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

sympathy. ‘Tola and her young ones are best away from Magda’s house, where the sick are wont to come. ’Tis not so different at an apothecary.’
    ‘The sick are not brought to the apothecary.’
    ‘Nay. But those who care for them … Oft they succumb. Why dost thou yet debate thy decision? ’Tis done.’
    It was difficult for any parent, this pestilence that seemed most fatal to children. But for Lucie it was doubly hard because of the loss of her first to the plague. The hope that her family was protected by God’s grace could not buoy her.
    How much worse would it ever be for Alisoun Ffulford, having lost both parents and siblings?
    ‘Are there any more in Alisoun’s family, Magda?’
    The Riverwoman jerked awake. ‘Eh?’ She shaded her sleepy eyes with a hand.
    Owen repeated the question.
    ‘Nay. Parents, three children, ’tis all.’ Magda shifted, began to lay her head back down.
    ‘So what does she guard in the barn?’
    Magda grumbled and rubbed her eyes. ‘Herself. Her valuable horse.’
    ‘Why did she run from us?’
    ‘Why should she trust strangers, eh? Be patient, Bird-eye. The child will come to Magda or thee in her own time.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    Magda lay down her head, closed her eyes. ‘Some things cannot be otherwise, Bird-eye.’
    As Owen rowed towards home, the fly-ridden farmhouse haunted his thoughts.
    The boat rocked dangerously as Magda suddenly sat forward, eyes scouring the sky downstream. ‘Fire in the city. Dost thou smell it on the wind, Bird-eye?’
    Owen was breathing deeply with the effort of rowing. But he smelled no more smoke than usual. ‘Even in summer folk tend their fires, Magda.’
    The Riverwoman frowned up at the air. ‘Nay. ’Tis more than that, Bird-eye.’

Three
Things Fall Apart
     
    T hrowing the shutters wide, Bess Merchet stood with eyes closed, head back, hoping for a breeze to refresh her and clear the dust from her nose. Hardly more air than in her bedchamber. How was a woman to revive her spirit while cleaning? ‘May the Lord grant us an early autumn,’ she muttered as she moved away from the window.
    But what was that? She paused, listened. There. She heard it again. Over the usual din of carts on cobbles, children screaming in play, hawkers crying out to the passers-by, a smithy’s clatter, over all these common sounds of a summer’s day in York, and, down below, the maids noisily cleaning the tavern kitchen, over all this were shouts and shrieks and the clanging of a bell signalling an emergency.
    Bess returned to the window. And now, as she breathed deeply, she noted how dense with smoke the air was, more like the air in the dead of winter than in July. Squinting and shifting from foot to foot, making good use of her vantage point three full storeys above the ground, Bess at last saw, round the chimneys and gables of her neighbours’ houses, a plume of smoke rising over St Leonard’s Hospital.
    Her immediate thought was that it was a funeral pyre. She remembered how in the time of the first pestilence, even on the windy coast of the North Sea, the air over Scarborough had some days been thick with smoke from the burning of the plague corpses. She had been heavy with her son Peter and fearful that the stench would turn him to a monster in her womb. But the deaths so far had been few compared with that time.
    Her second thought was for her Uncle Julian, who had a small house within the hospital walls. He was a careless man with a lamp or a candle, especially when in his cups, which might be at any time of day or night now he no longer did an honest day’s work.
    Bess glanced at her half-cleaned chamber and judged it tidy enough for tonight. Dirty it was not. She did not tolerate dirt in bedchambers, be they the guest chambers or her own. But organising the clutter must wait until she confirmed her uncle’s safety. With an impatient tug, she removed the scarf that protected her thick hair, the red dulled with the passing years, but