A Conspiracy of Wolves

Geoffrey perked up. ‘Not here seeking peace after all? The prince has given much thought to your dislike of Sir John. Though he believes it possible you misjudge his stepson, he values you precisely because you are your own man. You would have no need to communicate with Sir John. What say you?’

‘Sweetens the prospect.’

‘So you accept?’

‘I am considering the prince’s proposal with the care it deserves.’

‘Stubborn Welshman. You brought it up to torment me.’

The ale was beginning to take effect. Owen stretched out his legs and yawned. ‘Muriel Swann believes that Crispin Poole might hold the key to all that has happened. You have an interest in him.’

Geoffrey narrowed his eyes. ‘What has he to do with the prince?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Nothing, so far as I know. My interest, as you call it, is mere curiosity. The man intrigues me. He seems morose, as if regretting his return. Was it his choice, I wonder.’

‘Have you learned anything?’

‘How can one bide at the York and not hear about a battle-scarred prodigal son returned? But we’ve not been introduced.’

‘Battle?’ He’d not asked Crispin how he’d come to lose the arm, assuming the man wearied of the tale, as Owen did the story of his blinding. ‘Tell me what you know.’

‘Is that an order? Am I addressed by the new captain of York’s bailiffs? But soft – you still have no authority over me. Though I am biding in your city, I’m here on the king’s business–’

‘Have pity, Geoffrey. Two people have been murdered, and I’m desperate for even a hint of a cause that might connect their deaths.’

‘Other than blood? Perhaps you might look to their friends. Speaking of which, our friendship feels brittle of late. You are keeping things from me.’

‘As you are from me. How do I know we’re not working at cross-purposes?’

‘Owen! You know me better than that. How could you think I would undermine your efforts to find the murderers before more harm is done?’

He did know him better than to think that. For the most part. He had decided to trust Geoffrey when Princess Joan brought trouble to the archbishop’s palace of Bishopthorpe, and his trust had been rewarded. Yet there was ever a strange friction between them, and Owen found it difficult to relax with the man. Still, he had never, to Owen’s knowledge, worked against him. In apology, Owen told Geoffrey what Lucie had learned from Muriel, the ‘circle’, the secrets, their unease upon Poole’s return. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘Your friend the Austin canon–’

‘Erkenwald?’ A former soldier, he had put aside his weapons and taken up the cross, serving for some years now at St Leonard’s Hospital. Owen had once coaxed him into action to save Alisoun Ffulford when she ran away from the hospital’s orphanage and straight into trouble.

Geoffrey grinned. ‘Such a stout name.’ He sat back, arms crossed over his belly, ready to tell a tale. ‘Before Erkenwald took his final vows he accompanied an elder canon to Avignon. There he encountered Poole, a one-armed merchant catering to the English bearing petitions to the Holy See. The story there was that Poole had been felled in battle by a mace to his remarkably thick skull. He woke to find himself trapped beneath a mortally wounded destrier that was crushing his arm as it thrashed in its death agony.’

‘Beneath a great beast and he lost only the arm?’ said Owen. ‘Most fortunate of men.’

‘I sensed that the canon doubted it happened quite that way. But it is the story Poole tells. However he lost the arm, he seemed a merchant of some account.’

‘He must have had a patron,’ Owen noted.

‘If he did, Erkenwald did not say. But what I know is that he has friends at court. And among influential merchants in the North, such as John Gisburne, who furnished him with letters of introduction to his guild members here in York.’

‘A merchant with friends at court – I can see why Crispin Poole would win John Gisburne’s support. Poole did mention the letters of introduction, but it appears Gisburne did that and no more. His family has ignored Poole.’ Owen remembered the man’s clenched jaw. He’d felt the slight. To Owen’s mind, Poole was better off without him. But Gisburne’s influence would be invaluable to a merchant. He was currently in Westminster sitting on the king’s commission on the wool market, having once been in charge of the wool staple in York. It was said he kept the outlaws he called household guards with him there, no doubt enriching Gisburne with thievery and crooked business transactions while he concocted ways to cheat the king. Owen knew firsthand the man’s ruthlessness. ‘So Poole has a patron of some influence at court?’

‘Talk to Erkenwald. I’m certain he knows more.’

‘Why did you approach him about Poole? Does this have to do with your mission here?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know whether it does or no, but I saw Poole leaving the grounds of St Leonard’s Hospital, turning to nod to Dom Erkenwald.’

So Geoffrey was following him. Owen tucked that away. ‘When did you witness this?’

‘The day I arrived, then departed for Freythorpe Hadden.’