‘He found the medal you wear about your neck?’
Joanna nodded. Her eyes were still far away.
‘Tell me about Stefan.’
Joanna looked surprised, then frightened.
‘I am not here to judge you,’ Lucie implored. ‘I know what it is to love a man. I imagine it would comfort you to speak of Stefan. He was kind to you. He gave you something that must have been precious to him.’ Lucie touched Joanna’s hand. ‘Tell me about him.’
Joanna dropped her head, pressed her chest. ‘When I got to Beverley I was thirsty. I stopped for water in a churchyard. While my back was turned at the well, a boy tried to steal my Mary Magdalene medal. He dropped it when I shouted at him, but it was so muddy, and I was crying and so tired, and I could not find it. Stefan found it for me.’
‘You must have been very grateful.’
Joanna drew the medal out of the neck of her gown, gazed at it. ‘My brother Hugh gave it to me when I was thirteen.’
Hugh again. ‘Mary Magdalene, the penitent. A curious choice for a young girl. Is your brother older than you?’
Joanna looked up through her eyelashes, an odd half-smile on her face. ‘My big brother Hugh. He said the Magdalene would understand if I wasn’t perfectly good. He said she could forgive anything, so I need never be afraid to pray to her.’
Lucie wished to find this merely charming, but the smile and the sentiment, spoken to a young girl. . something about it disturbed her. ‘He knew you would be tempted to misbehave?’
‘Noli me tangere,’ Joanna whispered.
Lucie recognised the words that Christ had said to Mary Magdalene when she’d found Him outside His tomb. ‘ “Touch me not.” What does that mean to you?’
Joanna’s eyes changed from bright to wary, as though a cloud had covered the sun. ‘My parents said we were the children of Cain.’
‘You and your brother Hugh?’
Joanna nodded.
‘You have other brothers and sisters?’
‘One other brother, two sisters.’
‘Where is Hugh now?’
The eyes grew darker still. ‘That is who I wished to find.’
‘But you did not find him?’
Joanna bowed her head and gave a great, shuddering sigh.
‘So you met Stefan at Will Longford’s?’
Joanna hesitated.
‘Is he handsome?’
A fleeting smile. ‘Oh, yes. Blond and strong like Hugh. But tall. With eyes that laugh even when the rest of his face tries to look grim.’
‘You love him?’
A vague frown. ‘I did.’
‘Was it Stefan who helped you get away from Beverley?’
Joanna hugged herself. ‘They bound me tight so I would feel more like a corpse.’ Her eyes were far away again, frightened. ‘When I woke I was so cold.’
‘And he gave you the mantle.’
Joanna nodded, stroking the mantle with one hand, clutching the medal with the other. Stefan and Hugh, her saviours. Where were they now?
‘Why did Stefan help you leave Beverley?’
‘He had a customer for the relic. And he thought he knew where Hugh was. And Longford said he could not keep me in Beverley. Folk would know he was hiding a nun.’
‘Did Stefan find Hugh for you?’
Joanna turned to look out of the window. ‘He did not really want to,’ she said in a small voice.
What did that mean? Lucie wished there were some way she might write all this down as she heard it. By the time she was home, would she remember all the twists and turns? ‘Was it Stefan’s idea, your death and burial?’
Joanna shook her head. ‘Longford’s.’
‘So why did Stefan get involved?’
Joanna pressed her arms down impatiently. ‘I told you. He could sell the relic. And he thought he could find Hugh. And Longford didn’t want me staying there too long.’
‘Because Stefan was a relic dealer? Or Longford?’
Joanna shrugged.
‘What made you think Will Longford was a relic dealer?’
Joanna looked down at her hem, then up at Lucie. ‘What happens to those who play God?’
Lucie breathed deep and prayed for patience. ‘Is that an answer?’
Joanna looked towards the bed. ‘I am tired.’
So was Lucie — yet she had a day of work ahead of her. Perhaps it was best to stop here for now. She rose. ‘I can see you do not wish to talk to me.’
Joanna grabbed Lucie’s arm. ‘Please. I–I knew. Hugh had taken me on the way to my aunt’s seven years ago. Six?’ She shook her head, uncertain. ‘I knew Longford sold relics.’
Lucie faced Joanna, but did not sit. ‘Your brother Hugh also dealt in relics?’
Joanna shook her head. ‘Just once. Just to get some money to start his own life. He was to take vows. But he knew he was meant to be a soldier.’
‘Where did he get the relic?’
‘From my father. Only part of it. My father will never know. He would never think to open the reliquary.’
Lucie sat back down. ‘So you went to Will Longford, and he went to Stefan?’
Joanna nodded.
‘How had you intended to leave Beverley?’
‘I thought I would just walk away. Towards Scarborough.’
‘That’s where you thought to find Hugh?’
Joanna closed her eyes. ‘He talked of Scarborough. I thought he hoped to become a guard at Scarborough Castle, but Longford said it was more likely that he had sailed from Scarborough harbour to join the Free Companies.’
Thoresby would be keen to hear this. ‘Why would Longford think that?’
Joanna shrugged.
‘So he convinced you that Hugh must be on the continent?’
‘It sounded very likely.’ Joanna’s voice sagged.
‘You were disappointed?’
Joanna bit her lower lip. ‘It all seemed hopeless. I said I ought just to go back to St Clement’s.’
‘And what did Longford say to that?’
‘He would not have it. They had a customer for the relic by then. They had it all planned out. I would leave with Stefan, wearing my habit, to convince the buyer that the convent was selling the relic through him.’
‘Clever.’
‘When we got to the manor it was noisy with soldiers and foreigners.’
‘This is the manor of the customer for the relic?’
Joanna looked confused.
‘Where was this manor?’
‘Near Scarborough. On the North Sea.’
‘Noisy with soldiers?’
Joanna shrugged. ‘Archers, they looked like. So I stayed at a cottage with Stefan.’
‘This is where you lived while you were away from St Clement’s?’
‘Mostly.’
‘But the relic had not come there with you,’ Lucie said, more to herself than to Joanna.
The stricken look on Joanna’s face made it clear she had heard. ‘He lied to me. From the beginning he lied to me.’
‘You mean Stefan?’
Joanna bit her lip and frowned.
‘Perhaps he just wanted you with him, Joanna.’
She remained silent.
‘Tell me about the manor.’
Joanna took a deep breath. ‘Soldiers all over, all the time. Some of them I could not understand. They spoke in tongues. I sometimes thought they were devils, carrying off all those beautiful young men and dropping them off the edge of the earth.’
It was the same story Joanna had told at Nunburton. ‘The young men would disappear?’
Joanna nodded. ‘I would meet someone and he would sail away.’ She shook her head. ‘No one returned.’
‘Were they going to join the Free Companies?’
Joanna closed her eyes. ‘I am cursed.’ Her teeth were clenched, sweat beaded on her upper lip.
Lucie studied the face, wondering whether these shifts were purposeful. ‘When you lived at the manor, did you live there as Stefan’s leman?’
Joanna hesitated slightly before nodding her head.
‘So you are no longer a virgin.’
Joanna bit her bottom lip.
‘Do you see why we wonder whether you are telling us the truth?’
‘They did not want the King to know about them.’
‘Who, Joanna?’
‘The archers.’
‘The ones who sailed away?’