The house that Hugh Calverley had found so intriguing was a house like any other, wattle and daub, waxed parchment windows that would hum and thrum in a North Sea gale, a jutting second story, a heavy oak door. A wrongheaded attempt at security, the door; beside it were patches in the wall where intruders had found the wattle and daub easier to break through.
Harry had led Owen, Ned, and Alfred to the house the previous night. They had sent Harry back to the castle and settled in for a long watch, crouching in the shadows, alert to every sound in the street, the skitter of rats, the splash of night waste, the hesitant steps of drunks and thieves out after curfew. But no one showed an interest in the house. No one entered, no one left. It appeared deserted.
Tonight was different. Early in the evening a pale glow through a rear window suggested occupation. When the darkness was complete and the street deserted, Owen motioned Ned to one side of the door, stationed himself on the other side. His ear to the narrow opening, Owen listened, his dagger ready. Ned leaned toward him, pointed to himself, Owen’s shoulders, the upper story.
Owen nodded. Ned took off his sword belt, handed it to Alfred, put one of his daggers in his mouth. Owen crouched down, hands on knees. Ned climbed onto his shoulders. Owen rose slowly. With his dagger, Ned poked at the waxed parchment, puncturing it, then sliced slowly, trying to be quiet. It was not a silent procedure, requiring some sawing of the waxed and weathered hide, but it was not a noise that the listener would necessarily find alarming. When Ned judged he had a sufficient opening, he tapped for Owen to lift him higher. Owen grabbed Ned’s ankles, lifted. Ned tumbled through the parchment, over the sill, and rolled to the floor.
Down in the street, someone else had judged the night to now be sufficiently advanced for stealth. He slipped toward Owen and Alfred, dipping in and out of doorways. “Is there some way to warn Ned?” Alfred whispered. Owen shook his head and pulled Alfred with him into the deep shadow across the street. The man checked round the house, then pressed his ear to the wall beside the front door and listened for a long while. At last he moved to the door, crouched down, slipped his dagger in the crack in the door, moved it up slowly, slowly, and at last gently pulled. The door opened silently. The man knew the workings of the door, that was plain.
When he had slipped inside, Owen and Alfred crept toward the house. A cry came from within, the sound of a struggle. Fearing it might be Ned, Owen rushed in. Two men stood in the middle of the room, daggers in hand, circling each other. One bled from a slice high on his arm. Ned was up above them, crouched at the top of the ladder; he nodded to Owen. The bleeding one suddenly noticed Owen and gave a shout, then dashed into the back room. Owen dashed after him while, with a shout, Ned leapt down, knocked the other backward.
Alfred took off after Owen, but they were both too late. The bleeding man had disappeared down the dark back alley.
When they returned, Ned was busy tying his captive’s hands.
Owen picked up the lantern that lit the room, opened its shutter all the way, and went off to search the house for more intruders or clues as to who belonged here. The house was simply furnished, a pallet in the upper sleep loft and a chest—empty; downstairs a trestle table and two benches in the front room, two pallets and another chest in the back room. The latter chest held a man’s clothes. Nothing to give Owen any idea why Hugh had watched the house or who the two men were.
Owen returned to the front room. “Time for a walk up to the castle.” He shined the lantern on Ned’s captive. Ned yanked the man up by his tied hands. He bled from the nose and mouth. Owen found a rag and wiped his face.
“Come on, stand up,” Ned said, jerking the man off his knees.
The man stood, but kept his head down, as if hiding his face. He was average height, but stocky, broad-chested, with muscular arms and legs. He was the one who had stolen into the house while Alfred and Owen watched. The other had been tall and skinny. “What’s your name?” Owen asked. The man did not respond.
Alfred grabbed him by the hair, jerked his face up. “Murdering bastard!” Alfred shouted and got in two punches, one in the mouth, one in the groin, before Owen got him off the man.
“I cannot have you silencing him, Alfred. We need to talk to him.” Owen put the lantern down on the table and helped the man back onto his feet, wiped his face again.
“You killed Colin, you bastard,” Alfred shouted, lunging toward him again.
Owen pushed Alfred away, walked the man over to the lantern light. “So you are the man who was watching St. Clement’s?” He studied the man. Dark, thinning hair, bushy eyebrows. That was about all he could tell at present, with the swelling and bleeding. “Perhaps you would tell us your name so we can call you something other than bastard.”
“What good will that do you?” The man’s words slurred round his swollen tongue. He coughed. “I was not the one killed his friend.”
“What was your purpose here tonight?”
“Unfinished business.”
“Are you one of Captain Sebastian’s men?”
He stared at the floor.
Owen shrugged. “Someone at the castle will know you.”
Hugh Calverley’s manservant identified him as Edmund, one of Captain Sebastian’s men. He guessed the other one to be Jack, often in Edmund’s company. Harry knew nothing else of use.
“So what is this unfinished business between two of Sebastian’s men?” Owen asked.
Edmund’s dark eyes were wild with fear. “You have killed me, breaking in before I could finish him. Letting him escape.”
“You meant to kill Jack?”
“Or die in the attempt.”
“On Sebastian’s orders?”
Edmund pressed his lips together and said nothing, but his eyes burned into Owen.
Two of Percy’s retainers took Edmund off to clean his wounds and keep him under guard.
While Ned and Owen slept, Louth went down to the house with some of Percy’s men and searched it. They found a jacket with a St. Sebastian emblem sewn inside; in a small chest hidden behind paneling they found gold coins and a St. Sebastian seal. All in all, proof of little except that they were on the right track.
Ned, Louth, and Owen summoned Edmund to a meeting.
Louth presented the jacket. Edmund shrugged. “Folk put all sorts of patterns on their clothing. I favor a plain fashion, myself. As you can see.”
Louth showed him the chest with the seal. Owen noted that Edmund looked less comfortable. “A nice piece of metalworking.”
Louth pretended to study it for the first time, holding it up to a lamp, turning it this way and that. “Indeed. Quite skillful.” Sir William Percy had noted it was not exactly the same as the one they had lost to Longford.
Owen grew impatient. “We believe it belongs to a Captain Sebastian, whom the King has sent us to find. You can point us toward him.”
Edmund’s eyes widened. “King Edward sent you?” His tone was less surly.
Louth nodded.
“Captain Sebastian must be important.”
Louth shrugged. “There are many ways in which to be important. Your captain is about to fight on the wrong side of his King. An unpleasant sort of importance.”
“What is that to me?” Edmund’s face was round, almost childish, though his thinning hair refuted youth. His voice was low and soft. His manner, now that he was not attacking, almost courteous. His thick brows arched now as he tried to keep his face impassive. A futile effort, for his eyes were expressive.
Louth held up the King’s letter.
Owen noticed that Edmund’s eyes roamed over the letter, stopping nowhere. “You cannot read?”
Edmund blushed. “I’m no clerk. Neither are you, I’d wager.”
Owen grinned. “You are right that I am no clerk, but wager I cannot read and you would be out some money.” He sat close to Edmund, stretched out his legs, folded his arms across his chest. “So you’re no clerk. What are you, then?”
Edmund shifted his eyes back and forth, as if remembering a rehearsed answer, which came after too long a pause to be believed. “A shipwright.”
Owen looked Edmund up and down. On his face, neck and hands, his fair skin was freckled from the sun and his hands were calloused, but he did not look weathered enough for a shipwright. Owen noted another usefully readable part of Edmund’s anatomy, his mouth, which puckered when he was not comfortable with what he had just said, as now. But Owen pretended to take his reply seriously. “A shipwright. I suppose that is a common trade here. And you were in York watching St. Clement’s for—Let’s see. Perhaps the sisters owe money on a ship you built them?”
Edmund looked down at his feet, pressed his lips together.
Louth looked from Owen to Edmund, puzzled.
Owen let the silence drag on.
After several minutes in which nervous sweat slicked down the sparse hairs at his temples, Edmund lifted his troubled eyes and asked, “What does the King offer Captain Sebastian?”
Owen nodded toward Ned, who came forward with a leather money pouch, shook it.
Edmund tilted his head, considering the weight. “Show me.”
Ned opened the pouch, shook a few gold coins into his hand.
Edmund raised an eyebrow. “The King is so generous to a would-be traitor?”
Ned put the coins back in the pouch. “The King allows that the captain might not realize this is a treasonous act,” Ned said. “And, in truth, Captain Sebastian and his men are of more use to the King fighting for Don Pedro than hanging from a gibbet.”
Edmund took a deep, shuddering breath. “The King is wise.”
Ned grinned. “So you admit to knowing Captain Sebastian?”
Edmund wiped his forehead. “What would it be worth to me?”
Owen leaned back, looked up at the ceiling, scratched his tidy Norman beard. “Your life?” He brought his eye back down to Edmund. “Would that suit you?”
Edmund hunched his shoulders, looked down at his hands. “I do not know how this game is played.”
Dangerously honest for the role he had taken on. Owen stood, looked out the high, recessed window, hands clasped behind him.
Louth, uncomfortable with silences, took over. “You killed one of the archbishop’s retainers as he was escorting you to a meeting with the archbishop, Edmund. Your life was not threatened. So you murdered a man for no cause, a man who wore the livery of the archbishop, who also happens to be our King’s Chancellor. Such a deed is punishable by death. But if you assist us in the matter of Captain Sebastian, we shall perhaps spare your life.”
Edmund’s eyes shone with fear. “I tell you I did not kill him. I merely ran to the men who were to help me if I got caught.”
“You led him to his death then,” Owen said quietly.
Edmund hung his head.
Owen resumed his seat, leaned toward Edmund confidentially. “What was it you wanted at St. Clement’s that you did not dare speak with the archbishop?”
Edmund crossed his arms, clenched his jaw.
Owen smelled his fear. “Why did you attack Jack? Was he with you in York?”
“What will you do with me?”
“That depends. Will you help us, Edmund? For the freedom to walk down into the town on your own?”
Edmund, eyes still fixed on his feet, sighed. “That you cannot do for me. Once Jack tells the captain that I attacked him, I will be marked for death myself.”
“Why did you attack him?”
“He is a murderous devil.”
“Some folk might say the same of you.”
Edmund shrugged.
“So what do you want from us, Edmund? Protection from Jack?”
The expressive eyes slid sideways. “I no longer know whom to trust.”
Owen decided to change the subject for now. “Where is Will Longford?”
Edmund’s eyes shifted from Owen to Louth to Ned, back to Owen. “You do not know where he has gone either?”
“You have not seen him since you came searching for him in Beverley?”
“No.”
Owen believed him. “When did you last see him?”
“Last time I saw him in Beverley.” Edmund tried a smile.
“You think to charm us with your wit?” Owen did not smile.
“When did you last see Longford in Beverley?” Louth asked.
Edmund stared at his shoes.
“Who owns the house we followed you into last night?” Owen asked.
“Captain Sebastian.”
Owen cheered up. “Indeed. Does he ever stay there?”
“The captain is no fool.” Edmund studied his dirty nails. “What is your interest in Will Longford?”
“Sir Nicholas found a letter in his house from Bertrand du Guesclin, the French king’s Constable. I should like to talk to Longford about du Guesclin.”
“As I said, Longford’s disappeared. I don’t know where he’s gone.”
“When did he disappear?”
Edmund pressed his hands together to keep them still. “Longford and his man Jaro were expected here in late April and they never arrived.” He took a deep breath. “Captain Sebastian sent me to Beverley to remind them. But they were not there. No one had seen them.”
“So you went to Longford’s house,” Owen said. “Did you search it?”
A pained look passed over Edmund’s face. He nodded. “After—” He dropped his head, put a hand to his forehead. “Yes. I went through the house.”
“After what, Edmund?” Louth’s voice was sharp with tension.
Edmund sat there for a few minutes, head in hand. The guard opened the door to a servant carrying a pitcher and four tankards. A table was set up between Edmund and his questioners, the pitcher and tankards placed on it. The servant bowed and backed out, the guard closed the door. And still Edmund sat. Owen poured the ale, offered one to Edmund.
Edmund took it with shaking hands, held it up to his mouth with both hands, drank, set it back down, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “The maid. Jack killed her.” Louth moaned. “Acting on no one’s orders. To clear the way for the search, he said. She was not important, he said.” Edmund’s eyes were haunted.
“Who is this Jack?” Owen asked.
“That bastard you let flee last night.”
“And he was your partner?”
“No. Well, of late I have worked with him. I did not know him well, and I sent him in first, never thinking—” Edmund grabbed up the tankard, took another, long drink.
“It was not because Maddy was wrapped in a mantle and mistaken for Dame Joanna?” Louth asked.
Edmund shook his head. “How do you know when such a devil crouches in the shell of what seems to be an ordinary soldier?”
“Captain Sebastian sent him with you?” Ned asked.
Edmund nodded.
“Have you told him what Jack did?” Owen asked.
“I have. He said that it was in the nature of a good soldier to act ruthlessly when needed, that I was too womanly in my aversion to such acts.”
“The unfeeling bastard!” Louth hissed.
Owen had heard such theories before. The old Duke had not tolerated such captains; he’d said that such an attitude was an incompetent captain’s substitute for good sense and courage. In Owen’s experience, it might also hide a deeper motive. Perhaps it had been the mantle that signed Maddy’s death warrant. Perhaps Captain Sebastian had ordered Jack to kill Dame Joanna; no need for Edmund to know. “Did you find what you sought in Longford’s house?” Owen asked.
“No.”
“What was it?”
Edmund was silent.
Some loyalty to Captain Sebastian remained? “And then you followed Dame Joanna to St. Clement’s?”
Edmund drew himself up, looked Owen in the eye. “I have been thinking all night. As you see, the captain is unhappy with me. And will be more so when Jack gets to him. I cannot bring Captain Sebastian to you. But I will tell you what I can.”
“What do you ask in return?”
“Information about Joanna Calverley.”
Owen cocked his head to one side. “What do you want to know?”
“Has a man been to see her in York? Fair-haired. Handsome.”
“No.”
“No one has been to see her?”
“As far as I know, the only one who tried was you, Edmund. Why do you ask?”
Edmund watched a spider moving toward him, reached out with his foot, crushed it. “She disappeared with my partner.”
Ah. Now they made progress. “And would this partner’s name be Stefan?”
Edmund looked surprised. “How did you know?”
“Did you and your partner bring Joanna to Scarborough?”
Edmund fidgeted uneasily. “What has she told you?”
“Very little.”
Edmund frowned. “She is a strange one. I cannot see why Stefan is so taken with her.”
“Was it Stefan who gave her the blue mantle, told her it was the Blessed Virgin’s?”
Edmund smiled a little. “I did. We thought we would have a bit of fun. That was when Stefan was still playing with her. You could get her to believe anything.”
“Did you take part in the false funeral?”
Edmund rubbed his face, threw his head back.
Owen recognized the signs of exhaustion. Good. “How did she get you to help her?”
“Longford got us to help.” Edmund shook his head. “I have done strange things in my time, but when he came up with the idea to playact her death and burial…” He shook his head.
“So it was Longford’s idea?”
Edmund thrust his chin out in a defensive pose. “She asked for it, make no mistake. She wanted the trail to end in Beverley. Didn’t want her kin or the Church to come after her. I don’t know whether it was the relic she’d stolen or what, but she wanted to vanish.” Edmund fidgeted, rounding his back, then straightening and stretching his arms out in front of him, pulling on his hands, stretching his upper back.
“And Joanna liked the idea of the burial?” Owen asked.
“By that time she had no choice. Longford had a use for her, so she would do as he said or else.”
So she had not been pleased with the scheme. Probably frightened. “Tell me about the burial.”
Edmund shrugged. “Little to tell. Stefan and I slipped her out of the shroud while Jaro got the gravedigger drunk. The gravedigger passed out, we filled in the grave, rode off with Joanna hidden in a cart.”
“Was she drugged?”
Edmund nodded. “Jaro concocted something. I think he gave her too much. It took a while to wake her.”
“So Jaro was still alive when you left?”
Edmund frowned, looked round at the solemn, intent faces. “Why? He isn’t now?”
“Jaro is buried in the grave you filled in on Joanna’s shroud,” Ned said. “Neck broken.”
Edmund fell silent over this news. He scratched his knee. “I knew nothing of this.”
And why would he say otherwise? “Who would want to kill him?” Owen asked.
Edmund rubbed his temples wearily. “I hardly knew him. He was a good cook, seemed loyal to Longford. They were not gentlemen, Captain Archer. I am sure they made enemies wherever they went.”
From what Owen had heard from Louth and Ravenser, that seemed true. Enough of that. “How did you meet Joanna Calverley?”
Edmund straightened up. “She came to Longford with a relic to sell. We arrived the next day.”
“This was another trip ordered by Captain Sebastian?”
“Yes. To summon Longford.”
“Summoning Longford has become a regular task.”
Edmund nodded. “The way grows familiar.”
“And he introduced you to Joanna?”
“Not immediately. He had given her something to keep her asleep while he thought how best to use her.” Edmund looked round at the men. “You see why I say they made enemies.”
“How did he involve you?” Louth asked.
“He had come up with a plan. We’d use her to get to her brother. Longford was obsessed with Hugh. He thought since he had once made a fool out of Hugh, well, Hugh being so crazy, he must be just biding his time, plotting his revenge. So Longford wanted us to get Hugh out in the open where Captain Sebastian could find him.”
“And you agreed?” Owen asked.
“Stefan and I, we thought we might have some fun with it, see what Hugh would do. And we did not want to leave any young woman with Longford.”
“What did you mean to do with Joanna after Hugh was sufficiently teased with her?”
Edmund shrugged. “Abandon her, I suppose. She is very fair. She would not be without a protector for long. As it turned out, Stefan wanted to keep her by him.”
Owen winced at the cold-bloodedness of it. “So what happened?”
“She was trouble from the first. She cast a spell over Stefan. He has been a fool since we took her from Beverley.”
“So where is Stefan now?”
“That is what I want to find out. Joanna is back in York and Stefan’s gone. I want to know what happened.”
“What do you think happened?”
Edmund shrugged. “The fool’s gone off to fight a dragon for her, that’s what I think. He cannot do enough for her. Fine clothes. Feather beds.”
Owen frowned. “Fight a dragon?”
“He saw himself as her defender. Got funny about the Hugh Calverley part of the plan. Told her not to go near him, that Hugh would be blamed for her escape from the convent and the sham burial. That either Sebastian or the Percies would punish him severely. Stefan knew she would not wish to hurt Hugh. He told her they would find some other way to reunite her with her brother.”
“You had nothing to say about that? Seems to me he was going against your plan.”
“He kept assuring me he had a new, better one.”
“And you believed him?”
Edmund hesitated, shook his head.
Owen settled back, stretched his legs. “So Joanna did not know Stefan before she met him at Longford’s?”
“No.”
“Are you sure of that? Strange that you would arrive the day after she did. A rendezvous?”
Edmund shook his head. “Stefan and I have been partners a long time, Captain.”
“You are certain they had not planned the meeting at Longford’s?”
“I am certain they did not. He’d never seen her before. I told you she has cast a spell on him. I have never known him to bed another woman more than once.”
“Why?”
“That is how he is faithful to his wife.”
“Wife? So Stefan is a citizen of Scarborough, not a member of Sebastian’s Free Company?” This could be the reason Joanna chose to return to the convent.
Edmund shook his head. “Stefan is of Sebastian’s company. His wife and family are in Norway. He sends them money.”
An interesting circumstance. “He prefers to be away from them?”
“You judge him without knowing him. Stefan had trouble there. He is waiting for better times. Perhaps a pardon.”
Owen had known men in that position. Their loyalties could be difficult to judge. “Do you think Joanna found out he is married?”
Edmund shrugged. “I was not a part of their private conversations.”
Owen pushed that thought aside for a moment. “So you traveled to Beverley in May, seeking Longford?”
Edmund nodded. “We did not find him. But we did hear of Joanna’s return.”
“Did you speak with her?”
“By the time I got there, she was locked up in the nunnery.”
“So you followed the company to York.”
Edmund shrugged.
“What did you mean to do with Joanna when you found her?”
“Find out what has happened to Stefan.”
“Why did you not approach Sir Richard de Ravenser or Sir Nicholas and ask to speak with Joanna?”
Edmund glanced at Louth. “With the death of the maid I did not think I would be courteously received.”
“You hate the fact that Joanna came between you and your partner,” Owen suggested.
Edmund groaned. “You are intent on thinking the worst. I can tell you and Ned have fought together. How would you feel if he disappeared suddenly? And his leman? Then she showed up somewhere else and was shut away and guarded so you could not even ask her what had happened? You couldn’t find Ned, you couldn’t speak with the only person who might tell you where he was?”
A cry from deep in the heart of the man. He was not at all the outlaw Owen had thought. He would provide no simple answers. “I would feel much as you seem to.”
They did not speak for a while. Owen stood, looked up at the sky visible in the window, stretched his back. He felt a sadness about this man and his friend. Stefan, exiled from his country, leaving behind a wife and children. And Edmund. What of Edmund? Where were his true loyalties?
It was Edmund who broke the silence. “I care about Stefan. I want to see him at peace with himself. He has not been so. He told me he felt his soul was in peril, that his love for Joanna was a grievous sin, but he could not help himself.”
“A grievous sin because she was a nun?”
“All of it. Her vows, his marriage vows, his children, our using her against her brother—and I suppose he was thinking more about not using her against Hugh.”
Thorny. But such complications were part of love, at least in Owen’s experience. He had wanted Lucie from the moment he saw her, when she was still married, and Owen was apprenticed to her husband. “You must have a theory about happened between Stefan and Joanna.”
Edmund had fallen to scratching his knee again. He stared down at the blood seeping through his leggings. He turned his head this way and that, finally looking up at Owen, his eyes sad. “They disappeared about the time that Hugh Calverley was murdered. At first I thought Stefan took Joanna away so that she would not hear. But when I discovered that she was traveling alone—” He threw up his hands.
“Joanna was fond of her brother?”
Edmund rolled his eyes. “She spoke of him as if he were the perfect soldier, the perfect brother. God had blessed him with all virtues befitting a man.”
“An opinion you did not share.”
“Hugh Calverley was a beast, plain and simple.”
“But Joanna did not feel that way.”
“Not at all.”
“How about Stefan?”
“I think he was trying to see Hugh from Joanna’s eyes.”
“Then you would not think it likely that they murdered Hugh Calverley, ran away, then decided to separate for a while, or forever, for their souls?”
Edmund shook his head. “No. I am certain that is not what happened.”
“Who do you think murdered Hugh?”
“The man had many enemies, Captain Archer.”
“And what of Stefan’s disappearance? What has Captain Sebastian done about it?”
“Precious little. A few half-hearted searches.” Edmund sighed. “I believe he thinks Stefan murdered Hugh.” He nodded at Owen’s raised eyebrow. “Another reason I am out of favor. The captain thinks I helped, and then Stefan ran away with the sister.” Edmund pressed his palms to his forehead. “Ever since that woman came into our lives, nothing has gone right. I want to return to York with you. I want to speak with Joanna and find Stefan.”
Owen glanced at Louth and Ned. Ned shrugged. Louth shook his head. “How do we know we can trust him?”