‘But I cannot be much help with the woman,’ said Michaelo.
‘Your observations are helpful.’
‘But I have burdened you.’
‘Perhaps you did well to bring her here, though this is not the day I would have chosen to take in a stranger. If necessary we will find lodgings elsewhere once she is on her feet.’ Owen paced to the garden window. Dawn crept close, softening the darkness, revealing a branch here, a portion of the wall that had shed the night’s snow there. He wondered what animal had climbed the wall. Too small a space for a man, God be thanked. They must be alert to danger until they knew more about their uninvited guest. He turned back to Michaelo. It occurred to him that the monk himself looked as if he had not slept. ‘Tell me again how you came to be in the minster before dawn.’ His weary brain was not as sharp as he would like.
‘I watched over Mary Garrett until Dame Magda could come to her. I was on my way to bed when I heard the men shouting, and then the singing.’
‘Mary Garrett is one of the poor in the minster yard?’
Michaelo nodded.
‘Did you notice anyone about?’
‘I did not move from her side.’
‘So Magda arrived not long before you encountered this woman and heard the shouts?’
‘Yes. You are thinking Dame Magda might have noticed something as she came through the minster yard. I can escort you there.’
‘You sat with Mary Garrett through the night?’
‘I did.’
‘You should retire to your lodgings, and some well-earned sleep.’ As Michaelo assured him he often went without sleep, Owen interrupted. ‘Had you expected Magda sooner?’
A sniff. ‘I did. The lad I sent in the night to summon her returned alone. Said she would be delayed. She gave no reason. The boy said he’d heard another voice in her house when he knocked on the door, but she did not invite him in, so he could not see who it was. A man, that is all he knew.’
Owen closed his eye, chasing the sense of an idea gathering strength, that this Ambrose had found his way to Magda’s home, and he had been the cause of her delay. If he was the man Owen knew, he and the healer were old friends. He had been one of the few people in York to befriend her son, Potter Digby. He had looked beyond her late son’s odd appearance and his work as the archdeacon’s summoner and noticed his voice, a strong middle range. When Ambrose and his lover needed to flee, Magda had come to their aid. His lover might have taught him how to avoid the locked gates after dusk. One who knew the tides and the mudflats might avoid waking the guards at the gates by slipping down the bank and creeping upriver along the oozing mud. A dangerous route, but if Ambrose had been desperate enough to exchange cloaks, he might risk it.
‘You think to find this Ambrose at her home?’ asked Michaelo.
Uncanny how quickly the monk had learned to fathom Owen’s thoughts. Chilling to think there was nothing quick about it, that he had seen into Owen’s mind through all the years serving Archbishop Thoresby.
‘I will be disappointed if I do not find him there.’ Owen rose. ‘I must see if Lucie needs assistance, then we will go.’
A bow. ‘I will await you here by the fire.’
Lucie met Owen on the landing and drew him into their bedchamber. ‘One of Aunt Philippa’s gowns might fit her.’ Her aunt had died a few months earlier. ‘She was tall.’
‘Injuries?’
‘After I cleaned the mud and grime from her I found fresh bruising on her wrists, her right hand, arms, shoulders, neck, chin, mouth, ankles, and legs. Grazing on one knee as if she fell on it. The back of her right hand has a darkening bruise, her knuckles are scraped, two of her fingernails are torn, one of her fingers might be sprained for it does not curl like the others. Nothing serious, but all signs of a struggle with someone much stronger than she is. The marks on her wrists and ankles suggest she was bound. There is a cut on her ankle bone that might have been caused by a knife slicing the bonds.’
‘As fresh as last night?’ He told her what Michaelo had said about the condition of her clothes.
‘Yes. Poor woman. I did not notice anything that would suggest her attacker ravished her, but I cannot be certain.’ They exchanged a pained look. ‘So what now?’ she asked.
‘I want to talk to Magda. I have a feeling about this Master Ambrose, and, if I am right, he might have gone to her.’
‘You are thinking Ambrose Coates?’
‘Am I mad?’
She touched his cheek. ‘We shall see.’ She went over to her chest of clothes, crouching down to open it. Glancing back at him, she asked, ‘If it is him, will you bring him here?’
‘No. I will not risk him in our home, at least not until I know why he is here. Even then …’
She nodded. ‘You do not have a sense of him as you do this woman.’
‘I’ve not seen him in years.’
‘The musical instruments he left behind. It would be good to give them to him. I could use the space in the workroom.’
‘How did that come to mind?’
She pulled out a wool gown, then stood up, shaking it out. ‘I am reminded of him whenever I tidy the workroom.’
Unable to take all his precious instruments on his flight from York, Ambrose had entrusted them to Magda Digby, who had asked Lucie to keep them safe in her workshop. Lucie did all she could to keep the workroom warm, yet not too warm, dry, yet not too dry, so it was a suitable home for the sensitive items.
He leaned against the wall, watching Lucie change into the warmer gown. ‘You are going to work in the shop?’
