The Riddle Of St Leonard's

Twenty-six

Staying well back in the shadow of the poor people’s shacks near the bank, Anneys and Alisoun studied the Riverwoman’s rocky island. No smoke rose from her chimney, the door was shut, and, most importantly, Magda Digby’s boat lay becalmed in the mud beside the rock. But it would not be for long. The incoming tide surged up the Ouse and already the tops of the waves broke on the rock on which Magda’s house sat.

Anneys made a disapproving noise deep in her throat. ‘Not much of a boat. Is it watertight?’

‘The Riverwoman rowed it upriver with Captain Archer to bury my family,’ Alisoun said. ‘Wait here while I make certain she is away.’

Anneys sank down on to a piece of driftwood, wiped her forehead. ‘You will need me.’

‘What if she is there? How do I explain you?’

‘And if she is there, what will you do?’

‘Find another boat.’

‘We have no time!’ Anneys’s voice was a weary whine.

‘Then we shall wait until the next high tide. You sound as if you need a rest.’

Anneys slapped Alisoun’s face. ‘Stubborn, insolent child.’

Alisoun rubbed her cheek. ‘Stay here.’

She cursed the woman under her breath as she crossed the water. Anneys behaved as if she were sorry she had helped her. But it was Anneys who had offered. It was Alisoun who should be sorry she had accepted Anneys’s help. Would she have stolen the boat before Magda’s eyes? Alisoun would not. She liked Magda Digby. She had no intention of keeping the boat. Her plan was to take it upriver, collect the treasures, and return the boat to Magda. They must come back to see whether Finn still lived, and take him with them if he did.

Alisoun made a circuit of the strange house of the Riverwoman. The upside-down dragon gave her pause; it seemed coiled to strike. But she was not so silly to believe it could. When she had listened at the door and peered in one of the small windows, she was satisfied that the boat could be taken without incident. Already the rising water rocked it back and forth. Soon it would be afloat.

Jasper raced to St Leonard’s, but Owen and Erkenwald had already left with stretcher-bearers. His heart was beating hard as he raced down Petergate to St Saviourgate. It was just outside the house on Spen Lane that he found them. Panting, he told them what he had gleaned from Wulfstan about the sick man.

Don Erkenwald turned to Owen. ‘Perhaps you will have need of me as a canon as well as a digger.’

‘Aye. And a fighter, mayhap. The day is young.’ Owen pressed Jasper’s shoulder. ‘Go home to Lucie. Tell her all you have learned.’

‘I could help you.’

‘At the moment, she needs you more, Jasper.’

Jasper thought of her alone in the shop, worried about Wulfstan, about Owen, about himself. ‘All right.’

Erkenwald adjusted the girdle that rode beneath his barrel stomach, squared his shoulders. ‘Best that I enter first. If he is there, he will perhaps be grateful to see a man of God. At least he might pause before attacking.’

Owen slipped his dagger out of its sheath. ‘We shall wait just without the door.’ Two lay brothers accompanied them with a stretcher.

Erkenwald also unsheathed his weapon, then, with his left hand on the latch, he turned. ‘It is many years since I tested my courage in such a way, Captain. God grant that I do not fail you.’

A slight smile on the man’s lips reassured Owen. ‘You will not.’

The canon opened the door quietly, slipped within, leaving it ajar.

It was the waiting that was difficult. Owen strained to hear, but a noisy cart rattled down the lane, then a woman shouted for her child. At last, Erkenwald’s almost bald head poked out. ‘A man lies asleep up in the solar. The house is vile with pestilential vapours. Yet his blankets are clean, he has food, wine and water. Someone has cared for him.’

Wulfstan had been too ill to do so much for the man. ‘Are you certain he is alone?’

‘He is alone in the house,’ Erkenwald said. ‘I did not search the kitchen behind the house. Do you want to do that while I pray over the man?’

‘You will wake him?’

‘If he can be waked. How else is he to confess his sins?’

‘You might need my help.’

‘As I said before, I think it best he is certain of my peaceful intentions before he sees your scarred face.’

Owen looked at the canon’s partial earlobe and the scar that puckered his chin. ‘You think your robes hide your scars?’

Erkenwald touched his earlobe. ‘A patch is easier to see.’

There was no denying that. ‘Go up. Steps or a ladder?’

‘Ladder. I shall carry him down.’ Erkenwald pushed the door wide, retreated to the ladder.

Owen motioned for the lay brothers to follow him within. ‘Wait below. I shall search the kitchen.’

As he stepped into the dusty main room, Owen smelled the stench of pestilence. Out of habit, he pulled his scented pouch from his belt. But that gave him no free hand. He put it away with a prayer for his safety, listened to Erkenwald climb. The floorboards creaked and groaned as the canon stepped off the ladder and moved across the solar. Then silence.

Owen made a circuit of the room, memorising the placement of windows and doors, the few pieces of furniture. Then he stepped out of the back door. The kitchen was a conical building with two unglazed windows and a flimsy door in need of repair. It was shielded from the house by a pear tree heavy with green fruit. Crouching down, Owen crept across the packed mud and gradually rose beside one of the windows, peered in. Little light, but he neither sensed nor saw any movement. He dropped down, crossed to the other window. Again, nothing. He eyed the door. It was so crooked on its hinge it would be difficult to open. He studied a long gouge in the ground at one edge of the doorway — where the door would swing out. Until recently the door had stood ajar.

He decided to slip in through one of the windows, a quieter entrance. Bread baskets brushed his head from the rafters as he eased through, something small skittered across the floor. The room had a layer of dust as thick as the one in the house and a sickly sweet stench of rotten meat. Not a room in which he wished to linger. He did see one useful item. A rope coiled in a corner. He lifted it, shook out a mouse, and slipped the coil up his arm to his shoulder. Near a trestle table, just visible in the light from one of the windows, was a dark, damp area in the rushes where something had spilled of late. But the hearth was cold, no smoke lingered in the air. Satisfied, Owen climbed back out.

A whinny stopped him halfway to the house. It had come from behind the kitchen. Drawing his dagger, Owen crept back to the kitchen, flattened himself against the wall, moved round until he saw the horse. It was tethered to a thick vine that climbed the wall at the back of the property. Alisoun Ffulford’s nag. Owen crossed himself. He began to feel as if the horse haunted him. At least it seemed to be alone here at present. He noticed a bulge in the vine to which the nag was tethered. Parting the vine, Owen whistled at his discovery — a tooled leather saddle and a pouch containing a chess board and chessmen. At last things were adding up. He left the items where he had found them for now.

As he returned to the house, one of the lay brothers told him that Don Erkenwald had called for Owen to join him.

Dagger in teeth, Owen climbed the ladder. The stench was worse as he rose. Once up, he crept with care round the brightly painted partition. Erkenwald knelt on the floor holding the hand of a sickly pale man who lay on a blanket, with another covering him, his eyes wide in his bony face as he caught sight of Owen.

‘Who is this? I asked for sanctuary.’ His voice had the querulous timbre of the ill.

Erkenwald patted the man’s hand. ‘Captain Archer is Brother Wulfstan’s friend. It was he brought me here to fulfil the good monk’s vow.’

The man shrank into himself as Owen moved closer, but he did not take his eyes from Owen’s. ‘The monk is ill?’

A nod. ‘Pestilence. I pray God for a miracle.’

‘God grant him health,’ the man whispered. ‘He saved me.’

Owen considered the man. A long face, made longer by a tonsure. ‘You are a cleric?’

The man fought to keep his drooping eyelids open. He was yet weak. ‘I took minor vows. I wish to serve at St Mary’s.’ Owen had to lean close to hear the man’s fading voice.

Erkenwald met Owen’s eye, raised an eyebrow in question.

Owen shook his head.

Erkenwald bent to the sick man. ‘The captain and I have no right to make such a decision. We must take you to St Leonard’s Hospital. But we shall tell them your wish.’

The man clutched Erkenwald’s habit. ‘No.’

‘It is best for you. We can care for you there.’

‘Why do you prefer St Mary’s?’ Owen asked. ‘Is it because you stole from St Leonard’s?’

‘Trade with me. I know where you can find the woman and child.’

‘He has Alisoun Ffulford’s horse out in the yard,’ Owen told Erkenwald. ‘And he has tucked away an ivory chess set and a saddle fit for a king.’

‘Has he now?’

‘I must ask you some questions, John,’ Owen said. ‘Telling me where they have gone is not enough. I had already guessed they would go to the Ffulford farm.’ He nodded at the flicker of disappointment in the man’s eyes.

‘He is very weak,’ Erkenwald said.

‘Not so weak he cannot think to bargain. Who is Anneys to you?’

‘Swear you will take me to St Mary’s.’

Erkenwald nodded.

‘We journey together. Sometimes a woman is a help to me, sometimes a cleric or a man is a help to her.’

‘You thieve together?’

‘We live as we can.’

‘What does she want with the child?’

‘Anneys says she is her grandchild.’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘Anneys does not lie to me.’

‘What do you know of the three corrodians of St Leonard’s who have been murdered?’

‘I know nothing.’

‘Come now. That chess set has passed time in Walter de Hotter’s garden.’

The man turned away from them.

Owen smelled guilt on him. It was enough for now. He did not wish to spend any more effort questioning the man at this time. Rising, Owen shrugged the coil of rope from his shoulder. ‘We can lower him to the men below.’ He handed Erkenwald an end.

When the lay brothers had John on the stretcher, Erkenwald knelt to him with the rope and trussed him up. He fought, but feebly.

Owen grinned. ‘A nod is not your word?’

Erkenwald glanced up as he secured the knot. ‘I was nodding at my thought — once a thief, ever one, eh?’

The lay brothers looked confused.

‘We shall accompany you to the top of Lop Lane,’ Owen said. ‘You will take him to the hospital, explain to Don Cuthbert or whoever needs to know that he is to be guarded. The hospital gaol is the place for him, I have no doubt.’

‘And we?’ Erkenwald asked.

‘We take shovels, arms, and ride to the farm.’

On Petergate they met the bailiff Geoffrey. ‘I thought you should hear, Captain. A woman and a girl stole the Riverwoman’s boat.’

‘How long ago?’

Geoffrey looked up at the sun. ‘Long enough to be well away.’ He nodded at the man on the stretcher. ‘Restraining the sick?’

‘He may be one of our murderers. And a thief.’

‘You have done a good day’s work.’

‘It is not over, Geoffrey. Will you escort them to the hospital?’

‘That I shall do, Captain. You need not worry that he will be brought there.’

‘The men know what to do with him.’

‘You are off to catch his partners?’

‘Aye. And to return the Riverwoman’s boat, God willing.’