Not many. Owen was duly impressed. 'How did you come to the attention of the Archdeacon?'
A sly smile. 'I gave him information that brought him a tidy sum for the new chapel in the minster.'
'What sort of information?'
'Never mind that.' Digby downed his ale and rose. 'Archdeacon Anselm wants to talk with you. Can I tell him you will come to his chambers tomorrow?'
Bess, topping a tankard at the next table, held her breath.
'Archdeacon Anselm?' So it was the Archdeacon who had set Digby on him. 'I would be honoured.'
As the door closed behind the Summoner, voices rose in volume and warmed.
Bess came over with a pitcher of ale. Owen put his hand over his tankard, but not before Bess saw that he'd hardly touched it.
'One does for me these days.' He nodded towards the door. 'Did you hear?'
'Some of it. I daresay you've fired Digby's imagination and he's filled the Archdeacon with ideas. You be sure to disappoint him.'
Later, when Tom lit his way up to the attic room, Owen asked about the Archdeacon.
Tom shrugged. 'Some think him a saint. Maybe he is. Most like saints be a bloodless lot — more's the pity.' Tom shook his head. 'But he's a fair man. You've nothing to fear from him if you've nothing to hide.'
Tom lit a taper in Owen's window, then left.
Owen sank down on the pallet and pulled off the eye patch. He stared at the flickering flame. A slight blurring of the image. His pulse quickened. Was it his left eye trying to see? He put his hand over it. Damn. Just the ale blurring his good eye. The second time today he had expected a miracle. He was being a fool. He dug out the salve pot. Sniffed. Calendula and honey. And something else. The honey masked it. He took some on his finger and applied it. Warmth, tingling, then numbness. Monkshood. Must be careful with this. Aconite could kill.
Seven
With Roglio's letter in hand, Owen headed for the abbey the next day. A fresh dusting of snow made the cobbles slippery. He was not altogether disappointed when the smooth stones gave way to mud at the abbey gate. Mud might be dirty, but on it he was less likely to lose his footing. It disgusted him that he even thought of that. The loss of his eye had made him a mincing old man.
Roglio's letter gained Owen access to the Abbot, who assured him that Brother Wulfstan would be most gratified to hear that the Archbishop's physician remembered him.
Unbeknownst to the Abbot, Wulfstan was not at all pleased to hear of the visitor. He did not wish to see anyone. He wanted to be left in peace to wrangle with the devil that threatened to rob him of his salvation.
It had begun with the pilgrim. Since the evening of the day the pilgrim fell ill, Wulfstan had known no peace.
It was not because the pilgrim had fallen ill. Many came in such a state. An intimation of mortality turned even the most hardened brigand's thoughts towards God. Perhaps if Wulfstan had not tried to save him. Perhaps that was the error that unbalanced his life. He should have let his friend die peacefully, without fuss. Instead, in his pride, Wulfstan had set out to save him. The man had touched his heart. Wulfstan had not believed the Lord meant his friend to die — else why guide him here, to an Infirmarian with much skill and experience?
What an arrogant old fool he'd been. It pained Wulfstan to think of it. He'd trudged through the snow, warmed by the joy of saving one of God's creatures — and gaining personal glory.
He'd paid little heed to Nicholas's distraction that day, though later he remembered and recognised the signs. How could Wulfstan know that the man was ill and would that very night be stricken with a palsy that would rob him of speech for days and send him to his bed, from which he still had not risen? Nicholas had looked hale and hearty. But the questions he'd asked, his sudden temper, they had pointed to a feverish brain.
And the pilgrim's symptoms after receiving the phy-sick — Merciful Mother, they were so obvious to him now. But then they had puzzled him. He'd assumed he'd misread the signs, that all along his friend had suffered something quite different from camp fever, and that Nicholas recognised that when he arrived and was dismayed. He had perhaps prepared the wrong remedy.
Oh, but the truth was much worse than that. Much worse.
Like a fool, Wulfstan had watched over the dying man, massaging his limbs to ease his pain, helping him sit up to catch his breath. He'd prayed over him, sad that such a gentle knight should take his leave of life in agony.
And then Wulfstan had saved what was left of the physick and administered it to Fitzwilliam, the Archbishop's ward. And watched death come with suffocation and painful limbs, just as it had come for the pilgrim.
Only then had Wulfstan examined the physick. Only then. Such an old fool. What he'd found had broken his heart. A mortal dose of aconite. And he'd administered it. Wulfstan had killed the two men by trying to save them.
Aconite. Monkshood. Wolfbane. In small doses it relieves pain, induces sweating, reduces inflammation. In larger doses it brings terrible pain to the limbs, fainting, a sense of suffocation, and at last death. It was not unusual for a physick to contain aconite. But so much. For Nicholas to make such a gross mistake. Wulfstan had never found cause to mistrust the concoctions of Nicholas Wilton, or those of his father before him. It had not occurred to him to test the physick. But, dear God, it would have been so easy. On the skin it causes a warm, tingling sensation, followed by numbness. When at last he'd tested the physick, his hand was numb through the night.
It was the darkest moment of Wulfstan's life. Never had he thought on the power that he held over men's lives. He could kill. He had killed by his negligence.
Old fool. The apothecary's brain must already have been addled when he prepared the mixture. After all, Nicholas had collapsed just outside the infirmary, only moments after delivering the physick.
Only moments after the pilgrim had called him a murderer. This it was that troubled Wulfstan. For the physick contained such a large dose of aconite. Prepared specifically for the pilgrim. Never had he known Nicholas to err so in preparing a physick. He might misdiagnose. And no measurements were ever perfect. But this was such a gross error, so easily detected by anyone who touched it.
And that was why he feared it had not been an error. That Nicholas had meant to prepare a poison. That he'd meant to kill the pilgrim, the man who'd called him murderer, who'd hoped Nicholas was dead, who'd been so certain he'd killed him ten years before.
Wulfstan's suspicion sickened him. For surely it was his own guilt he sought to erase by blaming another. Nicholas Wilton could not mean to murder the pilgrim. He did not even know his name.
But Nicholas had asked many questions about the man. Questions that had nothing to do with a diagnosis. And Wulfstan had told him all he knew. Perhaps enough.
No. Nicholas was a good man. It was unthinkable. Besides, what was his motive? Nicholas had everything a layman could want. He was a master apothecary, his shop patronised by the wealthiest citizens of York, married to a beautiful, gentle woman who worked beside him. His only sorrow was his lack of children,
Wulfstan had been taught that his goodness, his innocence, was the source of his skill with medicines. God granted him this most wonderful occupation because he'd shown himself worthy.
But he was no longer innocent. Through his negligence he had murdered two men. And he had chosen to tell no one. No one must know that the men had not died natural deaths. The gossip might ruin the Wiltons and, God forgive him, Abbot Campian's faith in him. He could not do it. Not to Lucie Wilton. Not to himself. He would not destroy her life after she'd been given another chance. And for himself, he knew he would be most diligent from this day forward.