The Cross Legged Knight by Candace Robb

that the gossips, rather than talking of the good Cisotta had done, were listing her frivolous outfits, the men with whom she had flirted, the midwives she had stepped over to find work, how much she had charged for a birth when others did the work expecting nothing and, worst of all, the charms she had woven for profit.
    By the time Lucie reached Emma’s house she felt confident that she could rummage for information without sounding unnatural – her fury over the wholesale condemnation of Cisotta would cover any tension she might display.
    The Ferriby house commanded Hosier Lane just beyond Pavement. Peter Ferriby was a merchant trading in a wide assortment of profitable goods, as his father had done before him, and the L-shaped house rose two storeys, gaily painted in yellow and red, a narrow end to the street with a wing jutting out behind the warehouse that shared the street end. She ducked through an archway which led into a small courtyard between the house and the warehouse and took a moment to appreciate the peace after her walk. She knocked only once on the door before Emma opened it. Lucie realized she must have been visible from within. ‘I was enjoying your courtyard.’
    ‘You may not wish to come in,’ Emma said beneath her breath. ‘Mother is in a fury.’
    That was not unusual for Lady Pagnell. ‘We are a pair, then,’ Lucie said. ‘But what is amiss? Is it her anger with the bishop? I thought they were about to come to a settlement.’
    Emma winced. ‘I thought so, too. But it is anyone’s guess how long it will now be delayed. Peter heard this morning that some people are suggesting we are behindthe fire at the bishop’s house, that we did it in revenge for Wykeham’s part in Father’s death.’
    ‘Lady Pagnell heard this?’
    ‘Peter can be such a fool – he told me of this in her presence.’
    ‘Oh, Emma, surely no one believes it?’
    ‘Folk will believe what they like,’ Lady Pagnell said loudly from somewhere within the house – what keen hearing the woman had – ‘and the more who suffer for it the tastier it is. But you do not need to keep Mistress Wilton standing in the courtyard, Emma.’
    Emma clutched her elbows with her stubby-fingered hands. ‘Mother is my bane,’ she said more quietly. ‘But enough of her. I can guess what you are angry about. Folk are talking of nothing else this morning. What on earth was Cisotta doing at the Fitzbaldric house?’
    ‘So far we do not know.’
    ‘Well, come in, do,’ Emma said in a louder voice, stepping back, her elegant green wool gown moving to show the pale-yellow undershift. ‘You must tell me all about last night and the injured servant you have taken in.’
    Lucie glanced down at her simple workaday blue gown, hoping she had not stained it while assisting Magda with Poins, or working in the shop. There was a tear at the edge of her left sleeve that she had not noticed before, a small spot on the skirt that might be blood and her hem needed a good brushing. She and Emma were both daughters of knights, but Lucie did not fuss with her appearance on workdays.
    Lady Pagnell stood beneath a window, leaning over a large piece of embroidery in a frame, stabbing at it as if taking out her anger on the cloth. Though short like her daughter, she managed to be an imposing presence in the high-ceilinged hall. She wore a dark-purple gownwith a matching veil over a white wimple and bib, a veil much crimped and curled and stiffened into an imposing square façade over her face. Murmuring something polite at Lucie’s greeting, she feigned absorption in her needlework, as if her earlier outburst had never occurred.
    At a table further back in the hall Emma’s boys, Ivo and John, sat with their tutor, Edgar, writing on wax tablets as he dictated. Matthew, the Pagnell steward, sat further down the table with rolled parchments, tally sticks, and a ledger spread out before him. He did not look up at her entry, but seemed to bend his head even