The Lady Chapel (2 page)

"I will stay put." Again the weak smile.

Jasper picked up the water jug and went out, scrubbing his face with his sleeve to remove any sign of tears. He was relieved to meet Mistress Fletcher on the stairs.

"Mum's awake. I'm fetching water," he said.

"Good boy. I'll just go up and see if she needs anything."

In the evening, Kristine de Melton began to toss and sigh. Her fever rose.

"Jasper," she whispered to her son, "go to the York Tavern. Find Will. He has a friend there; he will be with him."

Jasper looked at Mistress Fletcher, who nodded. "I'll watch beside your mum. Go get Will Crounce. He should be here."

The York Tavern was not far. Jasper peeked inside and saw Master Crounce sitting with the fat man who had hailed him from the crowd yesterday. They were arguing. Jasper, thinking it a bad time to interrupt, backed out the door. He would wait a bit, then check again to see whether things were peaceful. He brushed against a hooded figure standing just outside the door beneath the lantern. From the scent, Jasper guessed it to be a woman. He scrambled across the way and sat in the darkness of the overhang.

It was not long before Master Crounce appeared in the doorway, swaying slightly, his face screwed up in anger. Jasper had never seen Master Crounce with such a face. The tall man lurched out the door. Jasper hesitated, frightened, and lost his opportunity. The hooded woman reached out for Master Crounce with a delicate white hand. Crounce turned, gave a little cry of pleasure, and headed away with her.

Jasper did not entirely understand his mother's relationship with Master Crounce, but he suspected. And if he was right, then this mysterious woman had taken his mother's place. So should he follow anyway? What would Master Crounce say? What could Jasper say in front of his master's new leman?

He decided to follow them. Perhaps they would part company soon, and Jasper could then speak with Master Crounce without embarrassing him.

The couple went through the minster gate. The woman must live inside the Liberty of St. Peter. Perhaps she worked for the Archbishop or one of the archdeacons. It was no problem for Jasper to go through. He often did day work for the masons and carpenters. His father had been in the Carpenter's Guild. They paid for the room Jasper and his mother lived in, and gave him work from time to time. The guards all knew Jasper. The one on duty tonight knew him well.

"Young Jasper. Out late, are you?"

"My mum's took ill," Jasper explained. "I'm after help."

"Ah. I did hear. During the pageants, was it?"

Jasper nodded.

The guard waved him past.

Jasper stood still in the shadow of the great minster, listening for the couple's footsteps. They had turned left, toward the west entrance. Odd direction. That was the minster yard, the jail, the Archbishop's palace and chapel. Perhaps the woman was a maid in the palace. Jasper hurried to catch up. He did not know his way so well in this direction. He did not like this place in the dark. The minster loomed high above him to his right, a towering darkness that echoed with breezes and the skittering of night creatures. The two he followed rounded the great west front. Jasper hurried past the towers, stumbling in his fear of being alone in this place best left to God and the saints at nightfall.

As the couple stepped around the northwest corner into the minster yard, a laugh rang out, echoing weirdly. Jasper stopped and crossed himself. It did not come from Master Crounce or the lady, and it was not a friendly sound. Master Crounce stumbled. To Jasper's puzzlement, the woman broke from Master Crounce and ran back toward Jasper, who ducked into the shadow of the great minster so she would not find him spying.

The laughter rang out again.

"Who's there?" Crounce demanded, though his words were so slurred with drink they hardly sounded challenging.

Two men dashed at Crounce from the darkness, knocking him to the ground. One bent over the fallen man, and Crounce's scream dissolved into a gurgle and a sigh. The other attacker reared up, a sword raised above him, and brought it down with frightening force. He stooped, picked something up, and then the attackers fled.

Jasper hurried to his mother's friend. "Master Crounce?" The man did not respond. Jasper knelt and felt Will Crounce's face. The eyes were open. The smell of blood was strong. "Master Crounce?" The boy reached to tug on the man's hand. But there was no hand--only a hot, sickening wetness. Speechless with shock, Jasper ran for the guard.

"What is it, boy? Seen an angel, have ye?"

Jasper gasped and then bent double, retching.

Now the guard was alarmed. "What is it?"

Jasper wiped his mouth with a handful of grass and then took a few deep breaths. "Master Crounce. They've killed him. They've cut off his hand!"

As daylight reached his bed in the York Tavern. Gilbert Ridley cursed and turned over. His head hammered. Too much ale, and oh, how he regretted last night's bitter words with Will Crounce. If he lived through the morning, he would go to the minster and do penance for his sinful pride and anger. Ridley turned over and held his breath as the hammers sent sparks shooting across his vision. Carts rattled by, bells rang. Blast the city. Blast Tom Merchet's excellent ale.

An odor turned Ridley's attention to the center of the room. Something lay there, right there in the middle of the room, ready to trip him. He could not remember what he had dropped there. Meat? He must have left the door ajar. How drunk had he been to pass out before closing off the sounds from below? Ridley closed his eyes, sick to his stomach. It was his bladderful of ale, that's what hurt. He sat up, clutching his head and his stomach, and waited until the room settled around him. That thing on the floor. It looked for all the world like-- Oh, dear God, it was a hand. A severed hand. Ridley rushed to the chamber pot and retched.

2/ The Offending Hand

Father Gideon had given Kristine de Melton the last rites. Now Jasper knelt beside his mother, praying that he might be taken in her place.

Jasper was frightened. On Thursday morning he had been so happy he thought his heart would burst with joy. Now it was Saturday morning, and his joy was a memory. His mother was near death, and his sponsor for the Guild had been murdered. When his mother woke, Jasper would have to tell her the awful news about her beloved Will.

What had Jasper done to be so punished by the Lord God Almighty?

"Jasper?" The hand that reached for his was icy. How could she burn with fever, yet have such cold hands?

"Mum, let me get you some water."

Kristine de Melton's lips were cracked from the heat of her fever.

"Will? Is he here?"

Jasper could not say it. He could not send his mother to Heaven worried for him. "Master Crounce cannot come right away, Mum. But he sent his love."

"He is a good man, Jasper. Let him care for you."

Jasper nodded. He could not speak with the lump in his throat.

Kristine de Melton smiled, touched her son's cheek, and closed her eyes. "So sleepy."

Jasper prayed that God would forgive his little lie.

Bess was at the bakery when she heard about the body. A wool merchant from Boroughbridge.

"What was his name?" she asked Agnes Tanner.

Agnes frowned down at the child who clung to her skirts. "Will. Like my little 'un."

Bess considered the information. Will, a merchant from Boroughbridge. "Crounce? Did he go by that name?"

"Could be. Sommat like. You knew him?"

"Customer is all," Bess said. "Seemed a gentle sort."

"A boy found him. Poor chit."

"Terrible thing. Was it robbery?"

"Most like. Why else cut off his hand?" Agnes scooped up the child and barked at her eldest to hold the basket of bread straight. "Must be off, then. Greetings to Tom."

The pounding at the shop door woke Lucie, but Owen had her pinned to the mattress with an arm and a leg. Lucie closed her eyes and hoped whoever it was would go away. She hated to disturb Owen, and she certainly did not want to go downstairs herself.

But the pounding continued. Lucie felt Owen's muscles flex, and he sat up with a jolt. "Who is it?" he shouted, though the person at the door could not hear him.

"Why don't you go down and see?" Lucie suggested.

"They'll want you. If it's an emergency, they'll want the Master Apothecary, not her apprentice." He lay back down with a contented sigh.

"But it's the apprentice's duty to find out who it is and what they want."

"I'm naked."

"So am I."

"So you are." Owen grinned and reached out to grab his wife, but the pounding began again, faster now, louder, as if a boot had replaced the hand. "Blast them!" Owen threw on his shirt, slipped the patch over his scarred left eye, and marched down the stairs.

Brother Michaelo pushed the young messenger behind him, but not before Owen had seen the boy's foot raised to kick again.

"What do you want?" Owen growled, turning to Michaelo.

Brother Michaelo gave Owen a dazzling smile and bowed. "Forgive me for the early hour, Captain Archer. But His Grace the Archbishop sent me. It is most urgent that you come to his chambers as soon as you are dressed."

"Is the Archbishop lying on his deathbed?"

"No, praise God," Brother Michaelo said, crossing himself. "But there has been a murder. In the minster close."

"Well I didn't do it." Owen began to close the door.

Michaelo put out his arm. "Please, Captain Archer, His Grace does not wish to accuse you, but rather to confer with you on the matter."

That old debt again. Damn the man. "And he cannot wait till decent folk are up and about?"

"He is most distressed by the situation."

"Is the corpse anyone I know?"

Brother Michaelo's nostrils flared in surprise. "I doubt it. Will Crounce, a wool merchant from Boroughbridge."

Well, thank the Lord it was no acquaintance of Owen. "I'll be there shortly." He slammed the door. Brother Michaelo was no friend to the household, and Owen did not consider him worth courtesy.

Lucie touched Owen's hand. He had not heard her come down behind him. "You must go, you know," she said quietly. Owen heard regret in her voice.

He squeezed her hand. "Aye."

*

Bess Merchet hurried back to the York Tavern and straight up to Gilbert Ridley's room. She stopped at the door with a start. Lying on the floor like a discarded toy was a human hand, ringers curled inward. She would have thought it a doll's hand made with devilish cunning, except for the horror of the wrist, where hand and arm had been severed messily. "Blessed Mary and all the saints, what has Gilbert Ridley gotten into?" She noted with irritation that Ridley's belongings were gone. Just like a man to run and leave a mess. She scooped the disgusting thing onto a mat, folded it over so Kit, the serving girl, wouldn't see it, and took it with her, taking care to close the door behind her. Damn the man. Bess stomped downstairs to question her husband, Tom.

He looked up from the wooden peg he was whittling to repair a stool. "Master Ridley paid and left in no particular hurry," Tom said to her question. "Why, Bess? What's amiss?"

"That Will Crounce he argued with last night was lying in his own blood this morning, that's what's amiss. Throat slit open and his right hand cut off."

"Right hand? After a ring, were they?"

"What do you think?" Bess tossed the mat onto the table, letting the hand roll out.

Tom dropped his whittling and crossed himself. "Jesus have mercy, where did you find that, Bess? Is that--"

"I hardly think there's more than one hand gone missing in town this morning, do you?"

"Well, no--"

"I found it in Gilbert Ridley's room."

"Ridley's?" Tom frowned and scratched his chin.

"So where is he?" Bess demanded.

"You think he put it there?"

"Whether he put it there or no is not for me to judge, Tom Merchet. What I know is they argue and the man is murdered, Ridley runs off, and I find the murdered man's hand in Ridley's room. If I were to judge, it wouldn't look good for him."

Tom shook his head. "If he meant to run, would he stop to pay his bill? Or be fool enough to leave evidence? Why move it at all?

Let it lie there beside the body. That'd be dreadful enough, to my mind."

All true, but it did not exonerate Ridley in Bess's mind. "He's got some explaining to do, that's all I know." Bess wrapped up the hand. "You watch this while I tidy up."

"Tidy up? Where do you mean to go, wife?"

She could not believe the simplicity of the man. "To the minster, Tom. I must take the evidence to Archbishop Thoresby."

"Why him?"

"It happened in the minster liberty. Agnes Tanner said. So it will be the Archbishop's headache."

"Why not just take it next door to Owen? He's Thoresby's man."

"Owen is not Thoresby's man anymore. He's Lucie's apprentice."

Tom snorted. "You're wrong there. You'll see."

He smiled smugly as he bent back to his whittling.

Last September, a messenger had arrived from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, ordering Owen to return to his service. An impertinence, for Owen had not been Gaunt's Captain of Archers, but Gaunt's father-in-law's, the old Duke of Lancaster, Henry of Grosmont. Owen had lost the sight in his left eye in the old Duke's service. When Owen told the old Duke that he wished to resign his post, that he no longer trusted himself in the field, the old Duke had put him to a new task. Owen had learned to read, write, and carry himself as a minor lord, and had thus become the old Duke's spy. But shortly the old Duke had died, without sons, so that his duchy went to his daughter Blanche's husband, John of Gaunt, third son of King Edward. Owen had hardly thought that Gaunt would desire the services of a one-eyed archer or spy, so he had prepared to seek his fortune as a mercenary in Italy; but John Thoresby, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York, had chosen to honor the old Duke's request to see to Owen's future. He had given Owen a choice: serve him or the new Duke of Lancaster. Not liking what he'd heard of John of Gaunt, Owen had chosen Thoresby.