by Candace Robb
“Fitch?” Berend glanced up, chuckling. “Poor man if he tries. So Neville set a servant to spy on us?” He nodded. “Of course he would want to know what we were about.”
William leaned on the spade. “Lionel Neville? Why?”
“No doubt to find a way to deprive me of my share in the business. He is ever hopeful of finding something scandalous so that he might demand the business in return for his silence.”
“Would he do that?”
“Of course he would. He’s a Neville. He believes himself far worthier than I am. He has lost hope that I will forget the terms of Simon’s will and tumble into marriage, thereby forfeiting my share. So he is looking for another way in. Which is why I am so cautious.” She gave her cousin a look that she hoped reminded him of the trouble he had brought her. In truth, Lionel was not so different from William, who hoped to get her married off so he would feel less responsibility, though in truth he had done more to ruin her than any other.
But William simply muttered, “That Neville bastard,” and resumed his work raking the dirt. Until he began to gasp, then dropped the spade and turned away from the grave with a gloved hand to his mouth. “God in heaven,” he groaned.
Kate smelled it as well and lifted a corner of her cloak to cover her face.
“Yes, we are there.” Berend tossed aside the shovel and knelt by the grave.
“Pity the thaw has begun.” Roger adjusted the scarf over the lower half of his face.
Berend wore one as well. Even so, Kate wondered at how they went about their business, leaning into the grave, brushing the dirt from the shrouded body with their gloved hands.
Roger tugged open the top of the shroud. “Good we did not sew him in,” he said. “Well, there he is. Not a pretty sight.”
Berend sat back on his heels, slowly shaking his head as if not believing what he saw. “Hubert Bale. I never would have credited it had I not seen it with my own eyes. The man was invincible.”
“I do not care to think what that means about our adversary,” said Roger. “Was he an assassin?” Berend gave a curt nod. “Then whoever murdered him was also well skilled in the art of death.”
Holding his gloved hands over his nose and mouth, William crept close to the grave, peering down.
“So this man was not Jon Underhill, but Hubert Bale?” he asked Berend, who nodded. “An assassin? Not King Richard’s man?”
“He would serve whoever could afford him—kings, dukes, wealthy merchants.”
“Do you still have the letter he showed you, William?” Kate asked. “The one from the king?”
He backed away from the grave looking pale. “He kept it. I checked his clothing.” He licked his lips. “Found nothing.” He coughed into his hand. “He had a pack when Roger escorted him to the guesthouse. Not there when we collected his body. I do not feel—” He covered his mouth and rushed past her, making it just past the dogs. Poor man. His retching went on for a good long while.
So the pack had been Bale’s, and he had carried a letter of introduction from both the duke and the king. She wondered for whom he was actually working? Either of them? Another? And who had moved the pack to the shed, then removed it?
13
VOWS AND SECRETS
It was dark by the time they returned to Castlegate. In the comforting warmth of her own kitchen, Kate relaxed as she watched Berend moving about, freshening Lille and Ghent’s water bowl. He laughingly rewarded their shameless begging with a bit of meat despite all they had eaten at the guesthouse, sharing the generosity with Lady Margery’s dogs. When they were settled, Berend sank his large, scarred hands into the bread dough that would rise during the night. She wondered at his ability to move after his exertion in the forest. No, she did understand. His heart was heavy tonight. She had felt it as they walked home across the city, his distraction, his weighted silence. If a gentle rain had not begun as they walked home, she would be out in the garden quieting herself with her bow.
“You grieve for Hubert Bale?” she asked.
She thought he had not heard her question, lost in his own mind. Belatedly, she was glad he had not heard. It would only remind him if he had succeeded in pushing his thoughts away.
But after kneading the dough for several moments he paused, nodding. “I do. I doubt that he had a chance to make his peace with God at the moment of death. I am sorry for that. We all deserve that. I will find a way to give him a proper Christian burial.”
“Ask Jocasta Sharp to help.”
“Thank you, but I have my own resources, Dame Katherine.” He pressed the dough, lifted it, slapped it down, kneaded it. “I was blessed with a second chance. To reform, to find peace and wholeness in nurturing and protecting this household. I have discovered the comfort of daily tasks—day after day, cooking, baking, repairing things round the property, shopping.” He paused again, with the ghost of a grin. “Assassin to housekeeper. I suppose Bale must have thought me mad. One head wound too many. But my heart is at ease. I never would have believed it possible.” He kneaded awhile longer.
She wondered at his ability to smile at himself, he, who had come face-to-face with his own mortality in seeing someone he knew lying in an unblessed grave. But he was not entirely free of his own past, or at least he blamed his occasional disappearances on a need to go off and clear his mind. He would return a few days later exhausted, but calm.
She found herself unable to find the humor in her own situation, and she knew that for a bad sign. Even amid the violence her family had always found things to laugh about. But all she could think tonight was how her dream of achieving the financial ease that would afford the liberty of choosing when and with whom she would wed was ever farther beyond her reach. If Hubert Bale had come to York on a mission for King Richard, he would be missed, and others would come asking questions, turning over every report of his movements until they arrived on her doorstep, her secret scheme exposed, her reputation ruined. And that was just one of her worries. Alice’s and Connor’s deaths were linked to Bale’s murder. What of Phillip? Would the murderer fear what Connor had told him? Or whether Phillip had seen him with Connor the morning of his murder in the chapter house? Might he decide to eliminate any possibility of Phillip identifying him? This she feared even more since seeing Phillip at the deanery in the late afternoon.
Lille and Ghent came over to settle, one on either side of her, warming her flanks. She stroked their wiry fur, grateful for being pulled out of her worries.
“They sensed you fretting,” said Berend, covering the dough with a large wooden bowl.
He cut thick slices of bread, slathered them with butter, and handed one down to her as he came to settle beside her, careful not to disturb Lille.
“Three slices, Berend?”
“The dig, the walk, Griselde’s less than inspiring stew . . .”
He made her smile. “She does not have your magic in the kitchen.” But it had been a comfort to be in Lady Margery’s bright company. William, too, seemed glad of it. Lady Margery had met him at the door on their return and said, “I do not suppose this is the time to discuss my husband’s peace effort?” William, dusty, drooping with exhaustion, had surprised them all by saying, “No better time. I welcome the distraction. In truth, I used you as my excuse for coming to the guesthouse.”
Margery had laughed. “We must come up with a clever explanation for the dirt on your shoes, leggings, and cloak. Perhaps I attacked you in the garden?”
Kate had been pleased to see the two of them laughing together. Something good might come of all the sorrow.
“Seeing Hubert Bale in that grave . . .” Berend shook his head. “He and I, all the assassins, we were ever aware that we balanced on the edge of death, but we imagined glorious ends, cut down in the midst of combat with a worthy adversary. As the Norsemen believed that they would enter Valhalla if they died with sword in hand. But Bale’s was a pathetic death. Strangled with the silken rope from bed hangings.” Berend sighed.
Kate put a hand on his strong forearm. “Courage seemed its own protection. I thought my brothers invincible. I doubt it will be of any comfort to you, but my fear is that he did die at the hands of a worthy adversary. And that bodes all the worse for us.” She leaned over to pour more ale. “This is maddening. The murderer has us dancing to his tune. He acts, we react. What if that is his intention? To keep us too busy to see what is right in front of us?”
Berend popped the last bit of bread into his mouth and reached for the bowl of ale at his feet, laughing as Lille, the shameless flirt, sniffed at his hands then rolled over for a stomach rub. It was awhile before he settled back, bowl in hand.
“So what have I not seen?” Kate asked. “Is it possible the murderer has been in my undercroft on High Petergate all along, observing how we dealt with Bale’s body, watching the rhythms of the household? And if so, is this all about the guesthouse? Or Lady Kirkby?”
Berend sipped his ale, staring into the fire. His brows knit together as they did when he was puzzling something out.
“What are you thinking?” she asked when the silence stretched on.
“What if we are looking at the wrong pattern?”
“Is there a pattern other than connections to William, Lady Kirkby, someone watching them?”
“That is the question. We have assumed William Frost to be at the center of it all. Or possibly Lady Kirkby and her mission.”
“Someone had been following William,” said Kate. “The first murder was in the guesthouse, and Bale wanted access to Griselde and Clement.”
“How did he intend to win their cooperation? According to Phillip, it sounds as if he did add something to the wine so that they heard nothing. But how was that to win them over? Would you tell me again all that Phillip told you?”
While they had been at the guesthouse, Kate’s uncle had sent a servant with the request that she come to the deanery—Phillip said it was urgent that he talk to her. Her ward was not one to call anything urgent. Lady Margery assured her that all was in hand. Two of her servants were caring for Odo; Griselde had seen that he had a hot meal and would continue to do so.
The hall of the deanery was large and airy. In one corner several armoires and a large table with benches marked the area where clerks were usually hard at work, though not today, on the Sabbath. In the middle of the room, near the central hearth, an elegant settle and several high-backed chairs were clustered for conversation and piled with colorful embroidered cushions. Tapestries in rich jewel colors adorned the walls. It was a comfortable hall, inviting.
Dean Richard rose from one of the cushioned chairs to welcome her, garbed in a simple houppelande. His indoor shoes were an elegant brocade, with long, pointed toes. He enjoyed his pleasures. He plied her with questions about her meeting with William as soon as she took her seat. She had told him much of it when she escorted Marie to the deanery the previous evening, and he said he had been trying to make sense of it ever since.
“So am I, uncle. But this afternoon I came at Phillip’s request, did I not?”
“Of course.” He sent a servant to inform the boy that she had arrived. “After mass this morning he asked for advice about vows, promises, especially those made to the dead. He has been pacing ever since—in the hall, then in the kitchen where his sister complained that if she must tolerate his pacing she deserved to know what it was about. He escaped to his bedchamber.”
“Have you any idea what it is about?”
“None. I see you went out to the grave?” He gestured toward her mud-caked hem. “Did you recognize the first victim?”
“Berend did. It is Hubert Bale, although he had introduced himself to William as Jon Underhill.”
“So his attacker is still an unknown. I am sorry.” He reached down to pet Lille and Ghent, who were already happily asleep at Kate’s feet. “What was Bale’s mission?” Richard asked when he straightened.
She told him what William had told her.
“Access to Lady Margery? And William agreed to it? Why would he do that? Why did he not simply go to the sheriffs with the report of someone following him? No, of course, I know, the tension between the king’s supporters and the Lancastrians. No one knows whom to trust. And his wife, being a Gisburne, well, they might fear the sheriffs would be more sympathetic to their enemies than to them.”
“To be fair, William’s guest was the victim, not the attacker.”
“Who knows what led to the strangling?”
Kate leaned back against the chair, her head beginning to pound.
“Forgive me,” said her uncle. “You have had a trying day. Week. You will be glad to hear that I have the archbishop’s permission to say a mass for Connor in the early morning, in the Magdalene chapel, for his fellows. Grantham will be present, and his wife. We will quietly bury him in one of the churchyards in the city, preferably one in the minster liberty. I am not yet certain.”
She took a deep breath, willing herself calm. “This is good of you, uncle. How did you convince the archbishop to permit the mass?” Suicide was a mortal sin, depriving the dead of the benefit of burial in blessed ground. “You told him it was murder?”
“I had no choice. But I emphasized the importance of secrecy, and reminded him that we do not wish the sheriffs involved in searching for the murderer. In order to avoid that, we allow the city to believe that Connor murdered Alice in a fit of jealousy, then took his own life. Unfortunately, the secrecy prevents what I thought most fitting, that he should be buried with Alice Hatten. Dame Jocasta warned me that Alice’s sister is quite the gossip.”
“I am touched that you thought of that.”
“I have a heart. So, apparently, has Scrope.”
“I never doubted your heart, uncle. And it is not only William and the archbishop who wish to avoid involving the sheriffs.”
“No.”
“So Scrope knows. How much does he know?”
The servant returned with the message that Phillip would prefer to talk to Kate in the privacy of his bedchamber.
Kate said she would go to him in a moment.
The servant withdrew.
“I regret that I found it necessary to tell His Grace about everything, including the murder in the guesthouse. But not your delicate business there. Although I suspect that his lack of further questions suggests he knows of it.”
“How?”
“I have no idea.”
So the archbishop did have spies in the city. Of course he did. Kate leaned across to her uncle, kissing his cheek. “I am grateful that there will be a mass for Connor in the morning. I will attend.”
She found her way down the passage to the outer steps that took her up to Phillip’s room. He opened his door to her knock, thanking her as he stepped aside and welcomed her into the room. The guest room was warm and furnished almost as comfortably as her uncle’s room, where she had spoken to Phillip yesterday—had it been only the day before? Helen had clearly fussed with it, using tapestries, cushions, several lamps, and a colorful bedcovering to brighten the room.
Phillip looked no better. His beautiful eyes were sunken in shadows. How sad he looked, how tired. He led her to a bench beneath the window. Reaching behind it, he drew up a pack.
Kate gasped. “Phillip, this is Hubert Bale’s traveling pack.”
“You have seen this before?”
“Yes. In one of the garden sheds at the guesthouse. And then it disappeared. Where did you get it?”
“Connor gave it to me. For safekeeping. He said he did not trust that he would not sell the contents for drink.”
“Where has it been?”
“In my own pack. I promised him I would give it to no one. I promised. But now that he’s gone . . . Dean Richard helped me see that my responsibility is to the living.”
Bless Uncle Richard. “I am grateful to you, Phillip. How did it come into his possession?”
“One night Connor told me a tale—he had been drinking, so I wondered how much of this was true, bu
t—he said he had gone to your guesthouse to meet Master Frost and Alice Hatten, his wife-to-be. She had coaxed him to go, telling him that Master Frost promised to help him find a place in the stoneyard at Beverley Minster. So the meeting that evening was so Master Frost might advise him how to please the dean and chapter as well as the master mason there. Connor was late—he had stopped for a tankard of ale, for courage, he said—and when he arrived, well, it was all wrong. He found two strangers, large men, both of them, struggling. And suddenly one had a rope round the neck of the other, strangling him.”
“Did Connor recognize either of them?”
Phillip shook his head.
“Was Alice there?”
“Yes. She was slumped over near the door, drunk or poisoned, he could not tell. All Connor cared about was getting her away safely.”
“The two men did not notice him?”
Phillip shrugged.
“How did he get her out of there?”
Shifting so that he was sitting cross-legged on the bench, Phillip began to use gestures as he spoke, something he had not done since finding Connor’s body.
“He said he hoisted her over his shoulder, picked up a pack by the door—he never said why he picked up the pack—and he carried her down to one of the garden sheds, where he tried to wake her. He was frightened—she was so limp he feared she would stop breathing. He managed to wake her a little, but not enough for her to walk, even with his help. He kept expecting someone to come looking for them, so he could not linger. He searched the pack and found some money and a letter in a little purse. He put that in his own scrip, then picked her up and carried her to his lodging.”
“So he did not take the pack?”
“He went back for it sometime. The next day?” He frowned at her. “I forget. I only half-believed him. But you do. Is this important? Did the man die? Or was he the one who killed Connor?”
“The man who owned this pack is dead. Whether his murderer then went on to silence Alice and Connor? I think it very likely. You must swear to tell no one. Not Marie, not anyone.”
