The Cross Legged Knight (29 page)

‘What did you think of the man who spoke up for the thief?’

Timothy leaned on his rake and studied the rushes. ‘I did not take him for a charitable man.’ He made a face. ‘I have not been of much use. If I hear anything, I shall come to you right away.’

‘Aye, keep your ears pricked, Timothy. God go with you.’

Owen walked slowly up the Shambles, glancing into the shadows, but all was quiet. He walked a little way down a narrow alley that might have been a continuation of St Saviourgate to the west of St Crux, but had been overbuilt so much a cart could not fit down it. Wattle fences alternated with stone walls of all heights and condition, and a few doorways opened on to the alley. He saw a woman suckling a babe in a small garden, an elderly man cleaning a fish in his doorway, two children kicking a ball back and forth in a yard. If a thief had run down here a few hours ago, he had left no worried souls in his wake. Nor had he
dropped Lucie’s scrip. Retracing his steps, Owen slipped into St Crux Church, but it yielded no clues and he finally admitted to himself that he had no idea what he was looking for. Thefts happened all the day and folk accepted it as a part of living in the city. Which brought him back to the significance Lucie placed in the gloves.

He found Emma Ferriby in her courtyard. She was holding pieces of silk up to the dying light but her expression was anxious as she greeted him. ‘Have you spoken to the bishop?’

‘Aye, and the archbishop, who is satisfied that it was an accident.’

‘God is merciful.’ She crossed herself. ‘Thank you. My mind is much eased.’

‘I’ve come about another matter.’ He told her about the theft of the gloves.

She crushed the silk in her hand. ‘I cannot believe it. Her mother’s gloves, something so precious to her.’

Owen prayed that his face did not betray his surprise.

Emma tucked the silk squares into her girdle and held out her hands to grasp his. ‘Such a loss is hard to bear.’ He saw sincere concern in Emma’s face and was glad Lucie had such a friend. ‘And her hand. It is too much, all she has been given to bear this autumn.’

‘Your family has also had sorrow.’

Emma squeezed his hands and bowed her head. ‘Yes.’ A world of sorrow echoed in that one word.

‘I hoped you might help me. I have never seen the gloves, or I made no note of them if I have – that is what I fear. Could you describe them to me?’ He thought by Emma’s frown that she saw through his ruse.

But then she laughed. ‘Peter is the same. Even though he sells the silks and wools with which my gowns are made, he will express surprise again and again at the same garment.’ She closed her eyes and
described the gloves in such detail it was as if she could see them inside her eyelids. ‘Do you mean to catch the thief before he can sell them?’ She had opened her eyes and now studied his face so intently he felt himself blush.

‘Would they be worth selling?’ he asked.

‘They were a little worn, but a dubber might pay tuppence, perhaps more. The jet beads alone are worth something. You are angry – is Lucie badly injured?’

‘She is wounded, that is enough, and weak –’ He turned away, uncomfortable under her keen regard. ‘She has lost so much blood of late.’

‘Mother would say that is good.’

‘Magda thinks it too much. She says Lucie must stay abed for a week.’

‘I shall come to her tomorrow, Owen.’

‘I cannot imagine why anyone would steal them.’
Except Eudo, but how?
‘Still, might anyone have seen her showing you the gloves?’

‘Come with me to the garden. I shall show you where we sat.’ Emma led him out of the courtyard and into an alley bordered on one side by the warehouse, on the other by another multi-storey house – Hosier Lane was an affluent street, as was Pavement beyond, despite the presence of the city stocks.

As Emma opened the gate in the garden wall Owen noted a lock on the iron grille, which seemed a good caution. ‘When do you lock the gate?’

‘At night, or when we are all away. But as you will see, no one could have entered the garden without one of us seeing them this afternoon.’ She led him to a bench that did indeed have a complete view of the small garden. ‘Sit down.’

He found himself grateful to rest his legs, but the sun was setting and the damp was rising. It would not long
be pleasant to sit here. ‘Do you know Lucie’s mind in this? Why she showed the gloves to you today?’

‘She thought it might cheer her to have a pair made like them. She asked whether I recognized the glover’s work, which I did not, and whether Peter might have such hides.’ Emma drew the silk squares from her girdle. ‘It grows too dark. I was going to ask your opinion.’

‘Might Peter have the hide to make the gloves?’

‘I asked when I borrowed these from the shop. He has no hides at present.’ She turned fully towards him. ‘Do you think to have a new pair made for her?’

She looked so delighted at the thought of a conspiracy that would please Lucie that Owen was caught up in the idea. ‘I fear she thought of that first.’

‘But I could help you. I remember them so clearly.’

He noticed Emma’s son John standing in the doorway to the hall, anxious about Owen’s presence, he had no doubt. In the shadow of the house the details of the boy’s clothing were indistinct, but Owen and Emma, sitting in the late-afternoon sun, would be clearer. ‘What of someone observing you from the house as you talked?’

‘Do you truly think the thief wanted the gloves?’

Owen inclined his head towards John, who withdrew at once.

‘Peter has forbidden them to step outside the gate.’ Emma rose. ‘Perhaps we should leave them to what little land they are permitted to walk on.’ There was disapproval in her tone.

Owen’s legs felt stiff as they walked to the gate. ‘So no one interrupted your conversation with Lucie?’

‘My mother’s steward, Matthew.’ A sharpness entered Emma’s tone as she paused to open the gate. ‘But he stayed near the doorway to the hall.’

‘Were the gloves visible to him?’

He felt her eyes on him, though it was now grown too dark near the alley to read her expression clearly.

‘I am not certain.’ She said it softly, as if to herself.

He made his way home in the gathering darkness, alert to every footfall, every shadow. He found a quiet household, the children listening to one of Phillippa’s long tales before bedtime, Alisoun assisting Kate in the kitchen.

Lucie was sitting up and reached her arms out to him as he approached her. ‘Forgive me for my temper,’ she said.

He bent down and tried to embrace her, awkward in his attempt to avoid her bandaged hand. He thanked God for Magda’s skill and her timely presence. ‘You had been frightened.’ The change in her mood made him uneasy.

‘Did you speak to Emma?’

‘Aye, and glad I was that I did not say more than a few words before she mentioned a different tale of the gloves and who had worn them.’

‘Sweet heaven, I had not thought to tell you. Does she know of my lie?’

‘No. And I reassured her that Thoresby is relieved that the tile was not meant as a threat to Wykeham.’

‘Meaning Wykeham is not so comforted.’

Owen shrugged. He touched the bandage, saw no stain. ‘Are you in much pain?’

Lucie shook her head. ‘And the shivering has passed, so I feel more easy in myself. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight, Owen. Could you help me up the stairs?’

Owen caught Alisoun’s look of concern. He was not about to let the children’s nurse rule their household and, if it cheered Lucie, it would be done. ‘I’ll not stop
at helping you, I’ll carry you. But first you must eat, and I’ll take my meal with you.’

They did not speak of the theft and their separate investigations until they were alone in their chamber, and by that time Lucie was fighting sleep, though she tormented herself so about the loss of the gloves that he wondered how well she would rest.

‘For all we know the thief has searched the scrip, taken the few coins, perhaps the knife, and left the gloves and scrip where someone may find them. With your initials and the apothecary rose burned into the scrip’s flap, it might be returned to you. And perhaps the gloves with it. Or the finder could show us where they are.’

He handed her the cup of honeyed physick.

She pushed it away. ‘I have drunk enough of that for many a day.’

‘You have not.’

‘Honeyed words, honeyed drinks. Perhaps I should not have been so quick to apologize. You do treat me like a child now.’

‘Lucie, I want you well.’

‘So do I,’ she snapped, then lay down, with difficulty, avoiding the use of her right hand. She pulled the covers over her head.

Owen turned down the lamp and sat for a long while, wondering whether Lucie was truly beset by some devilish spirit. Perhaps it was time he went to his friend Archdeacon Jehannes and asked his advice in this. He fell asleep listening to the sounds of the night.

‘Owen, wake up.’

Lucie stood over him, shaking his arm. Morning light streamed from the open shutters. ‘The bailiff, George
Hempe, is sitting in the hall with a grim face. He will not tell me all until you have come down.’

Owen groaned. ‘What has he told you?’

‘He has shown me my scrip, my cut girdle and the gloves. But he will say nothing of how he comes to have them.’

‘He has a rigid sense of order, that is all,’ Owen said, pulling on his leggings and slipping into his tunic.

She handed him a cup of ale. ‘I thought you might need some strength.’

‘Aye, it seems the day begins apace.’

A
s Owen entered the hall, he saw through the garden windows that it was later than he had imagined, for the children were already at play. Alisoun sat calmly by and Phillippa, who tended to be a late riser, was seated as close to the windows as she could manage and yet still move, seeking light for her sewing.

‘Tell Alisoun to take the children to the kitchen,’ Owen said quietly to Lucie as they paused at the bottom of the steps.

‘I thought we might talk in the kitchen.’

‘No, it’s best we see Hempe in the hall, else he will suspect a slight. Where is Jasper?’

‘In the shop, where I should be but for my hand.’

‘You were to remain abed for a week.’

Lucie was ashen, her face pinched with pain. She held her bandaged hand protectively close to her. ‘After the bailiff departs I’ll lie down. Jasper, Alisoun and Kate do seem quite capable.’

Hempe perched on the edge of a chair a distance away from the children and Phillippa, hat in hand, his eyes
fierce in his hawk-nosed face, his balding pate doing nothing to dispel the impression of a predator. At his feet was a hide sack.

He rose as Owen crossed the hall to him. ‘Captain Archer.’

The children glanced back at the bass voice as Alisoun herded them to the kitchen door.

‘Good-day to you,’ Owen muttered, distracted by the sound of Lucie and her aunt in an argument. Phillippa did not wish to withdraw from the daylight.

‘I did not think to find you yet asleep at this hour,’ Hempe said.

Like a predator, he struck before Owen got his bearings.

‘I have had little opportunity for rest since the fire,’ Owen said, drawing himself up to full height so that he was more than a head taller than the bailiff.

Hempe’s face hardened.

Owen checked his mood. He did not yet know the man’s purpose. A more courteous tone might be to his advantage. ‘I pray your pardon for the wait. I know you are a busy man.’

‘I
am
busy of a sudden,’ Hempe said.

Lucie joined them. ‘Master Hempe, I pray you, tell us now how you recovered what was stolen from me yesterday.’

The bailiff fixed his gaze on Lucie. ‘Your injury, Mistress Wilton. Would you describe for me how you received it? Did you attempt to stop the thief?’

‘I was not aware that he had …’ Lucie began.

Owen could see that Hempe meant to bully her. ‘What is your purpose in questioning my wife?’

‘I had not thought it necessary to discuss this with Mistress Wilton in private. Was I wrong?’

‘You waited until I was present, Hempe. What game are you about?’

‘I am a city bailiff, Archer, it is my duty to arrest those who break the laws of the city.’

‘Owen, I pray you, let Master Hempe be about his business.’ Lucie sank down on to a stool, all colour drained from her face. ‘Forgive me, I am not well.’

‘I am sorry to disturb you,’ Hempe said in a quieter tone.

‘For what offence are you questioning my wife?’

‘I merely wish to understand the order and the character of yesterday’s events.’

‘First let us see whether you do indeed possess the goods stolen from my wife, and tell us where you found them,’ Owen demanded.

‘That does seem reasonable,’ Lucie agreed. ‘But I can tell you briefly, I thought my scrip had caught on something in the press of the crowd. I reached for it, something sliced my hand, and my girdle with the scrip was gone.’