The Lady Chapel

6

Owen dreamt of Cecilia. She stood in the doorway of his mother's house, a bowl cradled in one arm, wooden spoon in hand, and asked Owen if he would be home before dark. He retraced his steps and kissed her forehead, then walked away only with a great effort, hating to leave her.

Owen woke confused. Why would he dream of Cecilia as his wife? Did he desire her? Had she suggested in any way that she desired him? The tenderness of the moment when he looked into her eyes and kissed her forehead lingered with him still. He had to admit to himself that Cecilia Ridley's eyes haunted him, her strength impressed him. But that did not explain why he would dream of her as his wife.

Owen dressed and rubbed some salve into his scar before putting on the patch. He told himself that he was tired in mind and body, and this weariness had confused him. He told himself that what the dream really meant was that he missed Lucie.

Nonetheless, Owen wished he could slip away without seeing those dark eyes again.

But that was impossible. He must help Cecilia deal with her son-in-law. Then he must question her some more before he could return to York. Owen left his room reluctantly.

Downstairs, the hall was dark but for a cocoon of golden light near the hearth. Two oil lamps sat on a small table. The fire had been stoked and was burning brightly. A young woman stirred something in a pot.

Cecilia sat at a table set up near the hearth. Her snow white wimple and dark veil lay on the table. Her midnight hair fell in a thick braid down her back. She looked up and greeted Owen with a tired smile, motioning him over. Her hand then dropped to the table, coming to rest on the wimple. "Sarah! My headdress." Cecilia touched her bare head. "Forgive me, Captain Archer."

The servant abandoned the pot and, with an embarrassed nod to Owen, she proceeded to undo her mistress's braid, then loop up the heavy hair, a coil on either side of Cecilia's face.

Owen eased himself onto a bench opposite Cecilia. She managed to lift the pitcher and pour a cup of ale for him without moving her head. The wimple and veil were soon in place.

"Ah," Owen sighed after tasting the ale, "this is welcome this morning." He was glad that her long black hair was now covered. He must not be distracted.

"You could not have gotten much sleep," Cecilia said. "I am sorry for that after your long journey."

Good. A safe topic. "I feel a stiffness in my joints from the ride yesterday. Was a time I would not have noticed it."

The dark eyes watched him with sympathy. "Do you miss your soldiering days? I should think you would miss your companions. My father used to talk about his comrades-in-arms as if they were dearer to him than his brothers."

"Aye. When you've fought for your lives side by side …" Owen stopped himself. If he began to tell Cecilia about his old comrades and she listened with such sympathy, he would be in danger. Lucie hated anything to do with soldiers. Cecilia's sympathy was as tempting as her hair. The dream, Owen now saw, had been a Heavensent warning. "It is best not to remember the days that are past."

Cecilia frowned, puzzled. But she changed the subject. "Where are you from? Your speech is different. Softer than ours."

"Wales."

"Of course. A Captain of Archers would be Welsh."

"Nay. Tis not always the way of things. In fact, it's a rare man like the old Duke, Henry of Lancaster, who would trust his judgment of a man enough to let a Welshman have so much power."

"I trust you. And Anna does, too. She said you had warm, dry hands and an eye that did not hide its thoughts."

Owen did not want to discuss himself. He did not wish to hear compliments. "Any sign yet of Paul Scorby?"

Cecilia shook her head. "The men at the gate know to escort him in this morning." She sighed. "I would rather Anna were long gone from here, but this morning her fever is high and the bleeding has begun again, so I know you are right. To travel now would be dangerous for her."

Father Cuthbert joined them, giving them a blessing. "May I come with you when you take Master Scorby up to your daughter? I feel responsible for Mistress Scorby's being here. Perhaps I should not have given in. She might have stayed at home. She knew she could not make the journey alone."

"You should not blame yourself," Cecilia said. "It is best that she is here. The servants are afraid of Paul. They would have given her little sympathy."

They did not wait long for Paul Scorby. He strode into the hall and right up to Cecilia, demanding to know what she had meant, keeping him out last night.

Cecilia rose to face her son-in-law. As she was as tall as he, it was a clever move. Paul Scorby could no longer glower down at Cecilia, but must step back to meet her eyes. Owen mentally applauded Cecilia's courage.

"My daughter must be kept quiet, Paul. You will understand when you see her. She has suffered severe injuries."

Paul Scorby glanced at Owen and the priest. "Injuries?"

Cecilia picked up a lamp. "I will take you to her now."

Owen and Father Cuthbert rose.

Paul Scorby frowned. "I will see her alone."

"No, Paul," Cecilia said quietly. "You will not see her alone." With that she made her way to the stairs.

Scorby followed and, behind him, Owen and the priest.

When they entered the bedchamber, a serving girl was bent over Anna, blotting her forehead.

"Thank you, Lisa," Cecilia said. "You may leave us and have something to eat while we speak with Mistress Scorby."

The young woman scurried out.

Owen watched Paul Scorby's face as the man approached his wife. Anna's injured eye was still swollen shut. As Paul approached, Anna hid the bandaged hand and pulled the covers up to hide her bruised mouth. Paul Scorby flushed a deep crimson. His eyes slid over to his mother-in-law, then back to his wife.

"Anna has other injuries as well as those you see," Cecilia said in a tight voice. "Her stomach is dark with bruises that bleed within."

Scorby turned on Father Cuthbert. "How could you let her travel in such condition?" he demanded.

The priest, young and inexperienced in the world, was so astonished by the man's behavior that he opened his mouth but could make no sound.

"God forgive you, husband," Anna said.

Scorby wheeled round with a look of surprise. "Forgive me?" He knelt beside her. "What are you saying, Anna?"

She turned away from him.

Scorby looked up at Cecilia. "She has a fever?"

"Yes," Cecilia took care not to look into her son-in-law's eyes.

Paul Scorby reached a hand out toward Anna's chin.

"Don't touch me!" the injured woman cried, and tried to move out of her husband's reach.

"What do you want me to do, Anna?" he asked, his voice breaking with emotion.

A good actor, Owen thought.

"Leave me to myself," Anna whispered.

Scorby stood up. "Well, of course I cannot stay here, and you cannot travel." He looked at his mother-in-law. "You will keep Anna here until she is healed?"

"She wishes to go to St. Clement's Nunnery when she is well enough to travel," Cecilia said.

Scorby's mask dropped momentarily. He rolled his eyes, disgusted. "That again."

Father Cuthbert found his tongue. "It will help both of you if Mistress Scorby is at peace with her Savior before she returns to you."

Scorby smirked at the priest. "Oh, yes, I smell the rat of pious counseling in this. Are you permitting her to eat these days, since she is suffering in other ways?"

"Paul!" Cecilia barked. "1 will not have a priest insulted in my house."

Paul Scorby spun round on his heel and marched out of the room.

Cecilia knelt beside her daughter, smoothed the damp hair from her face, and kissed her on the forehead. "Rest now, love. He will honor your wishes, I will make certain of that."

They found Paul Scorby standing by the fire drinking ale. He was a handsome man, if one looked at his features and imagined them without the petulant expression in the eyes and the pouting mouth. Even the shoulders suggested a self-pity that was unbecoming. Such a man was dangerous. Owen wondered at Gilbert Ridley's judgment, to have married his daughter to this man.

Cecilia picked up the pitcher of ale, offered Paul Scorby more. He let her fill his cup. Cecilia put a restraining hand on Paul's, holding the cup from his lips for a moment. "You will honor her wishes, Paul?"

His upper lip curled in a snarl. "Of course I will. It would be a sacrilege if I refused, I am sure. Any day now the Pope himself will come on pilgrimage to pray at my wife's feet." Scorby downed the ale in one gulp and stormed out of the hall.

Father Cuthbert took a deep breath. "God was with us."

Cecilia and Owen exchanged a glance.

"I should like to go sit with Mistress Scorby and say morning prayers," Cuthbert said.

"That would comfort her, I am sure," Cecilia said.

Cecilia motioned for Owen to sit. She poured two cups of ale, put one in front of Owen, took a sip from the other. "My son-in-law behaves like a spoiled child."

"But he is not a child. He is an angry man."

"I know. I'm not a fool."

"I did not think that for a moment. I just want to make sure that you realize how dangerous he might be."

Cecilia sighed. "You will be relieved to get away from here. We are an unhappy household." She rubbed the back of her neck.

"You are tired."

"Very. I sat up most of the night with Anna. But it was not in vain. While I sat there staring at my daughter's ravaged face, I thought of something that might-I cannot say how, for I know so little about it-but it could perhaps have some bearing on the-deaths."

Owen leaned forward. "Anything you can remember might help."

"Gilbert spoke little business around me, but this incident I know about. It was thirteen years ago. A long time for someone to wait for revenge. But if he had been in prison …" With her eyes, Cecilia asked Owen's opinion.

"Indeed. Prison gives a man much time to gnaw on bitterness."

"Have you been in prison?"

"No. But I've been captain of men who have. It can twist a man until his soul is wrung out of him and he's more animal than man."

Cecilia held Owen's gaze with her dark eyes, luminous in the pale, thin face. "So. I had best tell you about the incident."

"Why did you sit up with Anna last night? You had thought she was better."

Cecilia shrugged. "I could not sleep."

"It's a curse, isn't it, the restlessness that comes when you most need the forgetfulness of sleep? My wife sent along something to calm you. She was widowed a few years ago and remembers how impossible it was to rest."

"I shall take it gladly a few nights hence, when 1 know that Anna is truly improving and Paul is back in Ripon."

Owen nodded. "Do you want me to make sure that he has gone from here?"

"Please."

Owen was glad for the chance to stretch his legs and empty his bladder. He could smell the ocean in the driving wind. Another storm approached them from the North Sea.

The man at the gate assured Owen that Paul Scorby had ridden off.

"When do you think the storm will find us?"

"Soon, by the smell of it. 'Twill be over by midday."

Owen hoped the man was right about the storm, although he'd meant to be back on the road before midday. The wind whipped Owen's cloak about him as he returned to the house.

Cecilia Ridley paced before the hearth.

Owen sat down and helped himself to another cup of ale. "Now tell me what happened thirteen years ago."

Cecilia sat down again. "You know that Gilbert and Will were members of John Goldbetter's company?"

"Aye."

"The companies of wool merchants financed King Edward's war with France-did you know that?"

"1 can't say I ever wondered."

"Chiriton and Company were the organizers, and about twenty years ago, Goldbetter and Company loaned them money for the King. They all expected to get rich by it in the end, of course. But the King did not gain so much by the war as he had expected. He tried to put them off, tried to satisfy them with customs privileges. And then, just as the privileges began to pay off for them, the King took them away from his own merchants and gave them to the Hanseatic League, a trading federation of German towns that is very powerful. The King proved to be an inconstant friend to his own subjects."

"I did not think the King so unwise. To betray people in their pockets is dangerous."

"More foolish than dangerous, it seems. The merchants found a way to get their money despite the King. Chiriton and Company decided to win back their losses by illegal exporting. But they were caught. The Crown offered to forget their transgressions if they would provide a list of businesses that owed them money; the Crown would call in the loans and make a profit."

"Chiriton and Company were expected to betray their associates?"

Cecilia smiled. "I see why Gilbert, God rest him, said soldiers made bad merchants. You have a strong sense of honor. Gilbert never had soldiers working for him, except for Martin Wirthir, and Wirthir had little to do with the actual deals."

That name again. "Did you ever meet Martin Wirthir?"

"No."

Owen dropped that line for now. "So Chiriton and Company betrayed their associates?"

"Yes. But the company had played so much with their books, it was difficult to interpret them, and the Crown called in some associates in error. John Goldbetter was one of them. He was accused of still owing on bonds and letters of account. With Gilbert's help, he was able to produce documents proving he'd settled the debts years earlier. Goldbetter then countered that Chiriton and Company owed him over three thousand pounds. They settled out of court. That year, Gilbert was even more extravagant than usual on my birthday. I do not know the details of the settlement, but obviously money changed hands."

Owen thought about this. "And do you think that Chiriton and Company may have offered your husband something other than the money? Perhaps names?"

Cecilia shrugged. "That occurred to me. As did many other possibilities. I merely point out that Gilbert's business dealings might have involved some dishonesty. Some betrayals."

"Something that would make someone angry enough to murder?"

"Greed can be quite a passion with some. There is more. Three years ago, John Goldbetter was again brought before the Crown

and was outlawed. A year later he won a royal pardon, at the request of the Count of Flanders. I presume he'd made some sort of deal with the Count. And possibly also the Crown. But something about it disturbed Gilbert. He turned the business over to our son Matthew and came home."

"Just before Crounce's murder?"

"Yes."

"Did your husband testify personally?"

Cecilia nodded. "He was proud to appear before so august a company. He boasted of it."

"Did he meet the King?"

"Much to his regret, no. Gilbert was presented to Prince Edward, however, and that appeased him somewhat."

"The Count of Flanders requested Goldbetter's pardon, eh?"

"The wool trade is the lifeblood of Flanders."

"True. Did your husband know the Count?"

Cecilia shrugged. "He did not boast of it, but he was secretive about anything across the Channel, so he might not have boasted of it."

"And you think all this might have something to do with the deaths of your husband and Will Crounce?"

Cecilia looked down at her cup, which she pushed back and forth between her hands. "When 1 was betrothed to Gilbert, I was angry. Humiliated. He was a merchant. In trade. I was the daughter of a knight and niece to a bishop. My grandfather fought with our King's grandfather, the first Edward."

Owen did not like the direction this was taking. He was a commoner married to the daughter of a knight. "What does this have to do with your husband's death?"

Cecilia looked up, saw the expression on Owen's face. "Forgive me, I do sound as if I've wandered, but there is a connection. You see, I hated the idea of being married to someone whose purpose in life was to amass wealth. A greedy man." She rubbed the bridge of her nose wearily. "I was a simpleton. It is not only the merchants who are greedy. Gilbert was no worse than any of the others involved in this war with France. Even the King is in it for the wealth the double crown of England and France would bring him.

They all guard their wealth more jealously than they guard their wives."

"What are you saying?"

Cecilia Ridley suddenly went white. A hand came up to her mouth. She shook her head. "Nothing. I-Just that Gilbert and Will were probably murdered by a business partner. Greed is obviously the most common reason for murder."

Owen studied her. She had covered well with the comment, but he'd seen that realization, that she had almost- What? Betrayed herself? Said too much? "That is all you meant to say?"

She kept her eyes averted. "I am sorry I took such a long way round. I am tired."

Well, that was true. But it bothered Owen as he went upstairs to pack.