Candace Robb - A Vigil of Spies

A wave of pinpricks across his blind eye robbed him of breath for a heartbeat. ‘Child?’

‘Dame Magda will have noticed. Her courses had not come, and she grew ill in the mornings. That is why I went hawking in her place. Forgive me. I’m talking too much.’ She pressed a hand to her mouth.

‘A child. God have mercy. It does not sound as if her husband would believe it his.’

Sybilla shook her head. ‘No. She would not say whose it was, but I knew about her slipping away to see Roger. Would she have been put to death for her crimes? Surely Her Grace would not have allowed that.’

‘We cannot know what might have happened.’ He needed wine. This last piece of the tragedy sickened him. ‘My lady, I would not have you suffer more, but I must ask about Dame Clarice and the letter.’

‘Forgive me for lying to you. But, when she fell ill, I was frightened. God forgive me. And it was all for nothing. The letter was not what I had hoped. I knew that Dame Clarice had a secret. I knew that someone had a purpose in including her in our company.’

‘So you took it upon yourself to spy on her?’

‘Sweet Jesu, no! As Lady Eleanor was here for the Nevilles, I am here for the Percy family. I am a Neville, but my aunt was married to the Earl of Northumberland. She has passed on, but the Percy ties remain.’

‘What were you to prevent?’

‘Nothing. I was merely to listen. They wanted to know whether Her Grace intended to suggest a southerner for York. They are not fond of Alexander Neville, but they believe it is important to have a northern family in control, as the Thoresby family has been.’

‘A vigil of spies,’ Owen muttered. Ravenser had said that is what Thoresby had called the princess’s visit.

He left Sybilla in the company of the dogs, gentle, playful souls to whom she might whisper her sorrow. He drank good wine, talked to his men, ate a little, drank more wine, and slept the sleep of the exhausted. Dreamless.

In the morning, Owen woke to find Geoffrey sitting cross-legged at the foot of his pallet, his ink-stained fingers moving quietly along a string of paternoster beads, his eyes closed, his face relaxed, peaceful. Apparently sensing Owen’s eye on him, he lay down his beads and reached for a mazer on a stool beside him, handing it to Owen.

‘Alfred and Sir John’s man, Douglas, have organised the men, constructed a gallows, and Dom Jehannes has spent the night with Gilbert, shriving him. They await us now in the clearing beyond the river garden.’

Hanging. It was a fitting form of execution, as Gilbert had done unto Dom Lambert. But Owen’s stomach cramped at the thought of the man he had trained hanging from the gibbet. He crossed himself, then took a long drink of the ale.

‘They tell me this is Tom Merchet’s finest ale, and that he is your neighbour,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Jehannes brought back a fresh barrel yesterday.’

‘What of Lady Eleanor’s body?’

‘Sir Richard has arranged for Roger Neville, Dame Katherine and Master Walter to accompany her by barge to Lincoln. Her family will join her there. Her Grace is not pleased with Sir Lewis’s insistence on joining the journey to Lincoln, but he reassured her that he will return with the barge on the morrow, when she intends to depart.’

‘So soon?’

‘She believes that she has disturbed His Grace’s last days enough.’

‘Amen,’ said Owen. He drank down the rest of the ale and rose to face the sad conclusion to Wykeham’s mission.

Although Thoresby had prayed for inspiration about whom to advise Princess Joan to trust, he seemed left to his own common sense. Perhaps God paid him a compliment — he did not need divine intervention.

The experience of her was once again a heady treat for his senses. How beautiful she was, how graceful, how sweet her temper, how gentle her touch. He drank her in with what senses he had left to him. The previous day had taken much of his strength.

‘My lady, it is good to see you again after the storms of yesterday.’

Her smile was a benediction. ‘Your Grace, you do me great honour to say so. And I am much relieved. I had feared that my delay in revealing Dame Clarice’s identity might have offended you beyond forgiveness. But I believed it best to have the documents safely here before I spoke, and Clarice wanted you to hold the proof in your hands rather than merely being told that she was your daughter. Perhaps I should not have agreed to assist Wykeham by letting Dom Lambert join our company and stopping at Nun Appleton for Dame Clarice, but I did not imagine the tragedy that would unfold. Still, you must regret your hospitality.’

‘At this late point in my mortal existence, I hold no grudges, my lady. Nor do I care to dwell on the tragedies that have befallen your company in my palace.’

‘God bless you.’ She settled with a silken grace into the chair beside his bed. Again she wore the comforting blue, and he felt quite certain that she knew its calming effect. In her lovely eyes he saw remnants of weeping, a redness that artful powder had not quite erased, a puffiness that a soothing compress could not entirely ease.

‘I will say only that I grieve with you for Lady Eleanor, and I pray that God grants her peace,’ he said.

‘My poor benighted lady,’ Joan whispered. ‘I cannot understand her violence — it is as if she emulated her beloved falcons.’ She crossed herself. ‘How I could be so blind to her suffering — it frightens me, Your Grace. I sensed a rift among my women and I withdrew from them instead of extending my hand to help. I responded to a threat when I should have offered solace and support.’ She bowed her head. ‘May God forgive me.’

What blinkers she wore — Eleanor’s lying with Lambert on the journey, slipping away to Roger Neville, and her flirtation with Clifford. But surely she must have noticed something. ‘Lady Eleanor must have neglected her duties to have dallied with Lambert and her cousin on the journey. How did you reconcile that?’

‘I told myself she was with Clifford. I knew of their attraction to one another.’ Joan sighed. ‘I was too fond of her. I shall not be so lax in future.’

Thoresby doubted that the princess would actually allow herself to become more involved in the lives of her ladies. In an effort to change the mood before cynicism overtook his good intentions, he noted, ‘You move with more ease than when you departed my chamber yesterday.’

Joan looked up with a relieved expression. ‘I am most grateful for the skill of Magda Digby, who has soothed my discomfort and convinced me to move about more and consume less. I would welcome her into my household, but she is unavailable.’

‘She refused you?’

‘With such wise words I would have sounded a fool to argue with her.’

Thoresby could well imagine the exchange. ‘I cannot think of another I trust more than I do Dame Magda, yet I know almost nothing about her. Not for want of prying questions.’ Despite the shadows of last night’s grief, he’d noticed a glow to Joan’s complexion and a sense of fresh air when she moved. ‘You have been walking?’

‘Oh, more than that — I have been assisting your falconer — he is training a young hawk. Dame Magda inspired me to take advantage of your beautiful estate. I am curious — the young hawk — who is it for?’

‘Owen Archer’s children — my godchildren. On my death my falconer has instructions to move several of my birds to Freythorpe Hadden, the manor young Hugh will inherit.’

‘Captain Archer’s children? You have curious affections.’

‘They are mine to have.’

She raised an eyebrow, but did not comment. ‘The young hawk is fierce and graceful. He will please them.’ She smiled on him. ‘But you did not invite me here to talk of godchildren and hawking. Have you advice for me?’ Her lovely eyes studied him, no longer smiling.