A Choir of Crows Read online

  ‘Dead?’ he asked.

  ‘Indeed.’

  Ave gratia plena …

  ‘Are you such a dolt you cannot appreciate such a voice? Bleating indeed.’ Michaelo huffed.

  ‘On such a night, it can only be the voice of the devil,’ Theo growled as at last he managed to turn the key and push wide the door. While he crouched to retrieve his lantern, Michaelo lifted his own and stepped past him into the echoing space. Theo shouted for him to halt, but Michaelo paid no heed, continuing until his light illuminated the singer.

  Now he stopped as he beheld a vision. A tall, ethereally pale youth with flaxen hair stood in the middle of the space with arms outstretched, slowly turning round and round as he sang … benedicta tu in mulieribus … In his right hand he held a dagger, as if warding off an attacker. Only when he faced the light did he discover his audience, going silent and still, and dropping his arms. Michaelo stepped closer, wrinkling his nose at the state of the youth’s clothing – stained and torn, his face smudged, his hair wild. He stank of sweat and fear. Another step and Michaelo noticed how the hand holding the knife shook, and what might commonly repel him made him wish to protect this soiled angel. It occurred to him that if Theo believed this youth to be in Michaelo’s charge he might release him without fuss. Though what he would then do with the lad, well, no time to think of that now.

  ‘So that is where you were hiding. You have been missed.’ Michaelo hoped his tone and words expressed just enough affectionate irritation. ‘I pray you, if you would permit me to deal with him …’

  Theo regarded him with distrust, then recognition. ‘Brother Michaelo. I am relieved to hear you know the intruder.’

  Michaelo nodded. ‘You see why he forbids you to go forth after twilight without escort? And the chapter house – the dean and chapter will not tolerate such an intrusion. Come now. Your uncle awaits us.’

  ‘But the man fallen from this very building—’ Theo began.

  ‘I assure you, this lad is no murderer,’ said Michaelo. An assumption, for of course he did not know, but he sensed – perhaps it was the smell of the lad. And how would a man sing so beautifully after committing such a sin?

  At first, the youth stared with mute puzzlement, then asked, ‘My uncle?’ Another pause. Michaelo searched for something to save the ruse, but at last the youth gave a wan smile. ‘Did Master Ambrose send you? God be thanked!’ As quickly as the smile appeared, it dissolved into a grimace. ‘I beg your forgiveness. I was locked in. I managed to sleep a while, but I was so cold. And frightened. I remembered that Master Ambrose said a mere whisper can be heard across this space, so I hoped a song might be heard without. I thought a shout might bring armed guards, whereas a song …’ He lifted a slender hand to his heart and bowed to them. ‘I pray you, forgive my trespass.’

  Spent the night here? Slept? His clothes suggested a different tale, damp, as if recently outside. On the roof? The lies gave Michaelo pause, but his instinct to protect held. He looked at Theo. ‘Is it not customary to ensure this room is empty before securing it for the night?’

  ‘I have never before found anyone within. Who is Master Ambrose?’

  Michaelo held out his hand to the youth. ‘A dagger offers poor protection against the dark. I will take that.’

  The youth hesitated.

  Michaelo stepped closer.

  With a mumbled, ‘I thought to protect myself,’ the youth surrendered the weapon, but shaking with such violence that Michaelo caught the dagger as it fell from the slender hand.

  ‘Protect yourself?’ Theo lifted his lantern, looked round. ‘I see no one else. And I don’t understand. You sang for help, then meant to resist?’

  ‘You might check up above,’ Michaelo suggested to Theo.

  Theo took a step back. ‘I am not armed.’

  ‘I am so cold!’ The youth hugged himself.

  No wonder, in wet clothing. ‘Find help,’ said Michaelo. ‘I will see to the lad.’

  ‘They say you now work with Captain Archer,’ said Theo. ‘Fetch him.’

  Michaelo bristled that the man would presume to order him about. ‘It is you who failed to search the chapter house before securing it for the night. See to yourself.’

  ‘I pray you.’ Beginning to slump, the youth clutched Michaelo’s arm.

  As he put his free arm round the youth’s torso to support him, Michaelo’s hand encountered the rounded breast of a young woman. God help him. He bit off an apology. The young woman continued to crumple.

  ‘Take this.’ He thrust his lantern at Theo, who took it without argument.

  ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘God knows,’ Michaelo muttered. Remembering the sledge he had uncovered near the outer door, he thought he might assist her that far. Putting both arms round his charge, he whispered to her, ‘Help me. If I ask this bumbling fool for help he, too, will discover your sex. It would go better for you if you summoned up all your remaining strength and helped me get you to safety.’

  He felt her try to recover, but the effort increased her now almost continual tremors and her flailing attempts to gain a footing worked against his efforts.

  ‘I pray you, do not fight me. If you can help me get you to the outer door, there is a sledge. I can pull you to safety.’

  Apparently she understood and eased her struggle, leaning into him. With her feeble assistance he managed to get her across the transept. How was it she’d sung with such strength when now she could barely keep her eyes open? Had he imagined it? Was Theo right, this was the devil’s work? In his heart, Michaelo did not believe it. He must believe God was working through him. Or her.

  They were heading down the aisle along the choir when Theo caught up, panting, his keys clanging. ‘I heard something within. The sound of someone on the steps.’

  The woman gripped Michaelo’s hand.

  ‘Did you have the sense to lock them in?’ Michaelo asked.

  Theo said nothing.

  ‘Fool.’

  ‘More the fool to walk into danger unarmed.’

  ‘How is locking the door walking into danger?’

  With a sniff, Theo demanded to know where Michaelo intended to take the youth.

  ‘To his lodgings,’ said Michaelo.

  ‘Not to his uncle?’

  Michaelo cringed at his own confusion. ‘Precisely.’

  ‘This Master Ambrose?’

  Michaelo was saved by the sound of the outer door opening. Two clerks bustled in, each carrying a lantern. Behind them was Master Adam, the precentor.

  Theo held up the two lanterns. ‘Master Adam.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ the precentor demanded. ‘Who is this?’

  Michaelo and Theo interrupted each other trying to explain.

  Adam waved them to stop. ‘One of our vicars has been murdered and a stranger lies dead, all in the minster yard. The stranger is believed to have fallen from the roof.’ He gestured up above them, then leaned close to the woman in Michaelo’s arms. ‘What do you know of this?’

  ‘Nothing, God help me.’ Her voice little more than a croak.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’

  ‘He is quite weak,’ said Michaelo. ‘I have all I can do to hold him upright.’

  ‘Injured?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Take him to Captain Archer. Tell him to hold him under suspicion of murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ Michaelo said. ‘Look how he shivers, how he can barely stand.’

  Adam brushed the hair from the woman’s eyes. ‘So fair. Were you defending your honor, son?’

  The woman hid her face in Michaelo’s shoulder.

  ‘Two men attacked him? Is that what you think?’ asked Theo.

  Adam stepped back, shaking his head. ‘I cannot believe it of Ronan.’

  Ronan. Michaelo inwardly crossed himself, remembering the exchange of cloaks. He yearned to ask if he meant that the murdered vicar was Ronan, but he dared not cause more delay. His strength was giving out. ‘
Theo heard someone up above,’ he said. ‘You would do well to investigate while I escort this lad to the archdeacon’s lodgings.’ Jehannes, Archdeacon of York, surely the precentor would accept his authority.

  ‘Not there. Captain Archer’s house.’

  Michaelo opened his mouth to protest that Owen’s children were ill, it was no time to impose on him, nor was he responsible for crimes in the minster liberty. But what was the alternative?

  ‘Help him,’ Adam ordered one of the clerks. ‘Theo, check the chapter house. Now!’

  With much muttering Theo handed Michaelo’s lantern to one of the clerks and turned back to the chapter house.

  ‘There is a sledge just outside the door,’ said Michaelo to the clerk. ‘I will pull the lad on it while you light the way.’

  A nod. God be thanked he did not insist on helping carry Michaelo’s charge.

  Outside, he directed the clerk to the sledge and had him brush off the accumulated snow, then settled the young woman on it. Blinking against the blowing snow, Michaelo pulled up his hood, then bent to the young woman, advising her to hold onto the sides of the sledge.

  The clerk warned him to step back as a group of men rushed past, lanterns swinging in their haste to follow others disappearing round the east end of the minster. Shouts echoed from somewhere in the minster yard.

  Two men dead, one possibly Ronan. Had he been mistaken for the white-haired man? Michaelo crossed himself and prayed that he was not delivering a murderer to Owen and Lucie.

  THREE

  Sanctuary

  As Owen stoked the kitchen fire he heard the maidservant stirring on her small bed behind the corner screen. Before she could ask, he said, ‘Hugh’s fever broke in the night. All three children are now on the mend.’

  ‘God be praised.’ Kate’s voice broke with emotion.

  The children’s illness had spread so quickly from Gwen to Emma to Hugh that their nursemaid had fled, certain it was pestilence, the memory of nursing her mother the past summer only to lose her and her brother too recent. I cannot bear to watch the children die. No matter that Owen’s wife Lucie, an apothecary, assured her it was catarrh, that the healer Magda Digby agreed. Lena could not be consoled. Truth be told, they had all worried that the worst might happen. But Lena’s panic had silenced the rest. No one dared breathe their worry, for fear it might somehow conjure the death. Kate’s tears – he now heard her weeping – were no surprise to Owen. He, too, had wept for joy.

  ‘No need to rise just yet,’ he said. ‘Your mistress and the children are asleep. Only Alisoun and I are wakeful.’

  Magda Digby had suggested that her apprentice Alisoun Ffulford bide with them as long as they needed her. Formerly nursemaid to the two eldest, she was a favorite. She had swept into the nursery with a basketful of remedies and treats, humming as she assisted Lucie and Owen with calm competence and singing to the children as she rocked them to sleep. The songs were familiar to Gwen and Hugh from their earlier years, inspiring comforting memories for all in the house. Gwen gamely attempted to croak along though she must all too often stop and gasp for air, unable to breathe through her swollen nose. When Emma’s fever broke, her first conscious act was to giggle at the sounds coming from her big sister. Alisoun seemed able to go without sleep for days, giving Lucie time to rest. All in the household trusted her, even Owen, who had found her difficult in the past.

  But even Alisoun could not hasten the children’s recovery, could not allay their worry. The dread of pestilence was ever-present. Lucie and her first husband had lost their only child to the scourge.

  Hours earlier, in the haunted time before dawn, Owen had held his son, his face buried in the boy’s fiery hair, praying for God to spare Hugh. ‘Take me, O Lord, take me.’ When the boy wriggled in his arms, Owen had tightened his grip, thinking he had gone limp and was slipping from his arms.

  ‘Da.’ The sound was little more than a sigh. But then damp fingers touched Owen’s cheek. Opening his one good eye, he found his son watching him. ‘Thirsty,’ Hugh lisped. Was there ever such a wonderful sound as his son’s voice? Ever such a tender touch?

  Owen had called for Lucie, and she was at his elbow in a heartbeat, cup in hand, whispering endearments as tears fell down her cheeks.

  ‘Is Hugh awake?’ Gwen had whispered from her cot.

  ‘Yes, my sweet,’ Alisoun said. ‘His fever has broken.’

  A moment so precious …

  A knock on the door startled Owen from his thoughts. Wiping both his eyes – even the sightless one shed tears – he resettled the patch over his left eye and rose, crossing the room in a few strides.

  Kate slipped out from behind the screen. ‘That might be Mistress Merchet with bread and ale. She’s brought them every day since the children fell ill.’

  Opening the door, Owen began to announce the news and stopped. It was not Bess Merchet, but Brother Michaelo and someone swathed in a cloak, leaning heavily against the monk for support.

  ‘Forgive me, Captain,’ said Michaelo, breathless.

  ‘God’s blood, Michaelo, you are not bringing sickness into our home?’

  ‘I would not have come, but the precentor insisted you hold this poor pilgrim until—’ His companion began to slide out of his grasp, the hood falling away to reveal a fair young woman.

  ‘What madness is this?’ Owen muttered as he caught her up in his arms and carried her to a pallet that Kate had already retrieved from the corner and was piling with cushions.

  ‘Poor woman. Ale or broth?’ Kate asked as she helped Owen peel away the damp cloak and remove the woman’s boots.

  ‘Brandywine, then broth.’

  Owen studied the woman. Worn boots, much-mended stockings, and tunic – a man’s tunic, her fair hair cut short. Her eyelids flickered now and then, and when Owen first began removing her boots she had kicked out, but his whispered reassurances quieted her. Or she was too weak to continue struggling. He noted that her stockings were surprisingly wet, the dampness elsewhere on her clothes. An icy draft reminded him of Michaelo, who still stood in the doorway.

  ‘You do me no favor sharing the fire with the garden. Step inside and close the door. Did you walk her here?’

  ‘No. Pulled her on a stoneworkers’ sledge. I left it in the tavern yard.’

  While Michaelo fussed with his boots, Owen tucked blankets around the woman and debated whether to call for Lucie or Alisoun. But his wife was finally enjoying some much-needed rest, and Alisoun had charge of the children. Kate knelt to the woman with a bowl and spoon.

  ‘She has been passing for a man?’ he asked as the monk came to crouch beside him.

  ‘She is as you see. Captain, I would not have brought her here – your children – but her disguise fooled the others and – I sensed a desperation.’

  ‘Hugh’s fever has broken. Lucie is resting at last, as I soon hoped to be.’

  ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘You said the precentor says I am to hold her?’

  ‘Master Adam. Yes.’

  ‘Why? And by what authority?’

  ‘It is a long story.’

  Owen rose. ‘Let us leave Kate to her task.’ Noticing how the monk winced as he tried to rise, Owen reached down to assist him. ‘She struggled?’

  ‘No, but she is so weak that she was of little help moving down the aisle and out of the minster. I did not want Theo or Master Adam’s clerks to assist. As I said, I thought it best they continue to think her a young man.’

  ‘The minster?’ Fetching the jug of ale and bowls, Owen sat down beside Michaelo, near enough to the fire, but far enough from the young woman that they might not disturb her. ‘Begin at the beginning.’ He poured for both of them.

  ‘Where to begin?’ Michaelo sat quietly for a moment, then described his night with the dying woman, Magda’s belated arrival, the walk home, the men’s shouts, the woman’s singing.

  The tale raised many questions, but Owen allowed him to finish, and then said nothing for a few moments, o
rdering his thoughts. Difficult after days with little sleep. The men’s shouts – so at least one of the deaths might have occurred before Michaelo and Theo entered the chapter house.

  ‘Adam thinks the woman did all this? Murdered a vicar in the minster yard, entered the chapter house, climbed the steps, pushed someone off the roof, or the other way round, and then burst into song?’ A clever ruse if one had the strength. But the woman could not keep her eyes open. Had she induced the stupor?

  ‘Struggling with someone up on the roof – he implied she might have fought someone off. So fair …’

  ‘You think the vicar might be Ronan? What do you know of him?’

  ‘A piece I forgot. Before I went to Mary Garrett I saw him in the minster with a stranger.’

  Owen listened with interest as Michaelo described the exchange of cloaks. Neville’s vicar and a stranger. ‘Was Ronan wearing the cloak when murdered?’

  ‘I do not know. Nor am I certain it was he.’ Michaelo had stared down at his cup while he gave his account. Now he sat up sharp. ‘She asked if Master Ambrose sent me.’

  ‘Ambrose?’ Why did the name take him back to the description of the fine cloak? ‘Tell me again about Ronan’s encounter. Everything you can recall about the stranger.’

  Michaelo described the flowing white hair, the cloak in detail.

  ‘French, you thought?’

  Michaelo smiled. ‘Not a thought. I know the fine tailoring of my country of birth.’ He was of a noble Norman family, a point of pride. ‘Yet he seemed familiar. Something in the way he moved, how he gestured with his hands. Beautiful hands. One can see he takes good care of them. Pale leather gloves.’

  Beautiful hands. Gloves. A man who had been in France. The name. Owen felt the familiar shower of needle pricks across his blind eye. But this morning it was hardly a premonition of trouble to come – trouble was here. And he believed he might know this Ambrose, an old acquaintance who had of late resided at the French court.

  ‘Who is this?’ Lucie spoke from the doorway to the hall.

  Owen rose. ‘Forgive us for waking you.’