Someone shook Owen awake.
‘Da! Da!’ Gwen stood over him, her face flushed with sleep. Behind her, a gap in the shutters showed the silvery light of dawn.
‘What is it? Are you hurt? Hugh? Emma?’
Lucie bent over him to take Gwen’s hand. ‘You are so cold.’
‘I went down the steps for water and saw him in the garden. A man. Curled up on the bench beneath the linden.’
‘Is it Rhys?’ asked Lucie. ‘Did he wander back last night and not want to disturb Jasper?’
‘Ma, I would have said. This is a stranger.’
Owen sat up, realizing in time that he was naked. ‘Go back to your room, my love. I will see to it and then bring your water. Do not follow me.’
She nodded and scurried out.
Lucie plucked up her gown from the stool beside the bed as she stood. ‘Poor child. Another fright.’
‘Don’t get up with me,’ said Owen. ‘Stay here. In case.’
‘But–’
‘I pray you.’ Leggings, a linen shirt. Picking up his shoes he opened the door.
‘Your patch.’ Lucie tossed it to him.
‘I might use the scar to frighten him away.’ But he took it.
At the bottom of the steps, Owen looked out the garden window. It was as Gwen had described, but he could not see enough of the man to identify him. He stepped into his shoes, covered his scarred eye, and went into the kitchen. Kate, kneeling to stoke the fire, sleepily asked him if he would like some ale.
‘Not yet. Have you looked without?’
‘No. What is it?’
‘Stay in here.’ He tucked a knife into his belt, then eased the door open, stepping out into a misty morning.
The man opened an eye as Owen approached, then scuttled upright, catching himself as he was about to fall off the bench. He cradled his left arm, the sleeve soiled with what looked like dried blood. Jonas Snicket’s elderly manservant.
‘Forgive me, Captain, but I did not know where else to go and I’m that worried about my master.’ His teeth rattled with his shivering.
‘You are injured.’
‘They said they’d do worse the next time they saw me.’
‘Come within. I will see to your arm while you tell me your tale.’
‘Bless you, Captain. Forgive me for waking you.’
Owen escorted him to the house.
In the doorway, Kate nodded. ‘That is three ales then,’ she said, standing aside to allow the man through.
His clothing looked as if it had been tidy, if a bit threadbare, before the injury and the night outside. He bobbed his head to Kate as he passed her, stopping just within the door to greet Lucie by name.
‘Mistress Wilton.’
‘Pete, isn’t it?’
‘Bless you, Mistress, it is.’
Motioning him to come sit by the fire, she asked Owen to bring the basket holding salves and powders that she kept on the bench near the door.
‘This is Pete, Jonas Snicket’s serving man. He comes to the apothecary for his master’s physicks. A weak heart.’ Over the man’s head she made a face that said Pete was honest. ‘Is it your master? Is he ill?’ she asked as Kate offered him a bowl of ale.
‘Bless you, no, Mistress, it is not his heart this time.’ He took a long drink.
Lucie gently pushed up his sleeve, but the dried blood had molded it to his upper arm. ‘I will need to remove your shirt. Are you in much pain?’
His shivering was easing. ‘Not so much as I cannot bear it.’ He emptied the bowl of ale and began to struggle with the shirt.
‘Let me help.’ Owen crouched down to him. ‘And while we work, we can talk. You said you were worried for your master. Were you injured protecting him?’
‘I was, and he cast me out for my pains. He is mad is what he is, moon mad. He thinks himself cunning, addled old fool. And I fear by this morning he may be dead.’
Lucie pressed a warm, wet cloth to the upper arm so the sleeve would come away from the skin. Once Owen had pulled the shirt over the man’s head, she set to cleaning the arm. Clearly a knife wound, a slash, not so deep as to be dangerous if cleaned and bandaged soon enough. Pray it was soon enough. The flesh looked angry, but the man had no fever. His earlier shivering seemed the result of a chill from sleeping outside on an October evening with no jacket.
‘Who slashed you with the knife?’ Owen asked.
‘One of the strangers who came to the door late last night. We’d been abed when the banging started. The master barked at me to go tell the drunken louts from the Bell they had the wrong door. But they weren’t drunks. And I did not like the looks of them. One held his left arm close, a bloody bandage on that shoulder. They said the taverner at the Bell had told them Master Jonas might provide lodging. At first the master said he wanted no trouble, he had no rooms to let, and I told the two to go. But the one pushed past me and flashed coin at the master, said they would pay a good price for a clean, quiet room and no gossip. Master Jonas is greedy. Ordered me to show them to the room up in the loft – was his until he could no longer climb the ladder. I refused. Told the men the poor sisters in Castlegate could see to the one’s injury, or the friars on the river. The master barked at me to do his bidding. I started for the door. Thought to go to the Bell, wake Dunn the taverner, and find out what he sent our way. The one said no worry, they could find their way up the ladder. One of the men leaned down to the master where he sat in that chair he never leaves now and said he would be able to hire a younger, more obedient servant with all the money they would pay. Then the one came after me. Slashed me. The master laughed. Laughed at me bleeding.’ He bowed his head.
‘How did you get away?’ asked Owen.
‘Took off running, the one coming after me, and I ducked down an alley. Lost him. His limp slowed him, and I know all the ginnels and alleyways, don’t I?’
Owen and Lucie exchanged a look. Pete did not look like a man who could outrun a person desperate to silence him. He’d not smelled of drink when out in the garden, but perhaps it did not take much. Still, the account brought to mind the pair the Bell taverner had noticed.
‘You say the one limped and the other seemed to have been injured in the shoulder or upper arm?’
‘That I did. You’ve heard of them?’
‘Our men have been searching for them.’
‘Then it’s good I came straight here, isn’t it?’
Too convenient? Something did not feel right.
Hugh broke Gwen’s cover, running toward her as she pressed her ear to the door and cawing, ‘What?’ Noisy rook. In a moment the kitchen door opened and Kate shook her head at them.
‘I will bring your food out here,’ she said. ‘You can sit on the window seat and eat. Would you like that?’ She ruffled Hugh’s hair. ‘Now stay. I will fetch Emma.’
Owen asked Pete to describe the men as best he could.
‘Wore hats that covered most of their hair, short cloaks. The one with the knife was rounder, older, with a sharp voice. Not so old as me, but the wounded one was younger. Not so young as your Jasper. Beardless, both of ’em. Not from the North. Different, but not foreign, I don’t think.’
Owen nodded, took Lucie aside. ‘What do you think?’
‘His wound is not deep,’ she said. ‘He will be fine. I’ve no doubt he was frightened, but then I’ve never seen him at ease. He comes to me only when Jonas Snicket is ill.’ She studied his face. ‘You do not believe him.’
‘Something happened, to be sure. He would not report such an attack had it not happened. I would quickly find him out. I cannot explain it, but it feels too easy. Do you need help bandaging him?’
‘No. But eat something before you leave.’
A knock on the door. Kate opened it.
‘Alisoun,’ Lucie whispered to Owen and hurried to the door.
‘Come, sit, Alisoun. Is Dame Anna delivered of her child?’
Sinking down onto the bench inside the door, Alisoun looked bleary-eyed. ‘She is. But it was a difficult birth, a day and a night. I sent for Magda when I found that the baby’s head had not turned. Two of us would work more quickly. Dame Anna and her sweet son are fed and resting. She will take a while to regain her strength, but the boy seems healthy.’
‘She was fortunate to have you in attendance,’ said Lucie. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘I broke my fast with Magda.’ She glanced toward Pete. ‘Has Jonas Snicket taken a turn?’
Owen joined them while Lucie was describing what had happened.
Alisoun shook her head. ‘I have no doubt at one time or another he offered to take in lodgers for a bit of coin, but his landlord has forbidden it. Whoever the men were, they would be foolish to stay with him. The landlord keeps a sharp eye on the house. Would you like me to talk to Master Jonas? He trusts me, and I would like to help. He might be injured.’
Glancing over at Pete, Owen hesitated to accept. ‘I cannot ask you to take such a risk.’
‘Now that I know of it, I will not rest easy until I have seen him,’ said Alisoun. ‘He’s not a bad man at heart.’
‘Would he open the door to Owen?’ Lucie asked.
‘It is possible. But it’s usually Pete who answers the door. Jonas moves about very little. I think it best I come along.’
Something in the way she said it made Owen ask, ‘This has happened before?’
‘Similar. Jonas believes himself to be cleverer than his fellows and he’s ever scheming to take advantage. He trips over his own imagined cleverness, and when it comes tumbling down about him he often blames Pete. Throws him out, locks the doors, and then his weak heart betrays him. I have worked out a way to climb in without attracting notice on the street. By now he counts on me to come.’
‘But this time the men injured Pete,’ said Lucie. ‘If they are still with him, you would be walking into danger.’
‘I know I take a risk. But I feel responsible. He counts on my coming in time. Do you see?’
‘He is an old fool,’ Lucie said softly.
‘If the men are gone, the door might be unlocked,’ said Owen. ‘I do not need him to open it for me.’
‘And if it is locked?’
‘Tell me your secret way.’
‘Forgive me, Captain, but you are not as nimble or as light as I am. And with his bad heart we must not delay. Come.’
While Owen went for his cloak, Alisoun asked, ‘How is Jasper today?’
Lucie moaned. ‘I’ve not yet seen him this morning. He moved slowly yesterday. He came home very drunk, confused Rhys with Einar, and what he said – I pray he was not overheard in the tavern.’
‘His friend Carl lives near the Thorntons. He came this morning to warn me of what Jasper had said. Fortunately they drank in a private room, and he’d said nothing about it on the way but that he was finished with me. Coming home, Carl kept a hand over his mouth.’
‘I am so sorry,’ Lucie said.
‘You have no control over him,’ said Alisoun. ‘He is grown.’
‘He was better yesterday,’ said Owen, rejoining them. ‘All is well between him and Gwen. But I will speak with him when we’ve seen about Jonas.’
‘Let me give you some of his heart medicine. In case you cannot find it,’ said Lucie, hurrying out of the kitchen.
Owen and Alisoun followed her, waiting outside the workshop door.
‘What will you say to Jasper?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. If he were one of my men, I would humiliate him in front of his fellows and then toss him out in disgrace. Though if it was his first time so drunk … What would you have me do?’
Her brown-eyed gaze steady, lacking emotion, she said, ‘I am not asking you to do anything. I delayed telling him something he had a right to know months ago. He is right to be angry.’
‘But this behavior …’
‘I pray you, be gentle with him. If he has made amends with Gwen, I am happy.’
They were quiet awhile, until Pete shuffled out the door, wearing a blanket like a cloak. ‘Are you going to see the master, Mistress Alisoun?’
‘In a moment,’ she said. ‘Dame Lucie is preparing more of his medicine, in case I cannot find his.’
‘Let me go,’ said Pete. ‘I don’t like to see you hurt.’
‘The captain will make certain nothing happens to me.’
‘The old fool might need me.’
‘No,’ Owen said.
‘You cannot keep me here against my will,’ said Pete. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘It is for your own good,’ said Alisoun.
But it was soon plain to Owen that the man was determined, and when Lucie appeared with the medicine he nodded to both of them. ‘Time to go.’
On the way, Alisoun had suggested that if no one answered the door she would sneak in, surprising the intruders – if they were still there. Owen could wait for them at the door, entering if he heard anything that concerned him. ‘It is a poor house,’ she had pointed out, ‘neither waxed parchment nor glass in the windows. You will hear everything.’
He had agreed.
Now, stepping up to the door, one hand on the hilt of the knife in her basket, she knocked. Hearing neither a voice nor movement within, she pushed at the door. Something prevented her from opening it. Nodding to where Owen crouched in the shadow of Laurence Gunnell’s shop, she turned down the alleyway and paused, listening. No one coming, no sound from within. Placing her basket on the ground she tied a rope to the handle, tucked the other end into her girdle, and climbed up the drainpipe to a windowsill. Taking a breath, she slowly pushed aside the loose shutter, again stopping to listen before easing down onto the table set beneath the window inside. Another pause. Still no sign of discovery. After freeing her skirts and retrieving her basket, she closed the shutter and crept out of the room, keeping an eye peeled for the intruders. The solar was empty. Messy, as if someone had been searching for something. A few steps down the ladder to the main part of the house, she paused, bending over to peer out. Seeing no sign of movement, she descended. On the bed tucked off to one side were rumpled bedclothes, but no Jonas. In the dimness it took her a moment to see that it was he who lay against the outside door, curled into a ball beneath a blood-stained blanket.
His hands and feet were cold and dried blood matted the sparse hair at the back of his head, but she felt a faint, uneven heartbeat. Gently easing him onto his back she could see that his face was bruised and one of his hands swollen. Pushing up his sleeve she found more signs of beating. Poor man. With care she moved him aside and opened the door.
The captain rushed in. ‘You are unhurt?’
‘I am. He is in there, battered, alive, but I am worried. If you could find me some water.’
‘I will fetch it,’ Pete cried, hastening out from behind the captain.
In short order the bed was stripped, fresh blankets and a pillow provided from a large chest, and Jonas was lying with a pillow behind his head after a move that had him whimpering and his heartbeat fluttering.
Pete had brought a cup of water so murky that Alisoun would normally reject it, but time was of the essence. She added Jonas’s heart tincture and coaxed him to drink a little.
‘It is Mistress Alisoun. I am with Captain Archer and your loyal Pete,’ she said, embarrassed for her companions to hear the emotion in her voice as she leaned close to hear his weak voice.
‘Just you …’ a breath, ‘… and the captain.’
‘Did he say aught?’ asked Pete, bending over her.
Alisoun turned to the servant. ‘I need you to fetch fresh water and some wine from the Bell. Stay outside until the captain lets you in.’
‘He is in good hands,’ the captain assured him. ‘We will not keep you waiting long.’
‘Best not. I’ll have the water and wine.’ Pete gave a half-hearted laugh and shuffled off.
Alisoun lifted the cup to Jonas’s lips for another sip of the physick. When he had swallowed and lay back to rest on the pillow, she said, ‘Tell Captain Archer what happened.’
He did his best to nod without raising his head.
When they first arrived, Owen had left Jonas to Alisoun’s competent ministrations while he searched for signs of lurkers. He found no one, but the house was in such disorder that he’d asked Pete about it.
‘I may not be the best housekeeper, Captain, but those men tossed everything about. No wonder the master’s heart gave out.’
Now Owen settled beside Jonas Snicket and asked him what they were searching for. He had to lean close to hear the man’s whisper over the rising sound of voices out in the yard.
Snicket’s eyes, clouded with age, filled with tears. ‘Coins …’ He took a breath. ‘Silver. Gold. How?’
‘How did they find it?’
A nod, then a coughing fit had Jonas wrapping his arms round him, as if to hold himself together.
Owen waited until Alisoun gave the man more of the tincture, then asked, ‘The men who came last night took it? You know this?’
‘Showed me,’ he whispered with eyes closed.
‘How many people knew of the hiding place?’
‘I trusted …’ A long moment in which he fought for breath. ‘Betrayed …’ His voice faded to nothing.
Alisoun put a hand on Owen’s arm, a light tug indicating he should let the man rest. Straightening, he followed her toward the door.
‘I do not think he will be with us long,’ she said. ‘Could you quiet the people out there? Let him die in peace?’
Dying. ‘Do you think he’s telling the truth?’ Owen asked.
‘I do not think he would have used what little strength he has to lie to you.’
‘Did you know he had money in the house?’
‘He bragged of it. I will tell you what I know after Pete brings the water and wine.’
Owen stepped out, motioning for Pete to go in, then turned to face a crowd gathering round Colby, Jonas’s landlord, who shrilly proclaimed that he would toss Snicket out onto the street for being a menace.
‘The only menace in this tale is whoever beat your tenant to the point of death,’ Owen said. ‘Was it you?’
While Colby choked on his indignation, Owen spoke in a quiet voice that required the man to make the effort to listen. He made no threats, but rather informed the man how he should proceed if he wished to keep his name out of gossip about the incident. ‘And that includes all of you,’ he said, taking in the rest. ‘Master Jonas’s manservant says that one of the intruders who badly beat Master Jonas is injured in his shoulder or upper arm. The other one is older, with a limp. Has anyone seen them?’
Shaking heads, curious glances round the crowd. One woman stepped forward, speaking of a cry in the night, several voices. Owen asked her where she lived. He would speak with her more. ‘Anyone else?’ With shakes of their heads, the others scurried off, leaving Colby the landlord.
‘I have a right to choose my tenants.’
‘Is Jonas Snicket in arrears on his rent?’
‘No.’
‘Then what is your complaint? Do you think he asked for this trouble?’
‘He complains to anyone who will listen that he was a wealthy man before his family deserted him. But neighbors said he was so stingy they almost starved, and his wife took the children away to find a better life. So where is all his wealth?’
‘Is that why you want him gone? So you can tear up the walls and floorboards searching for treasure?’
‘What? I never said that.’
‘If I hear you’ve tossed him out–’ Owen glared at him.
The man shrunk into himself and hurried away, muttering about abuse.
When Colby was gone, Laurence Gunnell came out from his shop, his face creased with concern. ‘I heard you say “to the point of death”. Is the old man dying?’
‘I think so.’
Gunnell crossed himself. ‘I am sorry. He was a mean old dog, but I hope to have half his fire when I’m that age.’
Nodding to him, Owen went back into the house. Jonas lay still, his old servant kneeling beside him, weeping and praying. Gone. Murdered. By the same men who murdered Beck?
While they waited for the coroner, Owen helped Pete tidy the house. Let him have a clean place to sleep until Colby evicted him.
Once the coroner had seen Jonas and questioned Alisoun, Owen, and Pete, he said they were free to go about their day.
As Owen took up Alisoun’s basket, the coroner said, ‘You will be searching for the men who beat him?’
‘I will.’
‘Has this anything to do with the Bishop of Winchester?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Third body in what, three or four days, two of them from the attack on his carter …’
‘Where did you learn of Bishop Wykeham’s presence in the city?’
‘The sheriff.’
‘Do most people know?’
‘I would say so. By now. People remember the murder of the young midwife when he last visited York. So? Does this have to do with him?’
‘Too soon to say.’
‘And if you knew, you would not tell me.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘You’re a sly one, Archer. Keep your information close but for your friends Poole and Hempe. I suppose it’s wise in your work. But it makes people wonder.’
Meaning he wondered. Owen thanked him for attending so quickly and took his leave.
Out in the yard, Owen took a good look at Alisoun. Despite some grime on hem and cobwebs in her hair from the house of old men who saw no reason to fuss much, she presented a respectable front. But he sensed grief and deep weariness in her eyes and the tenor of her voice.
Nodding to him, she started moving away from the house.
‘I am sorry I was not with you when Jonas died,’ Owen said as he fell into step beside her.
‘Magda taught me to open my heart when I sit with the dying, holding them, reassuring them. This morning was not the first time I have felt life slip away in a patient. But …’ She took a deep breath. ‘Jonas was so alone, his spirit so thin, as if he died long ago.’ She met Owen’s eye and forced a smile. ‘It is my sleeplessness speaking.’
Perhaps. Though he wondered how much of Jonas Snicket’s curtness had been an attempt to cover a disappointment in life, and whether with Magda’s training Alisoun could sense that. Added to her vigil of two nights and a day assisting at a difficult birth, and her argument with Jasper, he marveled at her vigorous stride.
‘When was the last time you slept?’
‘Two days ago,’ she said as she bobbed her head at a passerby who called out a greeting.
‘To ensure that you go straightaway home, I will escort you to Bootham Bar.’
‘You mean to protect me from the gossips who might have heard Jasper’s insults.’
Despite being tired she was sharp.
‘That is part of it,’ he admitted.
‘I am protected by Magda’s dragon,’ she said, ‘didn’t you know?’
Owen glanced over at her, remembering a strange moment when he had thought he saw Magda’s dragon reach down to Einar, the healer’s great-grandson, in a protective posture. A few blinks and the vision had passed, but for that moment … Alisoun’s eyes were soft, as if seeing something in memory. ‘I am glad of that,’ he said. ‘But I will escort you anyway.’
‘Even after I betrayed your son?’
‘What you did for Jonas, your care for those who seek your help, that is what I am honoring.’
‘Thank you.’ Her smile was tinged with sadness. ‘Then I welcome your company.’
He proffered his arm and she threaded hers through his and matched his stride, which he shortened for her sake. Far more comfortable together than was their wont. He remembered his impression when watching her attend Jonas Snicket – in the past year she had truly come into her own authority as a healer. She no longer behaved like an apprentice – hesitant, murmuring Magda’s advice under her breath.
‘Colby mentioned a wife and children,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything of them?’
‘He had many stories of his family. In some his wife and an ever-changing number of children simply walked away, in others he had a son who had gone a-soldiering and never returned. Once he mentioned a daughter who died of the pestilence, as had his wife.’
‘No idea what might have been the true story?’
‘I think the saddest one. It did not suit him to have lost his family to pestilence and war.’
‘So he might have a living son?’
Alisoun chuckled. ‘You do not mean to spend time chasing after what might exist only in my head, do you?’
‘No.’ He knew he had grasped at the tale of a son going off to be a soldier as something familiar. He had done so – conscripted, not his choice. And he knew the pain of feeling he’d left it too late to return to the home of his birth. Nor had he been able to imagine what sort of life he could make in Wales. Trained from youth as an archer, he’d felt at the time he was good for little else. When the old duke, Henry of Grosmont, chose him for one of his spies, he had schooled Owen in reading, writing, dressing, speaking, behaving as a lesser noble. Which had brought him to the attention of Archbishop Thoresby on the old duke’s death, and hence to York. Jonas’s son’s tale would doubtless be different, but likely just as unpredictable. If he even existed.
‘I just pray that the son so long lost to him was not one of the men who beat and robbed him,’ said Alisoun. ‘A son might have known where to look.’
Owen mulled over her idea as she paused to give the good news of the birth of Anna’s child to a woman who asked, crouching down to greet the woman’s daughter, who giggled at Alisoun’s teasing.
When they walked on he asked how she had thought of that – Jonas’s son being one of the intruders.
‘My mind often works that way, imagining the worst that could happen to someone I’ve come to care for.’
‘How often are you right?’
‘Almost never, I am glad to report.’ A little laugh.
‘Until Jonas said he’d been robbed, I wondered how the pair dared attack his house, knowing I’d been there to see whether the old man had lodged the men who attacked Gerald Trent and the others. I made no secret of my purpose.’
‘Whoever it was knew of the money, and where to find it,’ said Alisoun. ‘That would mean they are likely people of York.’
‘Who might Jonas have forgotten he’d told?’
‘Any number of people. When the weakness came upon him, he grew forgetful. I do not envy you your job, Captain.’
In the walk from Jonas’s home to Bootham Bar, nary a person taunted Alisoun. It seemed Jasper’s friend had spoken the truth about her being safe from his foul mouth. A blessing. Owen, however, fielded a few jolly comments about his son’s drunken walk across the city.
‘I wish I had the time to ask Magda’s advice about my son,’ he said as they reached the city gate.
‘You are a good father, Captain. He was not copying anything you did.’
Not now, not since he’d come to York. But Owen could not say it was true of him when a soldier.