The King's Bishop (24 page)

‘You see?’ Ned said. ‘A guilty conscience.’

‘Are we simpletons, Ned? Can there be only one cause of guilt?’

‘I wish to God I had been quick enough to catch him,’ Jehannes said.

Owen shook his head. ‘I doubt you would have fared better unless you had had the men right there to take him. Do not blame yourself, Jehannes. At least
we know Bardolph is alive, and bothered by something.’ He picked up his pack. ‘I shall send some men to help Matthew guard.’

‘So I
am
a prisoner,’ Ned said.

‘No need, Owen,’ Jehannes said. ‘Matthew will guard his captain well.’

‘See that you do, Matthew,’ Owen warned.

‘I will, Captain Archer. You can trust me.’

Jasper stood on a stool, stirring a small bowl of wine while Lucie dripped juice of wild nept into it. ‘Why are you mixing it with the wine?’ the boy asked.

‘Caught by my apprentice!’ Lucie said with a look of horror. Confused, Jasper stopped stirring. Lucie laughed as she stoppered the bottle. ‘I shall explain as soon as we are finished.’ She picked up a funnel and handed Jasper a bottle. ‘Hold this beneath the funnel while I pour.’ He assisted in silence. That finished, Lucie said, ‘When you take the bowl to Tildy for washing, tell her what we mixed in it. Wild nept juice is a strong purgative. Not something we want accidentally to consume at supper.’

Jasper made a face. ‘Now will you tell me about the wine?’

Lucie sat down on the stool Jasper had vacated, glanced at the door to check there were no customers to overhear, then leaned close. ‘This is for Master Maldon. What have I told you about him?’

Jasper dropped his chin to his chest, chewed his lower lip as he thought. After a few minutes, he shrugged with defeat.

‘He has a taste for remedies. He thinks if a little is good, a lot is much better. And no matter how I caution him, he will take more than he should.’ Lucie shrugged. ‘So I compensate for him.’

‘That’s cheating!’

Lucie smiled. ‘Do you think so? The wine I use is almost as dear as the juice. But I charge him less than I do others for the same physick.’

‘The ways of a Master Apothecary are mysterious, eh, Jasper?’

Lucie’s head shot up. ‘Owen!’

He stood in the doorway, pack in hand. Lucie jumped up, hurried round the counter. Owen dropped his pack and met her in the middle of the room, lifted her in his arms. She buried her face in his dusty hair. There was no scent she loved so well as Owen’s, nothing that felt so right as being in his arms.

‘I missed you, my love,’ she whispered to him.

He squeezed her hard, let her down on her feet, put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You received my letter from Rievaulx?’

‘No. Only the one from Fountains.’

‘A pox on them. I’ve ridden up onto the moors and back down and they could not get a letter to you in all that time?’ Owen’s face was drawn, lines ran from his nose to the corners of his mouth.

Lucie traced the lines with a finger. ‘What is it? Did you find Ned?’

‘I did indeed.’ Owen shrugged wearily. ‘There is much to tell.’

And none of it good, Lucie guessed. ‘First you must refresh yourself. Come.’

Jasper stood behind the counter, still encumbered by the bowl. ‘Welcome home, Captain.’

Owen ruffled his hair, chucked him under the chin. ‘One day I shall return and think you a stranger, you are growing so quickly. Come into the kitchen and I shall show you what I brought you.’

*

After Jasper and Tildy had gone to bed, Lucie and Owen went up to their bedchamber. Lucie sat by the window nursing Gwenllian. Owen stretched out on the bed, lying on his side, arm supporting his head.

‘You are beautiful, you two,’ Owen said softly.

‘You’ve not yet held your daughter.’

Owen sighed, flopped on to his back, arms out-stretched. ‘Think back to your last long ride. I was on horseback from dawn until you saw me, but for a pause at Jehannes’s house. And two days before that. Every muscle in my back is twitching or aching. To sit still and hold Gwenllian …’ he moaned. ‘But if you knead my back tonight with one of your soothing ointments I shall be able to hold my daughter in the morning, I am sure.’ He grinned.

Lucie laughed. ‘You might have just asked.’

‘I am steeling myself for our customary argument. I cannot yet divine whence it shall come, but to ask a favour might be just the thing to irk you.’

‘Do you dare accuse me of starting arguments?’

‘Well …’

Lucie held Gwenllian up to her shoulder to wind her. ‘Tell me about Ned.’

Gwenllian interrupted with a hearty belch.

Owen laughed. ‘She is not shy.’

‘Your daughter? Of course not.’ Lucie lay Gwenllian in her basket beside the bed. Already the long eyelashes rested on the chubby cheeks. ‘I must go down to the shop for the ointment.’

‘Never mind. Tomorrow morning is soon enough.’

Lucie hesitated, tempted to slide into bed. But her professional self would not allow it. ‘Your back will be stiff when you wake. Best do it now. I have some ointment mixed. I shall be back before you’ve missed me.’

*

When Lucie returned, Owen lay on her side of the bed, dangling his arm in Gwenllian’s basket, one finger firmly grasped in his daughter’s right hand. Lucie smiled, gave thanks. She had feared Owen had developed a new worry, something that would prevent his touching his daughter. ‘She looks so much like you when she sleeps,’ she said.

‘Nay, like you.’

Lucie pulled her shift over her head.

‘What is this? You could not find the ointment?’

‘I have it.’ Lucie nodded at the jar on the small table beside the bed. ‘I would rather not soil my shift with the oil.’

‘What a practical wife you are.’

Lucie slid under the covers and ran her hand down Owen’s side and up over his chest.

He rolled over on top of her, bit her shoulder.

‘I thought your back needed a rub.’

‘First things first.’

Gwenllian woke them with a hungry cry. Lucie wrapped a shawl round her shoulders and lifted Gwenllian into bed to nurse her.

Owen sat up, touched his daughter’s damp curls. ‘She sleeps hot.’

‘Like her father.’

‘Will she soon sleep through the night?’

Owen disliked being awakened; a noise in the night could cause a day of complaints. Lucie did not sympathise. ‘I pray that she will soon sleep the night through, but it is impossible to predict a child’s appetite.’ Quickly, to avoid more comments, Lucie asked, ‘Did Jehannes tell you he saw Bardolph?’

‘Aye. He did.’ Lucie heard Owen’s frustration in his voice.

‘I had hoped that might be good news. Of some help. But it is one more problem?’

‘Ned would say no. He believes – ’ Owen shook his head. ‘We shall not speak of such things while Gwenllian is suckling.’

Men had the oddest sense of order, Lucie thought. ‘How did you find Ned?’

Owen sat up a little. She had chosen a good topic. ‘You will be amazed who found him for me.’ Already his voice had brightened.

Lucie could not imagine. She chose the first name that came to mind. ‘Don Ambrose?’

Owen did not answer at once.

‘Well? Am I right or wrong?’ His continued silence alerted her. ‘What is it, husband?’

‘Nothing.’ He forced a bright voice. ‘Guess again.’

Lucie groaned. ‘I dislike this game. Tell me.’

Owen tickled her neck. ‘You don’t care to guess?’

‘Mmmm …’ she smiled. ‘I shall only guess wrong. I cannot imagine who found Ned.’

‘You are certain?’

‘Owen …’

‘Are we about to have our argument?’

‘Not if you tell me right away. You want to tell me. You will in the end. Why torture me when I am innocent?’

‘You become choleric with too much work.’

Lucie laughed. ‘Tell me or I shall tell Gwenllian you enjoy her crying in the middle of the night.’

‘Sweet Heaven but you are a cruel woman!’

‘Well?’

‘Magda Digby found Ned for me.’

‘Truly!’ Lucie would not have guessed that. ‘How is that possible?’

Owen told her how Nym had come for them at Rievaulx.

‘Though I am not surprised that Magda travels up on to the moors, I am puzzled by her being there now, in such an uncertain season,’ Lucie said.

‘She went to be midwife to her granddaughter, something that occurs at its own time.’ A smug smile.

‘Granddaughter! Owen, you monstrous man, to have such a story and keep it secret.’

Owen laughed, told Lucie of Magda’s family.

Lucie was delighted. She and Bess often wondered about Magda’s past, who Potter’s father might have been. ‘You discovered this for yourself?’

‘None of the women spoke of it.’

‘I wonder why?’

‘There is some rift between Magda and her daughter.’

Lucie lowered the sleeping Gwenllian back into her basket. She prayed that no such rifts happened with her children.

‘She falls asleep faster now,’ Owen noted.

‘Tonight, yes. Tomorrow night might be another matter.’ Lucie snuggled up next to him. ‘You are eager to be done with the difficult part of siring children.’

‘Rub my back now?’

Lucie had forgotten. She blinked back sleep, forced herself upright. ‘While I work on your back, tell me about Ned.’

‘You thirst for bad news?’

‘I want to know what troubles my husband.’

‘It is difficult to know what to say. I am so uncertain what to think.’

‘Then tell me all.’

And Owen did. As Lucie kneaded his back, smoothing out the tight muscles, he told her of Ned’s
confusion when Owen had first seen him in the shepherd’s hut, his half-truths about how he had come to be there, the fact that he had known of Ambrose’s death.

‘And you cannot judge whether he is lying or confused?’

‘No. I think some of both, but I do not know.’ Owen squirmed under her searching fingers. ‘Don Ambrose’s death is the worst that might have happened for Ned. Unless …’

Lucie had not realised the extent of his suspicions. ‘You don’t think Ned killed him?’

A long silence. ‘It is possible. But it is so difficult to believe that of him. It would have been the act of a coward. Ned is not that. Or he was not before.’

Lucie was shocked Owen would even consider the possibility. ‘His running away has made you doubt him.’

‘Aye. Another thing I would have said he would never do.’

When such doubts began, where indeed did they end? ‘You blame yourself for giving Ned command of the men.’

‘I do. And Jehannes for saying nothing of the friar’s request.’

His left shoulder felt knotted, slightly swollen. Owen winced when Lucie kneaded it. ‘Chilly and damp up on the moors?’

‘Aye.’

She would talk to Brother Wulfstan, the infirmarian at St Mary’s, and Magda; perhaps one of them knew of a salve that would bring more warmth to the shoulder at such times. For now, she tried a gentler touch, which seemed to help him. ‘Why did Jehannes say nothing?’

‘To be plain, inexperience. And a stubborn streak he chose a wretched time to indulge.’

‘You do not think Jehannes is hiding something?’

‘No. It would be against his nature.’

‘Has Ned lied to you before?’

Owen paused. ‘How can I know for certain? But I think not. He is a braggart, not a liar. I should have listened to you. You warned me.’

That dream. What had it meant? It had seemed merely fear before. But now? ‘For once I should have been happy to be wrong.’ Lucie sank back on her heels.

Owen turned over on to his back. ‘Already I feel better.’ He held out his arms to her, she sank down on to him, kissed him, then rolled to the side, yawning and stretching. ‘I am keeping you awake,’ Owen said, letting her hear his disappointment.

‘I have had many wakeful nights with Gwenllian. I cannot remember when I felt truly rested.’

‘I should have waited till morning for you to tend my aches.’

‘No, silly man. I prefer to have you rise in the morning without pain.’

Owen kissed Lucie’s forehead, then grew quiet for a while. Lucie was drifting off when he said, ‘Gervase and Henry are dead, too.’

‘What?’ Lucie opened her eyes. ‘Where?’

‘Ned found them lying in the beck near where he stayed while tending the flock.’

Lucie sat up. ‘Do you think Ned …’ She shook her head. She could not say it. But why would someone go to such lengths to make Ned look guilty?

‘I think it highly unlikely one man could have overcome both men.’

‘But, Owen. Ned was so far from Rievaulx or
Fountains. How did Gervase and Henry also stray there?’ That it was not the work of one man did not eliminate Ned. It merely required an accomplice.