York, October 1376
From her seat in the shade of the linden, Lucie Wilton observed the young man bending to his work on the stone wall, golden in the autumn sunlight. The stack already rose several layers above the ditch her husband had dug to outline the foundation of the new garden wall, providing her a clearer sense of how she might shape the garden round the extended building and the new arc of the walkway leading from the gate to the York Tavern yard. The enlarged apothecary would provide much-needed space for her work, but digging up two of the oldest beds of essential herbs had felt a desecration of her first husband’s masterwork, an apothecary garden of more variety than might be found even in the wealthiest monasteries. She reminded herself that even before the wall the garden had changed, expanding to more than twice the size it had been in Nicholas’s lifetime. Her father had gifted her the house next to the shop, with its own large garden, where she and Owen, her present husband, might raise their family. Even so, she felt a tug of remorse.
Seeking to buoy her mood, she walked along the winding garden path, letting the morning sun warm her, smelling the rich scent of the earth after last night’s rain, looking up at the colors of the changing leaves, listening to the bees seeking out the last hardy blossoms, and trying not to spy on her ten-year-old daughter Gwenllian as she flirted with the young laborer.
Gwen watched Rhys tuck the chisel into a fold in the stone, take a deep breath, and, with the care of someone working a delicate carving, tap it with his hammer. A shard flew toward her, just missing her cheek.
‘I pray you retreat to a safe distance, my lady,’ said Rhys in his soft voice. ‘I would never forgive myself if a stray shard marred your beauty.’
She stepped back with a giggle and a blush. Gwen hated how easily the color rose – Rhys would think her such a child. But he was smiling, not laughing. A beautiful smile. If it were not for the long scar on the right side of his face, he might be almost as handsome as her father. Da’s was not so disfiguring – he said that was thanks to the salve her mother made him, softening the scar and keeping it from tightening and puckering his face. Rhys’s scar lifted the right side of his mouth and lowered the outer corner of his right eye so that he looked as if he were ever wincing in pain. And the line stayed a nasty red. It looked as if someone had slashed him from temple to chin with a sword, though he claimed it was nothing so exciting. She had overheard her father talking to the joiner who had hired Rhys to help with the apothecary addition. Will said by the looks of it Rhys had been injured shortly before he had arrived in York looking for work. Months ago now.
Settling on a bench, near but far enough away so that she would not alarm him, Gwen asked if he would like to hear the story of how her father lost the sight in his left eye.
‘I have wondered. He was a soldier, I think?’ He moved his hand over a side of the stone, turned it toward him, placed the chisel, and tapped.
‘Captain of archers for the Duke of Lancaster.’ She cleared her throat and began the tale of her father’s terrible injury. How one night, when he was on guard at the tents where the noble prisoners were sleeping, he caught a Breton jongleur whose life he had saved cutting the throats of the French nobles held for high ransom. A woman helping the jongleur came up behind and – as her father turned round – the knife meant for his neck sliced his eye instead.
Rhys had stopped working to listen. ‘What happened to the two traitors?’
‘Da killed them.’ Gwen took a deep breath, pushing aside the image that always arose with the tale, of her father with a hand over his eye, the blood seeping through his fingers.
‘The pain. How does a man bear it?’ Rhys touched his own wound. ‘At least I did not lose my eye.’
‘No. But Dame Magda says Da has a third eye. It helps him see things more clearly than others do.’
‘Is that like the Sight? Can he see the future?’
‘No. It’s more like he understands what is happening.’
Nodding, Rhys turned back to his work. He chose a stone from the pile, using both hands to hold it and move it slightly back and forth and side to side, all the while standing with eyes closed. She knew from asking him before that he was weighing the stone, sensing its balance, where it was heavy, and imagining where it would best fit. Now, with a little nod, he opened his eyes and carried it to the wall he was building, setting it not where she had expected, but a few stones away from that.
He’d told her he had always loved stone. When he held one he knew its heart, saw the ‘true shape of it.’ She liked how he spoke about stone, much like her father about archery, or her mother about how to tend the plants in the garden and how she mixed the physicks in her apothecary. When she’d asked her mother how she knew that is what spoke to her, she had smiled with surprise, asking where Gwen had learned that phrase.
‘I heard someone talking about it. So how did you know?’
‘As a child I found peace in the gardens at Freythorpe, and at the priory I enjoyed helping in the garden. Dame Doltrice encouraged me to come whenever I had time, kindly saying I was a help, though I doubt it. I interrupted her with questions. When I married Nicholas Wilton I asked him to teach me all he knew. And he did.’
Gwen’s father said that all young men learned archery when he was a lad, just as many did now, and he had developed a liking for it. She was glad of that. Had he not been so good he might not have been captain of archers for the old Duke of Lancaster, then come to York when his lord died. If he had not come to York and met her mother, Gwen would have different parents. And she adored her parents. She was proud to be Gwenllian Archer.
‘The captain was in a hurry this morning,’ said Rhys. ‘Was there trouble in the city?’ He had paused to drink water.
‘No. Dom Jehannes wished to see him. He’s the Archdeacon of York. Almost as important as the archbishop. They are good friends, Father and Dom Jehannes. I think he sought Father’s counsel.’ She felt quite grown up, explaining all that.
‘I am glad that is all it was.’
Her turn for a question. ‘What were you arguing about with the man in the market the other day?’ she asked.
‘Arguing?’ He frowned, shaking his head.
She knew that look, with the glance away and down. Her father did that when she asked about something he had not wanted her to hear, something he feared would make her uneasy. But it was only fair that Rhys answer her question in turn, so Gwen waited.
He lifted another stone, gently tossing it hand to hand, his eyes moving as he weighed how to answer her question. So he had secrets. Of course he did. All adults did. He gave a little nod.
‘I remember. The man standing by the far stall. I thought he meant to cheat me. He looked away as if he thought we were finished, but he’d yet to hand me the coins in change. When I asked him for what he owed me he took it badly. Some folk cannot abide being caught in error. But we parted amiably.’
She had seen no exchange of coins, or goods. To her eyes, Rhys had rushed up to the man and spoken as if he knew him and was surprised to see him there. The man had laughed. Not a nice laugh. And then Rhys had looked worried, but grew angry as the other crossed his arms and smiled. But she let Rhys think she was satisfied. She did not know how he would take more questioning and she liked talking to him. Still, she liked him a little less for it. He had been different since talking to that man. Looking over his shoulder, as if expecting trouble.
Rhys glanced behind her and straightened. ‘Jasper.’
Gwen turned round to see whether her brother would look her way. She yearned for his forgiveness, which was unfair because she had done what he had asked – kept his secret. His and Alisoun’s. He believed she had told father. How could he think she would betray them? Why would she? It hurt. And his anger hurt even more. Jasper was everything she hoped one day to be, wise in the ways of healing, a true partner with their mother in the apothecary.
But Jasper kept his eyes on Rhys as he said, ‘Forgive me for robbing you of your companion, but Gwen has chores to do.’
One of them being to sweep the workroom before Jasper opened the shop, which she had forgotten to do this morning. Giving Rhys a little wave she hurried after Jasper.
Autumn was in the air, a chilly undercurrent in the breeze. Owen welcomed the excuse to step out into it and away from his troubles. But he could not escape them. Captain of archers; spy, steward, and captain of guards for an archbishop; spy for a prince, now a princeling and his dam; captain of the bailiffs of the great city of York – Owen was, or had been, all of these and more, yet nothing in his experience challenged him as much as fatherhood. He stood in awe of all fathers before him, around him, and in times to come.
He had of late tripped over his own best intentions, struggling to make sense of a rift between his son Jasper and his daughter Gwen. The young man – for he was almost twenty now, no longer a boy – had burdened his sister, a child of half his age, to keep a secret, and she had done so; yet because Owen had guessed what was afoot, Jasper wrongly accused his sister of betraying him, punishing her with stony silence. His attempts to convince his son of her innocence were of no avail. It was so unlike Jasper that Owen wondered whether he was expressing anger over something unrelated. He’d always been a perceptive young man with a kind heart. Surely he knew that his sister looked up to him, sought to be like him, and would never betray him.
As a father, Owen could ignore neither his son’s stubborn cruelty nor the secret itself. The romance between Jasper and Alisoun had simmered for years; that their attraction had at last been set to boil was no surprise – if that is what had happened. If so, what should he do? Encourage them to plight their troth? Insist upon it? He was not so old he forgot his own sexual encounters at his son’s age. But as a father he could not condone Jasper’s secretiveness about what had happened in the early morning up in his room above the apothecary, the morning both he and, apparently, Gwen witnessed Alisoun slipping out at the first cock crow. Nor would he tolerate Jasper’s refusal to believe his sister’s loyalty. She had not told Owen of the incident; he had seen Alisoun from his bedroom window and guessed where she had been. When he had asked his son, he had exploded in anger at his sister. What to do? How could fatherhood be so difficult for a seasoned soldier?
He was crossing Petergate when someone cried out, ‘Archer!’
His friend and colleague, Bailiff George Hempe. He gestured for him to join him and kept walking toward the minster gate.
‘You are an annoying man,’ Hempe wheezed as he caught up.
‘You would be wise to show more respect to your captain, bailiff.’
Hempe gave a loud guffaw and slapped Owen on the back. ‘But I think you might wish to turn round. Sir Ralph Hastings needs you. He said to come at once.’
Both Owen, as captain of the city bailiffs, and Hempe answered to the mayor, not the sheriff. But as the mayor answered to the sheriff, it was likely he would support the summons. ‘I am not aware of any trouble in the city this morning,’ Owen said as they crossed into the minster close.
‘Might we speak away from other folk?’
Hempe’s serious tone caught Owen’s attention. He drew his friend over to the side.
‘What is it?’
‘A body found in a field along the king’s road. Not far outside Micklegate Bar, according to the sheriff. He believes the dead man might have been heading to the city.’
‘Beyond the gates? We guard the city, not the shire.’
‘I posed the same argument, but Sir Ralph insisted. He said that the murderer might have taken his victim’s place coming into the city.’
Owen saw the problem. ‘Tell Sir Ralph he might expect me in an hour.’
‘He was on his way to Micklegate Bar when I left him. He means to be ready to ride out to where they found the body as soon as you join him. He’ll be testy if you keep him waiting so long.’
The sheriff presumed much.
Hempe was about to add something when two men passed them, loudly talking of the murder just outside Micklegate Bar. He cocked his head toward them. ‘As you heard, folk are already talking.’
Never a good thing. Telling the guard at the gate to send word to Archdeacon Jehannes that he had been delayed, Owen changed direction, heading toward the other side of the city.
A group of men had congregated outside Trinity Priory’s great door. The sheriff was dressed to ride out, his tunic, leggings, wool hat, high boots, all costly. A well-muscled man belying his age – he had recently celebrated the marriage of a granddaughter, and the hair curling out from his hat was streaked with white.
‘Benedicite, Captain Archer. I am glad to see you. Thank you, Hempe.’
‘Sir Ralph–’ Hempe began, but the sheriff waved him off.
‘I depend upon you to find out who has arrived in York the past several days.’
‘Let’s talk later today,’ said Owen.
Hempe nodded as he turned away.
Sir Ralph told the men seeing to the horses to bring Owen the black mount.
‘A fine horse,’ said Owen as one of them walked it over to him.
‘From my stables,’ said the sheriff. ‘It was the least I could do to make amends for the abrupt summons. I do wish the carter who reported the attack had raised the hue and cry at once. He claims to have come as soon as he was able, but my men tell me the man in the field looks to be several days dead.’
Owen listened as he adjusted the saddle and introduced himself to the horse. ‘You have a witness to the killing? That is helpful. But why do you come to me? What has this to do with York?’
‘The carter believes the thieves will think they can sell the stolen goods in the city – a cart of fine stone meant for St Clement’s Priory.’
Good building stones were always welcome in York, that was true. ‘So it is the carter’s man who was murdered, and his cart stolen?’
‘The cart for certain, and likely the dead man. The coroner advised us to leave the corpse as we found it until you arrived.’ Sir Ralph patted his horse. ‘Shall we depart?’
‘Let us see what we might learn.’ Owen led his horse to Micklegate Bar.
Once through the gate they mounted.
‘It is not far,’ said Sir Ralph. ‘And the day is fair.’
They talked of mutual acquaintances as they rode, the sheriff bringing it round to the powerful Percy and Neville families.
‘Your name comes up whenever I am in their company, inquiring as to your situation since the death of Prince Edward. It is said that Princess Joan wishes to retain you in service to her son the prince. They are curious about what you might decide.’
Prince Edward had died in June, a death long dreaded not only by his family but by a majority of the baronage. A dread deepened after the fact by the king’s increasing debility and the prospect of a boy ascending the throne. Prince Richard was but a year older than Owen’s daughter Gwen. Shortly after Prince Edward’s death, King Edward had made a point of declaring Prince Richard his heir, insisting that the nobles pay him obeisance as the future king. Yet all worried that Richard’s uncles would fight amongst themselves to gain power as regent; his mother worried most of all. Within a few weeks of her husband’s death, Princess Joan had sent a messenger to York imploring Owen to continue as he had been, with regular missives regarding the temper in York and the surrounding areas, and any news of the powerful families. He had assured her that he would do what he could, but, as he had told both her and her husband a year earlier, his duties in York prevented him from long trips around the shire gathering information. Much could be learned in the city of York, more from visitors, but beyond that he could do little. She had expressed gratitude for whatever he might manage.
‘They might have asked me at any time,’ Owen told Sir Ralph. ‘I am retained by Prince Richard’s household.’
‘I am glad to hear it.’
‘Why is that?’
‘As captain of the city your connection to the royal court benefits York, gives the barons pause about causing trouble – including our new archbishop.’
‘Archbishop Neville concerns you?’
‘He is a Neville – contentious, ambitious, and impious.’
Owen chuckled. ‘You have locked horns with him?’
‘He is far too slippery for that. He calls you “the Warlord”, did you know? Sometimes “the Pirate”.’
That was the first Owen had heard of it, though it did not surprise him. ‘In what context has my name arisen?’
‘We spoke of order in the city. When I praised you, he scoffed. Said you behaved as if it were your city. Hence “the Warlord”.’
‘And “the Pirate”?’
Sir Ralph cleared his throat.
‘My scarred face.’
‘Yes. Forgive me for mentioning it.’
‘I am accustomed to it.’
The sheriff grew quiet, gazing round at the fields, up into the trees as they entered a wooded area, his men on the alert for the unwelcome. They were riding out farther than Owen had expected, and a suspicion that had been but a kernel grew into a certainty as Sir Ralph’s men turned off the road into a field without hesitation – they knew the area well. The track of a cart was visible in a muddy space beneath a tree; the depth of the ruts suggested a heavy load.
‘This is a distance from the city,’ Owen said. ‘The carter led your men out here?’
‘One of my men alerted me of the body in the field.’ A subtle shift in Sir Ralph’s posture suggested unease.
‘What had he been doing out here?’
‘I neglected to ask.’ Meaning he did not yet wish to say. ‘But when the carter came with his tale, I thought of it at once.’
‘Did he offer to lead you here?’
‘He was unsure whether he could find the place again.’
Yet the sheriff’s men had. ‘So what did he want of you?’
‘To find the cart, his men, and their attackers.’
‘How many men in his party?’
‘A pair of laborers. He thought both of them missing.’
Owen reined in his horse. ‘You had best tell me the rest.’
‘There is little else. They had moved off the road for the night. It was already dark when they were set upon by thieves. He believes there were three. His men told him to flee, they would fight them off, then follow on to Clementhorpe. But they never arrived.’
‘So he went straight to Clementhorpe? To the priory?’
‘No, not to the priory. He was vague about where he found shelter.’
‘Most would seek help at the nearest house. Or at least hide in an outbuilding, then return to discover what had happened.’
‘So I would have thought, but he did not. Nor did the family there see him or the other missing man, though they were the ones who found the body,’ said the sheriff, quickly adding, ‘according to my men.’
Owen ignored the oddity in that statement. ‘Why is this carter not with us?’
‘He said he feared for his life.’
‘Your men were not armed?’
‘They were.’ A shrug. ‘Merchants think only of their comforts.’
‘Is he a York man?’
‘No. From the south. Near Winchester.’
‘A carter coming all this way to deliver stones?’
‘So he says.’
They rode on across a field, up and over a steep slope, and finally Owen spotted two men pacing round a blanket-covered mound. Clearly country laborers, not a sheriff’s armed men.
‘So far off the road. How do you know this man was involved in the carter’s incident? Might he be a laborer from the area?’ Owen turned in his saddle to watch Sir Ralph as he answered.
A hesitation. Sir Ralph began to shape a no, caught himself, and said, ‘The family did not recognize the man. And considering the carter’s story …’
Dismounting, Owen walked round the covered body and lifted a corner of the blanket, stepping back as flies rose from the corpse. From its condition the body had been there at least several days, as Sir Ralph had said. ‘Two evenings past we had a drenching rain,’ Owen noted. ‘More rain last night. Unfortunate.’ He crouched at the corpse’s head. At first glance it might have been an accident, a man thrown from his horse, scavengers coming along and stripping the body of anything valuable. But the cart had not been brought so far – at least not with the heavy load. He bowed his head and crossed himself.
Sir Ralph handed Owen a kerchief. ‘To cover your mouth and nose,’ he said.
With thanks, Owen donned it and moved closer. The man lay on his front. An older man, his skin beginning to sag, yet still strong by the look of him. Old scars crisscrossed his back as well as his muscular thighs and calves. Calloused feet, his hands rough, thick-fingered, tanned.
‘He was found naked?’
‘As you see him.’
Odd.
‘Does he look like a carter’s man?’ Sir Ralph asked.
‘Perhaps recently, but his strength and the types of scars make me think once a soldier,’ said Owen.
‘So he might be one of the attackers.’
‘Or an old soldier willing to do the work of a laborer.’ Owen crouched closer, gestured to slashes and bruises on the man’s limbs, shoulder, blood caked on the visible side of his mouth. ‘He died fighting.’
‘That supports the carter’s story. Are you ready for my men to turn him over?’
Owen nodded, and Sir Ralph ordered his men to roll the body onto the blanket. As he watched he felt a shower of needle pricks over his ruined eye and glanced round to see if it was a portent of danger. But he saw nothing.
Perhaps the clear evidence that this was no accident? The man had been stabbed three times, throat, chest, stomach. Wounds that would have bled a lot. Even the heavy rain would not have completely washed away such a torrent. It seemed likely he had been carried here as he bled to death. Find the cart, find bloodstains, he guessed.
Bald. Long scars puckered his forehead and the right side of his face to the neck. Far worse than the young stone worker, Rhys. Or Owen. Birds had gotten to the eyes. The scars told him little, except that they were old scars, both on his body and his face. The red mark on the right hipbone might be something a wife or mother would recognize.
‘I have seen what there is to see,’ said Owen. ‘He can be removed now. Did anyone follow the cart tracks looking closely for signs of struggle on the ground? There would have been much blood.’ They would not find much, not after the hard rains. But perhaps bloodstains beneath a tree.
‘Not yet. I thought you might advise them.’
Not at all like previous sheriffs. Sir Ralph seemed engaged, yet aware of his limitations. ‘Of course,’ said Owen. ‘Would you like a few of my men to assist them?’
‘As this is outside the city, I would prefer to keep the bailiffs and your men out of it until I speak with the mayor.’
‘I understand. Not only outside the city, but on your land.’ Owen met the sheriff’s startled gaze. ‘How else would you have learned of this, so far off the road, so far beyond the cart tracks, so far from York? And the men guarding – why would farm laborers take the time out of their day for you?’
‘I am sheriff of the shire,’ said Sir Ralph, but he had a sheepish grin as he nodded. ‘You have proved to me I requested the right man. I would count it a great favor if you would take charge of finding out what happened. If the mayor agrees, might I count on you? You will be paid.’
‘It may be too late to learn much, if anything.’
‘I understand. You will agree?’
‘If Hornby approves it.’ Owen could not predict the decision of the mayor and council. ‘But if you like, I will guide your men in the next step.’
‘I would be grateful.’
‘What is the name of the carter? Where is he?’
‘He is lodging next door to you, at the York Tavern. Name’s Gerald Trent.’
‘The York?’ He would have entered the city at Micklegate Bar and found many taverns and inns of varying quality. How had he chosen the York? ‘When did he come to you?’
‘Late yesterday.’
He recalled a travel-worn man in the tavern the previous evening inquiring about a private room. Bess Merchet, who owned the tavern with her husband Tom, had chuckled to Owen and his companion Crispin Poole that the man balked at the room up two sets of steps, the second set quite narrow and steep. But he had accepted it. Begrudgingly.
‘When had you heard from your tenants about the dead man?’
‘Early yesterday.’
‘So your men had already been out here?’
‘Yes. It was a long day for them, sending for the coroner, awaiting him. That is why today I had the farmer’s sons watch over the body.’
Sons. Owen walked over to them, introduced himself. One was a few years older than his son Jasper, the other older. They straightened, seemingly surprised to be addressed. He asked whether they had seen anyone in the area a few nights past, or since. They exchanged glances, the older giving a slight nod.
‘I thought I heard something the night of the storm. But when I went out the next day all I found was blood. One of the sheep did go missing, so I thought I’d heard a poacher at his work.’
‘Can you lead us to where you saw that?’
‘I can. It’s not far. But there’s more. Yesterday there was a man walking through one of our fields. When we called out to him, he ran.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Small man. Could not see much, but he was not dressed as a poacher, or someone working the fields nearby.’
It was not far to the place where he had seen the blood, beneath a tree, much closer to the road. Along the cart tracks. It fit. Thanking the young men, Owen let them go back to their work.
‘But the corpse,’ said Sir Ralph.
‘Your men can carry it back to the city,’ said Owen. ‘Trent can come to the castle to see if it’s one of his. I will send two of my own men to search the road.’ He took the sheriff’s men aside to show them how to fashion a carrier slung from both horses to convey the body to the castle.
As they rode back toward the city, Sir Ralph apologized for summoning him on false pretenses.
‘It might yet prove to be of import to the city,’ said Owen. ‘If Hornby agrees and nothing in the city prevents my working on this, will you pay for my own men to assist?’
‘You and whoever you deem necessary for the investigation. That is only fair.’ Sir Ralph cleared his throat. ‘The way you studied the body – almost as if you thought you might know him.’
‘No.’ But he had felt the needle pricks.
‘One of my men mentioned that you have a young man working with stone in your garden. Didn’t recognize him.’
Few secrets in the city, especially when one lived next to a tavern. ‘Rhys. He’s working on the paths and walls in my garden. Recommended by the builder who is adding onto the apothecary. He’d come to York seeking work, experienced with stonework – walls, foundations. He’d done fine work on the foundation for us, so I offered him the extra task.’
‘Where is he lodged?’
‘With us. His landlord needed the rooms he had let. He is a good sort. Not your murderer.’ He permitted a sharpness in the response.
‘Forgive me, Captain. I did not mean – I do not usually listen to my men’s prattle. But this sign of violence in my fields …’
‘I understand.’
They rode on in silence, both lost in their own concerns.
As they neared Clementhorpe, Owen asked if he’d sent someone to St Clement’s to alert them to the trouble.
‘I did not.’
‘It might prove useful to speak with the prioress.’