The Nun's Tale (24 page)

Louth closed his eyes. ‘I wish to observe your methods. That is why I wish to accompany you.’

Owen did not try to hide his surprise. ‘What do you mean, methods?’

‘How you question people.’

‘What do you think I am, an interrogator?’

It was Louth’s turn to look surprised. ‘Is that not what you are?’

‘God’s blood, I am an apothecary’s apprentice!’

Louth’s red face turned redder, his breath expelled in a loud guffaw. But seeing the fury on Owen’s face, he quickly grew serious. ‘Please forgive me, but you must indeed think me an ass if you expect me to believe that. What in Heaven’s name are you doing here if you are an apothecary’s apprentice?’

‘I occasionally work for Thoresby.’ Owen was glowering and he hated himself for it. He should laugh and shrug it off. Of course he was a spy, and a damned good one, truth be told. Why was he always denying it? He forced a grin. Shrugged. ‘A spy never admits his calling.’

Louth laughed. ‘Already you teach me. See how I need to observe you?’

Owen sighed. ‘Leave your men at the gates of the city, if you will. We do not want to call attention to ourselves.’

As Owen and Louth rode along the River Aire to Leeds, sunshine warmed the river meadows and glinted off the water. Owen imagined Matthew Calverley bending over his garden, hoeing away the weeds, obliterating memories. He had noted certain silences yesterday. Some occurred around the issue of Mistress Anne Calverley turning against Hugh and Joanna. She seemed an unnatural mother to turn against the children who favoured her. Was it
because
they favoured her? Was there something about herself she did not like seeing again in her children? Something accursed in her? But would she not try to help them, teach them how to fight it?

It turned Owen’s thoughts to his impending fatherhood. If he detected his child going astray, would he know what to do? Lucie would, most like. It seemed the sort of thing women knew about.

Was the problem in the Calverley family that Anne Calverley did
not
know what to do?

Trot had given them directions to Frank’s house in case Matthew Calverley had not been about the previous day. They found it easily, a substantial stone house near the wharves. A logical location for a young merchant. Owen and Louth rode up just as the master of the house was striding out to begin his day.

‘Captain Archer, representing His Grace, the Archbishop of York.’ Owen said, dismounting near the plump, brightly dressed young man. ‘And Sir Nicholas de Louth, Canon of Beverley.’ Owen gestured back to his companion, who was slow in dismounting. ‘Am I so fortunate as to find Master Frank Calverley with such ease?’

‘You are indeed, Captain Archer. And doubly fortunate, for my father told me of your visit and I regretted not meeting you. I am glad to have news of my sister, good or ill.’

‘I wonder if you could spare us a few words before you begin your day.’

Frank Calverley nodded. He was very much his father’s son: the round, blunt features, the merry eyes. ‘Accompany me down to the wharves, if you will.’

The street was shadowed by overhanging upper floors. With Owen’s one good eye he had to watch his footing to avoid night waste and keep a tight hold on his horse. He accompanied Frank in silence until they reached the wharf. Louth followed at the rear, forced into silence by his distance from Frank Calverley. The river breeze smelled fresh after the city street. Owen and Louth tethered their horses to a small tree outside Frank’s warehouse door.

Frank turned to Owen. ‘So. You would know more about my sister Joanna?’

‘It is another matter. I know it will sound as if I forget myself and grow too familiar with your family, but I am intrigued by your mother’s disappearance.’

Frank took off his felt hat and scratched his head, heaved a big sigh, the merry eyes growing sad. ‘Aye. ’Tis passing strange that a woman who lived so many years at the river’s edge would fall in. But the bank was slippery and she was not strong. She had been unwell for a long while. I think it was the farthest she had walked since early spring.’

‘Your mother drowned, then?’

Frank frowned, tucking his chin in so that his jowls spread, ageing him. ‘My father said otherwise?’

‘He said that he did not know whether she drowned or ran away. He did not wish to know.’

Frank put a meaty hand up to his face, covering his eyes for a moment, then, looking round, sat down heavily on a bale of wool. ‘Such a contrary way to mourn her. Edith and I have worked hard to convince our acquaintances that our father says such things that he may dream of seeing her again. Why he would want folk to think she had a lover . . . It is difficult for the family. I trust you thought it passing strange we would not have tried harder to find her.’ Frank kneaded his thick thighs with his fists. ‘It is simple to explain, impossible to cure. My father loved her so. He could not believe that she could be taken from him so suddenly after he had prayed so hard and sat with her so long in her illness. God had answered our prayers and spared her through the spring and summer, then took her in such a . . .’ Frank held his hands out, palms up, and looked up at the sky for the words ‘. . . capricious manner.’

‘So you did find her body?’

‘Oh, aye.’ Frank stood up as some men approached. ‘Gentlemen, I shall be with you shortly. You are welcome to go sit in my office.’ The two men nodded and, with curious glances at the strangers, walked on into the warehouse.

‘She drowned in the autumn?’ Owen asked.

Frank nodded. ‘Just before Martinmas. She walked out, though the day promised rain and her nurse warned her that she was not up to it. Mother said she was restless, wanted to feel the wind on her face. There was no reasoning with her when she was determined. A Boulain trait. She slipped, got tangled in the river weeds.’ Frank wiped his brow. ‘Had she been stronger, I do not think she would have drowned. We found her right there beneath the bank. It took two of us to cut her out of the weeds.’

‘And your father decided he had not seen it?’

‘Yes.’ Frank dabbed his upper lip. ‘God’s blood, how could anyone forget it?’ He pressed a hand to his gut. ‘My father is not mad, just determined not to remember how she looked, strangled by the weeds, bloated by the water.’ He shivered, as if the image had crept up from behind and surprised him. ‘My father found it more bearable to remember her as she had been in life. But he often spends a day – from sunrise to sunset – kneeling by her stone in the parish church, praying for her soul.’

So much for the idea that the mother and daughter shared an urge to walk away from their lives. Or had met up somewhere.

‘One more question, if you would.’

Frank shrugged.

‘Your father said your mother turned against Joanna and Hugh. Do you know why?’

Frank glanced round at the warehouse, then turned back to Owen. ‘There’s a lot of foolishness spoken about my mother’s family, the Boulains. Hugh and Joanna look like them. They were difficult to discipline. So mother thought they carried the Boulain curse.’

‘What was the curse?’

‘Madness.’ Frank chuckled. ‘But in the end it is old Matthew Calverley who acts out the madman, playing gardener, waiting for his dead wife to stroll up from the river.’

‘You feel neither Hugh nor Joanna is mad?’

Frank shook his head. ‘Hugh is a soldier born. As far as I know, we do not consider such a convenient passion madness. Joanna – her head has ever been silly with stories of handsome knights and princes. And, to be blunt, she discovered the pleasures of lovemaking too early to discipline her body. She was foolish to run from her betrothal to the convent. She was too fond of men to make that work. As a wife she might have found some satisfaction. Father says you told him Joanna ran away from St Clement’s, then came back.’

‘With an elaborate ruse to cover her tracks.’

‘When she made such a fuss about the convent, I thought she had found herself a man of the cloth who satisfied her and wished to be near him.’ Frank sat with head bowed, studying his hands. ‘Perhaps she wearied of him, went out into the world, found that men out here are no more exciting, and decided to go back to him.’

Louth spoke for the first time. ‘The priest at St Clement’s is bald, portly, and knobby with age.’

Frank shook his head. ‘Unless my sister is much changed, such a man would not lead her into sin. But convents hire men to do the heavy work. Joanna has an imagination and a way with men. Who knows what she might have got into and then run from? You’ll find a man at the end of it, that’s all I can tell you.’

Louth turned in his saddle and hailed Owen to come ride beside him. Owen wished for peace and quiet, but he could not be so discourteous as to ignore the man. He joined him.

‘So Mistress Anne Calverley drowned and her body lies beneath the stone floor of the parish church.’

‘Aye. Sharing a roof with St Hardulph of Breedon.’

Louth nodded. ‘My lord Thoresby will be pleased by your thoroughness. But what does it tell you? What did you learn by it?’

‘In truth, I did it for myself. I could not understand how someone who claimed to love so well could accept not knowing what had happened.’

Louth studied Owen’s solemn face. ‘You are an odd one, Owen Archer.’

Owen shrugged.

‘How do you get on with Thoresby?’

‘Well enough.’ Owen leaned down and took a wineskin from his pack, took a drink. They had ridden hard to arrive on time at Pontefract.

‘So it was for your own curiosity that you spoke with Frank Calverley? There was nothing in the question about his mother that helped you?’

‘Of course it helped.’

‘But you just said you did not do it for Thoresby.’

Owen groaned inwardly. How to explain that Thoresby began the process, but once Owen’s mind was engaged on the problem it was his own gut pushing him forward? Owen glanced at Louth, the fat thighs, the chubby hands, the bouncing double chin. The man did not want to know Owen’s thoughts, he wanted to learn how Owen pleased Thoresby so that he might do it himself. Owen relaxed.

‘It was an inconsistency that might have led me to suspect Matthew Calverley, indeed the entire family, was hiding something.’ Owen shrugged. ‘So it was my dissatisfaction that led me to question Frank. I see now the sad truth – that Matthew Calverley seeks to deceive himself.’

Louth nodded. ‘There is a knack to all this that I fear may have more to do with character than method.’ He shook his head. ‘I fear I am too much a clerk, good at doing another’s bidding, not thinking on my own.’

A difficult thing to admit of oneself. ‘I should like to think less than I do, truth be told.’

‘We are what God makes us.’ Louth’s face was sad. He fell silent then for a long while, leaving Owen to ponder the things he had learned in Leeds.

The whitewashed walls of the great castle of Pontefract rose high above the town walls, which were partially obscured by the tents and cooking fires of the markets of West Cheap. The markets were abustle as Owen, Louth, and company rode through to the city gates. There were some in the company tempted to linger, but Owen was anxious to complete his business and be off, so the word went out to ride on.

The castle was long and high. Even the revetments around three sides of the motte were whitewashed, the effect so brilliant in the sunlight it seemed a heavenly city. The height of the keep made Owen stare in wonder, though he’d seen many a castle in his life on the march.

Lief and Gaspare saw them riding into the yard and came out to greet Owen, who dismounted without the assistance of the grooms who had came running out behind his friends.

‘My lord Duke is pleased with the archers,’ Lief said with a big grin and a slap on Owen’s back, ‘so he has invited you to sit at the high table with Sir Nicholas this even.’

Owen was glad the Duke was satisfied. That meant he could soon return to York. But he did not look forward to sitting at the high table. ‘I am honoured indeed. But where’s the fun in it, I ask you? I came to visit my old friends.’

Gaspare cuffed Owen’s head in approval. ‘I see no need for you to be cleaning yourself up for supper right now. Come with us to the stables and wash down the road’s dust with a bit of our humble ale.’

Louth had by now been assisted in dismounting. He gave Owen a little bow. ‘I look forward to further enlightenment at the high table this evening, Captain Archer.’ He nodded to Lief and Gaspare and turned to the castle.

‘Come on, then,’ Gaspare said.

On a milking stool by the stable doors sat a handsome man dressed as a minor lord, wearing a deep, vibrant blue houppelande cut to the knees and belted in heavy silver and copper. His face was clean shaven, his hair trimmed just below his ears and curled under, a fringe covering his forehead. It was the soft brown doe-eyes that identified him.

‘Ned!’ Owen shouted, striding up to him. ‘God’s blood, but you’ve grown grand!’ Like Gaspare and Lief, Ned had been one of Owen’s archers in the old Duke’s retinue. The talker.

Ned jumped up and strutted around good-naturedly. ‘Grand indeed, my favourite Welshman. And when is your speech going to roughen up to suit your scarred face? You still speak with the tongue of bards.’ He clasped Owen’s hand. ‘We miss you.’