by Candace Robb
William nodded, tears in his eyes that he tried to hide by leaning down to stroke the dogs’ backs. Hazel was Isabella and William’s only child, a delicate girl, unable to eat anything but the most plainly cooked meats and gruels. William adored her. Kate waited until he had composed himself. He sat up, tugging on his jacket. Back in control.
“A day later Underhill appeared,” William continued, “carrying a letter of introduction from the king. Or what I took to be such. He wanted access to Lady Kirby. I told him I might not be the best person. Someone was following me. He offered his protection if I did all he said.”
And Bale’s letter carried Duke Henry’s seal.
“Did he find the shadow?”
“No. But he had little time before Lady Kirkby arrived. And then—I have wondered whether he was strangled by the one who has been shadowing me. To prevent his interfering.”
“So the dead man is Underhill?” Kate asked.
William bowed his head. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Have you ever heard the name Hubert Bale?” Berend asked.
“No,” William muttered, sounding miserable.
“What about Alice and Connor? How did they happen to be in the guesthouse that night?” Kate asked.
William rubbed his face, sat back, blinking. Kate could not remember when she had last seen him so disheveled. A long while ago, for certain. Isabella would hiss at his appearance when he joined her at the Graa residence. “Before this trouble began, Alice came to me requesting that I use my family’s influence in Beverley to find Connor work there. At the minster, preferably. I agreed to try if she would allow me to visit our son Tom, to let him know that I was someone to whom he might turn if ever he needed help. I did not ask her to identify me as his father. She meant to wed Connor, so that should have been his role. The boy would call me ‘uncle.’ It would be something. And I promised to help with his education. That night we were to meet at the guesthouse so that I could advise Connor about how to comport himself with the dean and chapter of Beverley. But Underhill came to me that day with the plan.”
“Was it he who arranged Matt’s accident?” Kate asked.
“He mentioned that he would ensure that Matt was elsewhere that night. I never imagined he would injure him.”
“And you did not think to insist that no one be harmed?”
“I trusted him. The king’s man.” William threw up his hands. Lille opened an eye, and Ghent raised his head. “I am glad to see Matt has recovered.”
“Perhaps you did not notice his limp? That he must walk with a crutch?”
Kate let him stew in that for a moment. In the silence she heard the thaw continuing up above, ice sliding down the roof. The ice jam was breached. The sound of dripping water surrounded her. For the next few days she would feel as if she were moving underwater. “When did you tell Alice of the change of plan?”
“Roger told her when he escorted her to the guesthouse.”
“William! You did not ask her? You simply sent her there?”
He glanced away.
“Of course you did not ask her. You knew she would refuse, and for good cause. Once again you cast her in the role of whore. How could you?”
“I know. I see now how—it all went so wrong. So wrong.”
Kate slapped him before she was even aware she had put thought into action. It was Geoff’s voice in her head—Steady, Kate—and Berend’s hand on hers that brought her back.
William’s eyes were as round as a child’s when waking from a nightmare.
“You treated her like a piece of property, William. Like a slave. Alice. The mother of your son. How could you do such a thing?”
He felt round for blood on his face. There was none, of course. She had not hit him that hard, or with the hand on which she wore a ring.
“How could you?” she whispered.
“I was frightened for my family.”
“She is the mother of your only son. Is he not at least family?”
“I will pay for her burial,” William said softly, “and masses for her soul.”
“And your son? I know that you cannot have custody of him, but will you support him?”
“In any way her sister Tessa will permit.”
“What of Isabella? Can you hide such expenses from her?”
He colored, cleared his throat.
“Ah, I see. You already hide much.”
“For Hazel’s sake. To keep peace in the household.”
Of course. Just for that. Not to make life easier for him. “Have you learned anything of what happened at my guesthouse that night?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Did you see Alice afterward?” He bowed his head. “William, did you see her after the murder in the guesthouse? Was that a nod?”
He straightened up with such effort it was as if he were pushing against a weight, his face drawn, his eyes red. He admitted that he had seen Alice. She had been lurking in an alley just down Stonegate from where he had parted from Kate outside the goldsmith’s shop. “Alice accosted me, hissing that I had ruined her again. I—I pushed her back into the alleyway and warned her that she would go to the stocks, that I would name her as a scold if she tried to contact me again.”
“William! How can you accuse her of defaming you? You were the one to cause injury, not Alice.”
“I am ashamed to admit it. But I have told you.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She said something about being followed. She was disheveled. I asked where she had slept. That is when she threw up her hands and walked back into the dark alley.”
In the silence, Kate could hear his jagged breathing, as if he were crying within. Enough. She had bullied him enough to force him to recall what she guessed he had tried to forget.
“What of your shadow?” she asked softly. “Is he gone?”
A shrug. “I have sensed eyes on me, but I might be conjuring them out of my own fear. Roger believes the danger is past.”
“You doubt him.”
William raked a hand through his hair, knocking off his hat. “I know not what to believe at present.”
Berend silently retrieved the hat and put it on William’s lap.
“What do you know of Roger’s loyalties?” Kate asked. “Does he serve only you?”
She watched as he realized what she was asking.
“He has served me faithfully.”
And so William never questioned his loyalty. He gave Roger a comfortable life; what more could he want? Like Alice, Roger was property.
William shook his head, trying to clear it, his eyes moving as if he were weighing the evidence.
Are you toying with him? You do not believe Roger is part of this, do you?
Are you suddenly William’s advocate, Geoff?
You know better. I never cared for the man. But he is in pain.
She reconsidered. “Roger might believe the danger past. Or wish to calm you. Is it not his duty to guard your family, keep the three of you safe? This might embarrass him.”
“I think it might.” William held up his goblet. “A little more?”
His hand shook as he lifted the cup after she poured. He no longer tried to mask it. Giving him a moment to collect himself, she flipped over a corner of the cloak Sam’s shadow had been wearing, looked at the matted fur lining. Well made, but old, worn.
“That is an old piece,” said William. “Are you giving that to Dame Jocasta?”
“I bought it from her.”
He let out a sharp laugh. “Why?”
She told him about the man who had followed Sam.
That sobered him. “Your servants are followed as well? What is happening, Katherine? Who can we trust? It certainly was not Roger. Sam would have recognized him.”
“I did not mean to accuse Roger.”
William seemed beyond any consolation. “Call Sam in here, would you? I would like to ask him myself.”
“He left for Beverley after the
incident, to see whether Alice Hatten had simply gone home. He has not returned.”
“He traveled that road in the snow?”
“I know. Even after I had told him to delay it. I am worried, of course. The snow, the deaths.” Or he might have made his escape, she thought. Could she trust Sam?
“What are we to do, Katherine?”
“Did you bury Underhill, or did you weigh him down in the river?”
“Buried. With prayers. And any time now the king will send someone to find out what happened to him. But I did it for you. You wanted him out of the guesthouse.”
“His presence would have been difficult to explain to Lady Kirkby.”
William shrugged. “I am just reminding you why I was in such haste. I had no time to think of a way to have him discovered along the road. I have thought about that over and again. How I might have simply left him with some other cord round his neck. Or nothing. Let the sheriff try to guess what had been used to strangle him.” He paused. “Why do you now want to know what I did with his corpse?”
“We have no time to lose,” she said. “It is too late now, but tomorrow you will take me to the grave. Berend will help you dig it up.”
“Dig him up? Why?”
“To see whether we recognize Underhill.”
“How would you?” He noticed her looking at Berend and turned to regard him. “Do you think you know him?”
“I heard rumors that someone I once knew had been seen in York.” Berend bowed to William.
William looked to Kate, back to Berend. “You know more than you are telling me.”
“We know nothing,” said Kate. Though they suspected much. “Immediately after the morning service, come to the guesthouse. We will leave from there.”
“On the Sabbath?”
“Would you prefer to miss the requiem masses on Monday?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow. I will be there. Now might I continue on to Thomas Graa’s?”
“Of course. I will see you in the morning.”
After dinner, when Jennet had gone up to tidy the chamber and get some sleep, and Matt took Lille and Ghent to the hall to settle for the night, Kate sat with Berend in front of the kitchen fire, reviewing the interview with William and what she had learned from her uncle. She stared into the flames, frustrated, unable to see the way forward.
“The more we learn, the less we know,” she said.
“Do you trust that he will come tomorrow?” Berend asked.
“If he does not, we collect him.”
Berend grunted.
Kate sat up and turned to study her companion’s scarred face. He did not flinch, nor did he smile.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I felt a ghost in the hall when you described the suffering of that poor woman. You have seen this before. It awakened old anger, old fear.”
“And if it did?”
He shrugged. “I am your servant.”
“Forget for now that you are my servant, Berend. You are my comrade in arms. What do you need to say?”
“A warrior needs a clear head. Perhaps if you told me about this ghost, what her death meant to you, it might exorcise her, and help prevent—”
“The slap?”
“And the unnecessarily vivid description of how it might have been carried out.”
“You think I should have taken a gentler approach with William.” She waited, hearing in Berend’s silence his earlier question. “And if he does not come to the guesthouse tomorrow, I am to blame.”
“No. Not entirely. He is hoping that somehow this storm will rush past, that perhaps the king is too busy to notice his man has not returned. He might hope he can wait it out, that something will happen that negates the need to disinter a man he buried in haste, in fear.”
Kate held out a cup for more ale. Berend poured.
Are you going to tell him the story?
I will tell him about Maud. Perhaps he does sense her here.
But not the rest?
No. I need his trust.
Faintly, Kate heard barking. A moment later Matt burst through the door. “Lille and Ghent have caught the scent of someone in the alleyway. It was all I could do to squeeze through the door without letting them out.”
“I will give you some training in handling them later,” Kate said as she clamped on her pattens. She was out the door just behind Berend, who carried a lantern. She had not reckoned on the chill of the evening glazing the puddles and stumbled against Berend.
Steadying her, he suggested she wait by the kitchen door while he checked the garden and the alleyway, watching for movement. She itched to cross the garden and let loose the hounds, but it was more important to be Berend’s extra set of eyes.
In the end, he found nothing, and when she brought Lille and Ghent out on leashes they lost the scent in St. Mary’s churchyard across the road. She led them back to the hall and gave Matt a quick lesson in signals for stay and lie down, for which he thanked her.
Berend had watched the exchange, and quietly suggested she go up to bed. Their conversation could wait.
Kate did not argue. It seemed days ago that her uncle’s servant had come for her. She left the pattens by the door and made her way up to the solar, sensing the absence of her wards, their often troubling but no less dear presences. Jennet snored in the great bed, an arm and a leg dangling out. Kate climbed in beside her and lay on her back, gazing up at the canopy, praying that Phillip and Marie were securely tucked in at the deanery, and would remain safe.
12
RAISING THE DEAD
Sunday morning, standing in the watery sunshine on the porch of St. Mary’s, Castlegate, Kate wished she were anywhere else as every member of the congregation took her arm or her hand and asked after young Phillip. How horrible for a young boy to witness such an end. How shocking. Was he at home abed? Was he injured? Each looked her in the eyes, hoping they might be the one in whom she would confide precious details they might repeat as points of pride. She had been aware of people craning their necks to count her companions throughout the mass, whispering that neither of her wards was with her. As soon as she could, she broke away to collect Lille and Ghent, then joined Berend and Jennet for the walk to High Petergate; but first she waded through more acquaintances feigning concern in the hope of gaining more information. With all the snow, the two deaths and Lady Kirkby’s presence were the only news anyone had heard in weeks, and Kate was the wellspring. God help her if any learned of the first death, the one in her guesthouse.
Despite her delay, she arrived at the house on High Petergate ahead of William. She wondered whether he would come.
As soon as she had stepped across the threshold she was swept aside by Lady Margery, who whispered that she had something to discuss. She led Kate to a small table by the rear window where Griselde and one of Margery’s guards waited, both looking ill at ease. Kate prepared herself for more bad tidings.
“Odo Marsden, your tenant across the alley, came pounding on the door quite late last evening complaining of sounds in the undercroft,” Lady Margery began. The undercroft next door was the one in which Kate warehoused her most expensive spices. “He says it is not the first time he has heard someone down there.” Margery leaned close, her perfume quite dizzying. “You have grounds to evict him for neglecting to inform you, Katherine. Considering what I am about to tell you I recommend you do just that—evict him. Your spice stock is too valuable to risk.” She leaned back, nodding. “I sent two of my men over to look around.” She motioned to the one who sat beside Griselde, a warm-eyed man who filled his clothes as if he were as thickly muscled as Berend. “Tell Dame Katherine what you found, Alan.”
He bobbed his head in respect to Kate before speaking. “We found the padlock on the door open. It had been cleverly put back so that you cannot see that it is unlocked unless you reach for it. Inside, in the far corner, we found a pallet and some blankets, an empty jug, and other items that suggest someone has been biding there. U
nless you have a guard who does so?”
She shook her head, her mind searching for how long it had been since she had been in the undercroft. Lionel should have been there this past week. But it had been awhile since Kate had checked it.
“But you found no intruder last night?” The guard shook his head. “And have you watched it since?”
“We have, Mistress Clifford. Whoever it is has not returned.”
“I want to talk to Odo.” Kate rose, inviting the guard to accompany her. She called to Berend to join them.
Odo grumbled at the guard when he came to the door, then apologized when Kate stepped forward and moved past him into the hall, her nose tickled by the air emanating from the large room.
“What is this smoke?” She could barely make out the opposite wall for the thickness of the air. “When was the last time you cleared the chimney?” When was the last time she had inspected up here? She could not recall. “We will talk about this later. At the moment . . .” Her eyes were tearing and her lungs felt tight. She asked Berend and Alan to open the shutters and the doors.
“But the cold!” Odo reached out a gnarled hand as if to stop Berend, who simply brushed past him.
“As my tenant you are responsible for maintaining the house in a safe condition. Such smoke is a prelude to fire. You are also responsible for alerting me at once to any trouble on the premises, and a faulty chimney is one. Intruders in the undercroft is another. How often have you heard someone down there?”
He shook his head. “I never said because I thought he was your man. But so late on the night before the Sabbath . . . Or was it something else?”
“Such as?”
He frowned, tilting his head as if trying to recall what he had been saying. Giving up, he demanded, “Are you evicting me?”
“We will speak of this in a few days. You say he has been here before, but you said nothing until last night. What happened last night?”
“Noise.” He shook his head. “I wanted it to stop.”
“But why last night?”
Odo just kept repeating that he wanted the noise to stop.
“What noise?”
He looked confused.
