A Twisted Vengeance

“Murder! Murder!”

Kate opened her eyes. Petra and Marie bolted upright, holding each other. It was just dawn, pale light coming through the chinks in the shutters. Her heart pounding, Kate slipped from the bed, fetched her clothes. “Stay put,” she commanded the girls as she dressed hurriedly, collecting both dagger and axe after such an awakening, tucking them in the slits Jennet had sewn into her skirt.

Someone pounded on the door just as she made it down the stairs to the fire, where Lille and Ghent awaited her. Kate held the hounds by their collars as Jennet opened the door. It was Sister Agnes, her face red, her eyes bulging, her white nightcap askew.

“Dame Eleanor says come at once, the sheriff’s man is at the house and John Paris is threatening the beguines.”

“Stay here with the girls, Jennet.” Kate slipped the leashes through the hounds’ collars and followed Agnes. God bless, at least the rain had stopped and much of the standing water was already soaking into the ground.

Berend met them in the yard. “I heard what she said. Matt’s already gone to see what this is about.”

In the Martha House garden Clara and Brigida hovered round Dina, who was sobbing out a prayer of contrition for bringing all this trouble down upon the house. One of the sheriffs’ sergeants was trying to coax John Paris away down the alleyway toward Hertergate. Kate was about to follow when her mother stepped out of the hall, hugging herself, weeping. Nodding to Berend to go on, Kate approached the cluster of sisters, asking Clara, who seemed the calmest, what had happened.

“Our neighbor rushed into the hall while we were at prayers, demanding that we remove our devil work from his property.”

“Devil work? Benighted dullard. That is his wife, Beatrice, poisoning his mind.” She noticed her mother heading down the alleyway. “I will see for myself. Stay here,” she told Clara. “Comfort Dina and Brigida. Assure them that no one will believe you’ve done anything to cause whatever has upset John Paris.” Calling to Lille and Ghent, Kate went after Eleanor, catching up to her as she stepped through John Paris’s gate. “What happened, Mother?”

Eleanor turned to Kate, grasping her arm. “He is mad. His man Alonso discovered a body lying by the midden. Paris raised the hue and cry. He says it is Werner. Dear God, I pray he is wrong. How would he know him? It cannot be him. No, John Paris – the man is quite mad. The day we moved into the house he complained about the wagon blocking Hertergate. I sent Werner to threaten him. Oh dear, I suppose he would recognize Werner. Dear God.”

She was babbling, but the pieces were helpful. “What did the sergeant want?”

“To take John Paris back to his house. He is blaming us for this, when it is clearly not our fault. He says we do the devil’s work. The man is quite, quite mad.”

Kate put her arm round her mother. “Perhaps you should stay at the Martha House with the sisters. I will see to this.”

“If it is Werner, I will claim the body, Katherine. He watched over us on our journey with never a complaint.” Eleanor shook her head and crossed herself. “And Griffin as well. I pray he is safe.”

Kate could see her mother needed to see for herself. She steered her toward a small crowd hovering round the midden, Berend among them.

“Oh, God help us,” her mother muttered, pulling a scented cloth from her sleeve.

Berend came to them. “Perhaps it is better you do not see him so, Dame Eleanor.”

“She needs to,” said Kate. “To be certain it is him.”

Eleanor strained to see past Berend to the figure on the ground. “Is it Werner?” When Berend bowed his head, Eleanor struggled free of Kate and hurried forward.

Lille and Ghent danced on either side of Kate, restive. “You knew, my angels, you knew.” Lille looked at Kate, her large brown eyes sad, knowing. Ghent nudged her hand. She stroked them.

With a moan, her mother fell to her knees in the mud and bowed over the body, keening her grief.

Matt, who had been exploring along the back fence, started toward her, but Berend was there first, helping Eleanor rise.

The hounds flanking her, Kate approached the corpse, whispering a prayer to steady herself so that Lille and Ghent might remain calm as she moved close enough to see Werner’s injuries. His throat was slit, his head thrown back so that the gaping wound looked like a mouth opened wide in a silent, eternal scream. He was unshaven, his hair wild, his clothes muddy. With the tip of her boot Kate lifted Werner’s shoulder. It looked like dried blood mixed in the muck on which he lay. So he had likely been here, in the yard, when attacked. The noise that woke her in the night. His attacker perhaps crept up from behind, one stroke of a sharp knife, then eased Werner down onto his back. Someone strong. The murderer’s clothes would be stained with blood. They might look for that. But clothes could be changed, disposed of.

“You, madam,” John Paris jabbed a finger at Eleanor, “you have brought this on us!” Red in the face, his tunic askew, his hair matted on one side from sleep, Paris looked like the madman Eleanor had said he was. “God help me. What will Thomas Graa think?” he whined more quietly.

“Thomas Graa will commend you for raising the hue and cry,” said Kate. “But not for calling down curses on a widow and the poor sisters.”

One of the sergeant’s men restraining Paris gently suggested that Eleanor withdraw to her home. “My men will bring the body to you when the coroner has recorded the death and the circumstances of discovery.”

“One of the men has gone for Friar Gerald,” Berend told Eleanor. “You will wish to be in the hall when he arrives.” To Kate he suggested that he take Lille and Ghent and walk them along the fence.

To Kate’s relief, her mother agreed to return to the house. Handing Lille’s and Ghent’s leads to Berend, Kate put her arm round Eleanor’s shoulder. “Come, Mother.”

Eleanor leaned into Kate.

“It was just as Ulrich looked when they pulled him from the river. Whoever did this–” Eleanor sank down onto her bed.

A memory of Ulrich’s death? Drowned? An accident, or …? Kate felt sick to think they might have prevented this if only … Damnable woman! She wanted to shake her mother and demand answers. But this was not the moment to press her. “Let us remove your wet clothes before you settle, Mother.” Kate helped her back up, unlacing her gown, trying not to touch the stains – they stank of the midden.