The Cross Legged Knight by Candace Robb Read Free Book Online

late to prevent that , Owen thought as he departed. And the bishop’s reputation should suffer if that was the extent of his concerns. What of the dead? What of the family now homeless?
    Owen fought to put the two clerics out of his mind as he walked through the now quiet city to his home. In the dim kitchen he found Magda nodding in a chair beside Poins. Seeing the stump where the injured arm had been, Owen felt sick at the thought of Lucie assisting in the amputation. He would have spared her if he could. He took a flagon and two cups up to their chamber.
    She had fallen asleep waiting for him, lying atop the covers, still in her clothes though she had removed her cap and her long hair fanned out on the pillows. A lamp burned brightly beside the bed. As Owen began to undress, Lucie turned, asked sleepily, ‘Is the fire out?’
    ‘Aye.’ He bent to her, kissed her cheek. ‘I saw your night’s work below. You held him down?’
    Lucie sat up, blinking. ‘It took little effort. Magda’s dwale mixture is potent.’
    What a beautiful woman, this wife of his, Owen thought, despite a softening to her jaw, silver strands in her warm brown hair. Carrying a child took a toll on a woman and with each child a little more, it seemed. It was a brave thing, to bear a child, and to bear the loss. He tried to remember whether those signs of ageing had appeared before her fall.
    ‘Help me with my sleeves?’
    He sat down on the bed, untied her sleeves from the bodice of her gown, kissed her neck.
    She reached back and held his head there a moment. ‘Your hair smells of smoke.’
    Thank God that was all she smelled. Though he had stripped down to his leggings Owen still smelled death on himself.
    Lucie stood to step out of her gown. He noticed how she held on to the corner of the bed to steady herself. She had not done that before the accident. ‘Did His Grace send for you?’ she asked.
    ‘He did.’
    She looked so weary and so thin – he had not realized how much weight she had lost this past month. Or was it the loss of the child, the bloom of carrying the baby shattered? He would save the worst news for the morrow. ‘I brought wine.’
    She had crawled beneath the covers. ‘Why did you post a guard on our house?’
    ‘You saw them?’
    ‘Magda and I saw Alfred in the garden. He said that Colin watched, too, out in Davygate. Why?’
    ‘I thought it best to protect Poins, in case he is a witness. Has he said anything?’
    ‘Nothing. Was the bishop of help?’
    ‘He fears that the fire was set because the house belongs to him. He glances over his shoulder at the slightest sound.’
    ‘Do you think he’s right?’
    Owen could not answer that. To murder a woman and set fire to the house in which she lay was a terrible act, but to have done it to teach a lesson or threaten the absent bishop would be even worse. ‘My mind is a muddle.’
    Lucie drew his hand to her mouth and kissed it.
    He thought to coax the conversation into less dangerous territory. ‘You are a good woman, to bring Poins here. But it means more work in the household.’
    ‘I cannot deny that. I should not have put off finding a new nurse for the children. It is too much for Kate, with Aunt Phillippa underfoot.’
    Owen knew why Lucie had put it off – first she had hoped Phillippa might recover enough to return to Freythorpe, then they had hoped being with the children might balance her. And once Lucie knew she was with child, no one had seemed quite right to take care of the older children and the baby to come.
    ‘Magda suggested I have someone help while Poins is here,’ said Lucie. ‘She suggested Cisotta.’ Cisotta was a young midwife who had helped Lucie in the first days.
    Owen poured a cup of wine, handed it to Lucie. She shook her head.
    He slipped into bed beside her, sitting up to drink his wine. ‘You truly want none?’
    ‘I need no wine to coax me to sleep.’ She turned to face him, though she did not sit up and barely opened her