The Riddle Of St Leonard's: An Owen Archer Mystery

by Candace Robb

  ‘Was no one tending the fire?’

  ‘Warrene was.’

  ‘It was an accident?’

  Owen found that a curious question. ‘As far as anyone knows. Though I heard it suggested at the tavern that he wished to follow his wife.’

  ‘But to take his life …’ Jasper shook his head.

  ‘It is passing strange.’

  They passed the castle mills. Jasper turned to Owen as they reached St George’s Field. ‘Does Mistress Merchet wish you to find out what happened?’

  ‘Nay, lad. And you can be sure that if Bess decides there is cause for concern she will be the one to poke and prod.’ Owen disappeared into a small building and emerged with a straw butt, which he set down in the middle of the cleared area. Jasper had a talent for the longbow, as had his father. And as a former captain of archers, Owen enjoyed training the lad. ‘Now. Today we work on your aim.’

  Jasper readied his longbow, took his stance.

  Owen adjusted the lad’s right elbow, nudging it up, pulled back on the left shoulder. ‘Can you feel the difference?’

  Jasper had been squinting, ready to fire. Now he closed his eyes, opened them. ‘Moving my left shoulder like that feels odd. Like the bow is aiming left now.’

  Owen got behind him, sighted, shook his head. ‘Sighting with my right eye might make a difference, though I thought I knew how to judge that. Try it like this.’

  Jasper squinted, let go the arrow. It landed true. He turned towards Owen with a look of wonder. ‘You aim better with one eye than I do with two.’

  ‘Eyes and body work together. ’Tis part of why we practise. Over and over until you know how it feels. Now, again.’

  They worked at it for a while, then Owen suggested they walk down to the bank where the Foss and Ouse converged. His purpose in bringing Jasper to the field today had been to talk to him, convince him that Lucie would not rest easy unless the lad followed Hugh and Gwenllian to Freythorpe Hadden. But how to begin?

  ‘Is that why you still shoot so well, Captain? Because you feel how to adjust your aim?’

  ‘Somewhat. And days, weeks, months of training myself over again after I lost my eye.’

  ‘So you meant to continue as captain of archers?’

  ‘Nay, lad. I meant to sail to Italy and offer my services as a mercenary. Over there, a man might make enough to live in such service.’

  ‘You wanted to become a mercenary?’

  ‘A dark, devilish secret, eh? I lusted for blood.’ Owen laughed to see the surprise on Jasper’s face. He patted the boy on the back. ‘Nay, ’twas nothing so terrible. I could think of naught else to do. My lord was dead. I believed he had kept me in his service after I’d lost my eye out of Christian duty. Henry of Grosmont was a devout man, a man of honour and grace. His successor was the son of the King. He had a retinue. What need would he have of a half-blind archer? Or a spy? So I planned, worked, then found myself taken up by the archbishop.’

  ‘God watched over you.’

  ‘Most days I think that. I would not be Lucie’s husband were it not for His Grace.’ Owen shifted so that he might see Jasper’s face more clearly. The boy sat with legs bent, knees high, hands behind propping him up at an angle, his bony shoulders hunched. An age of angles and long limbs. ‘Which brings me to something that is weighing on my mind.’

  Jasper clenched his jaw, shook his head once so his straight flaxen locks fell across his eyes. ‘I know. You wish to send me away.’

  ‘For Lucie’s sake, Jasper, not mine. I would lief have you here. You are a fine apprentice, and she needs you in the shop. But she is thinking of the last time, when the pestilence took her son Martin. She believes it is the children who are in the most danger. And it does seem so. Even with all their care, the sisters of St Leonard’s have lost several orphans, but only Matilda de Warrene and John Rudby among the grown men and women.’

  Jasper sat up, turned to Owen. ‘Mistress Warrene? So they were plague things burned at the hospital.’ His eyes were earnest. A little too earnest for the subject matter.

  ‘Do not try to change the direction of this conversation, Jasper.’

  The boy slumped again, head down, hair in his eyes. ‘I must stay in the city, Captain. I am Mistress Lucie’s apprentice. I am bound to stay, I am bound to do what I can to help the people of York against the pestilence.’

  ‘But if Lucie is right you are one of those in greatest danger.’

  Jasper’s head shot up again. ‘I am not a child.’

  ‘Aye, ’tis true. You are thirteen, not a babe. But not yet so far from it.’

  Jasper leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking out at the water. ‘What would I do all day?’

  Ah. More to the heart of the matter. ‘Sir Robert would find occupation for you. You would not tend the children.’

  The lad was silent for a time. Owen thought perhaps he had run out of arguments. But when Jasper spoke, that hope evaporated.

  ‘Mistress Lucie spoke of Brother Wulfstan the other day, how he is risking his life to go among the sick in the city because so many of the priests are fearful to go near those with the pestilence.’ Brother Wulfstan was the infirmarian of St Mary’s Abbey. ‘She said it is dangerous for him, far more so than for others, because he is so old. But she spoke of him with admiration.’ He glanced at Owen to see his reaction.

  Owen could not help but smile. The lad was bright, and a good debater. ‘Lucie is worried for him, Jasper. She prays for him.’ Lucie and Wulfstan were old friends.

  ‘But she believes he is fulfilling his vow. I, too, have such a vow.’

  Owen gazed on the flaxen-haired, gangly youth and found himself loath to argue further. ‘I always said you grew so fast, one day I would look on you and think you a stranger. And there you sit, suddenly a young man.’

  ‘Then I can stay?’

  ‘How are we to reassure Lucie?’

  ‘I do not mean to cause her pain.’

  ‘The pain is not your fault, lad. It comes from memories. I see her suddenly turn pale, or her eyes grow dark, and I cannot understand what brought the memory, the pain. A scent? A sound? And even with all of you gone to the country I cannot say that would cease. Such pain dulls with time, but never disappears.’

  Jasper had grown quiet, and Owen realised how thoughtless he had been. Jasper had painful memories of his own – by his ninth year he had lost both parents, and the man who was to become his foster father. ‘Come. Let me see whether your shoulder remembers what I taught it today.’

  The novice Gervase showed Jasper into the infirmary at St Mary’s Abbey. Brother Henry glanced up from his prayers with a worried frown. ‘I pray you do not seek Brother Wulfstan for someone in your household?’

  ‘No,’ Jasper said. ‘I need to speak with him. I need advice.’

  The subinfirmarian got to his feet. ‘I need advice myself. How do I stop him? How do I protect him?’

  ‘From tending the sick in the city?’

  Henry’s eyes were wild. ‘Night and day. He comes but to eat and gather more physicks, then he goes forth again. He says he sleeps at their bedsides.’

  ‘What does Abbot Campian say?’

  ‘My lord abbot says, “One does not stop a saint from his work.”’ Henry stuffed his hands up his sleeves, shook his head. ‘I have tried sending novices with Brother Wulfstan, but he convinces them to return alone. He is impossible.’

  ‘Do you think he will be back today?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes. You are welcome to wait. Pray for him whilst you do, lad. Pray for him.’

  Jasper chose to wait in the abbey garden, among Brother Wulfstan’s lovingly tended beds of medicinal plants. This garden gave him solace, for it was here that Jasper had first understood he might love someone as much as he had loved the parents he had lost. It was Wulfstan who had helped him see that. Jasper knelt, pinched off some spent blossoms, watched a pollen-laden bee in slow, awkward flight among the flowers. He noticed a lop-sided lavender. Someone must have
assisted Brother Wulfstan with the pruning, someone clumsy with a clipper. It made Jasper’s stomach ache to think of someone other than Brother Wulfstan tending the garden.

  ‘You are sad, my child?’ Wulfstan smiled and spread his arms wide as Jasper looked up, startled, then threw himself into the old monk’s embrace, suddenly a child once more. Wulfstan patted him, let him cling until his heart stopped racing. Then the old monk dropped his arms, stepped back, lifted Jasper’s chin. ‘No tears, so it is not a loss that brings you here.’

  Jasper was glad he had stayed the tears. Brother Wulfstan did not need reminders of his age. ‘Mistress Lucie wants to send me to Freythorpe Hadden. Gwenllian and Hugh are already there.’

  Wulfstan tilted his bald head, sucked in his wrinkled cheeks, nodded. ‘Ah. Lucie thinks to protect you from the pestilence. And who would blame her? Have you yet seen a victim, Jasper?’

  ‘Not this time, but when I was very young I had a sister die of it.’

  The old monk rested a hand on Jasper’s head. ‘I did not know you had a sister.’

  When Jasper thought back to that frightening time he could smell the horrible sickness again. ‘Her name was Anne. She would scream when anyone tried to clean the swelling in her armpits and on her neck. My mother tried to heat them so they would burst, but she could not bring herself to lance them.’

  ‘If your mother were here now, would she not be frightened for you, remembering her loss?’

  ‘But my place is here. I am Mistress Lucie’s apprentice.’

  Wulfstan’s pale eyes were sympathetic. ‘Come. Let us sit on the bench. My legs ache.’ Wulfstan shuffled over to a stone bench beneath a linden tree. He settled down on it with a grunt and drew a cloth from beneath his scapula, shook it out, blotted his forehead and upper lip and the back of his neck. ‘Winter is the curse of old age, but summer this year does not feel much kinder. The Lord slows me down. Perhaps He means me to retire to the chapel and contemplation.’

  Jasper joined the aged infirmarian on the bench. It was cool in the shade, and the air seemed sweet in the garden, yet Wulfstan’s breath was laboured and sweat stood out once more on his face. The boy was worried about his friend. ‘Mistress Lucie says you are taking too much on yourself, going out among the sick in the city.’

  Wulfstan patted Jasper’s arm, then stretched his wrinkled, age-spotted hand out beside the lad’s. ‘I am old, Jasper. Nothing that I do will change that fact. I have been infirmarian at St Mary’s since long before God first purged His children with the pestilence. Always before I respected my abbot’s wishes, stayed within to be at hand if any of my brethren succumbed. During the first visitation, I was wise to do so. Many fell, many died. During the second I was not so necessary, and I felt a guilt that has stayed with me these eight years. Now I must go forth. Who better than I? Our Lord cannot mean for me to stay in this mortal shell much longer. And Brother Henry is skilled in healing. Why not let him have the experience that will stand him in good stead when I am gone? Still, I thank you for your concern. And Mistress Lucie, too.’

  ‘But what about me? Should I go to the country or stay here where I might help?’

  ‘Has your mistress ordered you to go?’

  Jasper shook his head. ‘She says she will not order me.’

  ‘Then she is leaving it to your conscience. What does your conscience tell you?’

  Turning on the bench so he might face Wulfstan, Jasper took the old monk’s hands in his. ‘How do I know whether it is my conscience or my pride speaking?’

  Wulfstan’s eyes twinkled. ‘You worry that pride drives you to stay? So that you might brag of your courage to your friends?’

  Did Wulfstan intentionally misunderstand? ‘I don’t mean to brag. They are all in danger, too.’

  The reminder dulled Wulfstan’s eyes. He dropped his head, murmured, ‘God watch over all of you’ and crossed himself. Jasper followed suit, and was quiet until Wulfstan spoke again. Which was a long time. Time enough for Jasper to wonder whether the old monk had fallen asleep. But at last Wulfstan lifted his head, his eyes pools of sorrow. ‘I have seen such suffering these past weeks, Jasper, such unbearable suffering. I speak not only of the scourge of the flesh. So many are abandoned in their suffering and weakness. Their families flee, hoping to save themselves. They flee from children, Jasper. I sat last night with a boy of no more than five who had been left for dead near the King’s Fishpond. God knows what his parents thought, exposing him to the night, dead or no. But he lived, he knew of my presence, he heard my prayers for him. He did not die alone, thanks be to God.’

  ‘My mother did not abandon my sister.’

  ‘Nor did Lucie Wilton her son. But not all have such courage, Jasper. And I am there to help those they leave behind.’ Wulfstan mopped his forehead, his eyes, blew his nose. ‘Now. You fear that pride leads you rather than conscience. I do not think pride stands up against the pestilence, Jasper. You might find other things to brag about. But what is in your heart?’

  ‘I am not a child.’

  ‘You prove that in your work, my son.’

  ‘I do not wish to worry Mistress Lucie. But she needs me in the shop.’

  ‘What do you judge to be worse for her – the worry or the lack of help?’

  ‘How can I know that?’

  ‘What of Owen? Can he not work in the shop?’

  ‘He is steward of Bishopthorpe and captain of the archbishop’s retainers, so he is busy.’

  Wulfstan pressed Jasper’s hands, let them go, pushed himself off the bench and stood. ‘Let God guide you.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  The white eyebrows lifted. ‘How? Through prayer, of course, my son. Come. We shall kneel before Our Lady’s altar and pray for her advice. And then I must go out again into the city.’

  Eight

  Julian Taverner

  The sun had appeared in mid-afternoon and by evening the city was warmed and humid. Sweat trickled down Bess’s neck as she made her way among the tables. The York Tavern was far from bustling, but not empty. Though many stayed out of crowds for fear that someone’s breath or clothes might carry plague, there were those who believed that ale and wine fortified them. A group of the determined souls was huddled close at a long table, speaking in low voices of the latest plague victim, William Franklin. But their voices were not so low that Bess could not hear.

  ‘They say he brought it from St Leonard’s,’ Jack Crum said.

  ‘Aye. He should have stayed there.’ Old Bede slumped in his chair, his greasy white hair sticking out in all directions from running his hands through it in his agitation.

  ‘Why should he die at the spital? A man wants to die at home. Will’s house was in the city, not in the liberty of St Leonard’s,’ said another.

  ‘Aye. He sickened at home,’ said a third. ‘But he did come and go from spital, all the same. And when he fell sick, two lay sisters from spital stayed at his bedside.’

  ‘With the pestilence upon us the corrodians should stay put. Or give up their allotment till it passes,’ Old Bede growled. ‘They carry it with them.’

  ‘You’re daft,’ John Cooper said, rising. His face was flushed with ale and emotion. ‘We have lost seventy-odd folk to the pestilence in the city and only ten of those at St Leonard’s. How can you say the folk from the spital carry it?’

  ‘We’d have none of it without them,’ Bede insisted.

  ‘It was a child in the city died first, you ignorant old man. A tanner’s daughter.’

  ‘Watch your tongue, Cooper,’ one of Bede’s elderly supporters growled.

  John Cooper shoved past Old Bede, paused for a parting shot. ‘You hate the corrodians for their comfortable situations, old man, but mayhap you should thank God you could not find the coin to buy a corrody – though pestilence be not the danger.’

  Old Bede spat on the floor at Cooper’s feet. ‘You’ve a mouth on you, John Cooper. I’ll thank you to keep it shut.’

  Cooper sneered and made
his way towards the door.

  Bess Merchet hurried after him. Cooper’s last comment intrigued her. She caught his elbow as he reached the door. He shrugged her off roughly. ‘Have a care, John,’ Bess murmured, ‘’tis the hand that pours your ale.’

  He glanced round, shamefaced. ‘I thought you were one of Old Bede’s fellows, aching for trouble. Did I hurt you?’

  ‘Whist! It takes more than a nudge to knock me down. But to make amends you might tell me what you meant when you said the old man should thank God.’

  Cooper hesitated, glanced round, obviously wishing to make a quick escape. But he motioned for Bess to step outside with him. Cooper stood beneath the lantern beside the door. He was a solemn, quiet man, with a face that Bess had often thought might be pleasant if ever lit by a smile.

  ‘You are thinking of your uncle,’ Cooper said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I heard he was burned trying to save Laurence de Warrene.’

  ‘He is healing. Why should Old Bede be thankful?’

  ‘I am not one to listen to rumours – or spread them, Mistress Merchet. But that old man put me in mind of something I heard. There’s talk that too many corrodians are dying of a sudden. Just when the spital is short of funds …’

  ‘I have heard those rumours, and more. Old Bede is fond of them. But there is no question three of the corrodians died of pestilence.’ Still, Bess shivered. The night had grown chilly and the river mist was damp on her skin.

  ‘Matilda de Warrene, mayhap, too many saw her suffering, though she was a frail one. But Will Franklin and John Rudby’ – Cooper cocked his head to one side – ‘who saw them but lay sisters and brothers from St Leonard’s? And Laurence de Warrene – now there’s something passing strange about his accident. How many times in a man’s life does he light a fire and not even singe a hair on his head? Why did that fire take him? That’s what folk are wondering. And poor, stumbling Walter de Hotter. He did not die of pestilence.’

  Bess studied the man’s eyes. He believed what he said, though she doubted he knew her uncle had been attacked. ‘Why corrodians?’