A Vigil of Spies (Owen Archer Book 10) Read online

  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Candace Robb

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Map

  Epigraphs

  Prologue

  1. A Goodly Company

  2. Whom to Trust?

  3. A Trifle

  4. Into the Woods

  5. False Indulgences

  6. Mission to Nun Appleton

  7. Missed Opportunities

  8. A Woman’s Woe

  9. Despair

  10. Welcomes and Farewells

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Further Reading

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Bishopthorpe Palace, York. September 1373: John Thoresby, the Archbishop of York, lies dying. One of the most powerful men in the country, his imminent demise has the dominant families of the north vying to influence his succession.

  Owen Archer, Thoresby’s master of the guards, is one of the few men Thoresby trusts. He is determined to ensure that his lord’s last days are as peaceful as possible, but his plans are thrown into disarray when Thoresby agrees to a visit from Joan, Princess of Wales, wife of the Black Prince and mother of the young heir to the throne of England. She has come to seek the great man’s advice before it is too late.

  Owen resolves to do his duty, but within minutes of Joan’s arrival things go disastrously wrong when a member of the royal party is murdered. Then, only days later, a messenger carrying urgent letters for Thoresby is found hanging in the woods. Soon, the shadow of suspicion falls on the whole household. And as Owen races against time to find the murderer amongst them, he starts to realise that not only has one of his own men been compromised, but all their lives are now in danger…

  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. Her 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, Denmark, Italy and Holland, and she is available in the UK on audio-book and in large print. She is also the author of three Margaret Kerr Mysteries, set in Scotland at the time of Robert the Bruce. A Vigil of Spies is her tenth Owen Archer novel.

  Also by Candace Robb

  THE OWEN ARCHER MYSTERIES

  The Apothecary Rose

  The Lady Chapel

  The Nun’s Tale

  The King’s Bishop

  The Riddle of St Leonard’s

  A Gift of Sanctuary

  A Spy for the Redeemer

  The Cross-Legged Knight

  The Guilt of Innocents

  THE MARGARET KERR MYSTERIES

  A Trust Betrayed

  The Fire in the Flint

  A Cruel Courtship

  To all those with the courage to open their hearts.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Anthony Goodman for his insights into Joan of Kent, shared over a long, happily drawn-out lunch on a warm afternoon in the courtyard of St William’s College, York; Carolyn Collette for generously sharing her research on Joan; Laura Hodges for her expertise in the clothing of the period; Lorraine Stock for tracking down an obscure but important article about Alexander Neville; Laurel Broughton for finding just the right epigraph from Geoffrey’s pen; and Barbara Johnson for asking the right question about what Thoresby means to me. My friends on Chaucernet have been sources of ideas and information for the character of Geoffrey Chaucer and details of the age. I also wish to thank Georgina Hawtrey-Woore and Patrick Walsh for early input on the manuscript, and Joyce Gibb for a thorough reading of the complete draft. I am, as ever, grateful to my husband Charlie for his support behind the scenes.

  GLOSSARY

  coney

  rabbit

  cotehardie

  a tight tunic for men; a long, tight fitting gown for women

  girth

  a cinch on a western saddle

  jupon

  a tight tunic, usually without sleeves

  Order of the Garter

  a society of lay knights founded by Edward III in 1348–9, dedicated to St George, its device a blue garter; the first group included twenty-six knights

  scrip

  a small bag, wallet, or satchel

  solar

  private room or rooms on an upper level of a house

  staithe

  a landing-stage or wharf

  surcoat

  an outer coat, or garment, usually of rich material; if wearing armour, this would be worn over the armour, whereas the jupon would be worn under the armour

  ‘… certainly a man hath moost honour To dyen in his excellence and flour, Whan he is siker of his goode name; Thanne hath he doon his freend, ne hym, no shame.’ Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale

  ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!’ Sir Walter Scott

  PROLOGUE

  Bishopthorpe Palace, late September 1373

  Archbishop Thoresby held up his hand to silence Brother Michaelo’s arguments. ‘God’s will does not align with ours, Michaelo. We tried and failed. The chapter will not choose my nephew Richard to succeed me. It is finished.’

  Though His Grace’s voice was weak, his personal secretary heard in it the clear resolve. He reminded himself of the fourth step of humility in St Benedict’s rule – To go even further than [simple obedience] by readily accepting in patient and silent endurance, without thought of giving up or avoiding the issue, any hard and demanding things that may come our way in the course of that obedience … We are encouraged to such patience by the words of scripture: Whoever perseveres to the very end will be saved. Bowing, Michaelo began to back away from the great bed.

  ‘I had not realised how much you had set your heart on Richard succeeding me,’ said Thoresby. ‘Why, Michaelo?’

  In his mind’s eye, Michaelo was back at the wretched day ten years earlier when he lay at the entrance to the abbey oratory, his forehead pressed to the cold, indifferently cleaned tiles, while his brethren shuffled past him. A few stumbled on his robes, one grazed his foot, another kicked his right hand. Then came a long silence in which his attempts to pray that this prostration might signal his repentance and his humility were overridden by his self-loathing. He could not believe that God wished to hear him. Ten years in Thoresby’s service had restored his belief, his ability to pray. He’d believed that in the service of Richard Ravenser he would yet be safe from himself.

  ‘I cannot return to St Mary’s Abbey, Your Grace.’

  ‘That choice passed with Abbot Campion’s death. We spoke of a modest priory in Normandy where you might retreat into silent prayer. My nephew will see to that.’

  A small priory in his native Normandy, near his kin, in perpetual retreat. Michaelo knew it to be a wise choice, and yet he doubted his ability to surrender to it. He was but thirty-five, too young to die to the world. He doubted that years of silent prayer and mortification of the flesh could protect him from the inevitable encounter with a young monk who stirred his desire. This was the devil undermining his courage. The devil who knew him.

  ‘God go with you, Your Grace,’ Michaelo murmured, then turned and withdrew from the sickroom. Alone in the corridor, he slumped against the wall and prayed for the strength to remain by His Grace’s side to the end, for
the fortitude to resist the terror that bade him flee before despair overcame him. As the archbishop’s personal secretary, Michaelo had found his way to grace as if residing in the presence of a man of grace had transformed him. But he feared for his strength once Thoresby died, and his death was imminent. The archbishop would not live to see another Christmas, so predicted the healer Magda Digby. Brother Michaelo felt the devil hovering over his left shoulder, whispering darksome thoughts in quiet moments.

  His only hope had been in His Grace’s winning the dean and chapter’s support for his nephew, Sir Richard Ravenser, to succeed him as Archbishop of York. Ravenser had asked Michaelo to serve him as his personal secretary if he won the election. But, except for a few of the Thoresby/Ravenser kin in the chapter and their old friend Nicholas Louth, the canons supported Alexander Neville, for King Edward apparently approved of him, or so claimed the Neville family in their aggressive campaign.

  Michaelo rubbed his left shoulder. Already it ached with hellish cold.

  One

  A GOODLY COMPANY

  Monday

  CAPTAIN OWEN ARCHER stood in a shaft of sunlight with his lieutenants, Alfred and Gilbert, his scarred but handsome face grim as he spoke to them. As Brother Michaelo rushed about, overseeing the preparations for the large and grand company of guests expected to arrive by mid-afternoon, he caught snippets of the captain’s commands. The fair Gilbert was to ride out with a group of guards to surround the company as it approached, and the lanky, balding Alfred was in charge of the guard protecting the perimeter of the manor of Bishopthorpe. Noticing a deep shadow beneath Archer’s good eye and how he wearily rubbed the scar beneath his leather eye patch, Michaelo remembered their conversation the previous evening.

  Archer had reluctantly admitted that he would miss Archbishop Thoresby, and that he resented the danger Princess Joan’s visit presented. With King Edward and his heir and namesake both ailing and the Archbishop of York on his deathbed, the Scots might anticipate sufficient disarray in the northern defences that they could easily seize Prince Edward’s wife as she travelled so far north. The French had no love for Prince Edward, who had proven his military prowess on their soil all too frequently, and the new King Robert II of Scotland, having renewed the Franco-Scottish alliance, might enjoy handing Edward’s wife to the French king to prove his worth.

  ‘His Grace should have peace in his final days and not be worrying about the possibility of such a disaster,’ Archer had said, smacking the table with his hand. ‘I would have it so.’

  His voice broke with the last words – that was when Michaelo plumbed the depths of the captain’s affection for the archbishop. It surprised him. Archer had spent a decade resenting His Grace. Michaelo wondered at this change.

  ‘They say the fair Princess Joan has ever been headstrong. Pray she suddenly changes her mind and rides south,’ Archer had added.

  But Michaelo welcomed the distraction of a royal guest in the palace. In his opinion, it would cheer them all. Though he admitted to himself that the captain and his lieutenants hardly looked cheered.

  Breath. I’m fighting my own body for breath. My flesh wants to cease this struggle, but my spirit is not ready. I will soon meet St Peter at Heaven’s gate. But not yet, dear Lord, not yet.

  John Thoresby, Archbishop of York and sometime Lord Chancellor of England, reminded himself of this when tempted to complain about how weary he was, how frustrated he was with his struggle for full, satisfying breaths. He was still alive, choosing to blow on the dying embers to tease out more life, and every moment was precious.

  Never in all his long life had he felt so keenly the separation of mind and body. He was a little forgetful, but, for the most part, his mind was still robust. He felt betrayed by the weakness of his body, which trembled now with fatigue as he adjusted his legs, trying to stretch out a cramp without attracting the attention of the healer Magda Digby, who watched so discreetly from her seat beside the foot of the bed that he sometimes forgot she was there.

  ‘Thou art cramping.’ She rose and reached beneath the covers, exploring his calves, then pressing and pulling just the right muscle, showing it how to relax.

  Despite his attempt to hide his discomfort from her, Thoresby was grateful for her ministrations. ‘God bless you,’ he murmured.

  She made a quiet, chuckling sound.

  ‘He will bless you if my prayers are worth anything,’ said Thoresby. Their playful interaction lifted his spirits.

  ‘Thy god may do as he pleases,’ said Magda. Clear blue eyes in a wizened face, the wrinkles exaggerated by the smile that engaged all her features – eyes, mouth, cheeks – she held his gaze for a moment, her expression affectionate, kind and teasing. Then she nodded, satisfied, and returned to her chair – a stool, actually. But, as she was a tiny woman, her spine still straight and strong, she preferred it to the cushioned chair the archbishop’s personal secretary, Brother Michaelo, kept offering her, which would leave her feet dangling in the air.

  Thoresby had grown fond of Magda. It was such an unlikely friendship that he smiled to himself thinking about it – a pagan healer and an archbishop. Magda Digby was a pagan as far as Thoresby could decipher, always quick to reject his prayers for her, though she gave of herself in a most Christian way. She was a midwife and healer, preferring to work among those who could not afford to pay her. She lived outside the city walls, close to the ramshackle huts of the poor, on a rock that was an island when the tide rolled upriver – many called her the Riverwoman. Owen Archer and his wife, the apothecary Lucie Wilton, had worked hard to convince Magda to come to Thoresby at Bishopthorpe. She had argued that he had the wealth to hire the best physicians in the realm. But Thoresby had observed first-hand her skill as she worked with a badly burned man a few years earlier, and the experience had opened his eyes to her profound work as a healer among the folk of York and the shire. He had decided he wanted none other caring for him at the end. He also knew she would not fuss, nor would she lie in an attempt to cheer him. There was a time when he’d condemned her, for he knew she helped women prevent unwanted births, tended some people with injuries they wished to hide from authorities, and performed other questionable services for those who could afford it in order to finance her work among the poor, but Thoresby had come to believe that her good works far outweighed those he must disapprove of as a leader of the Church.

  All must come to understand Magda Digby for themselves. She was unique.

  Unfortunately, his peaceful time in her care was soon to be interrupted. Later this day Joan, Princess of Wales, wife of Edward, the present King Edward’s eldest son and thus the future king of England, was coming to Bishopthorpe, bringing with her a highly recommended physician as an offering. Thoresby did not wish to see the physician, but to refuse him might cause too much official interest in Magda Digby’s presence. Some might consider her a heretic and oppose her presence or wish her harm, and he would be sorry to cause any discomfort to his new-found friend.

  He knew Princess Joan was bringing the physician as compensation for the advice she sought from him. In her letter proposing the visit, she had mentioned how the late Queen Philippa had sought Thoresby’s advice in both matters of state and personal issues, and had advised Joan to place her trust in him. Indeed, she had written, he was widely respected for his sage counsel. She need not have bribed him with compliments, for such a journey was not lightly undertaken, and he knew the seriousness of her situation. Her father-in-law, the king, was aged and vague, her husband, Prince Edward, had been suffering a wasting sickness for several years, her eldest son had died two years earlier and she feared her remaining son, Richard, might be called to the throne too soon, being but six years old. Thoresby’s goddaughter, Gwenllian Archer, was that age, and he could not imagine saddling her with adult cares. She was so young, so unformed, so vulnerable. He understood why the princess worried.

  Take the boy and your ailing husband and return to Bordeaux, where you were happy, Thoresby was
tempted to advise. But Joan was the granddaughter of Edward Longshanks, the present king’s grandfather; the daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, who had given his life for his brother; and she had been wed to two members of the Order of the Garter. She was not a woman who would run from her duty.

  Nor would Thoresby neglect his duty, despite Magda’s advice to refuse any visitations. In one of his first conversations with Magda he’d realised she had no idea of his status. She was unaware of the extent of his power as Archbishop of York, and hence the fierce competition among the various court and Church parties to have their representative chosen as his successor. Nor did she grasp the weight of his responsibility towards the Church and the government of the realm. No wonder she treated him as an equal, he’d thought, somewhat disappointed that it wasn’t a sign of a strong sense of her own personal worth. But, when her behaviour did not change after he’d explained his standing to her, he was strangely delighted.

  ‘You realise that the Church of Rome is more powerful than any individual kingdom?’ Thoresby asked her.

  ‘Magda is aware that churchmen use fear of terrible suffering after death to control most of her countrymen. That has been sufficient understanding of thy power for Magda’s purpose.’

  Thoresby did not for a moment believe that to be the true extent of her knowledge, but he’d proceeded to explain that his see, or archbishopric, included half of the souls of the realm, and that he controlled an immense wealth as well as the spiritual conscience of half the kingdom. ‘And, as former Lord Chancellor, I have considerable knowledge of the powerful families in the realm, their alliances, their ambitions – these same families expect me to use my influence to guide the dean and chapter of York Minster in their choice of my successor.’ Although the selection of the next Archbishop of York would affect not only the Church in the realm but also the political climate, it was the duty of a small group of men, the canons and the dean of York Minster, to choose Thoresby’s successor. ‘I’ve no doubt that they’ve spies everywhere trying to discover my intentions, whether or not I’ll push harder for votes for my nephew, so that they might know whether to support or undermine me.’