Кэндис Робб - The Lady Chapel

Thoresby flinched. Even here the upstart Perrers cast a pall over his mood. “I have kept to myself of late, except for my duties as Chancellor.”

Ridley gave up the effort.

After dinner, as they sat before the fire with brandywine, Thoresby opened the business. “This is a large sum of money you offer for my Lady Chapel, Ridley. So much money would buy a beautiful stained-glass window. Two, in fact. That is the more common donation when the sum is so large. An appropriate saint’s story with your face and perhaps that of your wife on figures in the window, your family crest in the corner, or your name and guild affiliation, that sort of thing.”

Ridley shook his head. “I particularly did not want to bring attention to myself with this gift. I want the Lord to know it is from my heart, not a bribe of any kind.”

Thoresby sat back and considered this changed man. “Why such generosity, Ridley?” he asked quietly.

Ridley reddened. “You do not wish to accept my donation?”

“That is not it. But such a large sum. And I detect – forgive me for mentioning it, but there is such a change in you – something has subdued you. This is not a penance, is it? Something troubling you?”

“Good heavens, Your Grace,” Ridley exclaimed, rising. “If I had known my money was so suspect, I never would have offered it!”

“Please, my friend, sit down. You must forgive me. But this chapel is important to me. I will be buried there. And I want it to be clear of any criticism. I want no blood money put into it.”

“This is not blood money. If you will, it is a symbol of my devotion, my realization with Will’s death that I have had a blessed life and it can end all too soon. I must make those provisions I most want to make before death catches me unawares.”

Thoresby could certainly understand that. “Please. Forgive me.” He offered Ridley more brandywine. Ridley accepted with pleasure.

“I regret many things in my life, Your Grace, but I know that money to the Church cannot undo them.”

“What sort of regrets?”

Ridley was silent a moment. Then he sighed and said, “I gave my daughter to a man who I now realize is the Devil incarnate. I would that I could undo that.”

Thoresby smiled. “Fathers often feel that way about their daughters’ husbands.”

Ridley reddened. “Do not make light of my honest confession.”

“Forgive me again,” Thoresby said. “Is there any hope of annulment?”

“No. The marriage has definitely been consummated.” Ridley passed his ringed hands over his eyes, a weary gesture. “My son-in-law also appears to be a bragging fool. He tells all that he will soon be knighted. But the simpleton’s done nothing to earn a knighthood. He’s been neither diplomat nor soldier. The only battles he’s fought are with my daughter.”

“I am sorry.” Thoresby studied Ridley’s trembling hand, the pain in the man’s eyes. “No, I am more than sorry. I am grieved for you and your family.”

Ridley sipped his brandywine, took a deep breath. “So your tomb is to be in the Lady Chapel,” he said, changing the subject. “How did you come to choose that?”

Thoresby did not answer at once, caught off balance by the shift. “How did I choose it? Ah, well, it was a prayer to Our Lady that brought the sign I needed to know that I was called to the Church.”

“You were not a second son?”

Thoresby smiled. “Yes, but I had made myself quite useful at court and was rising with pleasant speed. I would have had a position at court for certain.” Thoresby stared into the fire. “Although these days being a rising star at court is not such an honor – it has become too easy.”

“Perhaps there is hope for my son-in-law then, eh?” Ridley said, smiling. Then he burped rather loudly.

Thoresby glanced up from his dark study of the fire.

Ridley reddened. “Pardon me, Your Grace.” He burped again.

“Was it something in the supper?”

“Nay. ’Tis every night like this. For months now.”

“Even with your good wife’s tonic?”

Ridley nodded. “You know, I sometimes have the uncharitable suspicion that some of the symptoms have worsened with her ministrations, not improved. But we have struck a delicate balance in our affections, of late, and I will do nothing to upset that.”

“The brandywine should help you digest your food.”

“It is most soothing. Most soothing.” Ridley made a little face as he fought down another burp. He rose. “Your Grace, I think it time I returned to my room at the York Tavern. It is a long journey tomorrow and, as you see, I am not as strong as I used to be.”

Thoresby accompanied Ridley to the door. Maeve brought Ridley’s cloak.

“Would you like my secretary, Brother Michaelo, to accompany you to the inn?” Thoresby offered.

Ridley looked embarrassed. “No need. Really. I am quite used to this. And the inn is so close.”

Thoresby regretted his easy acquiescence next morning when Archdeacon Jehannes stumbled upon Ridley’s body in the minster yard. “I have heard a slit throat described as the hideous grin of Death,” Jehannes said, his face gray, “and that is exactly what I thought. The eyes, staring up, the lips blue, and below them, another, unholy set of blood-red lips–” he shivered. “And a raw stump where his right hand should be.”

Thoresby led Jehannes to a chair. “Sit down. Michaelo is bringing some brandywine. Forgive me for making you speak of it. But on Ridley’s left hand – Were there two rings?”

Jehannes nodded.

Later that morning, masons working on the Lady Chapel found a bloody rag, but no hand, no jeweled rings.

Thoresby did not like it. Impossible to consider it a coincidence. Obviously, Crounce’s hand had been delivered to Ridley’s room last summer as a warning. So to whom had Ridley’s hand been delivered now? Thoresby sent for the mayor. All the bailiffs, all the guards of the city must be alerted. They must send word of any news of the hand, even rumors. He would not make the mistake of letting the murderer escape a second time.

And then the Archbishop sent for Owen Archer.

When Brother Michaelo came to the apothecary this time, Owen woke to the pounding alone. He tried to think why Lucie might have risen early, but his mind was muddled with sleep. Owen marched downstairs and dispatched Michaelo with promises to be along soon, then went in search of his wife. He found Tildy, the serving girl, fussing with the kitchen fire.

“Have you seen your mistress this morning, Tildy?”

“Out back,” Tildy said without looking up.

Owen could tell by the girl’s abruptness that she did not want to say more, that even that answer was more than she’d cared to say. Owen knew what that meant.

Outside, a wet snow fell. Owen guessed from the depth of his footprints on the stone path that it had been snowing for a few hours, but there were no earlier footprints in the snow. And yet there was Lucie, her russet cloak billowing out in the brisk wind as she knelt at her first husband’s grave. The Archbishop himself had consecrated the small plot in the back of the garden. Nicholas Wilton had been Master Apothecary, and this garden had been both his masterwork and his passion. It had been the day of the first snow two years ago when Wilton was struck down with a palsy from which he had never recovered. Lucie had been remembering Wilton lately. She said it was the time of year. Owen had tried to be patient. He had agreed to the Guild’s requirement that Lucie keep the name Wilton as long as she was an apothecary. He had agreed to the papers they’d asked him to sign, giving up any claim to the shop if Lucie should die before him. Those had been administrative details, nothing to do with his love for Lucie or hers for him. But her grieving for Nicholas tried his patience. And this was nonsense, to kneel out here for several hours in the snow.