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Let us see whether Phillippa has drawn Poins out of his swoon.’
    While Owen waited to be shown into Thoresby’s parlour, Wykeham’s two clerks descended upon him.
    ‘Why were no guards posted at the townhouse when we know the bishop has enemies?’ Alain demanded, though his attack was diminished by a fit of coughing. The clerk was suffering the result of being near the fire – or in it. And his dark robe was stained with wet ash near the hem, one sleeve hanging damply.
    ‘That omission was at your master’s request,’ said Owen.
    ‘You remember,’ said Guy, who showed no sign of having been near the fire. ‘The bishop did not wish his new tenants to be inconvenienced or unnecessarily concerned.’
    ‘You have breathed too much smoke this evening,’ Owen said to Alain. ‘Word came quickly to the palace, did it?’
    ‘I was about in the city when the alarm was rung.’
    Owen noticed the singular. ‘Where in the city?’
    ‘You have no right to question me.’
    ‘His Grace will wish to know.’
    ‘He is right, Alain,’ Guy told his fellow.
    Alain cleared his throat. ‘I dined at the York Tavern.’
    ‘And what of you?’ Owen asked Guy. ‘Where were you?’
    Guy dropped his gaze. ‘I have spent the evening in prayer,’ he said in a quiet voice.
    Owen leaned back, looked at the two men, considering them. Both seemed devoted to the bishop and protective of him. But at the moment Alain seemed concerned about his own status and Guy anxious to ensure peace. Before Owen could speak again one ofThoresby’s servants announced that His Grace and the bishop were ready to see him.
    Owen bowed to the clerks. ‘I shall want to talk with you later.’
    In the parlour, Wykeham stood clutching the back of a chair. He was not dressed in his clerical robes, but in an embroidered silk houppelande. Thoresby sat near the fire in a deep-blue velvet gown. Their ruddy faces suggested they had drunk and dined well this evening.
    It irritated Owen. ‘You sent for me, Your Grace?’
    ‘I did, Archer.’
    ‘You must find the arsonist, Captain,’ Wykeham said in a tight voice. ‘We must know the enemy.’
    ‘My Lord, a fire such as this –’ Owen stopped as Thoresby shook his head in warning.
    ‘The bishop is understandably concerned,’ Thoresby said, emphasizing the last two words. ‘What do you think? Was the fire set?’
    ‘It seems likely.’ Owen wondered what Thoresby knew.
    Wykeham pressed his hands together as if in prayer and bowed his head, but as Owen described what he had discovered, drawing the belt from his scrip, and the piece of girdle, the bishop leaned forward, muttering something to himself.
    ‘God have mercy,’ Thoresby murmured.
    Owen noticed the stench of death on the pieces of leather. He wondered whether Wykeham and Thoresby smelled it, too.
    ‘Who has seen these?’ Wykeham asked, not touching them.
    ‘The girdle was handed to me by one of the men who carried the woman from the fire. The other, only me.’
    ‘Then it is not widely known she was murdered?’ said Thoresby.
    ‘I may be the only one who knows, besides the murderer. And possibly the servant Poins, if he is not the guilty one.’
    ‘Where is this servant?’
    ‘At my house.’
    Thoresby nodded. ‘If he talks, it will be to a member of your household. You can trust your servants?’
    ‘Aye, Your Grace.’ Owen was more uneasy than ever about taking Poins in.
    ‘Where have the Fitzbaldrics gone?’ Wykeham asked, as if only now remembering that his townhouse had been occupied.
    ‘To the home of a goldsmith on Stonegate, Robert Dale and his wife Julia.’
    ‘Such charity might not be long extended once the gossips spread fear in the city,’ Thoresby said.
    ‘It was aimed at me, it is plain,’ Wykeham said with a catch in his throat.
    Thoresby’s expression was cold as he glanced at the bishop. ‘You must work quickly, Archer,’ he said. ‘The good bishop’s name must not be dragged through the mire.’
    It is too