Pit slouched to the bedside, keeping his eyes averted as if fearing he might see his lord’s nakedness.
‘You had best have news after so rudely interrupting my pleasure,’ John growled, more for the sport of seeing the man even more discomfited. Whence came these fine sensibilities in hired brutes? It was ever the same, a taste for all but a certain vice. Pit feared naked flesh, and pleasure. Pain, blood, splintered bones, guts spilling from sliced velvet, gouged-out eyes – nary a flicker of unease. But show him a woman’s bare breast or a cock wet with sex and the man blanched and bowed his head.
‘The minstrel and the fair-haired lad, milord. They have gone. Left all the rest asleep.’
‘Have they?’ John smiled to himself. ‘You know what to do.’
‘Alive?’
‘Alive if you catch him on the road. I should like to know who sent him. But if you follow him into a town or guarded manor …’ John paused, considering how likely it was that Pit and his fellows could be discreet. ‘If you might be seen dragging him away, dispatch him in the shadows, leave him to die.’
‘And the lad?’
The beautiful youth with the voice of an angel. Were the pair lovers? If so, the youth might know much, might be able to carry out the minstrel’s mission.
‘The lad likewise.’
Pit managed to bow even lower as he backed from the room.
‘Take as many men as you see fit. And some horses – they took no horses, I presume?’
‘No, my lord,’ Pit mumbled at the door. ‘They were on foot.’
‘Do not disappoint me.’
‘May God bless this mission.’
John almost laughed out loud. ‘God has little to do with such work. Get on with it!’
When the door closed he lay back, contemplating the bed curtains. The kitchen wench was a delicious piece of flesh, but now, should the minstrel be found dead and she hear of it … He would order her death on the morrow. Tempting to send for her and enjoy her once more before his man took her away. Or he had that slow-acting poison … Rising, he knocked on the door, and when his manservant answered he told him to send for the wench. ‘And bring more wine.’ She would find her death in a fine claret. A kindness.
2
A Fell Night, an Angel’s Voice
York
At the dying of the year the minster stonemasons worked a short day, heading for home as clerics gathered in the choir to chant the prayers of nones. As soon as the yard no longer rang with the hammering of chisels on stone and the dust settled, the poor crept out of their makeshift hovels on the north side of the great minster to light their fires against the deepening dark.
Brother Michaelo stepped out of Archdeacon Jehannes’s house. In honor of the first snow of the season he wore an old cloak over the tattered habit he donned to perform his penitential service, his feet clad in boots rather than his customary sandals. He need not add frostbite to his penance. In one hand he carried a horn lantern, in the other a basket of food for the poor. Already the minster’s immense bulk obliterated any last glimpses of the fading sun, but as Michaelo moved along the great windows the sanctuary lights over the altars in the chapels and in the choir lit his way, those with stained glass casting odd colors on the muddy snow. His exhaled breath swirled round him, a fragile cloud, and by the time he hurried up to the west door he was shivering. He jerked his head in a cursory nod to a man standing without as he swept past him into the relative warmth of the nave. At least here he was not battered by the rising wind. He stood still, closing his eyes, listening to the last notes of the psalms. A momentary silence ensued, then the rustling and shuffling of the men departing through the door of the Lady Chapel.
As he turned toward the Lady altar, Michaelo noticed two men standing in the south aisle, heads bent close as they talked. One of them struck an arresting figure with flowing white hair and clothes cut with attention to the drape of the fabric in the French fashion. He had graceful hands with long fingers; in one hand he clutched pale leather gloves, lightly resting the other on his companion’s shoulder. The other man was so enveloped in a heavy cloak, with a hat covering his head beneath his hood, that Michaelo did not recognize him until he shook off the hood to scratch his ear. Ronan, who had been Alexander Neville’s vicar. As with a vicar whose canon passed away, he was secure in his position for life, and sought after by clerics from the powerful to the humble desiring his knowledge of their new archbishop. He could afford such a warm cloak, though it was far more modest than his companion’s.
No doubt they were discussing preparations for the enthronement. All the minster close was obsessed with plans for the event. The elegant one seemed to be reassuring Ronan, now and then looking round, as if expecting someone. Or did he not wish to be overheard? He need not worry. Michaelo saw no one about at the moment, too far from the crowd in the transept and the clerics in the choir, and he himself could hear nothing. Ronan’s companion was not familiar – Michaelo would not forget such a man, and yet whenever he turned a certain way a memory stirred. Long ago. Perhaps … Michaelo closed his eyes, attempting to catch the memory, but already it was gone, and the elegant one was rising with a grace that bespoke a much younger man. It was then that the two men did something most peculiar. Each removed his cloak and held it out to the other, their expressions solemn, though it seemed Ronan’s mouth turned up a little as he handled the costly cloak. He certainly had the better part of the exchange. Now the elegant one bowed and strode away, Ronan’s dark sheepskin-lined cloak billowing round him as if he might take flight.
The vicar fussed with his acquisition, burying his face in the fur, then looking up with such pleasure Michaelo guessed it was perfumed. As he moved to leave, the vicar glanced down at the floor, bent to pick something up, and turned as if to call to his companion. But the stranger was gone. With a shrug, the vicar turned the object round in his hands – soft, yielding, a scarf or a hat, then shrugged and removed his plain felt hat and replaced it with what he’d rescued from the floor. He took care with the placement of the dark velvet hat, winding its trailing piece of velvet round to secure it in place. Smiling to himself, the clerk tucked his discarded hat under his arm and shuffled away. Was there a flicker of movement toward the transept? No, Michaelo must have been mistaken. The clerks and others who worked in the north transept were gone for the day.
Shrugging at the odd encounter, Brother Michaelo continued to the Lady altar, where he knelt with a sigh of contentment, bowing to his devotions.
Michaelo sat with the dying Mary Garrett through the night until a lad returned with the healer Magda Digby. A light shone in Mary’s eyes at the sight of Dame Magda, and she cried out her relief, humbling Michaelo. For all his prayers, he had not the gift to comfort the dying. As he stepped out into the snowy yard he heard shouts off to his right, toward the chapter house. Pulling up his hood, he turned away from the sound, bowing his head to the blowing snow as he hastened round the west front of the minster. The wind reached icy fingers into his hood, stinging his ears and freezing the lashes over his watering eyes. He tried to warm himself by imagining how he would soon sit before the fire – Anna the cook would already be up – with a cup of hot spiced wine, perhaps some fresh bread and cheese. He should fast and take communion, but as he had not slept he would compensate with a brief prayer in the minster on his way. As he changed direction he stumbled into a drift of snow beneath which something hard bruised his shins. Muttering a curse he brushed the snow away from a long wooden sledge. Left by the stonemasons, he guessed, in their haste to find shelter and warmth. Who could blame them?