by Candace Robb
Crispin had limped forward, calling out in a loud voice, ‘Let us through!’
Dame Euphemia opened the curtain on Michaelo’s side. ‘Monk! What is happening?’
‘I am unsure. Your son is investigating.’
‘Find out.’
Biting back a retort, Michaelo approached Alisoun, who stood quite still, watching the liveried men speaking to Crispin.
‘Who are they?’ he asked.
‘Neville retainers on horses,’ said Alisoun. ‘The fools. One loud noise or child dashing across their paths and the horses will rear up or bolt. In such a crowd …’
‘They lead their horses.’
‘Now. They were still mounted when they ordered us to clear the way. How is a cart to do so with no room to turn?’
Though the buildings on the bridge complied with the restrictions meant to allow passage for carts, vendors encroached on the roadway and folk loitered around them. Crispin had known the cart to be a risk. He had meant to transport his mother by barge, but with the change of plans there had not been sufficient time to arrange that.
‘Help me down, monk,’ Dame Euphemia called.
Alisoun joined Michaelo, speaking softly to the blind woman as they guided her to stand beside her son.
Euphemia lost no time. ‘My son is a citizen of York, an important merchant as well as an advisor to Archbishop Neville. He is escorting me to the priory of St Clement’s. I am old, blind, and ailing.’ She hardly seemed the latter at present. ‘Who are you to demand us to make way for you?’
‘Advisor to the archbishop?’ said one of the men, looking more closely at Crispin, who gave a little bow. ‘Forgive us, sir. We make haste to his brother Sir John Neville to advise him of the arrival of his lady at that very priory.’
Crispin said nothing, just leaned on his cane and waited for them to make way. When they did, he took his time helping his mother back into the cart, with Michaelo’s assistance, Dame Euphemia moving with unhurried dignity.
Their ensuing halting progress across the bridge did nothing to ease Michaelo’s tension, but he now had more respect for mother and son, and the risk they were taking for Marian’s sake. He was grateful to reach the slope down to the riverbank, where the fishmongers sold their wares. They were long gone for the day, but the stench of rotting fish lingered and Michaelo slowed to pull a lavender-scented cloth from his sleeve. It was then he noticed a crook-backed figure slinking past, circling round the back of the cart, and decided to follow him. As the man began to lift a corner of the covering Michaelo put a hand on his shoulder. Whence came the courage? He would later wonder whether Dame Euphemia inspired him.
‘Fitch the Snoop, they call you in the minster yard.’ Michaelo spoke loud and sharp, startling the wizened man. ‘Have you no respect for a blind widow?’
By now Crispin had heard, ordered Drake to halt, and joined him. ‘Who is paying you, Snoop?’
‘Master Crispin, is it? A flock of nobles perching all about the city are surely curious about their rivals’ minions, sir.’
‘You dare to insult both my reverend mother and me, you crook-backed worm?’ Crispin poked at the man’s scrip with his cane, making the contents jingle. ‘I see you already have takings. You’ve no need of more from me. What I can promise is not to tell the mayor that you piss on his doorstep and spit on his children.’
Michaelo stifled a laugh as Euphemia called out, ‘Shame on you, Fitch. And to think I gave you alms when you begged on the corner.’
‘You are a nasty man, Crispin Poole.’
‘As a raven knows a crow,’ said Crispin with a laugh. ‘Now off with you, and remember. I have more I could tell the Nevilles. And the Graa brothers.’
The crook-back scuttled off. Crispin thanked Michaelo for his keen eye. The cart rumbled off the bridge.
As Owen and Hempe hurried toward Micklegate they met Ned, who told a tale of conflict and victory at the bridgehead involving Crispin and his dam, how they had humbled Neville retainers and continued on their way. Ned was most impressed by Alisoun, who remained quiet and unmoved during the altercation, though anyone knowing her as he did would be aware of how she stood ready to throw back her cloak and draw out her bow should the men not yield.
Glancing at Owen, Hempe made a sympathetic face.
God be thanked she contained herself, thought Owen. He invited Ned to join them, filling him in as they walked.
Several others had joined them by the time they climbed Micklegate hill, and Owen divided them, Ned and one other coming with him to the Cross Keys, the others assisting Hempe in searching the alleys along the way. The three broke off and continued up Micklegate, pushing through the crowds of folk hurrying to their lodgings as evening took hold, a good many of them strangers, here for the enthronement.
Reaching the well-lit tavern tucked back in an alley, Owen ordered Ned to watch the rear, the other to hang about outside the entrance. ‘Both of you come in only if you see Neville’s men arriving. You are to take a seat away from me. I will notice you.’
Once inside, Owen greeted the taverner, quietly inquiring whether the players lodging there were at the tables this evening. The taverner, an old friend of Tom Merchet’s, described the table where he might find them.
‘Is their leader, Carl, with them? Possibly bandaged hands?’
‘Not here. Might be up in the long room they share.’ He told Owen how to find it. ‘Will there be trouble?’
‘My aim is to keep the peace. But I want Carl.’
The taverner sighed, but poured Owen a tankard and refused his coin. ‘You’re the captain.’
Taking a sip, Owen turned to gaze round the room, passing over the table of players as if they did not interest him. He noted that one was drunkenly cradling a damaged lute, two pegs dangling. In a while he moved toward a small table just beyond the players that had no room, then turned round as if just noticing that and perched at the edge of the players’ long table as if still considering his options.
The one with the broken lute looked over, middling age, bald, bleary-eyed. ‘Soldier, are you?’ He waved his hand toward Owen’s eye.
‘And what if I am?’ Owen growled.
‘Roland means naught by the question,’ said one with a wild thicket of fair hair. ‘Considers himself a deep thinker because he notices folk. Begging your pardon, sir.’
‘Did the snow blow you into town?’ Owen said with a mirthless chuckle.
‘We come to entertain the nobles descending on this fair city for the crowning of the archbishop,’ said another, youthful, with a carefully cut beard, cleaner than the others.
The bald one cuffed the youth’s ear. ‘Crowning? Ye’re daft, boy.’
‘Musicians?’ Owen asked.
‘And players.’ The youth put hand to heart and bowed, earning himself another cuff which he tried to return but was met with a volley of strikes.
‘He would please the ladies,’ said Owen.
‘He is our lady. Only one now,’ said a muscular man with a dour expression who had been drumming his fingers on the table. Owen wondered whether this was Paul, the one who had attacked Marian and was in the minster when Ambrose met with Ronan.
‘Where will you be performing?’ Owen lifted his tankard to the taverner who was serving the next table. ‘A round for these fine musicians.’
‘Fine musicians?’ asked the taverner as he filled the proffered tankards. ‘I would welcome a good fiddler late in the day.’
‘We had the finest fiddler in the land, we did,’ said one who had been staring into his lap the while Owen had been seated there. He’d thought him asleep.
‘Carl?’ The bald one snorted up ale, wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Not the finest. Not him.’
‘Died, did he? This Carl?’ Owen asked in an offhand way, as if tolerating the men who had turned their stools to include him.
‘Carl? Hardly dead, is he, soaring to the heights of bliss a few nights past. But the archbishop’s mighty brother broke his fingers
, he did,’ said the youth.
The mop top took his turn cuffing the youth’s ears. ‘You talk too much.’
‘So you’ve no place to perform?’ asked Owen.
Shrugs all round. ‘Carl’s seeing to it,’ said the bald one.
‘We thought to set up in the field near Micklegate Bar, lure folk in as they come to town. They chased us off. It’s for pavilions for the lords’ armies,’ said the mop top.
‘You’re not one of them, are you?’ asked the one Owen thought to be Paul.
Owen laughed. ‘I kiss no lord’s arse.’ That won hoots and laughter. ‘But I know some as do. And any soldier will welcome a bit of music after a long march, some bawdy tales. Where would they find your man with the broken fingers?’
‘Here, when his woman kicks him out for being greedy,’ said the bald one.
‘Out all night, is he?’
‘Dusk till dawn,’ said the youth with a wink.
‘Most fortunate of men, eh?’ Owen said as he rose, flipping the taverner a coin as he left, walking out into the street, shaking his head at his man so he did not follow. He walked on toward Micklegate Bar.
A fiddler with broken fingers might never regain mastery of his instrument. Owen knew about that with his blinding. He still bested most at the butts, but he would never be as confident as he had been before his injury. Since his youth he had depended on his left eye for judging the trajectory. Losing the sight in that eye led him to doubt that he knew precisely where the target stood or moved, and how far away, and thinking it through only slowed him down. Hesitation was the enemy of rhythm. As with music. Owen knew from his experience playing the lute that a musician depended on knowing that his fingers would perform without effort, without thought. Carl’s injury was as devastating to a fiddler as Owen’s was to an archer. He remembered his own fury. Fury came before despair.
Neville would have done the deed while questioning Carl about Ambrose and Marian. The musician had good reason to hate Neville, but his anger, his hunger for vengeance, was more easily satisfied by attacking the musician and the singer whose escape had brought Carl to the attention of Sir John. Had Paul meant to help in some way?
When sure he had not been followed, Owen doubled back, whispered to his man out front to stay put, and moved down the alley to the rear, to the steps leading up to the lodgings above the tavern. For a moment he wondered whether Ned had wandered off.
‘Here, Captain.’ Ned seemed to materialize out of the shadows.
‘Anyone pass by? Hear anything?’
‘Maidservant cleaning a pot, a drunk puking. Heard what sounded like a pair mating, then two men came past adjusting their cocks and heading back in for more drink.’
‘I am going up to the bedchambers. If someone comes running down, stop them. If anyone approaches, make noise.’
With a nod, Ned slipped back into the shadows.
Pricking up his ears, Owen listened for signs of life as he crept up the steps. Quiet. Too quiet? He caught the murmur of voices as he reached the landing, but afar off, not the chamber the taverner had indicated, which was the first on his left. Pausing to listen at the door, he eased it open, stepped in. Someone had left an oil lamp burning. Intending to return? Owen moved quickly, searching packs, bedclothes, instruments. He found a stash of jewels beneath the mattress. Interesting, but not his business. And then a slit in the mattress with something small, stiff within. A small book with a supple leather cover. Costly, not something one of them would likely own. He was stuffing it into his scrip when Ned shouted a drunken curse down below.
A step creaked, then a board on the landing. Drawing his dagger, Owen waited behind the door, watched the man step into the room. Paul. Catching him from behind, Owen silenced him with a knife to his throat.
‘What were you doing in the minster the night before the vicar’s murder?’ Owen asked softly, drawing Paul back into the shadows, turning him around and pushing him against the wall.
‘You. I knew you were spying on us.’ Paul reached for a knife.
Owen kicked it out of his hand, yanked the man toward him, and slammed him back into the wall. A blow for Marian. ‘Now talk.’
‘I never touched the dead man.’
‘What of the girl? You touched her. She ran off because of you. Is that how Carl forced you to do his bidding? To repay him?’
‘How do you know so much, one-eye?’ Owen began to pull him up, ready to beat him senseless for assaulting a woman. But before he could slam him against the wall the man cried out, begging for mercy. ‘I will tell you! Carl wanted to know about the minstrel. I stayed just long enough to be sure it was him. Saw the girl run away. I didn’t follow her!’
From below, Ned sent up a string of curses.
Someone stumbled up the stairs, breathing hard.
‘If you say a word you will be as crippled as Carl,’ Owen warned.
A man came rushing into the room, throwing himself on the mattress. Owen smelled blood, saw it smeared on the man’s gloves as he fumbled with them.
‘Not Carl! Not Carl!’ he shouted as two young men stormed into the room, one of them roughly grabbing him just as the second glove fell.
No bandages.
‘You fools,’ Owen growled, dragging Paul out and tossing him on the bed. ‘Remove the gloves next time.’ He turned to Paul, who was eyeing his comrade’s bloody hands. ‘Where is Carl?’
‘I don’t know. I swear.’
Owen ordered the two fools to come with him, leading them out and down, nodding to Ned as he passed. ‘Keep watch.’
‘Captain, we thought—’ one of the young men began.
‘Thinking had nothing to do with it,’ Owen growled. But he was glad. He knew now that Carl had been waiting for Ambrose at the minster. He thought it likely the exchange of cloaks led Carl to murder the wrong man.
Down Skeldergate the cart rumbled unchecked, but the two incidents on the bridge had clearly added to the tensions of the party. As the afternoon light faded away Alisoun and Drake looked round at every step and the conversation in the cart grew hesitant, more anxious. Crispin walked along in silence, no longer obliged to greet his peers. At this hour in winter the waterfront warehouses were deserted, the merchants back in their well-lit homes or shops. Now the streets along the south bank of the river were the domain of the poor and the criminal. Crispin’s only comment to Michaelo was a request to continue to be on alert for anyone who seemed too curious, apologizing that the need for a humble procession had meant no guards. Michaelo had reminded him of Alisoun’s prowess with the bow. Though as dusk fell and the river mist rose an attacker would appear at too close range for a bow to be effective.
In the cart, Euphemia expressed her unease with questions about Marian’s aunt, Maud Neville. The simple answer that she knew her far less well than she did Lady Edwina or Sir Thomas did not satisfy.
‘Will she support you, that is my question.’
‘I cannot say how she will see my disappearance. A woman is oft blamed for luring a man no matter how hard she fought him, how fiercely she defended her purity. The one man who could attest to never having touched me is dead.’
‘What of the musicians?’
‘Until that night at Cawood, none of them had dared approach me in that way. I had thought it because my disguise convinced them. But I have come to think that Carl, their leader, had forbidden them to touch me, and they dared not disobey.’
‘God be thanked,’ said Euphemia.
Michaelo had been unable to make out Marian’s quiet response.
‘Have you any hope your Percy kin will believe you?’ asked Euphemia.
The woman lacked all courtesy and compassion.
‘I believe my guardian and Lady Edwina will if I am able to speak to them myself. They know me well. I cannot say whether Lady Maud will.’
‘What of your mother? Surely she will believe you.’
‘My mother defers to her betters in all things regarding me.’ Sadness tinged the words. Mi
chaelo crossed himself and said a prayer for the young nun.
Conversation died with that. Michaelo was relieved for Dame Marian’s sake, but he regretted the loss of a diversion. Now he was too aware of Crispin’s unease, and the enveloping darkness. It was with relief that he spied up ahead a pool of light spilling out from a building, and noticed the sound of a hammer on steel.
‘Two men ahead,’ Alisoun called out as she flipped back her cloak and shrugged the bow from her shoulder, testing the string, plucking an arrow from her quiver.
Following the line of her arrow, Michaelo caught the movements just beyond the pool of light. They were drawing weapons.
Crispin limped forward. ‘Do not shoot until we see who they are.’
Dame Euphemia peered out. ‘What is happening?’
‘Someone standing in our path,’ said Michaelo. ‘Weapons drawn. Mistress Alisoun has readied an arrow.’
‘God help us.’
‘Come, let us pray, Dame Euphemia,’ Marian said. She began to recite a hail Mary.
Euphemia withdrew and joined in the prayer.
Michaelo’s heart pounded.
As the cart moved into the light Crispin put a hand on Drake’s arm and quietly ordered him to halt. He stepped forward, leaning on his cane.
‘Porter and Diggs. Have you come to assist us?’
One of the men wagged his dagger at Crispin. ‘Who do you serve, Poole?’
‘At present, my blind, elderly dam.’
‘You expect us to believe she is in there?’
Euphemia poked her head out. ‘Who are you to question my son?’
‘Now step aside, Diggs.’ Crispin shifted the cane to the other hand and began to turn back.
But Diggs, dagger poised, came forward.
Alisoun let her arrow fly, catching Diggs above the elbow on his dagger arm. With a shout of pain he dropped the weapon and stumbled to the side of the track as the other moved toward Alisoun. Michaelo stepped forward, but there was no need. Before he could draw his weapon Drake stuck out a leg and the man tripped and fell.
‘Bastard!’ Porter shouted.
Drake kicked him hard, then rolled him over to the side of the track and, with a nod from Crispin, resumed his hold on the donkey, guiding the cart past the trouble-makers.
