The Nun's Tale: An Owen Archer Mystery

by Candace Robb

  Owen stared into the fire in the hall until his vision blurred. A cup of wine in his hand attracted flies that he absently swatted away. He could not get deaf Harry out of his mind, the gratitude expressed in those watery eyes for the bare necessities and beatings that had bloodied his ears too often. Owen had grown so accustomed to his comfortable life that he had forgotten folk like Harry. Owen’s family were freemen, but poor. They would see his home in York as luxurious. And Sir Robert D’Arby was offering to expand it twice over. Why was he so fortunate? Should he return to Wales, see how his family fared? Lucie had once accused him of being cruel, not returning to show his family he had survived his years as an archer for Henry, Duke of Lancaster. But what might Owen do for his family? Would he shame them by offering help? Were any of them yet alive?

  Sir William Percy entered the hall and made for Owen. ‘You have it.’

  Owen lifted his eye to his host, slowly focusing on the man. ‘Have it?’ He shook his head, not understanding.

  ‘Captain Sebastian will meet with you and Ned tomorrow, midday, the church of St Mary the Virgin, right below the castle.’

  Owen sat forward, now alert. ‘In truth?’

  Percy grinned from ear to ear. ‘I’ve done well by Lancaster, eh?’

  ‘You have done well indeed, Sir William.’ Owen rose. ‘I shall tell Ned and Sir Nicholas.’

  Percy stayed him with a large, beringed hand. ‘You heard what I said, eh? You and Ned. Sir Nicholas later, if the captain is satisfied.’

  Owen turned his good eye dead centre on Percy’s face. ‘Why?’

  ‘You are soldiers. He is comfortable with soldiers. Sir Nicholas is an ecclesiastic. The captain says they talk in circles.’

  Owen and Percy shared a good laugh over that observation.

  Owen paused to admire the new carvings flanking the door of St Mary the Virgin, heads of King Edward and Queen Phillippa. The royal couple had taken their marriage vows in York Minster, and all Yorkshire had embraced them. Owen wondered if the gargoyle on the waterspout directly above Phillippa might be modelled after Alice Perrers. He had never seen the King’s mistress, but he knew that stonecutters often entertained themselves with such subtle jokes, and Thoresby had described her as very much the gargoyle.

  Ned nudged Owen and nodded towards two richly caparisoned horses in the churchyard held by a squire in a jacket much like the one Louth had found with the Sebastian emblem hidden inside – a subtle livery. ‘Our man is here betimes.’

  Owen nodded. The squire glanced nervously about, and from round the side of the building Owen could hear a horse snort impatiently. ‘He has prepared for trouble.’

  Ned grinned. ‘As we knew he would.’

  They entered the west door. After the glaring noon sun, Owen’s eye took a moment to adjust to the dark church nave, dimly lit by wall torches. A huge man in dark clothing rose from a camp stool, snapped his fingers. A boy opened a lantern.

  ‘By your patch and height, you must be Owen Archer.’ Captain Sebastian was a shaggy bear of a man with a booming voice. Owen was accustomed to being the tallest in any gathering. Sebastian was no more than four fingers taller than Owen, but his girth made it seem as though he towered.

  ‘Captain Sebastian.’ Owen held out his hands, showing he held no weapon.

  Sebastian did likewise, then turned his dark eyes on Ned, who quickly lifted his hands.

  ‘Good,’ Sebastian thundered. ‘John!’ The boy scurried to open two more camp stools. ‘Sit,’ the captain said. His smile exposed healthy teeth.

  But for the height, he reminded Owen of Bertrand du Guesclin. Owen commented on the resemblance.

  Sebastian looked pleased. ‘But your memory has softened his appearance. Du Guesclin is much uglier than I.’ He threw back his head and roared. A chantry priest glanced their way. Owen could imagine the sniff and frown. Sebastian was clearly a man who saw no reason to whisper merely because he was in a church. ‘So.’ Sebastian sat forward, hands on knees. ‘You carry a letter from King Edward?’

  Ned drew it out of his belt pouch.

  Sebastian nodded, but made no move to take it. ‘About Don Pedro the Cruel, eh?’

  ‘You are the last of the English knights to hear the warning,’ Ned said. ‘Our King has vowed to win back the throne of Castile for Don Pedro, the rightful king. Any English knight fighting against Don Pedro commits treason.’

  Sebastian wagged his head from side to side impatiently. ‘And he offers gold?’

  Ned held up the purse.

  ‘Our King is puzzlingly misguided in one fact, gentlemen.’ Sebastian sat up straighter. ‘Though I deserve it more than anyone I know, I am not a knight.’

  Ned frowned, tapped the letter against his hand. ‘But you are the Sebastian who made a pact with four English knights?’

  ‘Aye. They sorely needed me.’

  Owen knew where this led. ‘So you will not change your allegiance in this struggle?’

  Sebastian scratched his beard. ‘I cannot read, ’tis true, but I understand law well enough to know the King’s letter holds no power over me. It states “knights”, if you represent it properly. So I am still free to follow my conscience.’

  ‘You would trip your King on a detail?’ Ned’s voice was sharp with disapproval.

  Sebastian made a face. ‘A detail to you, far more to me.’

  Owen glanced at Ned, expecting his friend to pursue this. But instead Ned tucked away the letter and the purse with the jerky motion of anger.

  Owen and Sebastian exchanged puzzled looks.

  Sebastian snapped his fingers. The groom hurried over. ‘Wine!’ The boy brought forth a wineskin and handed it to his master. Sebastian threw back his head, squirted a generous gulp into his mouth, and passed the skin to Owen who drank.

  Elbow on knee, Sebastian leaned closer to Owen. ‘So you have seen du Guesclin?’

  ‘I was captain of archers for Henry of Lancaster when he fought du Guesclin at Rennes.’ Owen passed the skin to Ned who took a squirt and returned it to the boy.

  Sebastian grinned from ear to ear. ‘Ah! Rennes was a glorious moment.’

  ‘Du Guesclin is a master of trickery,’ Owen said, ‘and cuts a dash that delights the troubadours. But he is said to be a fair-minded man.’

  Sebastian nodded vigorously, snapped his fingers for the wineskin. ‘Which is why he – and I – support Enrique de Trastamare against Don Pedro. Trastamare might be a bastard, but Don Pedro is far worse in God’s eyes – he is a murderer. Right is on Trastamare’s side.’

  ‘Don Pedro is the born king,’ Ned reminded him.

  Sebastian drank, handed the skin to Owen, shrugged. ‘So was our King’s father – yet we put him aside for the good of the realm.’

  ‘True enough,’ Owen said, ‘but King Charles plays this hand to free his countryside of the routiers, not because he believes Trastamare is God’s chosen.’ Owen drank and passed on the skin.

  Sebastian shrugged. ‘Then Charles does it for the good of his people.’

  Now was the time for Ned to begin bargaining, but Ned showed no signs of doing so. Owen did not wish to lose the opportunity, ‘Captain Sebastian, I trust you would obey King Edward’s command if knighthood were added to the gold.’

  Sebastian beamed.

  Ned choked on a mouthful of wine.

  ‘Your friend does not deem me worthy of knighthood,’ Sebastian said. ‘Yet he mistook me for a knight earlier.’

  ‘We have no right to offer it,’ Ned protested.

  ‘Rest easy,’ Owen said. ‘I merely ask it so that we may know the terms to report to Sir Nicholas.’

  ‘Prince Edward is to lead the expedition?’ Sebastian asked.

  Owen nodded.

  Sebastian held out his right hand. ‘The gold and the knighthood and I shall fight alongside my Prince no matter my personal opinion of the cause.’

  Owen grinned. ‘I thought so.’ The three men shook hands.

  As Owen rose to leave, Sebastian asked, ‘
What of Edmund of Whitby? I hear you bloodied him and dragged him to the castle.’

  ‘He must answer in York for the death of one of the archbishop’s retainers. I shall take him there.’

  Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. ‘A retainer? Foolhardy Edmund.’ He shook his head. ‘The Percies cannot try him here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A waste of a good horse, riding him to York. They will surely execute him.’

  Owen shrugged. ‘I merely obey orders.’

  Sebastian snapped at the groom to gather his things. ‘There are two men we share a desire to find, Captain Archer. Will Longford and Edmund’s friend, Stefan. If you should find them, tell them I have need of them.’

  Owen promised to do so.

  On their return to the castle, Ned headed for the practice yard and spent a long time hacking at a straw dummy with his sword. When he was stumbling with fatigue and soaked through with sweat, Owen approached him. ‘What is it, friend?’

  Ned turned on Owen, sword poised, then relaxed, sheathed it, sat down hard on the ground. ‘I cannot do as you do. And that is what he wants, you know. I am to replace the spy stolen by the Lord Chancellor.’

  Owen crouched beside his friend, searched the pained eyes. ‘What nonsense are you talking?’

  ‘Lancaster. He thinks to create another Owen Archer of me, and I cannot do it. Not once did it occur to me that Sebastian was never called “sir”.’

  ‘And you think I saw it? He told us, Ned.’

  ‘But you caught his purpose at once. Knew he would tumble for the knighthood.’

  True enough. ‘It was not the old Duke taught me to think so, Ned. It took a churchman and lawyer to do this to me, to make me see the twists in a man’s purpose.’ Owen stood up, stretched. ‘A large tankard of ale will keep your joints from aching. Come along, Ned. Let’s get drunk once more before I’m off to York and you to the King.’

  *

  Sir William and Ralph Percy seemed pleased to hear of Owen’s intention to leave the following day; but they were puzzled by his request to take Edmund along.

  ‘He will walk me round Longford’s haunts in Beverley,’ Owen said, ‘mayhap loose the nun’s tongue. We must satisfy my lord Thoresby.’

  Ralph spat into the fire. ‘He will kill you in your sleep.’

  ‘I think not. And Alfred will watch him with murder in his heart – he still holds Edmund responsible for the death of his partner.’

  Louth and Ned were to take a more direct route to the King with Sebastian’s demands.

  ‘Joanna, stop! Joanna, look what you have done!’ Lucie grabbed at the nun’s arm, but Joanna shrugged her off, kept on digging. Lucie, great with child, lost her balance and fell to her knees. Struggling to rise, she stumbled again as Hugh’s terrified scream rose from deep in the earth. ‘Listen, Joanna. He is not dead! Why are you burying your brother alive?’ Joanna had dragged Hugh to the edge of the impossibly deep grave, so deep that mists in its depths concealed the bottom, and had rolled him into it with a casual motion of her booted foot, all the while looking distracted, as if she were hurrying through a repetitive chore while thinking of something else. And now in the same manner she shovelled the dirt on top of her living, writhing brother. Lucie wanted to close her ears to the malevolent scraping of the shovel through the piled earth, the whispered descent, the faint thump of the clumps of earth and gravel landing on Hugh. Over and over again. And still he screamed. ‘Joanna, for pity’s sake!’ But Joanna kept up the rhythm as she looked off in the distance. How could Hugh scream so? Joanna had ripped open his neck with her teeth. Lucie crawled to Joanna, tugged at her skirt. ‘For the love of God, Joanna, if you will not stop, at least be quick about it.’ As Lucie grabbed Joanna’s ankle, the shovel came down on her head. She was falling, falling towards the screams. ‘My baby! My baby!’

  Lucie clutched her stomach and breathed deeply. A cramp from thrashing in her nightmare, nothing more, please, God. She breathed deeply, slowly, breathing round the pain. It eased. She rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up. Fine. She stood up. No pain. Thanks be to God.

  Lucie walked sleepily to the window and gazed out on the first glimmer of dawn on the rooftops of the city. Whence came such a dream? Why would she dream of Joanna injuring her brother and burying him alive? Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners …

  Nineteen

  ‘… before Death’s sleep’

  On the evening of Corpus Christi, Owen sat in a tavern staring into a tankard of thick country ale. He did not want to be up on the moors, headed towards Beverley. He wanted to be in York watching the pageants with Lucie. Ever since he had known he was to be a father, he had imagined events that were to come. One of those was the Corpus Christi celebration this midsummer; he and Lucie would watch the pageants and smile at the thought of sharing this with their child in the future. They would hope for fine weather next year so the infant could sit outside with them. He or she would be nine months old by then. Not old enough to be aware of the wondrous event they were watching, but who could say what a baby remembered?

  Owen also worried about Jasper. Corpus Christi last year had been when all Jasper’s troubles had begun. His mother had collapsed while watching the pageants, his master had been murdered the following evening. The boy would find this time painful. Owen hoped Lucie had thought to bring Jasper home from the abbey today to feel part of a family at this sad time. How much better if Owen could have been there, too.

  And Lucie. The child was due in three months. She needed Owen to be there. He wanted to be there, his arm round her, steadying her. Keeping her warm at night. Helping her up the steep, shallow steps to their bedchamber. Not here, in a greasy, smoky tavern in the midst of the moors, drinking ale made from barley so poorly ground he must chew the chaff that remained after he swallowed. A second drink did not wash it down, but left more chaff – and more and more as he drank his way down to the bottom.

  Edmund slumped sullenly over his tankard, too, looking up only to check round the room for Jack. With each day of the journey Edmund grew more obsessed with the feeling that Jack rode along behind, just out of sight and hearing. Neither Owen nor Alfred had seen any evidence of pursuit, although once or twice Owen had thought he heard an echo of their hoofbeats.

  Only Alfred seemed in good humour, grinning at the taverner’s daughter, who kept glancing over her shoulder at him while she passed among the trestle tables. She was young and plain, with a sharp tongue for the grabbers and pinchers who slowed her down, and an amazing kick that landed true every time. Alfred was smitten. ‘Now there’s a woman knows her own worth, keeps to her business.’

  Edmund closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘She’s probably bedded more lovers than you ever will and is riddled with disease.’

  Alfred just laughed. ‘You are jealous that she smiles at me, not you.’

  Edmund gave him a disgusted look. ‘You haven’t a brain in your head.’

  The taverner’s daughter put Owen in mind of Bess Merchet. ‘You might find her harder to bed than you think,’ he warned Alfred. ‘A woman with such a backbone does not fall into the arms of the first man who flirts with her.’

  Alfred shrugged. ‘I can but try.’ He rose.

  Owen grabbed his hand. ‘We must rise early, ride in to Beverley. I do not want to dawdle on the road because you had little sleep and cannot sit your horse in a gallop.’ Nor would he be of any use if they must turn and fight.

  For a moment, Alfred’s face changed, hardened, his eyes narrowed, his colour rose. He moved his eyes slowly to Owen’s hand on his. ‘I never liked you much. ’Twas Colin worshipped you.’

  Owen squeezed the hand harder and gave Alfred a look that warned he was not amused. ‘I am not asking you to like me. But you are mine to command on this journey. We have business in Beverley and York. And Edmund to keep an eye on. You shall leave off the lovemaking until we finish our business. Then be damned if you will.’

  Alfred backed off, not liking the look in
Owen’s eyes. ‘I was just having some fun. Meant nothing by it.’

  Owen let go of Alfred’s hand. A hush had spread round them as folk eyed the two men with curiosity and apprehension. ‘We are calling unwanted attention to ourselves,’ Owen said softly. He picked up Alfred’s tankard, shook it, and said loudly, ‘Empty? Is that all you’re bellyaching about?’

  Alfred lifted his hand and balled it into a fist, turned suddenly to the room at large and belched. He grinned, relaxed his hand. ‘Better now.’ And sat down, banging his fist on the table. ‘So I’ll have another, now you’ve asked.’

  Edmund shook his head. ‘You’re a pig.’

  ‘But not an ass. I know an eye that threatens bloody murder when I see it.’ Once Alfred had drunk down his ale, he went stumbling off to bed.

  Edmund soon followed. Owen stayed below until he had made a thorough study of each face in the room. He would remember them if they turned up again on his journey.

  For all their growing unease, they arrived without incident in Beverley at dusk the following day, pushing their way against an opposing force of folk leaving town after the Corpus Christi pageants, picking their way through the guild members disassembling the pageant wagons. By the time they reached Ravenser’s house, they wanted only something to drink and then bed. Ravenser recognised their condition and showed them to a bedchamber. The provost held Owen back while Alfred and Edmund went in.

  ‘The stocky one. You did not set out from York with him.’

  ‘No. He is one of Captain Sebastian’s men. Come along to help us question Joanna.’

  Ravenser’s eyebrow went up, just as his uncle’s would have. ‘Unbound?’

  ‘We have come to an agreement,’ Owen said.

  Ravenser gave him a look that clearly said he thought him a fool. ‘I must hear about this. But first, let me give you this letter and leave you alone to read it.’ Ravenser drew from somewhere in his fine houppelande a sealed letter. The Wilton’s seal, now Lucie’s, with a mortar and pestle. ‘I received one as well,’ Ravenser said.