A Spy for the Redeemer (36 page)

One of the servants came over, asking what was wrong. Tildy told her to get water and a cloth. She patted Daimon’s cheek again. At last his eyelids fluttered, he gasped as if suddenly taking in much more air, flailed his arms.

‘God’s blood, I am awake. Give a man a chance!’ Daimon cried.

‘Has anyone been bringing you food but me?’ Tildy asked.

He blinked at her in confusion for a moment, then gulped the wine. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Why?’

‘You were difficult to wake.’

‘I am ever so. Did I say anything to offend you? My mother says I sometimes curse her.’

He did seem fine. She felt a bit foolish. ‘You said nothing stronger than “God’s blood”.’

When Daimon was sitting up and had eaten a bit of bread soaked in milk, Tildy took the tray back into the buttery and gathered the jars. There was still the mandrake – someone had used it. Where could she hide the jars from Nan – who else might slip something into his food? She thought of the treasury. Lucie had entrusted the key to her. Only to her, Tildy had thought. But when she opened the door and took in the small lamp, she discovered a jumble of accounts books on the table. She had been in here the previous day. Everything had been tidy then. She straightened them. Noticed that there was more room on the shelf than yesterday. One book? Two? She searched the room, behind the chest, in the chest, beneath the chest and the table. Nothing.

That did it. She locked the treasury, locked the buttery and went back to Daimon.

Nan stormed over a while later. ‘Someone has locked the buttery.’

‘I did,’ said Tildy.

‘I cannot have that.’

‘I cannot have it open,’ Tildy said.

‘Why?’

‘If you have need of something from the buttery, send Sarah to me.’

‘I shall never get anything done.’

Tildy said nothing more. Nan marched away.

‘What is the trouble, Matilda?’ Daimon asked. ‘Why have you locked the buttery?’

‘Things have gone missing, my love. Nothing for you to fret about. Rest now. You must be bored, sitting there.’ She did not want him to go back to sleep. ‘Is there something you might do to occupy yourself while sitting there?’

He brightened. ‘Some wood and my whittling knife are in the stables.’

Tildy sent a servant off to collect them while she began the tidying of the hall. As she worked she daydreamed about Harold’s departure and Phillippa’s return. What would her status be then? Would they send her home? Would she stay to assist Dame Phillippa? Would she marry Daimon?

She peeked at Daimon, now humming as he picked up the pieces of wood, considering which to use. Had she been mistaken about the medicine? Had he truly just been that tired? But the jar of mandrake should be fuller.

As she turned back to her work, she noticed a blank space on the wall above one of Sir Robert’s shields. Three swords should hang there. The brackets were still in place. She looked round, thinking the maid had taken them down for cleaning, though that was the groom’s job. Perhaps Ralph had taken them – but he should not do that unless Tildy ordered it.

Nan’s behaviour, the swords, the maze. Something was very wrong. This was not her imagination. Checking that Daimon was engrossed in his work, she hurried out to the stables. She would talk to Ralph, then Alfred and Gilbert, if they were still there.

Ralph knew nothing of the swords. Alfred and Gilbert agreed that perhaps another tour of the property was in order. They would leave now, look carefully at the surrounding houses and outbuildings.

In the yard, Tildy encountered Harold.

‘Nan and Sarah tell me you have locked them out of the buttery,’ Harold said, his eyes cold.

‘I have.’

‘Why?’

‘Someone has searched the treasury behind it, removed some account books and I do not know what else. Too much of Daimon’s medication is gone. So I locked the buttery.’

‘You mean to stir up trouble. Why?’

‘How can you say that? I am not the one causing trouble.’

‘I heard Daimon protest that he was fine.’

‘One of his powders is too low.’

‘The treasury has a separate key.’

How did he know that? ‘I – yes, I know that. But two locked doors are more difficult than one.’

‘You suspect Nan or Sarah of all this? Stealing physicks and account books? Neither of them can read.’

‘No. I do not know. But I mean to keep order. I am sorry to make them come to me. But that is how it shall be until –’ Until what? Harold waited for her to continue. ‘Until I see fit to unlock it.’

He grinned. It was no smile. ‘What is your scheme, Mistress Tildy? To poison Daimon, take the money in the treasury and run away with some lover? Who might it be? Joseph, Nan’s son? Eh?’

‘You are mad!’ How had he turned this around? ‘I do not have time to stand here and listen to you. I do not
need
to stand here.’ As Tildy moved, Harold grabbed her arm.

‘You are a foolish woman, Mistress Tildy,’ he said in a soft voice.

She yanked her arm away and ran from him back to the house.

Tildy kept herself busy tidying and fetching for Nan – who was getting her revenge for the locked buttery by discovering items she needed at once, one at a time.

Shortly after midday Tildy heard a shout at the gatehouse, then a horse enter the yard. Dreading more trouble, she glanced out of the hall door. ‘Jasper!’ she cried, running outside. Just the sight of him cheered her.

‘What are you doing here, lad?’ Harold asked, frowning as he walked out from the stables.

‘Is anything wrong in York?’ Tildy demanded. Jasper looked agitated.

‘Mistress Wilton allowed you to come alone?’ Harold inquired. ‘In these times?’

Ralph came running from the stables to help Jasper dismount and take the horse.

‘Mistress Wilton does not know I came,’ Jasper said. ‘I wanted to help her. She is occupied with Aunt Phillippa, who is much confused. She asked for a few things from the manor. I thought to fetch them – Mistress Wilton has enough to worry about.’

It was a breathless speech for Jasper. Tildy knew something was wrong. She ushered him into the hall. But Harold followed them. She needed to get Jasper to some place where they could talk.

Daimon called out, ‘Jasper! It has been a long while since I have seen you. You are taller than I am, I trow.’

The young man crouched down, pretending to study Daimon’s carving, but Tildy heard him ask Daimon how he was, truly, for the Riverwoman had been concerned. What did Jasper know, that he played the spy? Had Magda Digby spoken of Tildy’s concerns? Mistress Wilton thought so highly of Harold Galfrey, which bothered Tildy. Mistress Wilton had always been a good judge of a man.

‘Go with Matilda,’ Daimon said quietly. ‘Try to keep out of the man’s way.’ He raised his voice as Harold approached. ‘I have been too long idle. See how I ruined this piece of wood?’

Jasper picked up the wood, turned it over thoughtfully. ‘I could not do as well.’

‘Alfred and Gilbert rode off earlier,’ Harold said, ‘but when they return and you have gathered what you came to fetch for Dame Phillippa I shall have them escort you back to York, Jasper. You should not be on the roads alone.’

‘It might be dark by then,’ said Jasper. ‘Would it not be better to return tomorrow?’

‘I do not want Mistress Wilton to worry about you.’

‘Then we have no time to lose,’ Tildy said, whisking Jasper off to the buttery. She grabbed the oil lamp that sat outside and closed the door carefully behind them.

Jasper glanced round the buttery, began to rummage among the baskets and jars.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Aunt Phillippa keeps talking about a parchment. She thinks that is what someone is looking for. It had once been sewn inside the tapestry that was stolen.’

That is why it had been torn. How awful – someone had been searching the hall even before the attack. ‘Where is the parchment now?’

‘She cannot remember where she hid it.’

‘How can that be? Something so important –’

Jasper shook his head. ‘She is old, Tildy, and she hid it in many places.’

‘Well, parchment or no, I think Harold is trying to poison Daimon.’

Jasper did not laugh.

‘You think it is possible?’ She saw that he hid something. ‘Tell me.’

‘No one knows much of him, Tildy,’ he whispered, eyeing the door fearfully. ‘He claims to have been robbed on the road to York, his papers, everything. John Gisburne knows little of him but that he claims to be a distant relation.’

‘Dear God.’

‘What is amiss here? I must know all if I am to help.’

Tildy wondered. Jasper was but a lad. But he was Lucie’s apprentice. Surely that meant she had confidence in him. Tildy told him everything – Nan and the food, the maze, the swords, the account book, the mandrake. ‘I think someone is hiding on the manor – eating the food, arming himself with the weapons,’ Tildy said. ‘I think it is Joseph, Nan’s son.’

‘And the maze might have been one of Dame Phillippa’s hiding places for the parchment.’

‘Nan might have told him.’ It would be just like cook to gossip about the mistress.

‘But what of the mandrake?’ Jasper asked.

‘If Daimon is not being poisoned, I do not know who is. Nor why anyone wants the account books.’

She unlocked the treasury for Jasper, lit another candle.

But what was this? The treasury had been straightened and now the account books filled the shelf, as they had yesterday.

‘Who has done this?’ Tildy whispered. ‘The books are all here.’

‘At least one was missing when Mistress Wilton looked in here after the raid,’ Jasper said. ‘Could someone be searching the books for the parchment?’

‘Should we?’ Tildy asked.

‘Which books have been missing?’

Tildy shook her head.

‘Bring that lamp over. We shall check all of them.’

While they paged through the books, Jasper asked whether Alfred and Gilbert knew all Tildy had told him.

‘Yes. They are out on the manor grounds now, looking round.’

‘Come back to York with me, Tildy.’

‘I cannot leave the house. It is my responsibility.’

‘Then I shall just pretend to leave with Alfred and Gilbert.’

‘No! You must go back to York.’

‘I shall send one of them to the archbishop to request more men. We shall discover what is happening here. You must go on as if nothing is wrong.’

‘That will be difficult.’

‘The additional men could be here tomorrow, Tildy.’ Jasper put the last book back, finding nothing.

‘Come,’ Tildy said, ‘Harold will come to check on us if we linger here.’

She locked the treasury, then the buttery. Gilbert startled her, coming out of the gloom by Phillippa’s screened bedchamber.

‘Quietly, before I am discovered in the hall,’ he said. ‘I do not want Nan to hear. Joseph is hiding in an abandoned outbuilding with several other men I do not recognise. There is your problem. Not Harold.’

‘You will not tell Harold about this!’ Tildy said.

‘We have not. But why should he not know?’

Tildy told him about Harold knowing the treasury key was not the same as that of the buttery.

‘I have not trusted him from the beginning,’ Jasper said. ‘And now it seems very little is known about him. He has no proof he is who he says.’

Gilbert grunted at the news. ‘This is a sorry muddle. How do you come to be here, Jasper?’

‘I want to help.’

‘We shall need to watch the outbuilding. You might do that while we talk to Jenkyn the thatcher again.’

‘You will have no time to do that,’ Tildy said. ‘Harold wants you to escort Jasper to York.’

‘I shall only pretend to go,’ Jasper said, telling Gilbert his plan.

‘What of you, Mistress Tildy?’ Gilbert said.

She felt all atremble, but she must think. She closed her eyes. ‘I shall try to go on as usual. But if things get bad, Daimon and I can flee to the chapel. There is but the one window, high up. And the outside door is barred with iron. That is why we hid there the night of the raid.’

Harold had found them. ‘Well, Jasper, did you find what you needed?’

‘I must just check Dame Phillippa’s chamber,’ Jasper said.

‘Hurry back,’ Tildy whispered as she left him.

BEDEVILLED

W
ould he tell Lucie of his temptation? Owen imagined her response. She would be hurt. Angry that he could even think to abandon his children. Doubt he had ever loved her. And how might he ever reassure her? Would his return be the proof? Might he not have returned for other reasons? Merely a sense of guilt? Cowardice? Sweet Jesu, he could not tell her. He was galloping across the countryside, mad with fear for her. But she would not know. She would not believe.