A Spy for the Redeemer (6 page)

Lucie already knew she could do little but comfort her aunt. Nicholas, Lucie’s first husband, had also been struck suddenly with apoplexy. He had suffered terrible headaches with it. But God seemed at least to have spared Phillippa the headaches. It was the hardest thing to bear, watching a loved one suffer and being unable to help them.

*

In the morning, remembering Tildy’s comment about the servants talking, Lucie sought a quiet word with Daimon. ‘My aunt is causing gossip among the servants?’

Daimon shifted his weight, frowned. ‘I do not like to say it, Mistress, but Dame Phillippa has been queer of late. Muttering to herself, refusing to eat, fixing her eyes on a spot in the air, as if she sees something we cannot see.’

‘Tildy knew she paced and whispered to herself at night, but the rest of it – did it come on with her illness?’

Daimon nodded.

‘This muttering? Can you understand any of it?’

‘Not myself, no. But cook says she talks to a man named Douglas and sometimes calls him husband.’ Daimon lifted his shoulders, dropped them, shook his head. ‘My mother talked much the same in her sickness, but to a sister who was long dead.’

‘Does her behaviour bother the household?’

‘We worry for her, is all. She is a firm mistress, but fair.’

‘Do you think she
sees
him?’

Daimon looked down at his hands. ‘She speaks to him, Mistress. Whether she sees him I cannot say.’

‘Thank you, Daimon.’

He shifted to the other foot. ‘Mistress Wilton, I must explain my conduct in the yard when you arrived.’

‘I have wondered what is between you and Tildy.’

‘I would marry her. But she will not have me.’

‘Truly?’ But what of Tildy’s blushes? And the warmth in her voice when she spoke to him?

‘She says that your children are too young. And her family too far away. And she is not good enough for a steward’s wife.’

Too many arguments. They might all give Tildy pause, but could they turn a young woman against her heart? Lucie guessed the truth was something else entirely.

‘Are you certain that you love her?’

‘I am, Mistress. I think of no one else. Truly.’

Daimon looked so sad Lucie believed him. ‘Would you like me to talk to her? Reassure her that she is free to follow her heart?’

‘No, Mistress, though I thank you for being willing. But she might take it wrong, think you encourage my suit. I do not think Tildy would be happy unless she came of her own accord.’

The poor young man walked away with an air of doom. Lucie watched him cross the yard to the stables. There must be something she might say to Tildy.

‘Your steward has worried you?’ Harold said at her side.

‘God have mercy,’ Lucie said, almost jumping out of her skin. ‘You have a way of stealing up too silently.’

‘It stands me in good stead when I wish to catch a servant misbehaving.’

She turned to look at him, not liking the sound of that. She believed that if she treated servants fairly, she could trust them. ‘Brother Michaelo says you walked about at dawn. Did you visit a tenant? Do you know someone here?’

Harold shook his head. ‘I enjoy a morning walk. Did Daimon give you bad news?’

‘No. Nothing like that. Merely a heart broken that might be mended, with care.’

‘Ah. Are you to lose your nursemaid?’

‘Perhaps not. She has refused him.’

‘Her heart is sworn to another?’

‘I do not know. I thought it plain she loved Daimon.’

‘She teases him, perhaps?’

‘That is not her nature. No, something is amiss. I must discover her reason – discreetly. You must say nothing to anyone.’

Harold bowed, another of his oddly formal gestures. ‘I shall say nothing.’

‘You are a good man, Harold. Master Moreton is fortunate.’

Late in the afternoon, when the shadows were lengthening and a pleasant breeze stirred the trees, Lucie wandered out into the garden. She found Phillippa sitting on a bench at the entrance to the yew maze. It was strange to see her aunt so idle. Lucie joined her.

‘Come to York for Father’s Requiem Mass at the minster, Aunt, and stay with me for a time.’

Phillippa did not answer at once, though she took Lucie’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You have heard about the stranger watching the hall?’ Phillippa suddenly asked.

‘Daimon told me. He thinks we were fools to ride out with such bold thieves about.’

‘It was once far worse. When Robert the Bruce used the North to try to force our king to give up Scotland. Scots everywhere. And Frenchmen, they did say, eager to use our enemies to weaken us.’

‘Did your Douglas fight the Scots?’

Phillippa shifted on the bench, turning so that she might see Lucie’s face. In the clear light Lucie saw how like crinkled parchment was her aunt’s skin. Her eyes had always been deep-set, but now they appeared sunken. ‘Why do you ask about Douglas Sutton?’

Because he is on my mind, Lucie thought. ‘You never spoke much of him. I was curious. With the Scots burning the countryside. Did you not live farther north then, in the Dales?’

Phillippa studied Lucie’s face a moment longer, then dropped her gaze to her idle hands. ‘I grow old, Lucie, my dearest. I grow useless. You would find me a burden in your busy household.’

‘Not at all. Kate has much to learn and Tildy is busy with the children.’

‘Perhaps …’

Lucie took her aunt’s hands, turned them palms up. ‘Still calloused. I do not think you are useless.’ She kissed her aunt on the cheek, then rose. ‘Do not stay out too long. Already the evening chills the shadows.’

THE ARCHDEACON’S WILL

O
wen shrugged out into the early evening. He paused on the great porch of the Bishop’s Palace, surprised by the hastening gloom. He had expected a soft grey sky, some lingering daylight. But although the storm had quieted to a drizzle, the rain-heavy clouds crouched close to the horizon, ready to snag on the towers of the palace or the cathedral and loose a flood in the valley. The world smelled of damp wool, damp stone, mud, mildew and moss. It suited Owen’s mood.

The gatekeeper came over. ‘Captain, the house of the Archdeacon of St David’s –’

‘– is just without the gate,’ Owen growled. Needlessly. The man meant to be helpful.

‘Aye. Then you know the way.’ The gatekeeper stepped back into his corner.

‘Forgive my discourtesy,’ said Owen. The man was Welsh, had spoken in his own tongue. No doubt that was why he was but a gatekeeper, not an archdeacon. Or archbishop. ‘I had a long ride and a thorough soak. I thought to rest easy by the fire tonight with my comrades.’

‘Archdeacon Rokelyn is sure to feed you well,’ said the gatekeeper with a kindly smile.

Fatten him up for a favour. Oh, aye. The English were good at that. If Owain Lawgoch, great-nephew of Llywelyn the Last, arrived on this soil to wrest the country from English control, would this Welsh gatekeeper support him? Throw off his livery and fight on the side of his people? Or was he too comfortable on this grand porch, ordering the wealthy pilgrims about, eating the bishop’s food? Would he worry he might wind up back in a turf-roofed hut sleeping with his sheep if he backed the prince of the Welsh?

Owen’s boots squished through the muddy yard. His dry clothes did not keep his flesh from the memory of its drenching earlier in the day. Pulling his cloak close about him, he hunched into the misty wind. He had not far to go, a matter of yards, but his cloak and the neck and shoulders of his tunic were damp by the time he rapped on the great oak door to the house of Adam Rokelyn, Archdeacon of St David’s. A servant opened the door, bowed Owen in. A Welsh servant, Owen guessed. He tested him with the language. The servant replied in kind, looking pleased, ushered Owen to a chair in the hall near a hot, smoky fire, poured him a cup of wine. At least he could get warm again. Not drunk, however. There was too much he must remember not to say. A pity. The plummy wine slid silkily down his throat.

Voices came from behind a tapestry-covered doorway near Owen. Thinking it might be to his benefit to hear the matter discussed, he moved his chair closer.

‘You are not the law here.’

‘In the absence of the bishop, I am. Go tend your flock in Carmarthen. And take your weasel Simon with you.’

‘Who are you to speak to me in such wise?’ Now, as the voice boomed in outrage, Owen identified the speaker – William Baldwin, Archdeacon of Carmarthen.

‘Hush, for pity’s sake. I am expecting a guest.’ That must be Archdeacon Rokelyn.

Baldwin heeded the warning and lowered his voice to a murmur. Rokelyn did likewise.

Not wishing to be caught listening, Owen did not draw closer. But the argument interested him. Even more so than in York, the archdeacons here were politically powerful. This was not only an important ecclesiastical city, it was a city in which the Church ruled completely. Bishop Houghton
was
the law. And in his absence, the archdeacons ruled. Owen would guess Rokelyn was correct to consider himself the bishop’s second in command, being the archdeacon of the area, as Baldwin was the bishop’s second in command in Carmarthen.

‘
Benedicte
, Captain Archer.’ Rokelyn stood in the doorway, holding the tapestry aside for Baldwin. Rokelyn was a heavy-set man, with an unremarkable face save for its complete lack of hair – neither lashes nor brows, nor crown above. Something in his countenance made him look a man devoid of guile. Owen knew it to be a false impression – though he did not know Rokelyn well, he did know that a guileless man did not become Archdeacon of St David’s.

Baldwin slipped past Rokelyn, nodded to Owen. ‘I trust you accomplished your task in Cydweli, Captain Archer?’ His deep voice was tempered now. He was Rokelyn’s opposite, olive-skinned, with a wealth of dark hair.

They exchanged courtesies, then Baldwin excused himself and departed. Owen was not surprised after what he had overheard.

‘They tell me you were at St Non’s Well today,’ said Rokelyn, still with his pleasant smile.

Had he spies at the well? Or was it mere gossip? Owen decided that he, too, could play the jolly innocent. ‘I was. And had I been judged worthy, I might stand before you tonight without a patch. As you see, I was not so blessed.’

Rokelyn made a pitying face, then brightened. ‘They say you shoot straight and true, even with the loss of your eye. Perhaps St Non saw no need to intercede for you.’

‘In faith, I had little hope for it. But it seemed foolish not to try.’

Rokelyn gestured to Owen to sit by the fire. Two heavily carved, straight-backed chairs with arms had been angled half facing one another, half facing the fire. Embroidered cushions softened them. A table with the wine stood between. Rokelyn settled into one of the chairs with a contented sigh. ‘We shall dine in a while. I thought first we might share this excellent wine. Talk of easy matters. About your family. Did you find them well?’

‘A sister and a brother, aye. The rest are with God.’

The archdeacon expressed sympathy, spoke of God’s will being mysterious, then went on to explore many other topics, while Owen fought a dangerous drowsiness brought on by the day’s long ride, the sudden warmth and the wine, and the earlier tankards of ale at the palace. He was grateful when a servant called them to a table laden with food. Even better, Owen was seated well away from the fire. Soon a draft had chilled his still damp boots. It was enough to keep him awake and alert.

But it was not until the wafers and sugared nuts and fruits were set on the table that Rokelyn at last came round to his purpose. ‘You have heard that a stonemason was murdered?’

Owen almost choked on a sugared almond. ‘Murdered? I heard one hanged himself.’

‘Cynog,’ Rokelyn said. ‘Was he not working on a tomb for your wife’s father?’

If he knew to ask that question he knew the answer. Owen took a few of the wafers, sat back in his chair. He must appear unruffled, though he did not like the direction of this conversation. ‘He was. Which is why my men thought to tell me of his death.’ Rokelyn had dipped a cloth in his wine and now dabbed at the crystallised sugar on his chin and upper lip. Owen let one of the thin, crisp cakes dissolve in his mouth, then remarked, ‘Now I must find another stonemason to complete the work.’

Rokelyn wiped his hands, put aside the cloth. ‘You chose the best stonemason in St David’s.’

‘Aye. I shall not find the likes of him twice, I think.’ Owen swallowed another wafer. ‘Murdered, you say?’ He shook his head.

‘Who recommended Cynog to you?’

What was this? Was this, too, a question to which the archdeacon already knew the answer? Owen hoped not. ‘I cannot recall. Was it you?’ He was not about to volunteer that it was Martin Wirthir, an old friend whose allegiance changed as it pleased him. Martin was presently a spy in the service of King Charles of France, who was supporting the cause of Owain Lawgoch, the would-be redeemer of the Welsh.

‘Let me ask you another way,’ said the archdeacon. ‘Why Cynog?’

‘Is there a reason I should not have chosen Cynog?’