A Vigil of Spies (Owen Archer Book 10)

by Candace Robb

  ‘Good,’ said Thoresby. ‘We shall tell Lambert when we see him later.’

  Without hesitation Owen shook his head.

  ‘We should not tell him?’ Thoresby seemed to perk up even more. No matter how ill he was, he did not like to be contradicted.

  ‘I advise keeping this to ourselves,’ said Owen. ‘I would rather the company knew nothing of this until I have something to tell them.’

  ‘I’ll consider this.’ Thoresby looked and sounded annoyed.

  Owen wished he might insist that it be kept from the visitors, but, of course, he could not, having no right to do so. But he could plant seeds of doubt. ‘As for Lambert, there is always the possibility – though it might seem unlikely at present – that he is guilty.’

  Thoresby began to cough and Ravenser leaned over with a cup of something – Owen guessed honeyed water.

  ‘Uncle?’ Ravenser straightened with a surprised expression that softened into a bemused smile. ‘He’s laughing,’ he said to Owen.

  ‘The pretty Dom Lambert arranging for his servant to fall off his horse,’ Thoresby gasped.

  Ravenser grinned. ‘It does paint an improbable picture.’ He grew more serious. ‘But what if he asks for his servant’s possessions?’

  ‘With all the guests and extra staff, it is difficult to find anything at present. Make that excuse until we are at ease with telling him what we did with them or a messenger returns them.’

  Ravenser nodded, looking relieved.

  Owen was, for the most part, gratified that Thoresby and Ravenser seemed comfortable with his suggestion. He excused himself to write a message to Lucie, and afterwards departed.

  A low stone wall warmed by a hot sun, lavender spears moving in a breeze so subtle he would not be aware of it were it not for the bobbing of the bloom-laden stalks. Thoresby fought to remain in the memory of his garden in York, but someone kept calling to him.

  ‘God’s blood, what do you want?’ he growled, opening his eyes to a stranger with very blond nose hairs. He’d never seen such fair nose hair. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Master Walter of Lincoln,’ the man said.

  Dear God, the physician. Thoresby groaned. He’d insulted the man whom the princess had brought as a gift. ‘Forgive me. I was in such a pleasant dream of summer.’

  Walter moved far enough away for Thoresby to see more of his face. He was a man of middle years, though his small stature gave him a boyish air.

  ‘I am sorry to have interrupted your dream, Your Grace.’ Walter’s smile was intended to look kind, but it was the unpleasant kindness of someone who believes he’s dealing with an idiot. ‘I have come to examine you.’

  ‘I know your purpose in coming to Bishopthorpe.’ Thoresby wanted the man to know he knew where he was. ‘The Princess of Wales believes you might heal me, though I’ve never heard of a cure for old age.’ He was sorry for that last snipe the moment he uttered it. There was no need to spoon-feed the physician an excuse to neglect his duty. ‘I did not mean to sound so ungracious,’ he added. ‘I am yours to command.’

  It was a tedious experience, though not as physically uncomfortable as some of Magda Digby’s probing. Master Walter did not pry Thoresby’s eyelids quite so wide as she had, nor did he scrape his tongue or press in as many tender areas. The physician seemed to consider his astrological charts as more likely to know what ailed Thoresby than his body might, though Walter did exhibit some fascination with a flask of archiepiscopal urine, studying it, sniffing it, swirling it about. Thoresby thought the physician’s pale hair, including eyebrows, eyelashes, and apparently facial hair, made him look oddly infantile. That and his unusually small frame. His appearance did not inspire confidence.

  ‘Your Grace, you need only say so and I’ll banish him from the chamber,’ Brother Michaelo whispered while Walter was far from the bed.

  ‘He means me no harm,’ said Thoresby. Michaelo’s obvious discomfort amused him for a while. But gradually his efforts to breathe quietly so as not to alarm the physician made his head pound and Thoresby wished he might nap.

  ‘Is it true you’ve been cared for by a pagan midwife?’ Master Walter asked at one point, as he was sniffing Thoresby’s mouth once more.

  Of course it was impossible for him to speak at that moment, so he ignored the question.

  When Walter sat down to consider his charts once more, he said, ‘You do not wish to comment on the rumour of the midwife, Your Grace?’

  Impertinent little man. ‘I could not while your nose was in my mouth. Pagan? I suppose she is. Midwife? She is that, but much more.’

  ‘Might I ask why you would choose such a woman to attend you?’

  ‘I doubt there’s a soul in York without a story of her remarkable skill as a healer. I myself witnessed her faultless care of a badly burned man.’

  ‘He is alive?’

  ‘No. But his passing was peaceful, for she had made it so.’

  Walter sniffed and grew quiet. Thoresby wished he had the breath to tell Master Walter of Magda’s soothing compresses and tisanes, how her mere presence calmed his feverish thoughts. But he did not. He allowed his eyes to flutter shut, and searched for the warm summer garden, the drowsy drone of the bees.

  ‘Your Grace?’

  The infernal Walter again, he of the blond nasal hair.

  ‘I am here.’

  With much hesitation and astrological nonsense, Master Walter declared Thoresby beyond the turning point, facing imminent death. ‘It is a matter of easing your passing with prayer and pleasant surroundings,’ he concluded.

  This sentence was no surprise to Thoresby. Though he managed to rally for stretches of time almost every day, he felt closer to death each time the weakness returned. ‘It is a pity that you wasted your time.’

  ‘I do not consider it a waste, Your Grace.’

  ‘You are kind. I beseech you, rest now, enjoy your time in my home. You need not hover about my chamber. I shall send for Dame Magda,’ said Thoresby. ‘Michaelo? Did you hear?’

  Michaelo bent to him. ‘I did, Your Grace. I have a messenger waiting for the word to depart. The bargeman awaits him.’

  ‘You would bring back the pagan?’ asked Master Walter, in a voice sharp with disbelief. ‘The sisters will be ill at ease with her.’

  ‘Then the sisters may return to their cells,’ growled Thoresby. ‘I did not ask for them. Michaelo, send for Dame Magda and her apprentice.’

  With an impatient sniff – the man must exhaust those pale nose hairs – Master Walter began to gather his things.

  ‘What killed the servant?’ Thoresby asked.

  Master Walter glanced up with a frown. ‘Your Grace?’

  ‘His Grace is concerned about Dom Lambert’s servant,’ said Michaelo. ‘He wishes to know what you think caused the man’s death.’

  Thoresby nodded his thanks. He would expend no more energy on speaking with the physician.

  ‘He fell off his horse, Your Grace,’ said Master Walter.

  Thoresby shook his head at Michaelo and gestured for more.

  ‘We know that, Master Walter. But was his neck broken? His back? Did he hit his head?’

  ‘I believe his neck broke,’ said Master Walter. ‘But it matters little to him.’

  ‘It will matter to Wykeham,’ Thoresby breathed.

  ‘He made it so far, and then fell off his horse,’ said Michaelo. ‘Did someone arrange it? Did someone wish to deprive Dom Lambert of his guard?’

  ‘Guard?’ Master Walter shook his head. ‘He was but a servant.’

  Michaelo opened his mouth, but Thoresby shook his head. The physician was clearly disinterested in the death, and uninformed.

  ‘I shall rest until the Princess of Wales arrives,’ Thoresby said, closing his eyes.

  Not so long ago, Thoresby would have felt as did the physician – that a servant’s death was of no consequence – but not this particular servant’s, and not in the circumstances. A member of the princess’s travelling party meetin
g such an ambiguous end – no, he never would have found that of no concern. The physician was a fool.

  With the grace of one brought up to adorn the royal court, Princess Joan approached Thoresby’s great canopied bed in a swirl of pale silk and pearls, flowing into an elegant obeisance, bowing her veiled head to receive his blessing. He drank in a sensual bouquet of roses and spice; as his sense of smell had faded of late, she must be heavily perfumed for him to be able to name the flower. He wondered whether she’d found out about his paltry sense of smell and ensured that she wore enough.

  ‘How do you find the physician?’ Her look was searching, no doubt hoping for approval of her offering.

  It pained Thoresby to disappoint her, but he had vowed to speak no untruth for the time left to him. He had little strength as it was, and he would not waste it on a lie. ‘Master Walter believes me to be beyond his help, my lady.’

  Her grey eyes sparked. ‘Mon Dieu! He said this to you?’

  Thoresby heard the Aquitaine in her speech; it was said she had wept most bitterly to leave Bordeaux and return to England when her husband’s ill-judged campaign in Spain ruined his health and his ability to rule Gascony. Thoresby made so bold as to touch her hand as he smiled his reassurance.

  ‘I saw it in his shoulders, his eyes, my lady.’ He saw no reason to distress her if he could truthfully reassure her. He waited until she calmed a little. ‘I am grateful for your concern. Touched by it, and honoured. But, I assure you, I have made my peace with my Lord and Saviour. Death holds no terror for me. I do not fear it.’

  But Princess Joan was not a friend of death. ‘I cannot believe there is nothing he might do.’ In her sorrowful expression, Thoresby saw that she was at war with Death – no doubt because of her husband’s failing health.

  ‘Be at peace, I pray you, my lady,’ said Thoresby. ‘I would rather learn in what way I might be of some assistance or comfort to you.’

  She sighed and delicately perched on the chair a servant had placed beside the bed. The whisper of her silken garments delighted Thoresby, the sound imparting a beauty to the moment. In her lovely blue-grey eyes he saw the weight of her position in the realm, and the sorrow she bore about her husband’s illness. God had not been kind to Joan and Edward.

  ‘Sweet lady, I would clear the sorrow from your brow.’ Because he was an old, dying man, he could say such things to a princess.

  She honoured him with one of the saddest smiles he’d ever seen. ‘Your Grace, I fear for my family. I fear—’ she bowed her head. He thought of swans bending to their young. In a moment she faced him again with those pained, sad, beautiful eyes. ‘You know how I lost my father.’ It was little more than a whisper. ‘You know how my father, Edmund, the Earl of Kent, was cut down by Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer.’

  ‘What is this? Such an old sorrow eats at your heart?’ asked Thoresby.

  Joan’s father, Edmund of Woodstock, had been the half-brother of Edward of Caernarfon, the former king and father of the present king. Edward of Caernarfon had been deposed by his wife, Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer, and was rumoured to have died in captivity. But Joan’s father had been convinced that his elder half-brother was alive, and he had won powerful backing for a plan to rescue Edward. Thoresby had been a young man at the time and had been surprised by the support the Earl of Kent had gathered, for he’d had a reputation as a young man quick to excite but also quick to lose interest. Indeed, some had considered him a poor risk, as he’d initially supported Isabella. From his present vantage point, Thoresby understood that brotherly love had overcome all else, and that, whatever Edmund’s reputation, what he’d professed had been more than plausible to those courageous enough to stand up against Mortimer and Isabella. In any case, Edmund had been brought before Mortimer and condemned without the trial appropriate to a peer of the realm, then executed by a convicted criminal – the only man willing to risk his soul to do the chore in exchange for a pardon.

  ‘This is my fear, Your Grace,’ said Joan, her voice stronger, but still breathy, as if afraid to speak her fear too loudly. ‘My Edward, my beloved husband, suffers so because of the sins of his grandmother – scheming against the anointed king, betraying her marriage vows with Roger Mortimer, and finally plotting her husband’s murder. I fear that our son, Edward, died before his time for the same sins. I fear we are cursed, Your Grace. I have come seeking your counsel as to what we might do to make reparations. How can I save my family, Your Grace?’

  The emotion in her voice, how it tightened on the last question – this broke Thoresby’s heart. These were heavy cares, too heavy for anything but a well-considered reply. He would not insult Joan with empty reassurance. ‘I had not considered such a curse, my lady.’

  ‘His grandmother, the queen, committed a great sin,’ Joan whispered. ‘And the precedent she set – an anointed king brought down by his consort and her lover—’ She broke off, dabbed at her eyes with a heavily scented cloth. ‘Who is to protect our surviving son, Richard, if my husband dies betimes?’

  ‘This is why you have come? To ask whether I believe God would judge your family in such light?’ asked Thoresby. ‘To receive a penance that might release you?’

  ‘Mon Dieu, I sound so selfish.’

  Her blush was not so becoming as it had been in her youth, but Thoresby found it endearing. ‘I must pray over this, my lady.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Grace.’ Now she looked uncomfortable, fidgeting on the chair. ‘But there is more, Your Grace. And now, having already embarrassed myself, I am hesitant to continue.’

  ‘You may speak your heart to me.’

  She fussed with the hanging end of her jewelled girdle, smoothing a coil of gold thread. ‘I am concerned about your successor,’ she began, speaking softly, keeping her eyes on the thread. ‘Our brother Lancaster wants Alexander Neville to bear the crosier of York, as does the pope. They are of like minds in this.’ Now she looked into his eyes. ‘But I am afraid, Your Grace. You know of the rumours concerning the ambitions of my brother-in-law. Perhaps the Nevilles are merely his pawns? Alexander’s eldest brother, John, is not only steward of the king’s household but holds a lifetime retainer in Lancaster’s household as well. I fear—I cannot tell whether they will allow one of theirs to serve my Edward – or our son Richard – faithfully.’

  ‘Alexander Neville.’ Thoresby closed his eyes, feeling suddenly too weary to speak. ‘I would not choose him to succeed me. When he fought for the Archdeaconry of Cornwall, he seemed to me arrogant and Godless.’ The king had ordered Thoresby to arbitrate in the contentious situation. Neville had done nothing to deserve any of his positions, preferring to lurk around the pope in Avignon rather than to hone his skills as a priest and prove himself a man of God. Much of his earlier preferment had been transferred to him on the death of his twin brother, who had been a much more deserving man. ‘I had hoped the rumour that the Duke of Lancaster supports the pope’s nomination was in error.’ He realised that he had not addressed her concern. ‘But I cannot believe the duke would prove disloyal to Prince Edward, his own brother.’

  ‘I pray that you are right, Your Grace.’

  So did Thoresby. ‘I grieve that such concerns weigh on your mind, my lady. The death of a member of your company must also weigh heavily.’

  She blinked and drew her brows together, shaking her head. ‘You speak of the servant? Winchester’s servant?’

  Thoresby nodded.

  Her eyes crinkled into an affectionate smile. ‘Oh, Your Grace, that was just a silly accident. Imagine – riding all this way and then sliding off his horse on the last day of the journey here. They say he rode tilted to one side for a long while, and then just slid off.’ She clapped her hands. ‘I am not in mourning for a servant.’ Her smile faded and her eyes grew serious once more. ‘My worries are for the realm, for the safety of our people.’

  Her response surprised and disappointed him. Where was her heart? And, even if she found it difficult to care about a ser
vant, such a death suggested danger to the company. Indeed, there were many reasons she should care about the servant’s death, but Thoresby chose not to exert his energy to speak them, for Joan was clearly uninterested. He merely nodded.

  ‘I have tired you,’ she whispered, touching his forehead with her scented cloth. ‘I shall await your summons.’

  As Thoresby watched her glide from the room, he felt sad, disappointed by her chilly indifference. Perhaps he was a foolish old man, but he believed in the unconditional and universal compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he cherished the belief that there were living, breathing women of her ilk. He’d thought the Princess of Wales a paragon of compassion and love, that she of all women, married twice for love and so beautiful, would care about the death of a servant and about the safety of her company. He wanted her to be perfect in this. But he’d learned that she was merely human after all.

  Brother Michaelo and Archdeacon Jehannes prayed with him at midday, and then Thoresby napped for a little while.

  ‘Wake me when Dom Lambert comes to see me. I should like to read what Wykeham has sent, and to talk to his emissary.’

  Sleep eluded him, and he tossed so much that Jehannes took a seat by him, his eternally youthful face exuding concern.

  ‘Is something troubling you? Do you need something, Your Grace?’

  Thoresby considered the question. ‘The death of Lambert’s servant is troubling me. I wish to confer with Archer. I want to hear his thoughts on it. On what it might portend.’ He wanted to be reassured that someone saw the potential danger in the incident.

  Jehannes nodded. ‘We shall send for Archer as soon as Dom Lambert has spoken with you. He is here, Your Grace.’

  Thoresby had not heard the door. Michaelo and Jehannes grew skilled in silencing the world for him. Or perhaps what seemed to him sometimes unbearably enhanced senses were truly impaired, and his hearing was not nearly as acute as he believed it to be.

  Jehannes now stepped aside and invited Dom Lambert to approach the bed. Thoresby was again startled by the cleric’s beauty, which he found disconcerting in a plainly dressed cleric. He glanced over at Brother Michaelo, at once sorry for having done so, for the man was staring transfixed by Wykeham’s emissary. Lambert, for his part, looked anxious. Joan had mentioned that it was the young man’s first official mission.