Thoresby asked Wulfstan to see him to the door.
‘You have spoken with Dame Joanna?’
Brother Wulfstan nodded. ‘A most confused child.’
‘So you could make little sense of her speech?’
‘Sadly, no. Neither can Dame Isobel. But Mistress Wilton had some speech with her that sounded lucid.’
‘Mistress Wilton?’
Wulfstan nodded. ‘So much so that the Reverend Mother thought she might ask Mistress Wilton to help her talk to Joanna.’
‘An interesting idea.’
Wulfstan shook his head. ‘It is not Mistress Wilton’s responsibility.’
‘Mistress Wilton refused?’
‘I have not heard, Your Grace. But her father arrives in the city this week. And she is busy with the shop, Owen being away so often and Jasper here at the abbey’s choir school learning his letters.’
But Owen was back. Would he object? Thoresby must think how to finesse this. ‘Thank you, Brother Wulfstan. And I thank you and Brother Henry for your care of my men.’
Brother Wulfstan bowed. ‘God grant we may see them both recovered, Your Grace.’
‘Benedicte, Brother Wulfstan.’
Joanna spun round again and again, looking for a way out of the stony wasteland. But the rock outcroppings rose high on all sides of the sandy spot in which she stood. Above her was a grey sky, featureless. No wind. No sound. Not even her spinning broke the silence. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came. The air was so heavy it seemed to suck her breath away when she opened her mouth. She clamped her hand over her mouth. Tried to breathe. Could not. She could not remember how to breathe. Or swallow. The walls began to close in on her. She clawed at her throat, trying to open it to the air. Trying to breathe.
‘Please, Dame Joanna, wake up. ’Tis but a nightmare you suffer. Please. You hurt yourself.’
Joanna gasped for breath. It came. She used it to scream. ‘Hugh! Hugh!’
‘Please, Dame Joanna, wake!’
All was darkness now. But there was sound and breath. A familiar voice. Joanna opened her eyes. It was the servant the Reverend Mother had sent to attend her, eyes round with terror. A scratch on the young woman’s arm bled slowly. Joanna looked down at her own hands, held down by the worried maid. Joanna’s fingernails were dark with blood. Something hurt. Burned. Her throat. She swallowed.
‘Are you awake now, Dame Joanna?’ the maid asked.
What was her name? ‘Mary?’ Joanna whispered.
‘Praise be to God! I thought you would never wake.’ Mary looked back over her shoulder. ‘She is awake, Reverend Mother.’
Joanna tried to move her hands. Mary let go, but stopped Joanna as she reached for the burning spot on her throat. ‘Let me clean it. You must not touch it. Let me clean you. Whatever were you fighting in your dream, Dame Joanna?’
Joanna closed her eyes. Hot tears spilled down her temples, into her hair. ‘The grave,’ she whispered. Would she ever be free of the dreams?
The Reverend Mother stepped forward, winced at the sight of the torn throat. ‘You are not in the grave, Joanna.’
Joanna began to tremble. She hugged herself, trying to still the trembling. ‘No one deserves to suffer the grave before Death’s sleep.’
‘You said you had risen from the dead,’ Isobel said, trying to soothe her.
Joanna shook her head, moaned at the pain, closed her eyes. ‘He should not have done it. No one should suffer the grave before Death’s sleep,’ she whispered.
Isobel bent closer. ‘What did you say?’
Joanna rocked her head from side to side, whimpering. ‘He pays. But so dearly. It is not right. To be put there alive. He did not deserve that.’
Isobel stepped back, crossed herself. ‘What do you know of Jaro’s death, Joanna? Who killed him? Who put him in that grave?’
Joanna opened her eyes, grabbed Isobel’s arm. ‘They opened my grave?’
‘You knew Jaro was buried in your grave. How?’
Joanna squeezed Isobel’s arm so hard the prioress cried out and pulled away. The green eyes were wild. ‘Jaro? Jaro was buried alive?’
Isobel rubbed her arm. ‘His neck was surely broken before he went in, Joanna.’
The green eyes stared as the head snapped back and forth, back and forth. ‘No no no no no no no no no!’
Both Isobel and Mary worked up a sweat binding Joanna’s hands to her sides, so she might not injure herself more. At last Isobel sent Mary for Dame Prudentia. While she awaited the infirmaress, Isobel sat as far from Joanna and her violent emotion as the room permitted.
Michaelo met the archbishop with a note. ‘From the prioress of St Clement’s, Your Grace.’
Thoresby took the note. ‘Follow me.’ The archbishop went into his parlour, poured two fingers of brandywine and drank it down. He opened the note, read it to himself and threw it on the table with a curse.
‘Your Grace?’
‘Our intriguing Dame Joanna is now frightening the Reverend Mother with her terror of the grave.’
‘An experience one would remember keenly.’
‘She is a melodramatic woman, and speaks either nonsense or riddles. Dame Isobel is frightened. The nun ripped her own throat with her nails and keeps saying’ — Thoresby picked up the letter — ‘ “No one should suffer the grave before Death’s sleep.” A pronouncement, no more. According to both Brother Wulfstan and the Reverend Mother, only one person has managed to make sense of Joanna or somehow inspire her to speak sense: Mistress Wilton.’
Michaelo’s nostrils flared. ‘Captain Archer will not like us drawing her in.’
Thoresby glowered at Michaelo. ‘ “Us?” You forget yourself, Michaelo. Go find out how long it will take them to warm my bath water.’ When he was alone, Thoresby picked up the letter and reread it. Dame Isobel begged him to use his influence to enlist Lucie Wilton’s assistance, mentioning her interview with Lucie that afternoon. Thoresby poured himself another brandywine, sat down by the window, and sipped the delicate liquid while he pondered how to speak with the apothecary away from her protective husband.
*
At supper, Tildy mentioned seeing the prioress of St Clement’s leaving the shop as she returned from market. ‘Was it not enough that you saw her this morning, Mistress Lucie?’
Lucie frowned and shook her head, a tiny motion, obviously meaning only Tildy to see it. But Owen caught the exchange.
Tildy blushed and dropped her head, suddenly intent upon her soup.
Owen was intrigued. ‘What business have you with Dame Isobel de Percy? Is it Joanna Calverley? Have you met her?’
Lucie stirred her soup. ‘Briefly.’ She did not meet Owen’s eyes. ‘Archbishop Thoresby has ordered Dame Isobel to learn what she can about the young woman’s year away. Joanna has not been forthcoming. So Isobel thought I might suggest how to approach her.’
Thoresby. Owen began to smell a rat. ‘Why you?’
Lucie shrugged. ‘Wulfstan sent for me. He wished a woman to examine Joanna. St Clement’s infirmaress had done so, but when she was moved to the abbey Wulfstan wanted to be doubly certain of her condition.’ Lucie pushed her soup aside and rose. ‘Shall we have the meat now?’
‘Tildy can serve, Lucie. Go on.’
Lucie sat back down with a sigh. ‘Isobel heard my discourse with Joanna, felt I had managed to get more sense out of her than she does. So she came to the shop this afternoon to ask my advice.’
That sounded innocent enough. ‘You must tell me about her.’
Lucie glanced up, saw that Owen had relaxed, grinned. ‘Poor Joanna. I of all people understand why she fled St Clement’s. And it must be all the worse now with God’s ferret in charge.’
‘Is that what you called her when you lived there?’
‘And worse! She was a sanctimonious informer.’
Owen wished to hear more. Lucie seldom talked about her days at the convent. ‘And in what sinful acts did she catch you, my love?’
Tildy placed a trencher between Owen and Lucie and slipped back into her seat, leaning her chin on her hand, awaiting a good tale.