The Lady Chapel (15 page)

If she was lying, she was being clever, describing something completely unlike the incriminating powder. "No," Owen said. "What we found was something meant to thicken the blood and keep the mind sharp. Not something for the digestion."

Cecilia shook her head. "That is not what I had made for him."

"Where else might he have gone for something like this?" Owen asked.

"I cannot say. But Gilbert was feeling unwell, and he was wasting away. I can understand why he would try someone else's skill."

Cecilia frowned down at the pack, then up at Owen. "You say the powder was removed. Why?" She studied Owen's face, then suddenly stood up, her right hand to her throat. "Are you playing a game with me? What are you after?"

"It was a perfectly harmless powder, except for one ingredient." Owen paused, watching Cecilia's reaction. It seemed forced, as if she were acting. And she would not look him in the eye. "The ingredient was arsenic," he said.

"Arsenic," she whispered, her eyes on her hands. "Dear God." The long, slender hands pressed into the table.

"It was a small amount. Your husband was dying slowly. It would not have been a fierce pain, but dull and constant."

"Gilbert," Cecilia whispered.

"I must ask you. Did you fix the physick I have described for your husband?"

At last she raised her eyes to Owen and stared at him without blinking for a long moment. "Captain Archer, I told you I stopped making my mint remedy when I saw no improvement." She took a deep breath. "I do not understand this. You said Gilbert died when his throat was slit. Like Will. Did you lie? Why would someone also poison him?"

"Your husband died as I told you he did. I do not think whoever slit his throat was the same person who was poisoning him. That would make no sense."

Cecilia Ridley said nothing, just stared at Owen.

He wished more than anything to escape from those dark eyes full of pain, but he must persist. It would be worse to return to it later. "Then this powder your husband carried in his pack was not anything you had prepared for him?"

"I do not see how it could be," Cecilia said quietly. She remained regarding him with those disturbing eyes.

The answer bothered Owen--because he did not believe her, or because it still felt evasive? He could not say. He managed to return her stare steadily for a time, wishing he was a better student of people. Could someone stare like she did and be lying? Or was a liar better able to do that than someone caught off guard, an innocent confronted with a horrible suspicion? Owen did not know

why in Heaven's name the Archbishop trusted him in such business. He was too ignorant of people.

Cecilia stood up. "I must tell Lisa to take some food up to Anna."

"Forgive me for asking such questions," Owen said. "I could think of no way to ask them without hurting you, and I had to ask them."

"I understand," Cecilia said without emotion. "1 have not for a moment forgotten why you are here." She left him.

Owen's back and legs ached as if he had not moved throughout dinner. He stretched his legs out and poured more wine. He did not believe Cecilia, not about the physick. Why? He had believed her tears when she held her dead husband's shoe. But there was more that disturbed him. When he'd come to Riddlethorpe the first time, he'd sensed in her a great unhappiness. She had not struck him as a woman who easily hid her emotions. But now she was subtle. She answered carefully. She used tears at the right moment. And she used those mysterious eyes and that silken hair to distract him. But, damn it, distract him from what?

He lifted his cup, drained it, and caught himself about to dash it to the floor. This business twisted all his muscles into tight bundles that wanted to spring loose. He wanted action. He wanted to take someone's head and drive it into the wall.

But not Cecilia's. He could not imagine doing harm to her.

And she knew it. She had made it so.

Bess had invited Lucie to come sup with her when she had closed the shop for the day. Tildy supported the idea with enthusiasm. "You must, Mistress Lucie. Mistress Merchet always cheers you up."

With the disturbing item buried in the backyard and the frustrating meeting with Ambrose Coats on her mind, Lucie was in need of Bess's good sense and cheer. She went over to the tavern.

They sat in the kitchen, close to the fire, Bess and Tom and Lucie, eating in companionable silence. Then, over cups of Tom's ale, Lucie told them about her odd visitor.

"Blessed Mary, Mother of God," Bess said, "what a thing to drop in your lap."

"That is not what bothers me," Lucie said. "I think Coats lied about something, but I cannot make out what. What do you know about him?"

Bess shrugged. "He's a talented musician and a gentle man. He never drinks too much when he's in the tavern, never gets noisy." Bess looked at her husband. "There is little else to tell, eh?"

Tom considered that. "Nay. Except that he's a private one. Not unfriendly, mind you. A good listener. And folk do say he's a generous friend. Just quiet about himself."

"Who are his friends?" Lucie asked.

"Well, you see, that's it, isn't it?" Tom said. "1 could not say who his friends might be. I suppose his fellow waits--he seems friendly enough with them--but then again, they might know as little about him as 1 do."

"Speaking of one who keeps his story to himself, our groom, John, has been showing an interest in the ladies of a sudden," Bess said.

Tom and Lucie exchanged a puzzled look.

"What's this to do with Coats?" Tom asked.

"It's naught to do with him. It's to do with John and Tildy."

Lucie sat up. "Tildy?"

"The girl's temperature rises at the sight of John, if you haven't noticed, and he fans the flame just enough to keep it going. Wicked lad. When all the while he's bedding down with a woman of experience."

Tom almost choked on a mouthful of ale. "How do you know that? Are you spying on the boy?"

Bess rolled her eyes. "I've no need to spy. It's a scent he's got about him. And a swagger that says some woman's turning his head. Telling him he's a man."

Lucie stood up. "Poor Tildy."

Bess nodded. "That's why I mention it. You'll have your hands full when her feelings aren't returned."

As Lucie left her friends, she resolved to speak with Tildy. But in the kitchen, she discovered John and Tildy sharing a cup of ale. Jasper's pallet had been moved out by the fire. The boy sipped some broth and listened to them sleepily.

"He was a great destrier," John was saying as Lucie entered, "and

I was warned that he let only Sir Thomas touch him. But he was gentle as a lamb with me." As the draft from the open door reached him, John turned, instantly on guard. When he recognized Lucie, he bobbed his head. "God be with you, Mistress Wilton."

Lucie nodded to John. "It seems your company and Tildy's has cheered Jasper. I thank you."

John nodded, his eyes disturbingly direct. Something had definitely changed since he had traveled with Lucie in the summer.

Tildy took Lucie's cloak and hung it on a peg on the wall. "Jasper does look better this evening, doesn't he?" Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked pretty.

Lucie did not ascribe that to Jasper's condition. Bess must be right. Lucie had seen just now how Tildy hung on John's every word with a look of adoration. Merciful Mother, Lucie had not realized that Tildy had lost her heart to John.

She could not imagine that Tildy knew much about the boy. John kept to himself. Even the nosy Bess had never gotten much out of John about his life before he showed up in the York stable, burning with fever and his hand crushed. Three fingers on his right hand had to be amputated, leaving John with the thumb and the little finger. But he had healed quickly under Bess's care, and he'd proven to be an honest, hardworking, and resourceful young man. Four years later, Bess and Tom still had no idea how John had crushed his hand or whence he came. Lucie wished Tildy had chosen someone more predictable.

Owen woke early and crept past Anna's door, glad that she slept. Downstairs, the fire had just been stoked and had not yet warmed the air near the hearth. Owen stepped outside into a biting wind with a chill to it that promised snow. He headed out back to the kitchen to get warm.

The kitchen was a one-room stone building with a large hearth and two baking ovens. Her sleeves rolled up to show strong arms, Angharad, the ruddy-faced cook, basted a haunch of venison while she talked with a younger woman who huddled close to the fire. Next to the younger woman lay a wet, mud-spattered traveling cloak. She held her hands and feet as close to the flame as possible, and Owen noted that her boots were crusted with mud. She seemed

absorbed by a tale the cook was weaving. Owen stood in the doorway and listened. To his delight, it was a tale from his childhood, and Angharad's voice had the soft accent of Wales.

It was from the story of Branwen, daughter of Llyr, about Evniss-yen maiming the horses of Mallolwch, King of Ireland. "When King Bran heard of it," Angharad said, "he was as dismayed as was Mallolwch, for to my countrymen a horse is a noble beast, deserving as much care as our own babes."

"Really?" The young woman's eyes followed the cook's movements.

"As close to the truth as a good bard ever gets," Owen said, laughing.

The two women turned startled faces in Owen's direction. The traveler's face was interesting--square jaw, wide-set brown eyes, and a generous mouth. When the brown eyes met Owen's, there was a moment of interest, then alarm. Owen's mood sank. The scar and patch again. He would never be allowed to forget it. The woman stood up with an abruptness that knocked her cloak on the floor. She was an unusually tall woman. Large-boned. Strong, but not ungraceful.

The cook greeted Owen. "I was telling Kate the story I told her little William to make sure he cared well for your horse, Captain Archer."

"It is good to hear the old tales," Owen said. He turned to the younger woman. "I see you've been traveling. How did you escape being escorted from the gate by my men?"

"Oh, she's Kate Cooper," Angharad said. "Steward's wife. Came in through the fields."

"Yes. I came in through the fields." Kate Cooper kept her eyes focused on the floor. "I should be going. The children will be wanting their food." She turned to get her cloak, then seemed confused when she did not see it on the bench.

Owen picked it up from the floor and offered it to her.

"Thank you." She still did not look directly at him, which was a challenge since they stood eye to eye. "I--I must have knocked it down." She seemed oddly flustered as she took the cloak, almost dropping it again. Owen did not think it was his charm that flustered her so. She'd hardly glanced at him.

Perhaps if he were friendly. "So your mother is improved?"

Kate Cooper frowned, then nodded. "God has spared her once more, yes." She glanced at him while she adjusted her cloak, but looked away quickly when she caught his eye.

"Going so soon?" Owen could tell by the surprise in the cook's voice that Kate's departure was unexpected.

"Must see to the children, Angharad." Kate Cooper hurried out the door.

"A fine-looking woman," Owen said as he sank down on the bench Kate Cooper had vacated.

"Oh, aye, she is that, is Kate. And she knows how to trade with her looks, that one does. I'm surprised she didn't go to work on you. Are you wearing some sort of charm your wife made to keep you true?"

"Perhaps she does not care for the patch."

"Nay, I'm sure it wasn't that." Angharad put a tankard of ale in front of Owen and eased herself down on a bench beside him. "Where did you hear about her mother?"

"From Jack Cooper."

She nodded. "Didn't think the Mistress would have told you about that."

"Why not?"

"Mistress never took to her. She could see what Kate Cooper was about from the start, and she almost didn't take Jack as Steward because of it."

"Kate's a wandering wife?" Owen wanted to make sure he understood what the cook was hinting.

"Aye, and the Mistress doesn't believe that Kate goes off to nurse her mother."

"That must make it difficult for Jack Cooper."

"He never mentions her to the Mistress. As he puts it, why remind her of the thorn if the wound's gone numb?"

"What wound, Angharad?"

"I'd best not say. It's enough to say that the Mistress was quite right about Kate. And that's why I'm surprised you're sitting here with me instead of out in the stables with her."

The servant Sarah hurried in from the hall. "Mistress Ridley is down, Angharad."

The cook sighed and eased herself up. "Well, Owen, there's work to be done out here and she'll surely be wanting you in the hall. I'll send in something to fortify you just in case Kate changes her mind." She winked at Owen and turned back to her cooking.

Cecilia Ridley stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes snapping with anger, watching Owen cross the hall to her. "I hear you've been out to the kitchen to meet the harlot."

The venom in Cecilia's voice stunned Owen, even with the forewarning from Angharad. "I went out to get warm," he said. "I did not know Kate Cooper would be out there."

"So what did she say about me?"

"About you? Nothing. In fact, she said precious little to me at all. Took off as if she thought me a leper. What should she say about you?"

"She has stayed away from me since I found her with Will Crounce. In the stables."

Owen could tell by the passion in Cecilia's eyes what she had found them doing. So that was the thorn that Angharad would not define. He decided to take the leap. "That must have been painful for you, considering your feelings for Will."

Cecilia opened her mouth, closed it, turned her head away. "My feelings?" Her voice was tight. "How did you--" Her eyes flared again. "What has that harlot been telling you?"

"Nothing. No one had to tell me. I guessed it the first time I came, when I brought news of Crounce's murder."

"Sweet Jesu." Cecilia crossed herself and sat down, her pale face even paler. "Was I so obvious? Do you think Gilbert knew what a Mary Magdalene I'd become?"