The Service of the Dead

18 Unfinished Business

She was not much taller than Marie, but not so slight. The hat, sized for the head of an adult, or to hide long hair, made her neck seem too thin. But the girl was young enough and filthy enough that she might simply be an undersized lad; one could tell little about what lay beneath the grime on her face in the pale light of dawn.

“Take me to Sam and the dogs. And Andrew Caverton.”

“He said you would guess right quick. He knows you well.” The Scots burr suggested the child had accompanied Andrew from the north. “Stay low as we cross the road.” The child held on tight to Kate’s hand as they crossed. Just then, Jennet stepped into the road, coming from the church. Kate stumbled, caught herself, moved on when certain Jennet had noticed her. She and the girl slipped behind a yew at the edge of Holme’s gardens.

Jennet’s voice, calling out to Berend. “Not at the church.”

A tug on her hand. Kate missed Berend’s reply as the child hurried her along. They zigzagged down the garden, staying beneath trees, behind hedges. The child knew this place well, quickly descending toward the river, where the morning mist would help mask their passage. As Kate ran, she reviewed in her mind the weapons concealed in her skirts. It would depend how close he was, and whether Lille and Ghent were in the way, but the axe seemed her best chance at felling Andrew. A soft drizzle began, blending with the mist. Kate silently cursed. The mist would affect her vision, weakening her aim.

Then you must use your other senses.

She nodded to Geoff.

Stumbling again, Kate carefully fell to her knees, causing the girl to lose her grip. Kate whistled. A whimper. The dogs were near, muzzled. She released the axe from its sheath and drew out her knife, then turned. The girl grabbed Kate’s left hand, yanked, and Kate used the momentum to come close with such suddenness the girl lost her balance. With her left arm, Kate hugged the child close, the knife, in her right hand, at her throat.

“Be silent, do as I say, and you will not be hurt,” she whispered in the girl’s ear. Keeping her ears pricked for sound, Kate walked them slowly down toward the water. She gambled that Sam would be busy restraining the dogs, so she need take only Andrew. She thought through how to let go of the girl and reach for her axe in a smooth movement, take him by surprise.

A rustle in the brush. She stopped, held her breath. A cat streaked past. Running away, not toward. Could be Sam with the dogs who spooked it, could be Andrew. Kate stood still, a firm grip on the wriggling girl, getting her bearings. A creeping in the underbrush. Close. Closer. She pushed the girl down and sideways, kicking her so she rolled down the hill. A form broke from the underbrush, hesitated. Kate aimed her axe just above the knee. A startled yelp. As the man lost his balance she caught his arms and yanked, bringing him down.

“Mother of God!” he howled.

The telltale r. It was Andrew. Good.

The dogs whimpered somewhere to her left. Kate remembered an old stone building near the water, masked by underbrush, where Lille and Ghent once cornered a young fox. She dragged the hobbled Andrew toward it, thanking God it was not far – she was strong, but he was heavy. The girl caught up as Kate felt a door behind her. Using her back to push it open, Kate dropped Andrew’s arms and kicked him so he turned onto the axe with a shriek. She yanked the girl on top of him and used their confusion to drop and roll into the hut, knocking Sam down in the doorway and slicing his arm with her knife. He cried out. Away to the dogs who were plunging crazily. Their leashes were tied to an iron bar in a window opening and, as she’d guessed, their muzzles were on. Damnably clever Sam. She needed them off so the dogs could bite and tear. She was fumbling with Lille’s muzzle when Andrew came for her. A cry of pain in the doorway – Sam? – and Jennet was there, launching herself at Andrew, knocking him to the floor, pressing his face into the ground, giving Kate enough time to succeed in removing Lille’s muzzle and order her to catch the others. Ghent’s muzzle was easier to open, and he was quick to follow, pinning Sam down. By then the girl was gone, Lille in pursuit.

Andrew reared, shaking Jennet off, but he could not stand. Kate yanked him into the light filtering in the barred window, stumbling a little. She hoped he, Sam, and the girl were sufficiently subdued that she did not need to test how much strength she had left.

“Murdering Clifford bitch, get the axe out of my leg.” Andrew howled as he tried to do it himself. His right arm did not do what he wanted.

She must have pulled it out of joint. Good. She crouched beside him, took hold of the axe, nodding to Jennet who moved to hold down his legs, and pulled.

Andrew barked with the pain. Ghent answered.

Sam cursed and ordered Ghent off his chest. “You would bite me?” he cried. The dogs were trained not to bite down unless she signaled, or she was down, but Sam did not know that. She had not shared that part of their training with him. God be thanked she had not been a complete fool about him.

A scream outside, and Berend ducked into the shed, the girl tucked under one arm. “She is a fighter, but Lille subdued her.”

He stepped aside to let Lille trot into the room. She immediately went to Sam and growled and snapped, then came to sit beside Kate, glaring at Andrew.

Kate rubbed Lille’s ears, thanking her.

“You always were more comfortable in the stable than in the house,” Andrew wheezed as he tried to shift all weight off the wounded leg. “Cruel to keep fine hunting dogs in the city.”

“You are as ugly as I remember, Andrew Caverton,” Kate said.

“Thanks to your brothers, Kitty Kitty Puss Puss.”

The old taunt had Kate fingering the axe.

Steady, Kate, you have him. Learn something before you gut him.

So you are here. Proud of me, are you?

As ever.

As if he were a guest in her hall, Kate asked Andrew what brought him to York after all this time.

“What would you say if I told you it was your mother’s pious preaching that woke the beast?”

His answer strayed so far from what she had expected that Kate was at a loss for a retort. The girl began to whimper. Berend eased her down. She lunged toward Kate. Lille went for her, but Jennet grabbed the girl and hoisted her onto her lap, pinning her arms to her side. With a grunt, Andrew leaned forward and swatted the girl’s hat, knocking it off. Thick dark hair tumbled over her slender shoulders. Lille growled.

“She is proud of that hair. Remind you of someone, Kitty Kitty with the raven’s wings? She’s your niece, Petra. Walter’s girl.”

“My brother has a daughter?”

“Why do you think he lost the hand? He wooed my sister Mary, used her, flung her away. Twelve years old, she was, same as you. Sent away, to the north, to family, my poor sister, and there she died. Too young to give birth. Aye, Mary died, but Petra survived to remind us, ever remind us. And then the Clifford men closed round you, protecting their princess, Kitty Kitty Puss Puss, fearing what we might do to you, that we might be as cruel as your Walter. We almost succeeded.”

I knew she’d been sent away, but I thought it was to torment Walter. Did you know about this, Geoff? That she was with child?

I guessed, but only later, after Maud. Walter denied it, said she was too young to conceive.

“That pretty comb we left for you among the spices that make you rich, I knew you would remember it. The precious comb your brother Walter took from you to give to our Mary. Why are you not wearing it, Kitty Kitty Puss Puss? Or the one you wore that day Bryce and I caught you out alone. That bloody day.” He reared forward, pushing Kate down before she could react, pressing himself to her, grinding his twisted lips against her mouth. Lille and Ghent charged at him.

Berend roared as he rushed between the dogs, lifting Andrew into the air and slamming him against the wall.

Kate rolled over, spitting out the taste of the bastard.

Berend held Andrew down with a foot to his chest, though the man’s eyes were closed as he struggled to breathe. “Have you heard enough, Dame Katherine? Shall we end it?”

“Not yet.” There were things she wanted to know, and things she did not want her servants to hear. “I want to talk to him alone. Take Sam out. Question him. Petra, too. Leave Lille and Ghent.”

“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 had 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.”

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?”