Out of the quiet, Muriel asked the servant to wait outside. As soon as the young woman drew the door shut behind her, Muriel said, ‘I should have come to Captain Archer about my suspicions. If I had done so–’ A deep breath. ‘You must tell him to look at Hoban’s circle, his sister, her husband, and my brother Paul.’ She crossed herself and turned to gaze out the window, her hand to her heart.
His circle? Lucie glanced at Alisoun, who shook her head. She was about to ask what Muriel meant when she gave a little moan, pressing a hand to her stomach.
‘Rest now,’ Lucie whispered, stroking Muriel’s back to relax her.
But Muriel shook her head. ‘They keep some secret, I’ve always felt it. Hoban kept things from me. At first I told myself he protected me, sheltered me in his love, but …’ She caught her breath and pressed Lucie’s hand, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘I do not like to say it of him. He was so happy about being a father. And I loved him so.’
‘A little more of the physick, Alisoun,’ Lucie said, ‘in some watered wine.’
Muriel shook her head. ‘No. No first let me tell you what you must tell your husband. Since Crispin Poole returned – you know of whom I speak?’ Lucie nodded. ‘Since then, they’ve whispered and argued under their breaths. Frightened. Or angry. Both?’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘How can I be certain of anything when he would never tell me? Nor would she, Olyf–’ She crossed herself. ‘Poor woman, she has lost brother and father. I do not like speaking ill of her. But she is a shrewd one, though she plays the innocent.’
Alisoun knelt in front of her charge and took her hands, catching her eyes and holding the gaze, calming her.
As Magda would do. Lucie asked if she should go.
‘No!’ Muriel broke away from Alisoun and took Lucie’s hand. ‘Crispin Poole. As I said, since his return, they’ve not been the same. The captain must hear this.’
‘Poole,’ Alisoun whispered, so softly that Lucie almost missed it.
She glanced at her. The young woman seemed lost in herself. Crispin Poole. He had consulted Lucie earlier in the summer about pain in what remained of his right arm. The haunting of the lost hand and forearm. She had sent him to Magda Digby, who knew how to work with such soul wounds. Owen knew him better than she did. ‘I will tell my husband what you have said,’ Lucie promised.
Muriel nodded. ‘My brother asked me if I wanted his dog Tempest here. Stupid man. A dog? After what a dog did to my husband? I’ve always hated his dogs.’
‘Whose? Your brother’s? Has Paul always kept dogs?’ Lucie asked.
‘Breeds them for hunting. Wealthy men come from far and wide to purchase his beasts. I believe his wife – Elaine – I believe she hates them as much as I do.’ She gave a sob. ‘Hoban never blamed me for being barren, ever. He was the most patient, loving man. When I told him I was at last with child … How his eyes lit up …’ Muriel stared out the window, her body shaken with sobs.
Alisoun handed Lucie a cup of watered wine containing more of the physick. ‘For the baby’s sake you must rest,’ said Lucie.
Muriel drank it down quickly, then rested her head against the back of the chair with a sigh. ‘I can sleep now. Captain Archer will know what to do.’ Alisoun helped her rise, supporting her with an arm round her waist as she slowly crossed the room to the bed.
When Muriel was asleep, Alisoun joined Lucie on a bench by the window, thanking her for coming. ‘Your presence is a balm for her.’
Lucie noticed shadows of exhaustion beneath Alisoun’s eyes. She wanted so much to ask about the pouch, but it was not the time. ‘Would you like me to stay with her while you rest?’
Alisoun let her shoulders slump. ‘Would you? I’ll just lie down here. If Dame Janet or Dame Olyf should come–’
‘I doubt Janet Braithwaite will have the time to visit her daughter today, but if she does, she can wait in the hall. The same for Dame Olyf.’
‘Bless you.’
Lucie poured the weary young woman a cup of wine, then told the servant to shutter the window. In the dim quiet, Alisoun slipped out of her dress and beneath the bedclothes, and Lucie settled beside the sleeping widow, letting her mind quiet before sorting through Muriel’s tearful confidences.
‘Keep an ear pricked about Paul Braithwaite,’ Owen told Alfred as they parted on Coney Street. ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for. Any gossip, any enemies. And Galbot. Find out if he’s a local man. Hempe’s men might know. I want to see how Ned’s been received, then I’ll go to see Archdeacon Jehannes.’
Alfred nodded and strode off.
At the Swann house he found Ned out in the back garden pushing a barrow behind the cook, who was picking late-season herbs for a stew. Ned excused himself and stepped aside to talk to Owen.
‘They’ve put you to work out here?’
‘I offered. I thought it a good way to hear the gossip of the household, Captain.’ He grinned. ‘And I have. I can tell you that the servants resented Olyf Tirwhit ordering them about last night, saying she’d never have dared if their mistress had not been bedridden. Dame Muriel and Dame Olyf – no affection there, it seems.’
‘Do you know why?’
Ned shook his head, then lifted his cap and bowed to someone approaching.
‘Lucie!’ Owen took her hands. ‘Any news?’
‘I must get right back, but I saw you down here and wanted to give you a message from Dame Muriel.’
He listened with interest about Hoban’s ‘circle’, the secrecy, the discomfort about Crispin Poole’s return, her dislike of Paul Braithwaite’s dogs. He had Ned tell her what the servants said about Olyf and Muriel.
‘There may be something there,’ said Lucie, ‘though we need more.’
‘Did you show Alisoun the pouch?’
‘Forgive me, but she is exhausted. I thought it better to wait.’
As Archdeacon of York, Jehannes had a substantial house near the minster. Surrounded by a modest but welcoming garden, it was a place of refuge. Owen often came here seeking the counsel of his good friend. Jehannes managed to retain an innocent joy and an open heart.
A young clerk opened the door to Owen, gesturing with a finger to his lips that he must enter the hall in silence. ‘As you can see,’ he whispered, ‘Dom Jehannes and Brother Michaelo are at prayer.’
The two knelt at prie dieus before a corner altar, heads bowed, hands pressed together. The clerk escorted Owen to a seat by a low window that looked out onto a walled garden, and offered him a cup of wine.
The hall was simply furnished, Jehannes’s spiritual life being that which drew his attention. Yet where in the past neither hangings nor painted plaster had brightened the interior, that was no longer so. His cook had wed a stonemason who worked at the minster, and the couple, both artists, had transformed the hall. Tree boughs arched along the walls, beneath which hung large embroidered panels depicting the flora and fauna of the moors. With paint and thread they brought the beauty of the North into Jehannes’s home.
Once Owen had settled, sampled the fine wine, studied the artwork, the well-tended beds of herbs and roses in the garden, he turned his mind to Muriel Swann’s warning. An unexpected revelation, old friends keeping a secret, excluding Muriel, though her brother was part of it. And Crispin Poole. Might it be nothing but a cache of fear unleashed by recent, horrific events? Or was it possible that Poole’s return had stirred up some darkness from their shared past? Owen searched his memory for any clues in his conversations with the man, but Poole’s only mention of ill feelings pertained to John Gisburne, who had provided him with letters of introduction to influential merchants in the city – apparently at the command of a patron whom Poole declined to name. It was not done graciously, and though the letters had gained him entry into business, he’d been received coolly in society, and ignored by Gisburne’s family. Perhaps it was time to dig into Poole’s past.