The Service of the Dead

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, but – 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.”

“I swear.” He drew out a purse. “This is the purse he took. The money is gone, but the letter is here. When I finally looked at the letter I thought I had best tell you. The letter is signed by King Richard himself. It says that Jon Underhill is his man. But you said it was someone else’s pack.”

“Jon Underhill is the name he used with my cousin William. But Berend knew him as Hubert Bale. The man who was strangled. There was another letter in the pack with that name on it.”

“So that is why Alice and Connor had to die? Because of those men?”

“I cannot think of another reason. My cousin has explained why Hubert Bale was there, and perhaps why Alice was in such a state. But who the attacker was, and what he wants, that we still do not know. Did Connor describe him?”

Phillip shook his head.

“Think. Perhaps he said something.”

“Just that they were both big men, that they looked too strong for him to take down without a weapon.” A sigh. “I hope something in the pack will help you find the murderer. He must pay for what he’s done.” Phillip turned round to push open the shutter, his breath coming in little gasps, as if he were fighting tears. The window looked out onto the stoneyard. “I would give anything to bring Connor back.”

A visceral memory, kneeling on a bench to look out the high window in her bedchamber, seeing herself running out the gate hand in hand with Geoff, asking God to bring him back, bargaining – Anything, Lord, I will do anything to bring him back. She felt Geoff’s warmth in her mind.

Perhaps that is why I am here.

I meant as you had been.

God has his own ways.

“Or at least clear Connor’s name,” Phillip said. “It is not fair that he is blamed for Alice’s death.” His arm still outstretched, the boy ducked his head, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

“No, Phillip, it is not fair.”

She dropped her head, her heart full.

Berend softly thanked her for recounting the conversation. “He is a good lad. His heart is broken.”

As is mine. Kate forced herself to keep her attention with Berend. “If only Connor had described the man. Still so many questions, so few answers.”

Berend rose with a grunt, raised his arms to the ceiling beam, stretching. “But we know more than we did. We know how Alice escaped.”

Yes, that mystery was solved. “The greater mystery is how William could be so cold, abandoning Alice, the mother of his son, to her fate.”

“Fear for his daughter, Hazel?”

“And his honor. His precious honor.”

Kate started to rise just as Berend settled back down with more ale, reminding her that she had promised to tell him “about the one who died like Alice,” the memory, or rather the ghost who led to her ill-timed attack on William.

“That is the last thing I wish to dredge up before sleep.”

“I confided in you.”

Seeing the challenge in Berend’s eyes, Kate relented. If she meant him to be her comrade in arms, they must know each other so well they could predict the other’s reaction. She fetched more ale, settled back beside him, forced herself to speak of what she had hidden for so long.

“Maud Allen. She was my good friend, and my brother Roland’s true love. Her family’s land bordered on ours, and we were together in the fields and the woods when the weather was fair and our fathers considered it safe. Raids happened mostly at night, but sometimes…” She shook her head. Stay with the story.

“Our particular enemies were the family of Andrew Caverton just across the border. Our families had been feuding for generations. They poached our cattle, our sheep, put fire to our barns when we had them filled with hay. And we did likewise. It took but an instant to light a fuse that would burn for months. That spring, when the roads were muddy, a cart had upended on the way to market and the goods toppled out onto what they said was their property. It was the road, how it went along the border there, that was often the excuse for the troubles. Roland and the eldest Caverton brother, who was called young Andrew, came to blows. Roland sliced open Andrew’s face from his right temple to the right side of his mouth and cut off his ear. From that moment, young Andrew wanted revenge. He was vain, always strutting in front of the women. After Roland disfigured his face, he burned with a hate so fierce.”

“That is a lot for a young man to suffer.”

Tell him about Walter’s hand.

“I do not claim we were better than the Cavertons. But my eldest brother had lost a hand to the brutes a year earlier.”

“I did not mean to judge. Forgive me for interrupting. Maud Allen?”

“Maud was a beauty, a year older than me, and the previous winter she had flowered. That spring she was clearly a woman. Roland and she – both families guessed they had better not delay their marriage. The wedding was planned for after the harvest. The countryside was abuzz with it, so the Caverton boys knew that she was the pearl of great price, the theft that would tear out my brother’s heart.

“They raped her and threatened her with a bloody death if she told, knowing she would. Knowing Roland would see her black eyes and swollen lips, her torn nails, and keep at her until he knew. Or guessed. She told me, she whispered it between sobs. One held her down while the other… They took turns, three brothers. And they had friends come watch. And jeer. And…” Kate shook her head to scuttle the memories.

How sick you were, Geoff whispered. I held you as you heaved in the barn. Then you cried and cried, beating the wall of the stall until your hands were bloodied.

Berend crossed himself. “I am sorry it pains you so to speak of it. But I need to hear it all.”

Will it help to speak of it? To admit my guilt aloud?

It was not your fault, Geoff whispered. Maud told Roland as well.

But not in such detail, Geoff.

“Your twin is here,” Berend said.

“How do you know?”

“I sense it. I feel you as two, not one. I do not mean to be cruel.”

“You are never cruel to me, Berend. It is hard to speak of it. I was a child, and so frightened. I feared that the same would happen to me. My brothers feared it as well.” Kate reminded herself that these were memories, in the past. “Maud did not realize that Geoff would learn all of it from me. There was no hiding anything from him. I doubt she would have shared so much detail with me had she known.”

“But you were her friend. Perhaps the only one to whom she could talk so freely.”

“I know my own part in it, Berend.”

He apologized for interrupting.

“My brothers went mad with grief for Maud, and their hatred of the Cavertons deepened. They planned a raid. They would go as soon as Father returned. He had been called away on some business with the warden of the march.

“One afternoon Geoff and I were out with Lille and Ghent. They were just puppies. We were walking our land with them, familiarizing them with it. As we climbed down a rocky hillside the pups became agitated, hanging back and whining. Fearful. They picked up the scent of blood. Geoff told me to stay there with the pups while he climbed down. He… I could tell when he heard the flies, and smelled blood himself. Just the way he straightened, like a rod had been shoved down his back. Fighting stance. I knew. I just knew it was Maud. I called out to him to come back, we should go for her father. But he moved on.

“I could not stay behind. He needed me there with him. They were all a little in love with Maud. She was gentle, so kind to everyone. There was space in her heart for all.” Kate closed her eyes. Took a few deep, deep breaths. The scene was there, spread out before her. The warmth of the sun, the breeze coming down off the high hills chilling her legs as she gathered up her skirts and scrambled down the rocks, the tug of the puppies on their leashes. They were so reluctant, hanging back, whimpering. But how could she know they would be safe up above? The bloody Cavertons might be anywhere. They were known for their stealth – one moment you were alone, the next you were surrounded.

“Dame Katherine?”

The hillside dissolved, the kitchen returned.

“The blood had soaked through Maud’s clothing and into the ground. She was already cold. But maybe that was the loss of so much blood. Her jaw was wide open, the blood…” She needed to pause a moment, breathe. “But it was her eyes that frightened me most, the terror in them. They followed me everywhere for days and days.”

“Roland and your twin died avenging her murder?”

Not Geoff, but that was not for tonight. “Her honor, her beauty, her innocence. The brutality. They feared for me.”

“That is why your mother brought you to York?”

“So she said.”

“What of the Cavertons?”

“Two of the brothers are dead, Bryce and James, and their father, Andrew. But young Andrew – I always thought him the worst of the lot, the eldest brother, the heir to his father’s evil – one-eared, scarred Andrew disappeared.”

“Your brothers killed the others?”

She ignored the question. “The Cliffords, the Allens, and many neighbors spent weeks searching for him. But they just drove him farther north, too far across the border for a quick retreat.”

“How has your oldest brother survived up there?”

“Survived? Walter is a walking corpse, Berend. A man possessed. All fear him. He leaves a deathly chill in his wake as he moves across the land. That is what a friend told me a few years ago. His tenants fear him, but stay on in memory of Father, Roland, Geoffrey.” Kate bent to Lille and Ghent, rubbing their ears for comfort. “Alice’s suffering must have been terrible. And her fear that last day. But Maud’s suffering – she lived with the horror for a week before she spoke to me, and then, every snap of a twig, every creak in the house must have terrified her. And to carry her to our property… I had never seen her in that place. She was no climber. So she knew she was being taken to her death.” Kate bowed her head.

Yes, that is enough, Geoff assured her.

Berend quietly thanked her.

“I know that I said far more than I needed to William. But now you see why.”

“I do.” Berend rose, offered his hand to help her up. “It grows late. We have a mass to attend in the morning. And then you dine with Master Lionel.”

Lionel had left a message with Matt inviting Kate to dine with him at an inn on Micklegate the following day. He’d told Matt nothing of his purpose.

“No doubt Fitch’s misadventure inspired it,” said Kate. “I shall enjoy watching Lionel make his excuses.”

Berend snorted. “I should like to hear it. I do not suppose I might serve the two of you?”

“I need you at the house on Petergate, the house Odo has neglected. I have neglected. You must arrange for the workmen, show them what to do.” She shook out her skirts. “And you and Clement need to do an inventory of the stores in the undercroft. Find out how long it has been since Lionel was there.” She thought of the filth in which the tenant had been living. “Poor Odo.”

“He was not your responsibility, Dame Katherine. He was a tenant, nothing more.”

“Then I should have paid more attention to the state of my property.”

Berend did not disagree.

Wrapping her cloak round her, Kate called the dogs to her and wished Berend a good night. Out in the quiet garden, she paused to gaze up at the stars. Maud, Roland, her father, Geoff–

No. I am right here.

“Yes, you are,” she said aloud. “Though I know not how. But so many are not. And now Hubert Bale, Alice, Connor have joined them.” She crossed herself and continued on to the hall door, where Lille and Ghent waited.

Matt snored by the hearth fire, but reared up as she entered. He clutched a knife. “Who goes there?”

“It is Dame Katherine and the dogs, Matt. Be at ease.” She waved him quiet as he began to apologize. “I am glad to see you so ready to defend the household.”

The dogs settled down near Matt. Kate lit an oil lamp and wished them all a good night, then climbed up to the solar, Matt’s snores fading, Jennet’s growing louder. She prayed they might all make it safely through the night.