A Murdered Peace

Fragrant warmth welcomed Kate as she opened the door to the guesthouse hall. As she crossed the room toward the kitchen she paused, hearing a familiar voice behind her. “Phillip?” She checked her progress and turned back to the door of Clement and Griselde’s bedchamber.

“Mistress Clifford, I can explain,” said Griselde, hurrying out from the kitchen to intercept.

But Kate was already at the door, pushing it open to reveal her ward Phillip sitting beside Clement in bed, both bent over a portable writing desk. Abacus, tally sticks, ledgers – it was clear her ward was assisting Clement with Kate’s accounts. The boy had a skill with numbers and had kept his mother’s accounts from an early age. He currently kept the accounts of the master mason to whom he was apprenticed as a stoneworker in the minster yard, but Kate had gently refused his offer to work on hers, for many reasons.

Phillip was intent on completing an entry in the ledger, but Clement glanced up and cleared his throat, nudging the lad.

Quietly, Kate asked, “Phillip, how long have you been assisting Clement?”

Only now did the boy pull his eyes away from the ledger and straighten, his eyes begging her for clemency. “A while. But Master Hugh is pleased with my work in the stoneyard.”

“Are you still keeping his accounts as well?”

Phillip nodded. “Just the daily tallies. I do them after Mistress Grantham serves dinner, before I return to the stoneyard to complete my assignments for the day. Please don’t be angry with Master Clement.”

“I am not your master, dear boy,” Clement said gruffly.

Poor Clement. His health continued its steady decline. The only color in the old man’s wrinkled face were unhealthy red spots on his cheeks, and the smells of sickness soured the room despite Griselde’s efforts to mask them with fragrant wood burning in the brazier and dried herbs hanging near the door and over the bed.

Kate bent to kiss Phillip on the forehead. “I am not angry, but worried. When do you rest? When do you sleep? And why are you not at work in the stoneyard this morning?” She did not need to ask why he had not told her. He knew full well she was already concerned that his accounting work for the master mason added too many hours to his day as an apprentice.

“I completed my morning’s work betimes. I am well, Dame Katherine. I am. And Clement needed me. It is not arduous, there are not nearly so many entries as with Master Grantham’s accounts.”

“The guesthouse and my businesses? I doubt that,” said Kate. Though Hugh Grantham was a merchant as well as a master mason, he limited his trading, of necessity.

Phillip bowed his head and gave a little shrug.

Clement patted the boy’s hand. “It is my doing, Mistress Clifford. I asked if he might help me. I could not think of anyone else I might trust.”

That was the other reason Kate had refused Phillip’s offer to keep her books. When she had learned the extent of her late husband’s debts, she had received promises from her fellow executors, Thomas Holme and Thomas Graa, that Simon’s secret was safe with them; particularly safe from the guild and her brother-in-law, Lionel. Clement had taken on the burden of secrecy as a penance for having kept Simon’s situation a secret from her. Such secrecy was a not something she wanted burdening her ward.

“I would have preferred that you consulted me, Clement.” She waved him quiet as he began to excuse himself. “The deed is done, but Phillip cannot continue here indefinitely. He has worked hard to become an apprentice at the minster. This is a great opportunity for him to realize his dream.”

“Dame Katherine,” Phillip pleaded with his eyes.

“It takes you away from the work you love.” Kate smoothed his hair.

A reluctant nod.

Behind Kate, Griselde moaned. “Mistress Clifford, I pray–”

“Do not fret, Griselde. Your role in this household is not in jeopardy. I value both of you, and I have long thought Clement needed an assistant. We must put our heads together and find one for him, eh?”

“And until you do?” Phillip asked.

“You may continue to assist until I do.” His smile and Clement’s tears were Kate’s reward. But at what cost to the boy?

She nodded to all of them and withdrew. Clearly it was up to her to find a replacement. Clement had been largely housebound for several years, so any clerks he might have known were either employed or gone. And he would have no idea of their allegiances. She must find someone who could be trusted to be discreet. A challenge.

She found the hall empty, the hounds gone. Out in the kitchen, Lille and Ghent were sharing a plate of cold meats – at this rate they would soon be too fat to run. She stepped over to where the young manservant Seth was demonstrating to Lady Margery how to cut up vegetables. In a plain gown, simple leather shoes, and hair hidden beneath a short veil secured at the nape of her neck while she worked, Margery, or “Mary,” looked small and insignificant.

Seth glanced up with a little frown. “I should have told you about Phillip.”

“But you did not want to be a tit-tattle,” said Kate.

He shrugged. “No excuse.”

“What’s done is done. Why does Clement have need of Phillip?”

“It is his memory, Mistress Clifford,” said Griselde from the doorway. “It slips and slides, upending his tallies, confusing him. And it’s not drink. He’s had little ale or wine. He wants his wits about him.”

Seeing the sagging shoulders and the pain in the housekeeper’s eyes, Kate took Griselde’s arm and led her to a bench, where she settled beside her.

“You must keep me informed, else how can I help? How often does Clement leave his bed?”

“Not often. His legs are so weak and twisted. I can see it’s painful for him to pull himself along on the crutches Seth made for him.”

“I’d hoped they’d help,” said Seth.

“They do. But he tires so easily.” There was a catch in Griselde’s voice.

“You did your best, Seth,” said Kate. She had a thought. “You are so handy with carpentry. I wonder whether you might be able to replicate Beatrice Paris’s chair.” She told them about the wheeled chair that had allowed her neighbor’s wife to move about the house.

Griselde’s face brightened. “A wheeled chair! I do believe he would perk up if he could move about more easily.”

“I could make one.” Seth loped over to the corner of the kitchen where he slept on a pallet. From a shelf he plucked a wax tablet and stylus, sat down on a bench and began to draw. “The wooden wheels on the old barrow in the garden shed might do. What sort of chair did they use?”

“It was cobbled together from parts of the cart, as I recall.”

“We can do better,” said Seth, glancing up at Griselde.

“You are thinking of the old chair in our bedchamber?” she nodded. “I used to set it out in the garden so he might have some fresh air. An ugly chair, but serviceable.”

“Just the thing,” said Seth.

“Is it just the accounting work that challenges Clement?”

Griselde shook her head. “He has been trying to recall something he once learned about Berend, something he has a feeling might suggest where he has gone. Master Simon was concerned that you had hired a criminal out of sympathy for his war wounds. He wanted to know more about Berend. Clement discovered something but failed to write it down, and now he cannot quite grasp it – it stays just out of reach. Something about a place. That he owned, mayhap? But not his parents’ tavern?” That was where Berend had learned to cook. “A small farm, he thought.”