The Riddle of St Leonard's (35 page)

Alisoun dropped to her hands and knees and crept through the tall weeds to the edge of the farm’s landing-point. She saw no one. Nor did she see the bundle. She rose and moved into the trees, heading for the farm. There was no easy path upriver from the landing-place, so whoever had taken the treasure must have gone inland.

The water swirled round Owen’s legs. It was cold, even in the shallows. He soon felt the cause of the shallow area as his feet discovered an uneven, rocky bottom. He worried for the horse. But the beast picked its way with care until it reached Anneys’s bobbing feet. Then it shied, but it quieted and stood still when Owen waded past and moved the legs into the broken boat. He felt for a pulse. Anneys moaned.

‘Do not be afraid. I am going to lift you on to my horse. He will carry you to the riverbank.’

Near the barn, Alisoun’s uncle and cousin stood arguing.

‘This load will slow us,’ said Lame John. ‘I say we bury it in the hay, return tomorrow with the cart.’

Rich laughed. ‘Oh, aye. They will ride away with the woman and child and never think to watch for us.’

Lame John crossed himself. ‘You heard the child. The woman has drowned. I told you we should not damage the boat. We killed her.’

Alisoun crept into the house and retrieved her bow and arrows.

Anneys clung to the horse, shivering. Erkenwald had taken his blanket from his saddle, spread it on dry ground. As soon as the horse reached the bank, Erkenwald lifted Anneys, carried her to the blanket, rolled her up in it.

‘God watched over you,’ the canon said, shaking his head. ‘I cannot think why.’

Owen crouched by Anneys’s feet. ‘Come. We shall lift her to the horse, return to the farm for the child.’

Alisoun sat in the doorway of the house. ‘You should see to my uncle. Out by the barn. He is injured. And my cousin Rich. I shot them for thieving.’

‘You injured your kin for that pack of treasures?’ Owen asked.

‘They have my hen and my cow. I’ll never get them back.’

Was there ever such an accurséd child, Owen wondered as he headed for the barn in his clothes heavy with river water. Why was she his particular penance? What had he ever done to a child to deserve this? He loved his own, he had taken Jasper in when he was in danger, he always took particular care to instruct customers on the small doses children required.

An elderly man sat with his back against the wall of the barn, his eyes closed, head hanging down, chin on chest. Another man lay on his stomach, but propped up on his elbows so that he might spew forth curses. Owen knelt to the latter, found a wound behind the man’s left knee that bled freely.

With a choice curse, the man shoved a small, bloody arrow at Owen’s face. ‘I have removed it, but I cannot stand on the leg.’

He would live. And walk again. The older man’s wound was in his left arm, near the shoulder. A graze, nothing more.

Lame John lifted his eyes to Owen. ‘’Tis God’s punishment for damaging the Riverwoman’s boat.’

‘So it was you ruined Magda Digby’s boat. She will not thank you for it. Many sick folk must go without her help until another boat be made.’

‘I told Rich we should not do it,’ Lame John said.

‘Stop your whining, old man,’ Rich shouted. ‘I have paid more dearly than you. Is that not enough?’

‘What of the woman?’ Lame John asked.

‘She survived the river.’

Owen rose as Erkenwald approached, leading the horses and holding tight to Alisoun’s hand. Anneys still lay across Owen’s beast. ‘Is there a cart we can use?’

‘At our farm,’ Lame John said.

‘Aye,’ Alisoun muttered. ‘They kept that, too.’

Bess found Honoria in a curtained corner of the Barnhous, with the ailing infants. The young woman darned while her three charges slept.

‘I have no doubt Captain Archer will allow you to return to your house in the city,’ Bess said, settling down beside her.

‘And why is that?’ Honoria asked without lifting her eyes from her work.

‘Another woman my uncle held dear also has a pair of Italian goblets. It seems you spoke the truth.’

‘I am not the one who needs to be told.’

‘I confess I was surprised to learn that my uncle was bedding Anneys and not you.’

Now the head raised, the dark eyes met Bess’s. Honoria was laughing. ‘Anneys bedded? Oh, I think not, Mistress Merchet. I do not know what her game was with your uncle, but she did not mean to lie with him. She flirted with him, but she had naught but scorn for him behind his back.’

‘Scorn?’

‘I know not why. Nor why she quizzed him so. As if she must know everything about him. Yet she was quiet enough about her own past.’

‘What do you know of her?’

‘She was widowed three years ago. Had three children, none of whom could offer her a home. Or would, more like.’

‘She asked my uncle questions?’

‘Oh, and he bragged to her. About all the treasures he had given to the hospital, the work he did among the plague-sick when the Death first stalked the land.’

One of the children woke and began to fret. Honoria put her work aside and lifted the child on to her lap, smoothed her damp hair from her forehead, held her until she slept once more.

‘You are good with children.’

‘So says Dame Beatrice. Do you have more questions?’

‘What do you know about my uncle’s penance? Captain Archer thought it strange, all that guilt about the death of a thief who died thieving.’

Honoria shook her head. ‘Not for him, for the children. Master Taverner learned that Carter had two children by his mistress – a mistress your uncle never even knew of – and when he died she was without means of caring for them, so she abandoned them to the family.’

‘The Carters of Scarborough?’

‘They in turn sent them far away. So it was said. And Master Taverner swore that had he known of them he would have given the children their father’s share of the spoils.’

‘Did he search for the children?’

‘Where would he search? He could not discuss this with the Carters, for pity’s sake. He was not a man to destroy himself.’

‘The penance he undertook was severe,’ Bess said.

Honoria kissed the child in her arms. ‘No more than what we do here every day, Mistress Merchet. Do not fool yourself that your uncle was a saintly man. He was no better than he should have been.’

‘I, for one, shall miss him,’ Bess said, rising. She was anxious to escape into the untainted air.

‘There are many will miss him,’ Honoria said softly.

Bess had much to ponder as she headed for home. So Anneys had not been Julian’s leman. But had she murdered him? The man Finn seemed to suggest that. She prayed God Owen found the woman and brought her to justice if it was true. The city could use a good hanging.

But as she walked Bess thought more of Honoria’s tale of Adam Carter’s leman and his bastards than of vengeance. Poor Uncle Julian. It did him credit that he had felt such remorse for neglecting his partner’s family. She could feel proud of him once more.

S
hivering in his damp clothes, Owen jounced about on the wagon seat as he guided two horses unaccustomed to pulling a wagon. Alisoun sat beside him; Erkenwald rode in the back with Anneys. Owen felt cursed. Pestilence had touched his house this day – for he had no doubt Jasper and Lucie had gone to Brother Wulfstan, and he himself had breathed the poisonous air surrounding two victims, ‘John’ and Anneys. It did not help that in addition to his worries and discomfort, he had the irritating Alisoun as companion.

‘She is my grandame, you know,’ the child suddenly announced, leaning close to make sure Owen heard. Her breath was stale and her hair stank of sweat and horses.

But she got his attention. ‘Your grandame?’ So Anneys had told ‘John’ the truth.

‘She came to York to get back her treasures.’

‘How were they
her
treasures?’

‘Because they were her husband’s.’

Was it possible? Had Carter been married? ‘Was Adam Carter your grandsire?’

‘If you know the tale, why are you asking me?’

‘Because that is what I do.’

‘Oh.’

‘What else did your grandame say?’

‘Why should I tell you?’

‘’Twas you began it.’

A brief, sullen silence. ‘They murdered my grandsire and took all he owned and vanished. My grandame had to give up her children because she could not feed them. And then a farmer married her and she had another son, Finn – the one I thought was stealing from me.’

‘The man you wounded?’ So his name was Finn, not John.

‘I did not know who he was. My mother never told me.’

‘So then what happened?’

‘She was widowed again, and she had nothing again.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the sea rose up and turned the farm into a salt marsh, didn’t it?’

‘Of course. And then what happened?’

‘And so she and Finn thought to find the men who had murdered her first husband and stolen his treasures.’

‘An impressive tale.’

‘You never believe me.’

‘I am a cautious man.’

For a long while the child was silent. Owen tried to organise what he had learned this day. According to Bess, Anneys was Julian’s lover; and yet according to the child, she blamed him for her poverty and thought him a murderer. Alisoun’s story made his original casting of Anneys as Julian’s murderer plausible; Bess’s did not. And Honoria had been bedding the town council, but not corrodians. A tangled mess, it was, and he felt little nearer the truth than at sunrise.

‘Quite a coincidence, your mother and the men your grandame was after both being in York, or nearby.’

‘My grandame says she did not know my mother was here. But when she learned it, she saw it as God’s sign that she was in the right.’

‘In the right?’

‘To avenge my grandsire’s death.’

‘And how did she do that?’

‘Stole back his treasures.’

‘And murdered Taverner and Warrene?’

‘No! They died of plague and fire.’

‘Ah. Why did you tell no one at the hospital that Anneys was your grandame?’

‘I did not know.’

‘Your mother did not tell you?’

‘No.’

‘A queer thing.’

‘Grandame said Mama punished her for abandoning her in Scarborough.’

Owen wondered who had been punished more – Anneys or Alisoun. The child was silent for the rest of the journey.

The gatekeeper at Bootham Bar stopped Owen. ‘Abbot Campian prays you hasten to his house.’

‘Brother Wulfstan?’

The man bowed his head, made the sign of the cross.

‘I can take them from here, Captain,’ Erkenwald said. ‘Sir Richard’s squire Topas will stand watch with me.’

‘I thank you. You have been a great help to me.’

‘God forgive me, but it has been my pleasure, Captain. Now hasten to your friend.’

A time-consuming task that did not require a clear mind was Lucie’s way of surviving the horrible evening of worrying about Owen and dreading word of Wulfstan’s death. A farmer had delivered swine gall the day before. Lucie and Jasper had transferred it to their own jars earlier, but now she must seal the lids with wax or the odour would foul the storeroom. It was hot work melting wax in the workroom. When Lucie came to a point at which she could pause, she stepped out into the garden.

The evening had grown cool, with a welcome breeze. As she sat on the bench, she fought sleep, and was drifting off when sounds in the shop caught her attention. She had asked Jasper to tidy up, but he should have been finished long ago. Fearing an intruder, she picked up a knife and moved through the workroom towards the shop. Through the beaded curtain she saw light; an oil lamp flickered on the counter. That relieved her. A thief would not be so bold – unless he had not heard her in the next room. How long had she dozed on the bench?

She stood against the curtain and waited for the intruder to come into sight. Praise God, Jasper crossed behind the light. He carried a leather pouch. Lucie slipped through the curtain.

Jasper looked up, startled, then swung the pouch behind him, out of sight. ‘Mistress Lucie. I thought you slept.’

Sweat beaded on Jasper’s upper lip and glistened at his temples. Was it the heat from the workroom? Or was he nervous, Lucie wondered.

‘I must have slept. You should have waked me. The spirit lamp is lit in the workroom.’

‘I saw. I was watching it.’

‘From in here?’ Lucie took a few steps to the left.

Jasper moved so that his body still hid the pouch.

‘What is in the pouch?’

‘What—’

‘No, Jasper. Do not play the fool, or mistake me for one. I saw you carrying a pouch. What is in it?’