A Choir of Crows

3 Sanctuary

As Owen stoked the kitchen fire he heard the maidservant stirring on her small bed behind the corner screen. Before she could ask, he said, ‘Hugh’s fever broke in the night. All three children are now on the mend.’

‘God be praised.’ Kate’s voice broke with emotion.

The children’s illness had spread so quickly from Gwen to Emma to Hugh that their nursemaid had fled, certain it was pestilence, the memory of nursing her mother the past summer only to lose her and her brother too recent. I cannot bear to watch the children die. No matter that Owen’s wife Lucie, an apothecary, assured her it was catarrh, that the healer Magda Digby agreed. Lena could not be consoled. Truth be told, they had all worried that the worst might happen. But Lena’s panic had silenced the rest. No one dared breathe their worry, for fear it might somehow conjure the death. Kate’s tears – he now heard her weeping – were no surprise to Owen. He, too, had wept for joy.

‘No need to rise just yet,’ he said. ‘Your mistress and the children are asleep. Only Alisoun and I are wakeful.’

Magda Digby had suggested that her apprentice Alisoun Ffulford bide with them as long as they needed her. Formerly nursemaid to the two eldest, she was a favorite. She had swept into the nursery with a basketful of remedies and treats, humming as she assisted Lucie and Owen with calm competence and singing to the children as she rocked them to sleep. The songs were familiar to Gwen and Hugh from their earlier years, inspiring comforting memories for all in the house. Gwen gamely attempted to croak along though she must all too often stop and gasp for air, unable to breathe through her swollen nose. When Emma’s fever broke, her first conscious act was to giggle at the sounds coming from her big sister. Alisoun seemed able to go without sleep for days, giving Lucie time to rest. All in the household trusted her, even Owen, who had found her difficult in the past.

But even Alisoun could not hasten the children’s recovery, could not allay their worry. The dread of pestilence was ever-present. Lucie and her first husband had lost their only child to the scourge.

Hours earlier, in the haunted time before dawn, Owen had held his son, his face buried in the boy’s fiery hair, praying for God to spare Hugh. ‘Take me, O Lord, take me.’ When the boy wriggled in his arms, Owen had tightened his grip, thinking he had gone limp and was slipping from his arms.

‘Da.’ The sound was little more than a sigh. But then damp fingers touched Owen’s cheek. Opening his one good eye, he found his son watching him. ‘Thirsty,’ Hugh lisped. Was there ever such a wonderful sound as his son’s voice? Ever such a tender touch?

Owen had called for Lucie, and she was at his elbow in a heartbeat, cup in hand, whispering endearments as tears fell down her cheeks.

‘Is Hugh awake?’ Gwen had whispered from her cot.

‘Yes, my sweet,’ Alisoun said. ‘His fever has broken.’

A moment so precious …

A knock on the door startled Owen from his thoughts. Wiping both his eyes – even the sightless one shed tears – he resettled the patch over his left eye and rose, crossing the room in a few strides.

Kate slipped out from behind the screen. ‘That might be Mistress Merchet with bread and ale. She’s brought them every day since the children fell ill.’

Opening the door, Owen began to announce the news and stopped. It was not Bess Merchet, but Brother Michaelo and someone swathed in a cloak, leaning heavily against the monk for support.

‘Forgive me, Captain,’ said Michaelo, breathless.

‘God’s blood, Michaelo, you are not bringing sickness into our home?’

‘I would not have come, but the precentor insisted you hold this poor pilgrim until–’ His companion began to slide out of his grasp, the hood falling away to reveal a fair young woman.

‘What madness is this?’ Owen muttered as he caught her up in his arms and carried her to a pallet that Kate had already retrieved from the corner and was piling with cushions.

‘Poor woman. Ale or broth?’ Kate asked as she helped Owen peel away the damp cloak and remove the woman’s boots.

‘Brandywine, then broth.’

Owen studied the woman. Worn boots, much-mended stockings, and tunic – a man’s tunic, her fair hair cut short. Her eyelids flickered now and then, and when Owen first began removing her boots she had kicked out, but his whispered reassurances quieted her. Or she was too weak to continue struggling. He noted that her stockings were surprisingly wet, the dampness elsewhere on her clothes. An icy draft reminded him of Michaelo, who still stood in the doorway.

‘You do me no favor sharing the fire with the garden. Step inside and close the door. Did you walk her here?’

‘No. Pulled her on a stoneworkers’ sledge. I left it in the tavern yard.’

While Michaelo fussed with his boots, Owen tucked blankets around the woman and debated whether to call for Lucie or Alisoun. But his wife was finally enjoying some much-needed rest, and Alisoun had charge of the children. Kate knelt to the woman with a bowl and spoon.

‘She has been passing for a man?’ he asked as the monk came to crouch beside him.

‘She is as you see. Captain, I would not have brought her here – your children – but her disguise fooled the others and – I sensed a desperation.’

‘Hugh’s fever has broken. Lucie is resting at last, as I soon hoped to be.’

‘Forgive me.’

‘You said the precentor says I am to hold her?’

‘Master Adam. Yes.’

‘Why? And by what authority?’

‘It is a long story.’

Owen rose. ‘Let us leave Kate to her task.’ Noticing how the monk winced as he tried to rise, Owen reached down to assist him. ‘She struggled?’

‘No, but she is so weak that she was of little help moving down the aisle and out of the minster. I did not want Theo or Master Adam’s clerks to assist. As I said, I thought it best they continue to think her a young man.’

‘The minster?’ Fetching the jug of ale and bowls, Owen sat down beside Michaelo, near enough to the fire, but far enough from the young woman that they might not disturb her. ‘Begin at the beginning.’ He poured for both of them.

‘Where to begin?’ Michaelo sat quietly for a moment, then described his night with the dying woman, Magda’s belated arrival, the walk home, the men’s shouts, the woman’s singing.

The tale raised many questions, but Owen allowed him to finish, and then said nothing for a few moments, ordering his thoughts. Difficult after days with little sleep. The men’s shouts – so at least one of the deaths might have occurred before Michaelo and Theo entered the chapter house.

‘Adam thinks the woman did all this? Murdered a vicar in the minster yard, entered the chapter house, climbed the steps, pushed someone off the roof, or the other way round, and then burst into song?’ A clever ruse if one had the strength. But the woman could not keep her eyes open. Had she induced the stupor?

‘Struggling with someone up on the roof – he implied she might have fought someone off. So fair …’

‘You think the vicar might be Ronan? What do you know of him?’

‘A piece I forgot. Before I went to Mary Garrett I saw him in the minster with a stranger.’

Owen listened with interest as Michaelo described the exchange of cloaks. Neville’s vicar and a stranger. ‘Was Ronan wearing the cloak when murdered?’

‘I do not know. Nor am I certain it was he.’ Michaelo had stared down at his cup while he gave his account. Now he sat up sharp. ‘She asked if Master Ambrose sent me.’

‘Ambrose?’ Why did the name take him back to the description of the fine cloak? ‘Tell me again about Ronan’s encounter. Everything you can recall about the stranger.’

Michaelo described the flowing white hair, the cloak in detail.

‘French, you thought?’

Michaelo smiled. ‘Not a thought. I know the fine tailoring of my country of birth.’ He was of a noble Norman family, a point of pride. ‘Yet he seemed familiar. Something in the way he moved, how he gestured with his hands. Beautiful hands. One can see he takes good care of them. Pale leather gloves.’

Beautiful hands. Gloves. A man who had been in France. The name. Owen felt the familiar shower of needle pricks across his blind eye. But this morning it was hardly a premonition of trouble to come – trouble was here. And he believed he might know this Ambrose, an old acquaintance who had of late resided at the French court.

‘Who is this?’ Lucie spoke from the doorway to the hall.

Owen rose. ‘Forgive us for waking you.’

‘I heard chatter down in the street. A death at the minster. A vicar?’

‘Two deaths,’ said Owen. ‘The vicar apparently murdered, the other fallen from the chapter-house roof.’

Lucie crossed herself and greeted Michaelo, who had risen and now bowed and apologized for the early call. Owen noticed that she did not assure him that it was never too early to call. Not a good sign. Wrapped in a heavy mantle, she had paused in the doorway, observing them with eyes bruised with worry and exhaustion. ‘And our guest?’ Her voice lacked warmth, as did her eyes as she joined Owen on the bench. He offered her his untouched cup of ale. She took a drink. ‘Who is she?’

‘We do not know. Michaelo found her locked in the chapter house.’

‘Did he?’ She rose, asked Michaelo to excuse them for a moment, and motioned to Owen to follow her to the hall.

As soon as the door closed behind them, she demanded he tell her what she had missed.

‘You are angry,’ he said.

‘Not yet.’

He told her all she had missed, then waited as she paced to the garden window and stood facing out. A decade of loving her had him tuned to her moods, the clues in her posture, her breath, even where she chose to stand – or sit. When at last she turned to him he was not surprised by her stiffened jaw, the hot spark in her eyes.

‘Our children are on the mend, yes, but they are weak and only beginning to heal, we have lost our nurse, we are both weary to the bone, as is Jasper, who has been sole apothecary in the shop for days while winter ailments spread through the city. Why did Brother Michaelo agree to bring her here when he knows how it goes with us? What right has a minster canon to order you to take responsibility for this woman?’

All good questions. Owen sat down on a bench at the bottom of the steps to the solar, put his head in his hands. God help him, why was he even considering sheltering the young woman?

‘When I carried her in, something …’ He shook his head. ‘She is so weak.’

With a sigh, Lucie joined him. ‘Mother in heaven, is this the moment you have chosen to test what Magda calls your clear-seeing?’

Was it? He thought not. ‘You are clear-seeing. God woke you to wake me from my confusion. You are right to question my judgment.’ He straightened with a sigh. ‘I promised nothing. Yet. But that was my intent. And now, hearing your questions, I wonder whether lack of sleep has robbed me of all wit.’

‘Yet she is here, and neither of us is so cold-hearted as to send her away.’ She took his hand, pressed it to her cheek, looking into his eye.

‘No, though I would have it otherwise this once.’

‘We would not wish to be otherwise, my love. Do you sense harm in her?’

‘How can I know? She sleeps. I have not even seen her eyes.’ He rested his forehead on Lucie’s head a moment, searching his thoughts. There was something, but did it come from her? ‘I sense a void, as if she has lost everything. Yet there is a spark in her, warmth, steadfastness. How I see this I cannot say. Nor do I know whether to trust it.’

When Lucie did not respond, Owen straightened, found her watching him with a slight smile. ‘I will watch and listen, and see whether I agree with you and Michaelo.’

‘Do you think he, too, senses it?’

‘He would not have risked your ire if he did not.’

He wished he might scoop her up and take her to bed. His mind traveled back over the long days and nights, the pain of watching their precious children struggling for breath, the constant coughing, the nightmares. ‘You must sleep.’

‘You as well, my love. The time will come. For now we must return to the kitchen. Perhaps when she is dressed in something more appropriate she will seem less strange to me. If you would carry her up to my aunt’s bedchamber.’

Her elderly aunt had resided with them until her death in the summer.

‘Are you certain?’

‘She will be safe there.’

They had barred the small window and put an outer lock on the door to keep her elderly aunt from wandering at night.

‘Bless you,’ he whispered as he followed her back to the kitchen.

The monk nodded by the fire. Owen need not disturb him until he had moved the woman up to the solar.

She roused a little as he lifted her. ‘God help me,’ she moaned.

Lucie touched her cheek. ‘You are safe here. We are taking you up to a bed in our solar, next to the children’s bedchamber. Sleep. Heal.’

A tear coursed from the woman’s eye to her temple as she fought to open her eyes. For a breath she succeeded, gazing up at Owen, then Lucie. The palest blue. ‘Who …?’ Her eyes closed and she went limp. Owen carried her up to the small chamber, holding her until Lucie drew down the blankets, then setting her on the soft mattress.

‘Go back to Michaelo, find out all that he knows. I will undress her,’ said Lucie.

‘Shall I send Kate up to help?’

‘No need. I grew accustomed to this with Aunt Philippa at the end.’

Owen kissed her forehead and withdrew with a whispered thanks.

Michaelo started awake as Owen eased down beside him. ‘The woman. Where–?’

‘Up in the solar where she will be safe and at ease.’ Owen took a long drink of ale. ‘Here is the problem. I am no longer the keeper of the peace in the minster liberty. The dean and chapter still resent me for acting as such under Thoresby’s charge, so I must have a care. Now if they should come to me, request my aid, I will assist them. Until then, for the safety of my family, I need to learn what I can about the young woman and why she is in York.’

Owen had of late assumed two roles, one as Prince Edward’s spy in the North, and one as the captain of the city bailiffs, called on to resolve incidents requiring the skills he had honed as Archbishop Thoresby’s spy – crimes of a complex and violent nature, crimes that might endanger the city at large, or the realm. Both the prince and the mayor and aldermen welcomed the dual role, as, to his surprise, did Owen. After a year of mourning John Thoresby, he had undertaken an investigation at the request of an influential family in York. He’d been startled by the ease with which he resumed the work. He had missed it. But without the authority and connections to power that the archbishop had conferred on him, he had felt at sea.

As the prince’s eye and ears in the North, Owen was expected to provide regular reports to the royal household, which required a secretary. And who better for the job than the late archbishop’s personal secretary, Brother Michaelo? What Owen had not expected was Michaelo’s keen powers of observation.

‘I pray you, tell me all that you have noted about her,’ said Owen.

Michaelo took a drink of the ale he had set aside. ‘She was singing a particular hymn for Advent,’ he said. ‘Missus est Angelus Gabriel. That and how she holds herself – I believe that she is either a professed nun or at the least convent-educated. How she phrased the lyrics – she understood the words, took care to express the meaning. What I am trying to say is that the song has become a part of her, as if she has sung it many times. I do believe she has taken vows.’

‘Do you think we can trust her?’

‘I cannot say. I know too little. But it was plain when I found her in the chapter house that she was frightened. Not of me, but – someone lurking above?’ He paused, as if deciding whether or not to mention something. ‘She said she’d slept there, curled up, afraid, but her clothing was wet, and she had smudges of mud and perhaps blood on her face, hands – I thought she might have fallen. But I noticed nothing that might account for her sudden weakness.’

‘Lucie will be able to tell us of any wounds and other injuries. She told you someone was above?’

Michaelo considered. ‘No, it was Theo. He thought he heard something. But the knife. I forgot the knife.’ He drew a dagger out of his sleeve and handed it to Owen.

‘You forgot something like that up your sleeve?’

‘I often carry things there.’

Owen studied the weapon. The wooden hilt was cracked, a small piece missing, the sharp edges not yet smoothed. ‘You might find some splinters in your arm.’ And might he find a piece of wood up on the roof of the chapter house? He thought it worth a look.

Michaelo’s expressive brows drew together. ‘Whether the danger she fears comes through this Master Ambrose she mentioned, or if he was her protector, I have no way of knowing. Nor can I say whether or not she had been up on the roof.’

‘I see your point.’ A man on the roof of the chapter house, a woman found inside, two such unusual incidents must be connected. And now, knowing that her clothing had been wet when Michaelo found her, it did beg the question of her part in the man’s fall. ‘What else have you noted about her? Is her speech that of the North?’

Michaelo raised his eyes to the ceiling as he considered. ‘No. I would say the south of England. Well spoken.’

‘If you are correct about her vows, an important question is why she left the nunnery. If this Ambrose is who I think he might be, and is the white-haired stranger who traded cloaks with Ronan, she did not leave for his sake. He shares your nature regarding women.’

Michaelo met Owen’s gaze. ‘If you are right about his identity, I would say, seeing the way he rested his hand on Ronan’s shoulder, it might have been true of the vicar as well.’

So Ronan preferred to lie with men rather than women. ‘That might be helpful.’

Michaelo’s thin lips curved into a smile. ‘Soon you will wonder how you ever managed without me.’

Though Owen grinned, he agreed. Thoresby had once referred to his choosing Brother Michaelo as his personal secretary as donning a hair shirt, a penance. And for ten years Owen had believed that to be Michaelo’s worth. But in the past month he had discovered that Michaelo had been, instead, Thoresby’s bloodhound. He might never have discovered the man’s worth had Archdeacon Jehannes not urged him to try him out as a secretary for his correspondence with Prince Edward.

‘But I cannot be much help with the woman,’ said Michaelo.

‘Your observations are helpful.’

‘But I have burdened you.’

‘Perhaps you did well to bring her here, though this is not the day I would have chosen to take in a stranger. If necessary we will find lodgings elsewhere once she is on her feet.’ Owen paced to the garden window. Dawn crept close, softening the darkness, revealing a branch here, a portion of the wall that had shed the night’s snow there. He wondered what animal had climbed the wall. Too small a space for a man, God be thanked. They must be alert to danger until they knew more about their uninvited guest. He turned back to Michaelo. It occurred to him that the monk himself looked as if he had not slept. ‘Tell me again how you came to be in the minster before dawn.’ His weary brain was not as sharp as he would like.

‘I watched over Mary Garrett until Dame Magda could come to her. I was on my way to bed when I heard the men shouting, and then the singing.’

‘Mary Garrett is one of the poor in the minster yard?’

Michaelo nodded.

‘Did you notice anyone about?’

‘I did not move from her side.’

‘So Magda arrived not long before you encountered this woman and heard the shouts?’

‘Yes. You are thinking Dame Magda might have noticed something as she came through the minster yard. I can escort you there.’

‘You sat with Mary Garrett through the night?’

‘I did.’

‘You should retire to your lodgings, and some well-earned sleep.’ As Michaelo assured him he often went without sleep, Owen interrupted. ‘Had you expected Magda sooner?’

A sniff. ‘I did. The lad I sent in the night to summon her returned alone. Said she would be delayed. She gave no reason. The boy said he’d heard another voice in her house when he knocked on the door, but she did not invite him in, so he could not see who it was. A man, that is all he knew.’

Owen closed his eye, chasing the sense of an idea gathering strength, that this Ambrose had found his way to Magda’s home, and he had been the cause of her delay. If he was the man Owen knew, he and the healer were old friends. He had been one of the few people in York to befriend her son, Potter Digby. He had looked beyond her late son’s odd appearance and his work as the archdeacon’s summoner and noticed his voice, a strong middle range. When Ambrose and his lover needed to flee, Magda had come to their aid. His lover might have taught him how to avoid the locked gates after dusk. One who knew the tides and the mudflats might avoid waking the guards at the gates by slipping down the bank and creeping upriver along the oozing mud. A dangerous route, but if Ambrose had been desperate enough to exchange cloaks, he might risk it.

‘You think to find this Ambrose at her home?’ asked Michaelo.

Uncanny how quickly the monk had learned to fathom Owen’s thoughts. Chilling to think there was nothing quick about it, that he had seen into Owen’s mind through all the years serving Archbishop Thoresby.

‘I will be disappointed if I do not find him there.’ Owen rose. ‘I must see if Lucie needs assistance, then we will go.’

A bow. ‘I will await you here by the fire.’

Lucie met Owen on the landing and drew him into their bedchamber. ‘One of Aunt Philippa’s gowns might fit her.’ Her aunt had died a few months earlier. ‘She was tall.’

‘Injuries?’

‘After I cleaned the mud and grime from her I found fresh bruising on her wrists, her right hand, arms, shoulders, neck, chin, mouth, ankles, and legs. Grazing on one knee as if she fell on it. The back of her right hand has a darkening bruise, her knuckles are scraped, two of her fingernails are torn, one of her fingers might be sprained for it does not curl like the others. Nothing serious, but all signs of a struggle with someone much stronger than she is. The marks on her wrists and ankles suggest she was bound. There is a cut on her ankle bone that might have been caused by a knife slicing the bonds.’

‘As fresh as last night?’ He told her what Michaelo had said about the condition of her clothes.

‘Yes. Poor woman. I did not notice anything that would suggest her attacker ravished her, but I cannot be certain.’ They exchanged a pained look. ‘So what now?’ she asked.

‘I want to talk to Magda. I have a feeling about this Master Ambrose, and, if I am right, he might have gone to her.’

‘You are thinking Ambrose Coates?’

‘Am I mad?’

She touched his cheek. ‘We shall see.’ She went over to her chest of clothes, crouching down to open it. Glancing back at him, she asked, ‘If it is him, will you bring him here?’

‘No. I will not risk him in our home, at least not until I know why he is here. Even then …’

She nodded. ‘You do not have a sense of him as you do this woman.’

‘I’ve not seen him in years.’

‘The musical instruments he left behind. It would be good to give them to him. I could use the space in the workroom.’

‘How did that come to mind?’

She pulled out a wool gown, then stood up, shaking it out. ‘I am reminded of him whenever I tidy the workroom.’

Unable to take all his precious instruments on his flight from York, Ambrose had entrusted them to Magda Digby, who had asked Lucie to keep them safe in her workshop. Lucie did all she could to keep the workroom warm, yet not too warm, dry, yet not too dry, so it was a suitable home for the sensitive items.

He leaned against the wall, watching Lucie change into the warmer gown. ‘You are going to work in the shop?’ The hearth in the apothecary workroom did little to warm the small shop front.

‘If Alisoun can spare me for an hour, I thought to spend a little time there. Jasper has been alone for most of the past fortnight.’

‘What of our guest?’

‘I will slip a sleep draught in her ale.’

‘Clever.’

‘The man’s clothing – she runs from something.’

‘Michaelo thinks a convent.’

‘I would understand why a woman might do that.’ Lucie had been sent to St Clement’s Priory, a Benedictine nunnery outside the city walls, after her mother died. And often attempted escape. ‘Once she feels at ease, which rest might afford us, she may confide in us. Tell us who she is, why she is running. From whom. From what.’ She shrugged. ‘Or she may remain a cipher.’

‘You might warm yourself distilling some elixir to free her tongue.’

Lucie looked over her shoulder to make sure he smiled, chuckling when she saw that he did. ‘If only it were so simple. So you distrust Ambrose?’

‘How can I know? He has been away a long while. And you must admit he has ever attracted trouble. If this is him, he has certainly brought it this time – a man falling from the chapter-house roof, a vicar’s murder, and this young woman dressed as a man, clearly having suffered an ordeal last night. I will be interested to hear what you might learn of her.’

‘A riddle. I accept the challenge.’ She touched his arm. ‘And do consider the instruments. If Ambrose intends to work, he will need them.’

‘So you trust him?’

‘I did not say that.’

Owen was about to follow Lucie’s lead in donning warmer clothing when he was interrupted by someone pounding on the door that opened onto Davygate. Glancing out the narrow window above it, he saw his friend George Hempe, a city bailiff, and Adam, precentor of York Minster. The chapter had wasted no time.

‘Come round to the kitchen,’ he called down, trying to keep his voice low. All this fuss would surely wake the children. Indeed, that they were not yet wakeful worried him. As soon as he saw George and Master Adam move on to the garden gate, Owen finished dressing and went to check on the nursery.

He found Lucie in the doorway, speaking softly to Alisoun, who held baby Emma in her arms, rocking her.

‘Is she an angel?’ It was Gwen’s sleepy voice, and there she was, his raven-haired first-born, tugging on her mother’s skirts, Alisoun softly explaining that while she was distracted with Hugh, Gwen had slipped out of bed and gone to the room in which the woman slept.

Their guest’s skin pale as if carved from candle wax, her flaxen hair – he could see why his daughter thought the woman a divine being.

‘How is my beloved?’ Owen crouched down and held out his arms to Gwen.

She came shuffling over and hugged him tightly. ‘Has she come to take Hugh to heaven?’

Lucie knelt to them, a protective hand on her daughter’s back. ‘No, my love, Hugh is out of danger.’

How could she be so certain? Owen prayed Lucie was right, but he still feared for his son, for all three of them.

‘He is sleeping off his victory over the fever,’ Lucie said. ‘You shall see. The woman is our guest.’ She leaned over to Owen, kissed his cheek. ‘Have faith in the healers in your household, my love.’

‘Forgive me. My mind believes, but my heart fears.’

She touched his scarred cheek. ‘I know. But Hugh’s forehead is cool, and his breathing is quiet. I am confident.’

He kissed her. ‘We have visitors. Hempe and Master Adam, the precentor of the minster chapter.’

‘Then you must go now,’ she said. ‘Find out what George and the precentor have come to ask of you.’

‘Will you come down?’

‘I will.’ Lucie took Gwen’s hand, and, with a kiss, commanded her back to bed.

‘Mistress Alisoun will sing to me?’ Gwen asked.

‘I will indeed, Mistress Gwenllian,’ said Alisoun, nodding to the two on the landing as she closed the door.