Candace Robb - The Riddle Of St Leonard's

‘A bench brought down sharp on table.’

‘And a customer?’

‘Aye. He will live. And his attacker paid well for damage.’

It was a good thing Tom Merchet was well padded with bulk and muscle. An innkeeper could never be too strong.

‘Tell me what you know of Julian Taverner.’

Tom sanded for a while, gathering his thoughts. ‘Owned an inn at Scarborough harbour. Swan, he called it. And as all men from Scarborough, he was fond of ships grounded in foul weather.’ Tom’s prejudice had more to do with Bess’s fond memories of her first husband, a clerk in Scarborough.

But there was perhaps some truth in what he implied; Magda too had suggested that Julian’s money had come from somewhere other than the inn. ‘He emptied the broken hulls?’

Tom laughed. ‘Aye. Most like. While a taverner. But when his wife and daughter drowned in a storm, he changed. Blamed himself for the drowning, though he was nowhere near. Sudden storm, even the best get caught. He called it his punishment. And when pestilence came to Scarborough, he took it as his penance, went out and took care of folk left to die.’

‘Punishment for what?’

‘A leman, most like. What else? Though he never spoke of it.’

‘Telling tales, husband?’ Bess stood braced in the doorway that led out to the kitchen.

‘You have a better answer, wife?’

Bess joined them at the table. ‘Is it true, then, Owen? You have offered to help Sir Richard?’

‘Offered? Nay. I have been ordered by His Grace.’

‘No matter. However you come to it, I am pleased. You will put my mind at ease and that is all I can ask now he’s dead.’

‘I fear I might disappoint you.’

‘Nay. You are too shrewd.’

‘Then you will not mind if I pry a bit, eh? Do you know any of his old comrades from his smuggling days?’

Bess reared back. ‘Smuggling? Who told you that?’

‘He lived well in Scarborough, Bess.’

‘The Swan is a fine inn now. It was grand when Julian ran it.’

‘This is a fine inn. But could you afford a corrody at St Leonard’s?’

‘Nay. But you would do well to look elsewhere. John Cooper had somewhat to say about the deaths at the hospital.’

Owen waved away the rumour. ‘I have heard it. Unholy and dangerous gossip, Bess. See that you do not repeat it. And none are to know what I am about, eh?’

‘You can trust us,’ Tom said.

Bess said nothing, but her injured expression reassured Owen.

‘I have something else on my mind that you might help me understand, Bess.’

‘Oh? And what might that be?’

‘Honoria de Staines.’

Bess sniffed. ‘Impudent harlot.’

Owen told her of his conversation with Honoria, though he did not mention it fell on the day of Julian’s death.

‘Goblets of Italian glass?’ Bess shook her head. ‘I knew the old man had been a fool about her, but goblets of Italian glass!’

‘You did not attend the wedding?’

‘I did not! Shameless hussy. I feared a child would arrive in short order with my uncle’s eyes and nose, and our family’s thick hair.’

Then Honoria’s barrenness was not common knowledge. ‘So he had bedded her?’

‘I would think it more the other way. She lured him.’

‘You have proof of this?’

‘It is her nature, my friend. Why? Has this aught to do with my uncle’s death?’

‘No. Not at all. Just the goblets. They are very like the ones stolen from the master’s house.’

‘Ah. Well. She has no need to steal, that woman. She makes her money on her back, she does.’

‘Your uncle witnessed their vows. Was he a friend of the groom?’

‘Nay. He thought it a foolish match.’

‘There was enmity between them?’

Bess made a face. ‘He did not cuckold the young man, if that is what you are thinking.’

It was plain Owen could not rely on Bess’s opinions in this.

The daylight burned his eyes as Brother Wulfstan stepped outside after a long vigil with the latest plague victim.

John Tyler, so recently bereaved, called from the doorway, ‘Do you need an arm to steady you on your way?’

Brother Wulfstan shook his head, waved away the man’s concern. ‘See to your own, Master Tyler.’ He had lost wife and infant, but he had yet a son and daughter to tend. ‘You were a brave man to stay with them till the end. Many do not.’

‘God bless you, Brother Wulfstan.’

The old monk turned down the alley that led to Holy Trinity, Goodramgate.

‘God go with you, Brother Wulfstan,’ a nasal voice called in the dimness beneath the overhanging houses.

Wulfstan halted, squinted into the shadows. ‘God go with you. Are you in need?’

A man limped out into the poor light. ‘I am injured.’

An injury was a welcome change from plague sores. ‘Come. Let us go forward into the churchyard. The light will allow these old eyes to examine your injury.’

They walked down the alley into the open yard.

‘Feel the heat of this,’ the man said, guiding Wulfstan’s hand to a wound in his upper arm.

Wulfstan set his bag of medicines and bandages down, felt at the wound. ‘Your sleeve prevents my examination.’ There was but a small tear in the sleeve over the injury. ‘Come with me to St Mary’s. There I can remove your gown, clean the wound and bandage it.’

The man shook his head.

Wulfstan noted that the man’s gown smelled strongly of horse sweat. He glanced up at the man’s face, could match no name to it. ‘You are a stranger in York?’

‘Aye. I was attacked on the road.’

‘How do you come to know my name?’

‘I heard it spoken as you came out into the street.’

That might be so. ‘Why did you not go to St Mary’s?’

One question too many. The man lunged for Wulfstan’s bag of medicines and bandages. The old monk grabbed it, a foolish gesture. A yank and a push and he was on the ground clutching air. By the time Wulfstan struggled to his knees, he could see no sign of his attacker. Merciful God he was dizzy. And his heart pounded so. He dropped his head to his hands and knelt there quietly for a few moments until his heart slowed and he thought he might trust his balance enough to rise and walk. He felt a fool.

Once more the morning had been quiet in the shop. Lucie was about to send Jasper off to work in the garden when a form darkened the doorway. He was stooped with age, unsteady on his feet. Lucie did not at once recognise the infirmarian of St Mary’s, but Jasper dropped the powder he was measuring back into the jar and hurried to assist Brother Wulfstan to a seat.

‘Find the brandywine in the back room,’ Lucie ordered Jasper as she knelt to her old friend and dabbed at the scrapes on his cheek and forehead. ‘Did you take a fall?’

‘I did. And lost my bag.’

‘When you have had some brandywine you must tell Jasper where you dropped it.’

‘And then I shall help you back to the abbey,’ Jasper said as he handed Wulfstan a cup of brandywine.

Wulfstan’s hands shook too badly to hold it. As Lucie helped him lift the cup to his lips, she noticed blood on his left hand. ‘You thought to catch your fall?’

Wulfstan said nothing, just drank.

Lucie wanted to weep, seeing him so weak. He asked too much of himself. Surely God did not require such sacrifice from a man who had spent his life helping others. When she lowered the cup from his lips, Wulfstan closed his eyes and smiled faintly.

‘Better. I pray you, do not fuss. I would sit here and collect my wits is all. Brother Henry must not see me like this.’

‘You must rest,’ Lucie said. ‘Let us help you to the pallet in the workroom.’

Ravenser sat with elbows on the arms of his chair, hands steepled before his chest. So like his uncle, Owen thought. A deceptive likeness, for he found himself responding to the man as if he were Thoresby and then receiving an unexpected reaction. Ravenser was subtly different from his uncle. At the moment he was politely disagreeing with Owen.