Read Online The Guilt of Innocents by Candace Robb - Free Book Online

has some amusing rules,’ said Jasper. ‘Pillows must be flat on the pallet or the lads will grow crooked. She reminds them to lie on their backs in bed. Though no one checks them during the night.’ He chuckled.
    ‘She is a dear, God-fearing woman,’ said Lucie, ‘but I’m grateful she wasn’t my matron.’ She and Jasper laughed.
    Though he was enjoying the lightness of the conversation, Owen was very tired and wanted to hear what else Jasper knew so that he might head for bed. So once more he turned to his son. ‘Tell me about Hubert’s disappearance.’
    Jasper shrugged. ‘There is little to tell. Several days back Master John missed him in class. The lads said he’d awakened that day at the Clee. One was sent to ask Dame Agnes if he was ill. She’d thought he was in class. Then Master John sent word to his ma in Weston, hoping that’s wherehe’s gone, but he’s still waiting for a reply. They’ve had the crier and the parish priests in the city ask for news of him. None of the gatekeepers had noticed him passing through, but I know they don’t see all who pass. I was able to hide from them when I needed to.’ Jasper had witnessed a murder and had been on the run when Owen and Lucie took him in. ‘Some close to Hubert said he was that upset about losing the scrip it sickened him.’
    ‘Weston? That’s a long way for a lad to travel,’ said Owen. ‘And dangerous.’
    ‘And with his scrip stolen, he’s no way to pay the ferryman,’ said Lucie, pressing Jasper’s hand. ‘It takes me back to when you were on the streets.’
    Owen did not like the sound of this. He did not want Lucie sinking into fear for her children as she had the previous autumn. ‘Tell me about Hubert,’ he said. ‘He must be well liked for you lads to go to such trouble to help him.’
    ‘He’s one of the younger scholars, so I don’t know him well. As I said, he’s a charity student this term. His da was away fighting for the king in La Rochelle, but, as I said, he and his lord survived. But we didn’t know that earlier today. I wonder whether he knows?’
    ‘So you thought to help the family,’ said Lucie.
    ‘Yes. But I think we’ve made it all worse.’
    ‘What more do you know of the lad?’ Owen asked.
    ‘He lost a brother and sister to the pestilence,so his ma’s alone now – was alone. He thought his place was at his mother’s side, not at school.’
    ‘Sounds like a serious young man.’
    Jasper nodded. ‘He’s quiet, but he’s not strangely quiet. Everyone likes him.’
    ‘He sounds like a model student,’ said Lucie.
    ‘Master John does not favour him in any way. Too quiet, I think – the master likes the spirited ones.’
    ‘Where would you guess he is?’ Owen asked.
    ‘Trying to find his way home, if not there already,’ said Jasper. ‘It’s all about his ma, I think, and feeling like he’s all she has left.’
    ‘I would say you should go to Weston, my love,’ said Lucie, beginning to rise. ‘Young Hubert is the person you must talk to.’
    Owen bowed his head. Only last night he’d returned from a few days at Bishopthorpe and he was not keen to set off again.
    Lucie and Owen lay in bed the following morning bundled up so that they would not freeze with the shutters open, watching the first snow of the season in the soft early light. It was a sweet moment for Lucie, with her joy in being in the arms of her love and feeling their child move in her womb. Yet even so, there was a shadow on her heart; it had been on the day of the first snow nine years earlier that her late husband Nicholas had fallen ill and what she thought she knew of those she loved had been turned on its head.
    ‘I hate to speak and shatter the grace of this moment,’ said Owen, reaching for her hand and holding it in both of his, ‘but I am worried that you will spend the morning kneeling in the garden.’
    It was Lucie’s custom to honour this anniversary with a vigil at Nicholas’s grave. Archbishop