Candace Robb - The Riddle Of St Leonard's

‘I must tell you, it was a relief to learn it was you and not Honoria de Staines my uncle cared for.’

The full lips twitched, then broadened into a smile. ‘He cared for both of us, but in different ways. He thought of Honoria as his daughter. And she broke his heart.’

‘How?’

‘He was scandalised by her affairs — she knew a goodly portion of the town council. I believe it is why her husband left her.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘Her lovers have good reason to be discreet, Mistress Merchet.’

Bess rose, feeling she had imposed on the woman long enough. ‘Mistress Mawdeleyn, you have been patient with me. I am glad that my uncle has someone like you to mourn him.’

‘I do mourn him, Mistress Merchet.’

When Bess had taken her leave, she walked back through the city with no eye for the folk round her. Her thoughts were with her uncle. So many years he had lived in the city, so many times they had shared an ale and talked of this and that. And never had he told her of Honoria, Felice, or Adam Carter, or offered her an ivory chess set. She wondered what other treasures he had shared with his women.

Staying well back in the shadow of the poor people’s shacks near the bank, Anneys and Alisoun studied the Riverwoman’s rocky island. No smoke rose from her chimney, the door was shut, and, most importantly, Magda Digby’s boat lay becalmed in the mud beside the rock. But it would not be for long. The incoming tide surged up the Ouse and already the tops of the waves broke on the rock on which Magda’s house sat.

Anneys made a disapproving noise deep in her throat. ‘Not much of a boat. Is it watertight?’

‘The Riverwoman rowed it upriver with Captain Archer to bury my family,’ Alisoun said. ‘Wait here while I make certain she is away.’

Anneys sank down on to a piece of driftwood, wiped her forehead. ‘You will need me.’

‘What if she is there? How do I explain you?’

‘And if she is there, what will you do?’

‘Find another boat.’

‘We have no time!’ Anneys’s voice was a weary whine.

‘Then we shall wait until the next high tide. You sound as if you need a rest.’

Anneys slapped Alisoun’s face. ‘Stubborn, insolent child.’

Alisoun rubbed her cheek. ‘Stay here.’

She cursed the woman under her breath as she crossed the water. Anneys behaved as if she were sorry she had helped her. But it was Anneys who had offered. It was Alisoun who should be sorry she had accepted Anneys’s help. Would she have stolen the boat before Magda’s eyes? Alisoun would not. She liked Magda Digby. She had no intention of keeping the boat. Her plan was to take it upriver, collect the treasures, and return the boat to Magda. They must come back to see whether Finn still lived, and take him with them if he did.

Alisoun made a circuit of the strange house of the Riverwoman. The upside-down dragon gave her pause; it seemed coiled to strike. But she was not so silly to believe it could. When she had listened at the door and peered in one of the small windows, she was satisfied that the boat could be taken without incident. Already the rising water rocked it back and forth. Soon it would be afloat.

Jasper raced to St Leonard’s, but Owen and Erkenwald had already left with stretcher-bearers. His heart was beating hard as he raced down Petergate to St Saviourgate. It was just outside the house on Spen Lane that he found them. Panting, he told them what he had gleaned from Wulfstan about the sick man.

Don Erkenwald turned to Owen. ‘Perhaps you will have need of me as a canon as well as a digger.’

‘Aye. And a fighter, mayhap. The day is young.’ Owen pressed Jasper’s shoulder. ‘Go home to Lucie. Tell her all you have learned.’

‘I could help you.’

‘At the moment, she needs you more, Jasper.’

Jasper thought of her alone in the shop, worried about Wulfstan, about Owen, about himself. ‘All right.’

Erkenwald adjusted the girdle that rode beneath his barrel stomach, squared his shoulders. ‘Best that I enter first. If he is there, he will perhaps be grateful to see a man of God. At least he might pause before attacking.’

Owen slipped his dagger out of its sheath. ‘We shall wait just without the door.’ Two lay brothers accompanied them with a stretcher.

Erkenwald also unsheathed his weapon, then, with his left hand on the latch, he turned. ‘It is many years since I tested my courage in such a way, Captain. God grant that I do not fail you.’

A slight smile on the man’s lips reassured Owen. ‘You will not.’

The canon opened the door quietly, slipped within, leaving it ajar.

It was the waiting that was difficult. Owen strained to hear, but a noisy cart rattled down the lane, then a woman shouted for her child. At last, Erkenwald’s almost bald head poked out. ‘A man lies asleep up in the solar. The house is vile with pestilential vapours. Yet his blankets are clean, he has food, wine and water. Someone has cared for him.’

Wulfstan had been too ill to do so much for the man. ‘Are you certain he is alone?’

‘He is alone in the house,’ Erkenwald said. ‘I did not search the kitchen behind the house. Do you want to do that while I pray over the man?’

‘You will wake him?’

‘If he can be waked. How else is he to confess his sins?’

‘You might need my help.’

‘As I said before, I think it best he is certain of my peaceful intentions before he sees your scarred face.’

Owen looked at the canon’s partial earlobe and the scar that puckered his chin. ‘You think your robes hide your scars?’

Erkenwald touched his earlobe. ‘A patch is easier to see.’

There was no denying that. ‘Go up. Steps or a ladder?’

‘Ladder. I shall carry him down.’ Erkenwald pushed the door wide, retreated to the ladder.

Owen motioned for the lay brothers to follow him within. ‘Wait below. I shall search the kitchen.’

As he stepped into the dusty main room, Owen smelled the stench of pestilence. Out of habit, he pulled his scented pouch from his belt. But that gave him no free hand. He put it away with a prayer for his safety, listened to Erkenwald climb. The floorboards creaked and groaned as the canon stepped off the ladder and moved across the solar. Then silence.

Owen made a circuit of the room, memorising the placement of windows and doors, the few pieces of furniture. Then he stepped out of the back door. The kitchen was a conical building with two unglazed windows and a flimsy door in need of repair. It was shielded from the house by a pear tree heavy with green fruit. Crouching down, Owen crept across the packed mud and gradually rose beside one of the windows, peered in. Little light, but he neither sensed nor saw any movement. He dropped down, crossed to the other window. Again, nothing. He eyed the door. It was so crooked on its hinge it would be difficult to open. He studied a long gouge in the ground at one edge of the doorway — where the door would swing out. Until recently the door had stood ajar.

He decided to slip in through one of the windows, a quieter entrance. Bread baskets brushed his head from the rafters as he eased through, something small skittered across the floor. The room had a layer of dust as thick as the one in the house and a sickly sweet stench of rotten meat. Not a room in which he wished to linger. He did see one useful item. A rope coiled in a corner. He lifted it, shook out a mouse, and slipped the coil up his arm to his shoulder. Near a trestle table, just visible in the light from one of the windows, was a dark, damp area in the rushes where something had spilled of late. But the hearth was cold, no smoke lingered in the air. Satisfied, Owen climbed back out.