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

caution that frustrated him – he was aching to stretch and move. When he found that the stone steps leading up to the palace doors had already been swept of snow, he took them two at a time. He found Brother Michaelo, secretary to the archbishop, awaiting him in the doorway to Thoresby’s private hall in his characteristically spotless Benedictine habit, an amused expression on his aristocratically bony face.
    ‘You are restless in the city, Captain?’ he asked in his Norman accent. ‘Or were you impatient to reach the top?’
    ‘Both,’ Owen said, catching his breath. For that to have winded him meant he needed far more activity than he had managed of late.
    Michaelo responded with an elegant shrug. ‘His Grace awaits you in his parlour.’
    ‘This is about the drowning?’
    Michaelo lowered his head slightly, his manner of nodding. ‘I warn you, His Grace rose quite early and is not in good temper.’
    ‘Thank you for the warning.’
    Owen found Thoresby sitting by a brazier in his parlour, his hands steepled before him, staring out the glazed window opposite that opened onto the winter garden. He slowly turned to acknowledge Owen.
    ‘You came in your own good time, Archer.’ His sunken eyes were difficult to read, but the irritation in his deep voice was quite clear.
    ‘I was filthy, Your Grace, and I did not wish to insult you with my state, so I washed.’ It was a safe lie, for Thoresby had an unusual fondness for bathing. Owen bowed to him and then took his seat beside a small table set with bread, cheese, and ale. ‘Your Grace is kind to think of me.’
    To Owen’s surprise, Thoresby broke out in deep-bellied laughter.
    ‘Kind? I did not think I would live to see the day when you called me kind.’
    ‘You are in a better humour than I expected.’ Owen wondered why Brother Michaelo had misled him. But it was a passing thought as he reached for the food; it was always a boon to be offered the hospitality of Maeve’s kitchen. He broke off a piece of the crumbly cheese and popped it into his mouth, followed by Maeve’s unparalleled pandemain, the softest, whitest bread under heaven.
    ‘Do you know about yesterday’s tragedy on the Abbey Staithe, Archer?’ Thoresby asked, serious once more. He poured water and wine from delicate flagons of Italian glass into a matching goblet, then sat back in his throne-like chair to sip it.
    Owen had not seen the flagon and goblet set before. As he washed down with the strong alewhat he’d managed to eat so far he wondered whether the mayor was still trying to win Thoresby’s trust with valuable gifts.
    ‘The abbey infirmarian sent for me,’ said Owen. ‘And Jasper had been on the staithe when Drogo went into the Ouse. I’ve not yet spoken to the bargemen.’ He went down the list of what he knew so far.
    Thoresby interrupted only when Owen came to Nicholas Ferriby’s unfortunate timing.
    ‘Do you believe it was pure chance?’
    ‘More than likely, Your Grace. Why would a guilty man risk stepping close to the man? But the fact is, Drogo was not yet dead at that point. It was hardly a miracle that his wounds bled. It is the way of crowds, forgetting their wits in their excitement.’
    ‘I don’t want the outcry about that incident to become part of the conflict between Ferriby and St Peter’s School,’ Thoresby said.
    ‘How would it?’
    Thoresby held his goblet with both hands and swirled the contents as he gazed down at it. ‘Such a crime would seal Nicholas Ferriby’s damnation – a scandal for both the clerical Ferribys. William would also suffer.’ He glanced up at Owen. ‘You think I’m losing my wits.’ He sighed. ‘I’m slower, more tired, but my wits are in order, Archer.’ He rose with a grunt and crossed over to the window, his simple clerical robes hanging loosely on his tall, increasingly gaunt frame. ‘They cannot understandwhy I count Ferriby’s school as nothing more than an annoying flea in the minster liberty, perhaps not