by Candace Robb
‘Not at all.’ Martin looked around. ‘We cannot talk here. It is too open.’
‘Then elsewhere.’
Owen turned his back on Martin, led his horse to a rise in the ground, used it to help himself mount. When he was settled astride, he nodded to Martin, who still stood beside his horse, shaking his head.
Owen turned his horse down the trail towards the farmhouse. ‘Come, Martin,’ he called, ‘lead the way.’
He heard the man mount.
Owen’s side felt damp. The bandage meant to hold his arm and shoulder still had begun to unravel. But he had learned something at last.
Martin pressed ahead. In a while he turned off the trail, ducking beneath low branches. Owen thought he could hear rushing water. He followed, clutching his side as he leaned over his saddle. The trees thinned as the sound of the quick stream grew louder. Owen thought it a poor choice for their purpose – no one could hear them, true enough, but neither could they hear anyone approach. But Martin did not stop at the water; he crossed it, rode up a slope to a wooded hillock.
‘Here we can watch all sides,’ Martin said, dismounting.
Smoke rose from the farmhouse smoke hole. Geese squawked at the three who led their horses from the woods. A man peered out of the barn, withdrew.
‘Come with me,’ one of the guards ordered Tom. ‘Search the barn,’ he told his companion.
They were dismounting when a small dog came rushing from the barn, barking.
A woman emerged from the house, shouting something in Welsh. If it was an order for the dog to desist, it did not work. The man now strolled out of the barn. He was young, perhaps Tom’s age, but with a patch of white hair over his right ear. He called in Welsh to the woman, who nodded and went back inside.
One of the guards was trying to shake the dog off his boot. The other kept muttering, ‘What are they saying?’ But neither seemed skilled in Welsh. Neither was Tom. But he did know how to befriend a dog. He squatted, called the dog to him. He did not want her injured by the one guard’s increasingly angry kicks. As the dog trotted over to sniff Tom’s hand, the two guards moved away. Tom scratched behind the bitch’s ears, nodded to the man with the odd hair, who was approaching.
‘Do you want to tell me who you are and what you want?’ the man asked Tom. In English.
Tom introduced himself as Captain Archer’s man, the others as guards from St David’s.
The man nodded. ‘I am Deri. Cynog’s brother. Your captain was here yesterday. Was there something he forgot to ask?’
It seemed the captain and Iolo had left the farm early enough to have reached St David’s before the curfew. Tom did not like that news – where were they? The guards had come over to hear the conversation.
‘The woman speaks no English?’ one of them asked Deri.
‘My mam speaks only her own language,’ Deri said. ‘And my da. I was ruined when I went to sea.’
No wonder he had more confidence than Tom. He had already been to sea. And survived.
‘So the captain is gone?’
‘He is.’
‘We would like to see for ourselves. The barn. The house.’
‘Do as you will. I am sure my objection would make no difference to you,’ said Deri.
The guards found nothing. But Tom did. In a basket shoved beneath a bench was a muddy, blood-soaked shirt with a familiar bit of mending on the neck. Tom had stitched up that tear for the captain. Back in the woods they had passed over an area where the mud had been churned up and the brush trampled. Had the captain been involved?
‘The captain was injured?’ Tom asked the woman, forgetting she spoke no English. But surely she would recognise the captain’s name. ‘Captain Archer’s,’ he said, holding the shirt out to her. She nodded, pushing it back towards him. Tom thought it meant she wanted him to take it.
He ran with it out to the man, Deri. The guards were talking to him. Tom thrust the bloody shirt in front of Deri’s face. ‘What happened to the captain?’
Deri wagged his head from side to side, as if so much blood were nothing. ‘Ilar bit him,’ he said. He nodded towards the dog, who was sitting quietly by his side.
One of the guards laughed.
Deri glanced over at him with a disgusted look, then turned his attention back to Tom. ‘Mam cleaned up the captain, gave him one of my shirts.’
Tom did not believe it. The dog was friendly enough if approached in such wise. And the captain knew how to approach a guard dog. Deri grinned, shrugged. But the way he held Tom’s gaze made the young man hold his tongue.
Owen sat down beneath the trees. Martin brought a wineskin from his saddle. Enid had filled it with a mixture of herbs and cider, for pain. Owen drank, but very little. He wanted to keep his wits about him.
Martin lowered himself beside Owen, but facing out in the opposite direction. ‘What do you know of Yvain de Galles, the princeling who would redeem this country from the English?’ He used Owain Lawgoch’s French name.
‘I know little,’ said Owen.
‘Yvain is a man of honour. The first time I met him was here, in Wales. His father had died two years earlier, but Yvain had just heard of it and that his lands had been confiscated. He had come from France to petition King Edward to restore his property.’
‘Did he win it back?’
‘Much of it. He then sold off some woods and was preparing to return to France with his money.’
Owen grunted. ‘He wants the money. He is not the hero folk think him.’
‘You are wrong. Even a hero needs money to live. When he returned to France he was joined by Ieuan Wyn, another Welshman. Perhaps you have heard of him?’
‘You must be mistaken. Ieuan is Lancaster’s constable at Beaufort and Nogent.’
Martin laughed. ‘No more. Yvain and Ieuan joined Bertrand du Guesclin fighting in Castile – against your duke. Yvain is Llywelyn the Last’s grandson, Ieuan is of the family of Llywelyn’s seneschal. King Charles likes the echo of the past in their partnership – prince and seneschal once more. It is the sort of echo that the king puts much faith in. And Lancaster’s loss. That is also pleasing to him.’
‘How did Cynog know where to set the markers?’
‘Has anyone in St David’s mentioned Hywel?’
‘No,’ said Owen. ‘Why should they? Who is he?’
‘The stone markers, those are his doing,’ said Martin. ‘Your horses – he has them, I am certain.’
‘A horse thief?’
‘Not a common horse thief. He is what passes for a noble among your people,’ Martin said. ‘Wealthy, ambitious, generous to those who assist him, ruthless to those who oppose him. He claims to be Yvain’s man, recruiting an army to support him when he lands. But Hywel is stealing money for his preparations that should come to me – for the prince. In fact, he fashions himself a prince. Soon he will forget that he meant to support Yvain and claim to be the Redeemer of Wales himself.’
‘I should like to talk to Hywel.’
‘You do not want to meet him. It is Yvain de Galles you wish to meet. Hywel is not of the same stuff. You may find yourself with a liege lord you would dislike as much as the Duke of Lancaster.’
‘I should find it a pleasant change, to fight for my own people.’
‘Yvain has allied himself with the French. You lost your eye fighting against them. He may have been in the field against you. Have you thought of that?’
‘I asked to talk to Hywel, not to take up arms for Owain Lawgoch.’
Martin laughed. ‘Oh, my friend, if you could see your face. You are already imagining heroic deeds that would free your countrymen. Enough of this. You must rest if you are to ride back to St David’s in the morning.’
‘Ride? You will loan us horses?’
‘I would guess you could ride your own horses beyond the wood. I told you – Hywel will have them. My men Deri and Morgan will take you to him.’
‘You will not accompany us?’
‘I keep my distance
from Hywel. We share no love for one another.’
‘Then Deri and Morgan shall take me to him.’
Ilar announced their arrival, barking and scampering as if she thought they carried a bowl of meat for her. Deri and Morgan followed, and quickly told them of the visitors.
‘Iolo heard their approach before we did. He hid himself well. There were three – two of the bishop’s retainers and Tom, your man.’ Deri nodded to Owen.
‘Young Tom was with the archdeacon’s guard?’ Owen asked.
‘Not willingly,’ said Deri. ‘He kept his mouth shut to help me in a lie.’ He explained what had happened. ‘They will ride back slowly, searching for you along the way. I think they expect to find you lying somewhere in the brush overcome by llar’s vicious attack.’
Enid apologised for not thinking of the shirt. Math fumed about the archdeacon’s sending out his men to search for Owen, but never a bother about his son.
‘This is all about Cynog,’ Owen said, trying to calm him.
‘It is about Owain Lawgoch,’ Enid said. ‘I curse the day I ever heard his name.’
Archdeacon Rokelyn threw Owen’s bloodstained shirt on to the table in front of Tom. ‘I find your friends asleep on watch, and now this. Where is he? Where is Captain Archer?’
Tom opened and closed his mouth without a sound. He tried again. ‘I do not know. As the others said, the captain and Iolo left in time to make it here by curfew last night.’
Rokelyn glanced at the two guards who had ridden with Tom. They nodded.
‘Go then. You will find your friends by the palace stables. In one of the horse troughs.’
Hoping to escape quickly, Tom reached for the shirt.
‘Leave it!’ Rokelyn barked.
‘But it is a good shirt,’ Tom protested.
‘If the captain returns, he may have it back,’ the archdeacon said.
Sam awaited him outside the palace gatehouse. ‘I have permission to return to the stables with you. Thanks be. I want no more of that man’s temper.’ He glanced over at the gatekeeper.
‘Is it true that Edmund and Jared are in one of the horse troughs?’
‘So I hear. They were found asleep on watch, stinking of ale.’
‘It is not like them to do such a thing.’
‘No,’ Sam said, hurrying past the keeper. As soon as they were in the palace courtyard, Sam turned and demanded, ‘Whose was the bloody shirt? Where is the captain?’
Tom told him what little he knew.
‘Savaged by a dog? Captain Archer?’ Sam shook his head.
‘I for one do not believe it,’ said Tom. ‘But the man was relieved that I pretended I did so.’
‘Then where is the captain?’
‘I do not know. The horses were not there. Nor Iolo. That is all I know.’
The evening shadows chilled the stable yard. The troughs were deserted. Tom and Sam found their comrades snoring in a corner of the stables, blankets wrapped round them, their clothes draped over a line, drying. Someone had been kind.
Sam, whose mother was a midwife, knelt, smelled the breath of each.
He waved Tom over. ‘Smell them.’
Tom knelt beside him. Sniffed. ‘Bitter,’ he said.
‘Aye. They drank more than simple ale. A sleep draught, I think.’
Tom wished the captain were here. ‘The captain would warn the men who guard Piers the Mariner now.’
‘Aye, he would do that.’
‘Then we must.’
Tom had a queasy feeling in his stomach as he ran across the yard, but he tried to ignore it. Sam led the way, taking the steps of the bishop’s porch two at a time. The porter barred their way.
‘Has the archdeacon ordered you in? I was not told if he has.’
‘We need to warn the guards,’ said Tom.
The porter shook his head. ‘You must speak to the archdeacon.’
‘That will take too much time, man!’ Sam cried.
‘I have my orders.’ The porter stood firm.
Thirteen
PUZZLES
The old, rickety donkey cart wheezed and rumbled along the track. Magda Digby dozed in the sunlight on the seat beside Matthew the Tinker, smiling to herself each time he reached over to make sure she was not slipping off. It was always a pleasure when a patient still valued her after a particularly painful treatment, and his tooth, for all its rot, had been very stubborn about coming out. Magda snorted awake as Matthew brought the cart to a halt in front of a damaged gatehouse.
‘We have arrived at Freythorpe Hadden,’ said the tinker. ‘They had a terrible fire in the gatehouse. Outlaws set it.’
The sun shone through holes in the roof and lit up a crumbling side. Several men climbed about with hooks, tearing down blackened thatch and sooty walls.
‘Outlaws?’ Magda wondered what they had thought to gain by such destruction. The stone manor house was intact. And the stone and timber stables.
‘Mistress Wilton will be glad to hear they have begun repairs,’ said Matthew.
A man emerged from the shadowy archway of the gatehouse, shaded his eyes to look their way, then turned and ran back towards the stables near the manor house.
Magda was not eager for trouble, but it boded well for Lucie’s property that the approach of strangers had been noted. ‘The borrowed steward set a watch, begins the repairs. Perhaps he is wise.’ Magda wondered at how little Lucie had said about this. Damage to the gatehouse, she had said, and my aunt’s favourite tapestry stolen. Some silver plate, some money. The gatehouse was not so precious to her as the tapestry. But such destruction must have made cold her heart. She did not like that Lucie had not wished to talk of it.
‘I am not easy about being looked on as a dangerous intruder. But it is wise to set a watch,’ said Matthew. ‘The men might return.’
‘In a creaky donkey cart?’
Magda’s barking laugh startled the tinker into laughing also. ‘Outlaws with a herald,’ he muttered, wiping his eyes, then grabbing at his jaw as the pain returned.
‘Magda begs thy pardon. She forgot thy tooth.’
‘A good laugh is worth the pain,’ Matthew said.
He was a wise man to know that. Magda climbed out of the cart, retrieved her pouch from the back. ‘Thou hast been kind.’ She squinted up at the tinker’s swollen cheek. ‘Without the rotted tooth the swelling will ease. Remember to let the brandywine Magda gave thee sit in thy mouth before swallowing it.’
Matthew nodded. ‘God go with you, Riverwoman.’
‘Thou art not selling thy wares at Freythorpe Hadden?’
‘I do not bother folk who have had such troubles.’
‘They must live.’
‘I do not want trouble.’ His eyes were on something behind Magda.
‘Then be off,’ Magda said.
She turned round. A fair-haired man approached, striding with authority. Two others followed close. ‘Harold Galfrey?’ Magda shouted over the noise of Matthew’s cart loudly rumbling behind her.
The leading man nodded as he reached her. He squinted – against the sun, but Magda took him as a man who narrowed his eyes to hide his thoughts. ‘Who are you? Why has the tinker left you here?’ Harold demanded.
One of the men said, ‘This is Magda Digby, the Riverwoman. She is a healer.’
Magda dusted off the pack she carried. ‘Mistress Wilton worries about the wounded steward. Thou canst take Magda to him.’
‘And the tinker?’
‘Didst thou not see him depart?’
‘He does not wish to barter here?’
‘Magda took him out of his way. How fares Daimon?’
‘Come within and you will see.’
Magda stepped into the hall. Tildy set down a pan she had been carrying and hurried to greet the newcomer, her face anxious. ‘God bless you for coming, Mistress Digby.’ The young woman’s eyes were shadowed and red from lack of sleep. Her throat was tight as she spoke.
‘He is not as thou wouldst wish
, then?’ Magda said.
‘He sleeps most of the time and when he wakes he cannot speak clearly.’
‘How long has he been so?’
‘A day. Perhaps a little more. It has been gradual. He was doing well, then he began to fail.’
On a pallet near the hearth – for so it was a hearth and not a fire circle in this fine hall – lay the poor young man, sweating and restless. He tried his best to focus on Magda, blinking, shaking his head.
‘Daimon, God has sent us Magda Digby,’ Tildy said softly.
‘Lucie Wilton sent Magda,’ corrected the Riverwoman as she lifted the bandage wrapped round Daimon’s head to examine the wound. ‘Thou hast cleaned it well,’ she said to Tildy, who hovered at her back. Magda lifted the wounded hand, unwrapped the bandage. ‘Canst thou make a fist?’ Magda asked Daimon. He did so slowly, weakly, wincing as he opened his hand once more. ‘It will heal. Slowly. Tildy has done well.’ She wrapped his hand once more, pulled down the blanket, gently felt round the young steward’s swollen shoulder. ‘Thou hast rubbed in the oil steeped with comfrey, gently but deeply?’ Magda asked Tildy.
‘I tried.’
‘And he moaned or pulled away, worrying thee.’ Magda smiled at her. ‘Thou must be more confident.’
Magda leaned close, smelled Daimon’s sweat. She covered him, took Tildy’s elbow, steered her away from Daimon’s pallet. ‘Thou hast been too generous with the physicks.’
Tildy looked stricken. ‘I have followed Mistress Wilton’s instructions.’
Magda shook her head. ‘His sweat stinks of the physicks. Thou mayest have followed in full measure and Daimon cannot take what others do. After Magda drinks something, eats something, she will tell thee what to give him and how much.’ She put a finger to Tildy’s lips as the young woman began to apologise for not serving her sooner. ‘Thou art not Magda’s servant. She can ask for what she needs.’
Tildy called for a servant and bustled her out to the kitchens, following close behind.
Magda settled into a high-backed chair by the fire, tucked a pillow behind her back that she had spied on a bench, and lifted her feet on to a stool she had dragged over for the purpose. She was beginning to nod when Tildy returned with stewed fruit, cheese and bread. A servant followed with a flagon of wine.
