Candace Robb - A Spy For The Redeemer

‘You will not tell Harold about this!’ Tildy said.

‘We have not. But why should he not know?’

Tildy told him about Harold knowing the treasury key was not the same as that of the buttery.

‘I have not trusted him from the beginning,’ Jasper said. ‘And now it seems very little is known about him. He has no proof he is who he says.’

Gilbert grunted at the news. ‘This is a sorry muddle. How do you come to be here, Jasper?’

‘I want to help.’

‘We shall need to watch the outbuilding. You might do that while we talk to Jenkyn the thatcher again.’

‘You will have no time to do that,’ Tildy said. ‘Harold wants you to escort Jasper to York.’

‘I shall only pretend to go,’ Jasper said, telling Gilbert his plan.

‘What of you, Mistress Tildy?’ Gilbert said.

She felt all atremble, but she must think. She closed her eyes. ‘I shall try to go on as usual. But if things get bad, Daimon and I can flee to the chapel. There is but the one window, high up. And the outside door is barred with iron. That is why we hid there the night of the raid.’

Harold had found them. ‘Well, Jasper, did you find what you needed?’

‘I must just check Dame Phillippa’s chamber,’ Jasper said.

‘Hurry back,’ Tildy whispered as she left him.

Would he tell Lucie of his temptation? Owen imagined her response. She would be hurt. Angry that he could even think to abandon his children. Doubt he had ever loved her. And how might he ever reassure her? Would his return be the proof? Might he not have returned for other reasons? Merely a sense of guilt? Cowardice? Sweet Jesu, he could not tell her. He was galloping across the countryside, mad with fear for her. But she would not know. She would not believe.

A ford swollen from spring rains required his attention. Owen watched Edmund and Sam cross, saw the spot with the heavy undertow, tried to guide his mount to face into the current. The horse faltered, stumbled, limped to the bank.

Owen dismounted, calmed the horse, examined the hoof on which the beast fell. A shoe was missing.

‘I see smoke ahead,’ Jared called out. ‘We may find a farmer shoes his own horse.’

‘None so rich along this road,’ said the friar. ‘But he will know the nearest smithy.’

‘I shall ride on with the friar on one of your horses,’ Owen told the others, who had returned to see to the matter.

Sam and Tom stayed with the lame horse.

And was it God’s sign Owen must confess all to Lucie? Why else had this happened now, at that moment when he vowed to stay silent? Dear God, help me in the telling. So she understands .

After hours of pacing in the shop between customers, Lucie at last retreated to the house, hurrying through the garden as rain began to fall. The scent of rain on the dry earth after a warm spell was lovely, but not enough at the moment to make her pause.

Kate and the children were in the kitchen, working on a cake, the children adding fruits and nuts one by one as Kate mixed. ‘I thought it best to keep them occupied,’ she said quietly.

‘Bless you, Kate.’ Lucie was fortunate in both of the sisters, Kate and Tildy. ‘Where is my aunt?’

‘Going through your books about the garden. She says she is looking for a drawing you told her of, that marks a spell for clover. Then she was going to ask you to read of it.’

‘She is clear-headed?’

‘Aye. She says because you have given her nothing to calm her today.’

Lucie sighed. She wished it were that simple.

Phillippa sat at the table in the hall surrounded by Nicholas’s books and even older ones that had been his father’s. In their journals they had recorded all the new plants, seeds, specimens and all the lore of the apothecary garden that they had collected. Letters from many lands were tucked between the pages. At the moment, Phillippa sat with her hands in her lap, staring out of the window to the garden. A journal lay open before her on the table. Her wimple was tidy, her eyes alert as she turned and noticed Lucie.

‘Do you know, I thought to keep myself occupied and out of trouble.’ She smiled and beckoned Lucie to join her.

The extent of Lucie’s relief made her feel guilty. Her aunt’s confusion had become just another one of her troubles. She slipped on to the bench beside Phillippa and looked at the cover of the journal that lay open. ‘The notes for Nicholas’s masterwork. This is the heart of the garden.’

‘There are letters in many hands. I do not think I respected him sufficiently,’ said Phillippa.

‘You respected him enough to encourage our marriage.’

‘But I ever thought you were better than he. What is blood, I wonder? Why do we respect it so? It is what we do with God’s gifts that matters in the end.’

‘All these thoughts from looking at the journals?’

‘And thinking of my husband. A good family, excellent blood. Your grandfather relented and allowed our marriage because of Douglas’s courage in battle. But he still could not manage his lands. He was worse than his father. And then the bitterness set in. “Why do others have and I have not?” he would say, never, “What might I do to improve the land?” I am so ashamed.’ Phillippa shook her head. ‘At the same time that your father-in-law, Paul Wilton, was working hard to become an apothecary, learning all this, Douglas and Henry offered themselves as couriers between the fearful people and the Bruce’s men. They took advantage of people’s needs. Paul Wilton’s work was of more worth. And more lasting. I can see that afterwards Nicholas improved on what his father had done.’

‘You cannot read these journals.’

‘I can see the care that went into making each letter, Lucie, my love. These were good men, hard-working. God must have welcomed them with a choir of angels.’

‘As a courier, was your Douglas not helping the people?’

Phillippa patted Lucie’s hand. ‘You do not understand. They skimmed off the top of the tribute they carried — a jewel here, a gold piece there.’

‘I wonder at the Bruce’s men, then. Did they not miss those things?’

‘Douglas said it was expected that couriers did that. That was bad enough. It tortures me to wonder if he was also a murderer.’

‘I doubt we shall ever know, Aunt Phillippa. But he did come home to you when you needed him.’ She looked away, thinking of Owen, suddenly hot with anger.

‘Come,’ Phillippa said, ‘let us search for clover.’

John Thoresby considered Brother Michaelo, wet and bedraggled, but worse than that, quite pale. That should not be, after but two days journeying. Still, he had made the trip much more quickly than expected.

‘Terrible news, Your Grace.’

‘I can see that by the looks on both your faces. How is your back, Brother Michaelo?’

The monk shook his head slightly. ‘Harold Galfrey was not steward.’

‘I am not surprised. Go on with you. To your room. I shall send for Brother Henry.’

‘There is no need, Your Grace.’

‘I say that there is. Go. Take off the wet robes, get beneath enough covers to boil you. I shall send a servant up with a brazier, ale, something warm to eat.’ He waved him off. ‘Master Moreton can tell me all I need to know.’

He faced the other bedraggled traveller. ‘I am certain my servants can find something for you to wear while they dry your clothes in the kitchen,’ Thoresby said. He could not bear the odour of human and horse sweat, mud and wet clothing.

‘If Your Grace will forgive me, I would rather hurry home, stop at Mistress Wilton’s …’