His friends rose to welcome him, teasingly addressing him as ‘Sir Owen.’ Laughing, he lowered himself onto a stool, raising his tankard in celebration. Bess came to top up all three tankards, then left them. Before they distracted him with questions, Owen told them all that he’d learned from Alisoun about Sam’s death, and Jasper’s sense that there was more to the story.
‘I have seen many a man with the back of his skull opened by a hard blow,’ said Crispin. ‘But I’ve never seen such an injury caused by drowning.’ He raised his one hand to ward off argument. ‘Debris in a rushing river might cause further injury, but to hit him just so, I don’t believe it.’
‘You think he was murdered, then tossed in the flood?’ Owen asked.
Both men nodded.
‘I doubted at first,’ said Hempe. ‘But now– There’s the matter of his wife. She claims he went out to confront Magda Digby, to accuse her of poisoning Guthlac Wolcott, and she never saw him again. Implying Magda punished him. Trouble is, two witnesses swear they saw him return that night, heard raised voices in the house, and then him storming out, her rushing out the door and calling down curses on him as he disappeared. “You will be the ruin of us!” They both agree she said that. The curses I left them debating.’ He gave a mirthless chuckle.
‘You’ve asked her about their witness?’ Owen asked.
‘Not yet.’ Hempe looked to Poole. ‘We want to be sure before we go to her that they are speaking the truth, not making it up to defend Dame Magda.’
‘I was the one to tell her of her husband’s drowning,’ said Poole. ‘She showed no surprise, only anger. I thought at the time it might be that his being gone for a few days had prepared her. But she wasted no time in accusing Dame Magda. Nor has any new information moved her to change it. I cannot help but wonder whether she’s protecting herself and her children with a lie. And there is the matter of the leech. My mother has lived all her life in York. I asked her whether she remembers any physician being the subject of so much gossip and she does not. “A physician’s reputation is everything. They are careful.” But not this man, a stranger in the city. I don’t like it. He’s too bold.’
‘I agree,’ said Hempe, ‘as does Lotta.’ Hempe’s wife. ‘As with Sam’s widow, Gemma, the opinion about Bernard falls into those who defend him – Bernard’s side, and those who distrust him – Magda’s defenders. You see why we want to move with care.’
‘And there is the arrival of Magda’s daughter Asa. Folk do not trust her,’ said Hempe. ‘Odd thing is, some say she is the source of darker rumors about Magda than I have heard before, accusing her of sorcery.’
‘Plague fear,’ said Crispin. ‘Even the sisters at St Clement’s are anxious. Dame Marian tries to lift their hearts in song, but she struggles to engage them.’
‘You have spoken to Dame Marian when you visit your mother at the priory?’ Owen asked.
‘She sought me out when she knew I was there to see Mother. Asked what she might do to support Dame Magda, who was good to her. I told her I would send word if I thought of aught, and if it seemed Dame Magda needed her help. She also said to tell you that she prays for you and your family every day.’
‘I am grateful.’ Owen sat back, drinking in all in. He was glad the nun had settled at St Clement’s. He and Lucie had taken her in when she first came to York and he had grown fond of her despite a rocky beginning. ‘Anything else?’ he asked when he’d ordered his thoughts. ‘Surely more has happened while I was away.’
‘The usual thefts, brawls, a missing child – found the next day, at her cousin’s,’ said Hempe. ‘A few folk accosted at Micklegate Bar for fear of bringing Death to the city, one a stranger, one a tinker familiar to most of us. Troublemakers hear someone has come north and accuse them of bringing sickness.’
‘A family down on the river below Clementhorpe is being shunned for rumors that the father returned from the south with the sickness,’ said Poole. ‘The mood is tense.’
Hempe nodded. ‘It’s a tribute to you and Dame Lucie that you caused no stir on your return.’
Owen had been thinking the same.
The business taken care of, they spoke of Crispin’s new wife, Muriel, and their daughter, Lucie. ‘Beautiful as her first godmother,’ said Crispin.
Owen smiled, both at the compliment and Crispin’s apparent delight in his child. It mattered not a whit to the man that she was the daughter of Muriel’s first marriage, her father murdered shortly before her birth. ‘I will tell her godmother you said that. Though I am certain Lucie will visit as soon as all is settled in the shop.’
‘Alisoun leaves tomorrow?’ asked Hempe.
‘She does.’
‘With Dame Magda avoiding the city, Alisoun will be missed,’ said Crispin. ‘But I am glad your children will be well cared for while away.’
‘Please tell Muriel that she is more than welcome to take your child to Freythorpe Hadden. It is a large home, and the Ferribys will be traveling on to their manor.’
‘I will tell her, and I know though she will be as grateful as I am, she will refuse to leave the city.’
Owen understood. Pushing away his own doubt about the wisdom of leaving his children in the country he had asked for more detail about the rumors regarding Magda when a cry went up at the door.
Tom Merchet had his hand on the shoulder of Timkin, an elderly man, not a regular at the tavern, who was holding his head as he cried out, ‘Old Bede’s house is burning!’
There was more, but Owen was already up and moving toward him, thinking of Bede’s widowed daughter Winifrith and her young children, who lived with him. He bent to the man who was now doubled over, gasping for air. ‘Did the family escape?’
‘Don’t know,’ the old man sobbed. ‘I saw folk running to the river calling “Fire!” Rushed after them, saw what was burning. Someone said the men who lit it called it a plague house. A lie!’
Owen needed to hear no more. In a moment he was pounding down Coney Street, his companions falling back – Crispin needed a cane. At King’s Staithe he joined Ned Cooper and several other young men who often worked for the bailiffs. He saw the flames now, licking at a much larger space than Old Bede’s small cottage. Several small buildings in the lane behind the staithe were on fire, moving close to a large warehouse.
He whispered a prayer of thanks when he spied Old Bede, Winifrith, and the two children among a group huddled together as they watched the fire. Ned had paused by them, his fellows rushing on to grab the pots and buckets that neighbors were carrying out of their houses and rushing down to fill them with river water.
Some men were hacking at a burning wall near a warehouse. Beyond them folk were stretched along the staithe and down on to the mudflats to reach the water at low tide, passing along filled buckets in one direction, empty buckets in another.
Owen grabbed two of the axe-wielders and tossed them toward the shore. ‘Water, you fools. Water is what you need.’
‘We are paid to watch the warehouse.’
Picking up an axe, Owen growled, ‘Water.’
The men stumbled off toward the staithe, sputtering curses.
A woman was wrapping Winifrith, Bede, and the children in blankets.
‘You can sleep with us tonight,’ she said. ‘Devils, the ones who did this. We’re all out on the street every day. We’d know if the great sickness was here. Someone did this for spite, they did.’
But who was the target? ‘Did you see anything?’ Owen asked.