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.
The hall of the deanery was large and airy. In one corner several armoires and a large table with benches marked the area where clerks were usually hard at work, though not today, on the Sabbath. In the middle of the room, near the central hearth, an elegant settle and several high-backed chairs were clustered for conversation and piled with colorful embroidered cushions. Tapestries in rich jewel colors adorned the walls. It was a comfortable hall, inviting.
Dean Richard rose from one of the cushioned chairs to welcome her, garbed in a simple houppelande. His indoor shoes were an elegant brocade, with long, pointed toes. He enjoyed his pleasures. He plied her with questions about her meeting with William as soon as she took her seat. She had told him much of it when she escorted Marie to the deanery the previous evening, and he said he had been trying to make sense of it ever since.
“So am I, uncle. But this afternoon I came at Phillip’s request, did I not?”
“Of course.” He sent a servant to inform the boy that she had arrived. “After mass this morning he asked for advice about vows, promises, especially those made to the dead. He has been pacing ever since – in the hall, then in the kitchen where his sister complained that if she must tolerate his pacing she deserved to know what it was about. He escaped to his bedchamber.”
“Have you any idea what it is about?”
“None. I see you went out to the grave?” He gestured toward her mud-caked hem. “Did you recognize the first victim?”
“Berend did. It is Hubert Bale, although he had introduced himself to William as Jon Underhill.”
“So his attacker is still an unknown. I am sorry.” He reached down to pet Lille and Ghent, who were already happily asleep at Kate’s feet. “What was Bale’s mission?” Richard asked when he straightened.
She told him what William had told her.
“Access to Lady Margery? And William agreed to it? Why would he do that? Why did he not simply go to the sheriffs with the report of someone following him? No, of course, I know, the tension between the king’s supporters and the Lancastrians. No one knows whom to trust. And his wife, being a Gisburne, well, they might fear the sheriffs would be more sympathetic to their enemies than to them.”
“To be fair, William’s guest was the victim, not the attacker.”
“Who knows what led to the strangling?”
Kate leaned back against the chair, her head beginning to pound.
“Forgive me,” said her uncle. “You have had a trying day. Week. You will be glad to hear that I have the archbishop’s permission to say a mass for Connor in the early morning, in the Magdalene chapel, for his fellows. Grantham will be present, and his wife. We will quietly bury him in one of the churchyards in the city, preferably one in the minster liberty. I am not yet certain.”
She took a deep breath, willing herself calm. “This is good of you, uncle. How did you convince the archbishop to permit the mass?” Suicide was a mortal sin, depriving the dead of the benefit of burial in blessed ground. “You told him it was murder?”
“I had no choice. But I emphasized the importance of secrecy, and reminded him that we do not wish the sheriffs involved in searching for the murderer. In order to avoid that, we allow the city to believe that Connor murdered Alice in a fit of jealousy, then took his own life. Unfortunately, the secrecy prevents what I thought most fitting, that he should be buried with Alice Hatten. Dame Jocasta warned me that Alice’s sister is quite the gossip.”
“I am touched that you thought of that.”
“I have a heart. So, apparently, has Scrope.”
“I never doubted your heart, uncle. And it is not only William and the archbishop who wish to avoid involving the sheriffs.”
“No.”
“So Scrope knows. How much does he know?”
The servant returned with the message that Phillip would prefer to talk to Kate in the privacy of his bedchamber.
Kate said she would go to him in a moment.
The servant withdrew.
“I regret that I found it necessary to tell His Grace about everything, including the murder in the guesthouse. But not your delicate business there. Although I suspect that his lack of further questions suggests he knows of it.”
“How?”
“I have no idea.”
So the archbishop did have spies in the city. Of course he did. Kate leaned across to her uncle, kissing his cheek. “I am grateful that there will be a mass for Connor in the morning. I will attend.”
She found her way down the passage to the outer steps that took her up to Phillip’s room. He opened his door to her knock, thanking her as he stepped aside and welcomed her into the room. The guest room was warm and furnished almost as comfortably as her uncle’s room, where she had spoken to Phillip yesterday – had it been only the day before? Helen had clearly fussed with it, using tapestries, cushions, several lamps, and a colorful bedcovering to brighten the room.
Phillip looked no better. His beautiful eyes were sunken in shadows. How sad he looked, how tired. He led her to a bench beneath the window. Reaching behind it, he drew up a pack.
Kate gasped. “Phillip, this is Hubert Bale’s traveling pack.”
“You have seen this before?”
“Yes. In one of the garden sheds at the guesthouse. And then it disappeared. Where did you get it?”
“Connor gave it to me. For safekeeping. He said he did not trust that he would not sell the contents for drink.”
“Where has it been?”
“In my own pack. I promised him I would give it to no one. I promised. But now that he’s gone… Dean Richard helped me see that my responsibility is to the living.”
Bless Uncle Richard. “I am grateful to you, Phillip. How did it come into his possession?”
“One night Connor told me a tale – he had been drinking, so I wondered how much of this was true, but – he said he had gone to your guesthouse to meet Master Frost and Alice Hatten, his wife-to-be. She had coaxed him to go, telling him that Master Frost promised to help him find a place in the stoneyard at Beverley Minster. So the meeting that evening was so Master Frost might advise him how to please the dean and chapter as well as the master mason there. Connor was late – he had stopped for a tankard of ale, for courage, he said – and when he arrived, well, it was all wrong. He found two strangers, large men, both of them, struggling. And suddenly one had a rope round the neck of the other, strangling him.”
“Did Connor recognize either of them?”
Phillip shook his head.
“Was Alice there?”
“Yes. She was slumped over near the door, drunk or poisoned, he could not tell. All Connor cared about was getting her away safely.”
“The two men did not notice him?”
Phillip shrugged.
“How did he get her out of there?”
Shifting so that he was sitting cross-legged on the bench, Phillip began to use gestures as he spoke, something he had not done since finding Connor’s body.
“He said he hoisted her over his shoulder, picked up a pack by the door – he never said why he picked up the pack – and he carried her down to one of the garden sheds, where he tried to wake her. He was frightened – she was so limp he feared she would stop breathing. He managed to wake her a little, but not enough for her to walk, even with his help. He kept expecting someone to come looking for them, so he could not linger. He searched the pack and found some money and a letter in a little purse. He put that in his own scrip, then picked her up and carried her to his lodging.”
“So he did not take the pack?”
“He went back for it sometime. The next day?” He frowned at her. “I forget. I only half-believed him. But you do. Is this important? Did the man die? Or was he the one who killed Connor?”