The Cross Legged Knight (20 page)

‘You are wrong about a day wasted,’ Bess said. ‘Now you know you need not worry about the tile. To think those lads made such mischief. Ferriby’s is a joyless house this night, I warrant. How is Lucie?’

‘Better until she found this in my scrip when she was dressing this morning.’ Owen drew out the girdle. ‘It was she who identified it as Cisotta’s. It fell from her as she was pulled from the burning house.’

‘Oh, my poor lass,’ Bess said, fingering the ruined leather, the charred beads.

‘Lucie took it very hard.’

‘Aye. God has much to answer for of late.’ Bess lifted the girdle and turned it over and back so that the glass
beads twinkled. ‘I recall how this caught the light as Cisotta walked.’ She laid it on the table, pushed it towards Owen. ‘Was it murder?’ she asked, her voice catching. ‘Is that why you are so grim?’

‘Aye.’

They were silent a moment.

‘You are one of the few who know,’ Owen said as he tucked the girdle back in his scrip.

‘I shall keep my ears pricked, my tongue silent.’ Bess sighed. ‘To hear some talk of her, well, they were jealous, eh? Beautiful and gifted. Some folk cannot bear another’s fortune. The gossips had never crossed her threshold, seen the state of Eudo when he was not insulting someone in the shop, watched poor Anna minding the children while struggling for breath. No wonder Cisotta cheered herself with bright colours.’

Owen had not been aware how well Bess had known Cisotta. ‘Jealousy, aye, I believe it. But can you think of anyone who hated her enough to murder her, and so brutally?’ He drew out the other belt now, handed it to Bess.

She set it down on the table and tilted the buckle towards the lamplight, ran her fingers along the leather. As Owen explained how he had found it, she pushed it aside and withdrew her hands, clenching them to her breast. ‘I cannot think who would have done such a deed.’

‘Do you recognize the belt?’

‘Sweet heaven, I see many buckles in a day, I cannot remember them all.’ Her fisted hands and red eyes belied the brusqueness of her response.

‘Forgive me. I did not come here to torment you. I had intended to sit in a corner with a tankard and my thoughts.’

Bess leaned on one elbow and with her other hand
stroked the wood in front of her, as if smoothing away the waters to see herself. ‘What you need to hear is the rumours about Cisotta, God give her peace.’

‘That might help,’ Owen said.

Bess pushed the belt towards Owen and shivered. ‘I have it well in my head now, put it away, I would not look at it more. If I see aught like it, you will know.’

Owen removed it from her sight.

‘Many folk feared the charms Cisotta wove,’ Bess said.

‘She wove what they requested.’

‘Aye, the problem was the charms she called her fending charms – some considered them curses. Knowing that, they feared she might curse them some day. I do not think many folk believed it of her, but there was talk.’ Bess watched Owen over the rim of her tankard. Setting it down on the table, she added, ‘I disappoint you.’

‘I see no passion in that, nothing that could lead to such a murder.’

‘Passion. As for that, wives did not like the way their husbands eyed Cisotta.’ Bess gave Owen a weary smile as he began to ask a question. ‘Had they cause to distrust her? Now and then she strayed from Eudo, I think. I do not know how she kept it quiet – her lovers must have been a loyal few. It is possible a woman might have had the strength to strangle her.’

Owen instinctively touched the patch over his left eye, thinking he knew well what a woman was capable of. ‘It is not a woman’s belt.’

‘It is small, though. Is this all of it?’

‘You saw how the edge was burned. I do not know how much longer it was.’

Tom called to her from the tavern. Bess pushed her
chair back. ‘Can’t leave my husband alone all the evening.’

‘Just one more question. One of the bishop’s clerks claims to have eaten here last night, then departed with all the others to help with the fire. Alain. He would have been …’

‘Handsome and almost as tidy as Brother Michaelo.’ Bess nodded.

‘Aye, that would be him.’

‘He sat so straight and ate so well I did not believe he could truly be a cleric, but his hands are soft and elegant, and he owned he was part of Wykeham’s household. I thought better of him for joining the others who rushed out to the fire. He did not hesitate, though he is a stranger here.’ She touched Owen’s shoulder gently as she passed. ‘Sit here as long as you like, have some quiet. We must find the man who did this terrible thing.’

Owen felt his energy ebbing. He should go home. But he could not bring himself to waste the gift of peace, something he had enjoyed precious little of since Lucie’s accident – even longer, now he thought about it, with Jasper’s occasional threats to ask to be accepted into St Mary’s as a novice, Dame Phillippa’s incoherent days, Gwenllian’s stubbornness, Hugh’s delight in disappearing and sending the entire household searching the streets, and most of all Lucie’s difficult pregnancy, for it had given her far more discomfort than her earlier ones. Now and then he missed the simpler days, when he was captain of archers and his men all jumped at his command. Owen pushed his tankard aside and rested his head on his arms.

B
y the time Owen returned, the children had been tucked in for the night and Lucie had run the gamut of emotions about his absence from irritation through anger to fear, the latter having won out. Phillippa had given up and eaten with Kate, then gone to bed. Jasper was not so easily discouraged, though he sat nodding across the table from Lucie. When Owen stepped into the lamplight Lucie saw the deepened lines on his forehead and down alongside his mouth, the shadows beneath his eyes, the slump of his right shoulder, where an old wound bothered him when he was weary, and she tried to hold her tongue about the guards who had disappeared when she most needed them.

But she snapped when he gathered her into his arms and she smelled ale on his breath. ‘All the while I worried and prayed, you were drinking?’ Hearing her own voice, she hated herself for sounding like a shrew, but the words were out, there was no taking them back now.

‘You know what I have been about, my love.’ Owen’s
voice was gravelly with a long day of talking. ‘Let’s not quarrel over the time. The day began badly – if I can even consider yesterday to have ended.’ He drew up a stool near the brazier at the end of the table, doffed his cap and shook out his hair, which was curled from the damp. Lucie took the cap, asked Jasper to help Owen with his boots. ‘You know I slept precious little.’ He leaned back to brace himself for Jasper’s tugs. ‘In truth, I wanted to put my thoughts in order so that we might talk of what I have heard today, so I stopped at the tavern. But I fell asleep where I sat. Bess just now discovered me and pushed me out of the door. Jasper said you were unhurt. Was he wrong?’

‘No, Eudo pushed me aside and I stumbled, but I was not hurt.’

One boot dropped with a thud.

‘God’s blood that feels good,’ Owen said as he lifted the still booted foot to the boy.

‘I was so frightened for Jasper,’ Lucie said. ‘Eudo was so angry I did not know what he might do. I ran for the guards, hoping they might scare him into his senses.’

Owen rubbed his hands over the brazier. ‘They should not have deserted their posts. They will be punished for it, do not doubt it.’

Lucie noted how he kept his eye averted. He sensed an argument in the making. ‘I should not have spoken to you like that,’ she said.

He glanced up, nodded. ‘My arms make a sorry pillow. I have suffered for my truancy.’

‘We have not yet eaten. Have you?’

‘You waited for me? No wonder you were angry. Jasper, too?’

Lucie called after Jasper, who was headed for the kitchen with Owen’s boots. ‘Ask Kate to serve us now. Come, sit with us.’ To Owen she said, ‘He is anxious to
hear what happened after he left the palace, what is to become of Eudo.’

‘I can eat in the kitchen,’ Jasper offered.

‘No, eat with us,’ said Owen. ‘Then I need tell my tale but once.’ When Jasper had disappeared through the door, Owen leaned over to take Lucie’s hand. ‘I confess I am glad to be rid of Poins tonight. Perhaps at least the time we are together will be peaceful.’

‘Aye.’ She kissed his hand. ‘How is he?’

‘Much the same, despite Eudo’s intentions. Are you not relieved to have him gone?’

‘I am, my love.’ Lucie knelt beside him and kissed him warmly.

Jasper and Kate interrupted them with a steaming pot of stew, two trenchers of brown bread a few days old and a pitcher of ale.

‘The ale is from Tom Merchet,’ said Kate. ‘He brought it over – said you had little chance to drink at the tavern tonight.’ She bobbed a curtsy. ‘I’ll go up to the children and see that they are not a bother to Dame Phillippa.’

Lucie, Owen and Jasper talked as they ate.

Owen recounted his altercation with George Hempe, the bailiff. ‘We shall hear more from that, I warn you,’ he said in such a weary tone that Lucie wondered he did not speed his meal and seek his bed.

But Owen waited until Jasper could no longer keep his eyes open, then suggested to Lucie that they take the remainder of the ale up to their bedchamber. Sitting on the bed, sharing the last cup, they spoke of the storm, and the cost of the sweet vinegar and barley sugar at the market. As Lucie was beginning to think Owen would fall asleep with his next sentence, he perked up a little, downed the rest of the ale and told her what he had learned from the masons.

‘Ivo and John were the culprits? Merciful Mother, what were they thinking?’

‘They were having a bit of fun and were not thinking. It is the masons I fault, they should have spoken up at once.’

‘They would have saved themselves much trouble, for now Wykeham will wonder at their silence.’

‘Did you have any sense that Emma was worried about the boys?’

‘I saw no sign that she knew of it. But I had noted that John and Ivo were unusually subdued and solemn today. Emma ascribed it to their missing Sir Ranulf.’ Lucie thought of Gwenllian, how anxious she became about hiding anything from her parents for long, her imagination creating a far worse punishment than a parent could bear to inflict. ‘What must the boys have suffered, isolated with their secret? They must have been affrighted – and no one to comfort them.’

Owen set aside the cup, rubbed some salve into his scarred left eye, a little more into the puckered skin on his shoulder. ‘Aye. Peter seemed most worried about their silence.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He fears Lady Pagnell is poisoning the boys’ minds. He asked whether I would tell the bishop. Which I must, of course.’

‘Of course you must.’

Owen slid down on to the pillows.

‘I am more sorry than I can say for my temper this evening,’ Lucie said, slipping down beside him.

Owen pulled her to him. ‘And in the morning I face Wykeham with the tale –
after
Cisotta’s service.’

‘You will attend?’

‘Aye. I loved her for what she did for you.’ Owen kissed Lucie on the neck.

They lay quietly for a moment.

‘What
will
the bishop do with John and Ivo?’ Lucie asked.

‘I pray that his abiding interest in the education of boys will guide his decision.’ Owen’s voice had softened to a rasping whisper. ‘I must sleep.’

Lucie settled her head in the crook of his arm, enjoying the warmth of his body.

A dog barked outside, a church bell tolled, fiddle music drifted from the tavern next door. When Lucie had first come to the city from Freythorpe Hadden to live at the convent of St Clements the night noises broke her sleep, or if she did not waken they grew and invaded her dreams. The bells swelled, filling the sky; faces thrust out from the walls screaming and shouting curses; animals with teeth bared chased her down endless avenues of trees. She had not expected ever to grow accustomed to the night sounds of the city. Now she found them reassuring, a sign of life, the promise of tomorrow.

It was also oddly comforting to have Owen fall asleep before she did – a touch of normality in a hideous time – but Lucie had hoped she would sleep well tonight. She had been up since before dawn, more active than in many a day, yet although the pain in her lower abdomen had eased with several cups of wine and her body was heavy with fatigue, her mind spun through the previous night and the day past, round and round, as if by frequently circling past her anxieties she might control them.

She folded her hands and whispered a ‘Hail Mary’, and another, but by the third prayer her mind was wandering again and her cheeks were aflame.

Pushing back the covers, she sat up at the edge of the bed, dangling her feet over the side. As she slid down to
touch the cool floor she felt a warmth between her legs and all at once realized what she had been feeling – her flux had begun once more. How her fear had blinded her. Smiling to herself, she pulled a shift over her head and draped a wool scarf over her shoulders. She must fetch a rag to absorb her flow. Then she would make a warm tisane of gaitre berries and wild lettuce to soothe the cramps, perhaps adding a little valerian to help her sleep.