A Twisted Vengeance
- Автор: Робб Кэндис
- Серия: A Kate Clifford Mystery #2
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pegasus Books
- ISBN: 9781681774756
- Жанр: Исторические детективы
Электронная книга - «A Twisted Vengeance». Краткое содержание книги:
As the fourteenth century comes to a close, York seethes on the brink of civil war – and young widow Kate Clifford, struggling to keep her businesses afloat, realizes that her mother is harboring a dangerous secret…
1399. York is preparing for civil war, teeming with knights and their armed retainers summoned for the city’s defense. Henry of Lancaster is rumored to have landed on the northeast coast of England, not so far from York, intent on reclaiming his inheritance – an inheritance which his cousin, King Richard, has declared forfeit.
With the city unsettled and rife with rumors, Eleanor Clifford’s abrupt return to York upon the mysterious death of her husband in Strasbourg is met with suspicion in the city. Her daughter Kate is determined to keep her distance, but it will not be easy – Eleanor has settled next door with the intention of establishing a house of beguines, or poor sisters. When one of the beguines is set upon in the night by an intruder, Kate knows that for the sake of her own reputation and the safety of her young wards she must investigate.
From the first, Eleanor is clearly frightened yet maintains a stubborn silence. The brutal murder of one of Eleanor’s servants leads Kate to suspect that her mother’s troubles have followed her from Strasbourg. Is she secretly involved in the political upheaval? When one of her wards is frightened by a too-curious stranger, Kate is desperate to draw her mother out of her silence before tragedy strikes her own household.
“I don’t know,” Kate whispered. “Are you certain he was the same man as the one you stabbed?”
Dina frowned down at her hands, as if considering whether she might be mistaken, but then nodded. “It was him. His blood soaked my gown.” A pause. Kate heard dogs barking out on the street. Dina held up a finger as if to say, Listen! “Your dogs began to bark. Like that! And then the soldier who watches, he came out of the darkness and grabbed my – the one dragging me. He made him let go of me. All this time, no screams, no screams. I could not make a sound, even when I tried.” With a trembling hand she rubbed an eye. “The soldier told me to run to the church. ‘Do not stop. Do not look back.’ I did what he said.” A shrug. “I woke in the maison dieu.” Tears streamed down Dina’s cheeks. “He ruined me. Bloodied, cursed, dirty. And now I have taken a life because of the fear he burned into my soul.”
“Your father?” Kate asked softly.
Dina leaned toward Kate, grasping her hands. “Pray you not to judge me.” She looked at the others. “I was but a child. So young. I did not know why he was hurting me and saying he loved me, that I was his angel.” A sob. “He knew me until I became a woman. Then he sent me away.” She bowed down over her hands.
“You are no sinner,” Clara whispered.
“You are safe in our love,” said Brigida, looking to Clara and Eleanor, who nodded.
Eleanor began to assure Dina that they would not send her away, but Kate interrupted her. She felt ill and angry at the monster who had raped his daughter, then turned her out when she became fertile and might quicken, exposing his terrible sin. “I see you as a strong, courageous, unblemished woman,” she said, nodding to Brigida to translate. Her voice broke as she did so.
Dina reached for Kate’s hands, pressed them, looked up at the three on the bed. “I still cannot forgive him.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Your heart will know when you are able to do so,” Sister Clara said in the gentlest of voices. “Drink some more brandywine. You have lived through it all over again. Warm yourself.”
As Dina sipped at the wine, Kate asked, “Forgive me, but I must ask, would you know the man in the kitchen if you saw him again?”
“It was dark. But maybe his voice?”
“Do you know where your dagger is?”
Dina shook her head. “I did not see it after I” – a breath – “stabbed him.” She crossed herself.
Kate wondered about the dagger – who had given it to Dina, whether she had ever thought to use it on her father – but she had no right to ask. “I am grateful to you, Sister Dina. Rest now. I will not disturb you further.”
“May God bless you and bring you peace.” Hands pressed together in prayer, Dina bowed to Kate.
The sorrow and the beauty that was Dina moved her. Kate mirrored the gesture, her heart too full for words.
Eleanor offered her bed, but Dina preferred to return to the chamber she now shared with Brigida and Clara, who assisted her out the door.
When the sisters had departed, Kate and Eleanor sat for a while, facing out the window, deep in their separate sorrows, blind to the summer day. The voices of the three women in the adjoining chamber rose and fell.
Outside, Petra laughed her deep-throated laugh, Marie screeched with delight, drawing Kate out of her thoughts. The innocence of children. An innocence taken from Dina.
Eleanor had taken Dina’s chair and now stared out the window with the same stricken expression she had worn as they’d prepared the torn bodies of Kate’s brother Roland and her twin, Geoffrey. It would not do. This was not the way to find Robin and Hans’s murderer.
“Did Sister Dina think Friar Adam an acceptable confessor?” Kate asked.
Eleanor started at the sound of Kate’s voice. “Ah me, I lost myself for a while. Dina and Adam?” She shook her head. “None of the sisters cared for him. His is not the gentle faith of the Dominican friars they knew in Strasbourg. They felt he had condemned them before he ever met them.”
“What did he say that gave that impression?”
“I might have influenced them with my warning, but his chilly gaze and impatient manner proved my point. He prodded the sisters with questions that had little to do with such an interview.”
“Such as?”
“He asked whether they could read, which puzzled them, for they have yet to encounter a beguine who does not read, write, and know her numbers. Many of them teach. Perhaps he asked Sister Dina because she is a sempster, but Sister Brigida?”
“What else?”
“What books they had read, whether any member of the household owned any, and something about golden idols. God help us, does he think them pagans?”
“Or does he want to know whether they own something worth stealing? Or that would brand them as heretics?” Kate said it more to herself than as a response.
But Eleanor heard. “Heretics. I had not thought – But the other makes no sense. Friars take a vow of poverty, do they not? Do you think they might be thieves?” She glanced at the door, uneasy. Because she had not thought of that? Or because there was something of value in the house that Eleanor realized she must guard? The books? Perhaps Marguerite Porete’s work?
Kate had not considered the possible value of the books from which the sisters read at meals. They were brought out for the event, then put away. Books were certainly items of worth, especially those that were adorned with colorful images. She had not looked at the pages.
Or Friar Adam wanted to know whether the books preached interpretations of the Bible and God’s message of which the Church did not approve.
“Did any of the sisters tell him about the books?” Kate asked.
“Sister Clara says they did not admit to the books, as his attitude toward their revered teachers troubled them. They feared he might confiscate them.” Eleanor’s worry had given way to indignation. “We would see about that.”
Kate bowed her head to hide her smile at the image of her mother confronting Friar Adam should he try to walk away with anything at all.
Unaware of her daughter’s amusement, Eleanor continued. “Sister Clara assures me they did not need to lie, they simply asked whether it is his experience – or expectation – that poor sisters bring such valuable items as dowries, suggesting that he confused them with nuns. She explained that beguines do not bring dowries, they support themselves by working in the community.” Eleanor chuckled. “Sister Clara claims difficulty with our language, but there is more subtlety in her speech than most people I know.”
“It is good to hear you laugh.”
“And to see you smile.” But Eleanor’s momentary cheer faded with a sigh. “My dear Dina. I did not know what she suffered, the burden she carries.”
“What did he say about golden idols?”
Eleanor shook her head. “Clara did not tell me his precise words. But it troubled them, all three of them. Of course it did. Heretics? Pagans? As if he was searching for the most damning accusation. God help us. I expected better of York, though I do not know why. So many are stuck in the mire of the old ways. I blame Isabella Frost for this.”
Kate reached out for her mother’s hand, drawing her attention back to the present. “Friar Adam’s sudden appearance is troubling. You know that Griffin followed Sir Elric’s men to the camp on Toft Green?” Eleanor nodded.
Kate deemed it time to inform her mother of all that Berend had learned from Kevin.
As she recounted it, Geoff whispered in her head, It is the connection. Perhaps Friar Adam has Robin in the priory infirmary.