The Cross Legged Knight

Five

In the kitchen, Magda bent over the sleeping man, her ear close to his mouth, then straightened, shaking her head. ‘The rhythm of his breath is not right.’ She handed Owen a cloth, gestured towards a bowl sitting near Poins. ‘Rub salt and vinegar on his temples while Magda attends to his burns.’ She took the bowl with the noxious concoction over to the fire to warm it.

Owen eased down on the stool beside the injured man’s pallet, found it too low, sat instead on the edge of the straw-stuffed mattress, reached for the bowl. As he leaned close to the patient the smell of singed flesh conjured flashes of battlefields slippery with blood, men groaning, begging him to help them die. He crossed himself at the memories and then pushed them back before they sickened him. He wet the man’s temples, glad of the clean odour of vinegar. In a short while the man’s belly rumbled. The purge that was incorporated in the dwale was at last working, the poison leaving his body. When the sounds ceased, Owen lifted Poins’s legs and pulled the waiting cloth from beneath him.

‘It is good that he fouled himself,’ said Magda.

Owen took the cloth out to the midden at the end of the garden, noting as he passed the corner of the house that Alfred was not at his post. Owen held his breath, listening. Gravel crunched near the roses, against the back wall of the garden. The night was still clear, with enough moonlight to outline shapes. The fruit trees shivered in the light wind, something skittered beneath the hellebore leaves, but other than that all was still, and he picked out no unexpected silhouettes.

With a sudden rush of noisy movement, a shape emerged from his left, blocking the path.

‘Who goes there?’ Alfred demanded in a loud, resonant voice.

‘Your captain,’ said Owen, stepping into the light. ‘What were you doing back there?’

‘I thought I saw someone. Creeping along, staying low, as you were just now. But I can find no trace. If someone was here, he escaped over the wall.’

At four feet high, that would not be difficult for an agile person.

‘I fear you were right that we should watch,’ said Alfred.

He deserved to know just how dangerous this was. ‘Someone murdered that woman in the undercroft tonight. If the man in my kitchen is not the murderer, it might be the intruder you just frightened off.’ Or there might have been nothing in the garden but Alfred’s imagination. Owen must remember that.

‘I guessed her death was no accident when you set us up to guard, Captain. You are not an idle worrier.’

‘I intend to move him on the morrow’ — as soon as Owen told Lucie what they were dealing with. He hoped she would agree with him. ‘I commend you for your quick response.’

‘Get some rest, Captain. I’ll be watching.’

When Owen returned to the kitchen, Magda had removed the cap that had held her grizzled braids from her neck and was pinning them high on her head.

‘Trouble?’ she asked.

‘Alfred fears we had an uninvited guest.’

‘It is good thou hadst the foresight to set a watch. Help Magda shift Poins on to his stomach.’ She tucked the light cover around the injured man, took her position at his feet.

Her lack of concern regarding a possible intruder calmed Owen. He bent to slip his hands beneath the man’s chest, smelling the noxious lotion Magda had spread on the right side of his face. Poins shuddered with pain, cried out at the movement beneath his shoulders and the rasp of the rough cloth against his burns as they lifted and rolled him on to his stomach, the cover now beneath him. Here were the worst of the burns, on his upper back, the back of his head, his buttocks. Some of the flesh was blistered, some of it burned more severely.

Magda began tucking folded cloths and cushions beneath Poins to ease the strain on his neck and allow him to breathe freely. Though her skin was a web of wrinkles, she was yet a strong woman, manipulating the man as if he were but a child.

‘Bring Magda the ointment she was stirring.’

‘It smells as if you mean to tan him.’

‘Magda must cleanse the wounds, prepare the flesh for healing. Adderwort, oak bark, lady’s mantle …’

‘… and urine.’

‘Dost thou suddenly have a weak stomach?’

‘No. We used it in the camps. But it is not a pleasant odour in the kitchen.’

‘Thou shouldst move him above the shop, keep him and the guards from thy children.’

‘I mean to move him at least that far.’

The oil lamp was flickering, about to go out, when Poins groaned and blinked rapidly.

Owen spoke his name.

Poins struck out with his remaining arm, knocking aside the bowl Owen had left beside him.

Owen caught his arm, held it down. ‘You are safe, Poins.’

The injured man opened his eyes, staring wildly. He opened his mouth, but had little voice. Twisting away from Owen, he arched, trying to roll on to his back.

‘You do not want to do that,’ Owen said, holding fast.

Magda appeared at Owen’s side. ‘There is sometimes this wildness after the dwale leaves the body. Magda is grateful thou wert wakeful.’

Poins began to breathe shallowly. ‘I am burning,’ he moaned. His face contorted. ‘My arm.’

‘Thou art saved,’ Magda said. ‘Sleep now. Thou hast much healing to do.’

His breathing slowed.

Magda turned to Owen. ‘Take thee up to thy bed. Thou hast returned him to the living. For now.’

Lucie lay in the darkness just before dawn. Owen had come to bed only moments ago and had fallen asleep at once. She listened to his deep, steady breathing, such a counterpoint to her own pounding heart. She fought against rising and going to see the children. Too often of late she had done so, only to wake them and spread her fear. They sensed a tension in her, that she was not the same, and she could see it frightened them. Even if they had been old enough for her to explain to them that she had lost a child, a half-formed soul, and now she woke each night terrified that God had taken another, she had no right to give them such a dark gift, rob them of all joy. They were too young to learn that life did not go on for ever. There was time enough for them to learn of death.

She would go down to the hall and watch the dawn in the garden, but Magda was in the kitchen. She felt she had told Magda too much already.

A cock crowed, a sound that both heartened and saddened Lucie, the end of the long night, another day in which her steps faltered, her attention wandered. People noticed her strangeness. Her friend Emma Ferriby had yesterday come for a draught to induce a dreamless sleep. Lucie had noted at Sir Ranulf’s requiem how her friend had stood with her gloved hands clasped tightly against her middle, her lips pinched, her back too stiff, fighting the anger and grief that warred in her.

‘You are unwell?’ Lucie had asked.

‘I cannot sleep — no, that is not true. I fear sleep. I am plagued by bad dreams.’

Lucie had searched her friend’s eyes for a desperation mirroring her own, but had seen only sorrow and exhaustion. ‘I can give you something to help you sleep, but I cannot promise it will be dreamless.’ She had taken Emma’s hands. ‘You must swear to me you will take only as much as I tell you.’

How strange she must have sounded. Emma had tried to laugh, but it came out an uneasy sound. ‘Sweet heaven, of course. I fear the night, I fear the dreams and it is all the worse for knowing nothing can be done, nothing. But I would not harm myself.’ She had withdrawn her hands from Lucie’s. ‘I swear it.’

‘I did not think you would,’ Lucie said. ‘I shall mix something for you. But it is a potent sleep draft. Too much will make you senseless.’

‘You are looking pale. Should you be in the shop?’

Lucie turned over in bed, dispelling the memory. The shop was precisely where she needed to be, mixing what she had promised Emma. The accounts and then the fire had distracted her from the task. But first she would check on the injured servant. She would tell Magda that is what had wakened her at dawn, concern for the man who lay so near death in her kitchen.

Owen reached out for her in his sleep. Lucie kissed his forehead. Strange how she could distinguish the smell of the smoke in his hair as something foreign, not from their own hearth fire. She reached out to trace the lines that had lately deepened on his forehead, but stopped herself, not wanting to wake him. She wished she had been able to stay awake last night, alert enough to ask what he was keeping from her. He had learned something troubling, she could see that in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Now she might need to wait until the end of the day to learn what it was, when they were alone again. But he must sleep. Gently she slipped out of his grasp, rose to dress herself.

She opened a shutter wide enough to see the dawn. A soft rain had begun to fall, but to the east the sky was bright. She used the light to examine the clothing Owen had worn the previous night. Sometimes it helped to do ordinary things. He had worn his own clothes, not the livery of the archbishop. The simple russet tunic was singed and grimy with water and ash, the leggings past saving, she feared. His boots had been soaked, but they could be worked back into good condition. She lifted them to the chest, catching his belt with them. The scrip that hung from the belt slipped along the leather and she caught it as it was about to fall. She wondered at its heft as she set it down beside his boots and turned to leave. But curiosity pulled her back. She drew the leather flap out of the long loop that held it and gently shook the scrip to free the contents, not too far, just a glimpse. A leather band set with large glass beads slipped out. Lucie caught her breath.

It was Cisotta’s new girdle, but only part of it, the edges charred, crumbling as Lucie touched them. She sank to her knees, running her fingertips over the glass beads.

Cisotta had been wearing it yesterday. Lucie could see it clearly, on the young midwife’s blue dress.

Lucie had come through the beaded curtain from the back workshop to find Jasper ducking his head and laughing in the self-conscious manner he had of late when a pretty woman was around. But there seemed to be no one in the shop. ‘Jasper?’

‘Lucie?’ Cisotta’s voice had risen from somewhere in front of the counter.

Jasper had blushed. ‘She is fetching a jar for this.’ He had pennyroyal measured out on a piece of parchment. ‘Her basket is on the floor.’

A brightly veiled head rose then, blue eyes, blonde hair in braided rolls on either side of a lovely face. Cisotta’s gown matched her eyes and the beaded girdle called attention to her narrow waist, how the gown was cut to cling at her hips. The effect had not been lost on Jasper. Lucie had mixed feelings about her presence. Though thankful for the care Cisotta had given her, seeing her touched wounds still raw. She had felt ungrateful — after all, the midwife had baptized her stillborn child.

Cisotta stood with jars in hand, studying Lucie. ‘You still lack some spark. Is the Riverwoman satisfied with your improvement?’

‘She does not say.’

‘Then she is not. Jasper might help you more. And Dame Phillippa.’ She set the jars on the counter.

‘You have been a stranger,’ Lucie had said. ‘I thought you might have deserted us for another apothecary.’

Cisotta’s face had dimpled in a brief smile. ‘I should be a fool to do so, my friend.’ She glanced behind, checked that they were indeed alone. ‘I have been busy trying to feed my family, spreading the word among women about the births I have attended, particularly among merchant’s wives — they pay the best.’

Lucie had heard why Cisotta needed work. The cordwainers were angry with her husband, Eudo, for making shoes of tawyed leather for a neighbour. He had been reprimanded by his guild and had lost the business of most of the guilds in the city, a loss he could not afford, for he offended so many who came into the shop with his silence, rarely sparing a moment for a civil word, that many left without buying. Cisotta complained of it often.

It was not Magda’s custom to gossip, but she distrusted Cisotta, saying she did not have the soul of a healer. Though she had been relieved to see Cisotta at Lucie’s bedside when she returned from the countryside and heard of the fall, the miscarriage, she had lost no time in sending the younger woman on her way. ‘She depends too much on charms,’ Magda had said.

But Cisotta had been good to Lucie, so she had tried to comfort her. ‘Eudo is skilled with hides. The glovers will return to him when the tawyed leather they buy elsewhere stretches and tears as they work it.’

‘You are kind to say so.’ Cisotta crouched to place the filled jars in her basket.

‘I could carry that for you,’ Jasper had said.

‘Stay here to help your mistress. My daughter is sitting without, we shall share the handle.’

Lucie had wondered about that. Eight-year-old Anna was a wraithlike child who had been racked by illnesses from birth.

‘Eudo is so harsh with her,’ Cisotta had said as she lifted the basket, leaning back a little to cope with the weight. ‘He calls her lazy, expects her to fetch and carry. He needs another apprentice, but he has no one to back him in the guild. I look forward to the day when my boys are big enough to help him. God forgive me for complaining, he is as good a husband as most, all in all. God go with you, Lucie, Jasper.’ She had headed for the door, her beaded leather girdle jingling as she walked unevenly with the load.

Lucie pressed the scrap of girdle to her heart. Owen’s scrip dropped to the floor, spilling the rest of the contents.

The bed creaked. ‘Lucie?’

‘You said you did not know her.’

Owen sat up. ‘Who?’

‘The beaded girdle. It was in the fire. Was it on the woman they took from the undercroft?’

‘One of the men found it on the ground. He thought it had fallen from her when they carried her from the fire. Do you recognize it?’

‘You do not?’

‘No. Tell me.’

‘You saw this every day after my accident.’

Owen was shaking his head. He had the look on his face she had come to know all too well of late. He would speak softly to her now, trying not to anger her, attempting to reason with her.

‘It is Cisotta’s girdle,’ she said, speaking before he had the chance, ‘the one Eudo made for her.’

‘Cisotta?’

She watched him take it in, realize what it meant to her. He threw aside the bedding and hurried to her, kneeling as she knelt. He reached to pull her into his arms.

She resisted. She did not want comfort. ‘Did you see her?’

‘Lucie, I am so sorry. But I did not know. I could not — ’ he stopped himself.

He need not have. She heard the rest of it — it echoed in the room as loudly as if he had shouted it. ‘She is that badly burned?’

‘Aye,’ he whispered, looking down at his hands. ‘But it is worse than that.’

‘Did you not recognize the bright blue of her dress?’

‘What was not burned was smeared with mud and ashes. I swear I have never seen the beaded girdle.’

Lucie looked down at the belt that had fallen from the scrip. It, too, had been in the fire, but it was not familiar. She reached down.

‘Do not touch that.’ Owen did not use the gentle voice meant to soothe her. He sounded edgy and hoarse from the fire and lack of sleep.

‘What did you mean, worse than that?’ She joined him on the bed, shook her head at the wine he proffered. ‘What did you keep from me last night? What happened to Cisotta?’

‘I have told only Thoresby, Wykeham, and Magda. You must speak of this to no one else, not Jasper, not Phillippa — ’

‘You have never hesitated to tell me anything before.’

He said nothing.

‘I swear I shall tell no one.’

‘She was murdered, Lucie. The belt on the floor — it had been tightened round her neck, the buckle pressed into her throat.’

Lucie touched her own neck as she looked down at the belt that had fallen from the scrip. She took the wine now, let it course down her throat. It burned. She shivered. ‘Then she did not die in the fire.’

‘I do not think she could have yet been breathing.’

She did not know which would be the more terrifying way to die, to have such a thing cut off the air, to feel the belt tightening, or to choke on smoke, feel the searing pain of the heat on the skin. The wine soured in her stomach. Holding her hand to her mouth, she rushed to the window, pushed open the shutters and leaned out, breathing in the damp, chilly air.

Owen followed, put his arms round her, drawing her from the window.

Meddling man, could he not see she needed air? She turned in his arms. ‘That man in our kitchen, the man I nursed last night — do you think he did that to Cisotta?’

‘I do not know.’

‘You describe her burns as much worse than his.’

‘He lay by the door.’

‘Who, then?’

‘That is what we must discover. Come back to bed. It is cold here by the window.’

He was shivering, standing there naked, his hair tousled. There was a time when they would not have stood there long, but would have tumbled back into bed for lovemaking.

‘Go back to bed, then.’

‘It is early yet. You fall asleep so quickly at night, but every morning you are up long before me. What wakes you? Are you still in pain?’

‘No.’ For a little while she had forgotten her petty anguish. What was her sorrow compared with what Eudo would feel, and his young family. He was left with four children, Anna, the eldest, only eight years old, and three boys, one not long from his mother’s breast.

Owen sat down on the chest and reached for her hand.

‘Do you mean to keep this a secret?’ she asked. ‘How can you? What of Eudo? You cannot keep it from him.’

‘Even from him, for now.’

‘But he is her husband.’

‘No, Lucie.’

‘Do you suspect him?’

‘Is it impossible? You have told me there was much discord in that house.’

‘Eudo loved her too much to harm her.’ Lucie knelt to pick up the girdle. ‘Who will tell him of her death?’

‘I shall send a priest.’

‘I could go — ’

‘No!’

‘I shall attend the funeral.’

‘That is a different matter.’

They both looked up as someone banged on the door down below.