The Service of the Dead

Lille and Ghent bounded up to her now, shaking off the snow in a spray that chilled her unprotected face. She laughed and rubbed their backs with her gloved hands. “Hungry?” She signaled permission to go on along the cleared path to the kitchen door – bless Berend or Sam for shoveling it. The dogs trotted a few paces, then stopped before turning toward the alleyway to the street, alert, ears pricked. Lille growled.

An intruder. Hah! Kate withdrew beneath the eaves, slipping her axe from its sheath as she crept down the path to the alley, taking care to avoid the light spilling into the narrow space from Thomas Holme’s lanterns. She saw no shadow. Perhaps she was wrong about an intruder. Would one be so foolish as to choose a lamp-lit alley? Lille and Ghent, trained to respond when she drew her weapon, squeezed past on either side to take the lead. They came to a standstill as someone in the alley stepped onto ice-encrusted snow, the noise loud in the predawn hush. Another mistake suggesting this was no threat, stealth not the stranger’s intent. Yet Ghent growled.

Kate raised the axe and leaned to peer round the corner. It was Sam, the white hair sticking out of his hat and catching the lamplight.

“God save me,” he said, shielding his eyes.

Behind him she noticed a slight movement. Ghent and Lille would not growl at Sam’s approach, nor that of anyone else in the household. Someone was shadowing him.

“Drop to your knees, Sam,” Kate whispered as she stepped away from the corner, aimed, let fly the axe. In the charged silence she heard the weapon spinning round and round, landing with a solid, satisfying thud. A curse, a tearing sound, a flicker of movement.

“Stay!” she commanded Lille and Ghent – they were trained to kill once she had used a weapon. She rushed down the alley. Nothing. The street was deserted but for a peddler pushing a cart, and a neighbor gossiping with her best friend. Kate cursed herself for being too cautious, calling off her hounds. She was out of practice.

Back in the alley, she pulled the axe from the wooden archway separating the yard of the small street-front building from her own larger house. A piece of cloth came away with the blade. Wool with a fur lining. No wonder the curse rather than a cry or groan; she had caught the edge of the shadow’s clothing. A cloak, it would seem. Gratifying. Her senses had not entirely dulled with city living. She bent down to the dogs, let them sniff. “Find.” She followed them out to the middle of the street, where they lost the scent. She asked her neighbor whether she had seen anyone running from the alleyway.

“I did. He followed your serving man into the alley, then came running out. He threw his cloak in the rag cart, then hurried off toward the castle. Such an odd thing to do in this cold. Is there trouble?”

So that was why they’d lost the scent – the cart. “Bless you, no. Nothing for you to worry about.” Kate called over her shoulder as she picked her way along the crusty snow to the ragman’s cart, Lille and Ghent trotting alongside.

To her surprise the person pushing the cart was neither a ragpicker nor a man. Kate motioned Lille and Ghent to her side. “They will not harm you,” she assured the woman.

“I see they are well trained. I commend you on that.” The woman pushed back her hood and studied Kate. “I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure of your acquaintance. Jocasta Sharp.” She extended a gloved hand. “And you, with your fine hunting dogs. You must be Katherine Clifford.”

Jocasta Sharp, the wife of one of Kate’s customers at the guesthouse, with a fine house by All Saints Church. Kate took her hand. “The women back there thought you were a ragpicker.”

Jocasta opened her arms to show off her simple but well-cut garb. “You see with your eyes, without prejudice, unlike those women who saw me as a ragpicker. My husband calls it a humiliation that his wife sees to the poor. My devotion to Christian duty shames him.” She tapped the heavy cloth covering her load. “You want the fine cloak the thief tossed in my cart, I’ll warrant. Tuppence to redeem it. For the poor of the parish.”

“I’ll gladly give you that and more if I might take it now and come to your house later today with the money and more clothes.”

The woman tilted her head. “You did not take the Neville name. A Clifford born and a Clifford you remain, and your mother a Frost.” She nodded. “As you are your own woman, I believe I can trust you. Your offer is more than fair, Katherine Clifford. God watches over the poor of our parish.” She handed Kate the cloak, bid her a good morning.

“Did you get a good look at the thief?” She saw no point in correcting Jocasta’s assumption that he’d stolen the cloak.

“I saw but the back of him, and he wore a hat that quite covered his hair. Queer that he stole the cloak. The clothes he wore beneath were just as fine.”