'Tell me about the arm.'
She squinted at him. 'Why should Magda tell thee aught?'
'A scandal could ruin your son's standing with the Archdeacon.'
'The Abbot would tell?'
'Only if it seems we ought to.'
She rubbed her chin. 'Thou art the Archbishop's man.'
'I am interested in FitzWilliam's death.'
She shrugged. The pup was a flea. A pest. Not so evil to bring death on him.' She gestured to Owen to sit down.
Owen sat carefully on the edge of a stool. 'You don't think his enemies might want him dead?'
She laughed. 'Pup got caught. Time and again. Folk did not take him seriously.'
Tell me about the arm.'
Magda snorted. 'Came with one of his little lady loves, quick with child. Caught Magda in surgery, removing a rotten arm. Would have killed the man. Pup asked could he have it. Magda ignored him and put it out in her pit. Gave the pup's lady a potion to rid herself of his quickening seed. Next morning the arm was gone from the pit.' She shrugged. 'Was Magda to run after the pup? Rotten thing. Stank. Magda wondered. 'Twas Potter told her that churchmen pay for such offal. Put it in a jewelled casket. Folk pray to it.' She laughed. 'Pray to the rotten arm of a tinker. Magda liked that. She let it be.'
'If the Archdeacon had heard of this and misunderstood, your son's post might have been in jeopardy.'
'Potter learns much from his mother. Much that takes him to folks' doors to demand payment for their sins. Tis not an arrangement Archdeacon Anselm is likely to give up, eh?'
'So your son felt no threat?'
'Nay. Nor did the pup yelp.' She shook her head. ' 'Tis a foolish, dangerous business, summoning. Potter is a fool.'
The small patient on the table whimpered. Magda went to see to her. 'Bessy, girl, ye be coming along. Rest.' Gently she stroked the cat's head between the ears, comforting her, soothing her. In a few minutes the cat quieted.
Magda poured herself something out of a jug, came back to sit. 'Magda does not offer thee drink. Thou wouldst not take it, eh?'
Owen smiled. She surprised him. He had expected an underworld figure, a renegade, a cutthroat, a liar. But she was a skilled healer at peace with herself and content with her lot, it seemed.
'Why is Potter a Summoner?'
Magda shrugged. 'Greedy. Thinks to buy a comfortable perch in his Heaven.' She shrugged again. 'A good lad. Misguided.'
'Fitzwilliam brought a woman to you before Christmas?'
'Aye. Another greedy one.'
'Was it his child?'
'Aye, 'twas the pup's child. Lord March is not as he should be.'
Remembering the revealing leggings, Owen found that an interesting piece of information. 'How do you know?'
Magda shook her head. 'Thou art a stranger to York and know'st not the company thou find'st thyself in. Magda Digby, the Riverwoman, is known far and wide. Lord March's mother came to Magda for a charm. And again before the betrothal. No good. 'Twas not meant to be fixed. He might sire a monster. Some such evil.'
'Can you tell me anything about Fitzwilliam that would help me understand why he died?'
Magda rose, wiped her hands in her skirts. 'Magda told thee about the rotten arm. Tis enough to keep my Potter content.' She opened the door for him to depart.
Nine
Grey clouds and an icy wind threatened snow. Owen stood behind Magda Digby's hut, staring down at the river. The chill was a shock after the hot, dry hut, but he hoped it would clear his head. He must think. Surely he had learned something in two days of questioning, something to shed light on FitzWilliam's death. Something he had heard must be significant. If only he could think it through.
He felt much as he had when he first woke in camp with the eye bandaged. He'd kept trying to blink the left eye to bring that side of the tent in focus. The feeling had persisted. Maddening. Even now he had walked back to the muddy bank and blinked to bring into focus the turbulent water to his right, the huts clustered against the abbey wall to his left. But the huts disappeared until he moved his head.
That was the remedy, dissatisfying as it was. That was what he needed to do with Fitzwilliam's death. Turn his head. He'd been searching for the man's enemies, the enemies of a rogue. Everyone agreed Fitzwilliam had many enemies, but no one could name one who might be angry enough to have killed him, and taken pains to do it cleverly. That person might still surface. But what other enemies might Fitzwilliam have had? Ned had implied that Fitzwilliam was a spy. Perhaps York was not the place for Owen to look. Perhaps Lancaster's household was where he should be. Fitzwilliam had been a spy for Lancaster son of the King, and the ward of Thoresby, King's Chancellor. Now there was a different angle. Perhaps Fitzwilliam had been murdered not by his own enemies, but by those of his lord or his guardian. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had many enemies. And the Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York surely would have made enemies on his precipitous climb.
Owen resolved to give that possibility more thought.
But now he must hurry to the house of the Master of the Merchants' Guild, Camden Thorpe.
Camden Thorpe looked up through his bushy eyebrows at the one-eyed stranger. He was surprised by the man's appearance. He'd expected someone younger, though the Archbishop had written that the man was Captain of Archers to the old Duke of Lancaster. Still. He'd hoped for someone who looked more trainable.
'The Archbishop recommends you as apprentice at the Wilton apothecary. You are aware of this?'
'I am, and I'm most willing.' The tone of voice matched the words.
Thorpe pulled at his beard while he considered the idea. Though Lucie Wilton had not requested it, Camden thought she could use a pair of strong arms around the place. That garden took a lot of work. Spring was coming, and there would be digging and planting and hauling. And this Owen knew something about the business already. He could be trusted to watch the shop for brief periods while she saw to her husband. Such a queer business, Nicholas Wilton's illness. Camden had never seen a man struck so hard, so suddenly, and go on living. It must be Mistress Wilton's excellent care. He'd noted how drawn and thin she looked. Not getting rest; that woman. Probably spending the night beside her ailing husband, dozing in a chair, afraid to miss his call, and working hard all day to keep up the shop and garden. He motioned towards the patch. 'You must wear that?'
The Welshman touched the offending patch. 'Aye, though it works against me, I know. But as you can see' — he lifted the patch, revealing a puckered lid that would not quite close — 'the alternative is not pretty.'
Camden sighed. 'Poor devil. You must have suffered with that wound.'
'I had a taste of Hell with it, aye.'
He looked to have been popular with the women before the scarring, for he was handsome otherwise in a dark, rakish way. His Mary would call the man handsome but for the patch. It would turn a woman's eye elsewhere, to be sure. No one likely to gossip about him and Mistress Wilton. All in all, he might just be the solution.
'I've been sore pressed to find a way to honour Wilton's request for an apprentice, you see. Sorely pressed. Trouble was, a parent or guardian would take it as an insult, my apprenticing their boy to an apprentice, don't you see. For, capable as Mistress Lucie Wilton is, she's still not a master, though with a few more months of handling the shop alone she could make journeyman. I mean to put it to the guild members. Even so, it's a better recommendation for a boy to have apprenticed to a master apothecary, don't you see.'
Owen shrugged. 'My situation is different.'
'Well, that it is. That it is.' Camden scratched his nose and considered the man. The one eye had a bit of devil in it, to be sure. But it faced him directly with no twitching or sliding away. He could see no harm in him. 'Knowing my reservations, you are still interested?'