Michaelo stifled a laugh as Euphemia called out, ‘Shame on you, Fitch. And to think I gave you alms when you begged on the corner.’
‘You are a nasty man, Crispin Poole.’
‘As a raven knows a crow,’ said Crispin with a laugh. ‘Now off with you, and remember. I have more I could tell the Nevilles. And the Graa brothers.’
The crook-back scuttled off. Crispin thanked Michaelo for his keen eye. The cart rumbled off the bridge.
As Owen and Hempe hurried toward Micklegate they met Ned, who told a tale of conflict and victory at the bridgehead involving Crispin and his dam, how they had humbled Neville retainers and continued on their way. Ned was most impressed by Alisoun, who remained quiet and unmoved during the altercation, though anyone knowing her as he did would be aware of how she stood ready to throw back her cloak and draw out her bow should the men not yield.
Glancing at Owen, Hempe made a sympathetic face.
God be thanked she contained herself, thought Owen. He invited Ned to join them, filling him in as they walked.
Several others had joined them by the time they climbed Micklegate hill, and Owen divided them, Ned and one other coming with him to the Cross Keys, the others assisting Hempe in searching the alleys along the way. The three broke off and continued up Micklegate, pushing through the crowds of folk hurrying to their lodgings as evening took hold, a good many of them strangers, here for the enthronement.
Reaching the well-lit tavern tucked back in an alley, Owen ordered Ned to watch the rear, the other to hang about outside the entrance. ‘Both of you come in only if you see Neville’s men arriving. You are to take a seat away from me. I will notice you.’
Once inside, Owen greeted the taverner, quietly inquiring whether the players lodging there were at the tables this evening. The taverner, an old friend of Tom Merchet’s, described the table where he might find them.
‘Is their leader, Carl, with them? Possibly bandaged hands?’
‘Not here. Might be up in the long room they share.’ He told Owen how to find it. ‘Will there be trouble?’
‘My aim is to keep the peace. But I want Carl.’
The taverner sighed, but poured Owen a tankard and refused his coin. ‘You’re the captain.’
Taking a sip, Owen turned to gaze round the room, passing over the table of players as if they did not interest him. He noted that one was drunkenly cradling a damaged lute, two pegs dangling. In a while he moved toward a small table just beyond the players that had no room, then turned round as if just noticing that and perched at the edge of the players’ long table as if still considering his options.
The one with the broken lute looked over, middling age, bald, bleary-eyed. ‘Soldier, are you?’ He waved his hand toward Owen’s eye.
‘And what if I am?’ Owen growled.
‘Roland means naught by the question,’ said one with a wild thicket of fair hair. ‘Considers himself a deep thinker because he notices folk. Begging your pardon, sir.’
‘Did the snow blow you into town?’ Owen said with a mirthless chuckle.
‘We come to entertain the nobles descending on this fair city for the crowning of the archbishop,’ said another, youthful, with a carefully cut beard, cleaner than the others.
The bald one cuffed the youth’s ear. ‘Crowning? Ye’re daft, boy.’
‘Musicians?’ Owen asked.
‘And players.’ The youth put hand to heart and bowed, earning himself another cuff which he tried to return but was met with a volley of strikes.
‘He would please the ladies,’ said Owen.
‘He is our lady. Only one now,’ said a muscular man with a dour expression who had been drumming his fingers on the table. Owen wondered whether this was Paul, the one who had attacked Marian and was in the minster when Ambrose met with Ronan.
‘Where will you be performing?’ Owen lifted his tankard to the taverner who was serving the next table. ‘A round for these fine musicians.’
‘Fine musicians?’ asked the taverner as he filled the proffered tankards. ‘I would welcome a good fiddler late in the day.’
‘We had the finest fiddler in the land, we did,’ said one who had been staring into his lap the while Owen had been seated there. He’d thought him asleep.
‘Carl?’ The bald one snorted up ale, wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Not the finest. Not him.’
‘Died, did he? This Carl?’ Owen asked in an offhand way, as if tolerating the men who had turned their stools to include him.
‘Carl? Hardly dead, is he, soaring to the heights of bliss a few nights past. But the archbishop’s mighty brother broke his fingers, he did,’ said the youth.
The mop top took his turn cuffing the youth’s ears. ‘You talk too much.’
‘So you’ve no place to perform?’ asked Owen.
Shrugs all round. ‘Carl’s seeing to it,’ said the bald one.
‘We thought to set up in the field near Micklegate Bar, lure folk in as they come to town. They chased us off. It’s for pavilions for the lords’ armies,’ said the mop top.
‘You’re not one of them, are you?’ asked the one Owen thought to be Paul.
Owen laughed. ‘I kiss no lord’s arse.’ That won hoots and laughter. ‘But I know some as do. And any soldier will welcome a bit of music after a long march, some bawdy tales. Where would they find your man with the broken fingers?’
‘Here, when his woman kicks him out for being greedy,’ said the bald one.
‘Out all night, is he?’
‘Dusk till dawn,’ said the youth with a wink.
‘Most fortunate of men, eh?’ Owen said as he rose, flipping the taverner a coin as he left, walking out into the street, shaking his head at his man so he did not follow. He walked on toward Micklegate Bar.
A fiddler with broken fingers might never regain mastery of his instrument. Owen knew about that with his blinding. He still bested most at
