They were heading down the aisle along the choir when Theo caught up, panting, his keys clanging. ‘I heard something within. The sound of someone on the steps.’
The woman gripped Michaelo’s hand.
‘Did you have the sense to lock them in?’ Michaelo asked.
Theo said nothing.
‘Fool.’
‘More the fool to walk into danger unarmed.’
‘How is locking the door walking into danger?’
With a sniff, Theo demanded to know where Michaelo intended to take the youth.
‘To his lodgings,’ said Michaelo.
‘Not to his uncle?’
Michaelo cringed at his own confusion. ‘Precisely.’
‘This Master Ambrose?’
Michaelo was saved by the sound of the outer door opening. Two clerks bustled in, each carrying a lantern. Behind them was Master Adam, the precentor.
Theo held up the two lanterns. ‘Master Adam.’
‘What are you doing here?’ the precentor demanded. ‘Who is this?’
Michaelo and Theo interrupted each other trying to explain.
Adam waved them to stop. ‘One of our vicars has been murdered and a stranger lies dead, all in the minster yard. The stranger is believed to have fallen from the roof.’ He gestured up above them, then leaned close to the woman in Michaelo’s arms. ‘What do you know of this?’
‘Nothing, God help me.’ Her voice little more than a croak.
‘What is wrong with you?’
‘He is quite weak,’ said Michaelo. ‘I have all I can do to hold him upright.’
‘Injured?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Take him to Captain Archer. Tell him to hold him under suspicion of murder.’
‘Murder?’ Michaelo said. ‘Look how he shivers, how he can barely stand.’
Adam brushed the hair from the woman’s eyes. ‘So fair. Were you defending your honor, son?’
The woman hid her face in Michaelo’s shoulder.
‘Two men attacked him? Is that what you think?’ asked Theo.
Adam stepped back, shaking his head. ‘I cannot believe it of Ronan.’
Ronan. Michaelo inwardly crossed himself, remembering the exchange of cloaks. He yearned to ask if he meant that the murdered vicar was Ronan, but he dared not cause more delay. His strength was giving out. ‘Theo heard someone up above,’ he said. ‘You would do well to investigate while I escort this lad to the archdeacon’s lodgings.’ Jehannes, Archdeacon of York, surely the precentor would accept his authority.
‘Not there. Captain Archer’s house.’
Michaelo opened his mouth to protest that Owen’s children were ill, it was no time to impose on him, nor was he responsible for crimes in the minster liberty. But what was the alternative?
‘Help him,’ Adam ordered one of the clerks. ‘Theo, check the chapter house. Now!’
With much muttering Theo handed Michaelo’s lantern to one of the clerks and turned back to the chapter house.
‘There is a sledge just outside the door,’ said Michaelo to the clerk. ‘I will pull the lad on it while you light the way.’
A nod. God be thanked he did not insist on helping carry Michaelo’s charge.
Outside, he directed the clerk to the sledge and had him brush off the accumulated snow, then settled the young woman on it. Blinking against the blowing snow, Michaelo pulled up his hood, then bent to the young woman, advising her to hold onto the sides of the sledge.
The clerk warned him to step back as a group of men rushed past, lanterns swinging in their haste to follow others disappearing round the east end of the minster. Shouts echoed from somewhere in the minster yard.
Two men dead, one possibly Ronan. Had he been mistaken for the white-haired man? Michaelo crossed himself and prayed that he was not delivering a murderer to Owen and Lucie.
3
Sanctuary
As Owen stoked the kitchen fire he heard the maidservant stirring on her small bed behind the corner screen. Before she could ask, he said, ‘Hugh’s fever broke in the night. All three children are now on the mend.’
‘God be praised.’ Kate’s voice broke with emotion.
The children’s illness had spread so quickly from Gwen to Emma to Hugh that their nursemaid had fled, certain it was pestilence, the memory of nursing her mother the past summer only to lose her and her brother too recent. I cannot bear to watch the children die. No matter that Owen’s wife Lucie, an apothecary, assured her it was catarrh, that the healer Magda Digby agreed. Lena could not be consoled. Truth be told, they had all worried that the worst might happen. But Lena’s panic had silenced the rest. No one dared breathe their worry, for fear it might somehow conjure the death. Kate’s tears – he now heard her weeping – were no surprise to Owen. He, too, had wept for joy.
‘No need to rise just yet,’ he said. ‘Your mistress and the children are asleep. Only Alisoun and I are wakeful.’
Magda Digby had suggested that her apprentice Alisoun Ffulford bide with them as long as they needed her. Formerly nursemaid to the two eldest, she was a favorite. She had swept into the nursery with a basketful of remedies and treats, humming as she assisted Lucie and Owen with calm competence and singing to the children as she rocked them to sleep. The songs were familiar to Gwen and Hugh from their earlier years, inspiring comforting memories for all in the house. Gwen gamely attempted to croak along though she must all too often stop and gasp for air, unable to breathe through her swollen nose. When Emma’s fever broke, her first conscious act was to giggle at the sounds coming from her big sister. Alisoun seemed able to go without sleep for days, giving Lucie time to rest. All in the household trusted her, even Owen, who had found her difficult in the past.
But even Alisoun could not hasten the children’s recovery, could not allay their worry. The dread of pestilence was ever-present. Lucie and her first husband had lost their only child to the scourge.
Hours earlier, in the haunted time before dawn, Owen had held his son, his face buried in the boy’s fiery hair, praying for God to spare Hugh. ‘Take me, O Lord, take me.’ When the boy wriggled in his arms, Owen had tightened his grip, thinking he had gone limp and was slipping from his arms.
‘Da.’ The sound was little more than a sigh. But then damp fingers touched Owen’s cheek. Opening his one good eye, he found his son watching him. ‘Thirsty,’ Hugh lisped. Was there ever such a wonderful sound as his son’s voice? Ever such a tender touch?
Owen had called for Lucie, and she was at his elbow in a heartbeat, cup in hand, whispering endearments as tears fell down her cheeks.
‘Is Hugh awake?’ Gwen had whispered from her cot.
‘Yes, my sweet,’ Alisoun said. ‘His fever has broken.’
A moment so precious …
A knock on the door startled Owen from his thoughts. Wiping both his eyes – even the sightless one shed tears – he resettled the patch over his left eye and rose, crossing the room in a few strides.
Kate slipped out from behind the screen. ‘That might be Mistress Merchet with bread and ale. She’s brought them every day since the children fell ill.’
Opening the door, Owen began to announce the news and stopped. It was not Bess Merchet, but Brother Michaelo and someone swathed in a cloak, leaning heavily against the monk for support.
‘Forgive me, Captain,’ said Michaelo, breathless.
‘God’s blood, Michaelo, you are not bringing sickness into our home?’
‘I would not have come, but the precentor insisted you hold this poor pilgrim until–’ His companion began to slide out of his grasp, the hood falling away to reveal a fair young woman.
‘What madness is this?’ Owen muttered as he caught her up in his arms and carried her to a pallet that Kate had already retrieved from the corner and was piling with cushions.