A Twisted Vengeance

by Candace Robb

  A light drizzle did nothing to freshen the air, which felt heavy with moisture as they rode through fields toward the trees lining the bank of the Ouse. Kate fretted about her bowstring wicking up moisture and sagging. She had remembered to bring a spare, but it would take time to restring. She must plan accordingly.

  You intend to shoot Griffin on sight? Geoff asked.

  She had not consciously planned it. No. I want him to talk, to tell me all Mother should have told me.

  He’s not likely to oblige.

  When he refuses to say more, then I’ll shoot him. She expected laughter.

  Instead, Geoff warned her, Do nothing that will endanger your plans for yourself and the children. Do not risk all to avenge Mother’s loss.

  Would it be for her mother that she shot Griffin? Or would it be for Nan and Sister Dina? Hans, Werner, and, likely, Thatcher?

  What does Dina have to do with this? Geoff asked.

  I cannot believe the attempted theft was not part of this plan. Look how the rumors about the beguines have spread. Mother’s attempt at good works discredited, rendered suspect.

  Geoff was quiet.

  Kate watched as Lille and Ghent explored beside her, pausing now and then to gaze round them, then catching up. Her heart eased. They had been bred and trained for this. Her uncle’s horses would encourage her to run them more often. Blood money or not, she was grateful for the gift. The house would enable her to lease out her present home, adding more regular income. Considerably more. And, as her uncle had reminded her, Lionel could not touch it—a gift in her name, made in her widowhood.

  She glanced up as Elric rode back to tell her that they were close to where his man Arne had last tracked Griffin and Thatcher.

  “Dismount and approach on foot?” he asked. When she agreed, he called to his squire Harry to help Kate dismount and take her reins.

  The fields beyond Clementhorpe Nunnery were more bogs than meadows in all seasons but summer. Now the grass grew so high that Kate lost sight of the hounds once she was on foot. It took but one call and they were suddenly beside her, their fur a mess of seeds and burrs, their ears flicking at the insects buzzing round them. Walking through the high grass was unpleasant, Kate’s skirts already damp, the insects noisy, and she could not imagine how she might use her bow, nor how they would spot the two men they tracked. Glancing back, she saw that she was not alone in regretting the decision to dismount, Elric swatting at the insects, Harry sneezing. Only Berend stoically waited for her to proceed.

  A rustle in the grass. Lille and Ghent stood at attention, and Kate fingered the axe hidden in her skirt. But it was Arne, his freckled face seeming to glide over the grass. “Found this.” He raised high a length of wood from which dangled leather straps. Thatcher’s peg leg, or what was left of it. “Found it just ahead, where the grass ends at the edge of the trees. Only one set of footprints moves on, and they are deep. I would say the Welshman carried the cripple to the river.”

  “Lead the way,” said Kate, relieved that she would soon break out from the grass. Within a few moments she stepped onto dry soil beneath the trees, shaking out her skirts as Arne pointed to where he’d found the peg leg and the footprints. Berend and Elric moved on to the river, but Kate was in no hurry. Griffin had reached the bank a while ago. Already the footprints were powdered with debris. He would be downriver. Alone. She stayed with Lille and Ghent while they inspected the area, gathering scents. Suddenly they halted, glancing back to her. She praised them for discovering a patch of grass smeared with blood, bloody fingerprints on a fallen limb. Thatcher had not gone willingly. When had he realized he’d been betrayed? she wondered.

  “Look! There, in the branches,” Berend called out from somewhere farther on.

  Signaling the dogs to follow, Kate moved toward Berend’s voice as he directed the men, the sound of the river growing louder as she walked.

  The peat-darkened waters of the Ouse flowed sluggishly under the wide gray sky. Near the bank, Thatcher floated face up, bobbing with the current, his hair and clothing snagged on the branches of a fallen tree whose roots still anchored it to the bank. He had a gaping wound on his forehead, washed clean by the river. Two of Elric’s men sat on the bank, removing their boots and rolling up their breeches, preparing to wade in and pull him out of the Ouse.

  Elric paced the bank, listening to Berend and Arne arguing about whether marks in the soil were that of a coracle or a more substantial boat.

  Kate saw no purpose to the argument. “What matters is that Griffin has moved on by water. Downriver, toward Bishopthorpe. To meet up with Sir Alan and his men.”

  “To Bishopthorpe Palace then,” Elric said. He ordered two of his men to follow with Thatcher’s body.

  The guard at the gate of Bishopthorpe Palace bowed to Sir Elric and sent his fellow running to inform the archbishop of their presence. The power of the Earl of Westmoreland. Or the Neville name. Elric had taken care to introduce Kate as well, lingering on the surname.

  “Are you part of the Clifford party visiting His Grace?” the guard asked her as they waited.

  “The Dean of York Minster is my uncle,” said Kate. “We have cause to believe a murderer will seek refuge here with his party. We found his victim upriver. I have come to warn Dean Richard and His Grace.”

  “Two of my men are following with the body. The murderer will come by boat and is unlikely to tell them of his crime,” said Elric. “Do you guard the river approach to the palace as well as the road?”

  “We do.”

  “Is it possible to land elsewhere on the property?” asked Elric.

  “A small boat? Yes. Lawns down to the river, and a woodland farther downriver. In times of threat we have sentries throughout the grounds.”

  “But not now?”

  “We were not aware of a need.” He glanced behind them, on the road. “Are those your men with the body?”

  Elric glanced back. “Yes. If they might stand watch over it someplace private in the grounds?”

  The guard nodded as the second retainer came hurrying from the palace, gesturing for his comrade to open the gate. He was followed by a tall, elegant, elderly man in clerical robes, who bowed to Kate’s company and introduced himself as Don Vincent, His Grace’s secretary, welcoming them and inviting them to follow him to the palace. He ordered the second guard to assist Elric’s men with the horses.

  “They will be well stabled, I assure you.” Don Vincent stood a moment, considering Lille and Ghent. “It is customary to take hounds to the stables as well.”

  “My uncle, Dean Richard Clifford, can vouch for them. They are well trained and will stay with me,” said Kate.

  “I pray that is so.” He looked past them. “And the body?”

  Elric repeated his request.

  “Of course. I will have someone come out to assist your men.” Don Vincent swept round and led them through the gate and on to the palace.

  His Grace the archbishop stood just within the grand entrance, Richard Clifford beside him.

  “You are most welcome, Dame Katherine, Sir Elric, Berend, I believe?” said Archbishop Scrope. “But I am at a loss as to your mission.”

  Kate and Elric repeated what they had told the guard. While they were talking, Sir Alan Bennet appeared in the doorway of a small room off to the side of the hall entrance. As soon as he saw Kate, he began to retreat, but His Grace addressed him, repeating what Kate and Elric had just told him. Sir Alan frowned, shaking his head as if to counter their claim. And, indeed, he proceeded to sputter as soon as the archbishop was finished.

  His Grace raised his hand for silence. “There can be no argument against fact. Sir Elric, you are welcome to set your men to searching the grounds. Anyone who takes it upon himself to interfere with their task will answer to me.”

  Richard Scrope rose several choirs of angels higher in Kate’s esteem. Clearly His Grace’s acceptance of Kate’s earlier request for help had been in character. Sir Elric bowed and went out to the
stables to instruct his men.

  Sir Alan made to follow, but Scrope called him to heel.

  Alan was not the only person looking glum. Her uncle watched her with an unease she had only before glimpsed in their most recent conversation.

  “If I might have a quiet word with my uncle?” she said.

  Scrope nodded to his secretary, who showed her into the room from which Sir Alan had emerged. High-ceilinged, with several high-backed chairs surrounding a long table piled with documents, a tiled floor, and a window opening onto the garden, it was an inviting chamber. Looking back, Kate signaled to Lille and Ghent to wait just outside the door.

  “Katherine,” the dean bowed to her as he entered the room.

  “You left betimes, Uncle. We expected you to dine with us today.”

  “I had said perhaps, that I would send word.”

  She inclined her head. “So you did. And, in the event Griffin finished his task earlier than expected?”

  “Griffin? Task?” His expression was almost convincing. Almost.

  “The murders of Ulrich Smit’s servants. Dame Eleanor and the beguines are preparing Werner’s body for burial. And he added another victim, Thatcher, a man of York who had assisted him and was of no more use. We found him drowned in the Ouse, with a great wound to his forehead—Griffin made sure that he would not survive despite the sluggish summer current.”

  Her uncle blanched and turned away from her, clearly struggling with how to respond. He was saved by a sharp knock on the door and the entrance of His Grace.

  “The gardener’s boy observed a red-haired man pulling a coracle into the woodland downriver. Sir Elric’s men are spreading out in search. I thought you would wish to know, Dame Katherine. I would think this a task well suited to your wolfhounds. The boy awaits you by the door.”

  She thanked him and hurried out, calling to Lille and Ghent. Berend followed.

  The lad grinned at the sight of the hounds, bobbing his head at Kate and Berend. “This way, mistress,” he said, turning about and leading them off into the gardens. Lush and peaceful, the landscape seemed an unlikely place for a murderer to hide. But as they moved beyond the graveled paths into the trees, the grounds grew wilder. She saw Elric’s men ahead, signaling to each other to spread out as they moved with practiced stealth into an area with underbrush. One glanced back toward them—Elric’s squire, Harry. She motioned to him to push Griffin toward the river. He nodded and disappeared.

  If Griffin had thought to hide in the gardens, the men would flush him out. Realizing he was hunted, he would know the palace was not safe. “Take us first to where he landed,” she told the boy.

  A wind came off the river, damp, heavy. No more rain today. The heat was settling in again. As the coracle came into view, Lille and Ghent began to slow, sniffing the ground, looking up, listening. Nan said she had bitten Griffin. How deeply? Might the scent of his blood be on the coracle? Kate led the dogs to the boat. It interested them, and they circled round it, taking in the scents, then took off in a direction farther downriver.

  “Did he go this way?” she asked the lad, who had been watching the hounds with fascination.

  He nodded. “I saw him head into that brush, and then I hurried back to tell my da. This is Church land, not for poachers.”

  Kate thanked him and told him to return to his father. She would not want him injured if Griffin were cornered. Disappointed, the lad turned with reluctance, glancing back several times as he retraced his steps. Kate removed her short cloak, dropped it into the coracle, unhooked her bow, and checked the string. Dry. Good. Pulling an arrow from her quiver, she looked to Berend. “Ready?”

  At last he graced her with a smile as he patted the soiled rope tucked in his belt. “Let us be the ones to truss him and carry him to His Grace.”

  They set off after the hounds, moving into the wilder part of the woods, where fallen limbs, old stumps, and mounds of fallen leaves slowed them. They had not gone far when the dogs paused, heads up. Kate nocked the arrow and moved forward to stand beside Lille and Ghent at the edge of a clearing. Holding her breath, she listened. Lille turned slightly to the right as Kate registered the snap of a twig. With care, she took a step out into the clearing and caught a movement, a man rising up from the shrubbery, still shadowed by the trees. As she watched, he raised a bow with the arrow ready, drawing the string back—the arrow pointing toward Lille. Kate called to her hound to drop as she let her arrow fly, aiming for the archer’s shoulder. Lille’s reflexes proved as quick as ever. She just missed the arrow meant to kill her. The archer dropped down.

  “Careful,” Berend whispered.

  A rustling. The man rose up, and, to Kate’s puzzlement, seemed unharmed. She had missed? Damn you. He took a step toward the clearing, dappled light revealing his coppery hair.

  “Drop the bow and come out with empty hands, Griffin.”

  He nocked an arrow.

  She let hers fly. This time she saw him fall back with the impact.

  Berend rushed him. Silence.

  Kate walked across the clearing to join him.

  If he’s dead, he deserved it, Geoff whispered in her mind. His arrow would have killed Lille had she not obeyed your command. Well done.

  Berend rose from beside the still body. “Your arrow pierced his heart. A clean kill.”

  A kill was not her plan. “I would have preferred that he surrender, and talk. Tell me who had hired him, why, how he was to carry out their orders.”

  Berend shook his head. “Assassins never talk.” He called out to Elric’s men to come collect the body. “Go back to the palace, Dame Katherine. I will assist them.” He avoided her eyes, though he did crouch down to Lille and Ghent to rub their ears and praise their tracking.

  “Berend?”

  He shook his head as he rose, looking out to the river. “Too many unwelcome memories.” He pulled the soiled ropes from his belt. “I’ll bind him.”

  Kate called the hounds to her side, slung her bow over her shoulder, and headed for the palace.

  17

  A TALE OF BETRAYAL

  Kate returned to Bishopthorpe Palace silent, exhausted, and annoyed by Geoff’s accolades buzzing in her head. It had been necessary to stop Griffin, but he was no prize kill, his death nothing to celebrate. He would have been far more useful alive.

  Helen, the dean’s housekeeper, rushed out past the dean and archbishop to embrace Kate. “We heard Berend’s shout and feared the worst. God be thanked. And Berend? Is he injured?”

  “No. Only Griffin.” Kate rested her head for a moment on Helen’s warm shoulder. “He tried to take Lille down with him. I was forced to kill him before I could learn anything.”

  “My dear Katherine, I doubt he would have told you anything. He gave the dean no ground in his arguments against violence. He was deeply committed to completing the bloody deed as Baron Roos, in his fury, had commanded him.”

  Kate pushed out of the embrace, shocked. “Roos?” The light dawned. The young Baron Clifford’s mother was Elizabeth Roos; her brother William, Baron Roos, acted as John’s guardian. “So you knew about it?”

  “Not until today. Your uncle told me everything after you went out to hunt Griffin. Something about family honor avenged. Ulrich Smit and the servants who had accompanied him to Northumberland were executed for crimes against the family and the realm—treason.”

  “Treason? What was the deed?”

  “He did not say.” Helen closed her eyes. “I do not know what to think now, that he would hide such a thing from me. He lied to me about Griffin’s purpose, implying it was your mother who connived and deceived.”

  Kate fought to slow her spinning thoughts. Ulrich accused of treason. Griffin carrying out the orders of William Roos, a powerful man, a member of the Privy Council and one of the men who had negotiated King Richard’s peace with Scotland. Her home in Northumberland on the border with Scotland. The late Baron Clifford, Thomas, John’s father, had been Warden of the West Marches, re
sponsible for keeping peace of that border. God help us. Did we harbor a traitor? Was Ulrich in league with the Scots?

  Did Mother know? Geoff whispered in her mind.

  No, Geoff, no. Think of all she lost to the Cavertons. All three sons. No.

  Helen touched Kate’s arm. “What can I do for you, my dear?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “A quiet place and a flask of brandywine?” Elric suggested, joining them. “His Grace’s servants await your commands.”

  “Yes,” Kate breathed, crouching down to give Lille and Ghent each a hug while she collected herself. When she was composed, she signaled to the hounds to accompany Helen to the kitchen. “Please see that they are properly rewarded, Helen. Thank you. I will join you in a little while.”

  “Of course.” Helen took the leads in hand.

  “Here they come.” Elric looked toward the gardens.

  Out of the brush stepped two of Elric’s men carrying Griffin in an improvised sling. Berend and Elric’s squire Harry followed. A manservant hurried out of a small stone outbuilding, gesturing them inside. Harry broke away and headed toward Kate and Elric, but Berend continued on with the body.

  “A sorry ending to a sorry deed,” Elric said softly, nodding to his man.

  “I could use that brandywine now,” said Kate, turning toward the hall.

  Elric walked with her.

  And here is the go-between, Kate thought, glaring at Sir Alan, who strode out from the palace as if to attend Griffin.

  His Grace stopped him with a stern shake of his head. “Don Vincent will see to it.”

  “Your Grace, he was—”

  “Say no more of this in my presence, Sir Alan,” said the archbishop. When the man began to protest, Scrope thundered, “No more!”

  Tight-lipped, the knight withdrew.

  And then Harry was with them, congratulating Kate on her remarkable aim. “I’ve seen where he fell. Still in the cover of the trees and yet you found his heart. I’ve never witnessed such shooting.”

  “Nor did you witness it this day, or you would know that I missed the first time. The first arrow wounded a tree. A birch, I believe. But it is such a waste.” She shook her head at him as the young man, startled, began to apologize. “I am tired and filthy, Harry. You must excuse me.” She turned to the archbishop.