The Guilt of Innocents (22 page)

As soon as they entered the hall, Lucie noticed Alisoun’s eyes fastened on her hand on Edric’s
arm. She dropped it, irritated by how guilty the girl made her feel with that look.

Magda’s multicoloured gown caught Lucie’s eye as the healer approached her, and she thought how fortunate she was in her friend. She noticed Magda glancing over at Alisoun with a thoughtful expression, but then she was smiling at Lucie as she guided her to a high-backed chair by the fire.

‘How dost thou?’ Magda asked as Lucie settled. Lifting Lucie’s hem Magda shook her head at her swollen ankles.

‘I’m aware of those,’ said Lucie. ‘My back aches as well. I am truly toswollen. It all seemed easier when I was younger.’

‘It was,’ said Magda, ‘but thou wilt soon feel better.’ She went over to the fire and stirred something in a small pot.

Gwenllian pushed a low stool under Lucie’s feet and then knelt next to her. Lucie reached down to stroke her raven curls.

‘You are my angel,’ she said.

Gwenllian gingerly bent over to rest an ear on Lucie’s belly. ‘Baby is sleeping?’ she asked.

‘Your brother or sister has been dancing a jig all the long day, so I think he or she is tired. I am, too!’ But at this moment Lucie felt content.

Straightening, Gwenllian leaned on the arm of Lucie’s chair, trying to look her in the eyes. ‘Aunt Pippa was confused today. She was worried about someone named Amélie. Who was she?’

Lucie glanced over at her aunt as she smoothed her daughter’s hair. ‘She was my mother, your grandmother from Normandy, remember? Aunt Phillippa must have dreamt about her and woke confused.’

Gwenllian shrugged and sighed. ‘I don’t like that she thinks grandma is still alive. I don’t like when Aunt Pippa’s confused.’

‘Neither does she, my love.’

Magda brought a cup of steaming liquid from the pot on the fire, and now thrust it into Lucie’s hands, startling her. ‘For the swelling and the backache,’ she said. ‘Now, drink.’

Gwenllian ran back to Hugh and Alisoun. Lucie watched as her two children began a tag game around Alisoun’s chair.

‘Thou art blessed with healthy bairns,’ said Magda. She’d pulled a stool up to join Lucie.

Edric made a move to join them.

‘The bailiff George Hempe came to Master Nicholas’s school today, Edric,’ said Alisoun.

He changed his direction and sat down near her, but not so near as to become part of the tag game. ‘What was wrong?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. He asked to speak to Master Nicholas in the alleyway. After that, Master Nicholas kept forgetting what he’d been saying.’

‘It’s no wonder that the controversy about his school and the gossip about what happened when he prayed over Drogo has shaken him,’ said Lucie.

‘I did not mean to disturb your rest, Dame
Lucie, I was speaking to Edric.’ Alisoun spoke in a tone far too familiar for a nursemaid.

Lucie would not tolerate such disrespect from the girl. ‘Take the children to the kitchen, Alisoun, and calm them with supper. You might eat with them this evening.’ She used a firm though not unfriendly tone.

‘But Kate feeds them,’ Alisoun said, her colour high.

Edric studied his shoes.

‘Not this evening,’ said Lucie. ‘She will be up late in case the captain and Jasper return. You are apparently at ease, so it is no inconvenience to you to feed the children.’

Alisoun rose and snapped her skirts.

‘Have a care,’ said Magda. ‘Thou hast fire in thy eyes, Alisoun, and it is blinding thee.’

Bobbing her head to Lucie and glaring at Magda, Alisoun rounded up her charges and led them out of the hall. Lucie let her breath out only when the door closed behind them.

Magda looked disgusted. ‘Where is the healer in her soul?’ she muttered as she rose to give the fire a poke.

‘Did I cause trouble for Alisoun?’ asked Edric.

He looked abandoned, and Lucie felt for him. It would take a sturdier man than he would ever be to carry the burden of Alisoun’s affections.

‘It was nothing you did, Edric,’ she assured him. ‘I think she is bored with her duties here. It is well that a wet nurse will soon come to take her place.’

‘What will she do then?’ he asked.

‘We will continue to support her schooling,’ said Lucie, ‘and Dame Magda is arranging a post for her.’

‘Magda spoke with Alisoun earlier.’ She settled back down. ‘Do not fret, lad, for she is surrounded by those who wish her well. Enough of that girl.’ She turned to Lucie. ‘Magda also talked with George Hempe, the hawk himself. He called here, and Magda told him about Master Nicholas’s queer behaviour. That is why he sought out the man. And a tanner’s wife came to tell the captain of a pair on the riverbank yesterday who might have been the goldsmith’s lad and his murderer. But then thou knowest she was here. She did come to thee?’

Poor Alice, pregnant again. ‘Yes. She has all that she needs for a while, and I was glad to give it to her. She is a sweet woman, too sweet.’ Lucie knew Magda would divine her meaning.

‘Aye, she should not have –’ Magda glanced up at Edric’s eager expression and fussed with Lucie to finish the cup of herbs. ‘Magda will not be here tomorrow, but she will leave more of this beverage for thee.’

‘Where will you be?’ Lucie had slept so soundly the previous night and believed that Magda’s mere presence had provided such a gift, a night of unbroken sleep that was such a rare blessing when pregnant. ‘You are not safe at home.’

‘That is thy opinion, but Magda won’t be at
home. She has a thought that a baby who is due is about to proclaim her arrival.’

‘Then it’s true what they say,’ said Edric in a hushed tone of wonder, ‘you can see the future.’

Lucie knew to expect Magda’s barking laughter, but Edric looked startled and confused.

‘Thou hast leaped from a thought that it is time for the baby to wondrous powers of divination,’ Magda said. ‘Thou hast honoured Magda, but she cannot accept thy praise.’

Edric could not help but smile in response to Magda’s gleeful expression, her clear blue eyes twinkling. Lucie was glad that he was able to laugh at his mistake, but she worried about how easily the young man was befooled. He would be prey to tricksters if he did not learn to discern what was probable and what was not.

After dinner, Edric went off to his chamber above the shop and Phillippa went off to her own bed, still fretting about the dead who yet lived in her confused mind. Alisoun had apparently chosen to remain in the solar after putting the children to bed for the night.

Lucie, Magda, and Kate sat in the kitchen, and Magda announced Maud’s imminent arrival, which delighted Lucie. As Kate had been in the household long enough to be trusted as family, Lucie and Magda were free to continue, talking of Alice Tanner’s overabundance of children, George Hempe’s visit, the possible connections between Nigel and Drogo, and most of all
Alisoun’s feelings about Edric and his for Lucie.

It was quite late when they heard Owen’s and Jasper’s voices in the hall. Kate hurried out of the kitchen to see to their comfort while Lucie and Magda followed more sedately.

Seeing the midwife with Lucie, Owen jumped to the wrong conclusion. ‘What is amiss? Is the baby all right?’

‘Our baby is healthy, my love, and the most active one I’ve carried. Magda had the trouble, not I.’

‘The second murder, aye,’ said Owen, rubbing the scar beneath his eye patch, which Lucie took as a sign of his concern over the ‘coincidence’ of two men knifed and then drowned. ‘Alfred just explained why he was guarding the house. He’s a good man. And this young man,’ Owen put a hand on Jasper’s shoulder, ‘is a fine spy in training. He has been a great help to me.’

‘Da’s work is nothing like I’ve imagined it,’ Jasper said. Lucie saw that the boy was exhausted but excited to tell all. ‘We found Hubert, but he wouldn’t return with us. I’m hungry, Kate.’

‘So am I,’ said Owen. ‘But first things first.’ He swept Lucie up in his arms. ‘I am so glad to see you looking so well, my love. Now to bed with you. It’s late for you to be down here. You need your rest.’

She gladly accepted the ride up the stairs. ‘I missed you,’ she said as he gently lowered her to the bed. ‘But Magda was a peaceful bed mate,’ she teased.

‘You shared our bed with Magda?’ Owen looked incredulous. ‘Does she mutter charms in her sleep?’

They laughed together, a moment of intimacy that Lucie extended by pulling him down beside her.

‘I’m filthy from travel, my love,’ Owen protested.

‘When did I ever mind that?’ she whispered into his thick dark hair. Christ but she loved him.

They kissed long and tenderly.

‘So,
does
she mutter charms in her sleep?’ Owen asked when they paused to breathe, his breath tickling her face.

‘You know she has no truck with charms,’ Lucie said, laughing. It was so good to have him in her arms. ‘Do you think Hempe was right to worry about her after she’d fished Nigel from the Ouse?’ Unfortunate question, she realised at once.

Reminded of his work, Owen sat up, moving a little away from her. ‘I do, and I’m glad that Magda agreed to have a care. A goldsmith’s journeyman.’ He shook his head. ‘I wonder whether Drogo asked him the value of the cross and he coveted it. But such a small piece.’ He explained what it was that Hubert had lost.

‘A birthing cross,’ Lucie said, feeling sorry for the women who had been deprived of a good luck piece for their lying ins. ‘The poor lad. Where is the cross now?’

Seeing the frustration in the set of his jaw and
his shoulders she knew his response before he gave it. ‘I wish I knew,’ he said. ‘I hope that George Hempe has spoken to Edward Munkton about Nigel.’

‘Hempe was here today,’ said Lucie. ‘Magda spoke to him.’ A yawn escaped her and she realised how sleepy she was. ‘Now go have some food and ale, and Magda will tell you about all that has happened while you’ve been away. I look forward to hearing about it all in the morning.’

As Owen was about to leave Lucie said, ‘Jasper looks happy.’

Owen’s smile bespoke his own happiness. ‘Aye. We both are. Now sleep, my love. I can see that your eyelids are ready to close.’

‘God be praised for bringing you both home safely.’ She loved them so fiercely at this moment.

Owen crossed himself. ‘God be praised for keeping my family safe while I was away. Now rest, Lucie my love.’ He closed the door behind him.

She lay in bed turning over what Owen had said about his inquiry in order to quiet her emotions. A gold cross belonging to Ysenda’s lord. Drogo finding it in the scrip, perhaps going to Nigel for advice on what it was worth. She’d heard from Julia Dale that the goldsmith’s journeyman was unpleasant, and suspected of theft. As Lucie drifted towards sleep, she floated between concern over Edric’s gullibility and wonder about whether Drogo had been equally
gullible, to have shown his spoils to Nigel, a man of such negative reputation.

When Hubert heard the horse he groaned to think Captain Archer and Jasper had returned, but he soon saw that it was worse than that.

‘Ma, it’s Master Osmund.’

She had been chopping roots at a table in the far corner and now paused, the knife in mid-air, glancing over her shoulder towards the door with a worried expression. Her reaction was not at all what he’d expected. ‘Stay close to me, Hubert. I would not be alone with him.’

‘But you always want to be alone with him.’ It had been her custom to shoo him out of the house when Osmund appeared. In fact Hubert had believed his mother to be in love with their lord’s son though her behaviour was usually more anxious than delighted. Osmund had spent much of the past summer in their home. Hubert suspected that Osmund had spent even more time there while he was at school. They’d been lovers – he was almost certain of that. But now the expression on his mother’s beautiful face was fear. ‘What has frightened you? Has he hurt you? Does it have to do with the cross?’

‘No!’ his mother said. ‘I would not have your father walk in on us, just the two of us. You know how he makes up his own story of what is happening. He might hurt someone.’

Hubert did not respond. Aubrey’s ‘own story’
would be accurate. She thought Hubert didn’t know. It hurt that she could think he did not have a good idea that Osmund was her lover, that she could think she had fooled him. Osmund had so far shown none of the virtues of Sir Baldwin. He hadn’t even run the estate while his father was gone. Hubert did not trust him, and he’d heard enough gossip about others feeling likewise, including Aubrey, that he felt he was right not to. But his mother had not seemed to see that in him at all. Had something newly opened her eyes? He wondered whether Osmund had
given
her the birthing cross, but pushed that thought aside, not wanting to believe his mother would have accepted it knowing that the women of the village and the manor might need it.

Osmund knocked on the door.

‘See him in,’ said Hubert’s mother, staying by the table.

Hubert opened the door and stepped back. ‘Master Osmund,’ he muttered with the slightest bow he could manage. He found himself wondering where Aubrey was, wishing he would appear.

‘Young Hubert! I did not think to find you here. When did you return from school? Are you ill?’ Osmund Gamyll surprised Hubert by sounding and looking sincerely concerned.