The Service of the Dead
- Автор: Робб Кэндис
- Серия: A Kate Clifford Mystery #1
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pegasus Books
- ISBN: 978-1-68177-175-5
- Жанр: Исторические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Service of the Dead». Краткое содержание книги:
Expertly recreating the social and political upheavals of late medieval Europe and the increasing power of the wealthy merchant class, acclaimed author Candace Robb introduces a new series starring Kate Clifford, a woman forged on the warring northern marches of fourteenth century England.
Political unrest permeates York at the cusp of the fifteenth century, as warring factions take sides on who should be the rightful king – Richard II or his estranged, powerful cousin in exile, Henry Bolingbroke. Independent minded twenty-year-old Kate Clifford is struggling to dig out from beneath the debt left by her late husband. Determined to find a way to be secure in her own wealth and establish her independence in a male dominated society, Kate turns one of her properties near the minster into a guest house and sets up a business. In a dance of power, she also quietly rents the discreet bedchambers to the wealthy, powerful merchants of York for nights with their mistresses.
But the brutal murder of a mysterious guest and the disappearance of his companion for the evening threatens all that Kate has built. Before others in town hear word of a looming scandal, she must call upon all of her hard-won survival skills to save herself from ruin.
Griselde tucked a few loose strands of hair back in her white kerchief and smoothed down the skirt of her simple gown. “Yes, Mistress Clifford.” The housekeeper glanced over at her husband. “We both owe you everything.”
Kate knew Griselde was thinking of Clement’s part in hiding Simon’s financial troubles. But Kate had come to value both of them; indeed, it was Clement who had noticed the missing shipment of cinnamon. “I am not going to cast you out, Griselde. But I expect you to adhere to the rules of the house from now on unless I tell you to bend them.” She glanced round the hall. “What else? Surely we have more stools?”
Griselde sighed. “I meant to fetch the other two.”
Only two. “Send a few of Lady Kirkby’s servants with a cart to Castlegate when they arrive. I can part with a few benches for a fortnight. For now, I’ll collect what we have.”
“I will show you where they are, mistress,” said Sam from the hall door, curling his left hand as if catching something. Their signal.
While Griselde protested that it was her place to fetch the stools, Kate crossed the hall to her serving man.
“The stools are stacked just inside the lean-to behind the kitchen,” he said quietly. “But you will want to check the farther shed near the privy. Beneath the wheelbarrow. I left everything as I found it.”
Waving Griselde silent, Kate plucked her cloak from the bench near the door and followed the path young Seth had cleared out past the kitchen to the privy. Fortunately, he had cleared side paths to the kitchen, the lean-to, and the far shed as well; neither she nor Sam would leave an obvious trail. Within, she found the wheelbarrow upended, and beneath it a leather traveling pack. She shone the lantern round the room to see whether anything else seemed out of place. All but the barrow and a corner of a shelf near the door was silvered with frost. She pulled the pack out from beneath the barrow and set it down on top. Fine leather with a shiny brass buckle to secure the flap, at present opened. Inside, a man’s linen shirt, soiled, but of good quality, a pair of travel-stained breeches, a comb, a pair of dice in a small pouch, a pot of unguent, a pair of barely worn shoes, and a small pack that was a miniature of the larger one. This pack’s buckle was also undone, and it was empty but for a letter carrying the seal of the Duke of Lancaster – the title the exiled Henry claimed, which his cousin King Richard denied him. She held her breath as she brought the lantern close to read it. It was a letter of credence introducing a Hubert Bale as the duke’s envoy. An envoy. For what? Returning with an army to wrest his inheritance from his cousin the king? Or to take the throne? The letter was beginning to wear at the folds. A busy man, this Hubert.
Did this pack and the letter belong to her cousin’s guest, or to the murderer? Hubert Bale. Was he the dead man? She held up the breeches – they might have fit the man who had lain on the floor in the guest chamber. But so might they fit many men she knew.
An envoy would travel with money. But there was none in the pack. That might be why it had been unbuckled – someone had stolen the money. Alice? Certainly someone who did not appreciate the importance of the letter, someone who did not recognize the seal. Or they had left it as evidence. Perhaps the man had carried his money on his person, but Griselde had not mentioned a scrip that would hold money. Kate did not think the woman would be so bold as to keep it from her, not when she was already worried she had jeopardized her post.
Except for the letter, which Kate tucked into her own scrip, she left everything as she had found it. As she lifted the lantern, something on the ground near the door caught the light. A silver coin. Spilled from the pack, perhaps. Hers now. It joined the letter. She opened the door slowly, peering out, half expecting to find someone spying on her. But all was clear. Pulling the door shut behind her, she picked her way back along the swept path, taking deep breaths to steady herself. A man murdered in her guesthouse, either he or his murderer a traitor to the crown. Damn cousin William to hell for all eternity if he brings me down with his treachery. By the time she collected the pair of stools and returned to the hall, she had decided to put young Seth at the door and send Sam home with the letter.
“Find young Seth, then take this to Berend,” she quietly ordered Sam as she bent to shift the letter from her scrip to his boot. “And don’t let it get wet!”
Jennet had arrived, bringing order to the last bits of preparation. Kate took the opportunity to sit down with Griselde and Clement to discuss the night of the murder before they forgot some of the details. “Was Alice Hatten brought here by one of my cousin’s men?”
“She was,” said Clement. “We heard someone on the steps. Griselde found Master Frost’s man Roger, Alice Hatten, and Master Frost’s guest halfway up the steps.”
Griselde nodded. “I called to Master Frost’s man to come within so that we might review with him the rules. He told the other two to wait for him on the landing up above.”
“You recognized my cousin’s man?”
“I did,” said Clement. “I would know him anywhere, with that pale pate and those strange eyes.”
Roger was her cousin’s most trusted retainer, a former soldier. “Could it have been Roger you heard upstairs later in the evening, Griselde?”
“I do not believe so. No. Roger has a wheeze in his voice. This man spoke sharply. I am sorry I heard only the tone, not the matter, Mistress Clifford.”
“When did my cousin come to you with this arrangement?”
“We were cleaning up after the midday meal,” Griselde said, looking to her husband for confirmation. He nodded. “I would have sent Matt to you, but that was well after his accident, past midday.”
“That very day William sent word?”
Griselde nodded.
“And the stranger… Roger did not name him, or give you any other information?”
Griselde shook her head. “Master Frost had told us it would be so.”
The more she heard, the more uncomfortable Kate was with her cousin’s part in this. But there was no more time for questions. A shout from Seth alerted them of Lady Kirkby’s arrival.
Margery Kirkby entered the hall on the arm of Kate’s uncle, Richard Clifford, dean of York Minster, his somber robes providing a contrast to her Lincoln green cloak lined in pale gray rabbit fur. She slipped her arm from his to hurry to Kate, enfolding her in a heavily scented embrace.
“Benedicite, dear Katherine.” She kissed Kate’s cheek, then stood back to look her up and down. “It gladdens my heart to see you looking so well, and out of mourning.” Margery kissed the other cheek, then stepped aside for Kate to introduce her to Clement, Griselde, and young Seth. Margery, in turn, introduced the small crowd pooling in the hall doorway. Two maidservants, a manservant, and four retainers. “And my two grooms will be along soon with the dogs. You must bring Lille and Ghent over every day to play with Troilus and Criseyde, dear Katherine. Have you heard Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem about the two lovers? Oh, you must. Perhaps we might have evenings of reading it aloud while I am here.”
Her banter continued up the stairs into the main bedchamber, which she declared perfect before asking her maidservants to leave them in peace for a moment.
Without an audience, Margery Kirkby turned to business. “I pray the rumors about my Thomas going over to the Lancastrian side are not going to cause trouble for you, Katherine.”
Of course they would. Hence the high fee for a fortnight’s stay. “A little more trouble will hardly be noticed,” Kate lied, being the gracious hostess she was. “But my uncle has promised his support.”