone was in the undercroft at that time,’ she said. ‘So I thought to question Poins. But the Riverwoman would not let me see him.’

‘I was just there with him,’ Owen said.

‘Yes, I know. I watched you leave. I had hoped to keep this private.’

Lucie lifted the other jar and sat for a time sniffing and thinking. Adeline rose and began to pace. May kept her head down, sniffling now and then.

‘Fennel and ground ivy,’ Lucie said. ‘And a little nettle seed. You were to dampen the mixture and apply it to your eyes?’

May nodded. ‘She was to make more. She said it would take a while because she must soak it in wine and then let the sun dry it. I was to go to her in a few days. She said in a week I would see better. But the fire kept me from the medicines. And she — ’ The maid held her stomach and gulped air, as one about to vomit.

‘I shall fetch you something for your stomach,’ Lucie said. ‘I’ll send it with the captain when next he goes to the palace.’

‘That would be kind of you,’ Adeline said. ‘But how can I take her back there? What am I to do with a servant who is going blind?’

May stared at her mistress, her eyes glassy with tears and horror.

‘Comfort her,’ Lucie said. ‘Have Magda Digby examine her.’

Adeline Fitzbaldric was not one to comfort a servant and her expression said as much.

Owen thought it time to be blunt with her. ‘If May leaves your household before this matter is resolved, the gossips will declare one of you guilty of Cisotta’s death and the destruction of the bishop’s house.’

Adeline drew herself up straight as a board. ‘We shall leave the jars with you,’ she said. ‘Come, May, we have said all we came to say.’

‘Is that truly all of it, May?’ Lucie asked softly.

The maid was fiddling with the jars and the cup on the blood-stained cloth. ‘Yes, Mistress Wilton,’ she whispered.

After Adeline and May departed, Lucie and Owen stood by the window staring out at the garden for a long while without speaking.

Owen tried to piece together all he had learned just now of that fateful evening. ‘Despite her timidity, May is a determined woman to have found her way to Patrick Pool to bargain with Cisotta,’ he said.

‘It is the sort of mistake Cisotta might make, thinking bat’s blood good for any problem of the eye.’ Lucie’s voice shook with emotion.