Кэндис Робб - The Nun’s Tale

Owen said nothing. The messenger, now within earshot, wore the livery of John Thoresby, Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England. What now ? Owen wondered. Thoresby had encouraged Owen to take up his present task at the Queen’s castle of Knaresborough, helping two of his old comrades-in-arms, Lief and Gaspare, develop a strategy for training archers in a mere two weeks. The Duke of Lancaster was to sail for the Aquitaine in the autumn with one hundred trained archers if attempts at negotiating the restoration of Don Pedro to the throne of Castile failed. Meanwhile, Lancaster did not want to feed a hundred archers any longer than necessary; he sought a method for quickly training those already skilled with the longbow to fight efficiently in the field so that he might collect them in small increments. Thus this experiment in training seven men in a fortnight. They were to be presented to Lancaster at Pontefract after their training, where he would judge whether their skills were acceptable.

“From His Grace the Archbishop, Captain Archer.” The messenger handed Owen a sealed packet. “I’m to await your reply.”

“Take yourself off to the kitchens. I’ll find you there.”

Gaspare noticed his friend’s clenched jaw. “Likely to be bad news, coming from the mighty Thoresby?”

“More likely to be orders.”

“You’ve no love for him, that I can see.”

“I do not like being his puppet.”

“You did much the same work for the old Duke.”

“Henry of Grosmont was a soldier. I understood him. I trusted him.”

“Ah.” Gaspare glanced over at the waiting trainee. “So. What am I to do with this ‘archer’ who shoots his captain by mistake?”

Owen scratched the scar beneath his patch with the archbishop’s letter as he thought. “We have not the time to change his character. Nor the one who swatted a fly earlier. Release them. Expend your effort on the other five.”

Gaspare nodded. “With pleasure.” He tapped the letter. “Think you Thoresby means to call you back so soon?”

Owen looked down at the packet in his hand. “It is the sort of thing he would do. I had best go and read it.”

Knaresborough sat on a precipitous cliff over the River Nidd. The trees that grew on the cliff were oddly twisted and stunted by their lifelong struggle to cling to the soil and sink in their roots. Owen stood atop the keep gazing down to the rushing river, remembering another precipitous cliff, another river. He had climbed the mountain with his father and his brother, Dafydd. At the top, Dafydd had dared Owen to walk to the edge and look down. Their father had laughed. “To look down is nothing, Dafydd, for your eyes can see it is far to fall, and you will not be tempted.” Owen’s father had made them sit close to the edge and look down, then told them to shut one eye and look down. “You see how God protects us? He gave us two eyes that we might see the depths of Hell and seek to move upward.” It was one of Owen’s best memories of his father, a rare moment when he had had time to take a day with his sons.

But now Owen gazed down a precipice with but one working eye, and it looked as if he could reach down and scoop up the river water in his hands. Folk made light of his blinding, but as an active man, Owen felt the loss every day. Balance, his vision to the left of him, and judgement of depth, distance, and trajectory, were all crippled by it. And his appearance made people uneasy. Owen would like to teach his child things such as the value of two eyes. But hearing the words from a scarred and crippled man, would the child listen?

Irritated with his self-pity, he tore open the letter from Thoresby, read quickly. The runaway nun from St Clement’s had reappeared. Odd, but no more than that. He read on. The rape and murder of Will Longford’s maid, and his cook buried in the nun’s grave with his neck broken – now those were more troublesome. Thoresby expressed an uneasiness about the business and ordered Owen to return to York. Owen could finish training the archers on St George’s Field; the archers could stay at York Castle. Meanwhile, Owen could begin inquiries into the matter. Meanwhile? What did he think, training archers occupied a few moments of his day?

Inquiries into what? Folk ran from unhappiness every day. So the nun stole a relic and went to Will Longford – that signified nothing unless he was a relic dealer. The fact that he had not sold the relic in a year suggested that he was not.

Well then, that raised the question of why he had helped Joanna. No one had described her yet. Perhaps she had appealed to Longford. But why the two murders? And where was Longford?

Owen shook himself. He was being drawn in.

A hand clamped down on his right shoulder. “This place suits Lancaster, eh?”

“A treacherous keep for a treacherous man, my friend.” Owen would know that strong grip anywhere. How did Lief use those meaty hands to carve such delicate figures and sweet-voiced flutes?

Lief shrugged. “I meant it in a more complimentary way, but no matter.” He followed Owen’s gaze down the precipice. “Can you imagine the pitiful prayers of the poor souls who built this?”

“Aye, that I can. I have heard some of the men say Gaunt lusts for this castle. He shall have it from our Queen in the end. No one stands in his way, not even his mother.”

“And the tenants will be better for it.”

Owen snorted.

“The Duke is not the tyrant you think him. Neither is he the old Duke. There will never be Henry of Grosmont’s like again. But Gaunt is a fair man, and wants the best for England.”

Owen had been captain of archers to the old Duke and would gladly have laid down his life for the great warrior and statesman. The present Duke had yet to win his respect. “Lief, you are a fool.”

“Well, when you meet the Duke at Pontefract next week you will see I am right.”

Owen shrugged.

“What news from York?”

“His Grace orders us to York, where we may continue training while I look into the tale of a runaway nun who leaves a trail of corpses behind her.” Owen scowled. “Does the man think I live only for him?”

Lief pressed Owen’s shoulder. “I am relieved to hear it is a summons from the archbishop, not news of trouble at home. With Lucie expecting a child…” Lief sat down in a watchman’s alcove, patted the stone ledge beside him.

Owen sat down. “He says nothing of Lucie.”

“He’s stirring up trouble again that will take you from your home, eh?” Lief drew a knife from a sheath at his waist and made the first cut in a block of wood he carried. “In my mind, that’s the trouble with forbidding priests to follow their nature. If they had wives and families, they’d understand.”

Owen had an odd grin on his face.

Lief frowned. “I’m happy to make you smile, but I’m damned if I know what I said to do it.”

“My friend, you sounded philosophical just then.”

Lief chuckled. “’Tis all the time I spend with you. You’re such a thinker. Worse than ever, you are. A regular worrier.”

“Aye, you’re probably right about that.” Owen had let the letter drop down beside him, and sat with his forearms on his thighs, his hands folded, his head drooping.

Lief whittled for a while. “And so why is that, Captain? Why are you ever in such a dark study?”

Owen shrugged. “I have more to worry about.”

“The archbishop, you mean?”

“Lucie and the baby.”

Lief glanced over at his friend, surprised by the answer. “You cannot mean to say you are not happy to have a child on the way?”

“I thank God that He has blessed us.”

Lief frowned. “Then is it Lucie? You do not love her?”

What were all these silly, wrong-headed questions? “I love her beyond measure.”