The Guilt of Innocents (29 page)

‘Now, Master Nicholas.’ Thoresby still sat with his hands in front of his face as if his conversation was partly with himself. ‘I interest myself in this business for the sake of my dear friend Emma Ferriby, not for any virtue of yours.’

Owen did not look over at Nicholas, for being blind in his left eye he’d need to turn quite obviously to see the man who sat to his left, and he was certain the man was already humbled enough. He knew how such words from the archbishop stung.

‘I suppose you would say that Chancellor Thomas is also persecuting you,’ Thoresby said with a sarcastic tone.

‘He wants to excommunicate me for teaching the children of York who cannot attend St Peter’s. Is that just?’ Nicholas’s face was quite red by now with righteous indignation and wine.

‘Who was this Drogo to you?’ Thoresby asked.

‘He was a stranger, Your Grace. I wish I knew how he came to know that the cross belonged in my parish.’ Nicholas tried to discreetly blot the sweat on his high forehead.

‘Have you any idea how he would have known, Archer?’ Thoresby asked.

Owen shook his head. ‘None yet, Your Grace.’

Thoresby nodded. ‘How do you suggest the scrip and ring came to be hidden in one of your hats, Master Nicholas?’

Now Owen permitted himself to turn his good eye on the schoolmaster, wanting to see how he
received that question. Nicholas looked as mystified as he’d looked earlier.

‘Your Grace, I cannot say. But as Captain Archer has just told us, Chancellor Thomas knew where the scrip had been hidden. I believe it possible that he ordered it put there.’

‘Indeed? An interesting place to put it, in a hat.’ Thoresby smirked. ‘How do you suppose the chancellor came to have it?’

‘Master John might have given it to him. Why would he keep it? But he might have removed it himself, or had it removed.’

‘Your Grace,’ Owen broke in, becoming impatient with Thoresby’s baiting, ‘Master John was keeping the scrip for Hubert when he returns. I was with him when he discovered it missing, and I believed his dismay.’

‘And what of the ring, Archer?’ asked Thoresby. ‘To whom does it belong?’

‘I don’t yet know.’

‘We’ll leave that for now.’ Thoresby dropped his hands and leaned forward, looking at Nicholas. ‘I must ask you why you persist in keeping your school in the minster liberty when its presence there has caused so much distress. This is a large city, Master Nicholas, why not move it? I doubt that your scholars would desert you. Why must it be there?’

‘The parents of my scholars deem it an honour to send their children to the liberty, Your Grace, and they count it a safe, respectable part of the
city, with your guardsmen and so many clerics there. It pleases them.’

‘I propose that it also feeds your pride, Master Nicholas.’

Owen found it difficult to sit still, having been Thoresby’s target too often to find this comfortable.

Nicholas bristled but dropped his gaze in a gesture of humility. ‘Your Grace, I swear to you that was not my purpose. I was offered a fair lease on the property, which was well suited for a schoolroom and my private chamber.’

‘That may be so,’ said Thoresby. ‘We’ll discuss this again. For now, the school is closed until your name is cleared.’ He rose. All rose.

Nicholas stood with head bowed. Owen noticed that his knuckles were white as bone.

‘Michaelo, have a room prepared for Master Nicholas,’ said Thoresby.

Glancing up, Nicholas said, ‘For me?’

‘You’ll bide here until such time as I know what to do with you.’

‘You are most kind,’ Nicholas murmured.

Thoresby had already turned to Owen and Hempe. ‘Come with me to my parlour. I would talk further.’

As Owen followed Thoresby across the hall he was thinking about Canon William’s presence when Master John tucked the scrip into the box. It was difficult to imagine Chancellor Thomas being so desperate as to put the scrip in Nicholas’s
chamber to implicate him, but excommunication was itself a desperate step. William had mentioned the scrip’s hiding place to the chancellor.

In the parlour, Thoresby asked that they review with him all they knew so far and with whom they had talked. It was a tedious meeting and Owen was glad when he finally escaped into the cold evening air. He even welcomed the snow that had begun to fall in large flakes.

Standing well away from the burning house and behind the wind that fed the flames, Hubert and Sir Baldwin, along with many neighbours, watched in grim fascination the gradual collapse of the last upright pole. Aubrey was moving among the crowd asking whether any had seen Ysenda. There was an audible sigh from the watchers when the pole settled in the embers.

Sir Baldwin put a hand on Hubert’s shoulder, ‘There is no more to see, lad, and we’ve all breathed too much smoke and ash. Come to the hall. You will stay with us until you return to school.’

‘And Da?’ Hubert felt strange, speaking of his adoptive father with his natural father. He wondered whether Sir Baldwin thought of him as his son at all.

‘Aubrey shall come as well. He has saved my life many a time in France. I can at least shelter him and help him search for your mother in return.’

They waited until Aubrey made his way back to them. He was shaking his head. ‘No one has
seen her. Tomorrow, in daylight –’ He pressed his hands to his face.

Hubert put a hand on his forearm. ‘Come, Da, let’s go to the hall. Sir Baldwin says we’re to bide with him there.’

Dropping his hands, Aubrey lifted his face to the sky and howled. It was a terrible sound, filled with anguish like an animal caught in a trap. Hubert crossed himself and knelt to pray that his mother had escaped the fire.

Snow began to fall again as they quietly walked to the manor house, giving Hubert a new worry, that his mother had not had the presence of mind to take a warm cloak as she’d fled, if she’d fled.

Though Hempe had hurried on, Owen was still standing on the steps to the archbishop’s palace watching the snow when Peter Ferriby, Emma’s husband, took the steps two at a time and halted just below him, gasping for breath and obviously concerned.

‘I heard that my brother Nicholas was escorted here by you and one of the city bailiffs, Owen.’ Peter was larger and more imposing than either of his brothers, partially due to his quietly elegant attire.

‘He was,’ said Owen. ‘We found Hubert de Weston’s scrip in your brother’s chamber, and a ring that he swears he’s never seen before. He demanded to speak with the archbishop, so we escorted him here.’

Peter looked away with a curse, then back to Owen. ‘You searched my brother’s chamber? Why did you think to do that?’

Owen told him about Nicholas’s inability to explain why Drogo would have given him the Gamyll cross, and William’s admission that he’d told Nicholas where Master John had hidden the scrip.

‘I see.’ Peter dropped his gaze, slowly shaking his head. ‘God help him.’

‘I’m certain he would welcome your company right now,’ said Owen, patting him on the shoulder. ‘I’m going home.’

Wrapped in blankets and sipping spiced wine, Hubert and Aubrey listened to Sir Baldwin’s account of Owen Archer’s visit and the missing cross, as well as the murder of Drogo.

Hubert’s father slumped lower and lower as he listened with dismay to the tale.
‘That
cross,’ he cried when Sir Baldwin was finished. ‘Why did you take that, Hubert? What could you want with a birthing cross?’

‘A very good question,’ laughed Osmund as he rose from his comfortable chair by the fire. ‘I regret that I cannot stay to hear your explanation. I pray you, be at ease.’ Despite his lazy expression he seemed in a hurry to depart.

But Hubert was glad to see the back of him. ‘I didn’t know what it was, Da.’ He felt himself blushing. He unhappily repeated how he’d wanted
something of his mother’s close to him. It seemed foolish now, and worse, it had not even been hers. He wished he could forget it.

‘That such a simple, innocent act could cause a man’s death. God have mercy on us,’ Aubrey said, crossing himself.

Hubert had expected anger and felt a wave of relief wash over him. Aubrey seemed far more concerned about why Ysenda had taken the cross in the first place. ‘She said nothing about being with child or having lost one,’ he said.

‘Osmund found it odd when I told him about all this earlier,’ said Baldwin.

‘It isn’t right, talking about Ma like this when she’s out there somewhere,’ Hubert blurted out.

A long, uncomfortable silence descended on the room.

‘Drogo,’ Aubrey said, suddenly breaking the spell. ‘The miller and his wife who died in the pestilence had a son called Drogo.’

‘The miller’s son. Sweet Jesu, you are right, Aubrey,’ said Baldwin. ‘I wish I’d remembered that for Captain Archer.’ He glanced at his young wife, who was sitting quietly, her sewing forgotten in her lap. ‘It is a common name in the parish, but uncommon elsewhere.’

She smiled at him. ‘It is a large estate, my lord. How could you remember the names of all the children?’

*      *      *

As the snow fell without the house, Lucie, Phillippa, Alisoun and the children sat close to the hall fire, listening to Phillippa’s tales of life at Freythorpe. Gwenllian loved to hear about her grandfather, Sir Robert, whom she remembered. Hugh had been too small to remember him well.

Lucie kept watching the door, anxious to tell Owen about all she’d learned from Drogo’s widow. At last he appeared, rosy cheeked from the cold and well dusted with snow – and looking exhausted, the lines in his face etched more deeply than usual. She waited until he’d settled with a cup of ale and appeared to be both warm and comfortable before telling him of Cissy’s visit.

When she described the ring, he sat forward and excitedly asked her to repeat what she’d said. ‘The ring in the scrip,’ he said when she’d done so. He seemed unaware of her for some moments. ‘It does not fit with the rest. But the Gamylls’ miller, yes, that could tie them together.’ He suddenly focused again on Lucie. ‘Tell me everything, what she looks like, what she said, anything you can recall.’

She understood his interest once he told her about finding the scrip in Nicholas’s chamber, with the ring hidden inside.

‘Drogo might have put it there while he had the scrip and forgotten to remove it when he returned it,’ she said. ‘You did not notice it at first.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ said Owen. ‘Geoffrey was quite certain that the scrip was empty, and surely
Master John handled the scrip enough to have noticed the ring if it had been in there. Someone put the two together and placed them in Nicholas’s chamber, someone determined to make him look guilty of something far worse than opening a school in the minster liberty.’

Lucie could think of only two people who might wish to do that, and she could not believe they would sink to such depths. ‘It cannot be the chancellor and dean.’

Owen rubbed the scar beneath his patch, a sign of deep weariness. ‘At present I can think of no one else, my love.’

She was incredulous. ‘You think it possible?’

He shrugged.

Lucie found the idea of Churchmen behaving so ignobly, with so little regard to human life, very disturbing. ‘Nicholas could be put to death for such offences.’

‘I know. Someone will be.
Someone
murdered those two men.’

She moved next to him and took his hand. ‘Owen, do you think Nicholas might be guilty?’

‘Could he be such a fool?’ He leaned his forehead against Lucie’s, and she wished he would gather her up and take her upstairs, though as she followed the thought she realised it would not be quite as romantic as her spontaneous thought. ‘I don’t know, Lucie, I think him a stubborn fool for challenging St Peter’s School, but that does not make him a murderer.’

She moved a little so she could kiss Owen on the lips. She would never tire of him.

‘No, that does not make him a murderer,’ she agreed, ‘just a foolish man. I suppose you’ll return to the palace after supper?’

Owen sighed, then pulled her to him and gave her a lingering kiss. ‘Yes, I must trudge through the snow to ask more questions. It is my duty, though I curse the need to leave you.’ His quiet evening with Lucie was not to be.

O
wen could not believe his good fortune in Lucie’s long talk with Drogo’s widow. He did not know how long Nicholas had been the pastor in Weston, and he did not want to wait until morning to ask him whether he remembered Drogo. As soon as he’d eaten enough to quiet his hunger pangs he was out the door and turning up High Petergate towards the archbishop’s palace.

Brother Michaelo expressed no surprise at finding him at the door, merely flaring his elegant nose and pursing his lips, then nodding back towards the dinner table. ‘Master Nicholas is amusing, so awed by His Grace’s presence that he cannot make conversation. He will find no peace here. I pray you have interesting news, Captain.’

‘I do. And I hope that Master Nicholas will be able to fill in some of Drogo’s past.’

‘Do you? Hmm. I shall keep my doubts to myself.’ Michaelo hummed as he escorted Owen to the table where the three had been dining. A
servant brought a chair for Owen, and poured him wine.