A Conspiracy of Wolves

Not the question, Bird-eye. She had turned to him, pressing her forefinger to the spot between his eyes. Open thine eyes. Trust thyself. The wolves circle their prey. Thou hast the sight to see what awakens.

He’d questioned the wolves. They came only in winter, the wolves that the steward of the Forest of Galtres swore no longer bided in the land.

What do folk see when they see a wolf, Bird-eye? The animal? Think again.

Magda Digby, his guide, his tormentor. In his mourning for John Thoresby, Owen had sought her out, confided in her all that was in his heart. Long she listened, holding his hands, looking into his eye. Open thine eyes, she repeated, and corrected him when he argued that he had but one. He did not understand, and she did not explain. Her last words to him on departing Freythorpe, Trust thyself, Bird-eye. Thou art called.

Trust himself. Open his eyes. He was called. Called from a year of mourning, a year of doubting his judgment, his worth, a year of questioning all – all but his devotion to his family. He had failed in his last task for Archbishop Thoresby, keeping the peace at his deathbed. Failed by missing signs of a trusted comrade’s discontent, so certain was he of the man’s loyalty when the impending death of their patron rendered his future uncertain.

He’d spent the past year grieving for Thoresby and the end of a career that had given Owen purpose, and now he mourned the death of Philippa, a woman of strength and heart who had endeared herself to him over a decade. Philippa’s death had taken him by surprise. Though she had suffered for years of a palsy, her strength and memory failing, her end was sudden. One morning she simply did not rise from her bed. She was missed.

Wolves circling their prey. The sight to see what awakens. Something that had already been stirring in York before Philippa’s death? He had been preoccupied with his own life the past months, helping out in the apothecary and the medicinal garden while Lucie sat with her failing aunt, riding out to familiarize himself with his new property, a manor in the gift of the Bishop of Winchester, the deed transferred to Owen on the late archbishop’s urging. Thoresby’s last gift, and, as ever, a double-edged sword. He must clear his mind of all that now.

He had a vague memory of a rumor of wolves in the wood. There were always rumors of wolves in winter, but this time it had continued through the spring and summer. Wolves prowling the yards at night, stealing chickens and pigs. Mauley, sergeant of Galtres, had been incensed by the claims. Though his immediate predecessors had performed their duties with deputies, rarely coming north – king’s men, the status a gift – Mauley was often in York, biding with his daughter in the Fenton house on Coney Street. He was proud of order in the forest. Owen searched his memory for more, but he could not think clearly with Geoffrey’s jabbering. He’d made his excuses this morning, asked Geoffrey to stay at Freythorpe Hadden with Magda, who was to remain behind a while. But Magda had scoffed at that suggestion. She was not always Owen’s friend.

‘Spare me your poetic struggles,’ Owen grumbled.

Geoffrey’s retort fell on deaf ears. A plume of dust on the road ahead caught Owen’s attention. Riders were to be expected on the southern approach to York, but something about this pair imparted a sense of urgency. He urged his horse forward, nodding to Lucie and the children as he passed the cart.

‘Are they for us?’ Alfred, his former lieutenant in the archbishop’s household guard, called out from his driver’s seat as he steadied the cart horses.

‘I’m riding ahead to see.’ As Owen grew closer he shook his head at the strange pairing approaching them.

‘Can that be Brother Michaelo?’ asked Geoffrey, catching up. ‘I thought he had agreed to stay as Archdeacon Jehannes’s secretary. But if he is on the road …’