He tasted it, then took a longer drink. ‘Bless you. I needed this.’ He stared at the fire, his gaze taking on a faraway quality.
‘With the sickness threatening the city, thy mistress will be reminded of her little ones,’ said Magda. She spoke of Beatrice, the young wife of his employer, Guthlac Wolcott, for whom Sam harbored a strong affection. The Wolcotts’ young son and infant daughter had died of the pestilence at the end of the past summer.
Sam nodded. ‘And Guthlac’s health is failing. Yet he was hale and hardy in winter. How is it that no one speaks of what is so plain, that he began to fail the moment the leech Bernard appeared? God forgive me, but I blame Guthlac’s son for this.’ Gavin, the old merchant’s son and heir, born of an earlier marriage, a few years older than his father’s young wife and rumored to have no affection for her. ‘You would not know the old man now.’
‘Alisoun told Magda of his decline.’ Her apprentice had been shocked by the elderly Wolcott’s condition when she saw him on the street leaning heavily on the arms of his wife and a manservant. So much change in the fortnight since Magda had been in the city was indeed cause for concern. Alisoun was at present assisting in Lucie Wilton’s shop while the apothecary accompanied her husband Owen Archer to London on royal business. For convenience she was lodging in the couple’s home.
‘She must have seen him on one of his last outings,’ said Sam. ‘He no longer leaves his bed.’ He crossed himself.
‘Is it concern for thine employer that furrows thy brow?’
‘Yes, but– In truth, at present it is my concern for you. I came to warn you that the leech Bernard means you harm. He has poisoned the hearts of Guthlac and his son Gavin against you. I pray you, do not come into the city.’
‘Magda has no thought to do so. With the sickness surrounding the city she will be busy with the poor and the folk of Galtres. But rest easy, the leech Bernard will not have the leisure to think of Magda.’
‘They say Bernard demands such a high fee that few in the city can afford his services.’
‘The desperate will do so.’ She heard a timid knock on the door. ‘That will be the lad waiting with the coracle.’
‘My wife is grateful for all that you did for our daughter.’ A gentle lie, for his wife Gemma resented charity of money or spirit spent outside her home. But Sam was a kind man accustomed to compensating for his wife’s sharpness.
Magda escorted him to the door and watched as the lad rowed him back, skillfully maneuvering against the current of the outgoing tide. He was of an age with the others who assisted her, seven or eight winters, strengthened by the rowing and other work, on the cusp of being sent away from home to seek his way in the world. Her brave lads. She paid them well.
It was a busy evening on the bank. Magda noticed a man standing upstream from the spot where Sam would disembark, watching her. She had sensed this person often of late, sometimes accompanied by another, but not tonight. Another pair of watchers stood closer to the landing but farther from the bank. Hostile, menacing, but watching the coracle, not her. It seemed Sam Toller had cause to be ill at ease. She watched until he disembarked and walked away without incident.
Once alone Magda tucked the pouch of coins in a hidden place so that it might be safe until she decided who needed it most, then resumed the chopping of roots to add later to what was left of the coney stew. She was about to serve herself when Alisoun appeared, pausing in the doorway, eyes closed, inhaling, her exhale a long sigh of release.
‘Thou art troubled,’ said Magda. ‘What news from the city?’
‘A woman in All Saints parish has died of the sickness the morning after returning from her sister’s home to the south. Her husband burned all that was in their bedchamber. But God watches over them. Neither he nor the children have taken ill.’
All Saints parish lay in the center of York. ‘They have not been attacked for fear they carry the sickness?’
‘No. It is not like that this time – or not yet.’ Alisoun bent over the pot to sniff. ‘Mmm.’
‘Thou art welcome to sup with Magda.’ Kate, Owen and Lucie’s housekeeper, would feed her well, but her apprentice was fond of coney stew.
‘Gladly.’ Alisoun set her basket on the worktable, lifting out a loaf of bread. ‘Kate sent this. And I bought this for you.’ She set a jug on the worktable. ‘Tom Merchet’s ale.’ The owner of the York Tavern next to the apothecary brewed the finest ale in the north.
‘Many thanks. A bowl of the ale, then stew?’
They settled by the fire, speaking of their days, small matters, news of shared acquaintances. Alisoun’s blushes told Magda that she was enjoying her close work with Lucie’s son and apprentice, Jasper. The two had declared their love for each other several years earlier, but they were often at odds, she easily believing herself betrayed, he withdrawing into himself when uncertain of his path. It was good they were at peace for now. Yet something troubled the young woman. After some hesitation, she came to the point.
‘There is yet another new healer in the city,’ said Alisoun. ‘A woman. And the leech Bernard has turned several of our customers against us.’
‘Sam Toller spoke of him, warning Magda to stay away.’
‘I saw Sam glancing over his shoulder as he was rowed to the bank, peering into the twilight as if sensing trouble.’
‘But he departed safely?’
‘Yes, of course. Who would wish him harm?’
‘Magda noticed a pair watching him. She could not see who they were.’
Alisoun nodded absently.
‘What dost thou know about this new healer?’ asked Magda.
Alisoun drank a little of her ale, cleared her throat, and looked at a corner of the room rather than Magda. ‘A gray-haired woman, tall, walking with a cane. I have seen her on the street, not in the apothecary. She does not seem friendly. Folk say she is from Lincoln, or Peterborough, or from up on the moors. Ned Cooper says she is attending his mother since his father forbade her to come to you.’ The young man worked for Owen Archer, captain of the city bailiffs.
‘Magda is glad to hear that she has sought a healer.’ Some women transitioned out of their childbearing years with a gradual easing of the monthly cycle, a slow cessation, hardly noticed until it was gone. But such was not the lot of Ned’s mother, Celia. For the past year she had endured weeks of bleeding, an unfortunate, not uncommon way a woman’s body adjusted to the changing season of life. ‘Is she in much distress?’
‘The long bleeding comes more frequently, weakening her.’
‘This new healer is helping?’
‘Ned thinks not. He says her potions sicken Dame Celia, flushing away what little food she has managed to eat. And while she sits at his mother’s bedside the healer draws images in charcoal on paper that fill his mother with unease and give her bad dreams.’
‘What frightens her about them?’ Magda asked. She began to understand Alisoun’s unease.
‘He brought a few to show me, to see whether I agreed. There is something about them. They seem to change. Grow. I did not find them frightening, but strange.’ Alisoun handed Magda a page crowded with images, creatures and plants intertwining, spreading, twisting, seeming to grow out of the drawing and into the room.
It was as she had suspected. ‘Magda has seen such images before.’ She handed back the paper. ‘Why art thou reluctant to say her name?’