Lucie glanced up from her work and her runaway thoughts to find a pair of wise blue eyes observing her.
‘Hast thou time for Magda?’
She had not noticed the healer’s entrance, never felt the draft as she opened the rear door. Yet Magda had already removed her boots, her bare, calloused feet curled round the supporting post at the bottom of the stool on which she perched. How long had she watched?
‘Would you like to wait for me in the kitchen?’ Lucie asked. ‘I just need to tidy up and take these to Jasper in the shop.’
‘A cup of ale and a moment by the kitchen fire would be most welcome.’ The healer was wrapped in a cloak of skins – rabbit, squirrel, weasel, whatever she had found in the forest, or caught for food. Nothing went to waste. Her wrinkled face was rosy with the cold. Yet she had removed her boots. ‘Do not be long. Magda has much to tell thee of her guest, now the guest of Lotta Hempe. Ambrose Coates.’
So it was the Ambrose Lucie knew. ‘He came to you? He is safe? And now with the Hempes?’
Magda’s wrinkles deepened with her teasing grin. ‘Come along soon.’ She slipped off the stool and tucked her feet in the fur-lined boots with a feline litheness. ‘Do not tarry!’ And she was gone.
Lucie made quick work of cleaning up and taking her preparations into the shop.
‘Shut the shop for a while and join me in the kitchen. Magda has news.’
‘The shop needs straightening and a good sweep,’ said Jasper, though it was clear he wanted to hear what Magda had to say.
‘Time enough for all that. Magda will be quick with the news. And you’ve seen to the daylight customers. The next influx will be those heading home from work as the light fades.’
He needed no more coaxing, rushing to tidy up and lock the shop door.
As the three sat by the fire, Magda told them what she knew of the night’s events, then asked about the young woman. But Lucie had little to add but a summary of the woman’s injuries.
‘Who talked George Hempe into taking Ambrose as a lodger?’ asked Jasper. ‘Master George would not think of it. He would suggest one of the city jails. Was it Da’s idea?’
‘I would guess it was yours,’ Lucie said, looking at Magda.
A smile. ‘Magda pointed the way.’
‘George does not appreciate Lotta’s talents,’ said Lucie. ‘He has been reluctant to involve her in his work for the city – she sees to the trade and the household. He is blind to her interest, how keen she is to hear about his day, nor does he give credit to her suggestions. She offered him a list of those who might bear watching after a string of burglaries: this one is wearing fine clothes of a sudden on a paltry income, that one’s wife complains about the state of his clothing and how he’s often home long past curfew, there is rumor of a stranger who walks the streets at night as if testing the night watch. George shook his head as if she’d just said something ridiculous. He might have found his man much sooner had he listened to her.’
‘A man would be wise to respect Lotta’s keen regard,’ said Magda. As Kate brought a jug of ale to replenish the bowls on the table Magda asked her, ‘Hast thou news of the children?’
‘Mistress Alisoun says Hugh complains that Gwen is torturing him,’ Kate laughed. ‘She is pretending to teach Emma to sing, but the baby just squeals and shrieks with laughter and claps her hands. I offered to bring Gwen to the kitchen and give her some tasks.’
‘That is just what my sly daughter hopes for,’ said Lucie. ‘She wearies of the nursery.’ But she was glad Hugh was well enough to make moan about his sisters’ noise.
Magda patted Lucie’s hand. ‘Thy daughter hast a strong will. Why resist it?’
‘As you do with your apprentice?’ Before Magda agreed to accept Alisoun as her apprentice the young woman served for a while as nursemaid to Gwen and Hugh. Quick to take offense, she had challenged every task Lucie set her. Time and again Magda had counseled Lucie to be firm, not give in.
‘Not so often as before.’ Magda smiled.
‘It might be best to give in to Gwen’s ploy else all will pay for it, Kate,’ said Lucie. ‘What news of our guest?’
‘Mistress Alisoun says she has not stirred.’
Nothing unusual in that, but Lucie wanted to look in. Magda offered to accompany her.
The room had been created by walling off the long, narrow end of the children’s bedchamber for Lucie’s aunt, Philippa, who had come to live with them after suffering a palsy. A barred window allowed for some light and air, and the warmth from the nursery brazier was sufficient to heat it. But not to the point of causing the sheen of sweat on the sleeping woman. Her forehead was hot.
‘She was not feverish when she arrived, but she is now.’ Lucie lifted the woman’s shift to examine her groin and armpits for boils. Nothing. God be thanked.
Settling across from Lucie, Magda bent to sniff the young woman’s breath, pressed an ear to her chest, wiped the sweat from her neck and tasted it. ‘Not all fevers point to illness. Long has she lived in the guise of a young man, unable to take her ease, alert to discovery, ready to take flight,’ said Magda. ‘Minstrel says she has been fasting and depriving herself of sleep as penances for he knows not what. Now that she is in a safe place, her body is taking her deep into a healing sleep. When thy mother first came to Freythorpe she had witnessed the slaughter of friends and kin, forced to hide, starving, cold.’
Lucie’s late mother was Norman, from a noble family. A war prize bestowed on her father for his valor in the king’s war for the crown of France.
‘She had such a fever?’
Magda touched Lucie’s hand, as if to comfort her. ‘Amelie burned fierce while she slept such a deep sleep thine aunt worried she was dying. But Magda knew it to be a healing fire. When she woke, the memories were dimmed. A mercy. Come. Thou hast abundant stores in thine apothecary to assist her body in healing. Magda will guide thee.’
‘Should someone stay with her?’ Lucie asked, though she did not have anyone to spare.
‘Nay. Though she may wake at any moment, she will be too weak to harm herself. Alisoun can see to her. Thy children will not need all her attention.’
‘But Muriel Swann hopes to have Alisoun at her lying in.’
‘Magda will see to that.’
‘Alisoun might not wish to stay.’
‘Magda will speak with her.’
‘You have confidence Alisoun can care for this woman?’
A smile. ‘The two young women will find much to share. Both have been tested, proved strong.’
‘We know nothing of this woman. My children sleep in the next room.’
‘Magda does sense an anger in her that she fights to drown with remorse. But she has no cause to point that anger at thee or thy family.’
‘Remorse. Do you sense she harmed someone?’
‘Who has not?’
If Magda had meant to reassure Lucie, she had failed.
As Owen had hoped, Lotta Hempe accepted the situation without argument, sitting Ambrose down by the kitchen fire while she set her maidservant to work airing out the bedchamber and lighting a fire in the brazier.
‘Walking from Magda’s rock to our home in such weather,’ Lotta tsked. ‘We must stoke the fire in your belly, Master Ambrose. Cook will see that you have something to eat and drink. Bring the strong claret,’ she said to the woman standing over a cauldron of something aromatic, spicy.
‘A good choice, mistress,’ she said, wiping her hands on her apron and bustling to a locked cabinet in the corner.
Hempe paced in the hall, seeming eager to get back out into the city. Owen understood. They had stopped to show Ambrose the two corpses. He believed the fallen one to be the young woman’s watcher at Cawood. He might have seen the drowned one there as well. All helpful. Taking him past had been worth the risk, but it had heightened Hempe’s alarm. ‘I would see what my men learned from the guards at the gates. Meet me at the York in early evening?’