The Cross Legged Knight

Ten

The storm had driven people into their homes, giving Lucie quiet time in the shop. While she poured the cough syrup into pots she kept hearing the tune of a Breton ballad in her mind’s ear. It was the first song Owen had ever sung for her, of love and betrayal. She remembered only some of the words, picked up over time, though the language was unknown to her. It was the tune that haunted her now, filling her with sadness. She could not remember when Owen had last picked up the lute that had been her mother’s. That, too, saddened her. Though the children often clamoured for a song, they grew impatient while Owen plucked and listened, adjusted the tension of the strings and plucked, proof of how seldom the instrument was played.

Her fingers must have moved with the memory and the pot she was filling began to slip in her hand. She jerked to catch it, regretting the sharp movement as her shoulder twinged, her groin ached.

She thought about the last time Owen had played the lute. She had been lying abed a few days after her fall. He had played to cheer her, but succeeded only in making her weep. Cisotta’s effort to explain to Owen how the memory of joy might sadden Lucie had irritated him, as he took it to imply that he did not know his own wife. He had kissed Lucie and withdrawn.

Setting the pots aside, she sought the open door to St Helen’s Square and breathed in the damp, rain-fresh air. The storm had passed but for a fine mist. In St Helen’s churchyard the stones glistened in the brightening sky. Lucie spied Jasper at the end of Stonegate talking to a neighbour. Seeing her, he waved and came running through the churchyard, his clothes clinging to him damply, his face aglow. He began at once to tell how Eudo had been captured in the palace kitchen.

Hearing how close the tawyer had come to attacking Poins, Lucie crossed herself and said a prayer of thanks that he had been stopped. Had he succeeded, Thoresby would not have shown mercy in dealing with him. But there was yet hope.

Standing on the rush-strewn floor, dripping and steaming, Jasper became aware of his surroundings, noticed Lucie’s progress on the electuary — and also her tear-streaked face. His expression changed to one of concern — or perhaps embarrassment, for he did not ask Lucie what had made her cry, but instead offered to take over the sealing of the pots.

‘Yes, do,’ Lucie said, wishing he would ask about her tears, but understanding that a fourteen-year-old boy did not discuss such things. ‘While you are busy with that, I shall explain the working of dwale to you, as I promised, how it is that the briony purges the patient of the dangerous hemlock and henbane, leaving the quiet sleep of poppy.’ It was a safe topic for both of them.

*

The stonemasons’ tale gave Owen no joy. As he left the lodge and headed back into the city he had no appetite for what he must do. But he was determined that when he stepped across his own threshold for the night he would know whether or not the falling tile had been an accident.

Walter, the assistant to the master mason, had come forth from the lodge to enquire what Owen wanted, intent on preventing him from intruding. But when Owen had shown him the penknife and explained the significance of where it had been found, Walter had escorted him into the shelter. Luke, the mason who had co-operated with Owen on his search of the pile, glanced up from the rough stone along which he had been guiding a young man’s hand. Two other masons paused in their discussion of a corbel.

Walter’s tone and expression were grim. ‘The captain is here on the archbishop’s business.’ He nodded to Owen. ‘Go on, then. Ask them what you must.’

Six eyes avoided Owen’s. ‘You know of last night’s tragedy at the house of the Bishop of Winchester,’ he began. Two nodded, one shrugged. ‘It was the second threat to the bishop this week. The first was the falling tile.’ Owen glanced round at the masons, caught Luke’s eye, watched the colour spread up his face. ‘You may have heard of the enmity between the bishop and the family of the late Sir Ranulf Pagnell.’ Bert and Will studied the packed earth floor. ‘I have evidence that someone in the Pagnell household was recently atop the mound of tiles.’

Luke started. ‘But it was — ’ He covered his mouth.

The others glared at him.

‘Go on,’ Owen said.

But Luke ducked his head and would not go on.

‘They cannot have had aught to do with the fire last night,’ said Will.

‘I have worried about our silence, though,’ said Bert.

‘They’re just boys,’ said Will.

‘The new master is not like his father,’ said Bert. ‘He has a temper.’

‘It takes more than temper to set a house afire,’ Luke said.

‘But what if we might have prevented the death of the midwife and the serving man’s injuries?’ Bert looked to Owen. ‘They say he lost an arm.’

‘Aye, and his burns have him in agony,’ said Owen.

Bert prevailed and the three told Owen what they knew, a tale that had now brought Owen to Hosier Lane. Too quickly. He felt unprepared. Emma was Lucie’s good friend, Jasper was fond of the boys. Dear Lord, guide my speech, my bearing, so that I say what is needed, no more.

Peter Ferriby opened the door with an absent air. ‘I still do not think it wise,’ he called to someone over his shoulder before he turned to see whom the evening had brought to his door. ‘Well, Captain Archer. Come in, tell us the news.’

Peter was a tall, stout man with a prosperous paunch that his dark, loose robes did little to hide. He dwarfed Emma, who had joined him and now reached out a hand to Owen.

‘I hope you did not expect to find Lucie here,’ she said, ‘for you have missed her by several hours.’

‘No. I hoped to find your family together,’ Owen said.

Emma gave him a puzzled look as Peter led him into the hall.

‘You are come in good time,’ said Peter. ‘My wife and I were just debating whether either of us should attend the midwife’s funeral tomorrow.’

‘Cisotta was so good to Lucie,’ said Emma. ‘But with the rumours about my family’s connection to the tragedy I fear we might be …’

Her voice trailed off as Owen kept moving past her to the boys, who stood near Lady Pagnell’s embroidery frame. Ivo held a squirming puppy in his arms, John stood stiffly beside him studying Owen’s boots with a grave face.

‘The lads can guess why I’ve come.’

Lady Pagnell stepped out from behind her work, placing herself between Owen and the boys. ‘What business have my grandsons with the archbishop’s guard?’

‘Lady Pagnell.’ Owen bowed.

Emma had followed him. ‘What do you mean, John and Ivo know?’

Owen moved so that he could see the boys. Both stared at him as if he had cast a binding spell. The puppy barked.

Peter ordered a servant to take it away. ‘Are my sons in some trouble, Captain?’

Owen drew out the penknife, showed it first to the boys, then their parents, and lastly to Lady Pagnell. Ivo looked as if he were choking back tears.

‘John’s penknife.’ Peter looked down at his son, who stared stonily back.

‘I lost it,’ John whispered.

‘Atop the pile of stones at the minster’s lady chapel,’ Owen said.

Ivo, chin down, biting his lower lip, peeked over at his brother. John stood straight, meeting Owen’s gaze now with a defiant steadiness. There was a tale there and perhaps not so innocent as Owen had hoped.

‘That is where I lost it,’ John said.

‘Aye, the day before your grandfather’s funeral,’ said Owen.

‘No, surely not,’ Peter said.

‘Dear God,’ Emma cried, ‘they were at the minster that day. I sent them with a message for the stonecutter.’ She sank down on to a chair, leaned towards her sons. ‘Did you climb the pile? All those loose stones and tiles? The masons allowed you up there?’

Lady Pagnell’s silk gown rustled as she paced a few steps, then turned back to her grandsons. ‘And you said never a word — ’

‘Mother — ’ Emma warned.

‘How did you learn of this?’ Lady Pagnell demanded of Owen.

‘My men found the knife. I questioned the masons who had witnessed the accident.’

‘Why go to them? If you recognized the arms you should have come directly here.’ With every word she heightened the tension in the hall.

Owen turned to Peter and Emma. ‘Perhaps I might question your sons in private? I merely need the details of the accident so that I might give Bishop William a full accounting.’

Peter put a hand on Emma’s shoulder. She looked at the boys, at Peter, then reached a hand towards Lady Pagnell. ‘Let us withdraw to the solar, Mother.’

In a surprising gesture, the grandmother turned suddenly to her grandsons, bent to kiss them on the forehead, first John, then Ivo. ‘You know the captain from St George’s Field. You have nothing to fear from him.’ Straightening and nodding to Owen, she took her daughter’s hand and progressed across the hall.

Emma hesitated in the doorway to the stairs. ‘Peter?’

‘I’ll sit quietly in a corner, but I will listen.’

The women withdrew.

Owen accepted the compromise. ‘Let us sit at the table,’ he said to the boys. He settled across from them. ‘Where is your tutor this evening?’

‘On an errand for Ma,’ said John, clearing his throat afterwards. He was a stout lad with a round face, rosy cheeks, and pale brows and hair.

‘And Matthew, the steward?’

‘He rode out to a property Bishop William has offered Grandmother.’

‘It is a serious matter, this negotiation between the Bishop of Winchester and your family,’ Owen said. ‘You are both aware of its importance?’

Two fair heads nodded. Ivo was slender, dark-eyed and browed, though his curly hair was as pale as his brother’s.

Owen set the penknife down on the table between them. ‘It is a fine knife. You must have regretted losing it.’

John nodded.

‘Suppose you tell me how you came to lose it where you did.’

Again, John was the speaker, folding his chubby hands on the table before him. He focused on them as he precisely enunciated his tale. After delivering their mother’s message to the stonemason the boys had stopped to watch the masons at work on the lady chapel.

The masons and their apprentices had been friendly, answering all their questions. But as the shadows lengthened John had warned Ivo that they must return to their lessons — they’d had leave only to deliver a message to the stonecutter who was polishing their grandfather’s tomb for the funeral the following day. Ivo had argued that he was learning far more than he would in a day’s work with their tutor. After John issued a second warning, Ivo requested one last thing: that they climb up on to the hill of stone and tile, for they would then enjoy a view that no one would ever see once the chapel was complete. John turned to the masons for permission.

Luke had told Owen that he was against it at first, thinking it too dangerous, but Will and Bert had argued for the boys, reminding their fellow that some of their helpers were not much older and he thought nothing of sending them scrambling on the pile. So Luke had agreed.

The boys climbed the pile, with one of the apprentices calling out advice about the best footholds, and once at the top they took turns attempting to stand, but gave that up when Luke shouted a warning that some of the tiles at the edge had begun to shift.

The boys dropped to their knees, then sat down to enjoy the view, and the masons and their crew left them to their play, forgotten until Bert, working higher on the scaffolding than the others, called out that the Bishop of Winchester approached.

‘Did the bishop hear him?’ Owen asked John.

The boy shrugged. ‘If he did, he chose not to raise his eyes to us, nor did he hesitate.’

The lads lay flat on their bellies and began to slither forward to see the bishop pass by.

‘The tiles started moving beneath us,’ said John, ‘and one began to fall. Someone cried out for Bishop William to drop down, and he did so, dropped to his knees, covering his head with his hands. He must have heard the stones, too.’

‘So more than one fell?’ Owen asked.

‘I think only one went all the way,’ said John. ‘Then the pile shifted and settled.’

Bert had described the boys splayed atop the mound like they were clinging on for life, though John made little of it.

‘And then the bishop was surrounded by guards,’ John continued, ‘and the masons said nothing. Later they said that since the bishop was unharmed, there seemed no need to expose us to questioning.’

John’s account followed the masons’, though the boy added some small details, such as Ivo’s inability to control his bladder as he lay flat on the pile, a weakness he related with much blushing on Ivo’s part, and his own loss of the penknife as they scrambled off what they then understood was a dangerously unstable mound.

‘Why did you not tell us?’ Peter cried. ‘How could they allow you up there?’

Owen turned to Ivo, with whom he had much more eye contact than with the stolid John. ‘Do you agree with your brother’s account?’

The boy nodded energetically. ‘It was as he said.’

Owen believed him — so far. But John’s dispassionate accounting was disturbing.

‘I am sure you have been taught to own your errors, face your penance with good grace, eh?’ Owen paused, waited for the nods, which were slow in coming. ‘Why then did you not climb down and admit to the bishop what had happened?’

Ivo was increasingly uncomfortable, pressing his arms against his sides, playing with a button just above his belt. ‘I was frightened. Bishop William is a wicked man.’

‘Who told you that?’

Ivo glanced over at his brother with a look of dread. John did not acknowledge him.

‘It is a simple question, Ivo,’ Owen said. He caught the boy’s eye, held the gaze.

‘He heard it from my mother-in-law, to be sure,’ said Peter from behind them.

Ivo nodded. ‘And I was afraid,’ he mumbled.

‘No doubt you were. But if the falling of the tile was truly unintentional, I think the bishop would have believed you. He had no cause not to.’

‘Will he have us put in the stocks on Pavement?’

‘I do not think so, Ivo.’

The boy sighed.

‘And you, John.’ The elder boy raised his eyes to Owen. ‘Why did you not speak up after the accident? Why did you wait for someone else to reveal your part in the incident?’

The elder boy covered a nervous cough with a trembling hand. ‘Dropping the tile was an accident. We had no purpose in climbing the pile of stone but to see the view.’

‘Answer the captain’s question,’ Peter said, in a quiet but firm voice.

The boy glanced back at his father, who nodded to him.

John took a deep, shivery breath and, pressing back his shoulders, faced Owen squarely. ‘All the time we waited for Grandfather to come home, thinking King Charles refused to negotiate, the bishop was offering him only half the ransom we sent, so little he insulted him, while the bishop spent the other half on his palace in Winchester.’ He paused for a breath. ‘For the suffering he has caused our mother, he deserves punishment.’

‘Dear God,’ Peter groaned.

Owen observed the boy in silence for a moment, then turned to Ivo. ‘Do you agree with your brother?’

The boy pursed his lips, looked down at his hands. ‘Aye, Captain. My family has been wronged.’

‘You have no need to lie for me,’ John said evenly. ‘Ivo thought it was cowardly. But I am the eldest and he follows me. He would have told the truth of the matter that very day if I had not sworn him to secrecy.’

‘Tell me this, John. Had the bishop been injured, would you still have stayed silent?’

‘No.’ John shook his head. ‘No. Because then my family might be blamed for it.’

‘But your family has by rumour been blamed for what happened.’

‘The bishop was not hurt. And no one believed that a Pagnell would have left it unfinished.’

‘They did believe it, John, they did,’ Ivo cried. ‘You heard what Grandmother said.’

Now John’s reserve began to crack, colour rose in his cheeks. He was a stubborn lad, set in his opinions. True heir to Lady Pagnell. He turned to his brother. ‘Well, now it will be all the worse.’

Ivo looked up at Owen. ‘The bishop will let it be known that we dropped the tile?’

‘I cannot think what purpose it would serve him. Still, I cannot speak for him.’

‘It would serve him to darken the Pagnell name,’ John said. It seemed a bitter attitude for one so young. ‘He let my grandfather die.’

‘It is for your elders to deal with the bishop.’

Peter came forward, shook his head at the boys. ‘Go up to your mother now. I have heard enough.’

The boys stumbled out to the stairway and disappeared.

Up in the solar, Lucie and Phillippa had two gowns out on the bed, discussing which Lucie should wear to Cisotta’s funeral on the morrow. Her light-blue one, the better of the two, might seem too cheerful for such an occasion, but the dark-blue was missing several buttons near the waist, where she had stressed it while pregnant. She did not want to spend the evening sewing on buttons. She had hoped to rest a little, talk to Owen of his day and hers.

‘Sewing on buttons is a chore I can yet manage,’ Phillippa offered. ‘I must tidy my better gown. I so seldom go out, folk will be curious, they will inspect me and I do not want them to think I am no longer presentable.’ She patted her cap as she said it, smoothed her apron. ‘A few buttons will not take me long to sew.’ Her face was alight with anticipation. It seemed to Lucie that the elderly took funerals in stride.

Phillippa’s words gave her pause. She had not considered the possibility of her aunt accompanying her to the funeral. She had planned to go early in the morning to Eudo’s so that she might help ready the children. It seemed the least she could do. But her aunt dragged one leg a little and, though not as much as a year ago, still she was a slow, awkward walker, dependent on her cane for support, having much to do to watch where she placed her feet and what she needed to avoid with the rest of her body.

‘I thought to help Cisotta’s children dress in the morning,’ Lucie said. ‘Can you manage the extra distance?’

‘I can, and I shall be happy to be of use.’

Jasper appeared, carrying a lighted lamp. ‘Kate asked whether you want to eat with the children or to wait until the captain is home.’ He set the lamp on a shelf by the door.

Lucie wished to dine with Owen so that she might ask what was to become of Eudo and whether anything yet pointed the finger of guilt towards a particular person, and so she told Jasper.

‘Could I join you at dinner? I would hear the captain’s news,’ Jasper said.

‘Of course you may.’ Lucie tucked a lock of his straight, fair hair behind his ear, but it slipped out at once. ‘You thought quickly today, bolting the counter, pushing the box in Eudo’s way. And I saw you were ready to fight him when you followed him to the kitchen.’

Jasper ducked his head, a boyhood gesture she seldom saw these days. ‘I did not want to hurt him, but I could not let him hurt you, or any of the family.’

‘I was thankful to have you there. Go now, tell Kate not to wait for us.’

Lucie noticed how dark the house was beyond the doorway, wondered at Owen’s delay. By now he must be tripping over his own feet with weariness. Gathering the darker dress, she offered to carry it down to the hall for Phillippa. ‘I am on my way there, it is no effort. I mean to sit with Gwenllian and Hugh while they eat. It has been a confusing day for them.’

Cursing himself for spending hours unravelling an accident, Owen stood in St Helen’s Square debating whether to go into the house or to keep on walking. Everything seemed more muddled than ever. What he needed was a quiet hour in a corner of the York Tavern with a tankard of Tom Merchet’s ale.

Bess Merchet was near the public door of the tavern when Owen entered. Already the room buzzed with voices. ‘You look in need of ale, my handsome friend,’ Bess said. Her dusty red hair had escaped from her cap in tendrils that clung damply to her neck and cheeks. She freed them with little flicks of her fingers.

‘Sleep is what I sorely need, but ale will do for now. I could pour it myself, if it please you.’

‘Go through to my parlour. I shall fetch us some ale.’

Companionship was not what Owen had planned, but at the moment he could think of no one with whom he would rather discuss the day. Time and again Bess Merchet had proven a trustworthy and helpful confidante. So he moved on to the kitchen and slipped behind a screen to an alcove with a small table and two high-backed chairs — Bess’s parlour. He took his own tankard and Bess’s down from the top of a cupboard.

In a moment she joined him with a large pitcher of ale. He poured while she fussed with her sleeves, taking off the cloths that protected them, pushing them down, buttoning one, then the other. She lifted a hand to her cap, thought better of it and let it be. She took a drink, then settled back, arms crossed, nodded to Owen. ‘In need of sleep, you said. Was it the fire that kept you awake last night? Or the wounded man?’

‘Both. My head was too full to settle. Tonight might be much the same but that I’m too tired to think any more.’ He told her about his day.

Bess made sympathetic noises throughout his accounting and took a long drink when he was finished. Owen drained his cup and sat staring at the table for a few moments, letting the ale numb him.

‘You are wrong about a day wasted,’ Bess said. ‘Now you know you need not worry about the tile. To think those lads made such mischief. Ferriby’s is a joyless house this night, I warrant. How is Lucie?’

‘Better until she found this in my scrip when she was dressing this morning.’ Owen drew out the girdle. ‘It was she who identified it as Cisotta’s. It fell from her as she was pulled from the burning house.’

‘Oh, my poor lass,’ Bess said, fingering the ruined leather, the charred beads.

‘Lucie took it very hard.’

‘Aye. God has much to answer for of late.’ Bess lifted the girdle and turned it over and back so that the glass beads twinkled. ‘I recall how this caught the light as Cisotta walked.’ She laid it on the table, pushed it towards Owen. ‘Was it murder?’ she asked, her voice catching. ‘Is that why you are so grim?’

‘Aye.’

They were silent a moment.

‘You are one of the few who know,’ Owen said as he tucked the girdle back in his scrip.

‘I shall keep my ears pricked, my tongue silent.’ Bess sighed. ‘To hear some talk of her, well, they were jealous, eh? Beautiful and gifted. Some folk cannot bear another’s fortune. The gossips had never crossed her threshold, seen the state of Eudo when he was not insulting someone in the shop, watched poor Anna minding the children while struggling for breath. No wonder Cisotta cheered herself with bright colours.’

Owen had not been aware how well Bess had known Cisotta. ‘Jealousy, aye, I believe it. But can you think of anyone who hated her enough to murder her, and so brutally?’ He drew out the other belt now, handed it to Bess.

She set it down on the table and tilted the buckle towards the lamplight, ran her fingers along the leather. As Owen explained how he had found it, she pushed it aside and withdrew her hands, clenching them to her breast. ‘I cannot think who would have done such a deed.’

‘Do you recognize the belt?’

‘Sweet heaven, I see many buckles in a day, I cannot remember them all.’ Her fisted hands and red eyes belied the brusqueness of her response.

‘Forgive me. I did not come here to torment you. I had intended to sit in a corner with a tankard and my thoughts.’

Bess leaned on one elbow and with her other hand stroked the wood in front of her, as if smoothing away the waters to see herself. ‘What you need to hear is the rumours about Cisotta, God give her peace.’

‘That might help,’ Owen said.

Bess pushed the belt towards Owen and shivered. ‘I have it well in my head now, put it away, I would not look at it more. If I see aught like it, you will know.’

Owen removed it from her sight.

‘Many folk feared the charms Cisotta wove,’ Bess said.

‘She wove what they requested.’

‘Aye, the problem was the charms she called her fending charms — some considered them curses. Knowing that, they feared she might curse them some day. I do not think many folk believed it of her, but there was talk.’ Bess watched Owen over the rim of her tankard. Setting it down on the table, she added, ‘I disappoint you.’

‘I see no passion in that, nothing that could lead to such a murder.’

‘Passion. As for that, wives did not like the way their husbands eyed Cisotta.’ Bess gave Owen a weary smile as he began to ask a question. ‘Had they cause to distrust her? Now and then she strayed from Eudo, I think. I do not know how she kept it quiet — her lovers must have been a loyal few. It is possible a woman might have had the strength to strangle her.’

Owen instinctively touched the patch over his left eye, thinking he knew well what a woman was capable of. ‘It is not a woman’s belt.’

‘It is small, though. Is this all of it?’

‘You saw how the edge was burned. I do not know how much longer it was.’

Tom called to her from the tavern. Bess pushed her chair back. ‘Can’t leave my husband alone all the evening.’

‘Just one more question. One of the bishop’s clerks claims to have eaten here last night, then departed with all the others to help with the fire. Alain. He would have been …’

‘Handsome and almost as tidy as Brother Michaelo.’ Bess nodded.

‘Aye, that would be him.’

‘He sat so straight and ate so well I did not believe he could truly be a cleric, but his hands are soft and elegant, and he owned he was part of Wykeham’s household. I thought better of him for joining the others who rushed out to the fire. He did not hesitate, though he is a stranger here.’ She touched Owen’s shoulder gently as she passed. ‘Sit here as long as you like, have some quiet. We must find the man who did this terrible thing.’

Owen felt his energy ebbing. He should go home. But he could not bring himself to waste the gift of peace, something he had enjoyed precious little of since Lucie’s accident — even longer, now he thought about it, with Jasper’s occasional threats to ask to be accepted into St Mary’s as a novice, Dame Phillippa’s incoherent days, Gwenllian’s stubbornness, Hugh’s delight in disappearing and sending the entire household searching the streets, and most of all Lucie’s difficult pregnancy, for it had given her far more discomfort than her earlier ones. Now and then he missed the simpler days, when he was captain of archers and his men all jumped at his command. Owen pushed his tankard aside and rested his head on his arms.