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‘We were ready for real trouble, but found no sign of Porter and Diggs. Now and then some fool began to follow, but we frightened them off. Nothing more.’

‘Brother Michaelo will spend the night?’ asked Jasper.

‘Yes. Sharing the priest’s chamber. Marian insisted. The precentrice Dame Veronica was very welcoming. I think with Lady Maud’s support Marian will soon take her place among her sisters at Wherwell.’

‘That is for the archbishop to decide.’ Lucie saw how that news erased all the smiles. ‘You remember with Dame Joanna …’ A nun who had run away from St Clement’s some time ago.

‘But she was nothing like Dame Marian,’ Jasper protested. ‘She had brought on her troubles with crime and sin.’

‘She was mad, as her mother before her,’ said Owen. ‘I, for one, could not bring myself to judge her in the end.’

Jasper flushed at the implied criticism, ducking his head.

‘But all you heard were my curses and complaints,’ Owen admitted, winning a cautious grin.

He was a good father. When the prayer book had been put away, Owen spoke of the confessions of Beck and the chancellor. A pair of greedy cowards, Lucie declared them. But she was relieved. Marian was safe, and Owen was surely closer to solving Ronan’s murder. Soon they might all sleep more peacefully.

‘Tell me more about this Drake,’ said Jasper, poking his face close to Alisoun’s.

Lucie leaned to Owen, whispered a request to return to their earlier discussion up in their bedchamber. He needed no further prompting. She asked Alisoun to damp the fire in the hall. ‘Jasper can help you. Let Kate get a good night’s sleep.’

As they climbed to the solar Owen asked whether it was wise to leave them unchaperoned.

‘I choose to trust them.’

On the landing Lucie turned to watch Alisoun and Jasper slip into the hall, hand in hand.

Owen woke in the night to a soft knock on the door. Expecting Gwen, who often came to them with bad dreams, he groped on the floor for his shirt before sticking his head out the door. But it was Kate, who apologized for waking him before dawn but a man had brought Ambrose, who was injured.

‘I will dress and come down,’ he whispered, hoping not to wake Lucie. ‘Bring out the pallet we used for Gabriel.’

Owen was fumbling with the rest of his clothes in the dark when Lucie startled him by opening the shutter on the lantern they kept by the door, for the children. ‘I did not hear you rise,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘How could you with all the noise you’re making stumbling about? What has happened?’

‘Ambrose is here. Injured.’

‘I will come.’

‘But–’

‘No arguments.’

As he stepped out onto the landing Owen saw Alisoun peering round the nursery door. ‘Is there trouble?’ she whispered.

‘Ambrose is here.’

Lucie joined Owen, motioning to Alisoun to go back to sleep, and the two crept down the steps.

In the kitchen, Kate was stoking the fire. Owen did not know the gray-haired man who bent over Ambrose, who lay on the pallet near the fire, but he guessed by the French endearments that this was the one who had followed him from France, protecting him. He looked the part of a soldier, puckered scar on his neck, weathered face, now drawn down in concern for his friend. Owen greeted him, identified himself. The man offered his name, Denis, pronounced as the French would.

Joining him to kneel beside Ambrose, Owen opened the cloak. A cloth wrapped round Ambrose’s chest was so blood-soaked he could not tell the precise location of the wound. Denis indicated a space just below the heart. As Ambrose’s breathing was shallow, but quiet, and he was not gasping, it seemed the lung was spared. God be thanked.

‘What happened, Denis?’ Owen asked. ‘Would you prefer we speak French?’

Merci, but no, I had much practice speaking your tongue when Ambrose was first at court. I was walking down the alley to the home of the vicar where I have sheltered – Franz – when I heard Ambrose cry out behind me. I was not aware that he had followed me, but I knew his voice and rushed back to help. The musician Carl had fallen on him, wounding him as you see, but Ambrose fought back before falling to the ground, slicing open the man’s knife arm. When I turned round Carl was running away. Ambrose told me to follow him. He ran to Stonegate, disappearing down an alleyway. I did not care. My concern was Ambrose. I carried him to Franz’s house. We bandaged him, but we could not stop the bleeding. Is Dame Lucie–?’

‘I am here,’ said Lucie, kneeling to Ambrose, taking his hand, whispering his name. When Owen showed her where the knife had entered, she agreed he was most fortunate.

‘But he lost so much blood,’ said Denis.

‘He will be weak,’ she said, ‘but I feel no fever. That is good.’ Kate handed her the basket in which she kept her medicines and bandages, offered all four ale.

The day had begun.

Shortly before dawn, Stephen and Alfred called to report quiet nights on the watches set around Hempe’s and the chancellor’s houses. Both men were relieved to see Ambrose. One search to call off. They offered to help search for Carl.

Denis said he had disappeared on the opposite side of Stonegate from Robert Dale’s shop, past Swinegate. The description fit the home and shop of the silversmith Will Farfield.

First Owen wanted to move Ambrose to the safety of St Mary’s infirmary. Lucie agreed to the idea, though of course he could not walk there. Not bothering to don a cloak, Owen crossed to the York Tavern, already well lit, the staff bustling about the morning chores.

His eyes still puffy with sleep, Tom Merchet listened to Owen’s proposal, scratching his chin, yawning. ‘You are in luck, my friend. I’ve a few barrels I might spare. The lay brother at the postern gate has the abbot’s blessing to give me access in the early hours.’

‘What about Bootham Bar? Will they let you through?’

‘For free tankards for an evening they will.’ Tom tapped the side of his nose and winked. ‘Carry him over and we will tuck him in with your message.’

‘Bless you.’

‘Now hurry before my Bess wastes your time with more questions.’

Once Ambrose was safely delivered to Tom, the four set out, watching the street and the alleys as they approached Will Farfield’s. Most of the shops showed signs of life, lamps flickering, smoke rising from chimneys and snaking down the alleys, a few apprentices sweeping the doorsteps. But Will Farfield’s shop was dark. An apprentice at the entrance next door leaned on his broom and watched Owen and the others circling the building.

‘Sent his apprentices off a few days ago. One of them staying with us,’ he said when Owen greeted him.

‘Do you think the apprentice would talk to me?’

‘Still sleeping. I have the early shift. If you want to talk to him later …’

‘I will come by if I still need information. He’s a fortunate lad.’

‘The master will work him hard, but he’s kind and we eat well.’ A grin. ‘Will you be dragging Master Will away for his debts?’

‘I am not a debt collector, lad. Keeping the peace, that is what we’re about.’

The lad glanced at the hulking shape of Stephen, the wiry edginess of Denis, but he was most interested in Alfred, who was working the lock on Will’s shop door. Grinning, the apprentice bid Owen good luck and hurried into his shop, no doubt to share what he had learned.

‘Best take Carl now, before we collect an audience,’ said Owen. He directed Denis and Alfred to slip inside the shop and hold there, ready to catch anyone trying to escape. He and Stephen would go in through the rear door.

At the back Stephen chose to kick in the door rather than fiddle with a lock and risk being heard, stepping aside to allow Owen to enter first. In the dim light a man cowered in a corner moaning, ‘I am ruined, ruined. God help me, I am ruined.’ Stephen lit a lamp from the embers of the kitchen fire, revealing the speaker to be Will Farfield.