by Candace Robb
Kate touched her hand, offered her the cup of brandywine. After a few moments, Dina took it, sipped while gazing out the window, and her breathing steadied. Kate sensed the three on the bed holding their breaths. No one stirred. Dina took another sip, then set the cup aside, her hand trembling.
“I went back into my room and dressed. I would go to your house for help.” She looked Kate in the eyes, nodding. “I would seek out Berend, who sleeps in your kitchen. He would make it right. But the man—how he had the strength—he caught me as I stepped out of my room. Covered my mouth. Carried me out into the garden, round to the alley. He stumbled once, twice, but held me ever tighter—so tight I could not breathe—and kept going. How did he have the strength?” She searched Kate’s face as if thinking to find an answer writ on it.
“I don’t know,” Kate whispered. “Are you certain he was the same man as the one you stabbed?”
Dina frowned down at her hands, as if considering whether she might be mistaken, but then nodded. “It was him. His blood soaked my gown.” A pause. Kate heard dogs barking out on the street. Dina held up a finger as if to say, Listen! “Your dogs began to bark. Like that! And then the soldier who watches, he came out of the darkness and grabbed my—the one dragging me. He made him let go of me. All this time, no screams, no screams. I could not make a sound, even when I tried.” With a trembling hand she rubbed an eye. “The soldier told me to run to the church. ‘Do not stop. Do not look back.’ I did what he said.” A shrug. “I woke in the maison dieu.” Tears streamed down Dina’s cheeks. “He ruined me. Bloodied, cursed, dirty. And now I have taken a life because of the fear he burned into my soul.”
“Your father?” Kate asked softly.
Dina leaned toward Kate, grasping her hands. “Pray you not to judge me.” She looked at the others. “I was but a child. So young. I did not know why he was hurting me and saying he loved me, that I was his angel.” A sob. “He knew me until I became a woman. Then he sent me away.” She bowed down over her hands.
“You are no sinner,” Clara whispered.
“You are safe in our love,” said Brigida, looking to Clara and Eleanor, who nodded.
Eleanor began to assure Dina that they would not send her away, but Kate interrupted her. She felt ill and angry at the monster who had raped his daughter, then turned her out when she became fertile and might quicken, exposing his terrible sin. “I see you as a strong, courageous, unblemished woman,” she said, nodding to Brigida to translate. Her voice broke as she did so.
Dina reached for Kate’s hands, pressed them, looked up at the three on the bed. “I still cannot forgive him.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Your heart will know when you are able to do so,” Sister Clara said in the gentlest of voices. “Drink some more brandywine. You have lived through it all over again. Warm yourself.”
As Dina sipped at the wine, Kate asked, “Forgive me, but I must ask, would you know the man in the kitchen if you saw him again?”
“It was dark. But maybe his voice?”
“Do you know where your dagger is?”
Dina shook her head. “I did not see it after I”—a breath—“stabbed him.” She crossed herself.
Kate wondered about the dagger—who had given it to Dina, whether she had ever thought to use it on her father—but she had no right to ask. “I am grateful to you, Sister Dina. Rest now. I will not disturb you further.”
“May God bless you and bring you peace.” Hands pressed together in prayer, Dina bowed to Kate.
The sorrow and the beauty that was Dina moved her. Kate mirrored the gesture, her heart too full for words.
Eleanor offered her bed, but Dina preferred to return to the chamber she now shared with Brigida and Clara, who assisted her out the door.
When the sisters had departed, Kate and Eleanor sat for a while, facing out the window, deep in their separate sorrows, blind to the summer day. The voices of the three women in the adjoining chamber rose and fell.
Outside, Petra laughed her deep-throated laugh, Marie screeched with delight, drawing Kate out of her thoughts. The innocence of children. An innocence taken from Dina.
Eleanor had taken Dina’s chair and now stared out the window with the same stricken expression she had worn as they’d prepared the torn bodies of Kate’s brother Roland and her twin, Geoffrey. It would not do. This was not the way to find Robin and Hans’s murderer.
“Did Sister Dina think Friar Adam an acceptable confessor?” Kate asked.
Eleanor started at the sound of Kate’s voice. “Ah me, I lost myself for a while. Dina and Adam?” She shook her head. “None of the sisters cared for him. His is not the gentle faith of the Dominican friars they knew in Strasbourg. They felt he had condemned them before he ever met them.”
“What did he say that gave that impression?”
“I might have influenced them with my warning, but his chilly gaze and impatient manner proved my point. He prodded the sisters with questions that had little to do with such an interview.”
“Such as?”
“He asked whether they could read, which puzzled them, for they have yet to encounter a beguine who does not read, write, and know her numbers. Many of them teach. Perhaps he asked Sister Dina because she is a sempster, but Sister Brigida?”
“What else?”
“What books they had read, whether any member of the household owned any, and something about golden idols. God help us, does he think them pagans?”
“Or does he want to know whether they own something worth stealing? Or that would brand them as heretics?” Kate said it more to herself than as a response.
But Eleanor heard. “Heretics. I had not thought—But the other makes no sense. Friars take a vow of poverty, do they not? Do you think they might be thieves?” She glanced at the door, uneasy. Because she had not thought of that? Or because there was something of value in the house that Eleanor realized she must guard? The books? Perhaps Marguerite Porete’s work?
Kate had not considered the possible value of the books from which the sisters read at meals. They were brought out for the event, then put away. Books were certainly items of worth, especially those that were adorned with colorful images. She had not looked at the pages.
Or Friar Adam wanted to know whether the books preached interpretations of the Bible and God’s message of which the Church did not approve.
“Did any of the sisters tell him about the books?” Kate asked.
“Sister Clara says they did not admit to the books, as his attitude toward their revered teachers troubled them. They feared he might confiscate them.” Eleanor’s worry had given way to indignation. “We would see about that.”
Kate bowed her head to hide her smile at the image of her mother confronting Friar Adam should he try to walk away with anything at all.
Unaware of her daughter’s amusement, Eleanor continued. “Sister Clara assures me they did not need to lie, they simply asked whether it is his experience—or expectation—that poor sisters bring such valuable items as dowries, suggesting that he confused them with nuns. She explained that beguines do not bring dowries, they support themselves by working in the community.” Eleanor chuckled. “Sister Clara claims difficulty with our language, but there is more subtlety in her speech than most people I know.”
“It is good to hear you laugh.”
“And to see you smile.” But Eleanor’s momentary cheer faded with a sigh. “My dear Dina. I did not know what she suffered, the burden she carries.”
“What did he say about golden idols?”
Eleanor shook her head. “Clara did not tell me his precise words. But it troubled them, all three of them. Of course it did. Heretics? Pagans? As if he was searching for the most damning accusation. God help us. I expected better of York, though I do not know why. So many are stuck in the mire of the old ways. I blame Isabella Frost for this.”
Kate reached out for her mother’s hand, drawing her attention back to the present. “
Friar Adam’s sudden appearance is troubling. You know that Griffin followed Sir Elric’s men to the camp on Toft Green?” Eleanor nodded.
Kate deemed it time to inform her mother of all that Berend had learned from Kevin.
As she recounted it, Geoff whispered in her head, It is the connection. Perhaps Friar Adam has Robin in the priory infirmary.
You might be right. But quiet now, Geoff. Mother might sense your presence. I do not want more of her lectures about letting you go.
“So Sir Elric’s men are not our enemies but our allies,” Eleanor noted with a small smile.
“Matchmaking again, Mother? You should know better by now,” Kate warned, but she was relieved that her mother’s preoccupation with having a knight for a son-in-law drowned out any tingle she might have sensed from Geoff’s presence. “You mistake the man for the man he serves. Kevin, who lies wounded in the abbey infirmary, is our ally, it seems, but I would not be too quick in extending that to Sir Elric or the other men.”
Eleanor wagged her head, unconvinced. “I will send Griffin to the priory with a message for Friar Adam, informing him that we have found another spiritual guide,” Eleanor said. “But who? Would Richard Clifford reconsider? As Dean of York Minster, your uncle has power in the city. He might fend off any trouble from the Dominicans.”
Kate was shaking her head. If her mother only knew how impossible that was! “He will not reconsider. If we have any trouble with Friar Adam or Prior Norbert, I will bring it to the attention of His Grace the archbishop.” She told her mother about their alliance.
“My. You do know how to bargain with the mighty.” Eleanor shook her head at Kate, her expression one of wonder. Leaning over, Eleanor adjusted the sleeve on Kate’s gown, tugging it down over her wrist, then reached for her hand, studying her fingernails. “I do wish you would pay more attention to your appearance.”
“I am not a child for you to poke and prod and correct.” Kate withdrew her hand.
Eleanor raised her eyebrows as if to say that was debatable.
Kate regretted her outburst. She’d hoped that her mother’s compassion for Sister Dina might inspire her to be more forthcoming about whatever frightened her. Taking a deep breath, she apologized, taking heart as her mother patted her hand. Perhaps it was an opening. “Is it possible that the intruder and Hans’s murder are connected through Ulrich?” Kate asked quietly. “Might someone suspect you carry something of his, something Hans might know about, that is valuable? Value of any sort—information, gold?”
Lips pinched, eyes pressed shut, knuckles white as she clutched the arms of her chair, Eleanor was a study in unease. “You are determined to lay the blame at my feet.”
“That was not my intent. It is a question that arises naturally out of the facts. And as I know nothing of what happened to Ulrich, what brought you back here in such haste, I ask in the hope that you will confide in me. Help me, Mother, before someone else comes to harm.”
Silence. Tears stood at the corners of Eleanor’s eyes, and her breathing was ragged.
“Mother?” Kate said softly, laying a hand on one of Eleanor’s.
A rustle of silk. Eleanor caught her breath, opened her eyes, blinking in the light from the window. “What about a Franciscan friar? The friary is close, just over there.” She gestured to the right, toward the river.
Silently cursing at her mother’s continuing secrecy, Kate bit back a retort and just nodded. “My friend Jocasta Sharp might be willing to speak with her spiritual counselor there, ask him to recommend someone.”
“Jocasta Sharp. You have mentioned her before. You respect her.”
Eleanor’s voice trembled. Whatever Kate’s questions had conjured had brought up strong emotions. How she yearned to ask more. But the change in topic was her mother’s way of slamming the door on further discussion. Perhaps if Kate kept her talking, another opportunity might arise.
“Yes, I respect and admire Jocasta,” said Kate. “Much as the beguines, she has answered a call to help the neglected members of the community. She does it in such wise that she wins their affection and loyalty. They will do anything for her. According to Agnes, Jocasta has been seeing that Nan’s mother and the children have a good meal each day. Perhaps . . .” She heard someone leaving the bedchamber next door. As Brigida appeared, Kate asked after Dina.
“I believe she will sleep,” said Brigida. She sank down on the bed, drawing a piece of linen from her sleeve with which she dried her sweaty forehead. “How is it that we were all so blind? Our families were friends. I knew her father when I was small. I never guessed. Everyone treated him as if he were the best of men.”
“Of course he knew the enormity of his sin,” said Eleanor. “You heard Dina, he frightened her into silence. And anyone who guessed would be threatened as well, you can be certain. I imagine he presented himself to the world as a most honorable man with a horror of sin.”
Kate watched her mother’s face, the pinched mouth as she paused—she described someone she’d known. But of course—hypocrites were legion.
Brigida stared down at her hands. “The apostle John said that God is love, and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. Yet God permits such sins against children, in whom he dwells. Nor does he strike down such a monster as Dina’s father. I do not understand.” She looked up at Eleanor. “Friar Adam cannot hear Dina’s true confession, nor could I ever confide in him. He—We all felt judged. For my part, I did not sense God dwelling within him, though I know that he must. The apostle John—” She broke off, eyes closed, shaking her head.
“Would you consider a Franciscan friar?” Kate asked. “The friary is so close, and I know someone who would commend you to them. Her confessor is a grayfriar and a kind, gentle soul. I have met him.”
Sister Brigida nodded. “Thank you. I will ask the others, but I believe they will all be grateful. Agnes had suggested the grayfriars.”
“What of Agnes?” asked Kate. “Is she to bide with you?”
“For the nonce. As we would with anyone new to the house, we will watch her, guide her, and, in time, we will know whether or not she is suited to this life. It would help to have a confessor who is a guide, not a judge.”
Eleanor had sniffed when Brigida said Agnes would bide with them for the present, but she’d held her tongue. Now she shifted, her gray silk gown rustling.
“You do not agree, Dame Eleanor?”
“I cannot trust the woman.”
“What has she done that you cannot forgive?” Brigida asked.
“She hid the truth of who owns this house. What else might she be hiding?”
“Have you never held something back for fear that you might be shunned? Denounced? Might lose everything?”
Kate watched with amazement as her mother crumpled in the face of Brigida’s gentle rebuke.
“Once again you guide me to the light, Sister Brigida. My old ways are rutted and too familiar.” Eleanor pressed her hand to her heart and bowed to the beguine.
Speechless, Kate turned to gaze out the window.
When Brigida and Eleanor went down to the hall to pray, Kate wandered out into the summer afternoon. She found Lille and Ghent lying in the shade near Marie and Petra, who napped together in a hammock tied between the two lindens. They were both so precious to her. Kate would do anything to protect her girls from what Dina had suffered. Could Dina’s mother really not have known what was happening under her own roof? How could she value her own safety above that of her daughter? Lille raised her head, sensing her distress. Kate knelt beside her, stroking her back, letting her nuzzle her neck.
Matt sat nearby, whittling. He was good with the children, thoughtfully sharing his favorite things from his own childhood.
He looked up now. “How is Sister Dina?”
“Resting.”
He nodded. “You will want to talk to Jennet. She’s in the kitchen.”
“She has news?”
Matt was not smiling. “Let her tell
you.”
In the kitchen, Berend, the sleeves of his thin linen shirt rolled up above his elbows, chopped vegetables for a pottage as he listened to Jennet, who sat across from him shelling peas into a bowl in her lap. Kate’s gaze lingered on the pale down of Berend’s forearms. So strong, yet so gentle, so loving. None of the men in her household—she could not imagine them harming a child even to save their own lives.
“Did Matt tell you about Nan?” Jennet asked.
Kate shook herself, slipped down next to Jennet. “No. Tell me.”
“I told Berend I would go to check her at her mother’s, let him get on with his work. She’s gone. The children—it was only the girls there when I went to warn her about Robin—said that a man came for Nan not long after Agnes left her. Told Nan that Robin was dying and he had asked for her. She must come quick.”
Kate muttered a curse.
“I know. The children—they were so frightened. Their mother is in a bad way, clawing at her throat trying to breathe. I sent two of them to fetch Dame Jocasta. I managed to prop Goodwife Hawise up enough that she could breathe better by the time Dame Jocasta appeared, and shortly after a healer, who made a soothing drink and a paste for Hawise’s chest and throat. She was much better when I left. Dame Jocasta will have the healer stay with them, and a man to watch.”
“Bless her. And bless you for knowing what to do.”
“The children had seen the man before, with Robin. The girls said they did not know his name. But Dame Hawise—I swear she whispered, ‘Bran.’” Jennet scooped up more pea pods. “A woman who has so little breath does not waste it with nonsense. But I know no Brans.”
Berend rubbed his neck, thinking. “No one comes to mind.”
Nor could Kate think of anyone. But Agnes might know. What was the pattern here? The house, Hans, Nan? “It must be theft. Something the sisters brought. We must search for Nan. And I need to talk to Agnes.” Kate rose.
