The Riddle Of St Leonard's

Eighteen

With Simon, the York Tavern’s groom, as an armed escort, Bess Merchet set forth from Bootham Bar, north through the Forest of Galtres, to Easingwold. She had delayed the journey, waiting for a day that dawned clear with a brisk north wind. Some said the south wind brought pestilence, so she had deemed it wise to stay within the city walls, which she believed afforded a goodly protection, as much as possible. Tom, always contrary, had pointed out to her that if the walls afforded protection then the southerly wind theory could not be true, else how were folk dying who never ventured from the city. As if Bess believed that God had chosen only one avenue by which His wrath might reach the people, or claimed that it was a proven cause! But she would be a fool to ignore any theory that struck her as possibly true.

Once in the village of Easingwold it was easy to find Peter de Hotter’s shop. He sat outside, with his awning and counter down, rolls of cloth displayed. But rather than seeing to customers, of which he had none at the moment, he was mending a stool.

‘God go with you, Master Hotter.’

The man glanced up, squinting into the sunlight. ‘Do I know-’ His face suddenly brightened. ‘Mistress Merchet. What coaxed you out of the city? The fine day? A thought to escape the sickness out here in the countryside?’

‘You bring me here.’ She bent close to add softly, ‘I would speak with you about your father’s death.’

Peter dropped his tool on to the stool, placed both on the counter and rose. He was a square, fleshy man, about Bess’s height. His eyes, so close to hers, were dark, wary points beneath pale brows. ‘What is your interest in my father’s death?’

Bess glanced round. ‘Do you have an apprentice who might watch the shop for a time so that we might talk elsewhere? Where none might hear?’

The merchant moved not a muscle. ‘What is your interest?’

‘Well, now. I should think you would not mind remembering your dear father.’

‘I do not mind. What I want to know is why you are so keen to speak of him with me that you leave your place of business and come through Galtres to do so. ’Tis not everyone’s choice for a summer’s day, and in these times.’

His surliness bespoke poor business. Peter had been much pleasanter in the city. Bess revised her approach. ‘My uncle, also a corrodian of St Leonard’s, died recently.’

Peter did not relax. ‘So the count is at six corrodians now.’

‘Aye.’

He shook his head, walked over to the counter, picked up the abandoned stool, resumed his seat. ‘My father surprised a burglar is all. It has naught to do with the others.’

‘You are tallying the deaths, all the same.’

‘I have heard the rumours. Idle gossip, if you ask me. The canons were good to my father. I will not believe ill of them.’

‘They say you found nothing missing.’

‘We have finished our discussion, Mistress Merchet. I would ask you to buy something or leave.’

Bess fingered the cloth. Tattered at the edge, dusty. ‘You should reopen the shop in York, Master Hotter. Even with the pestilence upon us our trade is better than this.’

Peter bent back to his mending. ‘I shall bide my time, Mistress Merchet.’

Such discourtesy did not deserve reward. Bess departed empty-handed, and angry to have risked her health and lost a morning for naught. It was no wonder Owen resented the archbishop for assigning him such tasks.

Ravenser crushed the letter from his uncle while muttering a few choice curses. How much of a fool did Thoresby think him? See to your affairs … Remember your reputation and that of your family … The Queen’s trust … Do all you can to assist Archer in his efforts … Dispatch this affair quickly, the Queen has need of you …

That Thoresby should think it necessary to write such things to him, he who was trusted with Queen’s Phillippa’s purse, and Queen Isabella’s before her! Why had he ridden to York and asked for Archer’s assistance if not because he understood the necessity of ensuring that the name of Ravenser be unblemished?

And yet … He had awakened in the night with the memory of something he had neglected to tell Archer. He shouted for Douglas.

A cup of ale in hand, Owen paced back and forth in Ravenser’s garden. He had just wasted precious time with the master’s servants attempting to draw out memories of an intruder, an unexpected visitor, someone who might have slipped away with the chess set and the candlesticks. But no one remembered anything out of the ordinary, which Douglas had implied was quite typical of servants. Magda would have laughed at the ‘rule’, but Owen had merely asked for some ale to wet his throat before he’d turned his thoughts to something that he hoped would prove more enlightening — the shed behind the Barnhous. When Douglas had seen him pacing the hall, he had invited him to stroll in the garden.

The master’s garden was an enclosed herber, the stone wall almost Owen’s height. Within, tidy herbal borders outlined lovingly tended roses and a small lawn. The sanded path that Owen strode lay between matching arbours, one of which at the moment framed Richard de Ravenser, looking livelier than he had the previous day. Perhaps it was his deep blue houppelande and green leggings. Owen thought it rather elegant dress for a hospital master.

‘Benedicte, Captain. Fortune places you here in my garden.’

‘Benedicte, Sir Richard. I fear it is frustration, not fortune that drove me here.’

Ravenser sighed in insincere sympathy. ‘The servants were unhelpful. I have heard. But perhaps I might ease your mood. I have remembered something that I am quite embarrassed to have neglected to tell you.’

‘I am eager to hear something of use.’

‘I cannot promise that it will be of use; but I am not the one to judge. Shall we sit?’ Ravenser had paused beside a turf seat.

Owen accepted the invitation, his curiosity roused, and the pacing and the ale having done their trick of easing his mood.

Ravenser tucked the ends of his houppelande in his belt, sat down, glanced round with a proud smile. ‘A lovely garden is it not? I understand that you have a physicks garden that apothecaries come to study.’

‘Aye. It was my wife’s first husband’s masterwork. She has continued to collect seeds and cuttings from the continent.’

‘Mistress Wilton’s feverfew tisane has no match in all the kingdom.’

Owen knew Ravenser spoke from experience. He was one of their best customers for the headache remedy, ordering large quantities whenever he came to the city. ‘I shall tell her you said so. What was it that you wished to tell me?’

Ravenser smiled. ‘I see that you are anxious to continue. I shall be brief. It is about Laurence de Warrene. I often played chess with him when in residence at St Leonard’s.’ Ravenser proceeded to tell Owen of the evening when Laurence had posed the riddle, and how worried Julian Taverner had been that Ravenser might have repeated it to someone.

How might one unwittingly commit a sin? If none suffer but the guilty, has a wrong been done? Owen had never heard a riddle quite like it — it had no rhyme, and it likely had no answer. ‘Why do you call it a riddle?’

‘What would you call it?’

‘Questions, simply posed.’

Ravenser shook his head. ‘Laurence seemed quite uninterested in my opinion. Besides, being a collector of riddles, I know they come in many forms.’

A collector of riddles? What idleness was this? But Ravenser awaited more discussion. Owen focused his gaze on a rose, thought a while. ‘With two orbs shot wolves and men. With one reveals men’s dangerous secrets,’ he said.

Ravenser shook his head in puzzlement.

‘That is a riddle, Sir Richard.’

The master frowned over it, then brightened. ‘Owen Archer.’ He nodded with approval. ‘Delightful. Let me see-’ Ravenser now gazed out across the garden. ‘Image of a greater man, shared blood, yet melancholic where he is sanguine.’

Well, Owen had not meant to begin a game, but it proved an interesting exercise. ‘You are melancholic?’

‘My physician tells me that is the cause of my headaches.’

‘But you do see the difference? How a riddle’s key is a word, not a yes, or no, or a philosophical discourse on guilt?’

Ravenser was not convinced. ‘Had Laurence desired advice, he would have asked more directly. Our evenings were quite companionable.’

Owen grew weary of Ravenser. ‘I thank you for telling me of it, Sir Richard. Would you object to my looking round one of the sheds behind the Barnhous?’

Pursed lips, as if suppressing a smile. ‘Do not tell me you suspect one of the children? Or Dame Beatrice?’

‘I observed your cellarer in there last night. He went in with a bundle, departed empty-handed, and his behaviour was that of someone anxious not to be seen.’

Ravenser looked suddenly anxious. ‘Don Cuthbert is troublesome but trustworthy, Captain. I have ever considered him so.’ He paused. ‘Still. Why would he use a shed so far from his cell?’

‘That is what I should like to find out.’

‘I pray you, proceed.’

Owen’s request flustered sweet-faced Dame Beatrice. ‘Do you fear someone has left something dangerous in there? Sweet Jesu.’ She crossed herself, blinked rapidly. ‘Shall I take the children to the yard?’ Her colour was rising.

‘I pray you, do not be alarmed. It has naught to do with the children, or danger. Is it a shed that you use?’

‘Yes. Yes, indeed, we do. The children’s possessions — gifts, some items their mothers brought to the hospital …’ The sister broke off abruptly, frowning down at her folded hands.

‘Then you do not mind-’

Dame Beatrice shook her bowed head. ‘That odd child. Whatever shall we do with her?’

‘About my searching the shed …’

The gentle eyes met his. ‘Forgive me. But then, you might be of help with her. She tells me that she knows you.’

‘Who?’

‘Alisoun Ffulford.’

He had forgotten that he had seen them together in the yard earlier. ‘I buried her family. That is all. She is giving you trouble?’

‘She wishes to stay here. Don Cuthbert has granted permission, though reluctantly.’

‘But she has kin.’

‘None with whom she chooses to live.’

‘She is a wilful child.’

‘Heaven forgive my saying so, but she is, she is, Captain. A pouch heavy with the Lord only knows what and she will not let me put it in the shed.’

‘Two items will be a bow and a quiver of arrows, I have no doubt.’

The sister looked dismayed. ‘And what is a child doing with such a weapon?’

‘Defending herself.’

‘From whom, for pity’s sake!’

‘Might I search the shed, sister?’

‘Yes, of course. You are a busy man and I am keeping you. You are welcome to it.’

‘Would you be so kind as to accompany me? You might quickly see whether anything is there that should not be.’

‘Oh, indeed.’

When they stepped into the dark shed, Owen opened the shutter on the lantern he carried and despaired. Though it was a small shed, it was crammed from ground to sloping roof with barrels, crates, and on top of these bundles of cloth and leather, some hides. Don Cuthbert was short. Where might he have hidden something?

As if hearing his silent question, Dame Beatrice reached into the darkness behind the door and dragged out a ladder. ‘Are you looking for something as large as a barrel or crate?’ she asked, suddenly all business.

‘No. A pouch, mayhap. The size of a folded blanket.’

The nun squared her shoulders, gazed upwards. ‘Catch me if I totter, Captain.’ And up she went with the lantern in one hand, her skirt clenched in the other. ‘Goodness, the cobwebs. Saint Antony, I pray thee guide me.’ She poked about, then suddenly, ‘Ah. This is unfamiliar.’ She turned round, handed down the lantern, then a substantial leather pouch. ‘Would this be it, then?’

Owen set it down on the ground, unbuckled the strap, discovered medicines, a crucifix, candles … Brother Wulfstan’s stolen bag? He did not understand how it came to be here. ‘I believe it may be. St Antony has worked a miracle.’

Dame Beatrice had climbed down and was brushing off her skirts. ‘It is a rare day he disappoints me.’

Now to find out how the bag came into Don Cuthbert’s possession. And why he had hidden it.

Owen met Don Cuthbert in the church nave. The cellarer glanced at the bag, sniffed, raised his protruding eyes to Owen. ‘It is the sort of bag one might expect you to carry.’

‘Aye, but it is not mine. It belongs to the infirmarian of St Mary’s, from whom it was stolen.’

‘Stolen?’

‘Even so. And what I am wondering is how did you come to be hiding it in the shed?’

Don Cuthbert’s delicate fingers fluttered as he rose to his toes. ‘I have thought from the first she was trouble.’ His pointed teeth were bared in a smile.

‘She?’

The cellarer glanced round the shadowy nave, leaned closer. ‘Anneys. One of our lay sisters. I found her clutching it in my garden.’

Anneys. The woman who had distracted Owen from his watch. ‘She brought it to you?’

‘No, she did not. Indeed she gave it me unwillingly.’

‘Then you hid it in the shed behind the infirmary, by the Barnhous?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘I followed you when you crept away from the chapel.’ And had Anneys also followed? Owen had assumed she had come from the children’s refectory. But had she? ‘Why did you hide it?’

‘You know better than I how dangerous physicks can be in the wrong hands. I thought it best to hide them until I might discover to whom they belonged.’

‘Anneys works in the infirmary, does she not?’

Cuthbert held himself very still. ‘The lay sisters work where they are needed. But she is a favourite in the infirmary. Calm, with steady hands.’

‘Is she not entrusted with physicks in her work?’

Owen watched with interest as the cellarer realised his faulty logic. A mere ripple in the brow, averted eyes.

‘Yes. She is indeed entrusted with physicks in her work.’

‘Then why did you feel these particular physicks dangerous in her possession?’

Cuthbert pushed his hands up his sleeves, looked down at the floor. ‘You will think me a fool, Captain. But I see that I am not clever enough to dissemble with you. So I shall speak plain. I envied you when Sir Richard told me you were to help him discover what is amiss at St Leonard’s. When I saw the bag, I presumed it was yours. And thus I hid it. To spite you.’

The candour silenced both of them for a time. They stood facing one another yet not looking each other in the eye. Owen leaned against a pillar, stared off into the shadows. Cuthbert rocked back and forth on his small feet and studied the floor.

And yet it seemed an oddly companionable silence to Owen. At last he said, ‘Thank you for telling me. You have saved me from rushing down the wrong path.’

Cuthbert rose to the tips of his toes, then settled. ‘I wish to help the master, Captain.’

‘Dame Beatrice mentioned that you have agreed to take in a child, Alisoun Ffulford.’

‘Ah, yes. The orphan.’

‘But one with kin.’

‘Her mother grew up in the Barnhous, Captain. The girl says her mother urged her to come here. How could I send her away? But you can be sure I shall alert her kin to her whereabouts.’

‘Mistress Ffulford was an orphan?’

‘I do not remember the details, Captain. But yes, she married from here.’

Interesting. ‘I would speak with Anneys.’

‘Shall I have her summoned now?’

‘If you would be so kind. And while we wait for her, would you describe for me the wounds you saw on Masters Taverner and Warrene?’

Anneys had bold eyes and a confident bearing. Once again she struck Owen as an unlikely servant. But she had evidently come at once, and she thanked Don Cuthbert most courteously for offering to leave them alone to talk. Owen had purposefully left Wulfstan’s bag in sight. Now the woman gazed at it with interest.

‘You have seen this before?’

She turned to Owen. ‘Captain, it is obvious that Don Cuthbert told you he found me with this in his garden.’

Clever woman to begin so. ‘He did.’

‘He did not believe me when I told him I had found it there.’

‘As simple as that? You saw no one with it?’

‘I saw no one.’

‘Don Cuthbert tells me you were reluctant to give him the bag.’

‘Indeed. He does not work with the sick. I thought it best to take it to the infirmary.’

A familiar argument, though this time it seemed more likely to be true. Owen was about to release Anneys when something occurred to him. ‘It would not be customary for a lay sister or brother to walk in the cellarer’s garden. How came you there?’

Hands clenched, head bowed. ‘I had been sitting with a child who is dying, Captain. Not of pestilence. A brain fever. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to watch a child sink deeper and deeper towards death.’ She was silent a moment. ‘I wished to walk somewhere lovely. I wished to be alone. I wandered into the garden.’ She raised her eyes to him. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

‘God go with you.’

It was difficult for Owen to think about his work as he walked to St Mary’s postern gate. All he wanted to do was ride for Freythorpe Hadden and see with his own eye that his children were safe and well. He left Brother Wulfstan’s bag with the porter, with a message requesting that the infirmarian examine the bag and let him know what, if anything, was missing.

And then, without planning it, Owen delivered himself to the minster, where he knelt down before the lady altar to pray for his family, for Lucie as well as the children. Each night she crawled into bed exhausted, yet she slept only fitfully, worrying about the children. Owen feared that in her weak state she would succumb more readily to melancholy, and thence to illness.

When prayer had quieted his mind, he left the great cathedral and headed home. As he walked, he wondered how he was ever to unravel all that he had learned and choose what was of use. As he went through the day, he discovered much to question. How had a stranger found his way into the cellarer’s garden? Had Anneys been following Don Cuthbert? Why had Cuthbert not believed her? Why had Alisoun Ffulford chosen St Leonard’s?

Kate greeted Owen at the door with the news that Gilbert awaited him in the garden, with news of the children.

Gilbert dined with Owen and Lucie, who plied him with queries about Gwenllian and Hugh, most of which he could not answer. After Gilbert had taken his leave, Owen asked Lucie to withdraw to the garden with him.

As they walked along the paths, he recounted his day, hoping she might see what he could not. The riddle play amused her.

‘How clever of you. Do you mean to try that on all those you question?’

‘Do you think that I should?’

‘You learned something about Ravenser you had not known.’

‘Melancholic. It is not difficult to see. But do you think Thoresby sanguine?’

Lucie squeezed his arm. ‘I daresay few would be so quick to think of a riddle describing themselves.’

‘I might silence them for good.’

They laughed, then grew quiet.

‘Owen, my love. What of this child? Does it not seem that God is keen to cross your paths?’

‘Or the Devil.’

‘Is she that unlovable?’

‘Do you not think it odd that they admitted her without a sponsor, a gift to the hospital …’

‘You said she had a pack with which she was loath to part.’

‘She carried something with which she might pay her way?’

‘It is possible. Perhaps she sold the nag.’

Owen stopped, gathered Lucie in his arms. ‘You are weary and I have burdened you with my troubles.’

‘Not at all, my love. You have distracted me with riddles. I am grateful for that. It is far too quiet in our home at present.’

Kate found them after sunset, Owen sitting with his back against a tree, Lucie with her head on his lap, both soundly asleep.