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.
They rushed across the yard and into the south aisle where workmen shook their heads. They had seen no one. But Phillip and his captor would have come through before they had arrived for work. They made their way through the assorted lawyers’ booths in the north transept, stopping at a few to ask the clerks whether they had noticed anything unusual, heard anything. But no one had. Up the narrow steps, they came upon workers bustling about.
Kate gazed round in defeat. “Of course it is busy during the day. Nowhere to hide.”
Dean Richard stopped one of the stonemasons. “The roof. Any workers up there?”
“No, Dom Richard, not today.”
The dean looked to Kate, to Berend. “On the walk round the top there are blind spots where no one would see them from below.”
Kate made sure her knife was easy to reach. Berend did likewise. They followed the dean to a ladderlike stairway. Dean Richard explained how the trap door was secured and they headed up in the darkness, Berend in the lead. Kate readied herself to be blinded by the light. They might need to move quickly despite poor vision. At the top, Berend found the hasp undone.
“You were right, I think,” Kate whispered down to her uncle. “Go find some strong men – we may need to carry Phillip and his captor.”
The dean nodded, blessed the two of them, and backed down.
Berend opened the hatch.
For a long while he stood quite still, so still that all Kate heard was the rush of the wind, the patter of rain, so still that, gazing up, she watched the fat drops of rain fall on his head and shoulders. Silently, like a cat moving a leg forward in slow motion, its eyes locked onto its prey, Berend moved his left leg up a rung, his right arm, paused, then right leg, slowly, cautiously, silently, left arm. He turned his head to listen with his good ear. Paused. And then, with great care, he crawled out onto the ledge. It was barely wide enough for his bow-legged stance when he rose to his feet. He looked round, nodded to Kate.
She tucked her skirts up in her girdle and climbed, her hands growing colder as she ascended, the rain, now whipped up by the wind, stinging her face like icy needles whenever she looked up to gauge her progress. As she crawled out onto the ledge, Berend, who had moved beyond her vision, reappeared. She sat back on her knees so she could see his face. She found no comfort in his grim expression.
“What did you find? Is Phillip up here?”
A nod. “Alive, both of them, but wounded.”
“Both of them? Did Phillip wound his captor?”
“He must have. It wasn’t my doing. The lad knows we have found him. He is pinned beneath the man, who is a dead weight, but still breathes. If I try to lift him and he makes a sudden move–”
Kate crossed herself.
Berend nodded. “We need the men who work up here. They will know how to secure them and safely move them down.”
“But how–” Kate stopped. She would find out what had happened soon enough. Right now she must think only of climbing down and explaining what they needed, must not wonder how Phillip injured his captor, must not spin out her fear of what might happen when they tried to move two bodies on a high ledge. Phillip was alive, and she needed to help move him to safety.
At the bottom of the ladder, men waited with a lantern. Despite her chattering teeth, Kate managed to explain what Berend had found, so that by the time he joined her the men were talking among themselves, two moving off to fetch what they would need.
Dean Richard put an arm round Kate. “We are not needed here. Come. We will light some candles and pray at the deanery.”
Berend agreed. “We will bring Phillip to you as soon as we have retrieved him.”
The girls were a study in contrasts. Marie sat poised at the edge of Phillip’s bed, her gown carefully arranged round her, hair caught up in green ribbons. Her fingers were busy with paternoster beads, her lips silently shaping the prayers, her eyes set on her brother’s still face. Petra, her face scrubbed, her hair caught back in a thick braid, sat on the floor near the door, her slender arms round her drawn up knees, rocking, eyes cast down. She still wore the tattered, pungent clothes of a boy – she had refused to borrow anything from Marie, who had made the offer while clearly bristling with resentment.
“My fault if he dies,” had been Petra’s response when Kate asked her why she had touched none of the food Helen had offered.
Phillip had awakened long enough to ask whether Elric’s man was alive. When Kate told him he was, that he had been taken to the castle at Sheriff Hutton, where he would answer to the earl, his lord, Phillip had whispered a prayer of thanks. He feared he had killed the man.
And what matter if he had? But in truth Kate was grateful Phillip had not been blooded, prayed that he never would be. He was skilled with the knife, though, that was clear. The man had not counted on that, was wounded far more seriously than he had wounded Phillip – not fatally, but he had lost much blood.
“God be thanked he did not find your knife,” said Kate, thinking it somewhat miraculous.
“Jennet set a sheath for it in my boot,” said Phillip. “I didn’t dare go for it until he was coming down on me. Then I pulled it. I thought I was dead anyway. I held it point up and closed my eyes. He couldn’t avoid it without risking a fall off the ledge, I guess.”
“God bless Jennet.”
“God bless all of you,” he said softly. “I have caused you much grief.”
“Not you, Phillip. Never you.” She kissed his forehead.
Kate had found the note in Phillip’s pocket, signed as if from one of the stonemasons saying he had found something that might help prove Connor had not killed himself. Did the boy actually still believe Connor could have climbed up to the scaffold? She had thought he understood.
When we were his age, we never trusted that the adults told us the whole story, Geoff reminded her.
“What of the child?” her uncle had asked Kate. “She is all alone now. Caverton was a monster, but he fed and cared for her.”
“I took in two bastard Nevilles, and I will do no less for a Clifford, my own brother’s daughter. My foster daughter now.”
“Another ward, and one with much healing to do?”
“We will do it together.”
It had been a quiet moment before folk began to arrive wanting to hear the tale. Hugh and Martha Grantham, Lady Margery, Cousin William, Jennet bringing along Goodwife Bella to see to Phillip, Sir Elric, who watched from the doorway, uncertain of his welcome. She ignored him.
William held out his arms to her. “I am so sorry, Katherine. Sir Elric told me about Walter.”
She let her cousin hold her. It felt good to soften for a moment.
“You have a valuable ally in Sir Elric,” William whispered in her ear. “He vows to keep our part in hiding Bale’s death out of the report to the earl. He regrets any harm his men brought to you and your household, including the body of the stranger.”
Jennet had reported that the poor man had been prepared for burial, and he lay out in the shed behind the kitchen on Castlegate, along with Andrew Caverton. Sir Elric had ordered his men to tie Sam up in the shed with the bodies. “Let him contemplate the fruits of his betrayal.” Jennet had nodded her approval.
All so busy tidying up, restoring order. As if all troubles were past.
Even her neighbor and partner Thomas Holme was of that mind, swearing to her as he arrived that he would tear down the old stone shed so that nothing like this could happen again.
City folk and their childlike belief that their walls and laws protected them from all danger. When Kate could listen to it no more, she had excused herself to sit with Phillip. Ignoring Helen’s frown, she had brought Lille and Ghent with her. She sat now on a low stool beside Petra, stroking the dogs’ wiry fur as they napped beside her. As ever, Kate found comfort in their companionship.