The Cross Legged Knight (Owen Archer Book 8)

by Candace Robb

  ‘The documents were unwieldy with but one strap, they began to fan out and one rolled out. In turning to catch it –’ Matthew stopped, looking at all the eyes trained on him. ‘Tell me that she was dead before the fire, tell me I was not responsible.’ His face was covered with sweat, the blood seeping again from the wound on his forehead. He looked a demon.

  ‘You knocked over the lamp,’ Owen said.

  ‘Even then I did not stop.’ Matthew gave a strangled sob. ‘Even hearing the struggle. I turned – but seeing his wildness I kept running.’ Tears coursed down his cheeks.

  Owen turned to Guy. ‘Why did you take the time to place the strap just so, centred on her throat, crushing it? Was she not already dead?’

  Guy was watching Matthew, not Owen. ‘You set the fire to kill me.’

  ‘Was she already dead when you placed the buckle over her throat and pressed, Guy?’ Owen asked again, hoping to trick him into a confession.

  Now Guy turned to him. ‘Why do you believe his word over mine? My lord bishop will vouch for me.’

  ‘God help me if I ever trust you again,’ Wykeham said in a choked voice.

  ‘Matthew, why did you do it?’ Lady Pagnell asked. ‘You had only to ask for all you needed.’

  Matthew turned away from them, heaving with sobs. ‘The money was not for me. I sought to prove his guilt.’

  ‘Easily said,’ Stephen muttered.

  ‘What is this play-acting?’ Guy said. ‘Will his lady comfort this steward knowing what he did? How he grabbed the woman and wrapped the strap round her neck, tightening it so quickly that her scream died in her crushed throat?’

  Thoresby saw in the man’s eyes that he was reliving the act, not narrating the act of another. ‘Last night you said you ran. But now you describe her murder as if you were there.’

  ‘That is how it must have been, Your Grace, it is plain,’ Guy said in a more subdued tone.

  Lady Pagnell, her face chalky, fumbled with her chair and rose with a moan. Michaelo quickly helped her to withdraw from the table, leading her towards Thoresby’s quarters, her servant hurrying behind. Stephen Pagnell rose halfway, uncertain whether to follow or stay.

  Guy searched the faces round the table, and seeing no support he flung back his stool and ran for the retreating couple. Thoresby shouted for the guards, but Owen had been watching, ready to spring, and spring he did, tackling the clerk to the ground. His fists pounded into the man, pounded, pounded, until the bailiff drew Owen off.

  ‘Guy is a man of the cloth, no matter what his offence,’ Wykeham cried.

  Thoresby had seen this bloodlust in Owen only once before, when they had fought side by side at a manor near Ripon. The woman Cisotta must have meant much to Owen. He was glad the bailiff had been there after all.

  Wykeham looked bewildered as he bent to Guy. ‘This man’s justice belongs in the ecclesiastical courts.’

  Owen’s lungs felt as if they would burst as he worked to catch his breath. His knuckles burned. Guy, his face bloody and his body limp, moaned as Hempe and a guard lifted him on to a bench to be carried out of the hall. Owen’s fever of rage had died as suddenly as it had flared and he thanked God he had not killed the man. It was the Church’s duty to dispose of him.

  ‘Here, drink this.’ Thoresby thrust a cup of brandywine into his hand. ‘Then leave the grounds. Do not let Wykeham see you tonight. I shall send for you when he is calmer.’

  Leaving Wykeham to deal with Lady Pagnell, Thoresby told Stephen Pagnell to summon his companions.

  ‘You would tell them what happened here?’ Pagnell asked.

  ‘They have troubled to come so far, they should be satisfied.’

  ‘Matthew’s designs upon my mother – you will not mention that.’

  ‘How else can I explain his motivations?’

  ‘They will not notice the lack.’

  ‘But the duke will.’

  ‘What do you want, Your Grace?’

  ‘Your word that Wykeham will have no trouble departing from York with Guy in his custody.’

  ‘The duke would not care.’

  ‘I think that he might,’ Thoresby said. ‘The clerk will be punished, and harshly, have no doubt of it.’

  Twenty-three

  DEPARTURES

  At the Ferriby home, Owen’s, Hempe’s and Matthew’s departure left a shocked household. John was escorted to the boys’ chamber, Ivo hurrying behind him. Emma thanked Edgar for his help, then sat down heavily on a bench and doubled over, retching. Lucie brought her a bowl into which she was promptly sick.

  ‘What was he thinking, to attack a grown man like that?’ Emma groaned, then started at a sound above, rising but quickly sinking back down, pressing her hands to her temples.

  ‘You must calm yourself before you can be of any use to John,’ Lucie said. ‘I’ll go up to see that they are cleaning his wounds properly and send someone to you with wine. Then I’ll go to the shop and have Jasper return with an ointment for John’s nose, and herbs with which to pack it, as well as a tincture for pain.’

  ‘How shall I explain all this to Peter?’

  ‘All you can do is tell him the truth. Your mother will surely be full of the tale when she returns.’

  ‘She will. Sweet heaven, I almost pity Matthew.’

  Emma’s colour was returning. Lucie doubted that she even needed the wine. But it would settle her stomach.

  ‘Where is Peter today?’

  ‘One of his ships has docked. He is always there for the unloading.’

  ‘I pray he found no problems, so that he is in good cheer when you tell him of all this.’

  In the days that followed, Wykeham alternated between grief-stricken prayer and furious pacing as he deliberated about how to dispatch justice.

  Thoresby was blunt in his disapproval of Wykeham’s eventual decision. ‘Journeying all the way to Winchester to try Guy there is foolhardy. Why take such risk?’

  ‘Thanks to your captain, Guy is unable to cause much trouble on the way.’ Wykeham seemed unable to move past Owen’s attack on the clerk to acknowledge the debt he owed the captain. ‘I hope to talk with Guy more. I am not satisfied with his explanations. He said the king siphoned money, as did I, so he believed it was common practice, that he would be a fool not to seize for himself a small portion of the funds going through his hands. And he was confident that his forgeries were so subtle he would never be caught.’

  ‘He is a thorough knave, prideful and defiant,’ said Thoresby. ‘But worse than that, he is a murderer. How does he defend himself with that?’

  ‘He called the midwife a whoring, thieving witch who was trespassing in the Fitzbaldrics’ house. But his voice broke when he said that. He knows his sin deserves death.’

  ‘He has not explained his former acquaintance with the victim?’

  ‘No.’ Wykeham pressed his hands together, bowed over them for a heartbeat. ‘But I do not wish him to die before he has understood all that brought him to his fall and repented.’

  Thoresby thought it was Wykeham who needed to understand.

  ‘I wish him to die in peace with the Lord,’ Wykeham said. He fell silent again.

  ‘You were so fond of him?’ Thoresby wondered aloud.

  Wykeham straightened, anger replacing the pain in his eyes. ‘All this transpired because of Sir Ranulf’s desire to go forth into danger in the king’s name one last time. It is as with the king – the elderly are never wise.’

  ‘I can name many greybeards and grey-headed ladies who have exhibited much wisdom,’ Thoresby said, disliking this turn in the conversation.

  Wykeham shook his head. ‘For every one of them there are a hundred, a thousand, with addled minds.’

  On the morning of the bishop’s departure Owen ordered his men to line the drive while he stood near the palace doorway. Thoresby seemed confident that Stephen Pagnell’s party would cause no trouble, but Owen meant to take no chances. When Wykeham stepped from the palace his gaze moved at once to t
he cart in which Guy sat trussed. Seeing the anguish in the bishop’s eyes, Owen looked away. It was a subdued company that rode down the drive.

  When the last of the bishop’s men were out the gates, Thoresby summoned Owen to his parlour.

  ‘You are not smiling,’ the archbishop said, settling into his great chair. ‘Are you not glad to see the backs of that troublesome party?’

  ‘Their departure does not undo the tragedy, Your Grace.’

  ‘You must not mind Wykeham’s seeming ingratitude.’

  ‘He would have much preferred that I’d proven Lancaster was his nemesis. The truth held up the mirror to his own weaknesses.’

  ‘Hm. He feared you were Lancaster’s man and all the time you disliked his person, not his affiliations. Interesting. Was Lawgoch’s appeal also personal?’

  Owen stopped breathing.

  ‘Come, come, you must not look so. You cannot be so naïve as to think Friar Hewald asked no questions in St David’s.’ Hewald was the messenger Thoresby had sent to escort Owen from Wales.

  ‘I chose to return to York, Your Grace,’ Owen managed to say.

  ‘Indeed. And that is the end of it, eh?’

  Owen disliked the pleasant tone in Thoresby’s voice, the gleam in his eyes. He would use the secret someday, Owen was sure of it.

  ‘I should demand some public penance for your brutal attack on a man of the Church,’ Thoresby noted as he began to fuss with the documents on the table beside him.

  Ah, now he strikes. Owen was almost relieved.

  ‘But I cannot bring myself to add to your family’s grief. You may go.’

  Owen sat for a moment, uncertain what to say. He’d be damned if he was going to thank the archbishop, but with the knowledge of his treason in the man’s hands he would be a fool to cross him.

  Thoresby glanced up with a chilly smile. ‘You are free to go, Archer. Go in peace.’

  Still braced for attack, Owen rose with stiff dignity and bowed to the archbishop, who had already lowered his eyes. ‘Your Grace,’ he murmured, and withdrew.

  As he crossed the archbishop’s hall, eager to put distance between himself and the archbishop, he noticed Brother Michaelo standing just beyond the doorway to the porch. Changing direction, Owen escaped through the kitchen. Maeve bid him good-day, humming as she bent back to her work, all trace of Poins’s sojourn already erased from her realm. It seemed to Owen a kind of sacrilege that the man’s terrible suffering left no scar on the room.

  But not all was as before. The Fitzbaldrics had found a house not so large nor so well situated as the bishop’s, but they had decided not to spend all their time in York. Their house outside Hull beckoned and they intended to go there for a long retreat after settling into the new townhouse. Magda’s herbs had improved May’s sight, but could not restore it completely. Nor could she promise that it would not fail again. Adeline Fitzbaldric decided that May might best be employed as the housekeeper in the country house, instructing the servants beneath her in maintaining the house in her mistress’s absence.

  But they would not need to find work for Poins. On the evening of the day on which Wykeham and Lady Pagnell made their peace, Poins had asked Magda if someone might help him into the garden.

  ‘It has drizzled all the day,’ Magda said, ‘and thou wilt find the ground cold on thy feet.’ He could not yet wear shoes for the open sores from blisters.

  ‘Cold is what I want,’ Poins said. ‘And to look up at the stars.’

  Seeing the yearning in the fading eyes, Magda sent for Bolton. Between the two of them, Poins hobbled out into the kitchen yard. His breath was ragged and he shook with the effort and the pain, but Poins lifted his head to the sky and stared long at the stars, the treetops, the night garden. Then he declared it enough, he was ready for his bed.

  It was no surprise to Magda when during the night his tortured breath quieted, then ceased. She thought it a kindness that May would be taken away from York soon. There were too many sad memories for her here.

  On the evening after Wykeham departed Lucie and Owen retired early. The weather had turned sharply cold and they had warmed their stomachs with spiced wine as they mulled over the events of the past week. Lucie was glad that Thoresby had not burdened Owen with a penance that might encourage him to brood about his beating of Guy. Although she knew it a sin, which itself would earn a penance from her confessor, she could not help but be grimly satisfied that Owen had beaten Cisotta’s murderer.

  ‘And to think that he knew her.’

  ‘Aye. And knew she could identify him. But when had they met before? Why will he not say?’

  ‘I have wondered whether Cisotta would have died had she been a stranger to him.’

  They fell silent, listening to the shutters rattling, a branch skittering along the roof.

  Owen noticed Lucie biting her lip. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have yet to apologize to Emma for lying about the gloves.’

  He laughed to hear it, her worry so wonderfully ordinary.

  ‘I feel such a liar,’ she protested.

  ‘I doubt Emma would care, my love. Her household is at peace and you helped make it so.’

  ‘It was only a partial lie. I do have a pair of my mother’s gloves in my trunk, delicate work, for hands smaller than mine. I should love to have a pair like them.’

  ‘Would you? Is Emma’s love of finery having an influence on you?’

  ‘All has been so bleak of late I should welcome some lovely things round me. It is the end of the season for the garden.’

  Owen turned to her. ‘You deserve fine clothes. You still make men trip on their tongues and say foolish things when you smile on them. And you a mother of two.’

  ‘Four, my love. Let us never forget Martin and the child we have just lost.’

  Owen crossed himself and she saw in his face the fear that she would draw away from him now, as she had done so many nights since their loss.

  ‘But let us return to your compliment.’ She touched his beard, his cheek. ‘You want something.’

  ‘Aye,’ he murmured into her hair as he gently pulled her towards him. ‘I want you back.’

  Lucie arched her body and pressed herself against him, from shoulders to toes, and felt a stirring that had long been dormant.

  In the early hours of the morning Owen woke to find Lucie’s side of the bed empty. He turned up the lamp beside the bed. She stood at the window wrapped in one of her cloaks. He went to her.

  ‘You would not go out?’

  ‘No, no.’ She turned from him, but he had already seen her tears.

  ‘You fell asleep content, I thought.’

  ‘I did. But I woke frightened. God has lifted the darkness, He has lifted my heart from despair. But for a day, a week?’

  Owen gathered her to him and held her, whispering his love. It was all he knew to do.

  EPILOGUE

  What had been a golden autumn had shifted into days and nights of gusty winds and drizzle that felt like needles on the face after sunset. Thoresby had the servants keep the braziers in his chamber and parlour alight from early morning until he retired. At his age he dreaded the shock of cold bedding. But he was free of Wykeham at last and tomorrow he would ride to Bishopthorpe, casting off all the cares his sojourn in York had brought. One of his last tasks was to spend a few hours in communion with his old friend, Sir Ranulf. It was noon on a market day and the minster nave was peopled with country folk gawking up at the soaring transepts as they prayed. He kept well in the shadows as he skirted the worshippers and slipped into the Pagnell chapel. But the murmur of prayer disappointed him. He had hoped to be alone here. While he hesitated, considering a later visitation, the figure kneeling before the tomb moved, the veiled head turned. It was Emma Ferriby, dressed in a plain white wimple, dark veil and gown. Her ivory rosary beads were her only ornament. She bowed her head to him, then returned to her prayers.

  Thoresby knelt beside her and fell to ruminating on Sir Ranulf’s depar
ture, trying to see again the expressions that had moved across the old knight’s face during the ceremony that had blessed him on his way, wishing he might understand in those memories what had gone wrong, and whether his friend had been prepared to suffer and die for his king. He remembered pride, humour and an abiding peace that affected everyone that day, cheering even Lady Pagnell and Emma. He prayed that his friend had been able to call up that peace in his last days, that he had felt it a good death, an honourable passing, and that he looked down from heaven now and smiled to see the cross-legged knight he had become in death.

  Fighting tears, Thoresby rose to leave Emma in peace. But she rose also, genuflected, crossed herself with her beads and was following him out when she paused, touched the altar cloth, traced the outline of a crusader knight on the end.

  ‘I want to thank you for making the reconciliation possible between Mother and Bishop William,’ Emma said. ‘She is at last able to mourn Father.’

  ‘I am glad of it. And, I confess, grateful to have the bishop gone from York.’ He held out an arm for her. She slipped her hand through it.

  Out on the minster steps they paused.

  ‘Then it is true you are headed for Bishopthorpe?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Tomorrow, God willing.’

  They stood for a moment on the steps of the minster, a swirling mist beading her veil.

  ‘What is to become of your mother’s steward?’ Thoresby enquired.

  ‘Mother has no more need of him, nor would she have him if she did. But to my amazement my brother Stephen is considering engaging him, weighing Matthew’s knowledge of the estate against his poor judgement.’

  ‘I do not wonder at your amazement. Pray God Stephen does not regret his decision.’

  They lapsed again into a companionable silence.

  Then Thoresby asked, ‘How is your intractable son?’

  Emma turned to him with a smile and he saw pride in her eyes. ‘John’s wounds are healing well. He speaks as if his grandfather has at last succeeded in teaching him the lesson he had so often tried to teach him in life. Foolhardiness is not the same as courage. To chase after trouble is not the way of a knight.’