The Service of the Dead

Kate could not rely on them to see to each other’s welfare naturally. Her first impression had been a mistake. They were nothing like she and Geoff, who had been whole only when together, naturally attuned to each other’s every need. Marie and Phillip were bonded only in rejecting her; otherwise they bickered endlessly.

She moved on to wake Phillip, but his bed was made, the space tidied. Calling out to Marie that her brother was already breaking his fast and she must hurry, Kate hastened down the steps, pausing only to slip into pattens before crossing the snowy yard to the kitchen. She sighed with pleasure as the warmth of the large hearth enfolded her. Berend and Jennet glanced up from their tasks to greet her with warm benedicites. On the table were bread, cheese, and winter apples. Lille and Ghent had settled next to the fire beside Phillip, who sat hunched over a steaming bowl.

“Your aim was true this morning, Dame Katherine. Was Master Lionel your target? Father? Marie? Me?”

“Yes to all, Phillip, and more.” Kate gave him a taunting grin, but it troubled her that he had slipped past without her noticing. “Hot ale?” she bent down to sniff. Hot spiced wine. “Well-watered, I hope. It is difficult to attend your grammar master if you are bleary-eyed with drink. And Hugh Grantham expects you after your classes midday to work on his accounts.”

“Well-watered, Dame Katherine.” Phillip ran a long-fingered hand through his curly mane.

Berend handed her a bowl of ale, her preferred morning beverage. Sipping it, she settled next to Phillip. Unlike his sister, Phillip was determined to thrive despite the abrupt, dramatic change in his life. He had offered to keep Kate’s accounts – he had done so for his mother, his grandmother, and several uncles. He showed her how quickly he could add up columns of numbers.

Kate had declined his offer, having no intention of revealing his father’s insolvency. The discovery of the debts had shocked not only Kate, but also his partners Thomas Holme and her cousin William Frost. She had worked hard to secure what was left, primarily property and partial interest in a ship, selling a few tenements and some land, finding lucrative uses for the rest. She tucked away what she could, in her own name, for the future. All the while, Simon’s odious brother Lionel had watched for her to fail. She had disappointed him, and she meant to continue to do so. Besides, she did not as yet know whether she could trust Phillip.

Instead she was helping him develop a gift he preferred to his skill with sums, a gift his uncle had derided, seeing it as menial work, beneath a Neville – no matter that they were a minor branch of the prominent family. Phillip understood stone, and loved to work with it. A city, whether Calais or York, was to him a treasure-house of stonework, from the simple squares and rectangles that composed a wall to the intricate carvings on bosses and capitals in the churches and the minster. One touch informed him of the composition. He said stone spoke to him. She had encouraged him, giving him space for a workshop and purchasing for him some basic tools. Several of his practice pieces adorned the garden. Lionel had scoffed at her “desperate efforts to win the bastard’s love.” Well, she had won Phillip’s gratitude, if not his love. She’d made a deal with Hugh Grantham, a merchant trader and master mason: If Phillip worked on his accounts, he might spend a few hours at the end of each day following one of the journeyman masons in Grantham’s employ in the minster stoneyard. As an added incentive to quicken Phillip’s journey to apprenticeship, she agreed to add Grantham to her select list of esteemed citizens of York who might rent one of the lovely bedchambers in the house on High Petergate.

Phillip was expressing his disappointment in Connor, the journeyman to whom Grantham had assigned him, when Lille began a rumbling growl and Ghent rose and moved toward the door, his ears pricked.

Jennet hastened to open it. “Sam! And Goodwife Griselde?”

Simon’s former manservant assisted the elderly woman across the threshold and supported her as she eased down onto a chair Jennet had moved near the fire. “I was on my way to the house on High Petergate to discuss young Seth’s responsibilities with the goodwife,” Sam explained to Kate in his gravelly voice. He doffed his hat and ran a hand through his white hair, punctuating his speech with a grin, clearly pleased to prove his worth to her. She had kept him on after Simon’s death to run errands, walk the dogs, and assist Jennet and Berend, fearing he was too elderly to be hired by someone new. She knew he often felt useless, so she had been glad to tell him about his new assignment of supervising Seth in helping Griselde and Clement prepare for Lady Kirkby’s visit. She had impressed upon him the size of the task, as the entire guesthouse would be occupied. “I noticed her on Davygate, looking – well, as you see her. She was leaning against the pillar outside Davy Hall pressing her temples and breathing hard. When she said she was on her way here I thought it best to escort her.” He leaned close to whisper, “She seemed frightened.”