Кэндис Робб - The Lady Chapel

“Pity she could not use her family name. I know Sir Robert D’Arby. A fine gentleman. In fact, if you wish to check my character, your wife’s father would vouch for me.” Ridley said this with pride.

“My wife’s father?”

Ridley nodded. “I procured some horses for Sir Robert during the siege of Calais. He can attest to my good character, I assure you.”

“How did you come to know Sir Robert?”

“You know how wars are waged. Deals among the nobles. They also make deals with local merchants, and vice versa. We knew trouble was coming, and it would affect us particularly, we who traded over there. I knew it was important to make a good impression on the man who might become governor of Calais, and at the time it looked to be Sir Robert D’Arby.”

Owen did not want to discuss Lucie’s family. “Master Ridley, considering the unpleasant item left in your room, I think it wise I check your packs.”

“For what?”

“Something equally unpleasant. Or harmful to you.”

Ridley blanched. “I cannot think who would want to harm me.”

“May I examine your packs?”

“Please do.”

Ridley watched Owen’s search from a comfortable spot. Owen could sense the man’s uneasiness, but could not tell whether Ridley feared what Owen would find or knew of something he did not want Owen to see. It must have been the former, because there was nothing suspicious in the pack.

Ridley looked relieved. “Perhaps the hand was just the prank of a madman.”

Owen nodded. “We should move on if we’re to reach Beverley by dusk. Will you accept my company?”

Ridley looked at his servants, idly lounging by the pack horses. One young, one grizzled, with several teeth gone. Neither trained to fight. Ridley looked back at Owen – tall, broad-shouldered, threatening. “Oh, aye. I’ll be glad of your company, Captain Archer.”

The road to Beverley wound through flat countryside rather than moorland, with little to distract the traveler but talk. Ridley rode close to Owen, reminiscing about his friendship with Crounce. Owen recognized Ridley’s need to talk of his friend, part of the ritual of mourning.

“I had looked forward to spending time with Will, now that I’ve handed the Goldbetter and Company business over to my son, Matthew.”

“You are generous to your son, giving him your business.”

“It is just part of my business.”

“Why that part?”

Ridley was quiet a while. Then, at last, he said in a voice almost drowned out by the horses, “I felt the years settling in my bones. I had built a grand house, and I wanted some time to enjoy it.”

Owen believed him, but doubted that was the whole reason.

Bess tapped Lucie on the shoulder. “You’ve not had supper, have you?”

Lucie straightened up and rubbed her eyes. She’d been working on the ledger since she had closed the shop, hoping to finish a neat copy of the list of herbs, roots, powders, and other ingredients in the shop that she’d prepared since returning from her Aunt Phillippa. “This should have been finished weeks ago, Bess. If I let it go, there’s always a danger that I will be caught without something. People’s lives depend on my records.”

“And why did Owen not make up the list while you were away?”

Lucie sighed. “He’s still learning, Bess. It was enough for him to watch the shop. And he did well. I have no complaints.”

Bess gave a disapproving sniff. “A fine time for him to take off on an adventure for the Archbishop.”

“It was not Owen’s choice.”

“Well, never mind.” Bess pushed a trencher of hard bread heaped with stew in front of Lucie, then poured ale into a large cup. “Now, then, do your best with that.”

Bess poured herself a cup and sat down opposite Lucie to make sure she ate. Lucie laughed and dipped a spoon into the stew.

“The shop was uncommonly busy today, I thought,” Bess said, resting her strong arms on the table, her sleeves still rolled up from a day’s cleaning and cooking.

Lucie nodded. “People are using any excuse they can dream up to come in and ask about the murder. They know Owen was called to the Archbishop’s palace. Which is good; Owen wanted me to find out more about the boy who witnessed the attack.”

“So what do you know?”

“That his mother, Kristine de Melton, died today. And Jasper de Melton has disappeared.”

“Why?”

“I would guess that the boy fears the murderers will come for him. Just in case he saw something.”

“In the dark?”

“If you had murdered someone, Bess, wouldn’t you try to erase your steps?”

Bess sighed. “Poor lad.”

Lucie was quiet for a time, enjoying her friend’s cooking. “I hated asking. All those years in the convent, being told over and over that gossip was a sin. I cannot do it with an easy conscience.”

Bess sniffed. “I cannot see why gossip is considered a sin. How else is a body to know what’s going on?”

Lucie smiled.

“So did anyone have an idea where the poor lad might be hiding?” Bess asked.

Lucie shook her head. “But the man I met on the road – you know, the one who helped me free the cart from the mud when I was coming back from Freythorpe Hadden – he has offered to look for the boy in the places where such orphans usually wind up.”

“The man Owen had such a fit over? The stranger with the nice voice?”

Lucie laughed at what Bess had chosen to remember. “You know, the man had mentioned Will Crounce to me on the ride that night. Told me to watch for Crounce in the Mercers’ play. At least he had a reason to ask about the death. He must have been a friend of Crounce.”

“You didn’t ask him?”

“I did, actually, but all he said was, ‘Boroughbridge is a small town.’”

“He’s a foreigner, you said?”

“His accent is odd – not quite like my mother’s, not Norman French, but more like hers than anyone’s here.”

“A Fleming, perhaps? Like those weavers who settled here under the King’s protection?”

“I’ve never spoken with them, so I couldn’t say.”

“What’s his name?”

“Martin.”

Bess winced. “Unfortunate.”

Lucie shook her head. “It is a good name, Bess. I cannot mourn my baby forever.” Lucie and her first husband had lost their only child, Martin, to the plague.

“Owen should give you a child,” Bess said.

“It’s not for want of trying that we are not yet blessed.”

Bess shrugged. “So you don’t know whence came this Martin?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Bess disapproved of so much mystery. “You invited him into your house?”

“He came into the shop, Bess, not the house.”

“What about the ride in the cart?”

Lucie looked closely at her friend. “What is this, Bess? Why all the questions? What about all the other people who asked about Will Crounce today?”

“This Martin knew Crounce before. He’s a stranger. He could be the murderer.”

“Bess, that’s nonsense. Why would he risk coming here if he were the murderer?”

“Like a moth to a flame, Lucie, my child. He wants to hear what folk have to say about his crime.”

“Why would he offer to look for Jasper de Melton?”

“I don’t know. What did he say?”

“He was out on the streets at about that age.” Lucie shoved the trencher out of her way and replaced it with the ledger. “I am busy, Bess. I have no time for any more gossip.”

Bess shook her head. “You will work yourself into an early grave, Lucie.”

Lucie looked up with a smile. “So will you, Bess.”

Bess snorted. “Aye. And I must get back to check on Tom.”

After Bess left, Lucie found it hard to focus on the ledger. It was true she felt Martin was hiding something. So why did she trust him? The question spun round and round in her head and made it impossible to work.