The Illuminator (17 page)

Sir Guy noticed gray smoke in the distance as he rode the twelve miles north from Norwich to Aylsham. A grass fire, he thought, started by some careless crofter burning off his field in the too-dry October air. Sir Guy had a sister at court, who complained of London's gray skies and dreary rain, but in East Anglia summer refused to give way. Each day had been hotter and brighter than the one before, and what few clouds appeared overhead scattered like washed fleeces of white wool. He was grateful for the breeze, never mind that it fanned the fire on the distant horizon. It cooled his skin beneath his leather doublet as well as his horse, which he rode hard.

Officially, he was on business for the crown, unofficially for the bishop. Jurisdiction was unclear in the case of the dead priest. Since the victim was the bishop's legate and ordained by the Church, the investigation could be carried out by the Church, but since the crime was committed on crown lands, it was decided that the investigation should fall to the sheriff. A sorry business. The world would hardly miss another greedy churchman, so why all the fuss? But the bishop had let him know that the murderer had to be brought to justice and it was the sheriff's job to do it, and sooner rather than later.

“The Church has been insulted and the king's law officer can't find time to catch the murderer? How hard can it be to ask a few questions, seek out a
motive?” Henry Despenser had sneered when he delivered the slur. “You have the nose for it. Use that beak of yours to snoop out some answers.”

Impertinent upstart. Ordering Sir Guy de Fontaigne about like a Saxon clod. Demanding he question Lady Kathryn of Blackingham. Still, maybe he could turn the bishop's suspicions to his advantage. He doubted Lady Kathryn was capable of murder, but there was something amiss there—the way her back had stiffened and her lips tightened when she denied having seen the priest the day they discovered the body. If she felt sufficiently threatened, she might reconsider her cold behavior toward him. If he handled the questioning just right, she might even welcome him as her protector.

His horse jerked to the right and stamped, threatening to rear its forelegs. The air carried a definite acrid odor. The dull smear on the northern edge of the sky had darkened and the color of the clouds on the horizon had changed from white to gray, more tethered to earth than sky. This was no grass fire. It lay off to his right, in the direction of Bacton Wood, northeast of Aylsham. If the wood caught fire, it might imperil Broomholm Abbey and burn miles of virgin forest, even threaten his favorite preserve for hunting stag and wild boar. He jerked the horse's reins, digging his heels into its side. The thickening air argued that the fire was closer than Bacton Wood, closer even than Aylsham. It could be a crofter's cottage or one of the several hovels scattered across the fields used for storing grain and carts or even a shepherd's hut. But that billowing smoke was more than just a shed. Indeed, as he neared his destination, he concluded that the source of the conflagration might well be Blackingham itself. Sir Guy spurred his recalcitrant horse hard in the direction of the smoke. He had an interest there, too.

Lully, lulley, hilly, lulley
The jawcon
[falcon, i.e., death]
hath born my mak
[mate]
away.
—
FROM AN EARLY 15TH-CENTURY LYRIC

O
n the day the wool shed burned, Lady Kathryn was busy putting out other fires. She had just come from a confrontation with Alfred, who was complaining bitterly about being ostracized to “the shearing pens.” She put him off for two more weeks, urging him to stay until the harvest accounting and the rent receipts were collected, “to keep Simpson honest.” Also, there was still a pack of wool left to be sold to the Flanders merchant— 240 pounds, not sheared but pulled to make the finest thread—that she was holding to exact a better price when the market was no longer glutted.

“In just two months your father's title will pass to you,” she'd said and promised a birthday feast worthy of a young lord.

She missed him, missed his easy laughter, his wit, his restless energy; but she dreaded having him move back in. Finn would not be happy about it either. She'd promised him she would keep Alfred away from Rose. But Alfred was her son. Finn would just have to keep a closer eye on his daughter, prohibit the closeness he'd allowed between Colin and Rose. She'd seen
them working together to prepare Finn's manuscripts and playing tag in the garden, their laughter floating up to the window where she watched. Colin was always too serious and contemplative, so Kathryn had been pleased at his friendship with the girl. But once or twice she thought she'd seen a look pass between them that suggested something else, some more private, less innocent, knowledge. She'd even mentioned it to Finn. He'd told her to put it out of her mind. They were just friends, just children who knew nothing of the ways of the world. But Alfred? Finn was not so trusting of Alfred.

Merely thinking about Finn made Kathryn long for him. He had left for Broomholm Abbey three days ago with his completed pages wrapped securely in his saddlebags. She did not expect him back until tomorrow. She'd slept alone for two nights, and she missed his body wrapping her like a shawl, his breath warming her neck. Simply having him near gave her an odd sense of comfort. The heat inside her that had sometimes boiled over had settled into a pool of temperate calm. The headaches were better, too. She hadn't had a recurrence in weeks. Until today.

She had become a wanton woman, though, strictly speaking, they'd not committed adultery—Finn had pointed that out after that first time they'd lain together, the first time he'd unbound her hair and kissed her neck, the first time he'd caressed her breasts with the same graceful hands that brushed color into the sacred texts. His Rebekka was long since dead, he'd argued, as was Roderick. Even the Church acknowledged the needs of the body—it's not a
mortal
sin; it's easily expunged by a few Paternosters. Then he'd kissed her forehead and cupped his hand under her chin, tipping her face upward to look at his own. Their union was more, he'd said, than the appeasement of animal appetites; it was a spiritual union. It must be, had to be, sanctioned by God. And he'd called upon their shared joy as witness.

She'd pushed her guilt aside and taken his assurance as a sop for her conscience. He had become her confessor. Only he could take away her guilt. But now, in his absence, guilt revisited. The Virgin frowned on fornication, Kathryn was sure. Not that she'd communicated with her lately—without a priest to watch, she no longer even prayed at vespers, and too often, at matins she was otherwise engaged.

And she'd been careless in other ways. Although her woman's curse was irregular—heavy bleeding and then nothing for months—she suspected she was still fertile. And she had not cared. She'd even daydreamed about having
his baby, had looked at his beautiful Rose and coveted a daughter of her own. A love child, born outside of marriage, shunned, a subject of pity and scorn. Holy Mother, she had been very, very foolish. Yet, knowing this, still she missed Finn, longed for his return.

After her confrontation with her oldest son, she had felt the old familiar tightening in her face, the sharp picklike pain piercing beneath her cheekbone. She'd lost her temper with him, shouted at him, called him irresponsible like his father. She would have to seek him out again, tell him she was sorry. She would make it up to him at his birthday. But now, she wanted a cool drink. She went to the kitchen in search of Agnes.

At first Kathryn hadn't noticed the smoke. The kitchen was always smoky with roasting meats and fats sizzling on the hearth. If the air inside the cavernous room seemed more blue than usual, Kathryn just ascribed it to the October sun pouring through the back door that now stood open to expel the kitchen heat. Light poured in and lit a blue haze hanging in layers above the long wooden table on which Agnes worked. The old woman had been a constant presence in Kathryn's life, and though, like all others of her class, she regarded the servant as mere property, still, like a child who clings to a tattered favorite toy or a worn-out blanket, Kathryn drew comfort from her. It was rare, she knew, to have a woman oversee the kitchen of a noble household, but Kathryn had held out for Agnes in her marriage contract. Blackingham was her dower lands, and with his wife gone it would be Roderick's. Poison was an ever-present threat when domestic life did not run smoothly. So she had taken great pains to make sure that her kitchen was loyal to her.

“Agnes, I need a cooling drink.” She sank onto a three-legged stool beside the worktable, the same stool that Finn used when he visited the cook, less frequently now—his leisure hours were otherwise filled.

Agnes jerked her head in the direction of the scullery maid in the corner. “Get a tankard from that shelf over your head and fetch some buttermilk from the cellar for milady.”

The girl, a skinny urchin of about fourteen, at first appeared not to hear, but then stretched to reach the tankard.

“Wait. Best wash those filthy hands first. I saw you fondling that mangy cur that yer always slippin' scraps to.”

The girl went slowly over to the pewter basin at the end of the table and started to wash her hands. She didn't give them the cursory washing that most children do but stood as though she were in a daze, sliding one hand over the other, methodically, as the water dripped off them and splashed onto her ash-smudged shirt.

“That's enough washing now. Hurry up. Lady Kathryn can't be awaitin' all day. And carry it carefully.”

“I haven't seen her before,” Kathryn said as the girl left.

The portly cook sighed as she lifted a heavy pot onto the fire, then wiped beads of sweat from her face onto her apron. “She's a simpleton. Her mother begged me to take her. Said they couldn't afford to feed her anymore. But she's more trouble than she's worth. I may have to turn her out.”

But Kathryn knew that despite Agnes's gruff manner, she would keep the child. The girl might get little praise from the old cook, but she would be well fed. Although Agnes fed many of the ne'er-do-wells around Aylsham from Blackingham's kitchens, Kathryn knew that the cook was a frugal manager and probably saved as much as she gave away. Besides, acts of charity were acts of contrition, and so by her silence, Kathryn considered herself a participant in Agnes's charity.

She looked at the bundle of rags in the corner by the hearth. A bed for a dog, not for a child, Finn would say, if he were here.

“Agnes, see that the girl has a straw pallet and a warm blanket. The nights are growing colder.”

The cook's surprise showed in her face. “Aye, milady. I'll see to it right away.”

Kathryn coughed. “The air is thick in here today. Has the chimney been swept lately?”

“Aye, only last month. But there's been wind in it all day, stirring the coals.”

The girl came back with the buttermilk, handed it shyly to Kathryn, dropped what might pass for a curtsy. Kathryn noticed the pewter tankard was only half full, but she said nothing. The girl had either spilled half of it or hadn't filled it for fear she might spill it and then be beaten.

Agnes motioned to the girl with a heavy spoon. “Now go down to the dove cote and catch a couple of pigeons. It's the stone house down behind the laundry. You know where the laundry is. Behind the wool house.”

The girl nodded mutely, then hesitated as if uncertain of her instructions. “Two fat pigeons,” Agnes said. “Now off with you.”

“Do you beat her, Agnes?” Kathryn was surprised to hear the question come out of her mouth. But something about the girl touched her, reminded her in some unexplainable way of herself, unexplainable because she had been bred a child of privilege, yet she knew the fear of failing, the shivering uncertainty in the presence of authority.

“Beat her? Not unless you call one smack with a stirring spoon across her shoulder once in a while just to get her attention a beating.”