The Guilt of Innocents (14 page)

Hubert chose a seat in the shadows, but Owen moved one of the hanging lanterns so that the four by the fire could see one another. In this wider light he saw that one side of Ysenda’s fair face was indeed swollen and bruised. She had been careful to keep that side away from them until now. Ysenda de Weston intrigued him.

Noticing his gaze, she lifted a hand to cover her cheek. A strip of cloth on her sleeve hung down, revealing a tear. She did not seem a woman
who would delay mending her carefully tailored gown.

‘I shall not ask about your eye if you’ll not ask about my cheek, Captain.’ She spoke in a teasing voice as she bent over to pour the cider.

Though Owen was sick to death of explaining how he’d lost the sight in his left eye, he did not wish to agree to her deal; but she had made it so that he would appear rude if he did not. She was clever. He wondered why she needed to be so clever.

‘Agreed,’ he said with a little bow. ‘Before we begin, I wondered whether you would prefer to have your husband present.’

Ysenda looked startled. Hubert almost spilled the bowls he was carrying to Gilbert and Rafe.

‘Perhaps I’m mistaken. I’d heard your husband survived La Rochelle.’

She bowed her head, hand to heart. ‘It is true that Aubrey was no longer there when the Spanish attacked. He is alive. He’s come home.’ She lifted her head, tears in her eyes. ‘And gone again.’

Hubert put an arm around her. ‘He doesn’t deserve your tears, Ma,’ the boy said.

Owen wondered whether that was part of the story behind her injury and the torn sleeve.

‘I beg your pardon for intruding on you like this, without warning,’ he said. ‘We will not stay long. Jasper, tell them of the event that brought us here.’ Coming from a friend of Hubert’s it might
seem less threatening, Owen thought. Mother and son seemed on their guard and he did not think they would say much unless he was able to ease their fears.

Jasper cleared his throat and, with an expression of dismay, asked, ‘You mean at the staithe?’

‘Aye, just that, and you might include Master Nicholas’s unfortunate charity.’

‘Father Nicholas our vicar?’ Ysenda asked.

Owen nodded. ‘Jasper?’

With admirable clarity Jasper thoroughly described the events of two nights past. As his son spoke, Owen observed Ysenda fidgeting, and seeming at one point to have difficulty catching her breath. When Jasper had finished his account, Hubert and his mother exchanged looks, hers agitated and his sullen.

‘What could you have carried that a pilot might desire?’ asked Ysenda, reaching for Hubert’s hand. ‘I sent you with nothing of that nature.’

Hubert dropped his head, chin to chest. ‘I wanted something of yours with me at school,’ he said, his voice muffled by his posture.

‘I have nothing of value,’ she said, but her tone subtly changed on the last two words. ‘What did you take, Hubert?’ Her voice was suddenly sharper. ‘Have you brought the scrip, Captain?’

‘No. It is safe in the city,’ said Owen.

The boy looked up at Jasper and Owen. ‘I don’t know why a pilot would want it,’ he said in a child’s whine. ‘It must have slipped out and he
didn’t even know he handed back the scrip without it.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Owen, ‘but we still need you to tell us what
it
was. I’m sure you can see the importance in our knowing.’

Hubert took a deep breath, and still not facing his mother he said, ‘It was a little gold cross.’

Ysenda’s intake of breath at last drew her son’s eyes.

‘I swear by all the saints you’ll have another, Ma.’

‘Oh Hubert, you have no wealth, nothing.’ She dropped his hand and turned away from him with a muttered curse.

He looked shattered.

‘What did you mean to do with it?’ she asked, tight-lipped, forgetting to be charming for her guests.

‘It was like a charm, to give me good fortune, to have something of yours with me.’ The boy had resumed talking to his lap, and did not notice his mother’s hand rise once more. But he felt the slap. Holding his cheek and staring at her with wide eyes, he whimpered, ‘I was so afraid for you when I lost it, that’s why I came home. I was afraid losing it meant you were hurt, or – dead.’

She stared at him as if he’d grown horns. ‘You foolish boy,’ she breathed. ‘Why am I so punished?’ she asked the fire.

‘Was it valuable, Dame Ysenda?’ Owen asked.

She raised her eyes to his, but did not seem to focus on him. ‘Gold is,’ she snapped, then moaned, ‘God help us.’ She brought a hand to her mouth and shook her head, as if arguing with herself, then sighed loudly. ‘What went through his head?’ she whispered as if Hubert were not there. Her features had somehow hardened.

‘Had you ever taken the cross out when you were outside the Clee, Hubert?’ Owen asked.

The boy shook his head, still with hand to cheek, although Owen did not think the slap had been delivered with enough strength to truly injure him, merely his pride and his faith in his mother’s love for him.

‘Did any of the other students know what you kept in the scrip?’ Owen asked.

‘None of them, but Dame Agnes knew. I couldn’t keep it from her.’

‘Did she talk to you about it?’ Owen asked, although he could not imagine a more unlikely culprit.

‘It was a small thing,’ Ysenda interposed, indicating something in length less than two joints of her smallest finger and one joint wide. ‘My husband gave it to me when he knew he was leaving. I do not know where he bought something so fine, or with what. But I did not dare ask.’

‘Had you worn it?’ Owen asked.

She shook her head, and to Hubert she said, ‘You are a sly one,’ in a cold voice.

‘I didn’t want to leave you,’ Hubert cried. ‘I
told you I didn’t want to. I worried about you all alone.’

‘And I told you that it wasn’t your place to worry about me.’ Ysenda looked away from her son, making an impatient, angry sound in her throat.

‘Do you think your husband will return soon?’ Owen asked.

Ysenda turned her pretty face – once more seeming gentle – towards him, tilting the injured side towards the light. ‘I doubt that even Aubrey can predict that, Captain.’ She rose. ‘I am sorry that I cannot offer you beds for the night – in case he should return and accuse me …’ Her voice trembled and she looked away.

Perhaps it was this that made mother and son uneasy, that they both feared the father’s return.

‘Was he drunk?’

It was Hubert who answered. ‘It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been sober, Captain. He’s a beast to Ma.’

‘It wouldn’t be the cross he was angry about?’

Hubert shook his head. ‘Ma didn’t know it was gone till you came. He doesn’t need a reason.’

‘Enough, son,’ said Ysenda in a sweet voice. She moved behind him and put her hands on Hubert’s shoulders. ‘If my husband finds out about the cross I don’t know what he’ll do. I’ll never tell him that Hubert lost it.’ She bent to kiss the top of his head.

Hubert wiped away tears with his sleeve.

‘Will Hubert be returning to St Peter’s?’ Owen asked.

The boy twisted round to see his mother’s face, shaking his head.

‘But he must,’ she said, ignoring Hubert. ‘St Mary’s Abbey has been so generous to sponsor him.’ She took a deep breath, patted her son’s shoulders. ‘That is where he belongs now, where he will learn about the world.’

‘Ma,’ Hubert began to rise.

But she held him down as she shook her head at his imploring expression. ‘It has always been my dream for you, as soon as I saw how quickly you learned.’

‘He is well thought of at school,’ said Jasper, ‘and well liked by all of us.’

Ysenda smiled at Jasper. ‘You are a kind boy. God bless you. There, Hubert, you’ve made me proud. You are doing well in school.’

Hubert had given up trying to implore her and sat with his chin on his chest. By his uneven breath Owen knew the boy was trying hard not to embarrass himself by crying in front of them. Poor lad.

‘Why did you boys go to the staithe?’ Ysenda asked Jasper, her tone sharp, disapproving. ‘What lured you?’

Jasper took a moment to respond. ‘I can tell you why
I
did. I don’t like to feel left behind, to listen to the others talking about some fun I didn’t share with them. I would never go there otherwise,
except if something special were being unloaded. Or the king’s barge were expected.’

Hubert had lifted his head as Jasper spoke. He tried to smile. ‘He’s right,’ Hubert said. He turned to his mother. ‘I never thought I would lose it. Never.’

‘He kept the scrip with him all the time,’ said Jasper.

Ysenda forced a smile for Jasper, but her eyes were dark with what Owen could only guess was fear. ‘I can see my son has a true friend in you. I am more determined than ever that he should return to school.’ She turned to Owen. ‘I would ask a favour, that you take him with you?’ It was a soft, breathless query, as if she feared refusal.

‘I would, gladly.’

‘No!’ cried Hubert. ‘You’ve – what if Father comes back? Who will protect you, Ma?’

It might mean nothing, but the boy hesitated before saying ‘father’, and it seemed odd that he used the informal ‘ma’ but the more formal ‘father’. Perhaps Owen was merely sensitive to that at the moment. Jasper had called him ‘da’. He smiled to himself.

‘The days are so short now, you cannot ride far before nightfall, Captain,’ said Ysenda. ‘Is it possible – I would not ask such a favour but that you are here – if you are biding in Weston tonight, would you return for Hubert in the morning? As you can see, I must convince him that this is best for both of us.’

Rafe was shaking his head, but Owen did not intend to miss the opportunity to have the lad close at hand. ‘We will come for him in the morning,’ he said.

As they walked towards the horses, Jasper asked, ‘Did you think they were hiding something?’

‘Half truths and poor play-acting,’ said Owen. ‘You have a good nose for this, son.’

Jasper looked pleased. ‘What will we do now?’

‘I would like to talk to someone at the Gamyll manor. We might even find Aubrey de Weston there.’

‘Hubert hates him.’

‘I noticed.’

Rafe and Gilbert were discussing Ysenda’s charms when Owen and Jasper joined them by the horses.

‘It’s a sin for a man to hit such a beautiful face,’ Rafe said.

‘But not a plain one?’ Owen asked, releasing the reins of his horse. ‘Come, men. We’ve more to do before sundown.’ His men often irritated him with their empty chatter, but he disliked it even more when Jasper was there to hear it.

As he sat on his horse waiting for Rafe to get his bearings, Owen glanced back at the house. Someone stood at the door, peering out. He thought about Ysenda’s obvious fear and prayed he was not a fool to leave them alone for the night.

*      *      *

The great stone walls encircling York stopped on either side of the Ouse, a tidal river that ebbed and flowed, and flooded whenever the myriad streams in the moors and dales ran fast with melting snow or heavy rains. All vessels on the part of the river bisecting the city rode the changes, high in the water when the tide was in, trapped in the mudflats at very low tides. To live on such a watercourse or along its banks was to internalise the one certainty in life – that nothing was permanent.

Magda Digby, midwife, healer, a gifted woman of youthful old age, lived in a house capped with an upside-down Viking vessel as if ever ready to carry her away on a flood. New acquaintances inevitably suggested that, but Magda only smiled, never explaining her choice of roof. Her home sat on a rock near the north shore just outside the city walls and beyond the Abbey Staithe, upriver from the city, downriver from the Forest of Galtres. At high tide the rock became an island, and in floods the dried reeds she’d spread on the floor inside were often swept away. Yet the structure stood, as if it were hovering over the rock, or was an insubstantial mirage. The dragon on the prow, glaring upside down towards land, added to the mystery of the house.

Her ever-shifting ‘yard’ suited Magda. It was as changeable as the folk she tended. In flood time she hoisted her few pieces of furniture up to the rafters and went journeying, gifting the
housebound and the lonely with her presence. She saw no reason to cling to her rock and worry. If her home were swept away, then she would seek another that suited her. It was not perfect. She knew full well there was no such thing as perfection.

Out on her rock she felt free to go about her life according to her own moral code. She was not a Christian; she followed her own spiritual path. A few considered her dangerous, imagining that she cast spells. Only a few. Those timid about seeking healers within the city or their towns or villages knew where to find her, and trusted that their secrets were safe with Magda. She turned no one away if they appeared to be in need – she did not rely on their requesting aid, but watched their eyes and the flow of their movements, listened closely to their breath as they spoke. She often understood what people needed long before they did.

November was often a travelling time for Magda, but the stormy season had been quieter than usual, so she was still in residence. By late afternoon the dusk seemed but a continuation of the sunless day. It was that hour when, weary and oddly disoriented, the carpenter hammered his own finger, the tawyer spilled the alum, the cordwainer pricked himself, the apothecary mismeasured, the confessor momentarily nodded off and missed the sinner’s most anxious confession. Magda Digby stepped out of her dim, smoky
house to rest her eyes and enjoy the braw wind she’d noted gusting occasionally through the chinks in the wattle and daub and down the smoke hole. The snow of the previous day had warmed and soaked into the earth, but it felt as if more might fall. Once she’d studied the sky and reckoned the time, she moved her gaze to the river, noticing that the water was being forced upriver against the current – the tide was coming in.