The Cross Legged Knight (31 page)

Adeline had noticed the gloves. Her eyes just passed over them, but a hand to her throat suggested to Owen that she recognized them.

‘What can my wife have to say that cannot be said in my presence?’ Fitzbaldric demanded.

Before Owen replied, Adeline put a hand on her husband’s forearm and said, ‘Perhaps you might go with Bolton to the house, see what you can retrieve.’ She looked at Owen. ‘We may be able to salvage some of the clothes and furniture on the upper floors.’

‘Bolton is sitting with Poins,’ Fitzbaldric grumbled. ‘The midwife was called away. I thought we were to play chess.’

‘Not at the moment, husband. You might at least go and see the condition of the upper storeys.’

‘Aye, I will. I spoke to a guild member who might have a property for us to rent. It would be good to see how much we must fetch from Hull to furnish another house.’ He bowed to both of them and departed.

Adeline took the seat Fitzbaldric had vacated and, leaning towards the chess table, nodded to the gloves where they lay at the edge. ‘Do those have to do with your investigation, Captain?’

‘They might. You have seen these before, I think.’

She tilted her head, shook it. ‘I once owned a pair of gloves much like these, so for a moment I thought they were familiar.’ She touched two of the jet beads. ‘But it was many years ago.’

‘What did you do with them?’

‘I cannot recall. I did not care for them. Perhaps I gave them away.’

‘If you would try to remember, Mistress Fitzbaldric.’

‘It is important? Mine had been made to my order by a glover in Beverley. What could this have to do with
the death of that woman? Such a woman could hardly afford such clothing.’

Owen found Adeline’s attitude a puzzle, both disarmingly open and defensive. ‘Might there be other pairs like the ones you once had?’

‘Of course. Once a glover has a pattern, he will use it again. Why would he not? Though as they were costly, I cannot think there would be many such pairs.’

‘Where did you last see yours?’

‘In our house near Hull.’ Her manner had changed again. There was a vagueness in her eyes, as if she were remembering something and by her voice it was troubling. ‘A long while ago.’

‘You remember the gloves very well. How is it that you do not recall what you did with them?’

‘Do you enjoy pestering people, Captain Archer?’

‘No. It is the part of an investigation that I dislike most.’

Adeline touched the gloves again, gently, with her fingertips. ‘Are these bloodstains?’

‘They are.’

She pulled back her hand, made a fist. ‘I believe I added them to some clothes I was giving the priest, for the poor. My children’s clothes.’ She turned her head away, but Owen could hear the emotion in her voice, recognized the rigid posture of someone hiding pain. ‘I had quarrelled with my daughter about the gloves a few days before the pestilence took her. She went so quickly. I never had the chance –’ She took a deep breath. ‘I could not bear to look at them again.’

Owen bowed his head and said nothing for a long while.

Adeline broke the silence, asking a servant for some watered wine. ‘And for you?’ she asked Owen, the servant waiting.

‘Some ale would suit me.’ When the servant withdrew, Owen said, ‘I am sorry for your loss, Mistress Fitzbaldric, and sorry to make you remember it.’

‘It is a wound that never heals, Captain. I am called indulgent for mourning my children so long, indulgent in my pain.’

The servant returned and they sat in silence for a little while.

But Owen feared Fitzbaldric would return before he had finished questioning Adeline, so once again he interrupted her peace. ‘Did you take the clothes to the priest, or did you give them to someone to take for you?’

‘That I truly cannot recall, Captain.’ Adeline picked up a pawn, turned it round in her fingers, set it down, then looked Owen in the eye. ‘Are you thinking that someone in my household might have kept them?’

‘It is possible, is it not? What of your husband? Might he have kept them, thinking you might regret your action, or perhaps because for him they conjured up good memories?’

She had grown angry as he spoke. ‘Listen to yourself. You are weaving a tale to make Godwin appear guilty. What does my husband have to do with the gloves?’

‘I seek the truth, Mistress Fitzbaldric, not a scapegoat.’

‘No?’ She held herself so taut the pulse was visible in her long neck. ‘Where did you find those gloves? Whose blood is on them?’ Her voice grew tenser with each question. ‘You are trying to blame my husband for the fire.’ Owen’s silence brought blotches of colour to her neck. ‘Dear God.’ She rose. ‘Mother in Heaven, you cannot believe … Whose gloves were those?’

‘You said “were”. And you are right. They were in Cisotta’s house.’

‘And you believe they are the ones I discarded? Then how did she get them?’

‘I hoped you might know.’

‘I … I cannot imagine.’

At last Owen saw honest fear in Adeline’s eyes.

‘How long has May been in your household, Mistress Fitzbaldric?’

‘Since we married. Seventeen years.’

‘And before that?’

‘She was in my mother’s household, the daughter of the gardener. Mother had –’ She stopped herself, shaking her head, sitting down again to sip at her wine.

‘May had blood on her face the night of the fire, yet she has no wounds on her face. What do you make of that?’

‘Oh, dear God, I do not know what to make of it, Captain, any of it. She is a good woman, though of late she has been clumsy and distracted.’

‘What of her relationship with Poins?’

Adeline glanced up at him, all subterfuge gone. ‘Have you looked at them? No, of course not, he is in bandages so thick you cannot see his youth, his beauty. Yes, I have gone to see him since yesterday. Poor man.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I had not understood the extent of his burns.’

‘So May is too old and plain for him?’

‘Yes. It is uncharitable, but it is true. They say the dead woman was beautiful and flirtatious. Perhaps Poins –’ She covered her face. ‘I do not want to believe it of him, that he could do such a thing to his leman.’

So she thought Poins the murderer. ‘This is the most difficult question of all, Mistress Fitzbaldric, but I must
ask it. Are you and your husband happy in one another?’

She gave a little sound like a laugh, but she had tears in her eyes and her voice trembled with emotion as she said, ‘You cannot believe Godwin was in some way connected to the dead woman?’

‘He is a man like any other.’

‘Are you happy in your wife, Captain?’

I was
, Owen heard himself respond somewhere deep inside, and the answer shook him.

‘I see you, too, find it a difficult question to answer, Captain. Godwin and I have rejoiced in our children and lost them, we have built a business and lost most of our goods, we have aged, quarrelled, loved and hated. Am I happy in him, and he in me? We are accustomed, Captain. And some days more than that. I did not lie with Poins, and I doubt that my husband lay with either May or Cisotta.’ She rose with a commanding dignity, though she was trembling with emotion. ‘I shall say no more, Captain.’

‘I wish to speak with May and Bolton. Do I have your permission?’

Adeline had already turned from him. She inclined her head, whispered, ‘Do what you will’ and crossed the hall to the screens passage.

Owen sent a servant for May, tucked the gloves in his scrip and sat back to finish his ale. He did not feel good about cracking Adeline Fitzbaldric’s façade, particularly as he had been wounded in the assault. Of course he was happy in his marriage. Lucie’s pregnancy had been difficult and had ended in sorrow. He had been so frightened he might lose her. Of course he loved her. But that momentary doubt unsettled him.

The archbishop entered the hall, in better colour than he had been of late. He approached Owen, but
when he caught sight of May making her way towards Owen he simply nodded and said, ‘Come to me before you leave the palace. I shall be in the chapel.’

As Thoresby passed her, May stumbled against a piece of furniture, which so flustered her that as she sat she hit her knee on the chess table, then brushed her sleeve over the chessboard, sending several pawns spinning. Owen caught them. She was indeed a clumsy woman. As he leaned close to replace the pieces, he smelled her fear, saw terror in her eyes. That was not good. It was easier to draw information out of someone angry or secretive than someone so frightened.

He would go slowly, try to put her at ease. ‘I am glad that you do not seem to have suffered injury in the fire,’ he said.

‘I … I am so grateful to you. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for saving my life.’ She blushed crimson and kept her gaze on the chess pieces.

‘Are you comfortable in the palace? Have you everything you need?’

She nodded.

‘It is a lovely chess set, is it not?’

‘Yes, Captain.’ She put a hand to her chest, as if trying to quiet her pounding heart.

He could think of no more idle talk. He had never been good at it. ‘I need you to tell me what you remember of the night of the fire, what your actions were, say, from the time your master and mistress departed.’

‘There is little to tell, Captain. I had not slept well for a while. I am not accustomed to the noise of a city and my bedroom was so high up in that house.’

‘You were uncomfortable there?’

‘I should not say so – my mistress dearly loved the house – but I am glad to be out of it.’

‘Closer to the ground.’

A shy smile and a glance at him. ‘Aye.’

‘So, you were tired that evening.’

‘I was. And as Bolton was out, and my mistress, I had little to do. So I went up to nap.’

‘That is all?’

She nodded. ‘Then I heard you calling and breathed in a mouthful of smoke.’

‘What of the blood on your face?’

May touched a temple absently. ‘I told you, I suffered many scratches and cuts.’

‘Have you been feeling well of late?’

She glanced up, her eyes huge with fear. ‘A little tired, Captain, as I said.’

He drew out the gloves, laid them on her side of the chess table.

May sat so still that Owen could hear her breath rasping as she stared at the gloves.

He said nothing for a little while, waiting for some reaction. But at last he asked, ‘Have you seen these before?’

She nodded.

‘Where?’

‘They were my mistress’s. She would not wear them after little Sarah died. She gave them to the church for the poor.’

‘Are you certain of that?’

May nodded.

‘And you have not seen them since?’

May shook her head.

‘Aren’t you going to ask how they came to be stained?’

She lifted her other hand to her chest, then dropped both in her lap. ‘Much might have happened to them since they left my mistress’s house,’ she said.

‘Did you have need of a healer, May?’

She shook her head.

‘Did you see Cisotta about a charm, perhaps?’

‘No.’

It was uncanny how she resisted glancing up to see his expression. It was unnatural.

‘Tell me what frightens you so, May.’

Silence.

‘May?’ he whispered.

She took a deep breath. ‘You think evil of me. I’ve done nothing.’ Still she did not meet his gaze.

‘Do you know who murdered Cisotta?’

May shook her head.

Owen felt in his gut that she was lying. But so far she had not run away. He doubted she would now. He would give her some time to stew in her fear.

‘They are bloodstains, May. A lad was killed for those gloves, but the murderer left them with him. Why do you think a man would do that?’

Now she looked up at him. ‘What lad?’

‘A thief, who had stolen the gloves from my wife.’ He could see the confusion on her face, but also that fear. It seemed a good time to stop. Perhaps she would come after him with questions. He reached over. She leaned back away from him as if fearing he was reaching for her. He took the gloves and, as he stood, tucked them in his scrip. ‘I have kept you from your duties long enough. Thank you for giving me your time.’ He bowed to her and crossed to the screens passage, listening to May’s stumbling rise from her seat. There was something about her clumsiness that bothered him.

W
hat troubled Owen about May’s behaviour was that Adeline Fitzbaldric did not seem a woman to tolerate much clumsiness in a maid. But she had spoken as if it were a recent change. Which begged the question of what had brought on the change; whether it might be something for which May had consulted Cisotta. Or it was possible that May truly found the move to the city distressing. He remembered how their maid Tildy had feared leaving York for the first time, having never before gone past the city walls.