Candace Robb - A Spy For The Redeemer

‘I chose the word intentionally, Your Grace. In fact, Gisburne had never met the man and Harold knew no one in the city, so Gisburne took him at his word.’

Thoresby did not like what he was hearing. ‘Did he write to his relations to verify the man’s claims?’

‘No, he did not, Your Grace. But he said that had he any cause to doubt them he would so have written. When I mentioned Colby’s visit to Freythorpe Hadden — ’

Brother Michaelo sat forward. ‘What visit?’

It appeared Michaelo knew this name, Colby. Moreton explained the visit, concluding with an interesting piece of information — Master Gisburne had been surprised to hear of the incident.

Master Moreton, it seemed, had learned how much he did not know. Thoresby thought the two untrustworthy servants were of interest.

‘We must write another letter to the High Sheriff before you depart,’ Thoresby said to Brother Michaelo.

‘Are you leaving York again so soon?’ Moreton asked pleasantly.

‘He rides to Kingston-upon-Hull tomorrow, to the manor at which Harold Galfrey last served,’ Thoresby said, not wishing Michaelo to emote at this particular moment.

Moreton looked keen. ‘You head for the Godwins?’

Michaelo nodded.

‘Might I accompany you?’

‘Why should you wish to do so?’ Michaelo asked. He had become quite a cautious man of late. Thoresby approved that change.

‘I should have investigated the man’s character before recommending him to Mistress Wilton.’

‘But you did not,’ Thoresby said.

Moreton flushed. The man deserved no delicacy. ‘I wish to make some atonement.’

Apparently Michaelo pitied Moreton. ‘I should welcome a companion,’ he said gently. ‘It is a long journey to make with only a servant.’

The discussion had become tiresome. Thoresby wished to withdraw to his parlour to consider what he might do to improve the palace, not arrange companions for his secretary. He rose. The two men also rose.

‘If you can ride tomorrow, I have no objection to your accompanying my secretary. I shall leave you to make your arrangements. I thank you for your information, Master Moreton, and look forward to even more on your return.’ Thoresby bowed himself out of the hall.

After Kate took Gwenllian and Hugh to bed, Lucie, Jasper and Phillippa sat round the small table in the kitchen near the fire. Though the day had been warm when Lucie took the flowers to Roger, the evening was chilly. Jasper sat slumped over the table, picking at a splinter on the edge. His hair hung over his eyes. Lucie knew the cause of his pout. Upon returning from his interview with Thoresby, Roger Moreton had offered them his donkey cart for the journey to Freythorpe, but asked that they wait until he returned with more information about Harold Galfrey.

‘Be patient, Jasper. You will go to Freythorpe,’ Lucie said. ‘It is not Master Moreton’s cart we await. I wish to know more about Harold Galfrey so I might advise you.’

Jasper said nothing. He had already voiced his certainty that Lucie and Roger would find reasons to keep him in York. No one considered him man enough to make the journey.

Phillippa, too, was glum. She wished to accompany Jasper to Freythorpe. Lucie had firmly refused. This was one request she could not grant Phillippa.

‘But you would help us by telling us all you remember about the parchment,’ Lucie had said. ‘Anything you can recall about your husband’s activities at that time, anything about that time at all.’

Dame Phillippa had been tidier and more coherent for the past few days. Lucie hoped that perhaps she had recovered from the shock of the raid on the manor and was more herself.

‘At times the past is clearer to me than the present,’ Phillippa had said. ‘But I have tried to forget Douglas Sutton.’

It was Jasper who brought up the subject again.

‘Why did you want to forget your husband?’ Jasper asked. ‘Was he a bad husband?’

‘No, lad, he was as good a husband as he could be. And I loved him. And my baby, my Jeremy.’ Tears fell on to Phillippa’s knobbed and wrinkled hands.

Jeremy had been Lucie’s cousin, never met. Dead before she was born.

Jasper put a hand over one of Phillippa’s. ‘I have some ideas about where you might have hidden the parchment.’

Looking up expectantly, Phillippa wiped her eyes with her free hand. ‘Tell me. Perhaps they will help me remember.’

‘It was once in the tapestry you brought from your home, so perhaps you moved it to another?’

Phillippa shook her head. ‘I worried even then about the damp and someone tearing it. I would not have put it in another such place.’

‘Beneath a chair seat?’

The old woman chuckled. ‘Clever lad. I am not so clever.’

Lucie tiptoed away to see whether Kate needed her help. When she returned, Phillippa was talking of the Scots raids into Yorkshire three years after her marriage. Jasper sat transfixed, imagining himself fighting the Bruce, no doubt.

‘The destruction was so horrible that many a lord with lands in the north and many a town paid the Bruce to go away,’ said Phillippa, ‘or to spare their lands. I cannot remember which lords, which towns. We had no such money — the Suttons had land, but they had fallen on hard times. I was at home, frightened for my family — I was with child during that terrible spring and summer. The rumours terrified me. Douglas was often away.’

‘Fighting?’ Jasper asked.

‘He had fought with Archbishop Melton’s forces at Myton-on-Swale. That was a massacre. Our men were not trained as soldiers. Clergy, most of them. The Scots had their way with them and it was bloody. But Douglas survived. I nursed his wounds. And then we were wed.’

‘You wed him because he had been brave?’ Jasper asked.

‘My father allowed it because he had been brave,’ said Phillippa. ‘Before the battle I had been forbidden to see more of Douglas. My brother Robert had never liked him, neither had father.’

Lucie had never known her grandfather. She slipped back into her seat to hear the rest. But Phillippa’s eyes were far away. Jasper gave Lucie a questioning look. She nodded and gestured for him to try again.

‘Aunt Phillippa,’ he said, ‘did Douglas Sutton fight again after you were wed?’

She shook her head as she brought her gaze back to the present. ‘I do not know, lad.’

‘But you said he was often away.’

‘On business.’

‘And the parchment?’

‘After being away for days, sometimes weeks, he would return weary and quiet. But never as quiet as the day he brought the parchment. He returned much sooner than I had expected. He said it was because he was worried about me, it was near my time and I had lost our first two babes. He asked me to stitch a back on to a tapestry that had been his mother’s. I did not want to, but he said it was a good place to hide things from the invaders. So I stitched, leaving a space open at the top. I finished just before our baby was born. We christened him Jeremy, after the neighbour who was his godfather.

‘While I lay with little Jeremy I heard someone come to the house, argue with Douglas.’ Phillippa rose from her chair, groping for her cane. Jasper rose and handed it to her. She glanced round, seemingly confused. ‘My chest. Where is my chest?’

‘Up in the bedchamber, Aunt,’ said Lucie. ‘Do you want Jasper to fetch it?’

Phillippa leaned on the cane with her right hand, her left hand pressed to her eyes. She shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I burned the clothing long ago. I do not know why I thought of that.’

‘Would you like something to calm you?’ Lucie asked, putting an arm round Phillippa, who was shivering. ‘Come back to the fire.’