The Service of the Dead

by Candace Robb

  “Dame Katherine . . .”

  She motioned Lille and Ghent to her side. They stood, alert.

  “Go, Jennet, Berend!” she commanded.

  Jennet lifted the girl, and Berend yanked Sam to his feet, kicking shut the door behind him. Kate took out her knife, set the axe beside her, took Andrew’s foot and shook his wounded leg.

  He sputtered awake. Lille and Ghent, who crouched on either side of him, growled a warning as he moved. “What is this? You give your dogs the honor of the kill? But you love to kill. You had such pleasure with—”

  “Bryce was the devil’s spawn. No child of God could have so boasted of his pleasure in cutting out Maud’s tongue and pressing it up into her with his cock. He was no man born of woman. And how slowly he killed Geoff. A piece at a time until he bled to death.” She suddenly saw it so clear in her mind she flinched, turned away to hide her emotion.

  “Ah, she looks away. A woman’s soft heart after all.”

  “The dogs will take you if you reach for me,” she whispered, breathing deeply to steady herself.

  I did not feel it after a while, said Geoff. God protected me from the worst of it.

  “What did you mean about my mother?”

  “I wondered when you would return to that.” His words were slurring a little. Berend had done her no favor slamming the man’s head into the stone wall. “Seems your mother, Saint Eleanor, wrote to Walter from across the Channel at Yuletide. Crazed Walter, all alone on your land on the border. Save your soul, Walter. Find Mary Caverton and help her and the child. You will feel so good, so righteous.” He forced his voice high. Not so weakened then.

  It was the sort of thing her mother might do, meddle in others’ lives as if hers was so admirable, so above reproach. As if she hadn’t abandoned her surviving children in following her new husband to Strasbourg. And she had lied to Kate, made her think Walter the victim, heartbroken over Mary. “So Walter tried to find Mary?”

  “Aye. He went to the Bensons.” A neutral family north of the border. “They told him Mary had died in childbirth seven years ago. But Benson promised to ask about the child. So he did. Now Walter is interested, I thought, and wondered why, for he’d never loved Mary. Even so, here he was asking, and I wondered how I might use it. So I took little Petra to meet her father.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Well you might ask.” He might be smug, but his labored cough betrayed his anguished breathing. “His betrothed—wealthy, young, ready to bear him more Clifford monsters—she forbade him to acknowledge such a creature as Petra, threatening to break the betrothal. Petra has lived wild, like me. She is strong, did you notice? Much, much stronger than your Norman ward, pretty, delicate Marie. Smarter than Phillip.” He licked his lips, the thirst that came with loss of blood from his leg and a gash in his head. “Walter offered me money to take Petra away. He said there might be a place for her with your mother. She was returning to York to found a nunnery. So I took the money and came to present Saint Eleanor with her granddaughter. But she is not here.”

  “No. Your journey down from the borders was for naught.”

  Why would Walter send him here, Geoff?

  Walter is lost, Kate. I pity his betrothed.

  Andrew frowned at her. “Are you listening?”

  “I am. So what will you do now that you know Walter lied to you?”

  “No matter. I found you, young widow, living a comfortable life. With secrets. A bawdy house for the powerful citizens of York. Clever. Dangerous.” She caught his foot as he tried to shift. He coughed. “I am dying here.”

  “Slowly bleeding to death like my twin, and Maud, and Alice. What I want to know is, why Hubert Bale, Alice, Connor? Why not kill me?”

  “I wanted this, to watch you suffer. Grieve. Be tormented by a fear that you missed a chance to save them. I killed Walter too quickly. Snapped his neck and it was over. He suffered no more. Nothing to savor.”

  Kate had gone cold. Her last brother, dead. All the men in her family, dead. She and her mother all that remained. Her mother, her muddle-pated meddling mother, had provoked this bloody onslaught of vengeance.

  “So I vowed not to rush your dying. I meant to give you the guilt, and ruin you as well. You challenged me more than I could have hoped. You are a clever one, burying the body right away.” His chuckle was a gurgle. “William Frost struts about before his peers, but he crawls for you, eh?” He might be struggling to breathe, but Andrew’s grimace was a smirk. He so enjoyed twisting the blade in Kate’s heart. “He’s no less your servant than Berend and Jennet—comrades in arms you like to think, but they call you ‘dame’ and ‘mistress.’ You order them about. You Cliffords.”

  Kate tightened her grip on her knife and fingered the axe. Enough? Had she heard enough now?

  Andrew’s chuckle had the tone of a death rattle. “You have me wondering. You pushed them out when you thought they would hear how you murdered my brother. How you slit his throat as he sat watching the cattle, peaceful as could be.”

  “My mother took me away before I could finish you.”

  “So why not let your comrades hear about your kill?”

  It was not the killing. It was what came before, the day the two of them, Bryce and Andrew . . . I ran. If I had not run, if I had killed them then . . .

  Two against one, Kate. You were right to run. My death was not your fault. They meant to kill all of us.

  “What you did to Alice. She had done nothing to you. Nothing.”

  “Nor had Maud. But it changed you. Changed all of you.” Andrew coughed. “One feeble girl’s death destroyed you all.”

  She leaned over him, the knife to his neck. “Like Mary’s death?” It was her mistake.

  Something thudded against the door. Kate turned her head and, as the door swung open Andrew grabbed her hair with one hand, pulling her close.

  Lille and Ghent sprang in. “Bite!” Kate commanded. They found a purchase on Andrew’s arms. He screamed.

  “No! Get the dogs away from him!” the girl shrieked from the doorway. She hurled herself out of Jennet’s grasp, fell onto Kate.

  Andrew lost his grip and Kate rolled away, pulling the girl with her and holding her tight though she flailed and kicked.

  “Call off the dogs,” Sir Elric commanded from the doorway.

  Seeing his drawn bow, Kate whistled to Lille and Ghent, their command to drop their grip. To Elric she called, “Hold your shot, sir. He is mine.”

  But at that very moment the arrow pierced the bridge of Andrew’s nose.

  Petra shrieked again, then went limp beneath Kate, sobbing.

  Kate lay there for a moment, holding the child, waiting for her heart to slow. Damn him. Damn his arrogance.

  “Are you hurt?” Sir Elric crouched down beside her.

  She did not look at him. “He was mine to kill.” She lay still, holding the child until Berend plucked her from Kate’s arms, took her out of the shed. Lille and Ghent nuzzled her face. She held them a moment, then shifted her weight and pulled herself up, glaring at the knight until he shrugged and went over to retrieve his arrow.

  “His blood mingles with Alice’s,” said Jennet. She stood off to the side, examining the mud floor. “This is where she lay bleeding.” She came to Kate then, offered a hand to help her stand up.

  “Damn him to hell.”

  “He thought Andrew was attacking you.”

  “He assumed I needed rescue.” She noticed how Jennet cradled her left arm. Blood soaked the lower end of her sleeve. “What happened?”

  “Petra bites. Through good wool, no less.”

  “Get back to the house. Goodwife Bella might still be there. A bite needs attention at once. Tell Berend to follow, with the girl.”

  “And you?”

  “I will come.” Kate gathered the dogs’ leashes. Her head was pounding from the stench of blood. Lille and Ghent whined to leave.

  “He was not yours to kill,” said Elric, startling her. She ha
d not noticed he was still by the door. “He murdered my lord’s man.”

  “You know this?”

  “Your cousin William Frost told me all, where he buried him, how your cook identified him.”

  “So that is how you came to be here? You came for Berend?”

  “No.” He sounded offended. “My men told me they had found your man Sam. I came to see, but heard the disturbance down here.”

  “That Andrew murdered an assassin was nothing compared to what he and his brothers did to my family. My three brothers. My best friend. Alice Hatten and Connor.” She saw the incomprehension. She called the dogs to follow and walked out, heading through the trees. Walter, dead. And the last of the Caverton brothers. She was hungry for revenge, but Elric had robbed her of that.

  Let it go now, Kate. It is over. No one left to hate. Let it go. You are alive and that is precious to me, to know that you will go on.

  Andrew and Bryce had come for her, two against one, and she had gone out that morning with only a knife to protect herself. She was searching for a ewe who had wandered off when she was about to yean—Kate’s responsibility that spring. She had thought only of the ewe and the lamb, not her own safety. Had she been better armed she could have saved Geoff.

  You were injured.

  I still might have thrown my axe.

  Peace, Kate.

  At the edge of the trees Sam sat in the grass, watched by one of Elric’s men.

  “He bet you would choose the hounds over the lad,” Sam said. “I did not believe him.”

  She started to curse him, then realized what he had said. “What do you mean, the hounds over the lad?”

  “Your ward and the dogs go missing and you chose to save the dogs. I feared for them. If you did not come, he meant to kill them.”

  “Phillip’s missing? From the deanery?”

  “You did not know?”

  Elric’s man was nodding. She clutched his arm. “What do you know about this?”

  “A man came to tell you. After you had gone.”

  God help me. “How?” The man shook his head. She grabbed Sam by the collar. “How? Where is he?”

  “The lass. She slipped the boy a message. The Scot told me nothing about his plans for the lad, only that he was giving you a choice. I think it’s one of Sir Elric’s men who has Phillip. I’m not the only fool.”

  Her heart was pounding as she ran up the hill to the kitchen. The smell of seared flesh met Kate as she opened the door. Berend was holding Jennet as Goodwife Bella cauterized the bite.

  Kate wondered at Bella’s presence. “The man whom you’ve been tending?” Kate asked her.

  “Dead. My cousin is sitting with him in the hall. Poor Matt, it is an unpleasant task for him.”

  Petra was curled up by the fire, bent over a chunk of bread. Kate yanked it out of her hands and tossed it in the fire, pulling the girl up onto her feet.

  “Where is Phillip?”

  A shake of the head, eyes steely, angry.

  Kate took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Where is he?”

  “Andrew gave me a note to give your boy before I came for you.”

  “You handed Phillip a note? In the deanery?”

  “Easy to climb to his window.”

  “You did not read the note?”

  “I don’t read.”

  “Did Phillip say anything?”

  “He just nodded.”

  “He did not question you, a stranger, appearing at his window?” What was wrong with Phillip?

  “I’ve seen him in the stoneyard with that man.”

  “The man Andrew hanged?”

  Petra looked to her feet.

  “Did they talk to you there?”

  “I watched them work and fetched things for them. The boy said I might work there someday.”

  “He thinks you’re a lad.”

  “Most do.”

  Phillip, missing. Andrew’s last piece of vengeance. If Sir Elric had not been so eager to draw his bow she might have made Andrew talk. Damn them to hell. Both Andrew and Elric.

  Kate picked at the torn sleeve of her gown, thinking as she watched the midwife packing Jennet’s wound with a poultice. “The comfrey will draw the heat from the burn and speed your healing,” Bella said in a soothing voice. Jennet looked white as the midwife loosely wrapped the wound.

  Berend poured water for Lille and Ghent, and reached for food.

  “Just a little,” said Kate. “They will be heading out again, so not too much.”

  “Eh?” Berend straightened from his task.

  “One of Sir Elric’s men has Phillip,” she said, looking to Petra. “Is Sam right? Andrew turned one of the men who wear the earl’s livery?” She nodded toward Elric as he bent to come through the kitchen door. “One of his men?”

  “Not one of my men. I do not harbor traitors,” he protested.

  “‘No Name,’ that is what Andrew called him. Mean.” Petra looked at Elric, a challenge in her eyes.

  “You would trip on your pride, Sir Elric,” said Kate. “Traitors are born out of dissatisfaction. Who among your men holds a grudge? Feels unappreciated? Unnoticed?” She saw the wince. “Too many to name. Well, Sam was not the only one Andrew recruited here. Someone in your guard joined his game, distracted us with a man who looked like Sam, and he has my ward Phillip.”

  “I will help.”

  “You blundered in before I learned what I needed to know, and now you want to help? Stay out of my way—you will frighten the boy. Berend, with me. Lille, Ghent.” The dogs rose.

  Berend nodded to Petra. “Serve yourself more bread and make yourself useful. See that the good knight does not follow us.”

  “Are you mad?” Kate exclaimed.

  But the child stepped up to her. “I can help maybe. I know the hiding places.”

  “Why would you help?”

  “Phillip is nice to me.”

  Kate glanced at Berend, who mouthed, Trust her. Perhaps he was right, time was of the essence. She reached out her hand to Petra.

  The girl hid hers behind her back. “I will help for him, not you.”

  For the rest of the morning, Kate discovered abandoned cellars, boathouses, sheds, even an entire abandoned dwelling she had not known existed. Cobwebs, rats, decaying corpses of things the hounds shied away from—with each ghastly space Kate’s heart darkened, dreading what she would find at the end of the search.

  “How do you know these places?”

  “We did not sleep in the same shelter twice.”

  At last the child suggested another “game” Andrew played, hiding something in plain sight. The deanery.

  Marie squeaked at the sight of the filthy girl in the hall. “What is it?”

  “She is helping us search for Phillip. Let her be,” Kate warned, allowing the child to lead her to the cellar. “You know this building so well?”

  “I practiced,” said Petra. “I thought I might take the boy messages from down there, but the cat caught me every time.”

  As if on cue, Claws appeared at the foot of the ladder leading down to the undercroft, hissing.

  “The boy is not here, then. That cat would have set up a howl if a stranger was down there.” The child headed to the kitchens, demanding of Helen, “Are there any rooms no one goes in?”

  Helen glanced at the child, her expression neutral. “Not with the children here.”

  “Outbuildings,” Petra announced, and led the way out the door to the garden.

  No Phillip.

  Dean Richard joined them. “I am so sorry, Katherine. Phillip must have gone before the servants were up and about. We did not notice his absence until Marie complained that he was a slug-a-bed and Helen told her to go up to see if he was unwell. She found his chamber empty. We sent word.”

  “I know. Sir Elric’s men took their time telling me. It was not your fault, uncle. The Earl of Westmoreland’s men consider themselves too important to fret about a child lured away by a murderer.”


  “I should have come myself.”

  “I’ve no time to debate this.”

  The dean nodded toward Petra as she emerged from a garden shed. “Who is the urchin?”

  “My niece. Walter’s child. I will tell you her strange story when we have found Phillip. That comes first.”

  A church bell rang. Then another.

  “Sext,” said Berend. “Midday already. When Andrew does not send for them, what will happen, Petra?”

  “The man will kill Phillip at sundown.”

  “By the rood, he would not do such a thing to an innocent,” the dean exclaimed.

  Petra fired a pitying glance at him.

  As more bells joined in, Kate gazed up at the minster. “The chapter house.” She left the dogs and Petra, who had begun to stumble with weariness, with Helen. When the girl protested, Kate promised that if they did not find Phillip in the minster, they would come back for her. “Eat something. Be ready to return to searching. Come, uncle, Berend.”

  They rushed across the yard and into the south aisle where workmen shook their heads. They had seen no one. But Phillip and his captor would have come through before they had arrived for work. They made their way through the assorted lawyers’ booths in the north transept, stopping at a few to ask the clerks whether they had noticed anything unusual, heard anything. But no one had. Up the narrow steps, they came upon workers bustling about.

  Kate gazed round in defeat. “Of course it is busy during the day. Nowhere to hide.”

  Dean Richard stopped one of the stonemasons. “The roof. Any workers up there?”

  “No, Dom Richard, not today.”

  The dean looked to Kate, to Berend. “On the walk round the top there are blind spots where no one would see them from below.”

  Kate made sure her knife was easy to reach. Berend did likewise. They followed the dean to a ladderlike stairway. Dean Richard explained how the trap door was secured and they headed up in the darkness, Berend in the lead. Kate readied herself to be blinded by the light. They might need to move quickly despite poor vision. At the top, Berend found the hasp undone.

  “You were right, I think,” Kate whispered down to her uncle. “Go find some strong men—we may need to carry Phillip and his captor.”