by Candace Robb
All the while Eleanor stared at her cousin Roger, who grew quite plainly uncomfortable beneath her hungry gaze and shifted in his seat so that he might not see her but rather face Thoresby.
When all were settled, Thoresby said, ‘So you designed an accident that took the wrong life, Lady Eleanor, and Dom Lambert’s attempt to rid himself of an uncomfortable mount won your contempt. What, then, did you do?’
Still she stared at Roger as if dumbstruck.
Thoresby glanced at Roger. ‘Why did you not rescue her from herself?’
Roger sputtered some inane excuse that Owen was too impatient to hear.
‘Your Grace,’ Owen interrupted. ‘If it please you, might we hear the full story before picking it apart?’
Ravenser coughed into his hand. Geoffrey wiped his brow; Owen could not recall ever having seen him so ill at ease. Thoresby grunted and nodded to Eleanor. ‘Continue, Lady Eleanor.’
But she was now glaring at Roger. ‘Rescue me? Oh, but he could not do that or his powerful kin might discard him, the penniless cousin.’ Her voice was thick with loathing.
‘Lady Eleanor, thy temper does thee no favours,’ Magda said, with a little frown and shake of her head.
Miraculously, Eleanor dropped her gaze. ‘I beg the pardon of His Grace and this company,’ she said, though there was no remorse in her voice.
Thoresby patted Magda’s hand.
‘Once at Bishopthorpe,’ Eleanor continued in a quieter tone, ‘I convinced Roger that we must finish the task. It was easy to enlist one of your guards to assist me. All I needed was the bait of the Neville affinity.’
Gilbert crossed himself, keeping his eyes averted.
‘So pious now, Gilbert,’ said Eleanor, ‘but you were so helpful then. It was from you that I learned that Brother Michaelo and Dom Lambert had withdrawn to the monk’s small chamber and what that might mean. I’d no knowledge of Brother Michaelo’s past sin.’
With a pained expression, Thoresby glanced towards the door, where Michaelo stood with head bowed.
Now Eleanor also bowed her head.
When the silence dragged on, Owen took over.
‘Lady Eleanor, did you kill Dom Lambert?’
She straightened a little, but her eyes, though turned towards Owen, seemed to be focused far away.
‘You must understand. I can’t bear you to think I had no cause. As your jongleur’s mistress, having no chance to speak my pain.’
Her words momentarily silenced Owen, invoking the woman who had blinded him. But he could not allow himself to be played by her. ‘You are confessing to his murder?’ he asked.
His question seemed to chill her. ‘Once I bore my husband a son, he wished to have no more to do with me. For my part, I was much relieved, for I had no joy of him. He returned to his mistress and I felt free to give myself to—’
‘Eleanor, no!’ Roger said, rising from his chair.
Eleanor grimaced as she turned to him. ‘What a fool I’ve been in my affections. Much joy I’ve had of you.’ She turned to Thoresby, and, with anger strengthening her voice and quieting her tremors, she continued. ‘When my husband learned that Roger was my lover, he beat me and locked me away. Roger was frightened for me and informed his lord, and the family came to my rescue. Indeed, they brought my case to the court of the Bishop of Lincoln, where my husband was ordered to mend his ways. I had been in Princess Joan’s service for a brief time before my marriage, and they arranged for me to rejoin her household to give my husband and me time to think how we might best come together, what it was that caused our disaffection.’ She paused, and, almost too softly to be heard, she said, ‘As if it might be easily mended.’ More loudly, she resumed, ‘From time to time, someone would ask me to find out this or that. Small things. Until this journey. When we learned that the Bishop of Winchester was sending an emissary with our party, I was told that I would be working with Roger, who would be following us at a discreet distance, to steal the documents Dom Lambert carried.’ She turned back to Roger, who had been ordered to resume his seat by Geoffrey. ‘You never loved me. You sold my brooch to cover your expenses.’
‘That is not true! I sold it—’ he caught himself and dropped his eyes.
‘I’ll be well rid of you,’ Eleanor moaned.
‘So it was you and Gilbert who hanged Dom Lambert,’ Owen said to Eleanor.
She gave him a curt nod. She’d separated her hands into angry fists.
‘What of Brother Michaelo?’
‘The fool followed,’ said Eleanor.
‘I take responsibility for that,’ said Gilbert. ‘I hit him and left him there.’
‘But you take no responsibility for the death of Dom Lambert?’ Thoresby asked, in a cold voice. ‘Or for betraying me?’
If Gilbert could have hidden beneath his chair, he would have. He cringed and hugged himself and hung his head so heavily Owen thought his neck might snap.
Yet another knock on the door distracted Owen for a moment – with tragic results. He’d not thought to check Eleanor for a dagger. He was so close to her, but it took a second too long for him to understand her cry of ‘Enough!’, Roger’s shout, Gilbert’s shriek, Ravenser’s ‘No!’
Blood pumped from her stomach onto hands that still clutched the hilt of the dagger and pressed sideways. Agony and terror twisted her face, but no sound came from her open mouth. Owen did not know what to grab – her hands, all of her? It was Roger who knelt before her and quieted her hands, sobbing as he lifted her and took her to the pallet to which Michaelo and Magda guided him.
Jehannes stood just within the doorway. ‘I am come too late,’ he said, staring at the horror of the bloodstained woman.
‘Pray over her, Jehannes. Pray over her,’ Owen whispered. Sinking down onto a bench, he buried his head in his hands and stayed there for a long, long while, at first trying to stop his mind from its futile search for ways he might have saved Eleanor, later merely praying for God’s grace for all of them. He was drawn out of himself by Magda’s warm hands on his shoulders.
‘Thou hast done all in thy power, Bird-eye, and thou hast eased Old Crow’s mind, there should be no more murders here. Speak with Jehannes now. He saw thy wife in York this day. That will comfort thee.’
She handed him a cup of wine.
‘Have you added anything to it?’
She shook her head. ‘Thou hast more to do this day.’
Now he was able to listen to Jehannes’s report that the brooch had been sold in York, and, best of all, that Lucie and all his family were well.
Much later, Owen and Ravenser questioned Roger further. It had been difficult to wrest him from Eleanor’s bedside, and they had to promise him that he could return. It pained Owen to see the noble Sir Lewis kneel in Roger’s place, and, lifting Eleanor’s hand, gently press his lips to the inside of her palm. How many had loved her, he wondered, and she could not trust their love.
They withdrew with Roger to the small chamber that Brother Michaelo had been using. Oblivious to the blood caked on his hands, sleeves, the front of his gown, Roger sat cross-legged on the bed, his eyes staring sightlessly until they convinced him to drink some wine.
‘We will not keep you long, I promise,’ said Owen.
Roger finally focused on Owen and nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘Are the Nevilles responsible for these murders?’ Ravenser asked.
Roger hesitated for only a moment, as if his mind were catching up with the words. ‘No, they had condemned Eleanor for going beyond their orders. They said she had ruined everything by killing Dom Lambert and his servant. They had shifted their sympathy to her husband, saying they now saw he’d had good cause to discipline her. You did not see her with her lip split, her face swollen and discoloured, and so thin. He’d been starving her.’ His voice broke, and he bowed his head for a moment before he continued. ‘I sold the brooch so that we might buy passage across the Channel. But she was so angry and we fought, and I did not have a chance to explain tha
t she was wrong, that I meant to rescue her. I thought I had time. Time.’ He whispered the last word, staring down at his hands. Owen wondered whether he had yet fully realised that it was Eleanor’s blood that stained them.
‘She must have believed that she had time to make amends, to perform penance to save her from eternal damnation,’ said Ravenser. ‘I will ask all in the palace to pray for her, that she has time and grace to make her peace with her Lord before she dies.’
Roger moaned. ‘There are two healers here – what good are they if they cannot save her?’
Owen had seen how certainly Eleanor had ensured injury beyond repair. ‘She does not wish to live, Roger.’ Had he not trapped her into a confession with so many witnesses who could save themselves only by condemning her, would she have managed to escape with Roger, he wondered. Could she have found any joy with two deaths on her conscience?
‘You are certain that the Nevilles had not called for Lambert’s death?’ Ravenser asked.
‘If I could blame them for this tragedy, I would, Sir Richard,’ said Roger. ‘I would. But they had no part in this.’
No part. Owen would not have chosen those words. But he was convinced that the Nevilles had condemned the murders. It was the poison in Eleanor’s heart that had led to this.
‘I should have stopped her. I should have taken her away as soon as she spoke of her fear. I can’t remember now why I did nothing.’ Roger stared at Owen, as if expecting him to say something to comfort him.
‘I have no words of comfort for you,’ Owen said. ‘I feel guilty as well. I should have thought she might have a dagger. I should have seen her reach for it and prevented her from wounding herself.’
‘You will both drive yourselves mad with such self-flagellation,’ said Ravenser. ‘For pity’s sake, accept that a beautiful woman for whom you both cared has been destroyed by her own demons.’ He put a hand on Owen’s shoulder. ‘Come. Let this poor man go to his lady.’ To Roger, he said, ‘I am certain that Princess Joan will let you sit with Lady Eleanor.’ They had moved Eleanor to Joan’s chamber where they could keep her warm by the brazier and away from the draughts and the noise of the hall.
After Roger fled the chamber, Owen asked Ravenser about his earlier comment about John Holand.
‘Twice he has grabbed Alisoun and frightened her. This time she pulled a dagger on him.’ Ravenser sighed. ‘Two daggers drawn in the palace this day by women, one so tragically, one so appropriately. But young Alisoun was frightened beyond anything that wretched man could have imagined. I had forgotten that she’d lost her family to the pestilence, that she’d been out on that farm defending herself for days. Apparently a man had threatened her. It was that memory that Sir John’s aggression brought back to the young woman. Princess Joan comforted her. It did my heart good to see.’
‘I am not so delighted by Princess Joan as you are,’ said Owen, needing to vent some of his frustration. ‘Had she warned us of Lambert’s mission when his servant died, or at least when we discovered the theft of the documents, I might have prevented one death.’
‘Alexander Neville. God rot him. You blame the wrong person, Archer. Curse the devil himself, not those whom he has thrown into confusion. I would not have expected Her Grace to tell us of this until she deemed it the proper time. They are different from us, Archer, the nobles, particularly the family of the king. I learned that when I was part of Queen Philippa’s household.’
‘Of course they are different – they wield the power over all.’
‘Can you possibly imagine the responsibility they carry?’ said Ravenser. ‘The fate of the realm is in their hands. Their choices rule the fates of so many, not just themselves, their families, their friends.’
‘Princess Joan’s marriage to Prince Edward did nothing for the realm, Sir Richard.’
Ravenser grunted. ‘I’ll say no more of that. Young Alisoun would speak with you about Lady Eleanor’s visit to my cousin Clarice. She is with the nuns in the small chamber next to Her Grace.’
They parted in the corridor; Ravenser headed for the hall, Owen for the solar.
Alisoun opened the door to Owen, stepping out and closing it behind her to recount to him Eleanor’s tale.
‘I am so sorry for her,’ said Alisoun, ‘and yet not. I understand her, but what she did righted nothing.’
Owen said little, numbed for the moment by all that had happened. But, at least by the time he left Alisoun and headed for the chapel, he felt he had most of the pieces to the puzzle of the murders. He would pray a while with Gilbert. Thoresby had ordered his execution at dawn – another tragedy to survive. Owen knew it was what any judge would decree – Gilbert had strangled Dom Lambert and then strung him up, and attacked Brother Michaelo and left him in the woods, where he might have died. But it was hard to condemn a man who had been loyal so long. Very hard.
Towards evening, Magda returned to Thoresby’s chamber, and he knew by a heaviness in her that Lady Eleanor was dead.
‘How could she go so quickly,’ he wondered, ‘when an old wretch like me lingers so long?’
‘She wished to die,’ Magda said, ‘and, without the will to heal, the flesh succumbs. Her lover held her close. May he find some peace in that.’
‘Would you have saved her if you could?’ Thoresby asked.
‘Thou shouldst know better than to ask that,’ said Magda. ‘There is no place for pride in healing. She did not wish to live. But thou shouldst know, the poor woman was with child. Barely, but Magda thinks that she knew.’
Thoresby crossed himself. ‘Not her husband’s.’
Magda shook her head. ‘There was no joy in her future. No peace.’
Thoresby lay back against his cushions and said a prayer for the lost soul just released from its earthly form. Perhaps Lady Eleanor repented at the end, perhaps she would eventually rise from her penance and dwell in God’s grace.
They sat quietly, saying little, sipping spiced wine from jewelled mazers, until Brother Michaelo announced Dame Clarice.
Magda patted Thoresby’s hand and rose. ‘Time for a walk beneath the sky for Magda. Embrace thy daughter, Old Crow, make thy peace with her.’
Alisoun had been glad when Dame Clarice asked her to walk with her to His Grace’s chamber. Though she and the two nuns had been shifted back to the small chamber, the sounds of grief over Lady Eleanor’s deathbed and the heavy stench of blood permeated the little room, weighing heavily on all three of them. The memories conjured earlier by Sir John had gnawed at Alisoun, and the sounds of mourning had pulled her even farther into that horrible time, as, one by one, her family succumbed to the pestilence. She had been too young to understand how completely unprotected she would be without her parents, how silent the world could be, how suddenly crowded with threats. When Clarice said she wished to speak with her father, Alisoun had jumped at the chance to escape her memories.
She did not know what to expect when she entered Thoresby’s chamber. She had seen poor Lady Eleanor, had seen the man who had been her lover crumple in despair, had heard that the handsome Gilbert was condemned to death. Such tragedy would surely taint a room, echo and haunt any who walked there for a long while. But the room seemed as peaceful and inviting as it had before. It seemed wrong to Alisoun.
Magda left her seat next to the great bed, where Thoresby sat up, holding a jewelled mazer in his beringed hands. Alisoun had wondered whether his condition would deteriorate with the dramas that had played out around his bed earlier in the day, but, from this distance, he seemed undiminished. Dame Clarice would have a chance to speak with him.
To the nun she said, ‘I shall sit here by the door. Go to him.’
As Clarice walked slowly over to the great bed, Alisoun tried not to watch.
‘I would go to the chapel and pray with Gilbert,’ said Michaelo. ‘Would you stay here until I return?’
‘I would be glad to,’ she said, ‘but have you already forgiven him? After all he’s done?’
‘I will n
ot judge him,’ the monk said, his long face drawn with grief but lacking any sign of anger.
Magda came to Alisoun and kissed her forehead. ‘Thou hast come far, Alisoun, and Magda is proud to call thee her apprentice.’
As Alisoun settled in the chair by the door, her heart felt lighter than it had in a long while. She smiled on the tableau before her, Dame Clarice leaning over the great bed to kiss her father’s hand, and being invited to sit.
Ten
WELCOMES AND FAREWELLS
Thursday Evening Through Monday
WITH SOME TREPIDATION, Thoresby observed the tall nun with the deep-set eyes and his mother’s broad brow as she approached his bed. He was uncertain how he should behave. He had received letters from his daughter Idonea, but he had never met her. His only experience with children was with godchildren, most recently Archer’s young ones, and his wards, who had usually been young men.
Clarice’s steps slowed as she neared, her expression uncertain. Though her pale Cistercian robe and plain wimple suggested a spiritual maturity, her face was unlined and youthful, and Thoresby reminded himself that, to her, he was the powerful Archbishop of York, someone to whom to bow in obeisance, not approach as friend, as kin. How strange that she was flesh of his flesh, yet, until the previous day, he had been unaware of her existence. Not so for her – all her life she had probably wondered about him. So they were both ill at ease.
‘Your Grace,’ she said, hesitating a few steps from the bed. ‘I humbly beg your forgiveness for my trespass.’
‘Come closer,’ he said, holding out his hand.
She stepped forward and bent to kiss his ring. He placed his hand on her head and whispered a blessing.
‘Now sit and talk to me, child.’
She took a seat on the high-backed chair beside him, primly, hands in lap, back straight, eyes on Thoresby’s hands, not his face.
