A Conspiracy of Wolves

So far he had failed at that, but, seeing her fear, how she pressed the child to her, he did not voice his frustration. ‘I have all the bailiffs’ men on the streets, searching for these men. And I have your keen eyes.’ He forced a reassuring smile. ‘We will find them. What of the dog? You said he was unlike any you’d seen?’

‘He was a great beast, a wolf, I think, all black.’

‘Black?’

‘With fiery eyes and a long red tongue. A devil dog, to be sure.’ She bobbed her head to him and hurried on.

He had encountered wolves on campaign across the Channel, but never black ones, though he knew no reason why one could not exist – but fiery eyes? Unless she meant the expression. A long red tongue? Might someone describe a dog’s tongue thus? What had Magda said? What do folk see when they see a wolf, Bird-eye? The animal? Think again. Their darkest fears?

Whoever the man was, it sounded as if he had tight control of the animal.

The bailiff’s man who’d gone on to Monk Bar to question the gatekeeper returned, shaking his head. ‘No one’s come through with a large dog today, Captain.’

Owen told him what he’d learned.

‘The Bedern. Bad luck for us. If he’s a churchman we’ll never draw him out, the devil piss on him.’

‘I very much doubt we seek a cleric,’ said Owen. ‘But we are not the law in the Bedern, that is true.’

The Bedern was part of the minster liberty, set aside to house the vicars choral, who said masses in the chantry chapels in the minster, and Owen would need the dean’s or the archbishop’s permission to search there. The bailiffs had no jurisdiction in there either. Damn Thoresby for dying. Damn him. Owen would waste precious time convincing the dean …

‘Might have ducked in and out the far side,’ said Hempe’s man. ‘Headed for the river. They’ll spit him out when they see he’s not one of theirs.’

‘Pass the word along the watch to keep an eye out for this man, and a dog, likely a large one.’ Owen said nothing of the woman’s description of the dog. He began to suspect that what Magda had meant was that folk saw not what was there, but the beast from their nightmares. ‘I’m going to take a stroll in the Bedern.’

A surprised laugh. ‘You’re not one for rules, Captain? Can we expect that when you’re our captain?’

Owen slapped the man on the shoulder. ‘If I captain your bailiffs, they’ll keep to my rules.’ He grinned, though he felt no cheer.

While in the kitchen fetching some brandywine for Magda, Lucie heard an unfamiliar voice out in the garden. Geoffrey had sent Dun to fetch a priest to say prayers over the dead man. Had the priest arrived? She should speak with him. She handed Magda the brandywine and headed out.

On her way she thought to check on Euphemia. She found her still asleep in the bedchamber whose walls were covered with small tapestries. Unfinished, Lucie realized, looking round, all religious scenes in vibrant colors, delicate, beautiful work.

‘She had great skill,’ said Eva.

‘They caught my eye as I came to check on your mistress.’

‘I am grateful for your care.’ The maid reached up to straighten one of the hangings.

‘You are devoted to her.’

‘She has been good to me, in her way.’

‘And her son? Is he difficult?’

‘He is a fair man. But–’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I should not speak of the master and mistress of this house.’

‘Even if it might help us catch the men who attacked your mistress?’

Eva toed something on the floor. ‘He cannot forgive Dame Euphemia for what she did. But she did it so that he might come home. If that poacher had not been hanged for the girl’s murder …’

Trying to sound as if she knew something of what the woman spoke, Lucie asked, ‘What was your mistress’s part in it?’

‘If the master had kept the boy’s secret, she would not have done it. And how people know that the mistress pushed him to name Warin as the girl’s murderer – I don’t know who told them.’

A thread of memory. A young woman’s drowning, the girls at St Clements’ whispering. ‘This Warin was not the murderer?’

‘No. He helped Master Crispin save her from drowning. Then the young master went away. No one knows why. Folk thought he might have done it, Master Crispin. Maybe he hid for a few days, made certain she was dead before she went in the Ouse this time, and then ran off to be a soldier.’

‘They thought Crispin saved the young woman, then murdered her?’

‘I don’t know that folk knew of the first drowning. But what if he hadn’t been trying to save her? What if Warin saw that?’ She met Lucie’s eyes, questioning. Unsure even now.

If this woman who had known him so well was unsure of his innocence … Was it this long-ago tragedy that haunted them now?

‘And he knows what his mother did?’

A nod. ‘I should not have told you, but–’