I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Patricia H. Cullum for her extensive work on St Leonard’s Hospital, and her patience with my questions. Jeremy Goldberg, Joe Nigota, Carol Shenton, and the knowledgeable and generous members of Mediev-l, Chaucernet, and H-Albion for responding to my queries with facts and bibliographies. Any mistakes are my own.

Research for this book was conducted on location in York and at the University of York’s Morrell Library, the British Library, and the libraries of the University of Washington, with additional critical materials from the York Archaeological Trust and my colleagues on the internet.

Along with the concept, the meaning of the word ‘hospital’ has changed, and one might almost say contracted, over time. St Leonard’s, York, encompassed most of the definitions provided by the OED: ‘A house or hostel for the reception and entertainment of pilgrims, travellers, and strangers; a hospice. A charitable institution for the housing and maintenance of the needy; an asylum for the destitute, infirm, or aged. A charitable institution for the education and maintenance of the young. An institution or establishment for the care of the sick or wounded, or of those who require medical treatment.’ St Leonard’s was, additionally, a monastic house, and it daily provided alms to the poor of York and fed the inmates of the York Castle prison. Hence, it was of tremendous importance to the city. There were other hospitals in York, but none was so diverse in purpose, none touched on so many aspects of the people’s lives. Most were more specialised, caring for lepers, ailing clergy, wayfarers, the poor, and, increasingly, guilds provided care for their own ill and elderly. A speciality not found was pestilence.

The pestilence of 1369 was the third visitation of the plague. Records of this outbreak are sketchy, but most agree that it took mostly the elderly or infirm and children, which suggests to our modern way of thinking that people were building up an immunity. Rosemary Horrox sums up fourteenth-century theories of the plague’s causes: ‘Scientists were agreed that the physical cause of plague was the corruption of the air – or, rather, since air was an element and could not change its substance, the mixing of air with corrupt or poisonous vapours, which when inhaled would have a detrimental effect on the human body. Where they differed was in the explanations they gave for the corruption. Some causes were obvious. Everyone agreed that the air could be poisoned by rotting matter, including dead bodies, or by excrement or stagnant water. Naturally enough, suspicion was extended to anything which smelt unpleasant . . . [thus] suggested precautions against plague always include a recommendation to surround oneself with pleasant smells.’ Yet day to day life had to go on, so people became creative about portable sources of positive scents. Some of their preventatives might have had the incidental effect of repelling fleas or creating an environment unappealing to rats, which may have accidentally saved some people.

Gathering the victims together in an infirmary was absolutely contrary to the wisdom of the times. The sick were isolated, as far as was possible, and the healthy were advised to avoid crowds. I thought it an interesting situation in which to study St Leonard’s, to show how the role of a hospital in a community has changed. Richard de Ravenser goes to York not to give moral support to his people working among the plague victims but to see to the hospital’s finances and shore up its reputation. The plague had no particular significance to the Master of St Leonard’s.

One of the few charitable institutions that survived the Conquest, St Leonard’s was popularly said to have been founded by King Athelstan in 936 as a hospice, or guesthouse for wayfarers (not the canons of the minster). It was known as St Peter’s Hospital until the late twelfth century, as it was administered by the canons of York Minster, or St Peter’s. An estimated 300 people populated the precinct, which extended from Footless Lane almost to Petergate, and from Lop Lane to the south wall of St Mary’s Abbey. The full complement of staff of the hospital included a master, at least thirteen brethren, lay brothers, eight sisters, plus clerks, servants and lay sisters. In the fourteenth century, the mastership of the hospital, by then known as St Leonard’s, was in the King’s patronage, although Richard de Ravenser, being the Queen’s Receiver, may have owed his appointment to the Queen. Of course, he was also the nephew of John Thoresby, Archbishop of York.

The work of the hospital was financed by the Petercorn, a grant of thraves (or a measure of grain, roughly twenty-four sheaves), one from every plough (or about every 120 acres) in the diocese of York. After the first visitation of the Black Death, the income from the Petercorn did not keep pace with prices and wages; poor harvests such as that of 1368 aggravated the problem. The hospital received endowments of land, churches and mills, which brought additional income, but the dwindling of the Petercorn had encouraged former masters of St Leonard’s to sell corrodies for quick cash. A corrody was rather like an investment in a retirement home – a sum of money paid in return for not only room and board but also medical and spiritual aid. Difficulties arose when corrodies were sold for flat fees; many corrodians lived longer than expected, and thus cost the hospital. The King, being the hospital’s patron, also used St Leonard’s and other establishments as repositories for ageing servants; and the King paid no fee for these corrodians.

As Keeper of the Hanaper and Queen’s Receiver, Richard de Ravenser proved himself adept at finance. In 1363 the King promoted Ravenser’s Keeper status to a clerk of the first grade. Also in this year, the King gave Ravenser, as the Queen’s Receiver, the task of clearing the queen’s considerable debts. So it is not surprising that during his mastership of St Leonard’s (1363–84), Ravenser placed priority on improving the hospital’s financial situation. He refused to sell corrodies for flat fees; instead he sought to increase the hospital’s valuable and appreciating property holdings in the city in the form of messuages and tenements in return for corrodies and obits (offerings for annual memorial masses on behalf of the deceased).

I thought the issue of corrodians outliving their welcome a situation ripe for a murder mystery. And had Ravenser not been a real historic figure, I doubt I could have resisted implicating him in some convenient deaths. But the more I read about Ravenser, the more I felt that his flaw was more likely to be an obsession with balanced ledgers and good reputation and a lack of intuition concerning the people in his charge.

But one evening in 1995, during a congenial dinner in York, Patricia Cullum mentioned the lay sisters who began to appear, perhaps in the late fourteenth century, at St Leonard’s. And slowly Anneys began to form in my imagination: a widow taking minor vows as a lay sister in order to move about the city and the hospital without bringing much attention to herself. It was convenient (for me) that the lay sisters lived outside the hospital, in the city. And as they were little more than servants, I thought it unlikely anyone would be terribly interested in their backgrounds or their activities when they were not on duty.

Plague and the Queen’s death were interesting complications. It is unclear when John Thoresby dismantled Sherburne for its stones, but I thought it fitting that he would have done something so drastic at this time, with his city in turmoil and the Queen on her death-bed.

Queen Phillippa did not die of plague; she had been ailing for years, and in the summer of 1369 she took a turn for the worse. Many say that when Phillippa died, Edward III lost his anchor. Unless, of course, one considered Alice Perrers a fitting substitute. Froissart reports that on the Queen’s death-bed she asked the King to grant three wishes: that he would honour her debts, and her bequests, and that when he died he would be buried beside her at Westminster. The King tearfully agreed. By tradition, her death-bed was donated to the clergy. The hangings and coverlets were made into vestments for the clergy of York Minster, in memory of her wedding in the cathedral. Her subjects had loved her dearly, and she was deeply mourned. Her body was taken down the Thames as far as the Tower so that her funeral procession would move through the crowds in London on its way to Westminster. She was buried in earth brought from the Holy Land.

By many accounts, the infamous Alice Perrers did indeed give birth to a daughter christened Blanche in this year. A tribute to John of Gaunt’s late wife? Or a not-so-subtle clue as to the father? Interestingly, not all accounts of Alice’s life include a daughter by this name. She remains ever the enigma.

There were also some whose duties delayed their flight. As Keeper of the Hanaper and the Queen’s Receiver, Richard de Ravenser was one such, and even he hoped to depart for the north by the week’s end in order to deal with disquieting matters concerning St Leonard’s in York, which had been relayed to him in a letter from one of his canons. Ravenser was master of the great hospital.

Equally unnerving was the summons to London that he had just received from his uncle, John Thoresby, Archbishop of York. It seemed an odd time for his uncle to choose to journey to London when he might have remained secluded and relatively safe at Bishopthorpe. Ravenser did not mind the short ride from Westminster to London, but he wished he knew his uncle’s purpose. Presumably he had arrived recently, for Ravenser had heard nothing of his uncle’s presence in the city. Which meant Thoresby’s business with Ravenser had some urgency. He was to attend Thoresby at his house at sext, which gave him little more time to prepare than it would take to arrange for a horse to be brought round.

Thoresby was in London examining the deeds to his palace at Sherburne so that he could ascertain whether he had the right to tear it down for its stones, with which he might complete the chapel. But this morning a missive had arrived that he must discuss with his nephew, Richard de Ravenser.

It was well for Ravenser that he arrived at the prescribed time. Thoresby already felt impatient with his nephew. What was not so clever was Ravenser’s choice of garb: a costly blue silk houppelande and bright green leggings. The silk would be ruined by the man’s sweat, which Thoresby thought considerable. Remarkable that such a slender man could work up such a lather on the brief ride from Westminster.

‘You would rival the peacocks in any garden,’ Thoresby said. It was impossible to tell whether Ravenser blushed, he was already so red. Red, sweaty, dressed like a peacock – and looking with every season more like Thoresby himself, though more pinched in the mouth and desperate round the eyes.

‘Your Grace.’ Ravenser bowed. ‘I came as quickly as I might.’

‘No time to change into something more elegant?’

A surprised look. ‘I confess I dressed whilst awaiting my steed and escort.’ Ravenser frowned down at his clothes. ‘A poor choice?’

‘They tell me that you aspire to my position. Do they speak true, Richard?’

Ravenser glanced at a chair. ‘May I?’

‘You are weary from your ride. Of course.’ Thoresby watched his nephew smooth the back of his garment, flutter the sleeves so they might drape over the arms of the chair. His taste for finery was more suited to court than to chancery or the Church. ‘Wine?’

The Queen’s Receiver glanced up with a guileless smile. ‘That would be a great comfort.’ Thoresby guessed it was the quality of Ravenser’s smile, so unexpected in a man of his status, that pleased the Queen. It made him seem an innocent in a world of ministers cynical from experience.

‘If it is true that your ambitions lie in the Church, I would recommend that you adopt a more clerical look,’ Thoresby said.

Ravenser looked stricken. ‘Your comment about peacocks was not in jest?’

‘Hardly.’

A servant slipped from the corner of the room, poured watered wine into two Italian glass cups, offered one to Ravenser from the tray. He took it, drank thirstily. The servant stood by, ready to refill the cup. After the second, Ravenser sighed happily and drew out a linen cloth to dab at his lips.

Thoresby lifted the offending missive with the tip of his finger, nodded for the servant to hand it to Ravenser. ‘I received this today. I thought you might wish to discuss it.’

Ravenser’s eyes fell to the bottom of the missive, and he frowned. ‘Roger Selby, the mayor? But what of William Savage?’

‘He died in late May. You had not heard? Selby was sworn in on the feast of St Barnabas.’

‘God be thanked,’ Ravenser muttered.

‘Oh? I always found Savage a reasonable man.’

‘The office had gone to his head.’

‘No, it was his heart gave out.’ Thoresby allowed a brief smile.

Ravenser winced.

Thoresby wondered what had transpired between the dead man and his nephew. But he must see to the matter for which he had summoned Ravenser. ‘Read the letter, Richard. We must discuss it.’

As Ravenser read Selby’s letter, he coloured. Thoresby saw it quite clearly now that his nephew had caught his second wind. At last Ravenser dropped the letter on the small table beside him, leaned on one elbow, chin in hand. Not so elegant now.

‘The reputation of York’s religious houses is precious to me, Richard. What do you know of this Honoria de Staines?’

‘Sweet Jesu, uncle, she is a lay sister, no more than a servant to the sisters who tend the sick.’

‘And she has been allowed to carry on her earlier profession in her hours away from the hospital?’

‘No! Savage slandered the hospital without cause. The lay sisters live together under one roof in a house belonging to the hospital. A sinner amongst them would be reported, I am certain.’

‘Tell me about this woman.’

‘Fair and fond of men they say. Her husband went to fight for the King and has not returned.’

‘How did she come to the hospital?’

Ravenser rose, moved behind his chair, leaned his elbows on its back, shook his head. ‘This is all unnecessary. But if anyone is to blame it is my cellarer, Don Cuthbert, he who is in charge when I am away. He believes it his mission to give sinners a second chance. When Mistress Staines came to him and expressed her vocation, he thought it his Christian duty to accept her. I commended him for it.’

Was Ravenser so naïve? ‘I suppose she made a small donation to convince him?’

‘To Cuthbert that would not matter.’

‘I do not recall this saintly man.’

‘You would have no reason. He is rarely away from St Leonard’s.’

‘And there is nothing in this accusation that she still invites men to her bed?’

‘Not unless she shares them with the other lay sisters at their house, no, Your Grace.’ Ravenser’s voice rose slightly.

‘You feel bullied. But you did not consider the potential gossip, did you? Have you encouraged Cuthbert to be so bold with other choices?’

‘No others have come to my attention.’

Someone else’s duty to notice. An ill-advised attitude. ‘What of the comment about the hospital’s financial straits?’

Ravenser wiped his brow. ‘You know of that problem, Your Grace. But how it has become common knowledge . . .’ he shook his head.

Thoresby considered his nephew. Should he give him advice or let him swim upriver on his own?

Ravenser cleared his throat. ‘I have sent a request to the Queen for an audience. I will ask her permission to ride north to see what I might do to quiet this talk.’

Excellent. There might yet be a higher post for the man.

Ravenser drew out a letter. ‘There is more. My almoner, a man I trust, has told me of another rumour.’ He handed the item to Thoresby.

The archbishop read Don Erkenwald’s missive in which he warned Ravenser of talk of deaths that conveniently eased the hospital’s expenses. Thoresby gave his nephew his sternest look. ‘You swear this is merely a rumour?’

Ravenser put his head in his hands. ‘Christ’s rood, if even you can believe it, I am without hope.’

‘Enough. I go to Windsor myself on the morrow. If you receive an invitation, you are welcome to share my barge.’

Ravenser peered up through his fingers.

Thoresby nodded to him.

Ravenser lifted his head and smiled. ‘You are kind to extend such an offer. How can I thank you?’

‘You will thank me by resolving this business before other reputations are jeopardised, nephew.’

Ravenser bowed, still with a polite smile, but Thoresby had seen discomfort in the man’s eyes. Good. He understood that Thoresby looked after his own interests in this. He would not want his nephew to think him an unconditional ally.

The situation deserved more attention than his brother in charge of the hospital gave it. How had his fellows elected Don Cuthbert to the position of cellarer over him? The puny canon had been content with the bailiff’s suggestion that Walter had surprised a burglar, and he refused to speak of it further. He had been particularly deaf to Erkenwald’s suggestion that Richard de Ravenser, Master of St Leonard’s, be informed of the rumours.

As to informing him, Don Erkenwald had already seen to that, writing to Sir Richard about the hospital’s financial troubles being made public. Ravenser might be busy in Westminster as Keeper of the Hanaper and Queen’s Receiver, but surely not too busy to care about the reputation of his hospital. Erkenwald hoped that the master might even now be planning a journey north to mingle with the important families of the city and convince them that all was well. It was not the time to allow such lies to poison the people’s opinion of the good works St Leonard’s accomplished, not now, when the merchant guilds were building elegant halls and housing their own sick and elderly in the undercrofts. These were the very merchants on whom they depended for generous gifts to support St Leonard’s.

On his almoner’s rounds among the poor, Erkenwald now made it his business to ask whether anyone had seen aught, or heard aught about Walter de Hotter’s death that seemed more than rumour. On one of the afternoons when he stole some time to practise at the butts on St George’s Field – his vows had not obliterated his training as a soldier – Erkenwald asked the advice of one said to be the best spy in the north.

While he unstrung his bow, Owen Archer listened with interest – until Erkenwald came to the motivation.

‘Murdering a respected merchant to ruin a rival hospital’s reputation?’ The tall, one-eyed man grinned. ‘You should go back to soldiering. All that prayer has softened your wits.’

Erkenwald laughed at that. ‘Prayer. There are those in my house who would say I pray too little. ’Tis why they chose Cuthbert over me. Prayer is ever his response. Every time another treasure disappears he hies to church and prays. I suppose he believes the good Lord has decided to redistribute the wealth of St Leonard’s.’

‘I had not heard of any thefts.’

‘Well, and that is as it should be. In that I agree with Cuthbert. I suppose a thief in our midst is not a story merchants would care to use, being thieves themselves, eh?’

‘What is missing?’

Erkenwald needed no coaxing. He knew the story would go no further, and perhaps Archer would see a pattern in it. ‘Riches, to be sure. A gold chalice finely wrought, a delicate silver missal cover, goblets of Italian glass. Such things.’

‘And Don Cuthbert’s response to such a loss is to pray?’

‘He does little else.’ But Erkenwald saw that Owen’s attention wandered: he fidgeted with his quiver of arrows. No matter. The information was his to use. ‘I thank you for listening, Captain.’

‘Forgive my haste. My children leave for the country on the morrow. I have much to do.’

‘You send them to Mistress Wilton’s father?’

‘We do.’

‘To keep them from the pestilence?’

Owen pressed the scar below his eyepatch. ‘Foolish, eh? As if Death did not walk all the countryside.’

‘Still, a wise precaution.’

‘God go with you, Don Erkenwald.’

As Owen walked away, the canon noticed a slump in the archer’s shoulders, which was not in character. To send his children away must have been a difficult decision.

Ravenser entered the Queen’s chamber with trepidation. He had always come here on the Queen’s business, at her bidding. This was different. This was his business, instigated by his missive to the Queen explaining his situation. The worst of it was that now it seemed a trivial matter to put to a dying Queen.

But she had graciously invited him. And now she waved him to her side with a red, swollen hand.

‘Your Grace,’ Ravenser knelt at her side.

‘Come. I have little time for ceremony at present, my good Receiver.’

‘Forgive me for intruding . . .’

She grunted to silence him. ‘I have little head for state affairs at present. I have prayed over this and believe it is God’s will that you go north and put your house in order. You are best away from the city and court at such a time.’

‘Your Grace, you are most kind. I shall entrust the purse to my best clerk in my absence.’

The Queen lay her head back on the silky mound of pillows. A lady-in-waiting made herself known and showed Ravenser out.

‘I beg the same of you.’

‘Help Edward when I am gone. He will need you.’

Thoresby did not say that the King had not called upon him for anything outside his duties as archbishop in a long while. This was neither the time nor the place. But he did have a request. ‘I would be your confessor. Stay beside you until . . .’ He could not say it.

Phillippa’s rheumy eyes glistened with tears. ‘No. I could not bear it. With Wykeham I do not feel this pain.’

So it was true. William of Wykeham, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Winchester, was the Queen’s confessor in her last days. Thoresby had not believed it. To hide his dismay, he told Queen Phillippa of his plan to complete the Lady Chapel.

‘Alas, Sherburne. Is it not a lovely house?’

‘I have many such houses. But the minster does not have a complete Lady Chapel. The quarries near York are depleted of the stone I need. And I wish to complete it now. So that you may come north to see it.’

Phillippa patted his hand. ‘That will not be, my friend. Too many who were too young to die have gone. It is my turn. God may let Richard recover if I go quietly.’ Her eldest son, the Black Prince, had suffered a wasting sickness for two years. Her second son Lionel, Duke of Clarence, had died the previous year, and her third son’s wife, the lovely Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, had died in the autumn. Many said it was the weight of sorrow that had finally broken the Queen’s spirit.

‘I would stay with you, confessor or no.’

Phillippa closed her eyes, gave one imperious shake of her swollen head. ‘You must go north. Complete your Lady Chapel. Perhaps it may yet save York from the pestilence.’

The archbishop raised his cup. ‘God be thanked for a safe delivery,’ he managed to say without choking on bile.

All drank to Alice Perrers and her daughter.

Owen Archer and Magda Digby exchanged uneasy looks; they found the farm too silent. Absent were the sounds they strained to hear: those of a family going about its daily work – a scythe whistling through the tall grass, a bucket clanking against the side of the well as the groaning rope lifted it, children squealing in play. Though Owen and Magda had been told that they would be greeted with silence, they had hoped to find Duncan Ffulford and his family hard at work, proving the fisherman’s tale to have been fermented in a bottle.

Owen paused at the edge of the field, swatting flies from his face as he swept his head from side to side to study the yard; he had the use of only his right eye, his left scarred, blind, and patched, and thus he must compensate for half the range of vision with which he had once been blessed. His sweep took in a thatch-roofed cottage, its door yawning wide, no smoke drifting from the hole in the roof’s centre; a dusty yard with a horseless cart sitting as if being prepared for use; a barn and other outbuildings behind the cottage, quiet but for the impatient horse, likely in the barn.

Owen turned to his companion. ‘Where’s the child gone to, I wonder?’ The fisherman had claimed a girl crouched on the riverbank, calling to him as he drifted by that her mother and the babies were dead, and her father too sick to help her bury them.

Magda shaded her eyes with a gnarled, sunbrowned hand. She faced the barn. ‘Thou hearest the beast, Bird-eye?’

‘Aye. ’Tis little noise to mask it.’

‘Likely the child keeps it company.’

‘Should we first go to her, then?’

‘Nay. ’Tis best Magda and thee know the worst. Into the house with thee. But first attend thy protection. There is no wind to carry off the vapours.’ From a pouch at her waist Magda drew two cloth bags filled with scent, handed one to Owen, held the other over her mouth and nose. These would protect them from the noxious vapours that spread disease.

Owen looked down at the bag with doubt. ‘And who holds these to our faces whilst we bury the dead?’

Magda met his argument with a sniff. ‘Cover the face, thou contentious Welshman. Provident care when thou canst take it is better than none at all.’ Without more ado, the tiny midwife strode across the dusty yard and stepped into the cottage.

Owen lifted the bag to his face and followed, having found it wise in the past to take Magda’s advice. He ducked through the low doorway.

Within, the cot was dark, the only light coming from chinks in the thatch and walls, illuminating the dust that swirled with their every movement and the flies that swarmed round the four bodies, two children lovingly tucked in the wooden-framed bed beside a woman, and a man lying on the floor near the remnants of a fire. Magda crouched down by the bed, lifted the covers with a stick to examine the bodies. Even through the scented bag Owen smelled the putrefaction, gagged, retreated to the yard to catch his breath.

Magda joined him. ‘’Tis the manqualm, Bird-eye.’

Owen crossed himself. ‘Let us find the child. She might tell us where to find a priest.’

Magda, hands on hips, squinted up into Owen’s good eye. ‘Thou thinkst to find a priest will say the proper prayers? Thou wouldst take such time with this?’

‘They died unshriven, I’ve no doubt. And they should be buried in consecrated ground. ’Tis my duty as a Christian man to do what I may to help them to Heaven. I know it is not your way, Magda, but it is mine. And theirs. I must try.’

Magda did not argue, perhaps in thanks for his agreeing to accompany her on this mission. Heading towards the barn, she paused at the cart. ‘Duncan thought to load his family into the cart and bury them? Take them to the priest? Or had he thought to flee it with them?’ Magda grasped the side of the cart, touched her forehead to it, as if suddenly weary. ‘And the worst of it still to come, Bird-eye. Thy Lucie will work from dawn to dusk, as will Magda, and what availeth it?’

‘Come, Magda. Let us find the child.’ Owen walked past the cart, across the rutted yard to the barn. The horse began once more to whinny and stomp. One ear to the door, Owen sought the sound of another living thing within. He heard the rustle of straw. Perhaps the horse, perhaps the child.

The barn door was warped by the river damp. Owen used his strength to lift it and swing it wide. Peering in, he saw an old nag in a stall. He approached it slowly, calming the uneasy creature with murmured reassurances. As Owen reached the nag, he picked up a cloth, rubbed the horse gently until it quieted.

Magda had followed him.

Owen patted the nag. ‘Duncan Ffulford was better off than I had thought, to own a horse.’

‘Aye, and he was proud of her. She carries her years lightly thanks to their tender care. Now, be quiet, Bird-eye.’ Magda stood in the middle of the barn, listening. Her multicoloured gown seemed to flicker in the pied light. ‘She is above.’ Magda motioned for Owen to precede her. ‘Her name is Alisoun.’

As Owen stepped away from the horse, it nipped him gently on the arm, calling him back. Even the beast feared the unnatural quiet of the farm. Owen crept up the ladder to the hayloft, tucking his head down to avoid a pitchfork or knife. In times like this, a child on her own would do well to protect herself. As Owen was about to clear the ladder with his head, he said softly, ‘Peace, Alisoun. I come in peace.’ He held his hands up to show the child he had no weapon. ‘A fisherman told us you needed help.’ He prayed God it was indeed Alisoun up there.

‘Who are you?’ a child’s voice demanded.

Much comforted by the high timbre, Owen said, ‘Owen Archer, captain of the archbishop’s retainers and husband of Mistress Wilton, master apothecary in York.’ He was not sure which might prove more reassuring.

‘Climb up slowly.’

‘May I use my hands on the ladder?’

‘Slowly.’

Owen obeyed, easing his head up, then moving up one rung, two, and stopping there, at eye level with the girl, who stood sideways, skirt hitched up into her girdle, bare, dirty feet planted firmly apart, her upper body expertly poised with a small bow and arrow ready to shoot. ‘Turn so I can see the left side of your face.’

Owen turned towards the light coming from a hole in the thatch, giving the girl a full view of his scarred left cheek and eye, the leather patch.

With no relaxation of her stance, the child demanded, ‘Who accompanies you?’

‘Magda Digby, the Riverwoman.’

Alisoun stepped to the edge of the loft, glanced down. ‘What do you want here?’

Owen was about to chide the child for her disrespectful tone, but Magda spoke before he could. ‘Magda comes to bury thy family and take thee back where she will find a home for thee.’

‘This is my home.’

‘Aye, that it is. But thou must have a mother’s care, eh? Thou art but eleven years.’

‘I would not have you for a mother, you old hag.’

‘You should watch your tongue,’ Owen warned.

Magda again did not react to the discourtesy. ‘Thou blamest Magda for thy mother’s poor state after Tom’s birth, aye. Thou needst not worry. Magda does not yearn to play thy mother.’

Alisoun let the bow slacken. She stared down at the straw. ‘My father is dead then?’

‘Aye, God grant him grace,’ Owen said. ‘So we’re needing to take them to consecrated ground and find a priest. Can you show me the way?’

The child shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘The priest wouldn’t come when Father tried to fetch him.’

Owen was not surprised; it was a common tale in times of pestilence. ‘If you take me to him, I will persuade him to do his duty.’

‘I would not have your wife for a mother, either.’

Tempted to give the unpleasant, dun-coloured child a lashing with his tongue, Owen controlled himself. He must do his duty and be done with her. ‘We shall discuss your future once we’ve buried your family. Now take us to the priest.’ He descended the ladder.

After a few minutes, Alisoun followed. At the bottom of the ladder she let down her skirt and shook out the hay and dust, smoothed back her braided hair, then fixed Owen with a steely glare. ‘My future is my own concern.’

A matter to be discussed later. ‘Come, child, we have much work to do.’

Alisoun rolled her eyes and sullenly headed for the door. As Owen watched her depart, he noted how thin she was, realised she might be hungry. ‘Shall we try to feed her first?’ he asked Magda.

‘Do not waste thy time fretting about that child, Bird-eye. She will not hesitate to demand what she wants.’

‘She is always so wayward, then?’

‘Oh aye. Watch thy back with that one.’

Owen made for the nag. ‘I shall hitch her to the cart.’

‘Magda will prepare the bodies.’

When Owen led the nag from the barn, Alisoun stood halfway across the yard, waiting with an impatient look. Owen noted how the child averted her eyes from the abandoned cart and from the house. She had tender feelings, then, though she hid them well. As he worked with the cart, he tried to talk to her. ‘I would wager you not only hold the bow as a trained archer does, but shoot it well, too?’

‘I can fell coneys and squirrels. Why do you want to know?’

Owen decided to echo her lack of courtesy. ‘Who taught you?’

‘I asked you a question.’

‘I choose not to answer.’

Silence. Then, without preamble, Alisoun said, ‘My father taught me.’

‘For protection?’

‘What else?’

‘There had been trouble?’

Hands on hips, Alisoun squinted up at Owen. ‘You’re nosy.’

‘You are rude. We are quite a pair.’

The child ducked her head, turned, sat down in the dirt. Owen found her silence refreshing. He led the nag closer to the house, so he might more easily shift the bodies.

‘Father John.’

Owen approached the priest. ‘Father John?’ The figure stirred, but did not rise or respond. Owen knelt beside him, whispered into his fleshy neck, ‘I pray you forgive me for intruding on your prayers, but I’ve come to fetch you to say prayers at the gravesides of four of your parishioners.’

The head turned, an eye peered at Owen, then the priest began to push himself up, but he was lifted to his feet instead. Owen grinned down at the short, corpulent man, filthy and stinking of onions and ale. ‘Gather what you need. We must waste no time.’

Father John glanced at Alisoun. ‘They are dead?’

‘You know they are.’

‘May God have mercy on them.’ Father John crossed himself. ‘How long ago did they perish, my child?’

‘I am not your child.’

‘She says you refused to go to them when her father requested your presence, Father John. Why was that?’ Owen asked.

The fleshy face crinkled round the eyes and mouth as the priest raised his folded hands to his breast and cringed. ‘Whence come you to this place?’

‘York.’

‘Ah. Then surely you noted the portents? The wind that came up from the south. The days the sky was dark, but the rain did not come. And the great multitude of flies. I have felt it my duty to pray. When Duncan Ffulford came, stinking of the pestilence, bringing it into this sacred place, I prayed for his soul and those of his family. But I could not touch them or I might be struck down, unable to pray for the other souls in my care.’

Owen gathered the fabric on the priest’s chest and lifted him off his feet. ‘You have found a convenient way to satisfy your conscience, priest. You do not deserve to wear this gown. But as you are all we have to hand, we must make do.’

Father John’s face was purple. His eyes bulged out. ‘It is a sin to attack a priest,’ he gasped.

Owen let him go.

The priest began to crumple, then caught the pillar beside him and raised himself upright, breathing hard.

‘What you have experienced so far is hardly an attack,’ Owen said. ‘But you might wish to avoid learning the difference. ’Tis a small thing we ask, that you perform your priestly duties.’

Later, as Owen dug, he wondered what had come over him. He was not wont to treat a priest so. Had the child so irritated him? Or was it the madness that came with the pestilence? Might he be infected with it already? He prayed God that if so he died before he carried it to his family. As the priest stepped forward to say his prayers over the graves, Owen found himself praying as much for his own family as for the Ffulfords. Magda stood quietly, eyes closed, one gnarled hand clutching the opposite wrist. She did not pray, so she always said, and yet her stillness suggested a state, if not of devotion, then of concentration. On what?

And what of the child? Owen felt a twinge of guilt about his lack of concern for her. Her obstinacy was no reason to forget she was a child who had just lost her entire family. He glanced over to the foot of the graves where Alisoun had stood. Gone. He looked round, did not see her.

Soon all three were hurrying about, calling the child’s name.

But she had vanished. And the sun was the gold of late afternoon.

‘The river calls,’ Magda said. ‘Has the child any kin nearby?’

Father John frowned down at his feet. ‘There are many Ffulfords in the parish.’

Owen could see no point to another search. The child had expressed her desire to choose her own accommodations. ‘I shall trust you to go among her kin and let them know the child’s situation, Father John.’

The priest frowned at the task, but nodded. ‘It is my duty, of course.’ He glanced at the horse and cart. ‘I can see to them.’

Owen could well imagine. ‘Tell her kin the horse and cart are at the farm, priest.’ He began to move away, turned back for a final warning. ‘I will return to check on the child’s safety. And her horse.’

‘You’ll find naught to anger you, Captain.’

‘Winds from the south. Flies. The priest named them harbingers of the pestilence. But what of the bad harvest?’ Owen wondered aloud. ‘Might hunger so weaken the people that they succumb to the pestilence?’

Magda opened one eye. ‘The girl shows no sign of illness.’ She drew a small bottle from the wallet at her waist, opened it, handed it to Owen, who paused in his rowing long enough to take one drink. Then Magda drank. ‘Was a time thou wouldst accept naught from Magda, Bird-eye.’

And not so long ago at that. Owen grinned. ‘Perhaps I was not so thirsty then.’

The Riverwoman gave one of her barking laughs. ‘Aye. Mayhap.’ She took another drink, put the bottle away. ‘Magda would give much to know what calls back the manqualm from time to time, Bird-eye. A bad harvest?’ She tilted her head, thinking. ‘Each time it has followed one, ’tis a fact. But not every bad harvest summons it. Thy priests say ’tis the scourge of thy god, punishing thee for thy unholy ways. Mayhap ’tis why Magda survives. She is invisible to thy god.’ She grinned, showing her teeth, white against her tanned leather skin.