A Twisted Vengeance

Kate spent a long while with His Grace, confessing that she could not be certain she had not aimed for Griffin’s heart – she had been so angry, though she was unsure whether it was because he had dared to threaten Lille, or, worse, because she had missed the first time, when she’d aimed for his shoulder.

Scrope was of the opinion that she was misguided in seeking reasons to chastise herself when she had ample cause to consider Griffin a deadly threat. “He had murdered three men, abducted a woman and left her to die, and those are only the sins he committed in York. He also murdered your mother’s husband, Ulrich Smit. In truth, you did him a favor. I am sure Griffin knew that he would have been hanged or beheaded and much preferred being shot right there. He may even have coaxed you to it, knowing your bond with Lille.”

“I would agree but that it seems Ulrich was accused by Baron Roos of treason. If this is true, Griffin acted as an agent of the baron in defense of the realm.”

The archbishop sat back with a sigh, rubbing his temples. “Yes, I see why you question your actions. I absolve you, and I am certain King Richard would absolve you of any sin regarding this deed. Smit, if indeed guilty of treason, should have been handed over to the law for trial. Your uncle the dean agrees. It was not Baron Roos’s place to mete out punishment for crimes against the state. Or the Clifford family. Yes, one might argue that the man who paid with his life was merely carrying out orders, but so, too, were Smit’s servants.” He leaned forward, forearms on the table, looking Kate in the eyes. “I absolve you of any stain of sin in this deed. Take comfort in knowing that you have ended your mother’s ordeal. You are a courageous and loving daughter.”

A courageous and loving daughter. She could imagine her mother shaking her head and launching into a litany contradicting such praise.

Richard Clifford threw the document he’d been holding onto the table. It skittered a distance, knocking other parchments to the floor. He pressed a hand to his brow, as if that might clear his head. “God help me, Katherine, had I known what Sir Alan had planned I never would have set him up in your house. Never. But why should you believe me? Even as I say it I know that I suspected something. His explanation for not wearing the Roos livery – that the family did not want to be noted as supporting King Richard against Duke Henry … But it was the secrecy about who he was, his request that I say nothing of our connection, of his being in John’s guardian’s household …” He cursed. “I did not want to know. That is the sad truth of it.”

Kate stood with hands pressed to the long table, pained to feel enmity toward this man she had held so dear. “I care nothing for your excuses, Uncle, you with your secret meetings with Griffin. I want to understand why this happened. What did Griffin tell you? What drove Baron Roos to command these deaths?”

“Sir Alan would be better able to tell you, but even he knows little more than his orders.”

“I do not trust myself to speak to him. Not yet.” It was difficult enough to stand here listening to her uncle squirm under a belatedly active conscience; the uncle she had loved, trusted, entrusted with her wards when she’d feared they were in danger. She stood alone, betrayed by her own family. “I will hear it from you!” She slammed her hand down on the table, startling him. “Tell me what you know. Then I will hear my mother’s side of it.”

“I pray I have not turned you against your mother.”

“It is a little late for that, Uncle.”

He bowed his head. “When I understood the severity of Ulrich’s betrayal of the family and the realm, and the extent of the vengeance planned by my brother Robert – for our brother David, blood for blood, and our cousin Thomas’s widow – for besmirching our good name and risking the realm …” He went for the brandywine on a small table near the window, poured generous amounts in two goblets, handed one to her, and drank half of his in one gulp. A pause as the liquor took effect. “Now that I know, I regret what I said about your mother and the Frosts, calling them selfish, and worse. I cannot believe Eleanor knowingly betrayed David in such wise. Surely she was ignorant of Ulrich’s part in the feud with the Cavertons. I cannot believe she could love him had she known that he had set into motion the feud that destroyed her sons and her husband.”

The Cavertons. God help her. Kate fortified herself with several sips of brandywine before she asked, “How did Ulrich betray my father? What had he to do with the Cavertons?”

“He was an agent of the French, working for the Scots-French alliance – in secret, of course. The Cavertons were part of the link through which he fed to the Scots all he learned from your father and his neighbors on the English side. He was also passing money and documents back and forth, but your family’s unwitting contribution was the information about border activities. Ulrich had been particularly well paid by the French when John’s father, Thomas Clifford, was Warden of the West Marches. You would have been but a child then.”

“My memory of Ulrich goes back to early youth.” Kate sank down onto the chair she had earlier refused. “God help me.” The Scots and the French had used her family, used up her family.

Damn him to hell. Geoff’s fury felt like the blood rushing in her head.

Quiet, I pray you, Geoff. Let me hear what our duplicitous uncle has to say.

As the dean continued, she came to learn that even her father’s death was suspect – her uncle believed he had not died of a fever but rather of a slow poison, a gift from Ulrich to the Cavertons for their service. He had also assisted that family when possible with information about Kate’s family, their comings and goings, strength and weaknesses.

Kate’s heart hurt with the enormity of Ulrich’s betrayal.

“And Mother learned of this?” she whispered, breaking a long silence.

The dean nodded. “In Strasbourg, already wed to Smit.”

“How in heaven’s name – Why – why would Ulrich wed her? How could he look her in the eyes, knowing the pain he had caused her?”

“Protection? God knows. They had been lovers for years. Perhaps he did not think of her as part of the family he destroyed.”

“Did Griffin kill Smit?” she asked.

“He did.” Dean Richard crossed the room and knelt to her, taking her hands. “No, do not think it. You were right to execute him. Smit deserved to die, but the others? And what of Nan and Thatcher?”

The concern in his gray eyes, this was the uncle she loved. But she was not ready to forgive him. She withdrew her hands and turned her back to him.

“Griffin had another mandate,” he said. “To find Ulrich’s gold. The French paid him well.”

“Did he find it?”

“No. I tell you this so that you do not make the mistake of trusting your cousin Baron Clifford or the Roos family in future,” said the dean. “Nor should Dame Eleanor.”

“So the robberies were an attempt to find the gold, with Robin and his fellows taking the risk? Why wait so long?”