‘I don’t know. Josh? Cilla?’ Owen rubbed the scar beneath his patch. ‘Or is she Warin’s daughter?’
‘How are the hounds moving through the city unseen?’
‘How indeed?’ Owen was not ready to claim there were no dogs in the city, only a woman dressed as one. ‘Hempe or I would hear about it. Since the murders of Hoban and Bartolf, folk are on the watch. After Old Bede’s flight I wondered whether they might be going by boat, but they’d still need to move through the city streets to reach the river. Speaking of Old Bede, I want him to see Roger’s body, find out whether he’s the man who threatened him.’
‘Send your would-be warriors Alfred and Stephen?’ Michaelo suggested. ‘They might sleep there, return with him on the morrow.’
Owen agreed. ‘He’s not been troubled at Magda’s house since an initial try. It’s as if they’ve forgotten him.’ He rubbed his head. ‘In the morning, I will go back, try to learn more about Galbot. By then Paul Braithwaite should have a clearer head.’
Michaelo rose. ‘I will leave you to speak with the others, and then get some rest. You and Mistress Alisoun will be in my prayers.’
A fresh wind stirred the autumn leaves, sending up a rich scent of damp, turned earth mixed with the powdery scent of leaf mold. There was a sharpness to the breeze, a sign of autumn catching hold. Owen and Magda sat on a bench far back in the garden, near the grave of Lucie’s first husband, Nicholas.
‘Her life was quieter then.’
‘Clear thy mind, Bird-eye. Be at peace for a while.’
He tried, turning his attention to the sounds of the night garden, animals on the prowl down below, a cat slinking along the top of the wall, a great winged creature swooping down, the cry of its prey, the draft from its wings as it flew away over Nicholas Wilton’s grave.
‘What am I not seeing?’
‘Be at ease. Thou art close to understanding.’
He did not believe it.
‘Tell Magda what thou hast heard, observed. Spin the pieces out onto the night winds. In the morning thou canst collect them, after a dreamless sleep.’
He doubted he would sleep at all, anticipating a night fighting with the order of things, weighing the possibilities. But Magda was here, and willing to listen, and so he told her everything that had happened, all that had been revealed, doing his best to recount it in order without too much repetition. She gave him her full attention, staring into his eye, all the while so still he could not even hear her breath. When he was finished, she turned away, gazing out on the garden.
‘How did you know that Cilla, or some woman, was the beast folk see in the city?’ he asked.
‘Ah. So that is the answer to the riddle.’
He waited for more, for at least a chuckle. When he could no longer bear her silence, he asked, ‘What do you think?’
‘For the children of Warin to carry such hate for so long …’ Magda bowed her head for a moment, then turned to Owen, her gown flickering in the moonlight, as if her power wrapped round her as she moved.
Owen had been so keen on discovery he’d not stopped to think of the pain motivating the tale as he saw it. If his theory was correct, Warin’s children meant for the Swanns, the Braithwaites, and the Pooles to experience as much pain as they’d suffered. ‘What about Gerta’s family?’ Owen asked. ‘Do you remember Gerta, the charcoal-burner’s daughter?’
‘Hard workers far from home. Two children they had, a boy and the girl. The lad was content to learn his parents’ art – for it takes skill and practice, building the frame for the fire, gathering the correct wood, tending the burning so that it is slow but does not burn out.’
‘But Gerta?’
‘Pretty Gerta hungered for a man who would adore her and take her away. But who would desire a lass who stank of the burning and was coated in ash and soot? She begged Warin and his wife Mary to take her in, let her be Cecelia’s sister.’
‘Cecelia,’ Owen felt a chill. ‘Cilla?’
‘Mayhap. She was a wild one, dressing like her brothers, fleet-footed and strong, scrambling and climbing, watching the birds and beasts, learning their calls. All three were children of the forest and the river, at ease anywhere, ever following Magda while she harvested herbs, roots, and bark, seeking to learn all they might.’
It sounded like the woman. ‘Were you here at the time of Gerta’s death?’
‘Nay. It was flood time, when Magda tucks her belongings in the rafters and goes up on the moors, tending those too far to come to her. By the time Magda returned, the families were gone, fled when Warin was hanged.’ She was quiet again. And then, softly she said, ‘Hard times scatter families. Like wolves, together when the hunting is good, scattering when prey is scarce. Yet these came together a score of years later?’ A grunt.
Wolves had not the leisure to spend their days plotting revenge. They needed to hunt to fill their bellies each day. But men … ‘Had it been my da who’d taken in a young woman as his own and then been wrongly executed for her murder I might sit round the fire with my brothers and sisters plotting a way to punish the privileged pups and authorities who’d murdered him.’
‘Mayhap thou hast more insight into such passion than does Magda. Prince Edward must think so, to trust thee to protect his family from the Northern barons.’
‘I’d not thought of it in that light.’ But he suddenly saw it as she did. ‘Protecting the privileged pups.’
Magda chuckled, but then turned to Owen, taking his hand. ‘Such trust is an honor, if thou dost consider the royal kin honorable folk. Do not make thy decision based only on what thou thinkest of the prince.’
Owen felt the tingling in the center of his forehead. Would he ever understand her power? Did he wish to?
‘If I ponder that I will never sleep this night,’ he said.
‘Magda digressed. Thou hast more immediate concerns.’
He returned to what she’d told him of Warin, Gerta, and their families. ‘But who then are Joss and Wren?’
‘This is how Bird-eye catches murderers? Shaping a tale out of scraps?’
Is that what he did? Surely it was more than that?
‘Might Joss be Gerta’s brother?’ he asked.
‘The lad was ever covered in soot and ash, Magda would not know him now. But he was gentle like Joss. And when Joss came to Magda for the juniper he seemed perhaps familiar.’
‘Juniper?’
‘To remove the wart, he claimed. He asked for savine, in particular, that juniper. Magda offered houseleek instead. He cursed her and left.’
‘Angry?’
‘Desperate. Magda thought he meant to kill himself. Oil of savine is a potent poison.’
Owen knew of it. ‘You did not try to comfort him?’
‘Magda does not presume.’
14
Into the Flames
As Honoria de Staines slid beneath her bedcovers a few hours before dawn she prayed that God would look past her many sins this night and bless her sincere intention to save a young woman’s life. Though this was her usual hour to rest, the guests having departed, stumbling home to their cold beds, and the women of the house sleeping off their long evening, this had been no ordinary night, and she lay with her eyes open, listening for intruders.
Early in the evening she had agreed to shelter the young woman before hearing her tale, moved by her appearance and the terror in her swollen eyes. By the time Honoria understood the danger in which she’d placed all the women who depended on her for their safety it was too late to toss young Wren back out on the streets; she’d made the young woman’s safety her mission.
In danger, wanting to hide. Honoria had taken Wren to the storeroom off the kitchen, kept reasonably warm by its proximity to the hearth and oven. A pallet and blankets were ever ready there for women, often just girls, who needed a place off the street.