‘Poor woman. Ale or broth?’ Kate asked as she helped Owen peel away the damp cloak and remove the woman’s boots.
‘Brandywine, then broth.’
Owen studied the woman. Worn boots, much-mended stockings, and tunic – a man’s tunic, her fair hair cut short. Her eyelids flickered now and then, and when Owen first began removing her boots she had kicked out, but his whispered reassurances quieted her. Or she was too weak to continue struggling. He noted that her stockings were surprisingly wet, the dampness elsewhere on her clothes. An icy draft reminded him of Michaelo, who still stood in the doorway.
‘You do me no favor sharing the fire with the garden. Step inside and close the door. Did you walk her here?’
‘No. Pulled her on a stoneworkers’ sledge. I left it in the tavern yard.’
While Michaelo fussed with his boots, Owen tucked blankets around the woman and debated whether to call for Lucie or Alisoun. But his wife was finally enjoying some much-needed rest, and Alisoun had charge of the children. Kate knelt to the woman with a bowl and spoon.
‘She has been passing for a man?’ he asked as the monk came to crouch beside him.
‘She is as you see. Captain, I would not have brought her here – your children – but her disguise fooled the others and – I sensed a desperation.’
‘Hugh’s fever has broken. Lucie is resting at last, as I soon hoped to be.’
‘Forgive me.’
‘You said the precentor says I am to hold her?’
‘Master Adam. Yes.’
‘Why? And by what authority?’
‘It is a long story.’
Owen rose. ‘Let us leave Kate to her task.’ Noticing how the monk winced as he tried to rise, Owen reached down to assist him. ‘She struggled?’
‘No, but she is so weak that she was of little help moving down the aisle and out of the minster. I did not want Theo or Master Adam’s clerks to assist. As I said, I thought it best they continue to think her a young man.’
‘The minster?’ Fetching the jug of ale and bowls, Owen sat down beside Michaelo, near enough to the fire, but far enough from the young woman that they might not disturb her. ‘Begin at the beginning.’ He poured for both of them.
‘Where to begin?’ Michaelo sat quietly for a moment, then described his night with the dying woman, Magda’s belated arrival, the walk home, the men’s shouts, the woman’s singing.
The tale raised many questions, but Owen allowed him to finish, and then said nothing for a few moments, ordering his thoughts. Difficult after days with little sleep. The men’s shouts – so at least one of the deaths might have occurred before Michaelo and Theo entered the chapter house.
‘Adam thinks the woman did all this? Murdered a vicar in the minster yard, entered the chapter house, climbed the steps, pushed someone off the roof, or the other way round, and then burst into song?’ A clever ruse if one had the strength. But the woman could not keep her eyes open. Had she induced the stupor?
‘Struggling with someone up on the roof – he implied she might have fought someone off. So fair …’
‘You think the vicar might be Ronan? What do you know of him?’
‘A piece I forgot. Before I went to Mary Garrett I saw him in the minster with a stranger.’
Owen listened with interest as Michaelo described the exchange of cloaks. Neville’s vicar and a stranger. ‘Was Ronan wearing the cloak when murdered?’
‘I do not know. Nor am I certain it was he.’ Michaelo had stared down at his cup while he gave his account. Now he sat up sharp. ‘She asked if Master Ambrose sent me.’
‘Ambrose?’ Why did the name take him back to the description of the fine cloak? ‘Tell me again about Ronan’s encounter. Everything you can recall about the stranger.’
Michaelo described the flowing white hair, the cloak in detail.
‘French, you thought?’
Michaelo smiled. ‘Not a thought. I know the fine tailoring of my country of birth.’ He was of a noble Norman family, a point of pride. ‘Yet he seemed familiar. Something in the way he moved, how he gestured with his hands. Beautiful hands. One can see he takes good care of them. Pale leather gloves.’
Beautiful hands. Gloves. A man who had been in France. The name. Owen felt the familiar shower of needle pricks across his blind eye. But this morning it was hardly a premonition of trouble to come – trouble was here. And he believed he might know this Ambrose, an old acquaintance who had of late resided at the French court.
‘Who is this?’ Lucie spoke from the doorway to the hall.
Owen rose. ‘Forgive us for waking you.’
‘I heard chatter down in the street. A death at the minster. A vicar?’
‘Two deaths,’ said Owen. ‘The vicar apparently murdered, the other fallen from the chapter-house roof.’
Lucie crossed herself and greeted Michaelo, who had risen and now bowed and apologized for the early call. Owen noticed that she did not assure him that it was never too early to call. Not a good sign. Wrapped in a heavy mantle, she had paused in the doorway, observing them with eyes bruised with worry and exhaustion. ‘And our guest?’ Her voice lacked warmth, as did her eyes as she joined Owen on the bench. He offered her his untouched cup of ale. She took a drink. ‘Who is she?’
‘We do not know. Michaelo found her locked in the chapter house.’
‘Did he?’ She rose, asked Michaelo to excuse them for a moment, and motioned to Owen to follow her to the hall.
As soon as the door closed behind them, she demanded he tell her what she had missed.
‘You are angry,’ he said.
‘Not yet.’
He told her all she had missed, then waited as she paced to the garden window and stood facing out. A decade of loving her had him tuned to her moods, the clues in her posture, her breath, even where she chose to stand – or sit. When at last she turned to him he was not surprised by her stiffened jaw, the hot spark in her eyes.
‘Our children are on the mend, yes, but they are weak and only beginning to heal, we have lost our nurse, we are both weary to the bone, as is Jasper, who has been sole apothecary in the shop for days while winter ailments spread through the city. Why did Brother Michaelo agree to bring her here when he knows how it goes with us? What right has a minster canon to order you to take responsibility for this woman?’
All good questions. Owen sat down on a bench at the bottom of the steps to the solar, put his head in his hands. God help him, why was he even considering sheltering the young woman?
‘When I carried her in, something …’ He shook his head. ‘She is so weak.’
With a sigh, Lucie joined him. ‘Mother in heaven, is this the moment you have chosen to test what Magda calls your clear-seeing?’
Was it? He thought not. ‘You are clear-seeing. God woke you to wake me from my confusion. You are right to question my judgment.’ He straightened with a sigh. ‘I promised nothing. Yet. But that was my intent. And now, hearing your questions, I wonder whether lack of sleep has robbed me of all wit.’
‘Yet she is here, and neither of us is so cold-hearted as to send her away.’ She took his hand, pressed it to her cheek, looking into his eye.
‘No, though I would have it otherwise this once.’
‘We would not wish to be otherwise, my love. Do you sense harm in her?’
‘How can I know? She sleeps. I have not even seen her eyes.’ He rested his forehead on Lucie’s head a moment, searching his thoughts. There was something, but did it come from her? ‘I sense a void, as if she has lost everything. Yet there is a spark in her, warmth, steadfastness. How I see this I cannot say. Nor do I know whether to trust it.’
When Lucie did not respond, Owen straightened, found her watching him with a slight smile. ‘I will watch and listen, and see whether I agree with you and Michaelo.’