‘I would be most grateful. But you must not trouble yourself.’ A mere courtesy. Owen knew the poor young man was under orders to give him refreshment.
Alone, Owen went back to his study of the courtyard. But it offered up no explanation for the bishop’s summons. Did Thoresby’s reach extend so far? Had he found yet another task for Owen?
Bishop Adam de Houghton paused in the doorway as two servants preceded him, carrying wine and goblets. Tall, fair, with aquiline features and a friendly demeanour, Houghton need only stand there smiling to put a stranger at ease. When the servants had ceased their fuss and slipped away, the bishop entered, making the sign of the cross towards Owen. ‘God be with you, Captain Archer.’ Houghton spoke in Welsh.
Owen was surprised — though Houghton had been born nearby, in Caerforiog in the parish of Whitchurch, he was of old English stock. He was the first Englishman Owen had encountered to extend the courtesy of speaking the native tongue to a Welshman. Owen bowed low and replied in Welsh. His speech was embarrassingly halting. He had become more careful of his words since he left this country, and he must now not only search for phrases in his rusty Welsh but also weigh and consider each word.
The bishop motioned for Owen to be at ease. ‘Presently we shall sit and have some refreshment while we talk of your journey and your mission, but first I would explain my purpose in commanding your presence without the courtesy of allowing you to rest from your journey.’ His voice, soft and with a raspy character, seemed at odds with his appearance. ‘The Duke of Lancaster has spoken highly of your work for him and Archbishop Thoresby. God sent you at a time when I have great need of your talents. We have had a most unfortunate incident today. I do not like to think of it as an omen, but-’
‘There was a body.’
Houghton’s pleasant countenance darkened. ‘Someone told you of it?’
‘I heard people discussing it.’
The bishop relaxed. ‘Of course. I suppose it is to be expected. Well then, as you may have heard, this morning the porter discovered a body without Tower Gate.’
‘A violent death?’
‘The sort of wound that — well, you must be accustomed to it. I am sure you have heard many theories about why you lost your eye.’
‘My sight, my lord. I still have the eye.’ Owen supposed he meant divine retribution for some sin, as with the tale he had heard at the gate.
Houghton squinted at Owen’s patch. ‘Do you indeed? Well, they would make a moral tale of that, too.’ Heavens but the man jabbered. ‘My clerk will show you the corpse. You can be the judge of the condition of the body.’
‘I-’ Owen shook his head. ‘Forgive me, Your Grace, but I must disappoint you. I am here-’
‘As my guest,’ Houghton said in a louder, firmer voice. ‘And representing the Duke of Lancaster. I am quite certain he would expect you to assist me in this.’
The sudden assumption of his compliance momentarily robbed Owen of speech. Was this to be his lot in life, ever to drop to his knees and sniff out any pests that discomfited the nobility? A clerk appeared behind the bishop — not the same poor, overheated lump of flesh who had shown him in.
‘Ifan, this is Captain Archer, a man who has solved many problems such as ours for both the Duke of Lancaster and the Archbishop of York. Show him the poor soul below. I shall await you here.’
Owen bowed. ‘Your Grace.’
The young clerk bowed to Owen and motioned for him to follow. They crossed the room, slipped behind a hunt tapestry on the east wall, through a door and down a narrow passage into a tower lit by wall sconces, descending stone steps to an undercroft that echoed as a guard moved from the shadows barking a challenge.
‘It is Ifan, with an emissary from the Duke of Lancaster,’ the clerk announced.
The guard took a good look at Owen, nodded. ‘You may pass.’
‘You have had no trouble?’ Ifan asked.
From whom, Owen wondered, if the victim was dead. Pilgrims staying in the other wing of the palace?
‘All is quiet, God help us,’ the guard said.
The clerk led Owen into a room lit with many candles.
The warring scents of beeswax, incense, smoke and decaying flesh assailed Owen. ‘He has been dead some days.’
‘We have done our best to mask the odour.’
‘There is nothing hides that stench.’ Owen approached the well-lit table on which the corpse lay beneath a loose shroud. He nodded to the clerk to pull the cover aside. An ugly, gaping wound. If it had originally been a simple knife thrust to the belly, then something had been eating at the flesh. ‘Have you cleaned the wound?’
‘No. We removed the clothes, that is all. The body is very clean, I know.’
The man had lain exposed for some time after being wounded, Owen guessed. One at a time, he lifted the hands, studied the nails and palms. The nails were dark with what might be blood, the palms abraded. Bruises on the face and arms suggested a struggle. The knees, too, were rough with abrasions. The man had been in his prime, muscular, no deformities. His hair, a pale blond, had been neatly trimmed, though now it was wild, stiff with sea water.
‘Where are his clothes?’
The clerk stepped back, picked up a basket, which he handed to Owen. Lancaster’s livery, with the emblem of Cydweli. Owen poked through the items. ‘There was nothing else? No weapon?’
‘No.’
Owen lifted the tunic. The tear proved the knife thrust. Whatever had eaten into the wound had no interest in the cloth, which was stiff with blood round the wound, but the remainder of the cloth was rough and brittle, too. Owen lifted the leggings. They also had the feel of having been soaked in brine. The knees were rough. The boots — they were of good quality, sturdy, slightly worn. Owen tilted them. Sand rained down on the stone floor.
‘This man lay on the beach. Crawled along the beach, I think. But the tide found him. And he fed the crabs for a time.’ Owen stooped, brought a candle close to the pile of sand. He knew of one beach very near with sand of such dazzling colour. ‘Whitesands.’
Owen noticed how the clerk peered down, glanced up at him, then quickly away, as if uncertain what to think. That Owen saw too much, even blinded in one eye? Devil take the bishop for putting such thoughts in his head.
Owen straightened. ‘Let us ascend to fresh air, Ifan. Warm ourselves with wine.’ Though at first it had felt stuffy in the undercroft, that had been the illusion of the smoke of incense and candles. Slowly the underlying chill had seeped through Owen’s leather travelling clothes. This valley had once been a marsh. Man’s stones and mortar could not keep out the damp chill.
The clerk bent to cover the dead man, then led Owen back whence they had come.
Bishop Adam de Houghton paced as he listened to Owen’s assessment. ‘He died of the knife wound?’
‘I believe he did, though how quickly I cannot say. It may have been a slow death. I believe his wound bled as he lay in the water. The crabs-’ He stopped, seeing the bishop blanch. ‘Forgive me, my lord bishop.’
‘You deserve your reputation. Whitesands.’ Houghton was quiet a moment but for the whisper of his costly gown and his velvet shoes on the tiles. ‘It is far to carry a body from Whitesands to Tower Gate. Why? Why was he brought to the bell tower?’
Owen neither knew nor cared. ‘Your Grace, do I have your permission to join my companions now?’
Houghton looked first surprised, then apologetic. ‘Of course. God help me, I am forgetting my duties as a host. You have ridden far, and I have kept you from a well-earned rest. Go in peace, Captain. And tonight, when we dine, we shall not speak of this, eh?’
‘Of course not, Your Grace.’
Owen must have slept, for his thoughts as he opened his eyes in drowsy confusion were of York. He had been telling his daughter Gwenllian the tale of the Water Horse of St Bride’s Bay, and now she shook him for another story. As he woke he realised it was Sir Robert who gently shook him.