The Cross Legged Knight

Seven

Crossing the garden to the rear door of the shop, Lucie paused outside, picking spent roses off the climbing vine while praying for strength to fend off the darkness. She had committed to helping Owen in this, but already doubt clouded her mind. Holy Mother of God, help me fight against the devil who would crush me with despair. Give me the strength to see how I must proceed, how I can bring peace to Cisotta’s spirit and protect innocent people from blame.

Gathering a handful of dried petals in her apron, Lucie stepped inside. The workroom and storeroom for her apothecary shop had once been the kitchen and main living quarters of her home, with a sleeping loft above. A window overlooked the oldest part of the garden, which had been planned and planted by her first husband, Nicholas Wilton, adding to the small apothecary garden planted by his father and grandfather. Nicholas would have delighted in the space she had now, with room enough for half a dozen fruit trees and beds for more varieties of the herbs that they used in the shop. Lucie’s own father had bought the larger house next door in which they now lived. She wondered whether he would have regretted his generosity if he had lived to see her now, giving in to despair over the death of a child she had never known.

These were dangerous thoughts. She busied herself collecting a small jar and stopper for Emma’s sleep potion and set out the sealing wax, lighting a spirit lamp to warm it. From a peg on the wall she took down a scrip in which to carry it all. As she worked, her hands steadied, her mind calmed.

Through the beaded door to the shop she overheard Jasper talking to a customer. ‘I have set it here at my elbow because there have been so many asking for balms for the throat. Do you need a salve for burns as well?’

One of the tasks that Lucie had neglected of late was making more of the cough electuary, which would be much needed as the year passed into winter. She doubted they had enough to last through the next few days if already, in mid-morning, Jasper had dispensed enough to be keeping the jar on the counter. She waited until the customer departed, then joined Jasper in the shop.

He greeted her with troubled eyes, cheeks flushed with emotion. ‘Is it true what they are saying, that it was Cisotta who died in the fire?’

The question took Lucie aback. ‘Who told you?’

‘Mistress Cooper. She came in for burn ointment for her husband and something to soothe his throat. And others have also been talking of it. Is it true?’ His voice cracked.

‘Yes, it is.’ Seeing his distress, remembering how Cisotta had affected him, Lucie held her arms out to him and had a moment to comfort him before the next customer appeared in the doorway. ‘I shall miss her, too,’ she whispered, smoothing his straw-coloured hair from his forehead as she had not done in a while. He hugged her hard, wiped his eyes, and turned back to his work, greeting the customer with a gruff but stable voice.

While Jasper dispensed, Lucie mixed valerian root, fennel seed — for Emma had a tender stomach — crushed lemon balm and mint and, having tucked them in the jar, stoppered it.

‘We need sweet vinegar and barley sugar to make more of the throat physick,’ Jasper said as Lucie picked up the jar and headed for the workroom.

‘And before the day is out,’ she agreed. ‘But we have the rest?’

‘Steeped hock seeds and flowers, gum Arabic, dragagantum and quince seeds, aye.’

Something simpler might do for those not coughing, but the best remedies for the throat contained iris or violet vinegar and barley sugar. She had never allowed her supply of them to get so low.

‘I shall stop at the market after I take this to the Ferribys,’ she promised. No doubt the day after a fire the ingredients would be most dear, but she had no choice.

‘I could take that to them.’

‘I wish to see Emma. Do you mind so much, managing the shop by yourself?’

She could tell by the look on his face that he minded a little, but he assured her that he was content.

Quickly she sealed the jar and departed for Emma’s house, hoping to set her thoughts in order as she walked to Hosier Lane. But on the street she found little peace in which to think. It seemed as if the entire population of York was abroad, exchanging tales of the fire the previous night. By the time she had made her way down Coney Street to Ousegate she had learned that the gossips, rather than talking of the good Cisotta had done, were listing her frivolous outfits, the men with whom she had flirted, the midwives she had stepped over to find work, how much she had charged for a birth when others did the work expecting nothing and, worst of all, the charms she had woven for profit.

By the time Lucie reached Emma’s house she felt confident that she could rummage for information without sounding unnatural — her fury over the wholesale condemnation of Cisotta would cover any tension she might display.

The Ferriby house commanded Hosier Lane just beyond Pavement. Peter Ferriby was a merchant trading in a wide assortment of profitable goods, as his father had done before him, and the L-shaped house rose two storeys, gaily painted in yellow and red, a narrow end to the street with a wing jutting out behind the warehouse that shared the street end. She ducked through an archway which led into a small courtyard between the house and the warehouse and took a moment to appreciate the peace after her walk. She knocked only once on the door before Emma opened it. Lucie realized she must have been visible from within. ‘I was enjoying your courtyard.’

‘You may not wish to come in,’ Emma said beneath her breath. ‘Mother is in a fury.’

That was not unusual for Lady Pagnell. ‘We are a pair, then,’ Lucie said. ‘But what is amiss? Is it her anger with the bishop? I thought they were about to come to a settlement.’

Emma winced. ‘I thought so, too. But it is anyone’s guess how long it will now be delayed. Peter heard this morning that some people are suggesting we are behind the fire at the bishop’s house, that we did it in revenge for Wykeham’s part in Father’s death.’

‘Lady Pagnell heard this?’

‘Peter can be such a fool — he told me of this in her presence.’

‘Oh, Emma, surely no one believes it?’

‘Folk will believe what they like,’ Lady Pagnell said loudly from somewhere within the house — what keen hearing the woman had — ‘and the more who suffer for it the tastier it is. But you do not need to keep Mistress Wilton standing in the courtyard, Emma.’

Emma clutched her elbows with her stubby-fingered hands. ‘Mother is my bane,’ she said more quietly. ‘But enough of her. I can guess what you are angry about. Folk are talking of nothing else this morning. What on earth was Cisotta doing at the Fitzbaldric house?’

‘So far we do not know.’

‘Well, come in, do,’ Emma said in a louder voice, stepping back, her elegant green wool gown moving to show the pale-yellow undershift. ‘You must tell me all about last night and the injured servant you have taken in.’

Lucie glanced down at her simple workaday blue gown, hoping she had not stained it while assisting Magda with Poins, or working in the shop. There was a tear at the edge of her left sleeve that she had not noticed before, a small spot on the skirt that might be blood and her hem needed a good brushing. She and Emma were both daughters of knights, but Lucie did not fuss with her appearance on workdays.

Lady Pagnell stood beneath a window, leaning over a large piece of embroidery in a frame, stabbing at it as if taking out her anger on the cloth. Though short like her daughter, she managed to be an imposing presence in the high-ceilinged hall. She wore a dark-purple gown with a matching veil over a white wimple and bib, a veil much crimped and curled and stiffened into an imposing square façade over her face. Murmuring something polite at Lucie’s greeting, she feigned absorption in her needlework, as if her earlier outburst had never occurred.

At a table further back in the hall Emma’s boys, Ivo and John, sat with their tutor, Edgar, writing on wax tablets as he dictated. Matthew, the Pagnell steward, sat further down the table with rolled parchments, tally sticks, and a ledger spread out before him. He did not look up at her entry, but seemed to bend his head even closer to his work. Lucie was curious about him after Emma’s complaints regarding his relationship with Lady Pagnell. She had met him only once before.

‘Mother has frightened the boys, talking of the rumours about our family with such anger, telling them they will be shunned by all.’

Since the tutor had paused in his lesson, Lucie felt free to offer a greeting to the boys. She remembered how painful it had been to be ostracized as a child. After the death of her mother, Lucie had been sent off to St Clement Nunnery where the sisters had watched her for signs of the weak morals they had ascribed to her mother, who had had a lover. The memory of that brought Lucie back to Cisotta and the reputation that was blinding people to the tragedy of her death.

The tow-headed boys greeted her with solemn courtesy. She had expected them to burst with questions about the fire, the rumours — they were intelligent and energetic. But after a brief acknowledgement of her presence, they both returned to their work.

While Emma drew up a bench so that they might sit away from the others and near the fire, Lucie took the jar from her scrip and set it on a small table. ‘This should help you sleep.’

Emma glanced towards her mother, then shook her head slightly. ‘She does not approve,’ she whispered.

But it was too late. ‘What is that, Emma? Are you in need of a physick? You might have said something to me. Is it for digestion?’

‘If you must take part in our conversation, I pray you, join us, so you do not disturb the boys at their lessons.’ Emma had flushed scarlet. ‘Sometimes I think Mother has no sense,’ she whispered to Lucie.

‘I am busy with my embroidery,’ said Lady Pagnell. ‘Come, sit by me. I so seldom have a chance to see you, Lucie. There was no time to talk at the minster the other day. At least let me thank you for attending Sir Ranulf’s mass.’

‘My father counted Sir Ranulf a good friend, Lady Pagnell, and I remember his kindnesses.’

An opportunity to speak with both Lady Pagnell and Emma was more to Lucie’s purpose than sequestering herself with her friend, though she prayed for patience in dealing with the two of them. She did not understand their conflict, but she understood that her impatience stemmed from envy. Neither Lady Pagnell nor Emma appreciated what they had in each other. Lucie did not even have a mother-in-law with whom to contend.

‘We cannot very well deny your mother’s request,’ she said to Emma in a voice that even Lady Pagnell could not hear.

The boys’ tutor directed Ivo and John to move the bench closer to Lady Pagnell. Again, they seemed reluctant to meet Lucie’s gaze. Perhaps Emma had not exaggerated Lady Pagnell’s negative effect on the household. As Lucie passed the long table, she noticed the steward watching her. He quickly glanced away, but not before she caught his irritated expression. She could not blame him, being interrupted in his work by all the bother her visit was causing.

‘Come, Lucie, let me look at you.’ Lady Pagnell held out her arms, then gestured for Lucie to pivot. ‘A lovely gown. Blue is a good colour for you. But my child, how thin you are, and how pale.’

‘Mother,’ Emma warned.

Ignoring her daughter, Lady Pagnell continued, ‘I was sorry to hear of your loss.’

This was nothing of which Lucie wished to speak to Lady Pagnell. But it was to be expected. And noting shadows beneath the widow’s eyes, new lines etched on her face and her complexion less robust than usual, Lucie was reminded that Lady Pagnell, too, had recently suffered a painful loss. ‘I was confined to my bedchamber so long it is no wonder I seem pale, Lady Pagnell. But I am much recovered.’

The widow shook her head. ‘You are still young, do not waste your days grieving for a lost child. It was God’s will. He will bless you with another if it is meant to be.’

Unable to respond, Lucie stepped closer to examine the embroidery. ‘Is this for the chapel altar?’ The strength of her voice surprised her. God was co-operating for a change. The cloth was narrow, a fine linen, draped over the embroidery stand and folded carefully on the floor behind. The end on which Lady Pagnell was working depicted a knight in armour sitting astride a prancing chestnut horse with black mane and tail. The ground beneath the pair was a carpet of tiny flowers. The knight’s tabard was white with a large red cross, signifying a crusader.

‘It is for the chapel altar. On the other end is a cross-legged knight. Though why I play to that foolishness I do not know.’ Lady Pagnell’s voice said otherwise.

‘Father’s wish to go crusading was not foolishness.’ Emma spoke sharply.

Lucie prayed that she and Gwenllian never grew so distant. ‘Sir Ranulf would be moved by your work, Lady Pagnell.’

‘You see, Emma? Lucie does not find me heartless.’

‘Do sit down,’ Emma said to Lucie, ‘and tell us about the fire last night.’

At last a subject of use to her. She settled beside Emma. ‘I would as lief not repeat what you already know. What have you heard? Was anyone from your household there?’

‘Matthew was out, but he missed the excitement,’ said Emma, glancing towards the table where the steward bent over his work. ‘It did not occur to him to come to the aid of the bishop.’

Now Matthew glanced up, his face moving from light to shadow so that Lucie could not see his expression, but his voice was quiet as he said, ‘There were so many people in the street I thought I would only be in the way.’

‘And right you were, of course, Matthew,’ said Lady Pagnell. ‘Emma, watch your tongue with my steward.’

‘Then he should be so good as to watch his with my servants.’

Mother and daughter locked eyes, both with high colour born of anger, not health. Lucie had never witnessed such discord in the Ferriby house. Something was very wrong, but she could not believe Emma’s suspicion, that the steward harboured hopes of winning Lady Pagnell. The Pagnells were too proud a family.

Lady Pagnell stabbed at the embroidery and pricked the finger she held beneath as a guide.

‘You should follow your own advice, Mother. “Never place your fingers beneath your needles. The frame makes that unnecessary.”’ Emma did a perfect imitation of her mother’s voice.

Lady Pagnell sat down on a stool beside the large frame and sucked her finger, pausing to say, ‘Really, Emma, you are acting the petulant child. This is not like you.’ She paused. ‘As for our household helping in the fire, Lucie, I regret to say we were dining quietly here. It was Stephen’s last night in the city.’

Stephen was Lady Pagnell’s eldest son, the heir. Emma often complained of her brother’s efforts to control all the family, so it seemed odd to Lucie that Stephen had departed for home before the negotiations with Wykeham had been completed. The manor was soon to be his own home.

‘Will he be returning to meet with the Bishop of Winchester?’ Lucie asked.

Lady Pagnell shook her head. ‘Stephen said as he has little knowledge of our neighbour he would leave it to Matthew and me to choose what might be acceptable. I must say I was disappointed. I should have welcomed my son’s guidance in this. I fear that I shall offer something too dear in exchange for the modest piece of property on which I wish to live. Stephen withdrew from the deliberations just to vex me.’

Emma had caught Lucie’s eye at the mention of Matthew and made a face as if to say, ‘You see?’

‘It is fertile land with a stream of clear water,’ said Lady Pagnell, ‘and it will require an equally pleasant and useful property to wrest it from that man’s clutches.’

‘He was good enough to contribute to Father’s outfitting,’ said Emma, ‘and he deserves a fair exchange. Stephen was in too much haste to return to his Pippa.’ His wife was pregnant with her fifth child and could not make the journey for the funeral. ‘It is not a steward’s place to take part in such decisions.’

‘Might I be of help?’ Lucie asked, desperate to avoid another argument. ‘Are any of the properties south of the city, near Freythorpe Hadden?’ — her family estate.

‘Some are,’ said Lady Pagnell. ‘Our neighbour means it for a new tenant, not himself, so it was not necessary to have it adjoining his land. Perhaps you might look them over?’ She turned towards Matthew, who was in the process of gathering up his work and strapping the items together.

‘That will not be necessary, My Lady. I plan to ride out to the various properties so that I might provide you with a full description of each, its prospects and amenities. It is impossible to judge such things from deeds.’ Matthew was a well-spoken man, but though his words were courteous his scowl was not. He bowed, now, and clutching his bundle he made his excuses and departed by the rear door.

‘Mother, you allow him to be too familiar.’

‘Your father hired him, Emma. I have not often heard you question his judgement.’

To save them both from any more argument, Lucie launched into an account of the fire, of the servant Poins’s wounds, Magda’s remedies and this morning’s gossip about Cisotta. ‘Last night it seemed the fire had inspired the people of York to help their neighbours, but today they are intent on destroying her good name rather than praying for the dead and injured.’

‘Amen,’ said Lady Pagnell. ‘They assisted in dousing the fire to save their own homes, not out of charity.’

Emma fussed with the keys that hung from her girdle. ‘Can it be so bad as that?’ she managed to say.

‘I have heard hardly a word spoken in sympathy for Cisotta,’ Lucie said.

Emma crossed herself. ‘May God give her peace. She was a skilled healer.’

‘Jealousy, that is what drives gossips,’ said Lady Pagnell. ‘I understand she was a pretty woman and dressed to be admired.’

‘Mother,’ Emma warned.

‘She was, Lady Pagnell,’ said Lucie.

‘They do say Adeline Fitzbaldric is ambitious for her husband,’ said Emma, ‘and that is why she seized the chance to live in William of Wykeham’s house rather than secure a more permanent residence.’

‘What else do you know of the Fitzbaldrics?’ Lucie asked. ‘I had not met them until last night.’

‘Misfortune follows them,’ said Emma. ‘They lost their son and daughter to the pestilence. Mistress Fitzbaldric was bedridden for months with her grief.’

‘They do say that Lady Percy was so after her son drowned,’ said Lady Pagnell. ‘But you have seen how well she has refined the art of fainting to avoid unpleasantness.’

Emma nodded. ‘Yet her gown is never soiled or torn.’

Lucie’s thoughts had turned elsewhere.

‘Do you know Lady Percy, Lucie?’ asked Lady Pagnell.

As Lucie nodded, Emma asked what she had been thinking. ‘You looked so sad.’

‘I thought of Cisotta, how I admired her neatness. She worked so hard but always looked as if a servant had just dressed her.’

Emma and Lady Pagnell crossed themselves.

As Owen arrived at the tawyer’s shop the drizzle gave way to a timid sun, glistening off the rooftops of Girdlergate. Eudo’s apprentice, a young man of perhaps twenty years, his curly hair kept from his face with a tight-fitting leather cap, was already at work at the counter that opened on to the street, softening a piece of leather by drawing it back and forth over a blunt blade set in a block of wood. A small child’s plaintive cries came from the house beyond, answered by a man’s angry voice.

‘You are up and hard at work betimes,’ said Owen. Though it was not so early now — mid-morning by the shadows in the street. It was difficult to judge time with so little sleep.

‘I’d as lief work as lie abed listening to little Will screaming and my master in a foul mood. He went out searching for Mistress Cisotta. She was away the night, without leaving word that she would be so long. He came back alone and in such state — I called for a neighbour to come and help Anna quiet the boy.’

‘The child is ill?’

The apprentice jumped at the sound of something heavy hitting a wall in the living quarters. A woman’s voice now drowned out the boy’s cries.

‘Aye, a stomach complaint. It smelled foul in there last night at supper.’

Owen wondered how the lad could smell anything after spending his days working the hides, trampling them in tubs of alum, egg yolks, oil and flour. But the child’s illness might explain Eudo’s absence from the crowd last night at the fire. ‘Your master attended the child all evening?’

‘Nay, he drank and cursed the boy, shouted at Anna for being slow.’ The apprentice rose abruptly as another visitor entered the shop — George Hempe, one of the city bailiffs, wearing his official livery.

Looking from Hempe to Owen, the apprentice said, ‘This is no accident, both of you here. What is amiss?’ He strained his neck to see the street behind Hempe, perhaps fearful of a guild searcher. Owen had noticed scrips, shoes and a belt that looked new, all items a guild tawyer was forbidden to sell.

‘I am not here as a guild searcher,’ Hempe said, responding to the apprentice though fixing his gaze on Owen.

‘We must speak with your master,’ Owen said to the apprentice. ‘Would you tell him we are here? I would not walk in on his family without warning.’

The young man glanced behind him, his heading sinking down between his shoulders. ‘He will want to know the matter of your visit.’

‘I doubt he will ask,’ said Owen.

‘It is the mistress?’

‘Aye, it is.’ The apprentice would know soon enough.

‘Mother in heaven.’ The young man crossed himself. ‘I feared that when he came back with such a face on him. Was it the fire?’

Owen nodded.

‘Now go, tell your master we wait without,’ Hempe said. His deep voice and hawklike appearance lent the slender man an authority that humbled the apprentice.

Shrinking, the young man made his way to the door, opened it and closed it quietly behind him.

Hempe picked up a shoe, turned it over. ‘Pity the guilds go after Eudo as they do — this is good workmanship, better than many a cordwainer in this city.’ He leaned back, nodded to Owen. ‘What exactly are you about, Captain, taking in the servant, bringing word to the family, which I assume you mean to do here? You are the archbishop’s man. The fire occurred outside the minster liberty. This is the city’s concern.’

That was true. In following Thoresby’s orders Owen was encroaching in the city bailiffs’ territory. ‘Mistress Cisotta died at the house of the Bishop of Winchester,’ Owen reminded him.

‘It does not matter. She lived and died in the city.’

‘It matters to Archbishop Thoresby and to Bishop Wykeham.’

‘They have no say in this.’

‘I suspect His Grace has already sent word to the sheriff, the mayor and the council with Bishop Wykeham’s request for this to be kept a Church affair.’

‘A Church affair? Not by any stretch of …’ Hempe stopped as the door opened and the apprentice slipped back in.

He shook his head at the two of them. ‘The air is foul in there. But my master bids you enter. He says he is eager to speak with you.’

Owen followed the bailiff into a long, squat hall with a meagre and very smoky fire in the centre, a few oil lamps sputtering.

‘Smells like all houses with young children,’ Hempe said beneath his breath.

Eudo stood near the fire, holding a squirming, whining young boy out in front of him while Goodwife Claire, a neighbour, spread ointment on the lad’s bare bottom. Eudo’s eight-year-old daughter, Anna, left her place by the largest piece of furniture in the room, a dresser full of jars and bottles of Cisotta’s potions, and crossed over to Owen and Hempe. She was small for her age, with little flesh on her tiny bones. But she comported herself with a mature solemnity, greeting the two men with courtesy and offering them ale.

Owen declined. Eudo might be quietly assisting his neighbour at present, but Owen had heard him earlier and knew he and Hempe were about to deal with a man at the end of his tether. Hempe was apparently of like mind.

The woman had taken the boy and carried him to a box bed in the far corner. He was quieter now, his cries softened to an occasional whimper. Eudo strode towards the guests, wiping his hands on his alum-stained leather leggings. He was dressed to work in the shop — Owen guessed he had never undressed last night. A squat man with a much creased and jowly face, ever scowling, Eudo was as homely as his wife had been beautiful, and at least two score years older than she had been.

‘I want some answers, men. Are you here to give them?’ Eudo pulled up a stool and straddled it, gesturing to them to find themselves something to sit on.

Anna approached, reaching out as if willing a bench to move towards them. Owen met her halfway and suggested she go to sit with her brothers while he and the bailiff talked to her father.

‘When will they bring Ma’s body home, Captain?’ Anna asked.

So they knew. Owen crouched down and took her little hand in his. It was rough for the hand of so young a child. ‘You cannot have your mother’s body here, not with your brother so ill. She is being taken to St Sampson’s. Father John will have parish women prepare her. But you will have your say in that, to be certain.’

She wiped her nose on her sleeve, but her tears were coming steadily.

‘Anna!’ Eudo shouted. ‘Do as the captain said. Go and sit with your brothers, make sure they mind Goodwife Claire.’

Owen watched as the girl began to disobey, opening her mouth to ask yet another question. He was glad of Eudo’s interference — he would find it difficult to lie to such a solemn child, and he was certain she wished to ask how her mother had looked, whether she had suffered.

‘Go,’ he whispered. ‘The little ones need you.’ Owen’s knees ached as he rose, and his head pounded from the lack of fresh air and the reek of the child’s sickness as well as the odours of Eudo’s business. He noted that Eudo grew angry under Hempe’s questioning. The bailiff’s presence was most unfortunate.

‘Can you tell us how your wife came to be at the Fitzbaldrics’ house?’ Hempe was asking.

Eudo had been sitting, one elbow on his knee, but with the question he shot up straight as a post. ‘That is what you two were to tell me.’

Owen settled back on the bench beside the bailiff, picked up a child’s top that lay at his feet.

‘Where did she say she would be?’ Hempe asked.

‘She told me nothing. It is Anna she would have told, but…’ Eudo stopped, mouth open, and shook himself as if waking himself up. ‘I said such things to the children in anger last night while Cisotta lay in the burning house giving up her spirit. May God smite me.’ He beat his chest and began to sob.

‘We shall get little out of him today,’ Hempe muttered.

Eudo might have been more forthcoming had the bailiff a less confrontational approach, Owen thought. He needed to distance himself from the man.

‘What of the girl?’ Hempe asked, beginning to rise.

‘Let me speak with her,’ Owen said. ‘You might stay with Eudo in case he says anything of import.’

Anna had curled up on the box bed beside her little brother. The other two boys huddled together on the floor by her, watching Owen approach.

Crouching again, Owen placed a hand gently on the shoulders of the two boys. ‘You have nothing to fear from me, lads. Your ma was a good friend.’

The boys twisted round to see Anna’s response. She nodded to them. ‘He is the husband of Mistress Wilton, the apothecary.’ She met Owen’s eye. ‘I heard what you asked. Ma said she was to see someone, but she would be back early. She was worried about little Will. His stomach was already gripping him.’

Goodwife Claire cleared her throat to remind them she was close at hand, rinsing out rags in a pot over the fire. Owen straightened his aching knees and perched at the edge of the bed, facing the neighbour.

‘There was a man waiting by the back door the other day,’ the goodwife said. ‘I did not know him. Dark hair, dressed well, but plainly.’

‘I remember him,’ said Anna. ‘He was here when Ma and I came home. He frightened me. Ma told me to go inside.’ Her eyes were swimming with tears.

Owen just nodded and gave Anna the linen cloth he carried in his scrip to dab at her eyes. Then he withdrew from the children, gesturing to the goodwife to follow him. ‘How old was this man?’

‘Her age, Cisotta’s, I would say.’ The goodwife searched his face. ‘Is this important?’

‘It might be. What else can you tell me about this meeting?’

‘Sadly, I can tell you no more. I did not watch after that. I do not wish to know too much.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She was a beautiful woman, Captain, in an unhappy marriage.’

‘Are you certain of that last part?’

She regarded him. ‘I heard Cisotta and Eudo quarrelling most evenings.’

‘You’re certain you had never seen this man before?’

The goodwife nodded.

‘I am grateful for your sharp eyes. Can you stay a while for the children?’

‘As long as they need me, Captain.’

Owen returned to Eudo, who was still weeping. He hesitated for a moment before drawing the belt from his scrip and asking the tawyer whether he could identify it. He did not explain its significance.

Eudo raised his head, gazed on the belt for a good long moment, reached out, drew it through his rough, tanned hands, looked up at Owen as he felt the burned edges. ‘This was found at the bishop’s house?’ His voice was hoarse, tremulous.

‘Aye. Found in the undercroft, where the fire began. As you are a tawyer, I thought you might recognize the workmanship.’

Eudo wiped his eyes on his sleeves, heaved a shuddering sigh, studied the belt. ‘Nay. If I worked on such fine cordovan I would have a team of apprentices, not one.’

Owen had not noticed the quality of the leather, stained as it was and partially charred. ‘What else can you tell me about it?’

‘The buckle is good brass. The strap is narrow. A boy’s belt, I would say.’

‘So this would cost dear.’

Eudo nodded.

Owen put the belt aside. ‘How did you know to go to the Dale house?’

‘I went out for more ale, heard the gossip. Later, towards morning, I thought it could be …’ He turned away, a hand to his eyes.

‘Now I must ask you something far more difficult. I promise I’ll then leave you in peace.’

‘What peace can I have?’

Owen held out the ruined girdle. ‘Was this Mistress Cisotta’s?’

The tawyer’s heart-rending sob was answer enough.

‘Forgive me.’ Owen rose as he placed the items in his scrip. It was time to leave. He did not like the bailiff’s expression. If they were to argue, he wished to do it out on the street, not in this house of mourning.

In the shop, the apprentice sat slumped forward, his head on the pillow of his forearms. They left without disturbing him. Expecting Hempe to continue the argument, Owen headed towards the yard of St Sampson Church, where they might not be overheard. He sensed Hempe’s hot breath on the back of his neck as he passed gossiping townsfolk who watched him with interest. Stepping out of the street, Owen felt an unfriendly hand on his shoulder and instinctively swung round. ‘Never grab a soldier like that,’ he said.

‘The archbishop will hear from the council.’

Owen drew closer to Hempe, speaking as softly as possible. The churchyard was not as deserted as he had hoped and the bailiff’s behaviour already drew curious eyes. ‘The bishop was lately one of the king’s chief counsellors. He has many dangerous enemies. What seems the city’s concern may prove to be the realm’s concern.’

‘You have planned this from the beginning. That belt you showed him — what part did it play in last night’s tragedy?’

It was true that Hempe had the right to know, but Owen was not about to discuss the crime in public. ‘I did not say that it played any part. I found it near his wife’s body.’

Even as he spoke, Owen was looking about, noticing a ripple of excitement passing through the crowd. Down Girdlergate came a small procession, Father John of St Sampson’s leading four men carrying the plank on which Cisotta’s shrouded corpse lay.

‘I don’t believe you,’ the bailiff said.

‘Come to the archbishop’s palace with me, if you like. But I shall not discuss it in such a crowd.’

‘I shall come anon. First I’ll report to the council.’

Owen thanked God for the man’s sense of order.