The Riddle of St Leonard's Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘Gather what you need. We must waste no time.’
    Father John glanced at Alisoun. ‘They are dead?’
    ‘You know they are.’
    ‘May God have mercy on them.’ Father John crossed himself. ‘How long ago did they perish, my child?’
    ‘I am not your child.’
    ‘She says you refused to go to them when her father requested your presence, Father John. Why was that?’ Owen asked.
    The fleshy face crinkled round the eyes and mouth as the priest raised his folded hands to his breast and cringed. ‘Whence come you to this place?’
    ‘York.’
    ‘Ah. Then surely you noted the portents? The wind that came up from the south. The days the sky was dark, but the rain did not come. And the great multitude of flies. I have felt it my duty to pray. When Duncan Ffulford came, stinking of the pestilence, bringing it into this sacred place, I prayed for his soul and those of his family. But I could not touch them or I might be struck down, unable to pray for the other souls in my care.’
    Owen gathered the fabric on the priest’s chest and lifted him off his feet. ‘You have found a convenient way to satisfy your conscience, priest. You do not deserve to wear this gown. But as you are all we have to hand, we must make do.’
    Father John’s face was purple. His eyes bulged out. ‘It is a sin to attack a priest,’ he gasped.
    Owen let him go.
    The priest began to crumple, then caught the pillar beside him and raised himself upright, breathing hard.
    ‘What you have experienced so far is hardly an attack,’ Owen said. ‘But you might wish to avoid learning the difference. ’Tis a small thing we ask, that you perform your priestly duties.’
    Later, as Owen dug, he wondered what had come over him. He was not wont to treat a priest so. Had the child so irritated him? Or was it the madness that came with the pestilence? Might he be infected with it already? He prayed God that if so he died before he carried it to his family. As the priest stepped forward to say his prayers over the graves, Owen found himself praying as much for his own family as for the Ffulfords. Magda stood quietly, eyes closed, one gnarled hand clutching the opposite wrist. She did not pray, so she always said, and yet her stillness suggested a state, if not of devotion, then of concentration. On what?
    And what of the child? Owen felt a twinge of guilt about his lack of concern for her. Her obstinacy was no reason to forget she was a child who had just lost her entire family. He glanced over to the foot of the graves where Alisoun had stood. Gone. He looked round, did not see her.
    Soon all three were hurrying about, calling the child’s name.
    But she had vanished. And the sun was the gold of late afternoon.
    ‘The river calls,’ Magda said. ‘Has the child any kin nearby?’
    Father John frowned down at his feet. ‘There are many Ffulfords in the parish.’
    Owen could see no point to another search. The child had expressed her desire to choose her own accommodations. ‘I shall trust you to go among her kin and let them know the child’s situation, Father John.’
    The priest frowned at the task, but nodded. ‘It is my duty, of course.’ He glanced at the horse and cart. ‘I can see to them.’
    Owen could well imagine. ‘Tell her kin the horse and cart are at the farm, priest.’ He began to move away, turned back for a final warning. ‘I will return to check on the child’s safety. And her horse.’
    ‘You’ll find naught to anger you, Captain.’
    In the boat, Magda seemed to nod in slumber. Owen rowed downriver silently, squinting against the afternoon sun that glinted on the brown water of the Ouse. He was thinking about the Ffulfords. So far most of the half a hundred deaths in York had been among the aged or the very young. But today he had seen a couple struck down who looked his wife’s age. They had been very thin, a result of last summer’s failed harvest, perhaps.
    ‘Winds from the south. Flies. The priest named them