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 told David the border country was no place to raise children.” Eleanor’s voice was but a whisper, as if speaking to herself. Kate leaned close to catch what she said. “All would have been so different had we come south.”
One moment of clarity and then this. Kate felt the familiar tightness in her stomach from her mother’s seemingly random explanations. She will come to the point, she told herself as Eleanor grasped her shoulder for support, then stepped out of the gown and pushed it toward the door with her stockinged foot. Patience. Padding over to a large chest, Eleanor drew out another gray gown, of fine wool, and held it out to Kate for her help. As Eleanor worked her arms into the sleeves, Kate heard Berend down below, then footsteps on the landing, a knock. She called to whoever it was to come in.
Her mother’s maidservant looked askance. “You had only to call me.”
Kate assured Rose that she was capable of helping her own mother dress.
“Is Friar Gerald here?” Eleanor asked.
“Yes, mistress. He awaits you down below. Dame Jocasta is here as well.”
“Have they brought Werner to the hall?”
“Not yet, mistress.” Rose bobbed and departed, carefully closing the door behind her.
“Leaving him lying in that stench – it is not right, it is not–” Eleanor covered her face with her hands. “So like Ulrich.” She began to sob.
In life Werner looked nothing like Ulrich Smit, but clearly he did so in death. Was this the murderer’s intent? To remind her of Ulrich’s … murder? Kate hurriedly finished lacing the front of her mother’s gown, her fingers fumbling as she searched for what she might say to encourage her mother to confide her grief. “How cruel to remind you of your sorrow,” she murmured as she began to help Eleanor to a chair.
But Eleanor pushed her away. “I will go down and pray with Friar Gerald and the sisters.”
No! “What did you mean, that Werner looked so like Ulrich, Mother?” Kate blurted out. “Was your late husband murdered? His throat cut?”
“Of course that is what I meant. And then they threw him in the river.”
Kate felt ill. “Who?”
“We will discuss this anon. Now come. We do not want to keep them waiting.”
Biting back a curse – John Paris’s lunacy was nothing to her mother’s – Kate forced her voice low. “Let them wait. This is important, Mother. Ulrich was murdered? Why? Do you know who killed him? Were you in danger as well? Is that why you fled Strasbourg?”
“You and your incessant questioning. The rest will wait, Katherine. Do not be so selfish!”
Kate watched with despair as her mother swept out the door. Ulrich Smit had been murdered. That changed everything.
15
Requiem
Candles and oil lamps lit the altar and circled down round the corpse laid out on the floor before it. Eleanor and Jocasta knelt on prie-dieux, praying, while the gray-robed Friar Gerald knelt on the floor beside the body, within the circle of light. The sisters stood behind the prie-dieux, heads bowed, chanting a litany, their voices soft.
Kate and Berend stood just within the garden door. He’d already told Kate that Lille and Ghent had found nothing, the storm having washed away the scent, though the hounds seemed keen to continue on to the staithe. Matt had offered to go search for a boat on the far bank. An aunt lived near there, and he knew the folk who lived near the bank. If someone had noticed anything in the night, they would tell him. Berend had thanked him and sent him off, for which Kate was grateful.
Outside the circle of light, the shadows lengthened as the clouds darkened the day. Another storm – Kate had sensed it coming, the heaviness of the air, the stillness. She closed her eyes, hoping the ritual might quiet her thoughts. This moment was for grief, for prayers for Werner’s soul, nothing else. But her mind continued to spin with the questions and possibilities stirred up by her mother’s revelations. Above Kate, heavy drops began to hit the roof. Pat. Pit pat. Pit pat pat patter. Quickly growing to a loud drumming. Out on the street, a man loudly cursed.
Friar Gerald’s voice rose in prayer and the novice assisting him, just a youth, he seemed, stepped out of the shadows beside Berend and moved forward, adding his high voice to those of the women as he entered the circle of lamps. Friar Gerald rose, took a cup of oil from his assistant, and sprinkled it over Werner. He had died unshriven, but perhaps his spirit lingered. Kate stepped away from Berend as Gerald and the novice approached. Friar Gerald made the sign of the cross over Kate and Berend, and then he and the novice took a seat on a bench near the door.
The service over, Eleanor directed Rose to open the shutters so that the sisters could see to clean Werner and then sew him into the shroud. The flames danced wildly in the draft from the storm.
Jocasta rose to greet Kate. “I came to see whether they were happy with Friar Gerald, and found my answer in that they had already sent for him in their need. Dear God, such a need. What more must they endure?” She crossed herself. “I feel blessed to be given this opportunity to help these gentle sisters, to support them in their grief, to join their beautiful voices lifted in prayer. And especially to comfort Sister Dina, to assure her that the murders are not the result of her courageous act. I will assist them in preparing his body after you have seen what you need to see.”
“And Friar Gerald?”
“He awaits the wishes of Dame Eleanor.”
As do we all, Kate thought.
The maidservants were snuffing the candles not needed by the sisters and setting them on a table to trim. The lamps flickered on the altar.
“If we might move him closer to the light from that window before you sew him into the shroud,” said Kate. She turned to the younger friar. “Would you help Berend do so?”
Both Gerald and his novice rose to assist Berend. The men worked in silence, moving Werner, then tenderly unwrapping him. A cry of pain from Kate’s mother shattered the quiet moment. Sister Dina was the first to go to her, cradling Eleanor’s head against her breast and whispering to her.
Kate crouched down to examine the blood-encrusted slash in Werner’s neck.
Berend knelt opposite, watching her.
She nodded to him that she was able to do this. With care she straightened Werner’s jacket, noting the bloodstains and the mud and muck from where he had lain. Following down the sleeves to his wrists, she found no sign of ligatures. Opening his jacket, she noted to Berend that his shirt was filthy. Whatever he had been doing, he had not considered it necessary to wash and tidy himself. He wore thick hose, warm for summer. Sleeping outside?
“He’s been in the water.” Berend pointed to the discoloration that rose halfway up his thighs, and the sad condition of his shoes.
There was some bruising on one ankle, bad bruising. It would have been painful to walk. He might have limped. What had this man suffered before his death? Had he known he was next? For clearly this was a pattern – Ulrich, then his servants. Was Griffin next? Where was Griffin?
Sister Clara joined them, holding out a pair of scissors. “To cut away his clothes so we might wash him. Shall I?”
Berend held out his hand. “I will do it.”
Clara bowed and handed him the scissors. But she did not withdraw. Kate touched her arm. “He was your friend?”