Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

Owen gathered her in his arms, listening to her ragged breathing, trying to imagine what Cisotta’s death meant to her. In his mind Cisotta had been a poor substitute for Magda, and he had thought her efforts to cheer Lucie and encourage her to resume her life inadequate. He was certain Lucie would have recovered much sooner had Magda cared for her from the time of the fall — a part of him even thought the baby might have lived. He wanted to find Cisotta’s murderer more out of a sense of justice than as a personal vengeance. But he understood that for Lucie it was the latter.

‘What were you telling me about the belt? Have you been about with it asking questions of folk?’

‘Emma recognized it.’ Lucie stepped away from him, told him what had transpired and what Bess had remembered. While she talked, she wandered over to the things May had left. ‘I’ll take these to the shop and see whether I can pick out any other ingredients.’

Her strength was returning and Owen was glad of it. But he worried that she was doing too much. ‘You must rest now. From what you’ve told me you’ve been out of bed for a long while. Let’s go up and you can lie down while we talk.’

‘I should prefer to do this.’ Her voice was uncertain.

‘Come. Up the stairs. I must confess to you how close I came to knowing Poins’s heart before I failed in my talk with him.’

As often of late, Thoresby grew drowsy as the sun set, in the hour or so before the evening meal. He fought to concentrate on the letter Brother Michaelo was reading to him, but it became impossible and he allowed a velvet stillness to envelop him. He found himself in a moonlit room scented with roses. His dear leman Marguerite slept with her head on his shoulder, radiating such warmth that his arm was soaked in sweat. As he slipped it out from beneath her, she woke and turned to him. Suddenly the bed pitched and yawed. He woke at sea, bereft of his dream of his love. The pile of rope on which he reclined cut into his back, but how beautiful were the stars overhead, how peaceful the sigh of the ocean and the gentle rocking of the ship.

‘Your Grace!’

The voice pulled Thoresby from the dream. Someone leaned close.

‘Your Grace, the Riverwoman begs an audience.’

For a moment Thoresby was not certain where he was, in what time. The scent of lavender reminded him of Brother Michaelo. But he had not been Thoresby’s secretary during his years with Marguerite. He reached round and plucked the crumpled pillow from behind him, held it in his lap and studied it, then looked about the room, slowly remembering. He was in his parlour in his York palace, listening to letters from supplicants, avoiding the strangers to whom Wykeham had so presumptuously extended his hospitality.

‘Who?’

‘Mistress Digby, the Riverwoman.’

‘She would not beg.’

Michaelo sighed with impatience. ‘Will you see her?’

‘She will have my head on a platter if I do not.’

Michaelo leaned close again and, reaching out his long, slender hands, paused. ‘Might I adjust your cap and surcoat, Your Grace?’

‘Do you think she will be offended by my appearance?’

‘You are the Archbishop of York. It is not fitting that you be seen in disarray.’

‘It is you who are offended. You do not like that I am old.’

Michaelo looked pained. ‘Your Grace, I am devoted to you.’

‘The crone has been here for days. Why must she see me now?’

Michaelo drew a comb through Thoresby’s thinning hair.

Thoresby rose and crossed to his high-backed chair, noticed they were alone. ‘Where is my page?’

‘I thought perhaps you would prefer to speak with the Riverwoman alone.’

There was something in his secretary’s tone. ‘You know what she wants, don’t you?’ By Michaelo’s blush he saw he was right. ‘Is that why you have kept everyone out of the room above the kitchen? You’ve been spying on the sickroom?’

Michaelo cleared his throat. ‘Your Grace, she waits without.’

His secretary was a sly creature.

‘Very well. I shall see her.’

He felt himself tense as Michaelo opened the door and bowed to the wizened woman. Magda rose from the guard’s chair with a limber grace unexpected in such an ancient of the labouring class, a commanding figure despite being a good four hands shorter than the monk. As she stepped across the threshold she did not gaze round the room as one would expect but sought Thoresby at once and bowed to him. ‘Thy Grace.’ Her voice seemed to echo in the room.

‘Mistress Digby, we are all grateful to you for the life of the servant Poins.’ Thoresby began to raise his hand in blessing, but thought better of it. She nodded to him, for all the world as if thanking him for not embarrassing both of them. He wished her gone as quickly as possible. ‘What is your request?’

‘Poins fears he is dying, Thy Grace, and according to thy customs wishes to be shriven. By thee.’

‘Me?’

The white-haired crone nodded once. ‘He says he will have no other. Thou wert kind to him and he trusts thee.’

‘He wishes to be shriven now?’

She shook her head. It was a queer cap she wore, of so many colours they blurred when she moved. Her gown was the same. Perhaps that was what made him feel odd in her presence.

‘He sleeps now, but he will wake in an hour.’

‘How do you know when he will wake?’

‘Magda mixed his physick and she has watched him these few days, noting when he wakes.’

It might prove frustrating. Anything Poins told him in confession was useless to the investigation. But so be it. Thoresby might think of some way round it. ‘I shall be there.’

Magda bowed to him. ‘Thou hast a good heart.’

*

After her afternoon of air and exercise, and a draught of the modified tonic, Lucie slept for a few hours, waking when Phillippa came to ask whether she wished to take her meal with the family in the hall. Dropping her legs off the bed, Lucie found that her head felt clearer, and as she rose her balance was surer than it had been earlier in the day. ‘Yes, I’ll eat with the family tonight, Aunt.’

Lamps now lit the hall and the children had been put to bed.

Owen already sat alone at the table, staring into a cup of ale. When Lucie joined him, he put an arm round her and pulled her head close. ‘I have been thinking.’

‘I could see that.’

‘Did you sleep?’

‘Aye. Very well. Have you resolved anything?’

Owen sighed, withdrew his arm and, leaning his elbows on the table, set his head down in his hands. His fingers fanned through his curls, then clutched them. She knew the gesture as one of defeat.

‘What is it, my love?’

‘The strap, the documents — I have overlooked two of the most obvious suspects — Wykeham’s clerks.’

‘You told me you had spoken to them about that evening.’

‘Aye, but the truth is I know little about them. And if the strap round Cisotta’s neck had been securing the property documents from Wykeham, it’s possible one of them is guilty.’

‘Or Matthew the steward.’

‘Oh, aye, Emma would like to hang him, I know.’

‘You must question him, Owen.’

Kate interrupted them with trenchers and a good-sized fish, as well as a fragrant pottage.

The four at table were a subdued group. Jasper seemed weary, and both Owen and Lucie were quiet in fear that they would reveal too much too soon, so Phillippa entertained them with a monologue of laundry days at Freythorpe Hadden.

Afterwards Jasper disappeared into the kitchen.

Lucie smoothed Owen’s hair. ‘Will you speak with Matthew?’

‘Aye, but I must also speak with Wykeham about his men, and the sooner done the better.’ He reached for his boots.