The Service of the Dead

by Candace Robb

  Kate dragged a high-backed bench toward the doorway, where the outside air tempered the smoke, and ordered him to sit beside her. He shuffled over and settled down, muttering that it was the Sabbath, and a man should be left in peace on the Sabbath.

  When Berend and Alan had opened the shutters and doors, she sent them down to the undercroft—Berend knew how they had last left it. How long had it been? A fortnight? More?

  When they withdrew, she turned back to her elderly tenant, who was shivering and whining about the cold despite the cloak he had draped round himself. Dirt had settled into his wrinkles, accentuating them, and his eyes were rheumy and bloodshot. Perhaps he was ill. Who would not be ill living in this smoke? “Tell me about the intruder. From the beginning.”

  As the man spoke of noises down below, his account wandering, Kate began to see him in a different light. He was not simply a churlish man set in his ways, but an aged man frightened by failing health, failing sight, and a mind that danced away from him, down paths in which he became lost. One moment he knew it was the Sabbath, the next he complained about slipping on the autumn leaves when he went out to the midden. Odo needed care. Perhaps St. Leonard’s Hospital would take him.

  “Have you any kin in York, Odo?” she asked, interrupting his wandering. She had heard enough to guess that the intruder might have been down there for several weeks. Which made her wonder where Lionel had warehoused the most recent shipment of spice.

  Odo shook his head. “All my kin are long gone.”

  “I thought they were long-lived.”

  He frowned, started to talk about his brother’s accident on the road south—a broken axle, his being thrown from the cart, his head hitting a rock. “No pain,” he whispered. “They said he felt nothing.”

  Kate patted his hand. “We will see what we can do for you. Tell me about the noise. What is the noise the intruder makes?”

  He hummed a tune that was no tune. “Like that,” he said, then shrugged and told her of a whistle his father had given him one Christmas, his voice trailing off as his head nodded.

  “I will send Seth, the Fletchers’ boy, over to help you. And I will see to having the chimney cleared. Have you any food in the house?”

  Chin to chest, Odo began to snore.

  Kate blinked her eyes to ease the sting of the smoke as she rose and toured the hall, groaning in frustration at the damage—the gouges in the walls, the wall paintings blackened by the smoke, the stench in a corner that was either Odo’s indoor cesspit or that of an animal companion she had not yet discovered. Tears of frustration joined those caused by the smoky air. She cursed herself for avoiding the old man. She had loved this house. Now her poor stewardship had ruined it. Another crisis. How was it that they were all arising at once?

  No. That was the wrong question. More to the point, what did this have to do with the deaths? She did not believe in coincidence. How was the intruder connected with her other problems?

  “What has happened here?” Jennet asked from the doorway. “Has there been a fire?”

  Kate skirted a pile of debris to join Jennet by the snoring tenant. “I will explain.”

  Jennet gazed down on Odo. “How he has aged since the accident.”

  “What accident? When?”

  “A few months past, he and his brother had a cart accident. The axle snapped, tossing both of them and Odo’s elderly servant onto the road. His brother and the servant died. Odo survived, but it looks as if he was far more seriously injured than anyone realized.”

  “How did I not hear of this?”

  Jennet shook her head. “It is the sort of thing I would have reported to you, him being your tenant. I am surprised that Griselde did not notice the condition of the hall. I thought they were friends.”

  “I do recall her saying that she and Odo had argued. Much complaining on her part about his stubbornness. After a while I stopped listening.” Kate pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I pray you came to tell me my cousin has arrived.”

  “I did. He and his man Roger. We are ready.”

  So William had kept his word. Kate bent down to Odo, lifted his hands, felt the gnarled joints and the too-thin flesh without warmth. He required more help than Seth would know how to give. Jocasta Sharp would surely know of someone willing to take on the task for a little while. Kate would send Seth with the request. While he was gone one of Lady Margery’s servants could stay with Odo.

  It seemed so little, and Kate felt wretched leaving Odo. It took but a moment to cross the alleyway, but she had been so busy with her own troubles that she had neglected her tenant, conveniently assuming he was a man never pleased, never satisfied. She had become so focused on her goals that she had become willfully blind to the suffering round her. One visit had lifted the veil from her eyes.

  Or perhaps Alice’s death had lifted the veil. She had lain awake in the night imagining Alice’s last night, last day. How her heart must have ached when she discovered that William was trading her to a stranger. No doubt she believed he had never meant to help Connor, that he had intended from the start to betray her. Then the horror of the attack. Her escape. How frightened she must have been. And William’s callousness.

  She had tried to focus on the problems, not the suffering, reminding herself to ask Phillip whether something Connor said in his cups, something he did not realize as significant, might provide a hint about what had happened in the guest chamber that night. What had Alice witnessed? How had the attacker ensured she would not interfere? The wine. Had Alice, Griselde, and Clement all had something in their wine to make them sleep through the attack? William had entrusted Kate’s servants and the mother of his son to a stranger without questioning how he might treat them. And the next day, William himself threatened Alice with the stocks if she approached him again. When had the murderer caught Alice? Had it been at the other end of the alley? Kate had been sick in the night, imagining Alice’s terror.

  Now she struggled to regain her composure so that she might smile at William, who had kept his word. What she yearned to do was kick him in the groin.

  “Ready?” Jennet asked.

  “Go on ahead. Tell Lady Margery that I need one of her servants to watch over Odo. And send Seth to me. I will wait with Odo until they come and all is settled. Tell William that he should be ready to leave very soon.”

  It worked. Giving instructions, seeing to Odo, Kate fell into her coping pattern and was soon able to cross the alleyway, enter the guesthouse hall, and hold her tongue as William rose from his place beside Lady Margery. He took Kate’s hand, leaning close to whisper that he had not slept, having prayed all night for Alice, for forgiveness, for the courage to be a better man. Indeed he looked haggard, but she was miles from forgiveness.

  She simply nodded. “We have work to do.”

  As they were leaving, Griselde told Kate she would send some hot food next door and began to apologize for holding a grudge against Odo that had stopped her from checking on him. “I always used to. Odo’s servant was aging along with him, and I often did some tidying, some cooking. But he made me so angry. . . .” She covered her face with her apron.

  Kate pressed her arm, assured Griselde that she was not the only one who had avoided the man. “He was my tenant. I neglected my responsibility. All we can do is move forward with better grace, eh?”

  They were a solemn party, William, Roger, Kate, Jennet, Berend—though Lille and Ghent thought it a rare treat to lead her out Bootham Bar into the wide world beyond. The Forest of Galtres was surely their idea of the heavenly abode. They strained against their leashes, eager to run, but with the Sunday afternoon strollers Kate did not think it wise to let them loose. Besides, they were a marked group, she and William each connected in some way to the scandalous deaths the past week. Well might folk stare at them, wonder where they were wayfaring on a Sabbath afternoon.

  But as the group moved out beyond the walls of St. Mary’s Abbey, the dogs’ ears began to twitch as if they sensed someon
e coming up behind. Kate, too, sensed that someone behind them watched too closely. Now Berend lifted his head, glanced round. Jennet, too. Roger exchanged a look with Jennet.

  Quietly, Kate suggested that she and Jennet could be spared, for they would not be digging up the body. And the dogs were best at tracking a tracker. Berend and the others would continue, while she and Jennet would hang back and do what they could to catch their shadow, then either escort him back into York or bring him along. The latter only if she believed it was the murderer. Anyone else should not see the grave in the forest.

  The plan agreed, the men went on ahead as Kate and Jennet lagged behind with Lille and Ghent. As they entered the cover of the first dense grove of trees, they pretended to be stopping for a rest beneath a venerable oak a little way off the road. Even in the weak winter sun the oak cast a shadow with its thick limbs. Snowdrifts like frozen waves made walking a challenge, and Kate felt the dampness seeping into her boots and her skirts growing heavy as they brushed along the melting surface. Crouching down, she unfastened the dogs’ leashes. They shook themselves off, then gracefully picked their way through the drifts, noses to the ground, curious about who had been there before them. Kate and Jennet leaned against the wide trunk, softly talking about nothing in particular, their ears pricked for the sound of someone stealing up on them. Both held their knives hidden beneath the folds of their cloaks, at the ready.

  Perhaps this was the beginning of the end of the search. The murderer might have underestimated Kate. He might reveal himself.

  “Do you think we imagined being followed?” Jennet asked.

  As if her question had been taken as a signal, someone approached, trying hard to move silently. But the crusty snow made stealth impossible. Crouching down, Kate whispered to Lille and Ghent, “Find.”

  They took off into the brush, and in no time at all she heard Lille’s proud bark, and the sound of someone attempting to run. Kate and Jennet took up the pursuit, eventually seeing a man moving surprisingly quickly through the trees. But Lille and Ghent were gaining on him, spurring him to become reckless, and at last he pitched forward with a thud and a curse.

  “Skirt round, see if he had a companion,” Kate whispered to Jennet, then hastened toward the downed spy.

  He lay on his back trying to blow aside the fur collar that had twisted round and covered his mouth as he fell. Ghent’s forepaws on his chest prevented the use of the one hand not stuck beneath the cloak. “Clever Ghent,” she said, “pinning down that arm.” Lille stood near the man’s head, growling.

  “Call them off, I beg you, Mistress Clifford.”

  Kate cursed as she recognized the man. Lionel Neville’s manservant, Fitch.

  “Has your master sent you to spy on me, Fitch?” Kate asked.

  He tried to talk, but he’d managed to twist the collar even tighter, preventing speech.

  Kate motioned for Ghent to ease away, but stay alert.

  Fitch sat up, straightening his collar, pulling off his hat to shake off the snow, spitting the fur from his mouth.

  “Well?”

  “No, Mistress Clifford. No. Course not. I thought maybe you were out seeking Sam. I am worried for him.”

  She did not for a moment believe him, but it was a curious choice, to mention Sam. “Has Sam been spying on me for your master?”

  “No! We are just friends. Old friends. Like I said, I am worried for him, with all the deaths, and him taking off to Beverley in the snow.”

  That interested her. And, looking more closely at his fur-collared cloak, she remembered another one. An older one that had been tossed into Jocasta Sharp’s cart. Of course she’d seen that old one before. And this one. They were Lionel Neville’s castoffs. “And when did Sam tell you he was off to Beverley?”

  She saw the dawning on the man’s face, how odd it would be for her servant to stop at Lionel’s home, to tell this servant, friend or no, that he was leaving on a mission for her. Though heading out Walmgate was one route out of York toward Beverley, still, she did not believe Sam would take the time. Unless he had been asked to do so.

  “I have no idea of Sam’s whereabouts,” she said.

  He glanced on down the track as if hoping to catch sight of Berend and the others, then started as Jennet came up behind him.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” she said. “You are a good runner, Fitch. We might have lost you had it not been for the snow.”

  He straightened and began to give her a long-toothed smile, then caught himself. “I am looking for Sam.”

  Jennet laughed. “You are a poor liar.” In a sudden move she grabbed his right arm and pushed up his sleeve. Bandaged. Seeping. So it was a fairly fresh wound. “See, Mistress Clifford? This is where Jenkins cut him last night. What were you doing lurking in the alleyway, Fitch? Waiting for Sam?”

  Jerking his arm from her grasp he shrugged and mumbled something Kate could not hear. No matter.

  “Jennet was about to turn back, were you not?” Jennet would not need Kate or the dogs to keep Fitch in line.

  Jennet grinned. “Happy to have your company on the walk back to the city, Fitch.”

  He rose gingerly, brushing off his cloak with an injured air. “I am not headed back just yet.”

  “Yes, you are,” said Kate.

  “I have a right to walk out into the forest of a Sunday.”

  “Of course you do. And my friends have a right to be spared my brother-in-law’s inept servant spying on their flirtations with the young ladies of Easingwold.” She pretended dismay at divulging the reason for the outing, and, stepping close to him, said, “If I discover you have told anyone what I just said, I will gut you.” Jennet caught his wrists and jerked them back as Kate put the knife to his stomach. “Now. Why have you been haunting my alleyway, and why were you following us today?”

  Sweating despite the cold air, his eyes wild, Fitch still swore he was worried about Sam.

  “Well, that sort of worry . . .” She lowered the knife to his groin. “Hm. That sounds as if he is your lover. Are you a sodomite, Fitch? Not that I would condemn you for it. We cannot help who we love, can we?”

  He gulped. “No. No,” he whispered. “He is not my lover.”

  “Then I do not believe your story. Tell me another one.”

  “Master Lionel, he asked me to watch your house, tell him all I noticed.”

  “Why?”

  Fitch shook his head. “He did not explain.”

  She slid the knife up to his throat. “He told you nothing?”

  “A man came to him. A man like Berend, strong, dangerous. He wanted to know about Lady Kirkby’s mission. The master sent him away. I did not hear how he managed it. A few days later, once Lady Kirkby was in York, he ordered me to watch your house, especially in the evenings and early mornings.”

  “Why then?”

  “I have other duties throughout the day. It has been difficult. I have had little sleep.”

  “But Lady Kirkby is lodged at my guesthouse on Petergate, not at my home.”

  “I do not question Master Lionel’s orders.” Fitch was shivering. “I am cold, Mistress Clifford. The snow soaked my leggings and the icy water is going down into my shoes. Have mercy.” His teeth began to chatter.

  “What about today? How did you know to follow us today?”

  “The master gives me leave to walk out into the countryside after mass on the Sabbath. I saw the lot of you and thought he would be pleased to know what you were about. I am sorry, Mistress Clifford. I pray you. I need to move. Get warm.”

  Kate lowered the knife. “You will pretend for your master that you are still going about your task, yes?”

  A nod. “I s-swear.”

  “Go on with Jennet.”

  Lionel was a terrible judge of men. Fortunate for her. Even more fortunate that they had caught Fitch and turned him back before he saw the body buried in the forest. But perhaps most useful was his account of the man who came to Lionel for information about Lady Kirkby.
Hubert Bale? She must think how to draw out her brother-in-law.

  She waited beneath the oak until Jennet and Fitch were out of sight, then told Lille and Ghent to lead her to Berend. They trotted off, choosing the smaller track that branched off toward Wigginton, eventually leading her off through the brush to a line of ancient hollies. The sound of shovels came from just beyond the prickly hedge, and when she had found a way through, she saw the men’s cloaks and jackets hanging on the thick limbs of a willow at the edge of a clearing. Berend and Roger were bent over, digging.

  A flash of memory. Her brother Walter watching as her father and a servant dug a grave, a bundled body lying to one side. Dread rose up, chilling her hands and her feet, blurring her vision.

  Steady, Kate, Geoff whispered.

  She took a deep breath and the memory dissolved. Ghent leaned into her, sensing Geoff.

  That was Father digging? Geoff whispered.

  Who else was left?

  There is so much I have not seen. How have you hidden these memories from me?

  I’ve hidden them from myself. I am not sure why they are breaking loose. It worried her. They weakened her.

  I am here to strengthen you.

  I would prefer to have you here in the flesh. Now be quiet. I need a clear head.

  Lille whined. She’d already caught the stench of death from the grave. Gently, Kate commanded the dogs to stay back beneath the tree, stroking both of them, reassuring them. Herself as well. They steadied her.

  As she stepped into the clearing she assured Berend’s bent back that all was calm. He and Roger leaned into the work, the shovels short-handled, the best that could be done since they needed to fit in a sack Berend could conceal beneath his cloak. He had deemed it best not to call attention to himself with such tools on the Sabbath, particularly if they were being watched. The two were shoveling out the dirt, as William raked the piles away from the edge with a spade he must have brought with him. Or, rather, Roger. She could not imagine William being aware he owned such a tool.

  “Our shadow was Lionel Neville’s manservant Fitch. Jennet is escorting him back to the city,” she said as she joined them. “He will not give her trouble.”