The Riddle of St Leonard's by Candace Robb Read Free Book Online Page A

the bench. ‘You had no news.’
    ‘None of consequence.’
    She took a deep breath, dabbed her forehead. ‘You caught me just in time.’
    ‘You forget yourself when you are in the shop.’
    Lucie pressed her fingertips to her forehead. ‘You must help Jasper.’
    ‘I shall bring Kate to you, then join Jasper.’
    Lucie touched Owen’s cheek gently with the back of her hand. ‘You found the child, and her family?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘Pestilence?’
    Owen nodded. ‘It took four of them. The child is the only one left.’
    Lucie crossed herself. ‘I shall be fine now.’ She began to rise.
    Owen pressed her back down. ‘At least take some water, wait until you are no longer dizzy.’
    ‘In faith, I am weary.’ Lucie leaned back against the tree. ‘They are all mad. Every day new remedies to try. And someone like Mistress Miller must wait among them.’
    ‘She bought scented pouches.’
    ‘Aye. She listened to the chatter whilst she waited.’ Lucie closed her eyes. ‘Poor Harry Miller.’ She chuckled. ‘Poor dog!’
    They laughed so hard that Kate came running to see what was the matter.
    *
    Late that night Lucie and Owen sat up in bed, their glazed window open to the garden. A breeze stirred Lucie’s hair and chilled her shoulders, a relief after the heat of the day. But Owen’s body still radiated heat. Most evenings, Lucie was grateful for her husband’s warmth, but not tonight. She slid away from him.
    ‘Do I smell of the grave?’
    ‘I am warm.’
    ‘I smell of the grave.’
    Lucie turned back to her husband. He was naked, with a light cover on his legs, and he smelled of the lavender and mint bath that she had prescribed to rid all trace of the odours that seemed to haunt him. ‘You smell sweet as the night air in the garden, my love. You are hot is all.’
    Owen took her hand, kissed the palm. ‘What you said this afternoon, about everyone being mad …’
    Lucie slipped down beside him, rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Um.’
    ‘I met a priest today who was as desperate as those waiting in your shop.’
    Lucie stiffened. ‘Out in the country, you mean.’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘The country is still safer.’
    ‘I did not mean to question that.’
    ‘Remember the strangers who came down Coney Street last week, crying that the end of the world was at hand? You saw how folk reacted, beating their breasts, some hopping about and howling as if possessed by demons.’ Though the Pope had condemned the flagellants twenty years before, such people quickly gathered a crowd wherever they went, and drew many into their frenzy – and into their despair, which was not easily shaken off. ‘It is like the other times. The madness lingers long after they have passed. Tom says a fight broke out in the tavern that evening. The city is no place for children in such times.’
    ‘I did not say it was.’
    ‘There was no need. You found a family in the country dead of the pestilence, a priest too frightened to do his duty.’
    ‘Fear is everywhere.’
    ‘It is worse in the city.’
    ‘Such folk might pass by Freythorpe Hadden.’
    ‘They might. But they are more likely to come through a city. They want an audience.’
    ‘But still—’
    Lucie turned from Owen, sank down on her pillow.
    ‘I had not meant to begin another argument about the children,’ Owen said.
    Lucie reached back, touched his hand.
    Owen kissed her hand and leaned over her.
    She felt the change in his mood, a sudden urgency. She twisted her neck to see him. ‘Your eye is glinting.’
    ‘Glinting, eh?’ Owen reached up her shift, but Lucie caught his hand. ‘I forgot,’ Owen whispered. ‘I’m too hot.’
    But Lucie had already twisted back towards him. ‘I was not suggesting celibacy for the summer. Though they do say that lying as man and wife opens one’s pores to the pestilential vapours.’
    ‘You believe that?’
    She began to run her hands lightly up and down his chest, his back … ‘I do not know what to think, but I