The fiddler lived in a small cottage behind a more substantial home, across a garden that received so little light it was still blanketed in snow except for the pathway to the door, which was melting around icy footprints that would take more time to soften. Footprints circled the cottage as well. Owen took a moment to study the multiple tracks ringing the building, one set going out to a woodpile behind the house, the others staying close. A widening in the track suggested that someone had stood for a while at the shuttered window beside the door. He was able to make out the prints of at last two different pairs of boots, one longer and wider than the other. Fewer prints than the smaller man. The front door hung on one hinge. When Owen knocked, Magda called out that he should lift the right corner of the door in order to enter.
He stepped into a warm room with fresh rushes on the floor, well-scrubbed stones surrounding the central fire, a pair of box beds in opposite corners, a ladder rising up into the rafters. Spare but inviting. After Brother Michaelo had passed through, Owen closed the door.
Tucker lay face down on a trestle table near the fire. Owen thought of his daughter’s kneading as Judith, a woman of some strength, pressed and pummeled her husband’s back under Magda’s watchful eyes.
‘Might I interrupt?’
‘Help him turn and sit up,’ said Magda, nodding with satisfaction as the man was able to walk to a chair with Owen’s assistance.
Out of breath, but grateful, Tucker thanked Magda. ‘Bless you.’
Judith wiped her eyes with her apron and greeted Owen and Michaelo. ‘There was no need to bring a priest, Captain. Tucker is not in danger of death.’
‘I am the captain’s secretary, not a priest,’ said Brother Michaelo, taking a seat.
With a curt nod, she turned her attention to the pot over the fire.
Magda drew a blanket round Tucker’s bare torso. ‘Not too long,’ she warned Owen. She held his eye for a moment and whispered, ‘Much not said.’
He gave a little nod. ‘I am grateful you were able to come to him so soon, so that he is able to answer my questions while the ordeal is fresh to him.’ He turned to Tucker. ‘Who attacked you?’
‘I don’t know him, Captain, but I have seen him before, watching the house. One of several who’ve been sniffing around. But they have never trespassed farther than the garden.’
‘None tried to talk to Ambrose?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘Your old friend brought this trouble,’ Judith muttered.
‘He did,’ said Tucker. ‘But he warned me there might be someone following him.’
Judith hit the pot with her spoon. ‘That is the first I have heard of it, husband.’
‘How could I refuse him shelter? A friend is a friend in all ways for all days.’
‘That is a child’s song, you dunderhead.’ Judith wiped her eyes and stabbed at the stew.
Magda crossed the room and put an arm round Judith, spoke in her ear. The woman seemed to calm.
‘She will not soon forgive me,’ said Tucker.
Owen thought it likely Judith’s anger masked her fear for her husband, but he said nothing of that, pulling up a stool so he and the injured man might talk quietly. ‘Tell me all you can about your intruder.’
‘I found him tossing stuff about and challenged him. He turned on me and cursed me as he struck.’
‘You had gone out?’
A nod that caused him to wince and touch his back. ‘Carrying in wood for the fire. So quick he’d come in, gone straight to the bed over there.’ He began to nod, then said, ‘One to my right, where Ambrose slept. He stank of horses and sweat, but his clothes were well made. Wore a hat covering his hair, if he had aught.’
‘Was your attacker alone?’
‘Yes, God be thanked.’ He began to move his hand, perhaps to cross himself, but stopped. Noticing how Tucker trembled, Owen hurried on with his questions.
‘Could you tell anything of him by his speech?’
‘From across the sea. I know a Frenchman when I hear one.’
Impossible to know whether either of the corpses were French. Owen thought he might take a closer look at their clothing. ‘He was searching through Ambrose’s things?’
‘That I could not say, for Judith had put what Ambrose and the lad had left in that bed, so we might use the other again.’
‘Do you know what was in those packs? Have you looked?’
‘Ambrose promised to pay us, but left without doing so, and once the rumor spread that he’d murdered the cleric and stolen his treasure, well—’
‘What did you find?’
‘Naught but their traveling kits – wooden spoons and cups, combs, bits of clothing, nothing worth stealing. Broken paternoster beads, coral and jet. A few pence in coin, no more.’ Tucker’s voice trembled – the pain? Or a lie?
‘No letters of passage?’
‘Nothing like that.’
‘They both left their packs?’ A nod. ‘Did you expect them to return?’
‘Ambrose said he might be called away with little warning and asked if I would send his pack on to Dame Magda if he did not return in a day. But he meant for the youth to stay. He’d send the money, he said, and word of where to take the youth.’
Owen glanced over at Magda, who raised a brow at that. So Tucker had known Ambrose meant to go to Magda, or at least entrusted his things to her. Had he informed the one who’d drowned?
‘Yet his companion left as well,’ said Owen.
‘Matthew went out to the midden after Ambrose left and didn’t return. I hear he spent the night in the chapter house. And now he’s with you?’ He glanced over at his wife. ‘Or she. Judith said—’
‘Hush, husband!’
‘Yes. Our guest now. Have either of you told anyone about Matthew and your suspicion?’ Owen asked.
Bowing his head, Tucker shook it. ‘No.’
‘Nor I,’ said Judith. ‘The youth had a reason for so hiding.’
‘Good. Say nothing to anyone for now,’ he said, looking first at
