The Service of the Dead

by Candace Robb

  The dean nodded, blessed the two of them, and backed down.

  Berend opened the hatch.

  For a long while he stood quite still, so still that all Kate heard was the rush of the wind, the patter of rain, so still that, gazing up, she watched the fat drops of rain fall on his head and shoulders. Silently, like a cat moving a leg forward in slow motion, its eyes locked onto its prey, Berend moved his left leg up a rung, his right arm, paused, then right leg, slowly, cautiously, silently, left arm. He turned his head to listen with his good ear. Paused. And then, with great care, he crawled out onto the ledge. It was barely wide enough for his bow-legged stance when he rose to his feet. He looked round, nodded to Kate.

  She tucked her skirts up in her girdle and climbed, her hands growing colder as she ascended, the rain, now whipped up by the wind, stinging her face like icy needles whenever she looked up to gauge her progress. As she crawled out onto the ledge, Berend, who had moved beyond her vision, reappeared. She sat back on her knees so she could see his face. She found no comfort in his grim expression.

  “What did you find? Is Phillip up here?”

  A nod. “Alive, both of them, but wounded.”

  “Both of them? Did Phillip wound his captor?”

  “He must have. It wasn’t my doing. The lad knows we have found him. He is pinned beneath the man, who is a dead weight, but still breathes. If I try to lift him and he makes a sudden move—”

  Kate crossed herself.

  Berend nodded. “We need the men who work up here. They will know how to secure them and safely move them down.”

  “But how—” Kate stopped. She would find out what had happened soon enough. Right now she must think only of climbing down and explaining what they needed, must not wonder how Phillip injured his captor, must not spin out her fear of what might happen when they tried to move two bodies on a high ledge. Phillip was alive, and she needed to help move him to safety.

  At the bottom of the ladder, men waited with a lantern. Despite her chattering teeth, Kate managed to explain what Berend had found, so that by the time he joined her the men were talking among themselves, two moving off to fetch what they would need.

  Dean Richard put an arm round Kate. “We are not needed here. Come. We will light some candles and pray at the deanery.”

  Berend agreed. “We will bring Phillip to you as soon as we have retrieved him.”

  The girls were a study in contrasts. Marie sat poised at the edge of Phillip’s bed, her gown carefully arranged round her, hair caught up in green ribbons. Her fingers were busy with paternoster beads, her lips silently shaping the prayers, her eyes set on her brother’s still face. Petra, her face scrubbed, her hair caught back in a thick braid, sat on the floor near the door, her slender arms round her drawn up knees, rocking, eyes cast down. She still wore the tattered, pungent clothes of a boy—she had refused to borrow anything from Marie, who had made the offer while clearly bristling with resentment.

  “My fault if he dies,” had been Petra’s response when Kate asked her why she had touched none of the food Helen had offered.

  Phillip had awakened long enough to ask whether Elric’s man was alive. When Kate told him he was, that he had been taken to the castle at Sheriff Hutton, where he would answer to the earl, his lord, Phillip had whispered a prayer of thanks. He feared he had killed the man.

  And what matter if he had? But in truth Kate was grateful Phillip had not been blooded, prayed that he never would be. He was skilled with the knife, though, that was clear. The man had not counted on that, was wounded far more seriously than he had wounded Phillip—not fatally, but he had lost much blood.

  “God be thanked he did not find your knife,” said Kate, thinking it somewhat miraculous.

  “Jennet set a sheath for it in my boot,” said Phillip. “I didn’t dare go for it until he was coming down on me. Then I pulled it. I thought I was dead anyway. I held it point up and closed my eyes. He couldn’t avoid it without risking a fall off the ledge, I guess.”

  “God bless Jennet.”

  “God bless all of you,” he said softly. “I have caused you much grief.”

  “Not you, Phillip. Never you.” She kissed his forehead.

  Kate had found the note in Phillip’s pocket, signed as if from one of the stonemasons saying he had found something that might help prove Connor had not killed himself. Did the boy actually still believe Connor could have climbed up to the scaffold? She had thought he understood.

  When we were his age, we never trusted that the adults told us the whole story, Geoff reminded her.

  “What of the child?” her uncle had asked Kate. “She is all alone now. Caverton was a monster, but he fed and cared for her.”

  “I took in two bastard Nevilles, and I will do no less for a Clifford, my own brother’s daughter. My foster daughter now.”

  “Another ward, and one with much healing to do?”

  “We will do it together.”

  It had been a quiet moment before folk began to arrive wanting to hear the tale. Hugh and Martha Grantham, Lady Margery, Cousin William, Jennet bringing along Goodwife Bella to see to Phillip, Sir Elric, who watched from the doorway, uncertain of his welcome. She ignored him.

  William held out his arms to her. “I am so sorry, Katherine. Sir Elric told me about Walter.”

  She let her cousin hold her. It felt good to soften for a moment.

  “You have a valuable ally in Sir Elric,” William whispered in her ear. “He vows to keep our part in hiding Bale’s death out of the report to the earl. He regrets any harm his men brought to you and your household, including the body of the stranger.”

  Jennet had reported that the poor man had been prepared for burial, and he lay out in the shed behind the kitchen on Castlegate, along with Andrew Caverton. Sir Elric had ordered his men to tie Sam up in the shed with the bodies. “Let him contemplate the fruits of his betrayal.” Jennet had nodded her approval.

  All so busy tidying up, restoring order. As if all troubles were past.

  Even her neighbor and partner Thomas Holme was of that mind, swearing to her as he arrived that he would tear down the old stone shed so that nothing like this could happen again.

  City folk and their childlike belief that their walls and laws protected them from all danger. When Kate could listen to it no more, she had excused herself to sit with Phillip. Ignoring Helen’s frown, she had brought Lille and Ghent with her. She sat now on a low stool beside Petra, stroking the dogs’ wiry fur as they napped beside her. As ever, Kate found comfort in their companionship.

  She touched Petra’s cheek. For the two of them, life had never been tidy and ordered. Or for Marie and Phillip. They might be all the stronger for it, but how good it would be to rest. To find trust and a greater sense of safety.

  Petra glanced up. “That woman in the kitchen said I look like you. She said you are my father’s sister.”

  “She is right on both counts.”

  “She said I will live with you now. Like those two.” She glanced at Marie, who saw her watching and bowed her head.

  Softly, so that Marie could not hear, Kate said, “Not quite like them. Though I have come to love them as my own flesh and blood, they were kin to my dead husband. They are wards, but you are my niece, my blood kin.”

  “My father did not like me. He paid Andrew to take me away.”

  “My brother had little heart left, Petra.”

  All that had happened must be confusing to the child, and frightening, sad—though she had not yet seen Petra cry. “Have you always lived with Andrew?”

  When the girl did not answer, Kate glanced over, saw that the child was shaking her head very slowly, over and over, as if lost in the motion, her eyes still downcast.

  “Who did you live with before?”

  “Old Mapes, with deep wrinkles and the whitest hair. She was the wise woman, the healer.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “I guess. But she died. And then Andrew came.
”

  “How long ago was that?”

  A shrug. “She made my hat. Still have it.”

  So it was not so long ago, though the hat, a dark felt, was grimy and ragged at the seams and edges.

  “Do you miss her?”

  “I miss my cats and pony, and the goats. And Mapes.” The child’s throat closed over the healer’s name.

  Kate guessed the time of tears would soon begin. A long silence ensued in which Marie’s prayers and Phillip’s soft snore were the only human sounds in the room. She let herself drift off into her own prayers for her brother’s soul, for Mary Caverton, Alice, Maud, Geoff, Connor—such a long list.

  “Do I have a choice?” the child suddenly asked. “About living with you?” She had undone her braid and was twisting a wiry lock round and round a finger, studying it as if it were a crucial clue.

  “No.”

  “I thought not.”

  “I think we might like each other.”

  A shrug, still studying the remarkable curl. “Why do those big dogs follow you about?”

  “Because we grew up together. They are what I have left of my life up on the border.”

  “Will they bite me if I disobey?”

  “No. They will bite only to defend themselves from attack, or to protect our household. Which includes you now.”

  “How do they know?”

  “They know.”

  “Will I wear dresses?”

  “Most of the time. But Jennet knows how to make them so you will move with ease.”

  “I think I will miss Andrew.”

  “I know. I will miss my brother Walter.”

  “Would you tell me about him?”

  Where to begin?

  With his goats, Geoff whispered.

  Kate smiled. “So you are fond of goats?”

  19

  SOVEREIGN SEALS

  Jennet watched as Kate moved the chest and checked beneath the floorboards for Hubert Bale’s pouch and his letters of introduction from the king and the duke. Someone had searched Kate’s bedchamber while she and Jennet were otherwise engaged with Andrew Caverton and the unfolding drama of the day. Jennet had discovered the intrusion while Kate was searching for Phillip—a male scent in the room, a few items subtly out of place. She had remarked to Kate that whoever had searched was experienced and had taken their time.

  “The pouch and the letters are still here, God be thanked.” Kate slumped back against the wall pressing the letters to her heart. The search had drained what little strength she could muster at the end of this most trying day.

  “And nothing is missing?” Jennet asked, slipping off the bed. “Let me help you put it all back.”

  Kate touched Jennet’s bandaged arm and shook her head. “Nothing is missing, and you must rest. I will put it back in a moment.”

  Jennet shrugged. “As you wish.” She padded back to the bed. Settling back against the cushions, she sighed. “I’d wager it was Sir Elric. He was here at the house while we were in the gardens.”

  “I know.” Of course he would be keen to find the letters and dispose of them. They were incriminating evidence of the Earl of Westmoreland’s connection with an assassin claiming to represent both the king and the duke. Treason. “I foiled him.”

  “For now.”

  “I intend to continue to do so. I might need these if I am cornered.”

  “Sam must go away. He knows you have one of the letters. If he were to tell Sir Elric . . .”

  “I thought of that.” Hours ago Kate had paused for a quiet word with Goodwife Bella, instructing her to slip poppy juice in some wine and make certain that Sam drank it down. The healer had proposed a few additional ingredients to fog his memory. Checking on Sam awhile ago Kate had found him groggy and confused. She must remember to pay Bella well for her services. “I will talk to Dean Richard about a place for Sam on one of his properties well away from York.” She forced herself up, tucking the pack back beneath the boards and arranging the furniture over the space.

  “Sir Elric, here in your bedchamber, and he took nothing? Not even your silk shift as a memento.” Jennet grinned. “He is an honorable knight.”

  Without comment Kate climbed into bed and slipped down beneath the covers, pulling them over her head. A romantic entanglement with Westmoreland’s man in York was the last thing she needed. Tomorrow she would show the letters to her uncle the dean. As Keeper of the Privy Seal he should be able to tell her whether the seals were official.

  Lady Margery bent to the task, moving the letters so that they were in the best light from the casement window in the deanery hall. Dean Richard was not so familiar with Henry Bolingbroke’s seals to know whether this was current, but Lord Kirkby had kept up a correspondence with the exiled duke; hence the consultation.

  “I knew that he had copied King Richard in adding Edward the Confessor’s arms, but I had not seen this motto: SOVEREYNE.” Margery gave a little shiver as she glanced up at Kate and Dean Richard. “I wonder that my Thomas did not mention it. Perhaps he does not take it to mean what the three of us clearly do? It is my greatest fear that my husband is too trusting, that he is mistaken in trusting that the duke wants to make peace with his royal cousin, that he wishes to claim his inheritance and nothing more.”

  “At one time King Richard did name him as his heir,” said Kate. “Might this refer to his expectations?”

  “After all that has transpired, Bolingbroke cannot be so naïve as to presume that. And such a seal would serve only to fuel King Richard’s suspicions.” Margery’s hands trembled as she folded the letters and handed them to Kate.

  “This has troubled you. I am sorry.” Kate pressed Margery’s hand.

  “Better to know.”

  “So I am right in thinking this is an authentic letter, and the one introducing Underhill as King Richard’s man is a counterfeit?” Kate asked.

  Both her uncle and Lady Margery nodded.

  “Hide these well,” Margery whispered.

  On Lady Kirkby’s last day in York, Dean Richard hosted a small, select dinner in her honor, attended by Archbishop Richard Scrope, Sir Elric, William Frost, and Kate. The conversation slid time and again to King Richard’s expedition to Ireland and the growing unease of the barons. Kate watched the archbishop and Sir Elric, trying to gauge whether they were friend or foe. Elric knew all her secrets, except for the letters, and she believed her uncle was correct in guessing that the archbishop knew far more than she found comfortable. How would they use her? But the dinner was a triumph for Lady Margery, who received the archbishop’s thanks for working for peace. He proved a complex man.

  “Alas, we never had the opportunity to read Geoffrey Chaucer’s wonderful love poem,” Margery sighed as she and Kate parted at High Petergate.

  “I look forward to doing so on your next visit,” said Kate. She meant it. Though eager to have the guesthouse available to her regular clients once more, and still of the opinion that the quest for peace was naïve and destined to fail, Kate was fonder of Margery than ever, particularly since that awful day when Phillip went missing. Margery had offered help in a hundred different ways, exhibiting a particular skill in guiding Marie and Petra to communicate beyond insults. She had even found suitable clothing for Petra to wear. Recalling that Drusilla Seaton had a granddaughter slightly older than Petra, she had paid the widow a visit and returned with a wardrobe. “May God watch over you and your husband on your noble mission,” Kate said.

  Margery kissed Kate’s cheek and whispered, “Have a care, my friend. Danger surrounds us.”

  Sir Elric bowed to Lady Margery and wished her a safe journey.

  “I will miss little Petra most of all. She is so like my youngest when he was her age.” Margery pressed something into Kate’s hand. “One for each of them, so they do not fuss.” Kissing Kate’s cheek again, Margery hurried off.

  Gold filigree pins shaped as nests, with tiny jet beads tucked within. Kate placed them in her scrip.

  �
�She is a generous woman,” Sir Elric noted as they continued down Stonegate. He had insisted on escorting Kate home, despite Jennet’s presence. Jennet now walked behind them with the squire Harry, a youth with a honking laugh. “Forgive my curiosity, Dame Katherine, but I wondered what you decided about your wayward servant, Sam?”

  “My uncle the dean has offered him a penance of hard work, menial labor befitting a man of his years, in the kennels on an estate. He is good with dogs.” She enjoyed the surprise on the knight’s chiseled face. “Cliffords prefer to use problems, not destroy them.”

  “I see.”

  And Sam’s gratitude would silence him about the letters. Or so she prayed. “And you, Sir Elric, what will be the fate of your wayward henchman?”

  “Alas, the wound in his groin festered, and with little will to live knowing he would be a cripple, he went to sleep and never woke.” A shrug.

  Kate felt a chill down her spine. She must remember to warn her uncle never to reveal the whereabouts of Sam to this man.

  “What do you think of Lady Kirkby’s mission now that you have dined with her? And witnessed the archbishop’s response?” she asked as they crossed into Davygate.

  “I believe Lord Kirkby sincere in suing for peace, but he will fail. He understands neither Duke Henry nor the Lancastrians. The duke is a man besotted with his own image as first knight, a man who needs to be the hero of every tourney in which he participates. It is this that makes him dangerous. He dislikes that his cousin the king does not appreciate his military prowess. The king publicly embarrasses him by pointing out that a tourney is to the battlefield what a puppet show is to life, and that he has had little to no experience in actual battle. The duke has no wish to make peace with his royal cousin. The barons encourage the duke in his resentment, especially the Lancastrians. They see no benefit to peace.”

  It seemed Kate and Elric were of one mind in this.

  For a while they relaxed into casual comments on the state of the streets, the weather, the folk who greeted her, so many with questions in their expressions—she certainly had been a source of much excitement of late. It worried her. And now to be seen on the arm of a handsome knight . . . She shrugged to herself. Perhaps Sir Elric’s interest might be to her advantage, serving to ward off would-be suitors.