A Conspiracy of Wolves

Owen caught Lucie’s smile as she slipped past them on her way to the apothecary. ‘No misgivings on my part,’ she whispered.

He had confided his heart’s desire to her as they sat before the fire the night before, and she had given him her support. They had agreed that if they woke without misgivings, his choice was made. Now he must convince Antony of the wisdom of his proposal.

‘Come, walk with me,’ he told Geoffrey. ‘I will collect Brother Michaelo. He will await my invitation to come in after Antony and I have spoken. I would like Dom Leufrid to arrive while Michaelo is waiting. Such a summons would be best coming from you. Would you escort him to the abbey?’

‘What if we are delayed?’

‘Antony and I are old friends. We have much to talk about. Knock thrice on the door when all are assembled. I count on your powers of diplomacy to keep both Leufrid and Michaelo in the same room.’ He told him of the relationship.

‘You have set me quite the challenge, Owen.’

‘Do I ask too much of you?’

Geoffrey laughed. ‘On the contrary. I welcome the opportunity to prove myself up to the task.’

Owen counted on that.

Brother Oswald, hospitaller of St Mary’s Abbey, greeted Owen warmly. ‘We are honored that Prince Edward’s emissary chooses to bide within our walls on this visit.’ The monk smiled as if to thank Owen for his patronage and escorted him to a room off the main hall of the guest house, knocking at the door, then withdrawing.

‘Enter.’

Owen grinned at the deep, resonant voice, which had been so effective in a room filled with arguing captains and commanders, and easy to hear at noisy feasts. Opening the door, he found Antony standing with his back to him, gazing out a window that faced the river. It was a small room furnished with several high-backed chairs and a table on which stood a flagon of wine and two mazers.

Antony turned round, his expression wary. ‘Owen?’

‘Have I changed so much?’

‘Forgive me, I think of you as you looked out in the field. I’d forgotten the scar, the patch.’ A grin. ‘Though now I recall how the ladies flocked round you – the scar and patch made you mysterious. Dangerous.’

The men embraced, stepped apart, studied each other.

Antony was a striking man, taller even than Owen, with dark olive skin, tightly curling black hair, deep-set eyes – much like Thoresby’s but tawny, and though he was a scholar of warfare rather than a participant, he had the posture of a soldier. In the past, he’d favored dark robes, undecorated, almost monk-like. But today he wore a tawny velvet houpelande to match his eyes, embroidered with exotic birds, decorated with pearls. His hat was a velvet turban of the sort much favored by merchants on the Continent, the color red.

‘You look the part of an emissary from Prince Edward, heir to the throne, my friend,’ said Owen.

‘His Grace prefers me this way. And look at you, a little gray at the temples yet still broad at the shoulder and narrow at the waist. Still an active man, I see, though the father of three and married to one of the most beautiful women in the city, I am told, and accomplished in her own right.’

‘Lucie is that and more, Antony. And we must count Jasper, my eldest son, for he is as dear to Lucie and me as if he were of our flesh.’

‘For a man who cursed the fate that sent him north, you have made a life here, and a good one. I have heard much about you from Abbot William.’

‘I trust he has not turned you against me?’ Owen did not have the warm relationship with the current abbot that he’d come to enjoy with his predecessor.

‘He much admires you, and worries what my arrival might mean for the city if you were to join Prince Edward’s household. He has told me all about the recent troubles, and how the aldermen and sheriff counted on you to resolve them. Have you done so?’

‘There are yet a few pieces on the board.’

‘Come. Let us sit, drink wine, and talk.’

They settled in the high-backed chairs, moving them so that they faced each other with the small table between. Antony poured, handed Owen a mazer.

‘They are talking about your skill with a bow in all the taverns of the city. So you have regained your prowess.’

‘To an extent, I suppose I have.’ Owen did find it satisfying.

‘Tell me about these outlaws. I understand they committed these crimes as vengeance for their father and a young woman?’

Owen tried to be as brief as possible. ‘They will hang, of course. But Bartolf Swann misused his power as coroner, as did the steward of Galtres.’

‘A common complaint.’

‘We are at the mercy of the king’s whim in his choices for such positions.’

‘A king uses such posts as favors to those who served him well, yes. But it has ever been so. You cannot expect such a man as the king to think long on the talents necessary for such minor posts.’

‘Minor to him, not to the community.’

Antony sat back, his expression quizzical. ‘You have learned much since last we met, my friend, but you have not lost your fire.’

‘No? I wonder.’