‘There,’ said Michaelo, ‘near your right knee.’
Crouching down, Owen saw it, brown and easily dismissed as a dry leaf or part of the trunk, a leather pouch that fit in his palm. He opened it, finding within a waxed parchment packet containing an oily salve. He sniffed. Betony, boneset, and something else he could not identify – but Lucie would know what it was. The combination suggested a wound and a broken bone, common enough among country laborers, horsemen. Owen tucked it into his scrip.
Michaelo leaned down. ‘Is it useful?’
‘That depends on who dropped it, and when.’
No smoke rose from the long, low house, no dogs prowled the fenced area to one side. The gate was fastened, the structure appeared to be complete and undamaged. No one answered as Owen called out and opened the door. Spare furnishings, bowls, and moldy bread sat on a shelf along the wall that looked out into the dogs’ enclosure. Up the ladder to the loft, a pallet was piled with skins, an overturned jug and bowl.
‘Had he no one to tidy and cook for him?’ Michaelo said with disgust.
‘If so, whatever he paid them was too much,’ said Owen. ‘Perhaps Joss did it all.’ Or someone else was missing.
Exiting the house, Owen spied the well-worn track he recalled taking the few times he had called on Bartolf. Much wider, more appropriate for accommodating Hoban on horseback with the dogs ambling along. ‘Seems to me this would have been Hoban’s choice to and from the house at dusk, not the narrow track to the clearing where he was killed.’
‘Perhaps the way along the marsh was not his choice?’
‘Possible, though I saw no sign of struggle at the house.’
Before mounting his horse, Owen cupped his hands and called out for Joss. Waited. Called again. Nothing.
‘Perhaps he often disappeared,’ said Michaelo, ‘and that caused Bartolf to worry about the dogs.’
‘Yet he spent several days in York without concern.’
‘Ah,’ said Michaelo.
As he led the way down the more traveled track Owen took the right-hand side. Though it meant he must turn in the saddle to look at Michaelo, he could search the right side of the track with his good eye while his companion searched to the left. So occupied, they rode in silence for a while.
‘Geoffrey Chaucer must have galloped to Freythorpe Hadden the moment he had word of Dame Philippa’s death,’ Michaelo suddenly said. ‘One wonders how he retains his position in the royal household, he spends so much time away.’ He adjusted himself in the saddle so he might glance at Owen. ‘How did Chaucer hear of her passing?’
‘He came north on a mission, learned of our loss from the Merchets at the York Tavern.’
‘Ah. That explains much. Yes, I see. He came north on a mission for Prince Edward, did he not?’
As he was biding in the home of Archdeacon Jehannes, Michaelo had been privy to some of Owen’s discussions with his friend, and knew that a visit from Geoffrey was imminent. The prince grew impatient for an answer to his generous offer. Prince Edward, the future king, hero of Crécy and Poitiers, wanted Owen in his retinue, to be his spy in the north. He would have Owen keep his ears pricked for news of the powerful Northern families – the Percys and the Nevilles in particular – and report to him quarterly, or on the occasion of something he should hear at once. Owen had first been recruited by the prince’s wife while his liege lord the archbishop yet lived. But coming from the prince himself – it now carried so much weight it felt like a royal command. Chaucer understood, and had tried to soften that with visions of the great honor it would be to serve the future King of England.
‘The matter of your position in his household?’ said Michaelo, misunderstanding Owen’s silence.
‘Yes.’
‘A pity that the prince uses your friend as mediator, with the risk that such coercion might cause a rift between you.’
‘A rift? Hardly.’ Geoffrey was ever irritating.
‘My error.’
Owen turned in his saddle to look at his companion. ‘I take it you have considered Jehannes’s idea that you serve as my secretary should I join the prince’s household?’ The position would require much correspondence, and who better qualified than the former secretary of an archbishop? Michaelo was also acquainted with many Nevilles and Percys, indeed, he had dealt with all the noble families in the North, overseeing the preparations for their visits to the archbishop and accompanying His Grace to their castles and manors.
‘I have, Captain. I can think of no one better suited to the task.’ Owen grinned in response, but Michaelo was quite serious as he continued. ‘I would be honored, should you so wish it. Though my purpose was not to pry.’
Owen doubted that. The monk was likely eager to know whether he might once again move in high circles.
‘My point was,’ Michaelo paused as if searching for the right words, ‘I fail to see how this afternoon’s task proves my capability. Your duties for the prince would not be those of a coroner.’
‘I disagree. If all were peaceful amongst the great families of the North, His Grace would have no need of me. Powerful men are no more likely to die in their beds than are the citizens of York. Prince’s man or captain of bailiffs, I might have need of you in investigating a violent death.’
That was the other possibility. The mayor, aldermen, and wealthy merchants of York wished Owen to take up the work of captain of the city bailiffs, a position they had proposed with him in mind; indeed they could not understand why he would hesitate – a comfortable annuity, status in the city, work that was not much different from his previous responsibilities as the archbishop’s captain of guards. Ah, but the difference was all – except for his journeys to his and Lucie’s manors south of the city, Owen would have no cause to travel far. He would be home with his family, among his friends, with never the threat of long stretches away. It seemed ideal.
Yet he hesitated. With Lucie’s shop, the York house, her father’s manor and his own, which had come to him by Archbishop Thoresby’s gift, his family did not need the city’s annuity. As a third option, Owen might occupy himself, as he had done since Thoresby’s death, seeing to their land and business, answerable to no one but his family and his own conscience. But whenever he considered that aloud, Lucie asked why, then, he continued to retain two of his former men. Alfred and Stephen had helped him rid his new manor of a band of thieves, and he’d left them there for a few weeks with Rollo, the steward he’d hired. But that had been several months ago. He was bored, she said. Bored with the life he’d yearned for all the while he worked for Thoresby. The old crow must be laughing in Heaven.
Lucie had favored the council’s offer until Geoffrey appeared at Freythorpe with specifics about the one from Prince Edward. The prince offered a far more generous stipend than did the York council, as well as property, status, even a knighthood if Owen wished. He most assuredly did not, and Lucie supported him in that. Nor did she care a whit for wealth or status. It was the work she believed would be to his liking, more varied and potentially far more interesting than keeping order in the city. No doubt. But Owen knew the prince’s reputation, the brutality of his raids in Gascony, and the cold-blooded sentences he laid down on anyone who crossed him. Even now, as ill as he was, Prince Edward’s reputation was that of a querulous, vindictive lord. And what about his illness? How long would he have need of Owen?
‘Both he and Princess Joan hope that you would continue to work for her, and the young Prince Richard,’ Geoffrey had assured him. Teasing Owen that he seemed to be weakening, Geoffrey had quickly gone on to explain how it would work. Owen already had influential friends in York and elsewhere in the shire who might be encouraged to share information with him and invite him to accompany them on visitations throughout the area, introducing him to others in the prince’s affinity. ‘And your delightful Lucie, daughter of a knight. The prince is keen to make her acquaintance, as is my lady. An invitation to one of their northern estates, perhaps?’