‘Dame Asa. She meant to go in the river. I held her till Einar came.’
‘That was brave of you. When you’re grown, if you need work, come to me. I can always use a man of honor and courage. Till then, no more walking the mud flats at night, eh?’
‘I swear.’
Owen rose, looking to Lettice.
‘I would speak with you alone,’ she said.
‘What would you say to speaking with me and Bailiff Hempe? Gemma Toller is in his custody. I would like her to hear what you have to say as well.’
Her face drained of color. ‘I pray you, not the castle jail.’
‘I would not ask that of you. She is at Hempe’s home, being tended by Dame Lotta.’
A small smile. ‘I will go. Yes.’
While Lettice had told them all she had confided in Magda and spoke of her fear for her children and their families, Gemma Toller silently wept.
‘I know this is painful to hear, and harder still to admit having a hand in it,’ Owen said to Gemma, ‘but I would know how you thought to escape punishment.’ He looked to Hempe, who had questioned Gavin and the others at the castle. ‘Do we know that Gavin gave the order for Sam’s death?’
‘He confessed to that after the two men spoke at length of their orders, how they had followed Sam to Magda’s and back home that night.’ Hempe looked at Gemma. ‘Do you see the full extent of your lover’s vile plan?’
‘How will you live with this?’ Lettice murmured, as if to herself.
Gemma stared down at her hands. ‘I saw only his love for me, dreamed of how it would be when we were together. I believed Beatrice and Sam had betrayed me, that her two children were Sam’s. Now– God help me, I remember how Gavin seeded my suspicion. He would begin to say something, then shake his head as if he had forgotten and look on me with sad eyes. Soon I was begging him to hide nothing, tell me the worst.’
‘And did he?’ Lotta Hempe asked. ‘Did he accuse them outright?’
‘Yes.’ Gemma’s voice shook as she faced her own willful destruction.
Lotta looked to Owen and her husband. ‘Might it be true?’
‘We hope to wring a full confession from him,’ said Hempe. ‘And the leech may know much.’
‘Or Dame Beatrice, when she can speak,’ said Owen.
Lotta asked Lettice if she needed a place to stay. Thanking her, Lettice said that for now she had a home, and people who needed her.
Magda rowed back to the rock with a heaviness and sat for a long while beneath the dragon, thinking of what Twig had witnessed. Until the dragon touched her arm, urging her to attend her daughter.
Asa lay on the pallet with eyes closed, her breathing ragged. Einar held her uninjured hand. Magda mixed a soothing tisane for herself, and sat down by the fire, sipping and waiting for her thoughts to calm. Holda climbed onto her lap, turning and turning until she settled in a graceful curl, her purr cloaking Magda in stillness. She reached down with her thoughts, sensing the solidity of the rock beneath her home.
Einar spoke into the silence. ‘We almost lost her.’ His voice was as ragged as Asa’s breath. ‘Twig held on to the end of his strength. Did he tell you?’
‘He did.’ Magda watched Einar stroke Asa’s curling gray hair, evincing a tenderness absent until now. Plucking Asa from death might have reminded him she was as vulnerable as anyone else. Or something had shifted for him in the glade.
‘My fault,’ he said. ‘I might have warned her of the leech’s treachery, but I saw no benefit for myself.’
While he spoke Asa’s breathing changed.
‘Art thou certain she did not know who he was?’
‘It must be so.’
Setting the kitten in her basket, Magda gathered cushions. ‘If thou wilt assist.’
As he lifted her upper body so that Magda might place the cushions beneath her, Asa opened her eyes.
‘Better?’ Magda asked.
‘Easier to breathe,’ said Asa.
Magda rested a hand on her daughter’s chest, feeling the waves of anger, resentment, confusion, despair. ‘To speak the truth oft brings ease of heart. Is he right, Asa? Were you unaware that the leech was Alan Rawcliff, servant to the prince’s poisoner?’
A tear appeared. Another. Asa’s lips trembled. Magda held a cup of soothing tisane to her mouth. She drank a little.
‘She might need–’ Einar began as he rose.
But Magda hushed him and motioned for him to sit.
Asa turned her head, looking to Einar. ‘In Lincoln, one of the king’s men came to me with an injury. As I attended him I asked about the man he sought. By then I knew enough, guessed more. All seemed to fit him. When we arrived in York and Bernard – Alan – sent me away,’ a deep, shuddering breath, ‘I went to the sheriff. Told him all, and to write to the bishop of Lincoln if he doubted me.’
For a moment, Einar said nothing, looking round the room as if searching for an explanation, then back at Asa. ‘I cannot believe–’ He reached out as if to hit her but caught himself, withdrawing his hands. ‘You knew all that time?’ He kept his voice soft, but his eyes accused her.
Asa whispered a yes.
‘Is it thanks to thee that the king’s men are here now?’ Magda asked.
‘Sir William called the guards to remove me. I was nothing to him. Why should he believe me? I meant to return with the knives. The king’s man had drawn the French traitor’s mark for me and there it was, on Alan’s knives. On yours as well, Einar.’
‘You searched my things?’
Asa was quiet a moment. ‘I am glad they have come. Now he will face his doom.’
‘You are consumed by resentment,’ said Einar.
‘And you by greed.’
‘I have changed.’
‘Have you?’ Asa’s words were cut short by a moan.
‘Unlike you I can learn,’ Einar said.
‘So you strut now. Cock of the walk? But you are the one who might have warned me when you first came to Lincoln. You might have warned the bishop, the sheriff.’
‘You have no right– Even if you were my mother. Another lie. You do nothing but lie.’
‘We traveled as mother and son. Have you forgotten?’
‘But you thought to fool Dame Magda?’
Asa turned her head away, and in her silence Magda sensed that Einar had filled a void for her daughter.
‘You are all lies.’
‘No son of mine would so betray me,’ Asa whispered.
‘Betray you?’
‘Silence!’ Magda commanded. ‘Bickering like two selfish pups fighting over a bone.’ She took the cup of tisane to her worktable, adding milk of poppy to the mix. Rest and an easing of the pain were all she could do for Asa at present. When the pain receded she would look beneath the bandage to assess the harm her daughter had done herself. She did not look forward to what she likely must do.
As they prepared for bed, Owen told Lucie the version of the story Gavin chose to tell.
‘He claims Guthlac urged the leech to attend her, fearing she was unwell. Denied any knowledge of what procedure Alan might have performed or what medicines he administered. Claimed he did not know Beatrice was with child until Gemma told him of the blood in the bed. Sam’s children, all of them, he swears, and poor Gemma, so betrayed, had pushed her husband into the Ouse in a moment of anger.’
‘He denied that Gemma was his mistress?’
‘No. He says she was so distraught about her husband’s affair with Beatrice. He’d gone to comfort and quiet her and fell in love.’
‘But quite ready to accuse her of murder. How bittersweet.’
‘The two men caught with him swear he hired them to follow and kill Sam. Gavin tried to wriggle out of that, but failed.’
‘What now?’
‘Find out what Beatrice and Alan have to say. Do you think she will talk?’