Кэндис Робб - The Lady Chapel

“Lucie, for pity’s sake, what are you doing?”

She looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed. “I could not sleep.”

“You’ve noticed the snow, have you?”

“Of course I have.” Her eyes challenged him to say more.

He knew better. He changed the subject. “I’ve been called to the Archbishop’s palace. Another murder in the minster yard.”

“Then you must go to him.” Lucie’s voice held no affection, no regret that he must go out so early on an errand that would no doubt mean he must go away.

Owen did not have fond memories of Lucie’s first husband. He did not understand Lucie’s continued affection for the man. Nicholas had not deserved her. Not that Owen felt himself worthy of Lucie’s love, but he trusted he was more deserving than Nicholas.

“Will you come in with me and share some ale or hot wine before I go?”

Lucie nodded, crossed herself, rose to accompany Owen back into the house. As they walked back through the garden, Lucie caught Owen’s elbow. “I do not mean to hurt you.”

Owen pulled her to him and hugged her hard. It was enough to know that she cared how he felt.

Archbishop Thoresby sat at a polished table, a scroll curling beneath his hands. “A generous gift to my Lady Chapel. But my benefactor was murdered last night, Archer. I need you again.”

“I do not like to leave Lucie at this time of year, Your Grace,” Owen said. “This morning she was kneeling in the snow at Wilton’s grave. I curse the day you agreed to consecrate that grave in the garden. It stirs up morbid humours.”

Thoresby shrugged. “At the moment, Wilton’s grave is not heavy on my mind. Ridley’s murder is. He was my guest last night. He left here feeling ill, and I let him go alone. He was murdered exactly as Crounce was. It was no accident. Someone waited for Ridley. This was planned. And this time we must find the murderer.”

“Have you learned anything new? We came up with nothing last time.”

“There is one thing. Ridley had changed since Crounce’s death. His body had gone from barrel-like to skeletal, his disposition from arrogant to humble.”

Owen thought about that. “Fear can rob one of sleep and appetite.”

Thoresby shrugged. “Poison can have a similar effect.”

Owen nodded.

“Perhaps Cecilia Ridley will know something,” Thoresby said. “She was dosing him. I want you to go tell her of her husband’s death. Before she has had time to talk to anyone else. Ask her who might have killed her husband.”

“A churchman should tell her. Not a soldier.”

“You are no longer a soldier.”

“I look like one. With this patch and scar–” Owen shook his head. “I am not the person for this task.”

“I would send Archdeacon Jehannes, but I cannot spare him at the moment. Besides, Cecilia Ridley has met you.”

“Aye, and bad news it was I brought that time. She’ll think me the messenger of Death.”

“Does that disturb you?”

“That is not what most disturbs me.”

“And what is that?”

“Leaving Lucie right now.”

Thoresby waved the argument away with brusque impatience. “Perhaps your wife would like the privacy to mourn Wilton.”

That stung. “She has all the privacy she wants.”

“Marriage is not the Heaven you imagined it.”

“I have no regrets, Your Grace,” Owen said.

The eyebrows raised. “Indeed? Then you are most fortunate. In any case, I want you to go to Beverley. Cecilia Ridley has met you, she did not seem unfriendly toward you, you are precisely the person who should go. I have written a letter of condolence to Cecilia Ridley. Michaelo will give it to you. Two of my men will accompany you.”

“Two men? Most generous, Your Grace.”

“You are becoming arrogant, Archer.”

“I am beginning to find the routine tedious.”

Owen took two days riding to Riddlethorpe. He wished he might have done it in one, but the weather and the short days prevented it. By the time the manor’s half-timbered gatehouse was in sight, Owen was sorely tired of his companions and their offensive prattle. He wondered whether he and his comrades in arms had been like them, or whether Alfred and Colin were particularly oafish. They ached for a fight, bragged about every scar and broken bone, referred to women by their private parts. If this is what Owen had been like when he first rode into York, it was a wonder that Lucie had ever talked to him. He began to understand why she had such an abiding distaste for soldiers.

When the elderly gatekeeper waved them into the yard at Riddlethorpe, Owen dismounted and left Alfred and Colin to see to the horses. “Then find the kitchen and stay there,” he ordered. He could not risk their upsetting Cecilia Ridley. The news he brought was itself too awful.

Fear shone in Cecilia Ridley’s eyes as Owen crossed the hall to where she stood by the hearth. “Captain Archer.” She glanced behind Owen, checking to see whether she was mistaken and he was not alone. But he was. “Something has happened to Gilbert?”

“Please, Mistress Ridley, sit down.” Owen motioned for a servant to bring wine.

Cecilia Ridley caught the gesture and folded her tall frame into a chair with the clumsiness of one suddenly disoriented. She placed her white hands one on top of the other in her lap, and then looked up at Owen, her eyes frightened. “Something has happened to Gilbert.”

“Your husband is dead.”

Cecilia jerked as if Owen had hit her. Then she made the sign of the cross and bowed her head. “He had been ill,” she said softly. Without a word, the servant placed a cup of wine in her mistress’s hands.

“He did not sicken, Mistress Ridley. He was murdered.”

She looked up at Owen, shook her head. “No. He has been ill.”

“He was murdered in the same way as Will Crounce. The throat, the hand.”

Cecilia’s eyes widened at that. “The same as Will? It was not illness?” She lifted the cup to her lips, paused. “Are you certain of that?”

“Quite certain.”

She drank. “But he had been ill.”

Owen was familiar with shock from his life at war. Cecilia Ridley’s insistence on her husband’s illness was a sign of it. The Archbishop had said Ridley was ill and that Mistress Ridley had been dosing him. Perhaps she had not wanted her husband to go on the journey.

“He had dined with the Archbishop,” Owen said. “Someone waylaid him in the minster yard.”

Cecilia Ridley frowned. “But it is guarded.”

“The gates to the minster close are guarded, as they were when Crounce was attacked. But many people live inside the walls. Others come and go so regularly the guards think nothing of letting them pass.”

“Gilbert carried a large sum of money.”

“That had already been left with the Archbishop.”

Cecilia Ridley studied Owen’s face. “So you think that someone set out to murder both Will and Gilbert?”

“Yes.”

She looked down at her hands and was quiet for a few minutes. “Gilbert’s finding Will’s hand was a warning, then.”

“Or a threat.”

“Who” – she swallowed – “who found Gilbert’s hand?”

“No one so far.”

She nodded, still keeping her eyes down. “Where is his body?”

“Archbishop Thoresby has arranged for it to be brought to you under guard.”

She nodded.

“Mistress Ridley, this illness of your husband’s, how and when did it strike him?”

Her deep-set eyes widened, her hands played with her keys. “When? Well, I” – she shrugged – “I cannot say.”

“The Archbishop said your husband took a physick you had prepared.”

A nervous hand flew to her neck. “Gilbert told His Grace about that?”