Candace Robb: The Cross Legged Knight

Guy frowned and looked aside as if searching his memory, then shook his head. ‘I had none. Alain took the papers to him …’

‘… in the morning,’ Owen said. ‘Brother Michaelo recalls seeing you with Matthew in the garden that afternoon.’

‘He must be mistaken.’

‘Perhaps Lady Pagnell had some questions?’

Guy shook his head. ‘If she did, I do not recall.’

‘Michaelo said it was not a cordial meeting.’

‘If there was such a meeting, it was likely unpleasant. There is much ill feeling between the Pagnell household and the bishop’s.’

‘What was the issue on that particular day?’

‘I tell you I don’t know what you are talking about and I am cold.’ Guy made a swift move for the door.

Owen grabbed him, wrenching back one of his arms.

Guy let out a scream. Owen pressed a hand over his mouth and half carried, half dragged the clerk to the pair of chairs behind the prie-dieu, spun him forward and shoved him into one. Guy clutched the armrests, his face a mask of fear.

Owen leaned down and set his hands on Guy’s forearms, forcing them down. ‘What did Matthew say to you that afternoon?’

‘I tell you you’re mistaken.’

‘You’ve been playing the gentle soul with Poins, sitting with him — you mean to be there when he remembers that night, don’t you?’

‘You are mad!’

‘I’ve come to tell you that you missed your chance. This evening Poins told me of your presence in the undercroft that night.’ It was all Owen had, his strong suspicion.

‘ Christus ,’ Guy whispered.

‘Well?’

‘I did not strangle Cisotta. In God’s name I am innocent of that.’

‘But guilty of other things?’

Guy shrank from Owen’s eye, dropped his chin to his chest. ‘Nothing so terrible as that. Matthew noticed changes in one of the property deeds.’

‘What kind of changes?’

Guy fidgeted, muttering about bruises.

Owen gave him no additional space, just waited, ignoring the complaints, the sourness of the heavy man’s sweat.

‘It had stated a certain rent,’ Guy said at last. ‘I lessened the amount so that I might keep some of the money the tenant believed he owed. I took the money only for a few years, while my lord came regularly to the north and I was in charge of the rents.’

‘You had debts?’

Again, Guy lapsed into silence.

‘So Matthew threatened to expose you?’

‘Yes. I begged him to let me have the document. He agreed, for a small payment.’

‘So you came to this agreement the afternoon of the fire?’

‘Yes. He came to the palace to press for payment.’ Guy closed his eyes.

‘And?’

‘I knew the Fitzbaldrics were to be out that evening, and my lord bishop had some coin stored in the records room. Dear God, one little theft and I could not stop it.’

‘So you met in the undercroft.’

‘Yes. He took all the coin, more than I had intended. We argued. He told me he knew far worse of me, that I had stolen the ransom money and he could prove it.’

‘You stole the Pagnell ransom money?’

Guy dropped his eyes.

‘What debts do you have that were worth the life of Sir Ranulf?’

The sour odour increased. ‘How could I know the old man would die?’

Owen fought the urge to strike the clerk. ‘Surely Bishop William gives you all you need.’

‘I … have a sister. She was not so fortunate in her household. The money helped her.’

‘You could not ask the bishop for help?’

‘He has so many in his care.’

‘He thinks of you as his son.’

Guy looked Owen in the eye. ‘I have been a great fool.’ His gaze was too steady. Owen saw no emotion on the sweating, swinish face.

‘Bastard,’ Owen growled, giving the chair a good shake, making Guy gasp. ‘Go on, tell me the rest.’ His grasp on the arms of the chair was so tight that his wrists ached. He could not let go.

Guy took a moment to collect himself. ‘He bragged of his power over Lady Pagnell, how he meant to have her, she was smitten with him. He had the strap in his hand, playing with it, wrapping the ends round his hands, tugging it tightly. That is when I began to fear him.’ He paused, breathing hard. ‘ Deus juva me .’

Owen relaxed his grip, moved the other chair to face Guy, sat down, leaning forward, ready to block any attempt at escape. ‘What then?’

‘Something moved outside the record room. I told him there were some well-fed rats down there, but he grabbed the lamp and left me in the dark. I followed, hearing a woman’s cry. She stood next to a barrel with some hides piled on it, one hand on the hides, one out before her like one does when calming a dog. She said she had just come from above and wondered at the light in the undercroft. I blurted out that she could not have seen it. “You were listening,” Matthew said. He set down the lamp and grabbed her. I did not wait to see what he did. I ran. Dear Lord I ran for my life.’

‘And left her in his hands.’

Guy crossed himself. Only now did he look up, his face contorted with sorrow and shame. ‘He is evil. I knew it that night. But I swear I never thought he would kill her. Frighten her, perhaps — ’ he looked away — ‘other things. But not strangle her with the strap.’

‘Who told you how she died?’

‘My master.’

‘You have let a murderer walk the streets, live with a family who trust him.’

‘For my part in it I’ll lose everything I have worked for.’

‘Do you deserve better?’

Guy shook his head. ‘I was frightened. I did not understand why he didn’t come for me.’

‘Did he return the property document with the altered rent to you?’

‘I left it there. I stopped for nothing.’

Owen rose to pace and think.

Guy did not move for a long while. Then he asked in a choked voice, ‘What will you do now?’

‘We’ll say nothing. Matthew will be here in the afternoon, the palace will be surrounded by guards, and we’ll take him.’

‘I cannot see him.’

‘Stand up,’ Owen commanded. ‘If he is not abed, the bishop should hear your story.’

Guy moved with the hesitant steps of one going to his execution. Owen felt no pity for him. He had thought only of himself that night, fearful lest his master learn that he had stolen from him, the man who thought of him as a son, who had trained him and given him a calling. Guy might have saved Cisotta. Matthew had flourished no weapon, only a strap.

In the chapel corridor, a dark figure caused Guy to cry out and press himself back against Owen.

‘It is very late, Captain,’ said Brother Michaelo, moving so that he no longer blocked the light from the torch. ‘His Grace has suggested that you sleep in the palace tonight.’

‘Has the Bishop of Winchester retired?’

‘No. He is closed in the archbishop’s parlour with His Grace.’

‘Good. Will you announce us?’

Michaelo glanced back and forth between Owen and Guy, then nodded and turned to escort them.

Guy glanced back at Owen. ‘Can it not wait until morning?’

‘How could you rest with the prospect before you? Once you have unburdened yourself you will sleep and wake refreshed and able to assist us. I count on you tomorrow.’

Guy stumbled. Owen found a grim pleasure in roughly righting him and moving him on. He let go only once, to have a quiet word with one of his men about an extra guard on Poins.

A lamp by the parlour window flickered wildly in a draft, rearranging the planes of Wykeham’s face as he looked on the clerk whose greed had caused him such embarrassment and perhaps cost Sir Ranulf his life. ‘I thought of you as my son.’ The hands with which he clenched the arms of the chair were white-knuckled, the veins swollen and angry.