A Conspiracy of Wolves

by Candace Robb

  ‘I believe they were the first.’ He told them about the mastiffs, the bones.

  ‘Burnt the hounds?’ Alfred whistled. ‘Why?’

  ‘A clever choice if they wanted to use the dogs in these attacks. The bones might be those of any animals. Who will look so closely? It was enough to make Paul call off the search. My guess is Galbot slipped them away to his brother.’

  ‘Galbot’s in this? He’s Roger’s brother?’

  ‘I believe so. Or some relation. He pretended to search, then set up the bones to end it.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Stephen.

  ‘And Tempest? He slit his throat as well?’ asked Alfred.

  ‘That’s my thought. I’ve much to tell you. When you’ve seen to Hempe, come to my house. Brother Michaelo might have more for us.’

  Lucie greeted him at the door, finger to lips, and slipped back outside with him. ‘Jasper was talking to Alisoun, apologizing for his behavior, when she began to sob and— What you need to know now is that she is convinced Wren prevented her from going to Hoban’s aid the night he was murdered.’

  ‘Wren? So she was part of this.’

  ‘Alisoun believes so,’ said Lucie. ‘She will tell you the whole story when she’s able. And something about Joss – that he’d been watching the Poole home. But as it was Wren who mentioned it to Alisoun this morning, I do not understand her purpose. He watched for his own reasons? Or perhaps she meant to betray him? But why mention it to Alisoun?’

  ‘Difficult to hide Joss’s wart?’ Owen suggested. ‘So they might distance themselves from him for that reason. God’s blood, Lucie, I am grasping at the merest hint.’ Owen leaned his head against the house, trying to steady his thoughts. He told her what he’d heard at the Braithwaite house, and what he’d done to John Braithwaite.

  Lucie stroked his cheek, kissed his forehead. ‘You say he was not slurring his words, but it still might have more to do with rich food and much wine today. Or that he has harbored doubts all this while. They sent for Master Saurian? Good. He is in the city.’ She smiled and kissed him again. ‘We will hear all about it in the morning, no doubt.’

  ‘Did Michaelo bring word of Muriel?’

  ‘Dame Janet told Dame Muriel’s maidservant her mistress needs rest, the day was difficult and her mistress found it hard to let the other women take charge. Jasper delivered something to help her sleep tonight, and a blood-strengthening drink for morning.’ She rubbed his back. ‘For you I prescribe food and rest.’

  Owen wrapped his arms round her and held her for a moment. ‘You are my solace.’ He kissed her. ‘How is Alisoun?’

  ‘Jasper was right. This move was good for her. Come and see. One more thing. She is not certain what attacked Dame Euphemia – a wolf, a hound – her attention was on Roger, but she said when it knocked her over she felt confused by it.’

  ‘As do all who see it. Perhaps Euphemia is right. A blind woman is not so confused by a hide. How did Magda respond to that?’

  ‘As if it were to be expected. You smile? So did I.’ Lucie touched his cheek. ‘Jasper sat with Alisoun for a long while, but has now returned to the shop to prepare for early customers – there will be much gossip about the events of the day, and folk will hope to hear it from us.’

  Stepping across the threshold, Owen felt hopeful. On a small bed by the fire, Alisoun leaned back against a stack of pillows as she listened to Gwenllian and Hugh telling a story with much gesturing. Magda sat at the table holding Kate’s hand, no doubt telling her about her sister’s ordeal, the lost twins. Geoffrey slumped down over a cup, apparently sleeping – wine, no doubt, one cup too many. Brother Michaelo sat bolt upright near the fire, his face turned toward Owen, clearly waiting to tell him something.

  ‘Food first, I pray you. And a moment of quiet. Sit, be at ease, I will join you when I am refreshed.’ Owen headed to the kitchen, where he might eat in peace.

  But the walls were not so thick that he could not hear the arrival of Hempe, Alfred, and Stephen, all talking at once. Let them settle. When he was captain of archers, he would often call his men together, then excuse himself to fetch something forgotten while they greeted one another and moved through their usual insults and challenges. By the time he returned they were present and ready to listen. So long ago now. It had been a long while since he had heard of any of his former comrades.

  While he ate, he walked through the day – it seemed an eternity – reviewing the events and the knowledge he’d gleaned. That all this began twenty years earlier – was that possible?

  A quiet knock on the door. He guessed it to be Michaelo and called to him to step inside.

  ‘Forgive me, but I find it difficult to pray in there. The children’s voices, so shrill …’

  ‘I have kept you from all your other tasks long enough. My wife told me about Muriel. What else did you learn?’

  In a marvel of conciseness, Michaelo painted in sharper lines what Owen had begun to suspect. Joss had joined Bartolf’s household a few years earlier, and Cilla had begun to do small chores for Bartolf shortly after that, coming with increasing regularity about a year later. Wren had not been long with the Tirwhits. Combined with what Owen had learned about Galbot, it looked as if they were a group.

  ‘The one who still puzzles me is Paul Braithwaite,’ said Owen. ‘Geoffrey said that he looked as if he might collapse when he heard the news of the attack at Poole’s.’

  ‘But he was the least affected by all this. One dead dog.’

  Owen told him about the others. ‘And the dogs seem to be everything to him. Losing three. Even if I’m right about the burnt bones, he believes they’re gone.’

  ‘You are thinking that Roger and Galbot, perhaps both Warin’s sons, plotted this revenge? But what about Gerta? Had she any family left?’ Michaelo asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Josh? Cilla?’ Owen rubbed the scar beneath his patch. ‘Or is she Warin’s daughter?’

  ‘How are the hounds moving through the city unseen?’

  ‘How indeed?’ Owen was not ready to claim there were no dogs in the city, only a woman dressed as one. ‘Hempe or I would hear about it. Since the murders of Hoban and Bartolf, folk are on the watch. After Old Bede’s flight I wondered whether they might be going by boat, but they’d still need to move through the city streets to reach the river. Speaking of Old Bede, I want him to see Roger’s body, find out whether he’s the man who threatened him.’

  ‘Send your would-be warriors Alfred and Stephen?’ Michaelo suggested. ‘They might sleep there, return with him on the morrow.’

  Owen agreed. ‘He’s not been troubled at Magda’s house since an initial try. It’s as if they’ve forgotten him.’ He rubbed his head. ‘In the morning, I will go back, try to learn more about Galbot. By then Paul Braithwaite should have a clearer head.’

  Michaelo rose. ‘I will leave you to speak with the others, and then get some rest. You and Mistress Alisoun will be in my prayers.’

  A fresh wind stirred the autumn leaves, sending up a rich scent of damp, turned earth mixed with the powdery scent of leaf mold. There was a sharpness to the breeze, a sign of autumn catching hold. Owen and Magda sat on a bench far back in the garden, near the grave of Lucie’s first husband, Nicholas.

  ‘Her life was quieter then.’

  ‘Clear thy mind, Bird-eye. Be at peace for a while.’

  He tried, turning his attention to the sounds of the night garden, animals on the prowl down below, a cat slinking along the top of the wall, a great winged creature swooping down, the cry of its prey, the draft from its wings as it flew away over Nicholas Wilton’s grave.

  ‘What am I not seeing?’

  ‘Be at ease. Thou art close to understanding.’

  He did not believe it.

  ‘Tell Magda what thou hast heard, observed. Spin the pieces out onto the night winds. In the morning thou canst collect them, after a dreamless sleep.’

  He doubted he would sleep at all, anticipating a night fighting with the ord
er of things, weighing the possibilities. But Magda was here, and willing to listen, and so he told her everything that had happened, all that had been revealed, doing his best to recount it in order without too much repetition. She gave him her full attention, staring into his eye, all the while so still he could not even hear her breath. When he was finished, she turned away, gazing out on the garden.

  ‘How did you know that Cilla, or some woman, was the beast folk see in the city?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah. So that is the answer to the riddle.’

  He waited for more, for at least a chuckle. When he could no longer bear her silence, he asked, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘For the children of Warin to carry such hate for so long …’ Magda bowed her head for a moment, then turned to Owen, her gown flickering in the moonlight, as if her power wrapped round her as she moved.

  Owen had been so keen on discovery he’d not stopped to think of the pain motivating the tale as he saw it. If his theory was correct, Warin’s children meant for the Swanns, the Braithwaites, and the Pooles to experience as much pain as they’d suffered. ‘What about Gerta’s family?’ Owen asked. ‘Do you remember Gerta, the charcoal-burner’s daughter?’

  ‘Hard workers far from home. Two children they had, a boy and the girl. The lad was content to learn his parents’ art – for it takes skill and practice, building the frame for the fire, gathering the correct wood, tending the burning so that it is slow but does not burn out.’

  ‘But Gerta?’

  ‘Pretty Gerta hungered for a man who would adore her and take her away. But who would desire a lass who stank of the burning and was coated in ash and soot? She begged Warin and his wife Mary to take her in, let her be Cecelia’s sister.’

  ‘Cecelia,’ Owen felt a chill. ‘Cilla?’

  ‘Mayhap. She was a wild one, dressing like her brothers, fleet-footed and strong, scrambling and climbing, watching the birds and beasts, learning their calls. All three were children of the forest and the river, at ease anywhere, ever following Magda while she harvested herbs, roots, and bark, seeking to learn all they might.’

  It sounded like the woman. ‘Were you here at the time of Gerta’s death?’

  ‘Nay. It was flood time, when Magda tucks her belongings in the rafters and goes up on the moors, tending those too far to come to her. By the time Magda returned, the families were gone, fled when Warin was hanged.’ She was quiet again. And then, softly she said, ‘Hard times scatter families. Like wolves, together when the hunting is good, scattering when prey is scarce. Yet these came together a score of years later?’ A grunt.

  Wolves had not the leisure to spend their days plotting revenge. They needed to hunt to fill their bellies each day. But men … ‘Had it been my da who’d taken in a young woman as his own and then been wrongly executed for her murder I might sit round the fire with my brothers and sisters plotting a way to punish the privileged pups and authorities who’d murdered him.’

  ‘Mayhap thou hast more insight into such passion than does Magda. Prince Edward must think so, to trust thee to protect his family from the Northern barons.’

  ‘I’d not thought of it in that light.’ But he suddenly saw it as she did. ‘Protecting the privileged pups.’

  Magda chuckled, but then turned to Owen, taking his hand. ‘Such trust is an honor, if thou dost consider the royal kin honorable folk. Do not make thy decision based only on what thou thinkest of the prince.’

  Owen felt the tingling in the center of his forehead. Would he ever understand her power? Did he wish to?

  ‘If I ponder that I will never sleep this night,’ he said.

  ‘Magda digressed. Thou hast more immediate concerns.’

  He returned to what she’d told him of Warin, Gerta, and their families. ‘But who then are Joss and Wren?’

  ‘This is how Bird-eye catches murderers? Shaping a tale out of scraps?’

  Is that what he did? Surely it was more than that?

  ‘Might Joss be Gerta’s brother?’ he asked.

  ‘The lad was ever covered in soot and ash, Magda would not know him now. But he was gentle like Joss. And when Joss came to Magda for the juniper he seemed perhaps familiar.’

  ‘Juniper?’

  ‘To remove the wart, he claimed. He asked for savine, in particular, that juniper. Magda offered houseleek instead. He cursed her and left.’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘Desperate. Magda thought he meant to kill himself. Oil of savine is a potent poison.’

  Owen knew of it. ‘You did not try to comfort him?’

  ‘Magda does not presume.’

  FOURTEEN

  Into the Flames

  As Honoria de Staines slid beneath her bedcovers a few hours before dawn she prayed that God would look past her many sins this night and bless her sincere intention to save a young woman’s life. Though this was her usual hour to rest, the guests having departed, stumbling home to their cold beds, and the women of the house sleeping off their long evening, this had been no ordinary night, and she lay with her eyes open, listening for intruders.

  Early in the evening she had agreed to shelter the young woman before hearing her tale, moved by her appearance and the terror in her swollen eyes. By the time Honoria understood the danger in which she’d placed all the women who depended on her for their safety it was too late to toss young Wren back out on the streets; she’d made the young woman’s safety her mission.

  In danger, wanting to hide. Honoria had taken Wren to the storeroom off the kitchen, kept reasonably warm by its proximity to the hearth and oven. A pallet and blankets were ever ready there for women, often just girls, who needed a place off the street.

  ‘Who beat you?’

  ‘My da. One of my uncles is dead because of me.’

  Her uncles. Honoria remembered how Wren’s mother had bolted the very day her brothers had paid a visit, leaving her child behind. ‘I cannot promise to keep the little one safe,’ she’d said. ‘Find her a place in a good home.’ When Honoria asked whether Wren’s father might care for her, at least take her in as a maidservant, she’d laughed. ‘You think he is a wealthy customer? He’s with my brothers, as cursed as the three of us.’

  ‘No one will bother you here tonight,’ Honoria had told Wren. ‘No one in this household.’

  ‘You don’t want to know what I did?’

  ‘Are you likely to kill another?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him, Mistress Alisoun did. But she was there because of me. And Da saw me talking with her.’

  Had it been earlier, Honoria would have taken her to Captain Archer. Wren had information he needed. But it had been her busiest time of the evening. She must see to clients. Now, lying in bed, she was alert to every creak and sigh as the house settled into a predawn calm, and cursed herself for not taking Wren to the captain.

  Enough. She rose, dressed, went to the kitchen to fetch the bailiff’s man she’d bribed to sleep there, guarding Wren. She’d offered him a free tumble with the woman of his choice if he would stay, explaining the situation. A youth eager to prove his mettle, he’d readily agreed.

  ‘We’re taking her to Captain Archer.’

  The young man was bleary-eyed. ‘Is it morning already?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘He will not be pleased if we wake the family.’

  ‘Until he knows who it is we bring before him.’

  In the pale gray before dawn Owen woke to pounding on the street door. He stared out the unshuttered window and vowed to remember to close it from now on. There was an autumn chill in the air.

  Lucie groaned. ‘So early.’

  Striding across the room, Owen glared down from the window at the trio standing before the door, one of them about to pound again.

  ‘Don’t you dare.’

  The man started, then backed up to see who was there. ‘It’s Corm, Captain. Bailiffs’ man. Trouble in the Bedern.’

  Two cloaked figures stood behind him.

  ‘I am coming.’<
br />
  Lucie sat up now, her hair tumbled about her bare shoulders.

  Owen kissed her. ‘One of Hempe’s young men.’

  ‘I heard.’

  Dressing as he headed to the door, Owen was opening it when something hit him in the shoulder. His eye patch.

  Lucie smiled. ‘You don’t want to frighten them.’

  ‘He deserves it.’ Hurrying down in his bare feet, Owen nodded to Magda, who stood at the bottom of the steps. ‘Trouble in the Bedern.’

  ‘Trust thyself, Bird-eye.’

  The cloaked figures preceded Corm through the door, the taller one throwing back her hood.

  ‘Honoria.’ Even at such an hour, she had a grace to her.

  ‘I have someone you will want to talk to. I warn you, in the night she painted herself. But though she looks it, she is not the king’s fool, I assure you. Might we sit down? I have a tale to tell.’

  Painted herself? Owen took them into the kitchen so as not to disturb Alisoun and Magda in the hall. Kate was already stoking the fire. As they settled round a table, the smaller figure pulled back her hood. He thought she looked more like a cat than a fool, the skin round her eyes darkened with face paint that arched upward toward her temples. Her nose was painted a pale brown. It was one way to disguise blackened eyes and a swollen nose.

  ‘And you are?’ Owen asked.

  ‘Wren, sir.’

  ‘Adam Tirwhit’s maidservant,’ said Honoria. ‘But she was born in the brothel, before I owned it. Cilla is her mother, father unknown until last night, when Wren pronounced him to be Joss, who had found her and beaten her for betraying her uncles.’

  ‘Let me guess. Roger and Galbot?’

  ‘Yes. He blamed her for Roger’s death, and that because of her Euphemia Poole had escaped serious injury and her home is now too well guarded for them to remedy that. So today they intend to deal with Gerta’s murderer, then return for Euphemia after Crispin Poole lets down his guard.’

  Owen took a moment to digest this. So many pieces of the puzzle, yet the most important— ‘Gerta’s murderer. Did she say who that was?’

  Honoria’s raised brows expressed her surprise. ‘You know this Gerta? I was at a loss.’