Lucie wondered whether Isobel knew how innocent she herself sounded. ‘Do you think she ran off to find such a lover, not realising the mystics spoke of God?’
‘I think it very likely.’
‘You blame yourself.’
‘I do.’
They were both quiet for a while. Dame Isobel daintily sipped her ale.
Lucie broke the thoughtful silence. ‘Did Joanna seem secretive last spring? As if she were planning an escape?’
Isobel closed her eyes, her pale lashes almost invisible against her round cheeks. She sighed, as if the subject of Joanna wearied her. ‘Afterwards, I recognised the signs. She sought solitude even more than had been her custom. She paced the orchard — back and forth, back and forth, like an animal in a cage. But she performed her duties and prayed with us.’
‘If she ran off to a lover, where would she have met him? When?’
‘That is what I cannot imagine.’
‘Did she have a confidante at St Clement’s? A particular friend?’
Isobel shook her head.
‘A sadly solitary woman.’
Isobel pursed her lips. ‘A difficult woman.’
Lucie frowned at that. ‘More difficult than I was?’
Isobel had the courtesy to blush. ‘You did not take vows. You had not asked to come to St Clement’s.’
‘Joanna had claimed a vocation?’
‘In truth, I believe she pretended a vocation to escape her betrothed.’
‘Ah.’ Lucie nodded. ‘Trapped by her own craft.’ She thought a moment. ‘So she had no friends, and there was no hue and cry when she disappeared?’
‘I covered her absence with a lie. I told the sisters that she had gone home to regain her health.’ Isobel looked embarrassed. ‘I, too, was trapped by my cleverness. But worse than that. Had I told Archbishop Thoresby immediately, Joanna might have been found before. . before whatever happened to her.’
Lucie leaned forward. ‘It was inevitable that you would be discovered. Her family would come to visit. .’
Isobel shook her head. ‘The Calverleys never came to see her.’
‘Never?’
‘Her family disowned her. When she came to St Clement’s she was more than symbolically dead to them.’
‘They paid you handsomely for that?’
Isobel nodded.
‘Still, eventually someone would have asked where Joanna was. She could not stay away for her health for ever. How did you intend to handle the questions then?’
‘I planned to tell them she had been released from her vows because of her illness.’
‘And what if her family had suddenly reconsidered and come to visit?’
Sweat glistened on the prioress’s face. ‘I would have told them she was dead.’
‘You were weaving yourself some difficult lies.’
‘Yes.’
‘To have it out in the open must feel like a chance at redemption.’
Isobel looked away. ‘Perhaps it would be, if His Grace were not so angry.’
‘Yes. Back to that. How to proceed with Joanna.’ Lucie bit her lip. ‘She must believe that you are worried about her. You must not sound like an inquisitor. Be patient. Talk with her. Tell her something of yourself.’ Lucie rubbed her back, stood up. ‘I shall think about what you have told me.’
Isobel rose, too. ‘You have been very kind. God bless you.’
Six
As Owen passed through Micklegate Bar, he bade farewell to the fresh country air. The scent of forest and farmland gave way to the layered stench of the city — the mounds of composting manure on Toft Green, the sweat, smoke and onion of fellow travellers crowding through the Bar to market, the rotten fruit and spoiled eggs at the base of the pillory in the yard of Holy Trinity, the ammonia perfume of his own sweating horse, now that he must walk beside it, and, as he approached Ouse Bridge, the pungent scent of the fishmongers, all intensified by the strong midday sun. And flies everywhere. Only Lucie could lure Owen back to this city. But lure him she did; he could not wait to put his arms around her.
Gaspare nudged him. ‘You’re thinking of your lady love, I can tell by the smile. Guilty pleasures.’
At the Skeldergate crossing they were forced to the side of the street by a cart carrying two injured men. ‘I pray ye make way,’ shouted the driver. He squinted at Owen, then his eyes widened in relief. ‘Captain Archer, Sir. Canst thou help me through this crowd to St Mary’s?’
‘Not St Leonard’s Hospital?’ Owen asked as he motioned to Lief, Gaspare, and the five new archers to surround the cart.
‘Nay.’ The driver shook his head. ‘The one who can speak said St Mary’s. “To Brother Wulfstan,” he said.’
Owen peered into the cart. ‘Alfred?’
One of the men, bloody and bleary-eyed, tried to sit up. ‘Captain Archer. I cannot wake Colin. I thought Brother Wulfstan. .’
Owen patted Alfred’s shoulder. ‘Lie down. We shall get you there quickly.’
The eight archers ploughed through the crowd on Ouse Bridge and then down Coney Street, the cart at their centre.
Thoresby returned to the palace in the minster close thirsty, his feet aching from standing. He had spent several hours watching the masons at work on the minster’s Lady Chapel, which would house his tomb. As Thoresby watched the masons raising the walls to Heaven, he meditated on his mortal body and his immortal soul. It humbled him, reminded him that for all his titles and power he was still just one of God’s children.
The King did not like this humour; he thought the North Country was making Thoresby choleric. It was more to the point that King Edward saw Thoresby becoming more a man of God and less a Lord Chancellor, and that was what he disliked. But Thoresby was comfortable with the change. He was the Archbishop of York; he should be a man of God.
During the past winter, Thoresby had suffered a painful lesson in humility when he’d tried to remove the King’s mistress, Alice Perrers, from court. He had met his match in womankind. She had unearthed his most guarded secrets and unleashed emotions he had thought spent. Perrers. A month of prayer in the Cistercian peace of Fountains Abbey had not rid him of a taste for her blood.
Thoresby stopped in the kitchen, helped himself to some early strawberries, and warned Maeve that he would be wanting to bathe so she should begin boiling water. The thought of Alice Perrers made him feel unclean. And now he had heard that the King was campaigning for William of Wykeham, Keeper of the Privy Seal, to get the seat of Winchester when Bishop Edington died. With Perrers in Edward’s bedchamber and Wykeham at his right hand, Thoresby’s enemies were crowding him out, poisoning the King’s mind against him. He wished he did not care.
He sought out Brother Michaelo, found him sitting quietly at his table outside Thoresby’s parlour.
‘Any word from Alfred or Colin?’
‘Nothing, Your Grace.’
‘Where are our guests?’
‘Sir Richard and Sir Nicholas went out, Your Grace. I did not ask where.’
‘Good. I am going to bathe. See that I’m not disturbed.’
Michaelo’s eyes swept Thoresby from head to foot. ‘Bathe, Your Grace?’
Even the fastidious Michaelo could not understand bathing when clean. But Thoresby would be damned if he would explain to his secretary. ‘No interruptions.’
Michaelo raised an eyebrow. ‘No interruptions, Your Grace.’
Thoresby went into his parlour, checked through the documents Michaelo had arranged in order of urgency and judged none of them to require an immediate reply. He climbed the back stairs to his bedchamber. Two servants, Lizzie and John, balanced a large pot between them, tilting it towards a wooden tub. Steaming water poured out. Lizzie’s face was red from the heat and exertion; John was soaked in sweat. An unpleasant task, lugging pots of boiling water up the stairs on a warm June afternoon.