A Conspiracy of Wolves

2 A Clearing in the Wood

Dappled sunshine, a pair of horses tied to a low branch, and, beyond them, their riders lifting a stained cloak over the blood-soaked body, then gently lowering it and bowing their heads. Alisoun had spied another horse and a donkey across the clearing. Gerard Burnby, one of the York city coroners, talking in a low voice to the clerk who wrote on a wax tablet propped on the donkey’s back. Dogs. Throat torn out. Hoban Swann.

Hearing that, Alisoun had hurried away; Hoban’s wife would need her. She’d taken the narrow trail along the river to save time, her heart heavy, praying for Hoban, for Muriel, for the unborn child. Had she heard twigs snapping behind her? Turn and turn again, she’d seen nothing, yet sensed a shadow. By the time she’d reached Magda’s house she was out of breath, yet she stopped only long enough to add to her basket a sleep powder gentle enough for an expectant mother – milk of poppy, valerian, and various herbs to calm and cool. The grieving mother-to-be would need sleep.

Now, as Alisoun sat in the shuttered bedchamber listening to Muriel Swann’s even breathing, she sipped watered wine, calming herself. She’d had all she could do to quiet the grieving woman long enough to coax her to drink a cup of wine in which she’d mixed the sleep powder. Bartolf Swann had foolishly sent a hasty message to Muriel with the first servant he’d encountered, a boy who embellished the details into a terrifying tale of snarling wolves dismembering Hoban. Alisoun had arrived to find Dame Muriel’s mother, Janet Braithwaite, physically restraining her daughter, who was leaning halfway out the window. She’d come perilously close to leaping out and ending her own life and that of the child she carried.

‘How can I bear to see him so? How can that not curse our child?’ Muriel had wailed.

After a long struggle involving the cook, reluctant at first to touch his mistress, they succeeded in guiding the expectant mother to a chair. Alisoun rubbed Muriel’s hands and talked and talked until she at last convinced the grieving woman that she had seen Hoban, and that, though mortally injured, he was whole. Once Muriel could hear it, she fell to weeping, an expression of grief far safer than a leap out the window. Dame Janet had blessed Alisoun for knowing just what her daughter needed to hear. Alisoun wondered why the woman had not shouted for assistance.

As the wine settled Alisoun, she winced at the memory of her fearful flight along the river. She’d carried her bow – why hadn’t she turned and confronted her shadow? At the least she would know whether she’d imagined it. Though she had not seen him since the night she’d tended his wound, she’d feared it was Crispin Poole, who would be concerned that she would connect this attack with his encounter with a vicious dog and consider it her duty to report it. Yet why then had he not shown himself? Confronted her? She would have reassured him that she meant to keep her word. Despite her doubts about why – honor or fear – she had no intention of betraying him. He, too, had been attacked in the wood.

Though not so viciously.

The royal forest of Galtres was a combination of woodland, marsh, small farms, and villages, subject to laws that protected game, especially deer, and their habitat, and also restricted the felling of trees. Owen had convinced Brother Michaelo to accompany him as his scribe, recording his examination of the corpse and the clearing in which Hoban lay. As coroner for Galtres, Bartolf Swann was known for keeping detailed accounts of the circumstances in which a body was found; though the coroner from York would have dutifully recorded his observations, Bartolf would expect a more thorough accounting from Owen. Michaelo had not been keen, admitting that he’d never ridden through Galtres without a full complement of armed guards, as was Archbishop Thoresby’s wont. Bands of outlaws were known to hide there.

‘Not to underestimate your skill with the bow, Captain Archer. But you are a complement of one.’

‘I should think that sufficient to guard a monk who has taken a vow of poverty.’ Owen was already regretting his request. But he had a purpose in testing Michaelo’s mettle.

Once past the hovels of the poor clustered close to the walls of the city and St Mary’s Abbey, Owen led the way through woodland and meadows, aware of a subtle shift as his awareness sharpened, his thoughts focused. He surprised himself with the thought that he’d missed this, the search, the sense of responsibility for restoring order.

Just past Overton, he guided his horse onto a track through coppiced woodland leading toward the marsh, fanning at the insects determined to blind his one good eye as he searched for signs of passage along the underbrush. He had instructed Michaelo in what to watch for. If the attacker had come through at night with a horse and one or more dogs, the animals at least would have spilled over the trail somewhere.

‘It seems to me that unless Hoban’s animals fled at the first sign of danger there must have been more than one attacker,’ Michaelo had observed.

The monk showed promise in his attention to detail.

They’d almost reached the Swann property when Michaelo called Owen’s attention to trampled underbrush at the turnoff to a narrow track.

Observant. He might just do. Owen thanked him.

The ground grew spongy, part of the marsh in a flood, and the insects even more insistent and loud, the buzzing and whining almost dizzying, conjuring in Owen unwanted memories of fields of corpses stewing in the sunlight after battles, the ever-present droning of flies feasting. He reflexively covered his nose and mouth. But the vision passed, and he muttered a prayer of thanks as the way opened into a clearing and the insects thinned out, heading for the more interesting body covered by a blood-stained cloak. Two men stood guard, one using a leafy branch in a futile effort to fend off the flies.

‘We’ll walk the horses from here,’ said Owen. As he dismounted, he noticed how Brother Michaelo lifted the hem of his habit and tucked it into his belt in order to follow suit, glancing down with distaste at the blood-stained weeds near his booted feet.

‘Yet so far from the body,’ the monk muttered.

That was important. ‘Either Hoban was dragged, or he was not the only one injured,’ said Owen.

He could smell it now, the strong, metallic scent. It took a great deal of blood to overpower the ripeness of the early autumn marsh. The scent spooked the horses, and it took much coaxing to lead them closer to the body. The guards had covered their noses and mouths with rags – more for the swamp odors than for the blood, Owen guessed. Some believed the pestilence came from the odor of decay.

‘Tie up the horses by that stand of trees,’ Owen ordered Michaelo. ‘Then come and join me by the body. Be ready to record my observations.’

Lifting the rag from his mouth, one of the guards said, ‘Well met, Captain Archer, well met. We did not hope to see you so soon.’

‘I am here to record the condition of the victim and the surrounding woods. What are your orders concerning the removal of Master Hoban’s body?’

‘The sheriff is sending a cart. We are to take it to Swann’s home on Coney Street.’

Michaelo joined them. ‘It would be a help if I might sit to write,’ he said.

The man fanning the flies nodded in the direction of an uprooted stump.

‘That will do.’ Michaelo waited, but when no one rushed to bring it to him, he reluctantly fetched it, dragging it a few feet.

‘Closer,’ said Owen. ‘It is better if you see for yourself what I am describing.’

With a sigh, Michaelo bent to the work of dragging it up to where Owen stood. Brushing off his hands, he sat down with grace and drew a wax tablet and stylus from his pack.

Owen crouched beside the body and nodded to the guards to lift the cloak away. Hoban’s pale gold hair was matted with blood, his comely face twisted in pain and terror above an unnatural rictus that had been carved across his throat. Michaelo breathed in sharply at the sight, but made no complaint. Nor did he gag. All good signs.

Before beginning his examination, Owen bowed his head over Hoban’s body. ‘O Lord, I beseech you to receive him with love, and give comfort and ease to his wife, Muriel, his unborn child, and his father, Bartolf, who have lost one dear to them,’ he prayed.

Michaelo and the guards responded with ‘Amen.’

Owen used the hilt of his dagger to lift Hoban’s chin, gingerly, for there was little left connecting head to body.

‘Large dogs. Or wolves,’ said one of the men. ‘Ripped out his throat.’

Quietly, for Michaelo’s ears, Owen corrected the account. ‘A man wielding a knife slit Hoban’s throat ear to ear.’ His right shoe was missing, his stocking torn and blood-stained, his foot partially gnawed, his calf clawed. ‘But a dog might have brought him off his horse,’ said Owen. ‘We will know more once we cut his clothes away.’

Michaelo glanced up, his stylus poised above the wax tablet. ‘We?’

Owen chose to ignore him. ‘But we will not do that here.’ He looked up at the guards. ‘Let me show you how to support the head and shoulders while we wrap him in the cloak, as in a shroud.’

The guards knelt and followed his instructions, working gently, with respect.

When Hoban Swann was shrouded, Owen thanked the guards and rose to take a slow turn round the clearing to see what it might reveal. Brother Michaelo followed, wax tablet in hand.

‘Two men – or more if Hoban had already collected his father’s hounds – his horse, and their own animals, as well as their victim,’ said Owen. He crouched beside some flattened brush, poking it with a branch, stirring up the stench of urine and blood. ‘One of the animals was injured.’

‘Those attacking, or one of Swann’s?’ Michaelo wondered aloud.

‘Cannot say. But I see no hoof prints just here, so one of the dogs, not a horse.’ In fact, he’d noticed only one set of hoof prints; perhaps only Hoban had been mounted. He followed the bloody trail of flattened brush to the bank of the Ouse, toed an indentation in the mud, the grass compressed. ‘Keel of a small boat. Planned with care, this attack? Or did Hoban happen upon men desperate to hide their activities? The boat could move the men and the dogs, but what of Hoban’s horse?’ He looked round, saw no hoof prints by the river.

‘Master Bartolf said it had not returned to the house,’ Michaelo noted. ‘Nor were the dogs there.’

‘One of the men might have ridden Hoban’s mount to the ford farther upriver. We should go to his home, see whether the horse simply returned by now. Or the hounds.’

Michaelo made a sound deep in his throat.

‘Are the signs of so much violence hard for you to see?’ Owen asked.

‘Does it not disturb you? The violence, the blood.’

‘My dreams are haunted by it. But I honor the dead by doing what I can to expose the darkness that took them.’

‘And bring them justice?’

‘Justice? No. Breathing life into the dead, undoing their injuries – that would be justice, but that I cannot do. I seek to prevent further violence, expose the corruption …’ Owen’s words sounded hollow to him even as he uttered them. ‘It is little enough.’

‘You are an honorable man, Captain.’ Michaelo held Owen’s gaze for a moment. ‘God surely blesses your work. Perhaps this is His intent, the work through which I might atone for my sins, serving you in this endeavor.’

It seemed he had taken to heart Owen’s hint of having a possible ongoing need for his services. Time would tell whether the monk embraced that challenge. ‘To Bartolf’s home then. I pray the servant Joss is there.’

‘Do you suspect him?’

‘Until I talk to him, I’ve no way of knowing.’ But how Joss received them might help Owen understand why Bartolf had become so concerned about entrusting the dogs to him that Hoban had felt it necessary to ride out of an evening to rescue them.

The ride to Bartolf’s home gave Owen more to puzzle over. The track was wet and overgrown, part of the marsh when the Ouse flooded, hardly the path Hoban would commonly take. Why had he done so as night fell? And how did Joss happen on Hoban’s body? With his one eye Owen swept the narrow track, looking for anything that seemed out of place. Again it was Michaelo, following, who found it.

‘An item fallen beside the track,’ he called out. ‘To your left, wedged in a low branch.’

Owen’s blind side. He dismounted, guided to the spot by the monk, who remained astride.

‘There,’ said Michaelo, ‘near your right knee.’

Crouching down, Owen saw it, brown and easily dismissed as a dry leaf or part of the trunk, a leather pouch that fit in his palm. He opened it, finding within a waxed parchment packet containing an oily salve. He sniffed. Betony, boneset, and something else he could not identify – but Lucie would know what it was. The combination suggested a wound and a broken bone, common enough among country laborers, horsemen. Owen tucked it into his scrip.

Michaelo leaned down. ‘Is it useful?’

‘That depends on who dropped it, and when.’

No smoke rose from the long, low house, no dogs prowled the fenced area to one side. The gate was fastened, the structure appeared to be complete and undamaged. No one answered as Owen called out and opened the door. Spare furnishings, bowls, and moldy bread sat on a shelf along the wall that looked out into the dogs’ enclosure. Up the ladder to the loft, a pallet was piled with skins, an overturned jug and bowl.

‘Had he no one to tidy and cook for him?’ Michaelo said with disgust.

‘If so, whatever he paid them was too much,’ said Owen. ‘Perhaps Joss did it all.’ Or someone else was missing.

Exiting the house, Owen spied the well-worn track he recalled taking the few times he had called on Bartolf. Much wider, more appropriate for accommodating Hoban on horseback with the dogs ambling along. ‘Seems to me this would have been Hoban’s choice to and from the house at dusk, not the narrow track to the clearing where he was killed.’

‘Perhaps the way along the marsh was not his choice?’

‘Possible, though I saw no sign of struggle at the house.’

Before mounting his horse, Owen cupped his hands and called out for Joss. Waited. Called again. Nothing.

‘Perhaps he often disappeared,’ said Michaelo, ‘and that caused Bartolf to worry about the dogs.’

‘Yet he spent several days in York without concern.’

‘Ah,’ said Michaelo.

As he led the way down the more traveled track Owen took the right-hand side. Though it meant he must turn in the saddle to look at Michaelo, he could search the right side of the track with his good eye while his companion searched to the left. So occupied, they rode in silence for a while.

‘Geoffrey Chaucer must have galloped to Freythorpe Hadden the moment he had word of Dame Philippa’s death,’ Michaelo suddenly said. ‘One wonders how he retains his position in the royal household, he spends so much time away.’ He adjusted himself in the saddle so he might glance at Owen. ‘How did Chaucer hear of her passing?’

‘He came north on a mission, learned of our loss from the Merchets at the York Tavern.’

‘Ah. That explains much. Yes, I see. He came north on a mission for Prince Edward, did he not?’

As he was biding in the home of Archdeacon Jehannes, Michaelo had been privy to some of Owen’s discussions with his friend, and knew that a visit from Geoffrey was imminent. The prince grew impatient for an answer to his generous offer. Prince Edward, the future king, hero of Crécy and Poitiers, wanted Owen in his retinue, to be his spy in the north. He would have Owen keep his ears pricked for news of the powerful Northern families – the Percys and the Nevilles in particular – and report to him quarterly, or on the occasion of something he should hear at once. Owen had first been recruited by the prince’s wife while his liege lord the archbishop yet lived. But coming from the prince himself – it now carried so much weight it felt like a royal command. Chaucer understood, and had tried to soften that with visions of the great honor it would be to serve the future King of England.

‘The matter of your position in his household?’ said Michaelo, misunderstanding Owen’s silence.

‘Yes.’

‘A pity that the prince uses your friend as mediator, with the risk that such coercion might cause a rift between you.’

‘A rift? Hardly.’ Geoffrey was ever irritating.

‘My error.’

Owen turned in his saddle to look at his companion. ‘I take it you have considered Jehannes’s idea that you serve as my secretary should I join the prince’s household?’ The position would require much correspondence, and who better qualified than the former secretary of an archbishop? Michaelo was also acquainted with many Nevilles and Percys, indeed, he had dealt with all the noble families in the North, overseeing the preparations for their visits to the archbishop and accompanying His Grace to their castles and manors.

‘I have, Captain. I can think of no one better suited to the task.’ Owen grinned in response, but Michaelo was quite serious as he continued. ‘I would be honored, should you so wish it. Though my purpose was not to pry.’

Owen doubted that. The monk was likely eager to know whether he might once again move in high circles.

‘My point was,’ Michaelo paused as if searching for the right words, ‘I fail to see how this afternoon’s task proves my capability. Your duties for the prince would not be those of a coroner.’

‘I disagree. If all were peaceful amongst the great families of the North, His Grace would have no need of me. Powerful men are no more likely to die in their beds than are the citizens of York. Prince’s man or captain of bailiffs, I might have need of you in investigating a violent death.’

That was the other possibility. The mayor, aldermen, and wealthy merchants of York wished Owen to take up the work of captain of the city bailiffs, a position they had proposed with him in mind; indeed they could not understand why he would hesitate – a comfortable annuity, status in the city, work that was not much different from his previous responsibilities as the archbishop’s captain of guards. Ah, but the difference was all – except for his journeys to his and Lucie’s manors south of the city, Owen would have no cause to travel far. He would be home with his family, among his friends, with never the threat of long stretches away. It seemed ideal.

Yet he hesitated. With Lucie’s shop, the York house, her father’s manor and his own, which had come to him by Archbishop Thoresby’s gift, his family did not need the city’s annuity. As a third option, Owen might occupy himself, as he had done since Thoresby’s death, seeing to their land and business, answerable to no one but his family and his own conscience. But whenever he considered that aloud, Lucie asked why, then, he continued to retain two of his former men. Alfred and Stephen had helped him rid his new manor of a band of thieves, and he’d left them there for a few weeks with Rollo, the steward he’d hired. But that had been several months ago. He was bored, she said. Bored with the life he’d yearned for all the while he worked for Thoresby. The old crow must be laughing in Heaven.

Lucie had favored the council’s offer until Geoffrey appeared at Freythorpe with specifics about the one from Prince Edward. The prince offered a far more generous stipend than did the York council, as well as property, status, even a knighthood if Owen wished. He most assuredly did not, and Lucie supported him in that. Nor did she care a whit for wealth or status. It was the work she believed would be to his liking, more varied and potentially far more interesting than keeping order in the city. No doubt. But Owen knew the prince’s reputation, the brutality of his raids in Gascony, and the cold-blooded sentences he laid down on anyone who crossed him. Even now, as ill as he was, Prince Edward’s reputation was that of a querulous, vindictive lord. And what about his illness? How long would he have need of Owen?

‘Both he and Princess Joan hope that you would continue to work for her, and the young Prince Richard,’ Geoffrey had assured him. Teasing Owen that he seemed to be weakening, Geoffrey had quickly gone on to explain how it would work. Owen already had influential friends in York and elsewhere in the shire who might be encouraged to share information with him and invite him to accompany them on visitations throughout the area, introducing him to others in the prince’s affinity. ‘And your delightful Lucie, daughter of a knight. The prince is keen to make her acquaintance, as is my lady. An invitation to one of their northern estates, perhaps?’

Owen thought Lucie might enjoy such an honor. And he would take pleasure in making it possible, even more in escorting her. He disappointed himself in finding the proposal tantalizing. Against all reason he missed the status he’d held as Thoresby’s spy and captain of guards.

‘Captain of bailiffs,’ Michaelo sniffed. ‘You would choose that over the prince’s household?’

‘I take it you would not.’

‘I envy you the luxury of choice.’

The Swann home stood on a double messuage in Coney Street. A fine wooden archway opened into a modest yard leading to a fine hall with a grand iron-bound oak door.

‘A well-designed entry that shields the hall from the busy street,’ Michaelo noted. ‘Much more suited to the status of the family than the house in Galtres.’

At Owen’s knock, the door was flung open by a young manservant, his red eyes attesting to his affection for his late master.

‘Captain Archer. They await you in the buttery,’ he said, bobbing his head to both of them as he stepped aside to allow them passage.

The hall was lofty, with a tiled floor. Near the fire circle at its heart a woman paced, her silk and velvet gown shifting colors in the firelight. A rosary swung from her hands and her lips moved in prayer. Janet Braithwaite, Muriel Swann’s mother. She was a large, imposing woman.

‘God help us,’ Michaelo murmured. ‘She has a taste for going to law, ever vigilant regarding her “due”. She took His Grace to law over a perceived slight.’

‘Did she win?’

‘Against John Thoresby?’ Michaelo sniffed.

Apparently there was much Owen did not know about the late archbishop’s standing in the community.

As soon as the servant informed her of the visitors, Dame Janet turned toward them. As she approached she wrapped the rosary round her left wrist as if a bracelet and shook out her skirts as if prayer were a dusty business. Her eyes bore no signs of grief, though her face was pinched in worry. ‘You have brought a monk, Captain Archer? But I summoned our parish priest.’

‘Brother Michaelo is not a priest,’ said Owen. ‘He is kindly assisting me, recording everything for Bartolf, as he would if the victim were not his son.’

‘I see.’ Janet nodded to Michaelo. ‘I will have the boy summon Bartolf. He is just out in the kitchen. I did not want him plucking at Hoban’s shroud.’

‘He is coroner,’ said Owen. ‘He knows not to do that.’

‘When not in his cups,’ said Janet. ‘Which is rare these days. The men said you had them wrap Hoban with care, that it was important not to disturb him until you arrived, and I saw to it that no one did so.’ She began to turn toward the servant.

‘No need to summon him, not yet,’ said Owen.

‘The old bear will not like it that he was not told of your presence.’

‘First I would speak with Bartolf’s manservant, Joss. Where might I find him?’ Owen preferred to speak to the servant away from his master, and then examine the body without the father’s witness.

‘The one who precipitated all this? The old bear cursed him and turned him out. I went after him, ordered him back to the house in Galtres where he might be of some use. It is possible the dogs might return to the house. Not the horse. Alas, the horse was a hire, according to my daughter. Hoban was in a hurry to ride out before nightfall, no time to have his readied – it’s stabled across the river. He meant to hire one from a stable outside Bootham Bar. More expense for them.’ She frowned. ‘So you did not stop at the house?’

‘I did. Joss had not returned.’

‘The lout. He should have been there hours ago.’

‘Would you know of a reason Hoban might have carried a salve for a wound? Or had he broken a bone of late?’

‘Not that I recall, but my daughter would know. After you have examined the body, I will take you up to her.’ Without further comment Janet escorted the two of them to the buttery at the end of the hall.

Hoban had been placed on a stone counter. Oil lamps and a lantern provided light, the two guards standing over him. Two servants carrying bowls of oil and water stood by, awaiting instructions. Bartolf sat in a corner, head bowed.

‘What are you doing in here?’ Janet demanded.

‘Praying for my son.’ Bartolf’s voice was hoarse with grief. His eyes silenced his challenger. ‘The servants are ready to assist you in cleaning the body so that you might better see the wounds, Captain,’ he said.

So much for sparing the old man. ‘Do you have a pair of scissors to cut the cloth?’ Owen asked.

One of the servants lifted a pair, offering to do it himself.

‘I prefer to begin,’ said Owen. He instructed the guards in freeing enough of the cloak that he might gain purchase in cutting through the wool. It was hard work, the wool stiffened by the dried blood. His hands would ache tonight.

Janet Braithwaite’s silks rustled as she joined Owen at the table. She groaned when Hoban’s head was uncovered. ‘My poor Muriel must not see this.’ She placed a beringed hand on the scissors. ‘Permit me to do this, Captain. A woman of his family should prepare his body.’

Owen saw no reason to object. ‘Of course.’ He nodded to the guards. ‘Steady his head and shoulders as best you can.’

Bartolf stood near his son’s head, his face a mask of anger. ‘I will gut Joss, the bastard. He’s guilty. He’s the one. Why else run away? I curse the day I hired him.’

So he’d overheard Owen’s conversation with Dame Janet. Quietly advising Brother Michaelo to ignore any such outbursts, Owen was answered by an indignant sniff.

When the clothing was cut away, Owen motioned the servants to lift the body so that Dame Janet might remove the blood-stiffened fabric from beneath Hoban, the guards still steadying the head and shoulders.

‘Now work some of the oil into the crusted blood on his face, then his torso, using wet cloths to wash it away once it has softened. Gently,’ Janet said as the young man jostled the head.

While Janet oversaw the servants, Owen motioned for Michaelo to record that only the one leg and foot were injured, the fingernails broken and possibly one finger, and one palm was crossed by what looked like a wide, ragged wound, the sort caused when gripping the reins with bare hands as one falls from the horse. ‘When you are finished with the head and torso, clean the hands,’ he said to the servants. Someone approached him from behind.

‘This is Father Paul,’ said Dame Janet.

‘We will not be long,’ Owen told him, keeping his eyes on the servant who cleaned the torso. As he worked, several stab wounds were revealed on the stomach just below the ribs. The other worked the hands. Owen saw that he was right about the reins. So Hoban was not wearing gloves. Perhaps in his haste he had forgotten them.

Now for the most difficult part – the men supported the head while Owen and Bartolf – he insisted, a father’s right – turned Hoban onto his side to examine the back. Scratches, no more. They had just resettled him on his back and adjusted the head when Michaelo touched Owen’s arm and looked toward the door.

Muriel Swann stood in the doorway, head bowed, hand to heart. All those present followed suit. She took a step forward, then hesitated at the buttery threshold, a mere whisper of a woman, her silk gown loosely hanging from a thin frame that accentuated her swelling stomach. She looked toward her husband’s body with fevered eyes. The servants bowed and withdrew, but when Owen asked if she wished to be alone with Hoban, Muriel shook her head. Her gown released the scent of lavender as she moved to where her husband lay. As she beheld him a sob shook her, and Alisoun, invisible until that moment, hurried into the room, whispering something to her charge. Muriel held up a hand. ‘A moment.’

Time stood still as the mother-to-be bent to her murdered husband, touching, kissing, whispering endearments. Bartolf stood with head bowed, his body shaking with sobs. Owen was about to turn away when Muriel made a sound like a long sigh and began to slump to the stone floor. He lunged forward and caught her, lifting her in his arms. Though she carried a child in her womb she had little substance. Alisoun led him out through the hall and up outside steps to a bedchamber in the solar. Dame Janet followed on their heels, moving round to the foot of an elegantly draped bed. Alisoun turned back the bedclothes so that Owen could settle his charge on the silken sheets. Muriel stirred, but did not open her eyes as Alisoun drew the covers over her.

‘I told her she should not look on his face, for the baby’s sake,’ Dame Janet sobbed. ‘I pray he will not bear the mark of the devil.’

Alisoun put an arm round the woman, leading her back to the cushioned chair by the foot of the bed, near a lit brazier, and told the servant seated near the door to pour Dame Janet a cup of wine.

Asking Alisoun to step out onto the landing for a moment, Owen showed her the medicine pouch, explaining where Brother Michaelo had found it. ‘Do you know the place?’

For a moment Alisoun stared and seemed to stop breathing, but then said simply, ‘I know the track along the river.’

Owen opened the pouch, holding out the salve wrapped in parchment. ‘I hoped this might be your preparation, or Magda’s. I am keen to know for whom this was prepared.’ He offered it to her, expecting her to examine it.

But she tucked her hands behind her back. ‘I am sorry, but I cannot help you. I pray you forgive my haste, but I must attend Dame Muriel. Her mother is of little help.’

‘Surely you cannot know whether or not it is your preparation until you smell it. I can tell you that it contains betony and boneset.’

‘A common mixture,’ she said.

‘Might you at least tell me what the third ingredient is?’ He held it up to her nose.

She recoiled. ‘You waste my time, Captain, for I do not wrap salves this way.’

He believed that she did. But he must step lightly with Alisoun or risk losing any chance of coaxing her to help him.

‘What has this to do with Hoban’s murder?’ Her tone was of one offended.

‘Permit me to explain. Hoban might have dropped this – or it might have been dropped by his attacker.’

‘Oh.’ The sound was little more than a whisper. ‘I prepare so many salves, Captain.’

‘This would be for a wound or a broken bone. As you know, of course.’

‘I cannot tell what it contains.’ She gave her head a little shake as she stepped away from him. With her abundant hair wrapped in a white kerchief, her head seemed too large for her long, slender neck, giving her the look of a plucked chick. A frightened one.

‘It may come to you. If it does, I pray you send word.’

‘Of course, Captain. Magda – Mistress Wilton came to tell me that Magda stayed behind to attend a birth at Freythorpe?’

‘Tildy, our former maidservant,’ said Owen. Of course Lucie would have the presence of mind to alert Alisoun to the delay.

‘Do you know how long she will be away?’

‘Until Tildy is safely delivered. Pray God that she is, and soon.’

Alisoun crossed herself. ‘May God watch over dear Tildy.’

Clearly an afterthought, which troubled Owen. A healer’s first concern should be for the patient.

‘I leave Dame Muriel in your competent hands,’ Owen said. Pray God her indifference was a passing mood.

He noted how Alisoun hesitated, as if gathering her wits about her before returning to the bedchamber. Understandable in the circumstances, yet her demeanor troubled Owen. Alisoun being prickly was normal. And she did carry much responsibility here in this house of mourning, holding the lives of mother and child in her hands. But he sensed a reluctance to engage with him. He was almost certain she had recognized the pouch and the salve, yet refused to admit it. Why?

Down in the hall, Owen thanked Michaelo for his assistance.

The monk gathered his things and rose with a grimace he attempted to hide with a bow. Sore from the long ride and the discomfort of writing in far from ideal circumstances, Owen guessed. ‘I will have a report for you on the morrow, Captain.’

‘Rest first. Send word when I might collect it.’

Michaelo bobbed his head and departed with less than his usual grace.

In the kitchen, Owen discovered Bartolf dulling his grief with ale. From the looks of him, he was making good progress. A pity to pull him back.

‘I have some questions for you.’

Bartolf squinted at Owen. ‘Of course you do, Captain. ’S why I came for you, to set about finding my Hoban’s murderer. How might I assist you?’ His words slurred as his head wobbled over the tankard and his eyelids fluttered.

‘Is Joss the only one working for you at the house in Galtres?’

Bartolf slowly shook his head. ‘Nay, Cilla keeps my house. Not so young na more, but we’re none of us so young anymore.’ He let his head drop as if it were too heavy to support, rolled his eyes upward to peer at Owen through the bush of white hair. ‘Is it true Joss has bolted?’

‘He’s not at the house, but whether he chose to run off is more than I can say at present.’ Owen lifted the man’s chin. ‘Why did you suddenly worry about the dogs?’

‘Zephyrus and Apollo? Because–’ Bartolf blinked as if he’d just lost the thought. ‘Rumor, that was it. A rumor of a wolf roaming near the house, and that lout Joss would run before he’d protect the hounds.’ He closed his eyes. ‘And someone’d seen Zephyrus and Apollo running loose.’ A sloppy nod. ‘Running loose!’ He banged his fist on the table.

A wolf. Was this what Magda had foreseen? ‘Who had seen them? Who had seen the wolf?’

Bartolf’s head wobbled. ‘Stopped me in street as I came from tavern.’ His eyelids were closing. ‘Didn’t know him, but he knew me.’

‘Someone came up to you and told you he’d seen a wolf in the forest? And your dogs running loose?’

‘Zactly.’

Had one person really given him both pieces? Or had Owen just put the idea in his head?

‘Did you tell anyone about this when you came home?’

‘Hoban.’

Bartolf attempted to pour himself more ale. Owen took the jug and poured a small amount into the bowl, then set the jug out of Bartolf’s reach.

‘Were you and Hoban alone when you told him?’

‘Why d’you ask?’

‘I am hoping that you described the man who stopped you on the street, might even have said his name, and someone here in the house overheard.’

‘What man?’

Owen closed his eye and prayed for patience. Changing the subject, he asked, ‘Where does Cilla live?’

‘Oh, Cilla. She works for many, not just me.’ Bartolf reached up to scratch his head, found he was still wearing his hat. ‘Bloody – I kept this on to remind myself to go back out there, search for Zeph and Pol.’

‘My men will search for them at first light, Bartolf. Tell me, are they lawed?’

‘Course they’re lawed. Three claws cut off on each paw, poor fellows, but that’s the rule of the forest. See? That’s why I worry. Joss – he doesn’t remember they can’t defend themselves against wolves or dogs who haven’t lost claws. Shouldn’t be in the wood, not like that, but I’ve heard howling and I fear– Then this man, he said a wolf is about. Hoban went to bring them home.’ Bartolf sucked in breath. ‘My son.’

Quickly, before the man began to sob, Owen asked him who he used as a scribe.

‘Elwin. He clerks at the minster. I’d send for him when I had need.’ Bartolf touched his hat and began to scramble to his feet. ‘My dogs.’

‘I told you, my men will search for them at first light. You stay here tonight. Get some rest. Stay safe. Muriel needs you.’

‘Oh, aye, the poor bairn. Aye.’ As Owen was rising Bartolf grabbed his arm. ‘First light? You swear?’

‘They will spend the night at the Riverwoman’s house and go forth at dawn. I swear.’

‘Bless you, Captain. Bless you.’

Owen patted him on the shoulder and took his leave, promising again to search for the dogs. Bartolf, slumped, did not look up.

Alisoun handed Dame Janet a cup of wine and then moved to the window of the bedchamber, opening the shutters for some air. Her heart jumped as Captain Archer strode out from the kitchen, taking off his hat as he paused in the back garden and raked back his hair. The dark curls were threaded with silver that caught the late-afternoon sun. So handsome. Lucie Wilton was a most fortunate woman. Alisoun fought the urge to hurry down to catch him, tell him she’d been frightened, but she’d thought better of it and wanted him to know that she had prepared that salve for Crispin Poole after he was attacked by a large dog. The captain would do all he could to protect her, and Poole as well, if he was innocent, she knew that. All she need do was run down.

But she just stood there, watching him don his hat and stride off.