The bruises on Alan’s face remained, but the swelling had eased and his cold eyes were trained on Owen.
‘Come to gloat with an audience, Archer?’
‘No. To talk. My secretary will record what you say.’
‘You waste your time.’
‘I see. You think your argument so weak that you would not consider an exchange of information that might ease your punishment?’
‘Prince Edward show mercy?’ The man’s rasping laughter dissolved into a coughing fit.
A novice hurried through the opening with a cup. ‘Honeyed water,’ he said to Owen, who nodded his approval.
The young man knelt beside Alan’s pallet, assisting him in drinking for his hands were bound beside him. Owen took the opportunity to position a stool where he might see Alan’s face, then waited. When at last Alan turned away, the novice rose, bobbing his head to Owen and slipping out.
‘Gavin Wolcott blames all on you.’ A lie for which Owen would do penance. But if it revealed the culprits …
‘Greedy whoreson. What information do you need to hang him?’
‘Tell me all that you know of Wolcott’s plans. Exactly what he hired you to do.’
‘His father was dying. Poisoned by the witch. He needed a leech, that is all.’
‘You cannot hide behind your lies. His Grace Prince Edward has sent men throughout the realm searching for you as part of the traitor Monsieur Ricard’s household. Your flight was your first mistake. Now he has reports from Bishop Bokyngham of Lincoln regarding your crimes in his city. Poisoning Guthlac Wolcott, his widow, and his unborn child are merely additions to the case against you.’
‘I poisoned no one.’
‘Then tell me what Gavin Wolcott hired you to do. And what you know of his plans.’
Lucie glanced back over her shoulder, touched Jasper’s arm. ‘Will you finish Dame Felice’s requests?’ she asked. ‘I am needed in the workroom.’
With a smile to melt the iciest of hearts, Jasper suggested an addition to the elderly woman’s remedies for aching joints.
Slipping away, Lucie joined Owen in the back. ‘What is it?’
‘I need a moment of your calm so that I don’t march to the castle and murder Wolcott.’
‘Shall we walk in the garden?’
‘Alan tells a darker tale than Gavin,’ Owen began. ‘He says he started with bleeding, as Gavin wished his father to weaken just enough not to interfere.’
‘Is that not what Gavin told you yesterday?’
‘Ah, but when Beatrice told Gavin she was with child he wanted Guthlac hastened to his death before folk in the city noticed her condition. Alan claimed that he balked, but Gavin offered him considerable wealth in property. He then mixed a physick and gave instructions for a minimal dose. Nothing lethal. He says that it was Gavin who began to double and triple the dosage.’
‘Nothing that Alan Rawcliff can prove,’ said Lucie. ‘But his duty was to refuse to continue treating Guthlac.’
‘He seems to feel he did what he could. Yet when I persisted he admitted some concern about how often he replenished the physick.’
‘Do not grace the concoction with that word. Poison is what it was. And he failed in his duty. So he learned the art of poison from his master?’
‘It seems Gavin Wolcott provided most of the ingredients.’
‘Which is why you found nothing in his things,’ said Lucie. ‘And Beatrice? Did he echo Gavin’s story about her?’
‘Alan Rawcliff swears the children had all been Gavin’s and that he used Beatrice until she had signed over all her property, then meant to kill her. But Alan had nobly refused to provide more of the physick.’
Lucie took Owen’s hands. ‘Magda would tell you to look through your third eye. You can sense where the truth lies.’
‘But when I am so angry …’
‘That is why we talk it through, my love.’
He pulled her into his arms whispering into her hair, ‘How was I ever so blessed?’
She held him close, listening to his heart. Strong. Steady. ‘I have all faith in you.’ Stepping away, she kissed his cheek and nodded. ‘They disgust you.’
‘Gavin cruelly used Beatrice, as did his father. I am certain of that. Alan saw an opportunity for sufficient wealth to create a new life. Gemma coldly left Beatrice in that condition. And Beatrice …’ Owen stopped. Lucie saw the pity in his eye. ‘I cannot see why she would permit Alan to continue to attend her husband when suddenly a healthy man was so weak. She is not completely innocent of her husband’s death.’
‘Once stepping onto the dark path …’ She pressed Owen’s hands to her heart and kissed his forehead. ‘I will bring you some brandywine to warm you while we talk more. Sit here, or pace the garden paths. I will return.’
Sir William Perciehay, sheriff of Yorkshire, wished Owen and the king’s men to ride out to the manor on which he was hiding from the pestilence. As it was they who were extending him the courtesy of the report they felt no obligation, declining his invitation and instead sending a messenger with a letter summarizing Owen’s assessment of the case against Gavin Wolcott, Gemma Toller, Alan Rawcliff, and the various servants and warehousemen, including the supposed archer, a former warehouseman Gavin had met on Graa’s property in Galtres, whom Hempe and his men were chasing down. He made special mention of the conflagration caused by Gavin’s firing of both the warehouse and the Browns’ home, such a blaze in a city being a particular danger. Brother Michaelo’s fine work.
Owen and the king’s men met instead in the mayor’s chamber on Ouse Bridge to hear Owen’s assessment. He did not wish to say it all twice.
Graa listened with growing unease. ‘A viper in our midst,’ he hissed once, then busied himself brushing imaginary crumbs from his lap, swirling the wine in his mazer, anything but meet Owen’s gaze.
Ignoring his discomfort, Owen completed his account without pause, after which he answered a few lackluster questions. As Graa cleared his throat and began to rise, Owen addressed him, suggesting he extend a public apology to Magda Digby and the other female healers for failing to come to their defense.
‘A public apology?’ The mayor’s voice crackled with indignation. ‘I had nothing to do with this. It is the archbishop who should do penance,’ Graa said, ‘surely not the civil authority.’
‘The archbishop does not maintain the peace in the city,’ said Owen. He looked to the king’s men. ‘And it would seem that your failure to apprehend Alan Rawcliff when he was in Lincoln was a part of this business.’
Minor knights, the two looked to the mayor for his support. But Thomas Graa was nodding.
‘Indeed, it was not you who apprehended him, but the captain of York. For that, I and my fellows on the council should be commended on our wise decision to elevate Owen Archer to the position,’ said Graa.
‘We knew nothing of Rawcliff’s presence in York until the sheriff wrote to Bishop Bokyngham,’ said the king’s man Sir John. ‘And then your archdeacon. It was the bishop’s negligence while Rawcliff troubled his city that brought this on York.’
Graa looked down his nose at them, muttering what was clearly an insult. Owen had stopped listening to the chattering jays.
Saying he had completed his duty in the matter, all but arranging the escort for Dame Beatrice when she was moved to the infirmary at St Clement’s on the morrow, Owen gave a curt bow and departed.
Eyes closed, Magda was one with her dragon, diving into the rich brown water, welcoming the flow against her skin, her hair riding the currents, replenishing body, heart, and mind. Her daughter’s hand was lost, too damaged to repair, too painful and potentially poisonous to leave as it was. With a grieving heart she had removed it, with Einar’s steady assistance. Cauterized and bound, the rest of the arm would now heal. While Magda tended it she must cope with her daughter’s furious grief. But Asa would live. A gift? Perhaps not. And so Magda sought release, racing through the waters, spinning, leaping, diving, one with her dragon.