A Fox in the Fold

Nine A Carving, a Kindness, an Arrow

As he crossed the minster yard, Owen heard someone calling to him. He turned to see a muscular man of middle age dressed in the dusty tunic and leggings of an artisan.

‘Marcus Bolton, Captain. You’ve no cause to know me, but I heard about the man you found in the beck, and that he might be David Wells. So I took myself to the castle and – God help me, what a stench, I pity the guards – from what I could tell it is the young man who was working for me.’

A bit of luck. ‘Go on. How did you come to hire him?’

‘He came to the city wanting work in the stoneyard at the minster. When they had no need for him, they suggested he see me. He hoped, with his fine tools, that working for a stonemason might lead to his being hired at the minster. He proved a good worker, though I employed him on humble houses, nothing so fine I needed a skilled carver. And he was that.’ Bolton pulled a small stone from his scrip and placed it in Owen’s hand.

Deep-set eyes glared at him from a sea of wrinkles, the mouth pursed in disapproval, hair wildly curled about the head.

‘A ceiling boss to give nightmares to the unsuspecting soul during a sermon,’ said Owen.

The man was laughing. ‘A gorgon, that’s what she is. But you see the skill. I hoped to keep him on long enough to have time to persuade someone to take him on at the minster. Think what he might have done.’

‘A waste of a life,’ said Owen. ‘I would like to show you a pack of tools. They might have been his. I could bring it to you if you tell me where.’

Bolton began to answer, forming one word before changing it. ‘You will be busy with all this, so why don’t I come to you?’

Col, that’s the word Owen saw him form. And then changed his mind. It might be nothing, but Owen would send someone to observe the man’s house in Colliergate. ‘Sooner is much better than later,’ he said.

‘I will come as soon as I may. Is it true David was here only to attack the carter he blamed for his father’s death?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Harold, one of the minster masons. I cannot understand. I’ve never been so wrong about a worker. I believed him in earnest when he talked of carving decorated stones for the great York Minster being his dream.’

‘A man can journey far for one cause and discover another, closer to his heart,’ said Owen. ‘Did he have any visitors while he worked for you?’

‘He did. The young man John the Joiner took on to work on Dame Lucie’s apothecary. Rhys. He came to see David a few times. They would argue, Rhys would go off angry. Seemed to me they knew each other well. Like brothers, I thought.’

No wonder. ‘Has he been back since David disappeared?’

‘Haven’t seen him.’

Had Rhys been part of the plan? But why had he not taken part in the attack? The scar, the arguments … Related?

Owen realized he still held the gorgon and handed it to Bolton. ‘I thank you for the information.’

‘You are welcome to the stone,’ said Bolton. ‘I’ll come to see the tools in the next day or so.’

‘Another death?’ Michaelo looked grieved. ‘You will wish to speak with His Grace?’

‘Is he here?’

‘In the garden.’ The monk touched Owen’s arm. ‘If there is anything I can do–’

‘Send word the moment you sense danger. Anything out of the ordinary.’

‘A chilling request.’

‘Three deaths, none of them anticipated.’ Owen nodded to him and headed for the garden.

Wykeham rose at his approach. ‘Such a grim face. More trouble?’ He listened with bowed head to the tale of Jonas Snicket. ‘A sad ending. But what has this to do with your investigation of the attack on Trent and his men?’

‘The city was quiet for a long while before that event, Your Grace. Then the attack, a body, the abandoned cart, another body, and this latest.’ He did not mention the incident in the cemetery, though it must be connected. ‘I cannot help but suspect the men involved in your problem are leaving a trail of trouble behind them.’

‘I see. I pray you, keep me informed. And I still wish to dine with you and Dame Lucie. Dom Jehannes welcomes you whenever you might find time in your busy days.’

Courteous, accepting his judgment? Owen did not understand this Wykeham. And he should, for the sake of the city. ‘If my wife feels easy leaving the shop for a few hours, and Dom Jehannes believes his cook able to accommodate us, we will join you tomorrow. Do you know if he is at home?’

‘He retreated to his parlor with a comely young man who came seeking counsel. They might have adjourned by now. I look forward to a long conversation on the morrow.’ He walked with Owen to the door – more unusual behavior – adding, ‘You should know that the sheriff had sent a messenger to ask what I wished to do with the cart of stones. I had them delivered to St Clement’s. They may find them useful.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’

In the hall, Owen asked Brother Michaelo whether he thought Jehannes would be comfortable with Wykeham’s invitation for dinner the following day.

‘He will be glad of it, relieved of the responsibility of entertaining His Grace. I will inform him when his visitor departs.’

‘The young man is still with him?’

Michaelo raised a brow. ‘His Grace noticed him?’

‘He knew only that he sought our friend’s counsel, and that he was comely.’

Nodding, Michaelo promised to arrange the dinner with the cook. Something in his expression puzzled Owen. He felt he left with more questions than when he’d arrived.

On his way home, Owen stopped at the house of Gemma Rydale, mother of their maidservant Kate as well as Tildy, now married to the steward of Lucie’s family manor, and Rob and Rose, twins who had proved excellent spies for him in the past. Lucie often teased that they could not survive without the Rydale brood, and wondered how many of the younger siblings they might engage in future. Today he had need of the twins.

‘You will find them doing penance in the kitchen yard, Captain, raking leaves and tidying the herb patch.’

‘Might I employ them for some tracking?’

‘Bless you, Captain. You will be doing me a kindness giving them work.’

He found Rose kneeling at a small, tidy bed of herbs, plucking fallen leaves from the lavender and rosemary. Rob shook a rake at a mongrel dog trading barks with him. As children, the pair had been almost identical in appearance, until they moved – Rose was all speed and surprising grace, Rob more measured and heavy, though he could be quick when the situation required it. But now, at seventeen, one would not know they were twins except for their mannerisms when speaking, especially their colorful vocabularies. Rose had a delicate beauty, with pale brown hair tumbling round her shoulders and enormous green eyes in a heart-shaped face, full lips that were more often turned up in a smile than not. Her looks deceived, and she delighted in using that to her benefit. Rob’s hair, in contrast, had darkened and thickened, standing up about his square face. His form was solid, muscular, his expression bland, as if he had not a thought in his head, and he spoke so quietly that folk must come close to hear him. Few dared.

Owen crouched down beside Rose. ‘He’s taken to barking now?’

‘Captain!’ She sat back on her heels, grinning at him. ‘Two curs trading insults.’

‘You two have quarreled?’

‘Of late he’s all noise and no wit. The lad’s in love, and he caught her riding a rival.’

Echoes of his own son’s woes. ‘I was hoping I might hire the pair of you to search for some miscreants. But if you’d rather work alone …’

‘Just what’s needed!’ Springing onto her feet, she sprinted over to her twin and took him by the shoulder, shaking him. ‘Shut your jaw and come hear what the captain needs of us.’

With the twins out in the city, hunting for signs of Rhys, Raymond, and the vaguely described pair who had robbed Jonas, who might or might not be the same as the surviving pair from the attack on the cart, Owen headed home. He found Lucie alone in the apothecary.

‘No Jasper?’

‘He asked leave to go to the minster and pray,’ she said. ‘He is filled with remorse and wishes for atonement. Magda’s in the kitchen. She wanted to hear about Jonas Snicket. How is he?’

‘Word has not gotten round the city yet?’

‘I’ve heard nothing.’

‘Beaten so badly his heart pulled him down. He died while we were there.’ Owen managed to tell her most of the tale before a customer interrupted. ‘Jasper needs to watch the shop tomorrow. We’re dining with Jehannes and the bishop.’

‘Are we?’ Lucie raised a brow. ‘I doubt Jasper will complain of it. He’s been away for a while this morning. But will you have the time?’

‘What he wishes to discuss in your presence may prove helpful.’

‘I hope so. Go now, dine with Magda. Kate will serve me when Jasper returns.’

In the kitchen, Magda held Emma on her lap, teaching her a complicated string game. Peals of laughter as his youngest tangled herself, then found her way out. Owen laughed with her.

‘She is quick-fingered,’ said Magda with a fond smile.

‘Don’t I know that!’ Kate laughed from her spot stirring a stew. She wiped her hands on a cloth and stepped over to relieve Magda of the four-year-old. ‘If you will fetch the ale, Captain, I will bring the food to the hall,’ she said.

Scooping up a jug and two bowls, Owen followed Magda out of the kitchen. They settled round a corner of the table that afforded both of them a view of the garden. Kate arrived with roasted fowl, pottage, and cheese, Emma with a basket of bread. Owen and Magda fussed over Emma’s success in delivering the food without mishap. Giggling, she tugged at Kate’s hand, leading her back to the kitchen. As they reached the door she cried, ‘We’re going to pick apples!’

Magda laughed and clapped her hands. Owen thanked Kate as she disappeared through the door.

‘Have you seen the others?’

‘Gwen and Hugh are pulling weeds in the garden beds.’ Magda poured ale for both of them as she spoke, handing one to Owen and urging him to drink up. ‘Thou hast witnessed a death today. This and a full stomach will calm thee. Tell Magda what is tumbling round in thy head when thou art full.’

Seeing the wisdom in her advice, Owen fell to the food with more enthusiasm than he had expected. While he ate, Magda told him what she knew of his concerns so that he would not need to repeat himself. She also surprised him with an account of a conversation with Gwen.

‘Thine eldest proposes Magda take her into Galtres to learn to gather roots, berries, nuts, and wild herbs, while her dam teaches her the properties of all in the garden and gives her chores there and in the apothecary. She means to be either a healer or an apothecary. Didst thou know?’

He recalled her questioning about how he had known what he wished to do. She had asked Lucie about her vocation as well. ‘Do you think she is sincere?’

‘As a child can be. She may try many other paths before finding her own. For now, she is keen.’

A pleasant bit of news on a trying day. Sitting back, he proceeded to give Magda an account of all that had happened since Wykeham arrived in York. By the time he was finished, he’d downed another full bowl of ale in wetting his throat. All the while Magda listened without comment.

Now she touched his hand. ‘So much weighing on thee, Bird-eye. Do not mourn Jonas too long. His heart died with his wife. He was lost without her calm counsel, and her head for business.’

He asked her about the various versions of his family.

‘Son went off to be a soldier, swearing Jonas would never see him again, wife and daughter dead of pestilence.’ She shifted in her chair to look more closely at him. ‘As to the Winchester crow, he, too, is lost. His king is dying, and the king’s sons do not share their father’s love for him. He feels choked by enemies, and he may well be right to feel so. His power diminishes. What did he love before he gave his life to his king?’

‘Building.’ Owen described to her a room at Windsor Castle in which Wykeham had built a model of how he wished to change the castle. ‘He talked of going there when he was wakeful, finding calm in the planning.’

Her eyes smiled. ‘That is good. Speak to him of that. Say thou art curious whether he yet has such a chamber to which he might retreat. Thou couldst inspire him anew.’ Owen must have flinched at the suggestion. Magda chuckled. ‘There is no harm in showing kindness to one who is a sometime enemy. Much good might come of it. For both.’

As ever, he saw the wisdom in her words. ‘I would welcome something to distract me from my own dark suspicions. I see plotters and murderers everywhere.’

‘It is the nature of thy work, Bird-eye. And why thou art good at it. Magda is sorry for young Rhys. When he is found, listen with care. Do not be quick to condemn him.’

He bit his tongue on his arguments. Doubtless she was right in this. ‘And Jasper. How might I help him?’

‘In his time of trial.’ She turned to gaze out the window.

‘When did Einar last visit?’

‘More than a year ago.’ She nodded. ‘Alisoun clutched it to her heart a long while, as if hoping it might soften with time.’

‘A year?’

‘Yes.’

‘If she had told him as soon as she returned …’ he began, but stopped when she turned back to him with a frown.

‘He would not have felt so betrayed? She lay with Einar. That is all he truly hears now. That she has no wish to live with Einar matters little at present. In time her delay will carry more sting.’

Owen nodded. At present the pain came from what happened with Einar. Alisoun’s hesitation might make Jasper wonder whether she was not sure what she felt. But the deed was done. He saw the implications, but his son might not yet be clear-headed enough to consider them.

‘How can I help him?’

‘He must find his own way, Bird-eye. It is a hard lesson for a father.’

‘His anger with Gwen, getting drunk at Simon’s farewell party, should I not intervene?’

‘A most difficult passage for a young man,’ said Magda. ‘But attempts to help, no matter how gentle and caring, will be met with resistance. And more temper.’

They spoke a while longer, but she held to her simple advice – allow Jasper to find his way. She promised to watch for Rhys, the pair who had attacked Jonas, and for Raymond.

‘Hast thou spoken to Angel-voice at the priory? Will she return with the Winchester crow?’

‘I have not. Dame Marian would have no insight into the attack on Trent and his men.’

‘But she might provide a sense of the Winchester crow’s standing in the realm. Perhaps advice from her kin.’

He considered that, but could not see the immediate benefit.

‘Thou couldst then tell the crow that thou hast spoken with her.’

‘You think it important that I be kind to him,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Magda senses a desperate man.’

‘As do I,’ said Lucie. Owen had not noticed her enter the room. She bent to kiss his cheek.

‘Jasper has returned?’

‘He has.’

Magda pressed Owen’s hand. ‘Ride out to Clementhorpe. The sun is shining, the air is crisp, and the brief journey might clear thy head.’

Owen knelt before the altar in the priory chapel, praying for the soul of Jonas Snicket, whose ending weighed on his heart during the solitary journey to St Clement’s – bitter, lost, railing against the world, being brought down so cruelly through someone’s betrayal. Whose? He bowed his head, pushing aside the question. Blessed Mother Mary, I pray you intercede on behalf of the soul of Jonas Snicket. May your son, God Almighty, grant him grace.

A rustle of prayer beads behind him announced the arrival of Dame Marian. He crossed himself and rose.

‘Forgive me for interrupting your devotions,’ she said.

‘A moment of peace. I am ready to resume my work.’

She bowed and led him out of the chapel toward the orchard.

‘So this is not just a friendly visit?’ Her pale eyes twinkled.

‘That, too.’

He took a moment to appreciate how changed she was from the frightened waif Brother Michaelo had brought to his door on a snowy morning a few years earlier. It was more than the Benedictine habit she now wore. Her eyes spoke of contentment, and her presence radiated a calm, as if the world might be trusted to walk in grace.

They said nothing for a while, a companionable silence. A dappled light and the spicy scent of late apples invited a stroll along the paths. Feeling the peace of the priory enveloping him, Owen was grateful to Magda for guiding him here.

‘You come to speak of Bishop Wykeham’s request?’ she asked.

‘Of the circumstances that led him to such an undertaking. Has your family spoken of it?’

‘Oh yes. I have heard much of his woes from my aunts. It seems the bishop’s nemesis, the Duke of Lancaster, acts on behalf of his father the king, but with his own prejudices. For the sake of my Percy kin, especially Uncle Thomas, I am advised to do nothing that might be construed as a favor to Wykeham.’

Sir Thomas Percy again. ‘Have they provided details of Lancaster’s intentions regarding Wykeham?’

‘He is to be stripped of his temporalities, reducing his income and properties to those attached to his bishopric.’

Quite a loss. Not one that would leave Wykeham destitute, but, as he’d said, stripped him of the means to sustain influence in the realm, a frightening prospect for a man with many powerful enemies. ‘Once the king’s favorite, now to be brought so low. And all for a false rumor.’

‘I doubt that is the sole cause,’ said Marian. ‘According to my uncle and aunts, the duke is so like his father and eldest brother in temperament and sense of duty, and looks so like both of them, that it is impossible for anyone who knows him to believe he is a changeling. But perhaps in his own heart he doubts? Being the son of such a king, and the brother of such a warrior as Prince Edward might prove a heavy burden. He might feel lesser in comparison. Poor man.’

He thought of Magda’s guidance – kindness. It seemed that Dame Marian was the model of kindness. ‘All that being possible, I still fail to understand Lancaster’s purpose in such an extreme action against the Bishop of Winchester.’

‘Nor do my aunts. The clerics will see it as a threat. Wonder which one of them might be next. And His Grace King Edward, should he recover his strength, will he not be offended? This man he held in such esteem?’

Owen recalled Thoresby’s falling out with the king over Alice Perrers because he disapproved of the romantic liaison, feeling that her presence was a constant insult to Queen Philippa, whom he revered. ‘For all we know the king might approve. Royal favor is never secure. Perhaps the duke means it as a warning to tread with care, not to assume the throne is weak because of the king’s failing health.’

‘I do not like to think they would so use a man who has faithfully served his king and his God.’ She paused and lifted her face to gaze up at the overhanging branches as wind danced in the leaves around them, sending some twirling from their branches and spiraling down to the ground. ‘I have been content here. And yet beneath that contentment is ever a hum of worry that my place is with Dame Eloise in her final days. Now my kin would have me choose them over my dear teacher.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘I wonder – is God testing me? Taking the advice of my aunts and uncle and staying here has much appeal. But Dame Eloise taught me most of what I know of sacred music, loved me, encouraged me, and now I might comfort her in her final days, ease her worries. If it were not that in returning to her I might endanger my kin, my duty would be clear to me.’ She bowed her head, the graceful dip of a swan. He saw a tear travel down her cheek.

‘How might I help?’

She touched his arm. ‘You have listened. It has helped to speak of it with a friend who has no need to urge me to either choice. Bless you for coming. Tell me about Gwen, Hugh, and Emma. Are they singing?’

Owen laughed. ‘Oh yes. And they argue about which one of them you will praise on your next visit.’

‘Should I decide to return to Wherwell, I will miss them.’

‘Take their laughter with you in your heart.’

‘Bless you, Captain, I will.’

By the time Owen left her, he sensed that she had made a decision.

When he reached the priory yard, the cart of stones sat just within the gate. Beside it, Prioress Isobel stood with hands on hips, studying the stones someone had taken off the cart and placed on a low wall.

She glanced up at his approach. ‘Captain Archer, will you look at the stones His Grace gifted us for the orchard wall?’

‘Benedicite, Mother Isobel.’ He bobbed his head to her and moved closer to run his hand over them. ‘So fine. Are they all like this?’

‘They are. Far too fine for an orchard wall. But perhaps we might take his advice, use these for an archway beside the chapel …’ Her eyes brightened.

Wykeham’s scheme had worked?

‘A gift fit for St Clement’s after all,’ Owen said.

‘Perhaps.’ She motioned to a tall sister striding toward them. ‘Dame Perpetua will have the gardeners unload this in the stables.’

Owen offered to help the sister move the cart away from the gate, but Dame Perpetua would not hear of it.

‘I will see to it.’

Expressing his gratitude for giving Dame Marian leave to speak with him, Owen took his leave before Mother Isobel grew curious about the conversation. He noticed his horse had been offered water, and smelled apples on her breath.

‘Your groom was kind,’ he said.

‘That was Dame Perpetua,’ said Mother Isobel, giving her companion a fond smile.

The visit had shifted Owen’s mood, and he hummed as he rode back toward the city, looking round, noticing how the autumn sun picked out the gold and red leaves carpeting the ground beneath partially bared trees.

Until he felt a shiver up his spine and his ruined eye began to throb. Closing his good for a moment, he sought the direction from which came the threat. Just as he’d established it was to his left, the sense passed. Ambling off the road in that direction he found nothing. But it had been there, he was sure of it.

From the stables near Micklegate Bar he sought out the riverside home of the woman who had heard the cry in the night. She welcomed him into her modest house next door to Snicket’s, shooing a small boy and a kitten away from a bench by the fire.

‘I have some ale,’ she said.

‘A mouthful would be most welcome. Thank you.’ Owen settled on the bench.

She handed him a small cup as she perched beside him. ‘You’ve come about what I heard, the night that poor man was robbed.’ She glanced round, lowered her voice. ‘I believe it was Master Jonas I heard. I would have thought nothing of it – he oft wept and cried out in his sleep. He told me his wife came to him, but as they were kissing she would turn into a creature out of hell and choke him.’ She crossed herself.

‘But this night?’

‘After his cry I heard laughter. Oh, Captain, such evil, wicked laughter. And I’d a mind I was hearing the she-devil in his dreams. In the morning I chided myself. You foolish Margery, you can’t hear another’s dreams. And I remembered a man’s angry voice after the laughter. And another. When I heard old Jonas had been attacked, I thought to speak up.’

‘It was the laughter that caused you to think of a she-devil?’

‘Have you ever heard an owl’s hunting cry? The one that sounds like a cackle? That’s the sound. I’ve always thought it how the devil would laugh.’

His ruined eye throbbed. He once knew someone with such a laugh. Many of Owen’s archers thought him the devil himself, though he was one of them. ‘What part of the night?’

‘I’d been asleep a long while, but it was still dark as pitch. And I fell back to sleep until the lad woke me at dawn.’

Drinking down the ale, Owen thanked her for her help.

‘It was important?’

‘Every piece is, Dame Margery. Bless you.’

Deep in dark memories of the man with such a laugh, a thorn amongst his archers, he was startled back to the present by Rob and Rose rushing up to him on Ouse Bridge, clearly excited. Over the bridge and into Coney Street they hurried him, leading him down a narrow alley where they stopped just before the buildings gave way to the mud flats on the riverbank.

From beneath his tunic, Rob drew out an arrow snapped in half, and Rose went to stand in the corner where they had found it, lifting a rag and presenting it to him. The remains of a shirt stiff with blood.

‘How you noticed these here, where the light never reaches …’

‘We are closer to the ground than you are, Captain,’ Rose said with a laugh.

That they were.

‘Is it helpful?’ Rob asked.

Owen moved out onto the mud flat to examine the broken arrow in better light. Blood-stained as well. The arrowhead was not the simple sort used for hunting small game, but an archer’s point. He examined the other half. The fletching was set at an uncommon slant. He had last seen this among his men when he was captain of the duke’s archers. A small group led by his most skilled but least trusted archer, he of the evil laugh, who claimed the odd slant made an arrow faster. Owen never could see the difference. The arrow had been dropped recently, else the remains would have been scavenged for the arrowhead, which was still useful.

‘Might be,’ said Owen. ‘You’ve already earned a day’s pay.’

‘It’s still early!’ Rose declared as the two hurried off.

The arrow was the kind used in battle, not hunting or practicing at the butts, its use in the city prohibited, punished by a large fine and confiscation of all archery equipment. He wrapped the broken arrow in the remnants of the shirt and stuck them in his scrip. He needed to talk to Trent, find out if the laugh and the arrowhead were Raymond’s.