A Gift of Sanctuary by Candace Robb Page A

nodded to the clerk to pull the cover aside. An ugly, gaping wound. If it had originally been a simple knife thrust to the belly, then something had been eating at the flesh. ‘Have you cleaned the wound?’
    ‘No. We removed the clothes, that is all. The body is very clean, I know.’
    The man had lain exposed for some time after being wounded, Owen guessed. One at a time, he lifted the hands, studied the nails and palms. The nails were dark with what might be blood, the palms abraded. Bruises on the face and arms suggested a struggle. The knees, too, were rough with abrasions. The man had been in his prime, muscular, no deformities. His hair, a pale blond, had been neatly trimmed, though now it was wild, stiff with sea water.
    ‘Where are his clothes?’
    The clerk stepped back, picked up a basket, which he handed to Owen. Lancaster’s livery, with the emblem of Cydweli. Owen poked through the items. ‘There was nothing else? No weapon?’
    ‘No.’
    Owen lifted the tunic. The tear proved the knife thrust. Whatever had eaten into the wound had no interest in the cloth, which was stiff with blood round the wound, but the remainder of the cloth was rough and brittle, too. Owen lifted the leggings. They also had the feel of having been soaked in brine. The knees were rough. The boots – they were of good quality, sturdy, slightly worn. Owen tilted them. Sand rained down on the stone floor.
    ‘This man lay on the beach. Crawled along the beach, I think. But the tide found him. And he fed the crabs for a time.’ Owen stooped, brought a candle close to the pile of sand. He knew of one beach very near with sand of such dazzling colour. ‘Whitesands.’
    Owen noticed how the clerk peered down, glanced up at him, then quickly away, as if uncertain what to think. That Owen saw too much, even blinded in one eye? Devil take the bishop for putting such thoughts in his head.
    Owen straightened. ‘Let us ascend to fresh air, Ifan. Warm ourselves with wine.’ Though at first it had felt stuffy in the undercroft, that had been the illusion of the smoke of incense and candles. Slowly the underlying chill had seeped through Owen’s leather travelling clothes. This valley had once been a marsh. Man’s stones and mortar could not keep out the damp chill.
    The clerk bent to cover the dead man, then led Owen back whence they had come.
    Bishop Adam de Houghton paced as he listened to Owen’s assessment. ‘He died of the knife wound?’
    ‘I believe he did, though how quickly I cannot say. It may have been a slow death. I believe his wound bled as he lay in the water. The crabs––’ He stopped, seeing the bishop blanch. ‘Forgive me, my lord bishop.’
    ‘You deserve your reputation. Whitesands.’ Houghton was quiet a moment but for the whisper of his costly gown and his velvet shoes on the tiles. ‘It is far to carry a body from Whitesands to Tower Gate. Why? Why was he brought to the bell tower?’
    Owen neither knew nor cared. ‘Your Grace, do I have your permission to join my companions now?’
    Houghton looked first surprised, then apologetic. ‘Of course. God help me, I am forgetting my duties as a host. You have ridden far, and I have kept you from a well-earned rest. Go in peace, Captain. And tonight, when we dine, we shall not speak of this, eh?’
    ‘Of course not, Your Grace.’
    Owen must have slept, for his thoughts as he opened his eyes in drowsy confusion were of York. He had been telling his daughter Gwenllian the tale of the Water Horse of St Bride’s Bay, and now she shook him for another story. As he woke he realised it was Sir Robert who gently shook him.
    ‘His Grace sends for you.’
    ‘Again?’ Owen groaned, rose slowly, made his way to a table with an ewer and dish for washing.
    ‘I told the servant that you were resting. There is no need to hurry.’ Sir Robert sat at the edge of the bed, his eyes worried. ‘His Grace wishes a word before we dine tonight. With you and Master Chaucer. What is