A Conspiracy of Wolves

Her tale was much like Crispin Poole’s, though the lads and Olyf were painted in a much less complimentary light, and the lechery of Bartolf and Goldbarn, the sergeant of the forest, was held up as proof the three lads and the girl were up to no good. As the ale dulled Wren’s guardedness and she spun the tale of the two families united in their grief and despair, Owen was glad of Michaelo’s pen scratching away, Lucie helping him open more of the parchment as sections filled, for it was a tale the coroner should hear in full.

‘But what of Gerta’s murder?’ Owen asked. ‘You’ve not told us the real story.’

Wren glanced out the window. ‘As my ma tells it, the one with the hounds, Paul, he came alone to the wood that day, ’cept for the animals. Beasts, they were, taller, more frightening than those he’d brought before, and he hunted Gerta.’

Dawn now. As Owen looked out at the garden he realized he wasted precious time. He knew now who had murdered Gerta. He rose. ‘I must go to the Braithwaite home. I am grateful, Mistress Wren. You are brave to tell me all this. I pray you, tell the remainder to my wife and Brother Michaelo. Then rest here. You will be safe.’

Lucie and Honoria bent to each other, whispering. Owen watched them out of the corner of his eye as he tugged on his boots, slung the quiver over his shoulder, tucked his unstrung bow in his belt. So at ease with each other. He’d not expected that.

‘Rain is coming,’ said Honoria. ‘I smell it in the air.’

‘All the better,’ said Lucie, rising from the table. ‘I’ve no time for the garden today. Let it drink its fill. Take a cloak, my love.’ She plucked a short cloak from the hook by the door and draped it over Owen’s arm, then handed him a small pack. ‘In case you use the arrow and want your captive to live. You know how to use these.’

Owen looked into his wife’s steady gray-blue eyes. Her medicine pack was sacred to her, a thing all in the household knew not to touch. ‘Thank you for entrusting me with this. I will use it wisely,’ he said.

She searched his eyes, touched his cheek. ‘I know you will, my love. Come home to me whole and well. May God watch over you and all your company.’

‘Amen.’ He kissed Lucie, held her tight for a moment.

‘Shall I escort Old Bede home?’ Lucie asked as they moved apart.

‘Let Crispin host him until I return. But you might tell Winifrith where he is. And have Michaelo take Alisoun’s account as long as he is here. Bless you for thinking of that. I know the coroner examined Roger, but I will feel better that he knows as much as possible before he assembles a jury.’ He whispered a blessing, then slipped out the garden door with Corm.

‘Dame Lucie and Dame Honoria?’ Corm chuckled as they crossed the York Tavern yard.

‘Both honorable women,’ said Owen with a look that silenced the young fool.

Honoria and Wren asked if they might accompany Lucie and Brother Michaelo when they moved into the hall. Alisoun was reclining against a pile of cushions and sipping from a small wooden bowl as she watched Magda pacing before the long window that looked out on the garden. It was Lucie’s favorite feature of the hall, the long window, actually several smaller windows separated only by strong timbers, stretching half the length of the room. Owen was keen to glaze them with the rents from his new manor, but Lucie was content with the fitted shutters. When they were opened, she welcomed the freshening breeze bringing the scents of the medicinal garden.

‘Might we speak with you a moment, Alisoun?’ Lucie asked.

‘Dame Honoria?’ Alisoun frowned. ‘Are you caught up in the troubles as well?’

Honoria asked if she might sit beside her, looking not only to Alisoun but to Magda as well, who motioned for her to do so. Settling on a stool beside Alisoun’s pallet, Honoria took her hand and briefly told her of the night’s events, while Michaelo settled himself at a small table nearby.

‘I did not mean to take his life,’ Alisoun whispered.

Lucie, seated at the foot of the pallet, assured her that they all understood. ‘If you would just tell us what happened, as you remember it.’ She was disappointed to hear how little Alisoun had witnessed, yet she repeated what she’d said the previous evening, that as the hound fell into her it felt wrong somehow.

‘I wish I could say how. A feeling that it was not what it seemed and then I was trying to catch myself before I fell. I am sorry.’

Honoria squeezed Alisoun’s hand. ‘You saved Dame Euphemia’s life, I think.’

‘If you are not too weary of speech, would you tell us about the night Crispin Poole came to you, after he was bitten?’ Lucie asked.

Alisoun obliged.

Honoria winced at the details, hissed at his request for secrecy. ‘He might have prevented all this.’

Lucie was not so certain. Vengeance taken twenty years later? Would she have guessed it?

Suddenly Alisoun struggled to sit up, her eyes moving as if she were debating with herself. ‘The beast pushed me over, not as a great animal would do, a sort of leap, but pushed.’