A Gift Of Sanctuary (Owen Archer Book 6) Read online

  About the Author

  Candace Robb studied for a Ph.D. in Medieval and Anglo-Saxon literature and has continued to read and research medieval history and literature ever since. The Owen Archer series grew out of a fascination with the city of York and the tumultuous 14th century. The first in the series, The Apothecary Rose, was published in 1994, at which point she began to write full time. In addition to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and America, her novels are published in France, Germany, Spain and Holland.

  She is currently writing the seventh Owen Archer novel, A Spy for the Redeemer.

  Also by Candace Robb

  The Apothecary Rose

  The Lady Chapel

  The Nun’s Tale

  The King’s Bishop

  The Riddle of St Leonard’s

  Candace Robb

  A GIFT

  OF SANCTUARY

  AN OWEN ARCHER MYSTERY

  This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Epub ISBN: 9781446440810

  Version 1.10

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published in the United Kingdom in 1999

  by Arrow Books

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Candace Robb 1998

  The right of Candace Robb to be identified as the author of this

  work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act 1988

  ‘The Seagull (Yr wylan deg ar lanw dioer)’, by Dafydd ap Gwilym, translated by Joseph P. Clancy in Medieval Welsh Lyrics (Macmillan and St Martin’s Press, 1965), pp 23–4.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1998

  by William Heinemann

  Arrow Books Ltd

  Random House UK Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

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  Random House UK Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the

  British Library

  ISBN 0 7493 2360 4

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Candace Robb

  A Gift of Sanctuary

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Maps

  Glossary

  Welsh Pronunciation

  Prologue

  1. Weary Pilgrims

  2. To St David’s

  3. A Spiral Dance

  4. A Body at the Gate

  5. The Vicar Edern

  6. A Grim Journey

  7. Cydweli

  8. The Lady of Cydweli

  9. Anticipation

  10. Kin

  11. The Vicar’s Cloak

  12. Interrupted Slumber

  13. An Argument Overheard

  14. Dyfrig Sows Seeds of Doubt

  15. The Duke’s Receiver

  16. He is Named

  17. St Non’s Beneficence

  18. The Pirate’s Warning

  19. An Ambush

  20. A Tender Heart

  21. A Fierce and Terrible Love

  22. A Question of Trust

  23. Fog

  24. Myrddin and the One who Sleeps

  25. Martin’s Revenge

  26. Eleri’s Courage

  27. ‘. . . a verray, parfit gentil knyght’

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Footnotes

  For Kate Ross,

  Who also enjoyed jousting with poets

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Taking Owen into Wales has been quite a journey for me, but I found some expert guides who were wonderfully generous with their time. I wish to thank in particular Jeff Davies, Fiona Kelleghan, Nona Rees, Compton Reeves, and the staff of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. I also wish to thank my colleagues on the Internet discussion lists Mediev-l, Chaucer, and H-Albion who were ever ready with advice and suggestions.

  Heartfelt thanks to Joyce Gibb for sharing the results of her own research, and for taking time out for long conversations and careful readings; to Lynne Drew for making the long journey out to St David’s and for an inspired edit; to Evan Marshall for a thoughtful edit; to Christie Andersen for proofreading; and to Charlie Robb for maps, photos, travel arrangements and all the myriad assignments he cheerfully accepts throughout the year.

  GLOSSARY

  a Goddes half for God’s sake (middle English)

  amobr a payment, originally to guarantee virginity, payable to a woman’s lord at marriage

  bourdon a pilgrim’s staff

  butt a mark or mound for archery practice

  certes certainly, to be sure (middle English)

  destrier a knight’s war horse

  escheat the reversion of property to a lord on the owner’s dying without legal heirs – one convicted of treason or felony could not pass on his property, hence had no legal heirs

  gentilesse graciousness, with an air of nobility (middle English)

  the Law of Hywel Dda the native law of Wales is known as Hywel’s Law; it is said that in the tenth century Hywel Dda convened a representative assembly at Whitland, which revised and published the law

  littera marachi letter of the March, an official safe-conduct issued by a lord, acknowledging the man as his own and asking for his judicial immunity to be respected in other lordships

  the Marches/ the borders of the kingdom and the lords

  Marcher lords to whom the King granted jurisdiction over them

  mazer a large wooden cup or bowl, often highly decorated

  murder hole an opening in the floor above, from which something such as hot oil can be dropped on intruders

  murrain literally, a parasitic disease among cattle, but often generalised to any widespread disease among livestock

  no fors does not matter (middle English)

  receiver officer who receives money due; treasurer

  redemptio vitae money in exchange for one’s life in a criminal case; the amount varies according to the discretion of the lord and the gravity of the offence

  scrip a small bag, wallet, or satchel

  solar private room on upper level of house

  spital early English word for hospital, later ‘spitalhouse’ and ‘hospital’

  tourn a Marcher lord’s great court

  trencher a thick slice of brown bread a few days old with a slight hollow in the centre, used as a platter

  truck trade

  tun wooden barrel; bows and arrow sheaves were stowed in wooden tuns for transport

  vicar as a modern vicar is the deputy of the rector, so a vicar choral was a cleric in holy orders acting as the deputy of a canon attached to the cathedral; for a modest annual salary the vicar choral performed his canon’s duties, attending the various services of the church and singing the liturgy

  vintaine a company of twenty soldiers

  WELSH PRONUNCIATION

  Vowels: a, e, i, o, u, y, an
d sometimes w. As a vowel, w is pronounced like oo, either short (look) or long (loon). As a consonant before a y, it retains some of its vocalic nature: wee or ooee.

  Consonants: no j, k or z, nor is there a soft c (as in cease)

  dd as in teethe, not teeth

  f sounds like a v, as in of

  ff sounds like an f, as in off

  ll sounds like a strongly aspirated hl, or even chl

  rh an aspirated r, or hr

  PROLOGUE

  Pulling the hood of his cloak over his comb- and trinket-twisted hair and fastening it against the wind, the old man rode out on to the sands. He was about to nudge his steed to a gallop when the beast shied. God’s grace was upon the man who lay there, that the horse had brought his hoofs down on the bare sand and not on the prostrate form. The old man dismounted to examine this booty of the sea, discovered it was blood, not seaweed that darkened the young man’s hair. He glanced round, wary of trespassing on another’s battle ground, but the mist and blowing sand prevented him from seeing far. The roar of the breakers muted the sound of any who might share the beach with him.

  The old man crouched beside the one sprawled on his back in the sand and studied him. One blood-encrusted hand still held a dagger. Blood darkened the edge of the man’s sleeve – another’s blood, for the stains higher up were spatters. A deep thrust into the gut or the chest might cause such a flood. The white-haired man guessed that someone had died this day, at this man’s hands. It had not been an easy victory; a bruise on this one’s throat already darkened and he bled freely from an almost severed ear. It might well be beyond Brother Samson’s skill to repair the latter.

  But God had crossed their paths today for a reason. The horse was to carry the wounded man to safety. And the dead man? There was no time to look for him. The man here before him might bleed to death while Dafydd or his retainers searched the sands and the caves, or the other’s friends might fall upon them. And for all this, he might find no other. No. A search was a waste. Better to attend the living one to whom he had been led.

  Grunting as his legs protested straightening, Dafydd whistled for his horse. As the beast crowded near, the white-haired man praised God that his was a short, sturdy Welsh horse and not a destrier. He rearranged the wrapped harp slung beside his saddle, then crouching once more, found the centre of the wounded man’s weight and heaved him across his shoulder, eased up, and slid the man across the horse’s wide back. Taking the reins in hand, the old man nodded to his horse, and the two figures headed down Whitesands towards St Patrick’s Chapel and the track up on to St David’s Head. The beast’s gait grew jerky as he climbed the rocks above the breakers. The injured man moaned, ‘Tangwystl.’

  Ah. So they had not fought over smuggled treasures, but the love of a woman. Tangwystl. The white-haired man smiled and softly began to sing:

  ‘Go praising a far-famed girl

  To curve of fort and castle.

  Keep a close lookout, seagull,

  For an Eigr on the white fort.

  Speak my neatly woven words:

  Go to her, bid her choose me.

  If she’s alone, then greet her;

  Be deft with the dainty girl

  To win her: say I shall die,

  This well-bred lad, without her.’

  The wind shivered the gorse and whipped the old man’s cloak round him as if it were a fury. Dafydd bent his head into the tempest, his song stilled with the effort to breathe, and he squinted to see the track before him. He heard the horsemen before he saw them. His six men, their heads low against their mounts, eyes half-closed against the wind, came thundering past, down to the beach Dafydd had just deserted. He turned back in wonderment. What did they pursue? He had left them far up at Carn Llidi.

  Shielding his eyes, Dafydd made out three, no, four riders beginning the ascent from Whitesands. In pursuit of the wounded man, were they? Did they not see Dafydd’s men descending upon them?

  With a prayer for the souls of the fools down below, Dafydd continued up the rocky headland, to a cluster of boulders that shielded him and his burden from the wind. He took a linen cloth from his scrip, bound it round the injured man’s head to stanch the bleeding. The man moaned, shivered as if a surge of pain followed the binding, then was still. So still Dafydd leaned close to hear his breath. Rasping, difficult, but there. God was not ready to take this man.

  It was not long before Dafydd’s men reappeared, riding proudly. Madog, the talker, leapt from his steed and hurried forward.

  ‘Master Dafydd, are you injured?’

  The wind sucked at Dafydd’s breath. He shook his head. ‘We must ride quickly.’

  Madog lifted the injured man’s head, eyes widening as he saw the blood that already soaked half the bandage. ‘Who is he?’

  Who indeed? What should Dafydd call him, this bleeding soul God had entrusted to him? ‘A pilgrim.’

  Madog’s dark brows came together in doubt, but he did not argue. ‘The four we routed,’ he said, ‘they wore the livery of Lancaster and Cydweli.’

  ‘My pilgrim has powerful enemies.’

  ‘What would you have us do?’

  ‘He has lost much blood. Let us sprout wings to fly him to Brother Samson’s healing hands.’ Dafydd handed Madog the reins of his burdened horse, slipped his harp from the saddle. ‘You ride with the pilgrim. I shall ride your steed.’

  One

  WEARY PILGRIMS

  MARCH 1370

  Owen Archer ached from days of riding. The journey into southern Wales was proving a painful lesson in how sedentary he had become in York; though all men said marriage and family softened a man, as captain of the Archbishop of York’s retainers and one who trained archers, Owen had thought himself an exception. The ride was also a reminder of how solitary was a winter journey, no matter how large the company. With head tucked deep inside a hood that dripped incessantly, a rider limited conversation to the bare necessities.

  Most riders, that is. Two of his companions behaved otherwise. Even now, as they made their way through a forest of limbs bent, twisted and snapped by a relentless gale, where they must guide their horses and be ready to duck and sidestep trouble, their voices rose in argument.

  ‘The wind at home is never so fierce,’ Sir Robert D’Arby shouted.

  ‘It is so and more, Sir Robert,’ Brother Michaelo retorted. ‘You do not enjoy being a wayfaring man, is all. I for one see no difference between this weather and that of the North Country.’

  ‘You dare to speak to me of being a wayfaring man – you, who think silk sheets and down cushions are appropriate for a pilgrim? I have endured years of real pilgrimage.’

  ‘Yes, yes, the Holy Land, Rome, Compostela, I know,’ Brother Michaelo said. ‘There are worse sins in life than fine bedclothes.’ He bowed his head and tugged his hood farther over his face.

  ‘Sybarite,’ Sir Robert muttered.

  Owen thought his father-in-law and the archbishop’s secretary worse than warring children in their ceaseless bickering over trifles. He did his best to ignore them. Geoffrey Chaucer, on the other hand, rode close to them and listened with a smile.

  ‘You find them amusing,’ Owen said. ‘I would prefer them muzzled.’

  Geoffrey laughed. ‘Most of their arguments are predictable and repetitive, it is true, but at times they delight with their inventiveness. I wait for such moments. Listen – Sir Robert has changed the subject.’

  ‘Would that we had left earlier so we might reach the shrine of St David on his feast day,’ Owen’s father-in-law said.

  ‘We would have ridden to our deaths in a winter storm and never reached St David’s,’ Michaelo said while holding a branch aside for his elderly antagonist.

  Geoffrey nodded. ‘It is a game to the monk, this argument.’

  Owen understood that. And yet not entirely a game. The monk worried that Sir Robert would prevail and have him decked out in the rough robe of a pilgrim, sleeping on the cold, damp, root-infested earth of the forest.
Sir Robert wore a long, russet-coloured robe of coarse wool with a cross on the sleeve, and a large round hat with a broad brim turned up at the front to show his pilgrim badges, of which he was justly proud, particularly the scallop shell. Hanging from his neck was a pilgrim’s scrip, a large knife, a flask for water and a rosary, and tied across his saddle was a bourdon. Not that he needed the purse of essentials and the walking stick, being well provisioned and on horseback.

  ‘I am caught!’ Sir Robert cried suddenly.

  Owen hurried forward to retrieve his father-in-law from a thorny branch that had snagged the edge of his hood. ‘You will insist on a wide-brimmed hat beneath your hood, that is the problem,’ Owen said with little sympathy. ‘It makes you a wider target to snag.’

  ‘Mark his words, Sir Robert,’ Michaelo chimed in, ‘it is as I have been telling you.’

  Sir Robert did not even turn in Michaelo’s direction. ‘I am a pilgrim,’ he said to Owen. ‘I must wear the garb. It is little enough I do.’

  ‘At your age the journeying itself is enough. Your daughter will have my head if any harm comes to you while in my company.’

  ‘Lucie is more reasonable than that.’

  Perhaps. It seemed so long ago that they had said their farewells in York. And it would be so much longer before Owen heard news of his family – his wife and children. Sir Robert did not ease the loneliness; in truth Owen looked forward to seeing his father-in-law and Brother Michaelo safely to St David’s and returning with Geoffrey to Cydweli.

  But first there was the matter of Carreg Cennen, truly an outpost among the Duke of Lancaster’s castles. Here they were to meet John de Reine, one of Lancaster’s men from Cydweli.

  The purpose of the meeting was to plan their recruiting strategy. Charles of France was reportedly preparing for an invasion of England. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, planned a counter-attack in summer. To that end, he needed more archers, and hoped to find good recruits in his Marcher lordships. He had requested the assistance of Owen Archer, former captain of archers for the previous Duke of Lancaster; asked Owen to journey to his lordships in southern Wales and select two vintaines of archers. John de Reine would then march the recruits to Plymouth in time for a summer sailing. Geoffrey Chaucer accompanied Owen because he was to observe and report on the garrisoning of the Duke’s Welsh castles. The French always looked on the south-western coast of Wales as a good place for spies to slip into the country, and also as a possible landing area for an invasion army. Early in the year, King Edward had ordered that all castles along the coast were to be sufficiently garrisoned to defend themselves in an attack.