A step creaked, then a board on the landing. Drawing his dagger, Owen waited behind the door, watched the man step into the room. Paul. Catching him from behind, Owen silenced him with a knife to his throat.
‘What were you doing in the minster the night before the vicar’s murder?’ Owen asked softly, drawing Paul back into the shadows, turning him around and pushing him against the wall.
‘You. I knew you were spying on us.’ Paul reached for a knife.
Owen kicked it out of his hand, yanked the man toward him, and slammed him back into the wall. A blow for Marian. ‘Now talk.’
‘I never touched the dead man.’
‘What of the girl? You touched her. She ran off because of you. Is that how Carl forced you to do his bidding? To repay him?’
‘How do you know so much, one-eye?’ Owen began to pull him up, ready to beat him senseless for assaulting a woman. But before he could slam him against the wall the man cried out, begging for mercy. ‘I will tell you! Carl wanted to know about the minstrel. I stayed just long enough to be sure it was him. Saw the girl run away. I didn’t follow her!’
From below, Ned sent up a string of curses.
Someone stumbled up the stairs, breathing hard.
‘If you say a word you will be as crippled as Carl,’ Owen warned.
A man came rushing into the room, throwing himself on the mattress. Owen smelled blood, saw it smeared on the man’s gloves as he fumbled with them.
‘Not Carl! Not Carl!’ he shouted as two young men stormed into the room, one of them roughly grabbing him just as the second glove fell.
No bandages.
‘You fools,’ Owen growled, dragging Paul out and tossing him on the bed. ‘Remove the gloves next time.’ He turned to Paul, who was eyeing his comrade’s bloody hands. ‘Where is Carl?’
‘I don’t know. I swear.’
Owen ordered the two fools to come with him, leading them out and down, nodding to Ned as he passed. ‘Keep watch.’
‘Captain, we thought–’ one of the young men began.
‘Thinking had nothing to do with it,’ Owen growled. But he was glad. He knew now that Carl had been waiting for Ambrose at the minster. He thought it likely the exchange of cloaks led Carl to murder the wrong man.
Down Skeldergate the cart rumbled unchecked, but the two incidents on the bridge had clearly added to the tensions of the party. As the afternoon light faded away Alisoun and Drake looked round at every step and the conversation in the cart grew hesitant, more anxious. Crispin walked along in silence, no longer obliged to greet his peers. At this hour in winter the waterfront warehouses were deserted, the merchants back in their well-lit homes or shops. Now the streets along the south bank of the river were the domain of the poor and the criminal. Crispin’s only comment to Michaelo was a request to continue to be on alert for anyone who seemed too curious, apologizing that the need for a humble procession had meant no guards. Michaelo had reminded him of Alisoun’s prowess with the bow. Though as dusk fell and the river mist rose an attacker would appear at too close range for a bow to be effective.
In the cart, Euphemia expressed her unease with questions about Marian’s aunt, Maud Neville. The simple answer that she knew her far less well than she did Lady Edwina or Sir Thomas did not satisfy.
‘Will she support you, that is my question.’
‘I cannot say how she will see my disappearance. A woman is oft blamed for luring a man no matter how hard she fought him, how fiercely she defended her purity. The one man who could attest to never having touched me is dead.’
‘What of the musicians?’
‘Until that night at Cawood, none of them had dared approach me in that way. I had thought it because my disguise convinced them. But I have come to think that Carl, their leader, had forbidden them to touch me, and they dared not disobey.’
‘God be thanked,’ said Euphemia.
Michaelo had been unable to make out Marian’s quiet response.
‘Have you any hope your Percy kin will believe you?’ asked Euphemia.
The woman lacked all courtesy and compassion.
‘I believe my guardian and Lady Edwina will if I am able to speak to them myself. They know me well. I cannot say whether Lady Maud will.’
‘What of your mother? Surely she will believe you.’
‘My mother defers to her betters in all things regarding me.’ Sadness tinged the words. Michaelo crossed himself and said a prayer for the young nun.
Conversation died with that. Michaelo was relieved for Dame Marian’s sake, but he regretted the loss of a diversion. Now he was too aware of Crispin’s unease, and the enveloping darkness. It was with relief that he spied up ahead a pool of light spilling out from a building, and noticed the sound of a hammer on steel.
‘Two men ahead,’ Alisoun called out as she flipped back her cloak and shrugged the bow from her shoulder, testing the string, plucking an arrow from her quiver.
Following the line of her arrow, Michaelo caught the movements just beyond the pool of light. They were drawing weapons.
Crispin limped forward. ‘Do not shoot until we see who they are.’
Dame Euphemia peered out. ‘What is happening?’
‘Someone standing in our path,’ said Michaelo. ‘Weapons drawn. Mistress Alisoun has readied an arrow.’
‘God help us.’
‘Come, let us pray, Dame Euphemia,’ Marian said. She began to recite a hail Mary.
Euphemia withdrew and joined in the prayer.
Michaelo’s heart pounded.
As the cart moved into the light Crispin put a hand on Drake’s arm and quietly ordered him to halt. He stepped forward, leaning on his cane.
‘Porter and Diggs. Have you come to assist us?’
One of the men wagged his dagger at Crispin. ‘Who do you serve, Poole?’
‘At present, my blind, elderly dam.’
‘You expect us to believe she is in there?’
Euphemia poked her head out. ‘Who are you to question my son?’
‘Now step aside, Diggs.’ Crispin shifted the cane to the other hand and began to turn back.
But Diggs, dagger poised, came forward.
Alisoun let her arrow fly, catching Diggs above the elbow on his dagger arm. With a shout of pain he dropped the weapon and stumbled to the side of the track as the other moved toward Alisoun. Michaelo stepped forward, but there was no need. Before he could draw his weapon Drake stuck out a leg and the man tripped and fell.
‘Bastard!’ Porter shouted.
Drake kicked him hard, then rolled him over to the side of the track and, with a nod from Crispin, resumed his hold on the donkey, guiding the cart past the trouble-makers.
‘What will Sir John say when he learns you attacked a man escorting his elderly mother to the good sisters?’ Crispin called out as he passed.
‘What need has he of a cripple like you?’ growled Porter.
Stinging words, and Michaelo felt for Crispin, whose limp had become more pronounced the farther they walked. But he made no complaint.
As they moved back into darkness the women in the cart resumed their prayers, Michaelo accompanying them in silence. He strained to hear anything moving in the darkness, difficult over the clomping of the donkey’s hooves, the creak of the wheels, the flutter of the cart covering, the pounding of his own heart. He peered into the darkness, seeking unnatural movement. Even so, he was startled when Alisoun plucked up a lantern from the cart and opened a shutter, revealing a covey of children preparing to jump on the cart from a porch roof. He had never heard them.