Lucie watched the woman’s eyes as she devised a response.
‘Why do you say that?’
From his scrip Owen drew out two strands of beads – a short strand of coral beads and a much longer strand of coral and jet, the jets at ten-bead intervals, suggesting a broken set of paternoster beads. Lucie noticed that the smaller strand had ten beads and extra knots at one end as if it had become a bracelet, albeit for the slender wrist of a child. Or their guest’s, she realized, noticing her unusually narrow wrists. It was the same coral as the longer strand.
Sandrine recoiled, her pale skin flushed, eyes filling with tears.
‘I have spoken to a man who witnessed the man’s fall from the chapter-house roof,’ said Owen. ‘He says there was at least one shout from the roof, and a scuffle. You must have heard something. If it was a chase, they would have passed through the upper floor, where I found your beads.’
‘How do you know they are my beads?’
‘The larger strand was in the pack you left in Tucker’s home.’
‘You have my pack?’
Owen nodded. ‘Someone must have carried a lantern. You would have seen a light.’
‘I told you, I fell asleep.’
‘I do not believe you slept through that. Especially as you lost your beads up above. Brother Michaelo tells me your clothing was wet when he found you. I noted your stockings were wet, inside your boots. And here is the knife Brother Michaelo took from your hand.’ He drew it out of the scrip.
She stared at it.
‘See how the handle is chipped? Here is the missing piece, which I found at the foot of the ladder to the roof.’
Eyes flickering here, there, anywhere but Owen’s face.
‘You waste my time.’ Owen rose with an impatient sigh. ‘We cannot shelter a possible murderer. I will take you to the castle at first light.’
Taking up her part, Lucie expressed alarm. ‘You cannot mean it.’
Owen turned aside to her, still perched at the threshold. ‘No doubt you have a gentle alternative, perhaps the poor sisters on Castlegate.’
‘Or St Clement’s. I might coax Prioress Isabel into accepting her as a charity case. You think me too compassionate?’
‘For all we know she murdered the man. Gwen heard her cry out that she did. I cannot risk her harming anyone else.’
‘What is the castle?’ Sandrine asked in small voice.
Owen turned back to her. ‘York Castle. For you, it will be a prison.’
‘Master Ambrose said I might trust you.’
‘When did he say this?’ Lucie asked.
‘Yesterday, before he left for the minster. He told me if anything were to happen to him I should seek Lucie Wilton, the apothecary, and her husband Captain Archer. That you would protect me.’
‘How did you come to be traveling with him?’ Owen asked.
After a moment’s hesitation, Sandrine gave an account of an elegant minstrel who joined the company of musicians and players, how he taught her a song he had composed. Then rescued her. Her story matched what Ambrose had told Owen.
‘I am most grateful to him,’ said Sandrine. ‘But when he said we were being followed, and it was not likely to be the players, I feared I had been mistaken to trust him. Yet I could not stay with them, not after what happened.’ Tears started again, her face flushing crimson. Genuine emotion.
‘Your attacker was one of your fellow players?’
She crossed herself and murmured a yes.
‘What did you know of the players when you joined them?’ Owen asked.
‘Simple folk. Not so grand as Master Ambrose, with his trained voice, his beautiful crwth, his Parisian speech, his costly cloak.’
‘The cloak,’ said Lucie. ‘Did you witness the exchange in the minster?’
A slight nod.
‘Why did you go into the chapter house?’ asked Lucie.
‘I was afraid,’ Sandrine whispered, still looking away. ‘I am guilty. I did not push him, but I could not stand. He tripped over me and … I am guilty.’ She covered her face and wept.
Owen knelt to her, gently took her hands in his. She tried to turn away.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What had he done?’
‘Not him,’ she sobbed. ‘What I did.’ She shook her head and began to whisper the words of the Kyrie.
‘I pray you. Tell me what happened.’
‘I must make my confession. I will bare my soul to a priest, no other.’ She bowed her head and returned to the prayer of contrition.
‘Tell me at least this. Was there another man in the chapter house with you?’
‘I was not aware of another.’
‘Can you tell me anything else?’
Sandrine shook her head. ‘I want a priest.’
With a frustrated sigh Owen rose, drawing Lucie out the door. ‘If Jehannes hears her confession, I will still know nothing.’
‘We cannot deny her.’ She saw how he fought anger and pity.
He returned to the room. ‘Forgive me, but I must know. Had this anything to do with the murder of the vicar down below?’
Sandrine shook her head and lay down on the bed, turning her back to them.
‘I will send for a priest I trust, an archdeacon. Should you disturb the children tonight, we will move you to the kitchen. And tomorrow–’ He shrugged and strode out.
Lucie shut the door behind them. She prayed that gentle Jehannes would coax the woman to care for her body as well as her soul.
Once down the stairs, Owen drew Lucie over to the hearth. ‘Before I go to Jehannes, I must tell you what I’ve learned.’ At the corner of his good eye, he spied Magda slipping out the kitchen door. ‘Come. Sit with us. I have much to tell.’
Moving quietly, Magda chose a spot near the garden window, far from the heat of the fire. ‘Thy guest refuses to confide in thee?’
‘She admits to being the cause of the man’s fall. And claims it had nothing to do with Ronan’s murder. Nor was there a second man in the chapter house.’
‘That she was aware of,’ Lucie added.
Owen settled on a bench, stretching his feet to the fire. ‘I am uneasy about her being here. If a man had made such a confession I would take him to the castle until I knew whether he was dangerous.’
‘I trust you agree that the castle dungeons are no place for a woman,’ said Lucie. ‘You will find a safer arrangement. Unless you believe she is for hanging– But think, my love. She is a beautiful young woman, you cannot entrust her to the jailers. Or do you know of several strong, trustworthy women who might both guard and protect her?’
Lucie knew him so well. Of course he hoped for a safer solution. Some – perhaps most – of the guards were no better than they needed to be with criminals, and Sandrine might prove too tempting, damn them. The bailiffs would curse him for the extra men – or women – necessary to protect her at a time when the city was about to be filled with strangers for the enthronement.
‘Perhaps Jehannes will guide me,’ he said, then turned so that he could watch Magda’s reactions as well as Lucie’s as he recounted his interview with Tucker, much of what Magda had no doubt overheard, and Rose’s insight. Magda nodded. He asked what else she had noticed.
‘Judith distrusts what her husband is about. Mayhap Tucker took in his old friend only to profit from betraying him.’
‘Might he have gone to the minster last night?’
‘Magda will ask Judith.’
He continued with his encounter with Pit, which brought an impatient hiss from Lucie, a shrug from Magda. He mentioned Crispin Poole’s injury.
‘I expected he would have come to you when he was injured, Magda.’
‘He may not wish his new master to know he consults a healer who does not share his faith,’ she said. ‘Magda may see him at Dame Muriel’s.’