The Riddle of St Leonard's Read Online Free PDF

harbingers of the pestilence. But what of the bad harvest?’ Owen wondered aloud. ‘Might hunger so weaken the people that they succumb to the pestilence?’
    Magda opened one eye. ‘The girl shows no sign of illness.’ She drew a small bottle from the wallet at her waist, opened it, handed it to Owen, who paused in his rowing long enough to take one drink. Then Magda drank. ‘Was a time thou wouldst accept naught from Magda, Bird-eye.’
    And not so long ago at that. Owen grinned. ‘Perhaps I was not so thirsty then.’
    The Riverwoman gave one of her barking laughs. ‘Aye. Mayhap.’ She took another drink, put the bottle away. ‘Magda would give much to know what calls back the manqualm from time to time, Bird-eye. A bad harvest?’ She tilted her head, thinking. ‘Each time it has followed one, ’tis a fact. But not every bad harvest summons it. Thy priests say ’tis the scourge of thy god, punishing thee for thy unholy ways. Mayhap ’tis why Magda survives. She is invisible to thy god.’ She grinned, showing her teeth, white against her tanned leather skin.
    So ancient and still she had all her teeth but one, and that one she had lost as a child. No one knew how long ago that had been. Magda was not inclined to say. But folk round York spoke of her as having lived on her rock in the mud flats of the Ouse just north of the city since the time of King Canute, hence the Viking ship turned upside-down that served as her roof. Owen knew Magda was too mortal for such a life span, but there was no doubt she was old. And rich with the wisdom of a life spent healing the sick and bringing children into the world. And thinking for herself: though she lived as saintly a life as a good Christian, she was not a Christian and found the Church’s teachings poor, superstitious excuses for common sense. A dangerous opinion, but strongly held. Owen valued in her friendship her clear mind, common sense and a fresh perspective, free of fear.
    ‘But how do thy priests explain the deaths of infants, Bird-eye?’ Magda no longer smiled.
    ‘To my mind it is the parents who are punished by such a death, Magda, not the child. I have heard it said that such a child was too good to live; God chooses to take such children directly to Heaven so that the world might not taint their souls.’
    A snort. ‘So thy god leaves only the unworthy on earth? Bah!’
    Owen felt uneasily like agreeing with Magda. But was that not blasphemy? ‘We cannot always know the Lord’s purpose.’
    Magda wagged her head. ‘Thou art not taken in by such nonsense. Thou wast wise to send thy children off to Freythorpe Hadden.’
    ‘Was I?’ Since the first rumours of pestilence, Owen’s wife, Lucie, had wished to get their children out of the city. Eight years earlier she had lost her first child to the plague – Martin, her only child with Nicholas Wilton, her first husband. So Lucie had conceived a plan to send Hugh and Gwenllian to her father’s manor in the countryside, where his efficient sister Phillippa was also in residence. But there was one problem: Lucie had still nursed their son Hugh, born the past winter, and as master apothecary she could not leave the city at such a time. How was one to find a reliable wet nurse in the midst of pestilence?
    And then Magda’s granddaughter Tola had come down from the moors with her infant, Emma, and her two-year-old, Nym, grieving for her husband, who had been savaged by a wild boar. Lucie had befriended the young widow and asked her to be Hugh’s wet nurse.
    Owen had not been easily persuaded that Tola should take his only son out of the city. It was true that when Death stalked a city, people changed, grew wild in their despair, unpredictable in their deeds. Perhaps the children would be safer in all respects in the country. But … ‘The country did not save the Ffulfords,’ he thought aloud.
    Magda, who had let her chin drop to her chest again, opened one eye, squinted up at Owen and grunted in