The Riverwoman’s Dragon

8 Chaos

The fire crackled and snapped, Fergus stoking it as the evening cooled the room. Magda smiled at the sound of the children settling down to food after the long day of distracting their laboring mother with the wonders of the old woodland. As the shadows lengthened and the birds quieted, the family had tucked themselves inside the house, ready for a hot meal and the wait for the birthing. Helen was now lying on her side in the bedchamber, Lettice, calm now, rubbing her back and her ankles. As soon as Helen drank the tisane Magda was mixing they would help her to the birthing stool. The drink would strengthen Helen for the work she must do this night.

Before entering the house Magda had rested by the beck, scooping up chill water in a small wooden bowl, drinking it down, imagining it cleansing her mind of the troubles of the day – illness, life-changing injuries, fear, loneliness, gnawing anger. Closing her eyes, she reached out to Asa, born of her womb, concerned about the jolt she had felt in the midst of setting a broken bone, a sudden sense of her daughter in pain. An attack. Injuries. Fear. With Asa that would quickly turn to anger, and more trouble. Thou art welcome to come to the rock. Magda will see to thine injuries. A tumble of emotions, Asa’s anger turned inward. Unworthy. Cursed. Thou art worthy, daughter. Or she could be, if she could but embrace her artistic gift, if she could see that she might be the healer she yearned to be through her creations. Magda’s heart ached for the blindness of her child.

Helen’s drink prepared, Magda was tidying the shelf on which she had worked when she sensed Tess standing behind her.

‘Will I have a sister?’

Magda bent to lift the child, so light for her age. She smelled the woodland and the aromatic smoke in her hair. ‘Thou hast offered up thy wish for a sister?’ she kept her voice low, as if sharing secrets.

‘I did, and father said it was wrong. I should love my family and not want it different. I do love them all! But a sister–’

‘She would whisper her secrets to thee and thou wouldst promise to keep them safe. Thou couldst be her elder, teach her about the world.’

‘You understand.’

‘Magda does.’ She kissed Tess on the cheek and set her down. ‘Soon thou shalt see whether thy prayers are answered.’ She put a finger to her lips.

A short time later, Helen cried out as the first twin slithered from her. As Magda held up the girl so that all could see, she felt a shiver throughout the sanctuary and a sense of the ground heaving and settling. The others were too caught up in the birth to notice her gasp.

‘A sister!’ Tess cried.

Magda reached out with her mind, finding the source downriver, near her rock. Torches on the riverbank, Einar standing on the rock. Open thine eye, Owen. She imagined Bird-eye glancing up, sensing the trouble. No time for more. Wiping the blood and secretions from the baby’s face she blew in her mouth. A weak cry strengthened into a healthy wail.

A fine daughter, she told Helen, then called to Tess to take up one of the small blankets she had cut from an old, frayed one and wrap her sister up and hold her until her mother was ready to do so. The little girl performed her task with delight and pride.

Magda encouraged Helen to push through her weariness to birth the second baby. As the labor dragged on Lettice grew agitated. Magda handed her the bowl of brandywine she had poured earlier.

‘A baby arrives when ready.’

Revived, the woman took up her place supporting Helen, who drooped now with weariness yet pushed with each contraction. In a little while the head appeared and the second, smaller girl slipped out. Her cry, when it finally came, was feeble compared to that of her older, stronger sister. When Helen was cleaned and settled with her babies in her arms, their elder sister proudly beside her ready to take a baby if need be, Magda welcomed the men into the room.

‘Two daughters!’ Fergus exclaimed, beaming. ‘You will have all the sisters you wished for, my sweet.’ He ruffled Tess’s head, then negotiated his way to the other side of the bed to sit by his wife, kissing her tenderly.

Magda stepped outside, lifting her face to an evening breeze, breathing in the green, loamy scent of the woodland. She thought of Einar, Asa, Beatrice, Celia, so many others who would suffer before the manqualm fled at the first hard frost. Many would die, not all from the pestilence. A few would join Sam Toller, victims of violence unleashed by the feckless crows.

A presence joined her, his scent, both earthy and animal, familiar though it had been such a long while since she woke to find him gone. Thou hast a great-grandson, Sten. She spoke of Einar, how she had known him. She told Sten of the young man’s complexities, a seeker, yet secretive, uncertain of himself, undecided about whether to befriend Magda or destroy her. She felt Sten’s hand on her shoulder, reassuring. But she doubted he could see what lay ahead for Einar. The young man must find his own way. Must choose his path.

‘Dame Magda! It’s mother! She’s bleeding again!’ Tess cried.

As twilight darkened the streets, Owen bobbed his head to Janet Fuller.

‘Captain Archer. How might I help you?’

He cleared his throat and glanced toward a woman lingering on the street, watching them. ‘My wife sends greetings, and something for Cilla.’ Her invalid daughter.

‘Bless Mistress Wilton. Do come in.’ As she closed the door she called out, ‘We have a visitor, Cilla.’

The young woman, for she was now surely Alisoun’s age though so frail, sat in a high-backed chair by the fire circle, her legs propped on a stool and wrapped in skins. In the past Janet had frequented the apothecary regarding her daughter’s frail health. Her husband was master of a small trading ship commissioned by the Graas and their partners between York and the Lowlands. She greeted him with a soft smile and a blessing.

‘Would you care for–’ Dame Janet began, but Owen shook his head.

‘Forgive my intrusion. I do not mean to stay.’

‘I pray that Mistress Wilton has not sent you across town in such times to ask after my Cilla. I regret that I have not been to the shop in so long. But my lodger–’

‘I do have this for Mistress Cilla.’ He handed Janet a jar. ‘A salve for her legs, to keep the blood up. But my main purpose is to ask about your lodger – the leech Bernard, is it not?’

A nervous nod. ‘Yes. But he is not in. I believe you might find him at St Denys’.’

‘Ah. Then I shall disturb you no more.’

‘Do come again soon, Captain,’ Cilla said.

‘I will do that,’ he said with a smile, and took his leave.

Owen found Bernard pacing before the altar in St Denys’, fingering paternoster beads. Stepping into the shadows, Owen watched him, getting a sense of the man when he thought himself alone. Lit by candles arrayed on the altar and a table to one side, the leech appeared broader in the shoulders than he had in St George’s Field. Was it simply that he now stood straighter than he had yesterday? As Owen watched, Bernard began talking to himself, a low murmur, the words unclear, but the tone sharp, and he stabbed a finger as if accusing his unseen audience. Owen slipped back out, then returned, pushing open the door with such force the candles danced, letting it slam behind him as he strode across the nave into the light.

Bernard spun round on his heels. ‘Captain Archer. You interrupt my prayers.’ He kept his voice low, affable, with a slight taste of disdain.

‘I am here on official business.’

Lowering his head as if to mask his glance round while he tucked the paternoster beads in his belt, Bernard took a few steps away from Owen, in direct line with one of the doors. ‘I cannot think what official business you might have with me.’

‘You have made a name for yourself in the city as the righteous savior of those who had fallen under the influence of Dame Magda Digby.’

‘I meant to do no such thing, Captain. The cooper made much of a passing comment.’ A slight smile, as if pleased with himself for blaming Edwin Cooper for the state of the city. ‘I had heard much of it reported by Gavin Wolcott.’

‘I doubt that.’

The man bristled. ‘Are you here to order me to apologize to the old midwife?’

‘I have come to ask about her daughter, Dame Asa. She was beaten today for her connection with Dame Magda. I was told you might know where she is lodging.’

‘Dame Asa, you said? I do not know the name, so I cannot think why someone would tell you that.’

Oh, but he did, Owen was sure of it, no doubt from Edwin Cooper. ‘Gray hair, an injury has her walking with a cane.’ The leech shook his head. ‘She was seen at your lodgings. Perhaps she is your landlady’s friend?’

‘Did Dame Janet tell you I would be here?’ When Owen did not respond, Bernard smirked. ‘You say she is the daughter of the pagan healer?’

The man mistook this for a conversation. ‘Are you aware that Guthlac Wolcott received the last sacraments today?’

Bernard hesitated, caught off balance. ‘Yes, poor man. He was so far in decline there was little I could do. That is for whom I prayed when you interrupted me. May God watch over Guthlac’s devoted wife. To lose him now, as the Death enters the gates of this great city …’ A sigh.

‘Guthlac wasted away over a matter of weeks, losing strength even to an inability to speak. What struck him down so swiftly? What did Dame Magda not see?’

‘His humors were awry. It is the common cause of mankind’s ailments, worsening as we age.’

‘And bleeding should have balanced his humors?’

‘I was too late. By the time I saw him the bleeding could but ease his suffering.’

‘There was nothing else? A tonic to strengthen his blood, a–’

‘Do you question my training? I know you are friends with the Riverwoman. Or is it your wife, the apothecary’s widow, whose conjectures you spout? Does she believe the midwife might have cured Guthlac?’

‘The late Archbishop Thoresby would have no other at his side when he was dying.’

‘A man on his deathbed should not be permitted to choose his healer.’

Owen was about to retort when he felt a shower of needle pricks over his scarred, sightless eye. Danger. Not here. ‘You are clearly of no use to me,’ he said.

‘Good evening to you …’ the leech was saying when the door slammed behind Owen.

As he stepped out of the church he looked round, getting a sense of where the danger lay. Not here, and it was not a threat to him. He hastened down the twilit streets toward home, the prickling gaining strength. He was almost running by the time he reached the garden gate, but the sense was still at a distance. Bootham. Outside Bootham. Magda Digby’s home. Shaking his head at Kate’s offer of food, he plucked his bow and a quiver of arrows from the hook by the door, and asked her to tell Lucie he was headed to Magda’s.

At Bootham Bar, Carn eyed Owen’s bow. ‘You’re wise to head out armed. Folk gathered out there one by one, men and women. A cart went through earlier and stopped beside the road. When folk started gathering round it and moving away with torches in hand I sent for the bailiffs. Hempe and several young men are out there now.’

‘How many with torches?’

‘Twenty, thirty. I could not see all of them from the tower, but they were moving toward the river, torches lit.’

Outside the gate Owen moved off the road toward the river, seeking out a high spot where he might look out over the shacks of the poor toward Magda’s rock. Shouts, bobbing points of light, but the only large fire he could see from his vantage point was in the center of the settlement and it was clearly a bonfire. Stringing his bow, Owen hooked it over his shoulder and moved toward the disturbance. He collected a growing gaggle of children nudging one another and whispering his name. One of them told him that Twig was out on the rock, caring for Magda’s kitten.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said, hurrying off.

He came upon a woman yanking a scrawny lad by the arm and shouting about her ruined dress, which was far too fine for the settlement. From the boy’s arm dangled a sloshing bucket.

Owen grasped the woman’s arm and squeezed. ‘Unhand him and return to your home.’

She let go the lad, glaring at Owen. ‘I will report you to the sheriff!’

Stepping out of range of the lad’s swinging bucket, having caught the stench of urine and shit, Owen grinned. ‘You are most welcome to reveal that you were here, threatening these folk who have so much less than you.’ Releasing her, he continued on.

‘Captain!’ Alfred hastened to join him.

‘One of the lads is on the rock. Have you seen him?’

‘No. Someone just started rowing over, then fell back in the vessel.’

Owen pushed his way through the crowd, Alfred on his heels. They passed a line of folk passing empty containers to two women standing in the shallows to scoop up river water and hand the filled containers up another chain that disappeared among the shacks.

‘Back there they add piss they’ve saved. The Riverwoman’s idea.’

Clever. Glancing toward a shout he saw one of the small shacks take light, burning brightly. But not clever enough. He called to the line of folk with buckets of water and pointed to the fire. The snake turned. The air was thick with smoke now and he cursed at his intermittent blindness with one good eye.

A small cluster of lads about Jasper’s age stood on the shore, one of them holding a torch, several others holding buckets, facing a group of the rioters with torches who were shouting, ‘Heretic!’ ‘Curse!’ ‘Burn her!’ ‘Burn the dragon!’ A cleric appeared to be leading them.

‘Is there piss in this water?’ Owen asked one of the lads. At the nod, he plucked the bucket from the lad’s hands and drenched the cleric. The fool reared back, cursing most unclerically, his torch sputtering. Grabbing another bucket, Owen aimed at the man who stepped up to take the cleric’s place, and, when his mouth was wide open, flung the water and piss. Choking on it, the man dropped his torch at the water’s edge. Owen plucked it up and waved it at the shouting group as he backed them into Hempe, Ned, and several others waiting to chase them back to the city. Once that commotion moved away Owen headed upriver toward several men who were running to keep up with Magda’s coracle, spinning wildly in the incoming tide. Two of them waded out as the current swung the vessel close, trying to grab it with a long hook. But the current shifted and spun it away. They shouted for the injured rower to rise up and row. Squinting in the twilight, Owen watched the man struggle to sit up. Lifting the torch to illuminate the would-be rescuers, Owen called out to the man in the coracle explaining what they were attempting. Listing to one side, the man grabbed the oar and began to row toward the light, at last bringing it close enough they were able to snag it with the hook. Handing the torch to his neighbor, Owen went into the water to help pull the boat to the shore.

Only when Owen lifted the wounded man and set him upright beside him did he recognize Einar. An arrow pierced his upper left arm. He held him steady until he found his feet and caught his breath.

‘Bless you all,’ he gasped.

‘You gave us a good chase,’ one of the men said, laughing with relief.

‘Can you describe what happened?’ Owen asked.

‘I was rowing out to the rock. Was shot from behind.’

‘Could you see who?’

‘No. Shoved the oar inside and bent down to shield myself.’

‘Come. I will row you to Magda’s.’

Alfred had joined them. ‘The shot came from our side of the river,’ he said.

‘Find out if anyone saw another with a bow,’ said Owen. ‘Send someone to tell my wife I will watch through the night. Those who live here, see to your homes. I will guard Magda’s.’

Launching the coracle, Owen rowed out to the rock using the incoming tide to assist.

Twig greeted them at the door cradling the kitten. ‘How can I help?’

‘Sit with Einar on this bench until I call you in.’ He would need to search Magda’s secret store for brandywine, pastes, and lotions, as well as a tincture to add to the wine. Once he had it all assembled, he stepped outside to fetch them. He found Einar relieving himself in the river. Twig stood near him facing toward the shore. Several homes were alight. Damn those who had so little care for the poor. Damn them.

‘Is yours aflame?’ Owen asked.

‘I don’t think so.’ Twig hugged the kitten.

‘God be thanked. Come. I will need your help.’

The lad seemed glad to turn away from the destruction.

While Twig heated a pot of water and searched for sufficient rags, Owen settled Einar on a cot near the fire, giving him a cup of brandywine fortified with the tincture to help with the pain.

‘Sip some of that.’

By the time he had mixed a paste for the wound, Einar was asleep. Owen cleaned the wound and examined the arm, the direction of the arrow. Calling Twig to him, he tested the strength of his grasp. Good and strong. Confident the boy could keep the patient from flailing, or at least dampen the blows leveled at his tormentor, Owen settled on the procedure, waking Einar to explain the steps in full and assigning tasks. The lad asked no questions, simply gathered the things he would need and nodded when ready. Einar assured Twig he would do his best to cooperate.

The tide was high, but it was in, the current no challenge, as Owen rowed Twig back to shore. Smoke still swirled about, embers from the fires snapping loudly in the unusually quiet settlement, punctuated now and then with the cries of fretful children. Watching, wary, ready for more trouble, folk moved among the tumbledown structures, some holding torches or lanterns. Owen learned that Alfred had been unable to discover the marksman, and had returned to the city to stand guard through the night at his captain’s home. That was one worry eased. Owen escorted the lad to his mother, who they found sheltering in a home close to the walls.

Twig ran to her. ‘Mother? Is our house–’

‘One spark and it was gone.’ She held him close for a moment, stroking his hair and kissing the top of his head. ‘Your father rescued this.’ She held out a small battered jar, shaking it. ‘Your treasure.’

‘We will use it to rebuild,’ said Twig, handing it back to his mother.

Owen praised Twig to his mother, describing how much he had helped. ‘Bide here with your mother tomorrow, Twig. Einar will be on the rock for a few days.’ Michaelo would lose his assistant for a time. Then, excusing himself to permit them their time to grieve for their loss, Owen went back out to walk among the watchers, learning what he might, before returning to the rock.

As he rowed back he made out the figure of Einar standing beneath the dragon, her great claw – but that was not possible. The carving was but a long neck and head. Yet he could swear a great claw rested on the young man’s shoulder. When he reached the rock he rubbed his eye, looked again, and saw nothing but the head hanging upside down, leering. Even so, Owen crossed himself and whispered a prayer of protection.

‘Is there much damage?’ Einar asked, seeming unaware of anything untoward.

‘A few homes, including Twig’s. We found his mother. His father is walking the watch. Such a loss is devastating to those who have so little.’

‘And for what?’ Einar cursed. ‘I saw the clerics out there. One of them was the one who accosted Asa. He was bragging of it. I punched him.’

‘Have you seen Asa?’

‘No. I searched for her after I heard of the assault, but I found no one who could tell me where she is.’

Owen noticed how Einar touched his bandaged arm. ‘Someone said the leech Bernard might know where she is staying, that she had seen her at his lodgings, but he denies knowing her.’

‘Of course he would,’ Einar muttered.

A splash in the river. Both of them glanced round, on alert, but saw nothing.

‘Where were you headed with the coracle?’ Owen asked.

‘Here. To Dame Magda’s rock. They said Twig was here with the cat. I feared for him. I was halfway across when I was shot.’

The archer had made use of Owen’s distraction with the crowd.

‘Had you been long on the riverbank?’

‘No. I had just come from my work with Brother Michaelo.’ A pause. ‘You think it was not an accident that he aimed at me?’

‘I prefer to talk in the house.’ Owen opened the door and stood aside.

Einar stumbled as he bowed to clear the low doorway. Owen caught him and helped him to the cot. It was a wonder he had been up and about at all, much less appearing alert. He was young, yes, but such an injury and the loss of so much blood were bound to take their toll, not to mention the effect of the herbs in the brandywine.

‘I will stay the night, wait for Magda,’ said Owen.

Eyes closed, Einar said, ‘In truth, I could not trust myself to protect the house tonight. But I asked you a question. Do you think I was the archer’s target?’

‘You do not think it an accident,’ said Owen. ‘Whom do you fear? Bernard, or someone connected to him?’

Einar started, as if Owen had splashed cold water on his face. ‘Why Bernard?’

‘Who is he to you?’

‘Not me, Magda.’

‘It was not her but you he would have seen on the riverbank.’

‘Then I am wrong.’

Owen was not convinced, but the young man was fading. ‘Did Bernard lie to me? Does he know Asa?’

‘He knows her. I saw them together often in Lincoln. But I know not the nature of their acquaintance.’ He spoke slowly, pausing to lick his lips, his words beginning to slur.

‘She did not speak of him with you?’

A long pause. ‘Not until he departed Lincoln. She claimed he misrep–’ Einar looked confused. ‘Said he was no leech.’

Owen remembered Einar’s amusement when Jasper spoke of Bernard as a physician on St George’s Field. ‘A barber posing as a physician? It might explain much.’

‘I did not know Alan is the one who has spoken out against Dame Magda.’

‘Alan?’

‘Bernard. I grow confused.’

‘Enough for tonight. Rest.’ Owen saw that he was settled, then went to check the kitten, snuggled in a basket lined with soft cloth. Asleep. Holda’s sweetness turned his thoughts to his children. Pouring a small measure of brandywine, he settled by the fire and let his mind roam free. But he kept returning to the question, Who was Alan?

Magda stood under the stars, reaching her mind toward her rock. Smoke. Three homes of the poor gone up in flames. Bird-eye on the rock with Einar. Quiet now. She would go to Einar, but the new mother might need her in the night. The bleeding had stopped with a strong draft of yarrow and comfrey and Helen now slept, but Magda could not in good conscience leave just yet despite Lettice and Tess hovering about her, rocking the newborns, and Fergus sitting beside his wife, stroking her hair.

Seeing the fires in her mind’s eye, Magda was glad she had removed this family from danger before the births.

Waking in darkness, Owen saw Einar stoking the fire, adding a few pieces of wood. They quickly caught, the flames lighting the cot where Owen lay. The kitten had managed to leave her basket and curl up beside him. Observing the injured man rise to fetch some items from Magda’s food cupboard, Owen judged him well enough to fend for himself a while longer and closed his eye, returning to slumber. When next he woke it was to a draft from the open doorway. Finding the kitten gone, he bolted from the bed to the threshold. Outside, Einar stood guard over the little being as she was scratching to cover her business.

‘Dame Magda’s trained her to paw at the door. I observed them together while Asa was here.’

Laughing, Owen moved off beyond them to relieve himself in the river. A turn round the house assured him that it had suffered no damage. By the time he returned to the door Einar had taken Holda inside. Closing his eye, Owen reached up to touch the dragon. Warm, though the sun had not yet hit it.

Inside, Owen poured himself some ale from a jug in the cupboard, noted it was almost empty. He would ask Tom to send some out to Magda. He settled by the fire across from Einar, who was feeding the kitten a bit of milk. ‘Does Asa wish you harm?’

Einar glanced up. ‘She’s no cause to wish me ill. I’ve been of use to her. Though not so much now.’

‘Is it possible she and Bernard are lovers?’

‘What? No! She is much older than he is.’ But he did not look so certain.

‘You are reconsidering?’

‘Thinking of the names she’s called him, how angry she was when she thought he was here with a wife and child.’

‘Janet and Cilla Fuller?’

‘She was soon set straight. Folk know Jack Fuller.’

‘But her anger …’

‘Did seem to arise from more than a healer questioning the skill of another. So yes, perhaps.’

‘What do you know of him?’

‘I think I’ve told you all I know, other than what the gossips said.’ Owen noticed how Einar avoided his gaze. ‘There were whispers about him in Lincoln, on the run from some troubles with men’s wives. I thought that might be why he left. He does not seem a man who can defend himself. Nor does he seem to want attention.’

Owen laughed. ‘He has certainly made himself known here.’ But he thought of the exchange with Gavin Wolcott at the butts, and his reaction to Owen the previous evening. Perhaps being infamous was not his choice. ‘How did you come to be with Asa?’

Keeping his head down, suddenly fussing with the kitten, Einar mumbled something about happy chance.

‘Did you live long in Lincoln? Is that where you are from?’

‘No.’ The kitten gave a little cry at a sound outside. ‘She hears Dame Magda.’

Owen had heard her as well, coming through the shallow water. He stepped out into a soft rain to greet her. ‘Your kitten alerted us to your return.’ He lifted the baskets from her arms as she passed.

‘Have a care with that one,’ she said about the heaviest. ‘It will be dinner for Magda and Einar.’

‘Smells enticing.’

‘Thou art fortunate to have Bird-eye to attend thee,’ she said to her great-grandson. ‘He has much experience with arrows.’

‘How did you know about the arrow?’ Einar asked.

‘Magda will answer thy questions. But first she has much to tell Bird-eye. Wouldst thou step without?’

‘You do not yet trust me?’

‘Hast thou given Magda reason to do so?’

Owen tensed at the flash of anger in the young man’s eyes, but Einar did as he was told. Awkward in his haste to escape into the rain, he barely avoided stepping on the kitten. When he had closed the door behind him, Magda poured warm water from the pot Owen had kept simmering, added a pinch of herbs, and settled by the fire on a low stool. Asking a few questions about the events of the previous night, she listened with closed eyes to Owen’s account, and his thoughts regarding Einar, Asa, and Bernard. And the mention of an Alan.

‘Alan, Bernard.’ She nodded to herself and went quiet for a while, testing her drink, sipping it, still with eyes closed.

Owen rarely noticed the intricate web of lines on her face that mapped her long, rich life. Usually the power of her gaze distracted one from anything else. She had high cheek bones, a long, narrow, delicately arched nose, full lips, much fuller than in most elders, all textured with wrinkles, some deep, most shallow, covering every inch, even her eyelids. A strong face, and beautiful despite being so marked by time. Lost in his own thoughts he started when she spoke.

‘Dost thou trust Einar?’ Her blue eyes watched him.

He considered. ‘Only so far as believing what he has chosen to tell me. The harm is in the omissions. He knows, or perhaps merely guesses, far more about all the troubles of late than he admits, which is why his confusing the names seems important.’

‘Magda’s sense as well. What Magda is about to tell thee must be shared only with those thou most trusts.’ She proceeded to weave a dark tale involving the Wolcott household, Gavin Wolcott’s treatment of Matthew, and Graa’s possible part in it, Lettice’s belief that the fire was meant to kill her for her knowledge of Beatrice’s pregnancy, her fear that Matthew was murdered not only for what they might have tried to hide from him at the warehouse but also what Lettice might have confided.

An illegitimate child. ‘Might they have kept you away so that you would not see her condition?’ Two murders, Sam and Matthew. Both might know too much, Matthew from his wife. Were Guthlac and Lettice meant to die as well? ‘Could they have used Bernard to hasten Guthlac’s death?’

‘Who fathered the child?’ asked Magda.

‘Might it be Sam?’

‘He cared for her, but there was no shame in him regarding her,’ said Magda. ‘Though his wife disliked Beatrice. He was married. Would it not be more likely to be someone who hoped to claim the widow and child?’

‘Gavin?’ asked Owen. ‘But he seeks the respect of the merchants in York. They would not accept his marrying his father’s widow.’

‘A difficulty.’

‘But who else might be the father? Lettice had no suggestion?’

‘That is not her concern. She fears returning to the city. There is no need as yet, and thou art now armed with information that might help thee in finding answers.’

‘Might I speak with Lettice?’

Magda slowly shook her head. ‘Nor wouldst thou learn more.’

‘Is there anything else I should know? What of Asa’s beating?’

‘Beating?’ Magda looked surprised. ‘Again?’

Owen told her what little he knew.

‘Magda had not heard. Have a care with Asa. She would find satisfaction in ruining thee.’

He knew that, yet to have Magda warn him gave him pause. ‘Do you have any sense of what Bernard might be to her?’

‘He is said to use bleeding for most complaints. It might be all he knows. Perhaps he sought Asa’s advice. She does have a way of turning friends to enemies. But she has said little to Magda, and nothing of him.’ She glanced toward the door. ‘Twig should be here by now.’ When Owen told her why he was not, she agreed that he should be with his mother. ‘Einar will be here today.’

‘And tomorrow?’

‘Unless he tells Magda all that he knows she will send him back to Old Shep’s.’ She rose. ‘Thou hast much to do. It was good of thee to see to the wound and sit with him through the night. But the city needs thee.’

‘The troublemakers might return. Would you accept one of my men to guard you?’

‘There is no need. Magda will not be harmed.’ She smiled. ‘Her dragon protects her.’

He remembered how it had seemed the dragon had reached down to Einar. ‘Does he protect Einar as well?’

‘She,’ Magda corrected him. ‘Why dost thou ask?’

He described what he thought he had seen, and her warmth today.

‘That is good,’ she said, softly, as if to herself.

‘I did see that?’

‘If so, it was through thy third eye.’ She touched the middle of his forehead. ‘Not this one.’ She tapped above his good eye. ‘Now it is time for thee to go.’ She led him to the door, calling to Einar as Owen stepped out into the rain.

Einar came round from beneath the eaves and thanked Owen for all he had done. ‘If you see Brother Michaelo, will you tell him I will return to assist him tomorrow?’

Owen glanced at Magda. Had Einar overheard her ultimatum? But she did not seem bothered. ‘I will.’

In the shop, Lucie and Jasper dispensed a dizzying assortment of plague remedies beyond anything they recommended, from pig’s intestines and toads to powdered gems to noxious combinations of herbs and roots. The morning had revealed more red crosses on doors. Owen waited in the apothecary workshop, gauging when Lucie would have a moment to speak to him. Damp from the rain, he was eager to settle for a moment by the kitchen fire and share what he had learned while it was all fresh in his mind. But his hopes were dashed when he heard a man describing the wounds his wife had suffered in early morning as she left a birthing and was beaten in the street.

‘It was the neighbor came pounding on my door, telling me to come, he had found her in the alley. I feared she was dead. So much blood coming from her head. But she spoke my name and was warm in my arms as I carried her home.’

Owen stepped into the shop. ‘I will bring the medicines and see to her.’

The man looked confused.

‘I tended wounds on battlefields,’ said Owen. ‘And I know my wife’s remedies. I worked as her apprentice when I first came to York.’

‘He did,’ said Lucie. ‘Edith will be in good hands, John.’

The man sobbed his thanks, and Lucie smiled her appreciation as she prepared a basket for Owen. He brought bandages from the workshop.

When it was ready, Owen kissed Lucie on the cheek as he plucked up the basket. ‘I will ask Alfred to come back to watch the shop and house.’

‘He watched through the night and went home not long ago.’

‘Then I will send someone else until he is ready.’ With another kiss he left her, escorting the fretful husband out into the rain. So much for drying out by the kitchen fire.