A Spy For The Redeemer

Three

In the end, Roger Moreton’s new steward did accompany Lucie to her father’s manor. York was abuzz with tales of outlaws on the roads and Lucie had to agree that though Harold Galfrey was not trained as a soldier he looked sufficiently strong to be threatening. His presence reassured Tildy, Lucie’s nursemaid, never a willing traveller, but determined to help Lucie during this difficult time. Lucie had confided to Tildy that she feared Phillippa might collapse at the news — though her aunt had always been a robust woman, she was getting on in years and had been devoted to her brother. Tildy could be trusted to keep the household at Freythorpe together while Lucie saw to her aunt. The company riding out from York also included Brother Michaelo, who had kindly offered to tell Phillippa all that he had told Lucie. His offer required neither sacrifice nor permission from the archbishop for he would easily continue on from Freythorpe Hadden to Bishopthorpe, where Archbishop Thoresby was in residence.

It was a beautiful spring day. Lucie wished she might enjoy this ride, this brief moment in the midst of all her duties. There would be tears enough at Freythorpe. But she had awakened with a yearning to see her father once more so that she might tell him how much she had enjoyed his company in his last years. She had told him so on his departure, but she wondered whether she had said enough. She lifted her head to the sun, shining round puffs of cloud. A gentle breeze set the spring leaves trembling against the blue and white sky. The meadows were already blooming. Labourers sang in the fields. ‘God’s blessing is on this day,’ she said.

‘God is certainly smiling on the land,’ Harold said beside her.

Lucie started. She had not noticed he rode so close. ‘Do you fear I shall fall off my mount?’

He had a hesitant smile, as if uncertain it was appropriate to a steward. ‘In faith, Mistress Wilton, you seemed so lost in thought I feared you paid little heed to keeping your seat.’

‘Do I look like an inexperienced rider?’

‘Not at all. Forgive me.’

They rode in silence for a while.

‘I am the one who should apologise,’ Lucie said. ‘I was steeling myself against the task before me. It will be difficult for my aunt.’

‘Made more difficult by a stranger in your midst.’

‘You must not think of it. You are here at my request, and I am grateful.’

‘I was thrust upon you.’

‘I am quite capable of refusing Master Moreton.’

Harold smiled with more assurance. Lucie fell back into her thoughts of her aunt. Phillippa had been widowed within a few years of her marriage. She had come to Freythorpe Hadden at the invitation of her brother, who was then unmarried and needed someone to represent him at the manor he rarely visited. Phillippa had been straight-backed and strong, with her feet squarely on the ground and a determination to order the world around her to her liking. As far as Lucie knew, Phillippa had nothing from her marriage. Sir Robert had mentioned his sister’s husband only once that Lucie could recall, referring to him as a man too fond of his ale. Phillippa’s only child had died in the same year as her husband. But God had looked after her. When Sir Robert brought Lucie’s mother to Freythorpe Hadden, Amélie had no wish to wrest control from Phillippa. For forty-five years Phillippa had ruled the manor. And if she wished, and was able, Lucie thought to leave it that way. She had no intention of giving up her apothecary or her house in the city to live at Freythorpe, and her son Hugh, heir to the property, was but a baby.

Indeed, Lucie hoped her aunt would choose to continue acting as mistress of Freythorpe. It would be difficult to find another she could trust so completely. But Lucie would accept whatever decision her aunt made. She had much to thank Phillippa for, including her life in York. Phillippa had encouraged Lucie’s marriage to the apothecary Nicholas Wilton, believing that the wife of a respected member of a York guild, trained to assist her husband in the shop, would have a more secure widowhood than would the wife of a knight, which would more properly have been Lucie’s lot.

Wrapped in melancholy, Lucie watched Harold ride forward, bend close to speak to Tildy. He was a thoughtful man. Roger Moreton had chosen wisely.

Shortly before the company passed on to the demesne lands, Brother Michaelo asked whether Lucie needed to rest and refresh herself. She declined, eager to reach the manor house.

Brother Michaelo glanced over at Harold. ‘What do you know of that man?’

‘No more than that Roger Moreton has hired him as household steward on the recommendation of John Gisburne.’

‘John Gisburne? The man who believes a man should be judged by his deeds, not his family connections? So he has seen this man at work?’

Gisburne was a member of the class of rich merchants in York trying to wrest the governance of the city from the old ruling families. It was proving to be a long struggle. Thirteen years ago Gisburne’s election to bailiff had been overturned by the mayor, John Langton, a member of the old families. The animosity between the two groups grew, occasionally spilling out into the streets, often ending in violence. With each outburst the two sides became more rigid in their positions. Gisburne’s party preached that a man should be judged by what he did, not by whom he knew or to whom he was related, for obvious reasons. ‘I assume that John Gisburne lives by his professed creed,’ Lucie said.

Michaelo looked doubtful. ‘For all his talk of the common man, Gisburne prefers to dine with nobles and influential clerics. He hopes to be mayor, you know.’

‘I had heard.’

‘Let us pray that he does judge men by their deeds. For once it would be useful.’

‘You find something in Harold Galfrey to distrust?’

‘It is perhaps a petty complaint — but he does not look like a steward. I should have taken him for a soldier.’

‘All the better for our purposes.’

‘You are right, of course. But watch him on your return to the city, when I am not with you.’

‘Did my father ask you to watch over me?’

‘He would have wished me to voice my concern.’

‘I am grateful. But I assure you that Master Moreton’s opinion is to be trusted.’

‘Forgive me, I did not mean to cast doubt on Roger Moreton’s judgement.’

By the time the company reached the gatehouse of Freythorpe Hadden the steward, Daimon, had been alerted and stood ready to challenge or receive the four. The relief on his young, barely bearded face alarmed Lucie.

‘You expect trouble?’

He mentioned recent trouble at a nearby farm — a band of outlaws, a theft, injuries.

‘Deus juva me,’ Michaelo muttered, crossing himself.

‘I might not be so wary,’ said Daimon, ‘but that two days ago some workers in the field spied a man in a tree, watching the hall. He took flight when he knew himself discovered. Had a fast horse tethered near. Aye, I do expect trouble, Mistress Wilton.’ Daimon’s pleasant face did not lend itself to a threatening look, but he was well-muscled and held the sword in his hand with an air of fierce assurance. He would do, Lucie thought. He had grown quite like his father, Adam, Sir Robert’s former sergeant and late in life the steward of the manor. Trouble had usually backed away from Adam.

‘You are fortunate to have such alert men watching out for you, Mistress Wilton,’ Harold said.

Daimon glanced at Harold, nodded curtly.

‘They do say there have been more outlaw bands since the pestilence,’ Tildy said.

Daimon gave Tildy a little bow. ‘It was not wise, riding out with such trouble about. But you are welcome to Freythorpe, Mistress Matilda.’ He smiled up at her.

‘So,’ Brother Michaelo muttered, seeing how it stood between Tildy and Daimon.

Lucie might have echoed him, but she held her tongue as the young steward turned to her. ‘Mistress Wilton, please come within and give your aunt good cheer.’

When Tildy dismounted in the yard before the house, Daimon motioned her to step aside. His eyes on the ground, his voice too soft to overhear, he spoke urgently to the young woman. Tildy, also keeping her head down, shook it once. Lucie watched with interest, wondering what precisely had transpired between them the previous summer when Tildy had been sent to the manor with Gwenllian and Hugh for safety during the pestilence. As Tildy moved away from Daimon, Lucie noticed that another pair of eyes followed her. Well, and why should Harold not find her pleasing to look at? Tildy had huge brown eyes, a high forehead, rosebud lips and skin the colour of the ivory rose in Lucie’s garden. For a young woman of twenty years who had been born in poverty, she was remarkable in having all her teeth and, but for a wine-red birthmark that spread across her left cheek, a perfect complexion. But Daimon need not glower at Harold as he did when he saw the direction of the stranger’s gaze — Tildy had not blushed so prettily when Harold leaned towards her as she did when Daimon was near.

Lucie took herself over to the young steward. ‘I bring sad tidings, Daimon. Is my aunt well enough to hear them?’

Daimon coloured. ‘Dame Phillippa is well enough to keep the servants busy,’ he said. He lowered his voice. ‘I would speak with you later, Mistress Wilton. At your pleasure.’

‘I thought you might wish a word,’ Lucie said, and headed for the house, taking Tildy by the elbow and propelling her forward.

By the time Lucie’s party entered the hall, the servants had set up a trestle table near the fire. Flagons of ale and wine, and a cold repast were brought in for the travellers. Lucie looked round for her aunt.

‘I shall fetch the mistress,’ a maid said, bobbing a curtsy.

‘No,’ said Lucie, ‘it is best that I speak with her alone.’ The maid directed her to a screened area in the far corner of the hall.

‘She no longer sleeps up in the solar?’

‘No, Mistress,’ the young woman said.

Lucie paused halfway across the hall, noticing a rent in the tapestry on the far wall, repaired with the open, ineffectual stitches of a child just learning to sew. The tear extended an arm’s length from the side of the tapestry inward. ‘What has happened here?’ she said to herself.

At her elbow, Daimon said quietly, ‘I should warn you, Mistress, Dame Phillippa has not been herself of late.’

‘She tore it? Or repaired it?’

‘Both, I think.’

Such clumsy stitches? And on Phillippa’s favourite tapestry, one of the few items left from her dowry.

The alcove had once held her parents’ bed, before the hearth had replaced the fire circle and a fireplace was possible up in the solar. It was a large space, enclosed by carved wood screens. Lucie tapped on the screen nearest the heavy curtain that served as a door. ‘Aunt? It is Lucie.’

A little cry, then a shuffling. Lucie pushed back the curtain. Phillippa was already there, one arm stretched out to embrace her niece. ‘My dearest child!’

‘Aunt Phillippa.’ Lucie was startled by her aunt’s bony shoulders. She stepped back, saw how her aunt’s gown hung loosely upon her tall frame. And she leaned upon a stick. ‘You are unwell. I did not know.’

‘Always eager to try your remedies on me, child.’ Phillippa patted Lucie’s hand. ‘But I do not believe that you have a remedy for old age, eh? Is my brother with you?’

Lucie shook her head.

Phillippa’s smile faded. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered.

Lucie looked round. The space was lit by two oil lamps on either side of Phillippa’s large bed. At the foot was a chest and in a corner of the screens a bench. Lucie drew her aunt down on to the latter and told her Owen’s account of Sir Robert’s passing.

Crossing herself with a trembling hand, Phillippa sighed as if weary.

‘Brother Michaelo is here,’ said Lucie. ‘He was with father to the end. He has offered to tell you all you wish to know about father’s journey, and his passing.’

Phillippa dropped her gaze to her hands, which rested limply in her lap. ‘So many years on pilgrimage,’ she said sadly. ‘Well, it is how he wished to die.’ She was weeping now, silently, her head bowed.

Tildy appeared in the doorway with a cup of wine. At Lucie’s nod she pressed it into Phillippa’s hands. The elderly woman lifted the cup, but paused with it halfway to her lips, set it back down.

‘Father had a vision at St Non’s Well,’ Lucie said. ‘He saw my mother and she smiled on him.’

Phillippa put aside the untouched cup and drew a cloth from her sleeve, blotted her eyes. ‘So long a pilgrim. I am grateful that God at last granted Robert’s wish. Would that I might go on pilgrimage.’ Lucie was about to ask what favour Phillippa wished from such a pilgrimage, but her aunt suddenly said, ‘I should like to talk with Brother Michaelo.’

‘You do not need to rest a while?’

‘That is what I should be asking you, my dear one,’ Phillippa said. She handed Lucie the cup. ‘I am certain that you need this more than I do.’

Lucie was tired. And thirsty. She accepted the cup gladly.

‘Your father did not expect to return,’ said Phillippa. ‘It was forgetful of me to ask if he accompanied you.’ She reached for the stick. Lucie supported her as she rose. ‘Apoplexy,’ Phillippa added. ‘I have seen it in others. Not so bad as some, God be thanked, but it has me leaning on this stick, as you see.’

She walked slowly, pushing the left leg forward rather than lifting it, refusing Lucie’s arm in support.

When they joined the other travellers in the hall, Lucie introduced Harold Galfrey. Phillippa welcomed him, then turned to Brother Michaelo and invited him to join her and Lucie by the fire. As soon as the three were seated, Phillippa asked, ‘Did my dear Robert suffer long?’

Gently, Michaelo told her of Sir Robert’s last days. Phillippa listened quietly, asking a question here and there. Lucie thought her oddly calm. But when the monk’s tale was finished, Phillippa said in such a low voice Lucie almost did not hear her over the crackling of the fire and the bustle of the servants, ‘What am I to do without him? Where shall I go?’ Phillippa looked old, frail, frightened.

Lucie put her arm around her aunt. ‘This is your home. But you are also welcome to stay with me in York. For as long as you wish.’

There was no reply. Phillippa did not weep. She stiffly accepted her niece’s embrace, but kept her own hands in her lap. When Lucie drew away, Phillippa sat quite still, staring off into the fire.

*

Lucie awakened in a dark, unfamiliar room. Softly, someone whispered. Lucie sat up and gradually remembered she was sleeping in the alcove with her Aunt Phillippa and Tildy, all in the large bed, Lucie in the middle.

‘Mistress,’ Tildy whispered beside her, ‘it is your aunt. She mutters in her sleep. Last summer she paced, also. Gwenllian said her great-aunt had walking dreams.’

‘What is she whispering?’

‘I never could hear — the floorboards creaked too much up there. But some of the servants were talking this evening, said she speaks to her dead husband, Douglas Sutton.’

‘Shall I wake her?’ Lucie asked.

‘Ma always said that folk should never wake a sleepwalker. Oft-times they die being torn from the world of dreams.’

Lucie doubted that, but she decided against waking her aunt. And tomorrow night she thought she might move up to the solar. She had not wished to leave her aunt alone after giving her such sad news. But it seemed her presence offered no comfort.

Phillippa had said the weakness came on her suddenly, just after Sir Robert departed. ‘Why did she not send word to me she was ill?’

‘She is a proud woman,’ Tildy said.

Lucie already knew she could do little but comfort her aunt. Nicholas, Lucie’s first husband, had also been struck suddenly with apoplexy. He had suffered terrible headaches with it. But God seemed at least to have spared Phillippa the headaches. It was the hardest thing to bear, watching a loved one suffer and being unable to help them.

In the morning, remembering Tildy’s comment about the servants talking, Lucie sought a quiet word with Daimon. ‘My aunt is causing gossip among the servants?’

Daimon shifted his weight, frowned. ‘I do not like to say it, Mistress, but Dame Phillippa has been queer of late. Muttering to herself, refusing to eat, fixing her eyes on a spot in the air, as if she sees something we cannot see.’

‘Tildy knew she paced and whispered to herself at night, but the rest of it — did it come on with her illness?’

Daimon nodded.

‘This muttering? Can you understand any of it?’

‘Not myself, no. But cook says she talks to a man named Douglas and sometimes calls him husband.’ Daimon lifted his shoulders, dropped them, shook his head. ‘My mother talked much the same in her sickness, but to a sister who was long dead.’

‘Does her behaviour bother the household?’

‘We worry for her, is all. She is a firm mistress, but fair.’

‘Do you think she sees him?’

Daimon looked down at his hands. ‘She speaks to him, Mistress. Whether she sees him I cannot say.’

‘Thank you, Daimon.’

He shifted to the other foot. ‘Mistress Wilton, I must explain my conduct in the yard when you arrived.’

‘I have wondered what is between you and Tildy.’

‘I would marry her. But she will not have me.’

‘Truly?’ But what of Tildy’s blushes? And the warmth in her voice when she spoke to him?

‘She says that your children are too young. And her family too far away. And she is not good enough for a steward’s wife.’

Too many arguments. They might all give Tildy pause, but could they turn a young woman against her heart? Lucie guessed the truth was something else entirely.

‘Are you certain that you love her?’

‘I am, Mistress. I think of no one else. Truly.’

Daimon looked so sad Lucie believed him. ‘Would you like me to talk to her? Reassure her that she is free to follow her heart?’

‘No, Mistress, though I thank you for being willing. But she might take it wrong, think you encourage my suit. I do not think Tildy would be happy unless she came of her own accord.’

The poor young man walked away with an air of doom. Lucie watched him cross the yard to the stables. There must be something she might say to Tildy.

‘Your steward has worried you?’ Harold said at her side.

‘God have mercy,’ Lucie said, almost jumping out of her skin. ‘You have a way of stealing up too silently.’

‘It stands me in good stead when I wish to catch a servant misbehaving.’

She turned to look at him, not liking the sound of that. She believed that if she treated servants fairly, she could trust them. ‘Brother Michaelo says you walked about at dawn. Did you visit a tenant? Do you know someone here?’

Harold shook his head. ‘I enjoy a morning walk. Did Daimon give you bad news?’

‘No. Nothing like that. Merely a heart broken that might be mended, with care.’

‘Ah. Are you to lose your nursemaid?’

‘Perhaps not. She has refused him.’

‘Her heart is sworn to another?’

‘I do not know. I thought it plain she loved Daimon.’

‘She teases him, perhaps?’

‘That is not her nature. No, something is amiss. I must discover her reason — discreetly. You must say nothing to anyone.’

Harold bowed, another of his oddly formal gestures. ‘I shall say nothing.’

‘You are a good man, Harold. Master Moreton is fortunate.’

Late in the afternoon, when the shadows were lengthening and a pleasant breeze stirred the trees, Lucie wandered out into the garden. She found Phillippa sitting on a bench at the entrance to the yew maze. It was strange to see her aunt so idle. Lucie joined her.

‘Come to York for Father’s Requiem Mass at the minster, Aunt, and stay with me for a time.’

Phillippa did not answer at once, though she took Lucie’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You have heard about the stranger watching the hall?’ Phillippa suddenly asked.

‘Daimon told me. He thinks we were fools to ride out with such bold thieves about.’

‘It was once far worse. When Robert the Bruce used the North to try to force our king to give up Scotland. Scots everywhere. And Frenchmen, they did say, eager to use our enemies to weaken us.’

‘Did your Douglas fight the Scots?’

Phillippa shifted on the bench, turning so that she might see Lucie’s face. In the clear light Lucie saw how like crinkled parchment was her aunt’s skin. Her eyes had always been deep-set, but now they appeared sunken. ‘Why do you ask about Douglas Sutton?’

Because he is on my mind, Lucie thought. ‘You never spoke much of him. I was curious. With the Scots burning the countryside. Did you not live farther north then, in the Dales?’

Phillippa studied Lucie’s face a moment longer, then dropped her gaze to her idle hands. ‘I grow old, Lucie, my dearest. I grow useless. You would find me a burden in your busy household.’

‘Not at all. Kate has much to learn and Tildy is busy with the children.’

‘Perhaps …’

Lucie took her aunt’s hands, turned them palms up. ‘Still calloused. I do not think you are useless.’ She kissed her aunt on the cheek, then rose. ‘Do not stay out too long. Already the evening chills the shadows.’