A Murdered Peace

by Candace Robb

  “Anything to explain his relationship with Merek?” Kate asked.

  “No. I think there is something in this. Maybe Petra’s dreams have me heeding my feelings.” Jennet paused to attend to a knot in the wool. “There. So. It seems Horner pried into the business dealings of elderly, infirm men with young wives, which included four now dead—Alan Barker, John Atterby, Adam Nottingham, and Ross Wheeldon. He’d also noted Dame Eleanor’s evident wealth, and newly widowed with no husband to guide her.”

  “Mother?” Kate sat back, aghast.

  Jennet nodded. “That was disturbing, but I was more interested in the other widows I mentioned. Might whatever Merek handed Horner have been a gift for one of them? Was he seeking a wealthy wife? The lady’s glove in his room, the one you have not shown Sir Elric, might it belong to one of these women? Who then poisoned him?” She bent to another snag. “Two of them are betrothed—Alyse Nottingham and Mary Barker. But Philippa Atterby and Cecily Wheeldon are not. I thought it odd, that he was keeping notes on Wheeldon, considering he’d worked for her.”

  “Was there anything of interest in his business with her?”

  “Only that my friend could find no records of it.”

  “None?”

  Jennet shook her head. “Do you think that’s why he dressed like a peacock? Thinking women would flock to him, like peahens?”

  “Heaven help any woman who pecked at his feet,” Kate said, grinning. “What does it mean, that he found no records?”

  “Possibly the widow keeps them close. As you do.”

  Kate searched her memory about Philippa Atterby. Someone had mentioned her recently. An interesting story. Ah, it came back to her. “Not long ago—perhaps a fortnight?—Philippa Atterby spoke to Mother about joining her Martha House. Her family was pushing her into a marriage she did not want and she hoped to escape it by withdrawing into a holy life.”

  “Do you think her family would have pushed Jon Horner?” asked Jennet.

  Kate thought of Philippa’s parents. Her grandfather had once been mayor, her father both bailiff and sheriff. “I doubt it.”

  Jennet leaned closer. “What did Dame Eleanor decide?”

  “She explained the sisters’ day—all the prayer and work, and asked her whether that was what she truly wanted. When Philippa hesitated, Dame Eleanor offered to speak to her family about her own wishes. Philippa left in some anger.” Kate empathized with Philippa as well as with her mother. She knew the lengths a young widow with an overbearing family might go to avoid their interference. “It might be worth speaking to Dame Eleanor about both Philippa Atterby and Jon Horner.”

  “We seem to go farther from the point with every piece of information,” Jennet grumbled.

  Kate agreed. If they did not find a pattern that pointed to the murderer . . . “We need a plan for plucking Berend out of the castle and helping him slip away.”

  “Where would he go?”

  “His land?”

  They were interrupted by Marie, who flopped down beside Kate with a dramatic sigh. “I despair. She will never be a cook.”

  Petra remained at the worktable frowning at the watery dough dripping from her hands.

  Biting back a smile, Kate turned to Jennet. “I will visit Jocasta and Eleanor in the morning.” She pressed Jennet’s arm. “Thank you. I do not know what I would do without you.”

  Jennet ducked her head. “You give me the questions. All I do is pass them on and then wait for some answers. But I will think about the last item.”

  Berend’s escape. Kate nodded.

  Marie poked Kate’s arm. “Did Sir Elric forget us?”

  Kate drew her close and kissed her forehead, smiling up at Petra, who stood perplexed over her failure. “The waiting is difficult, I know.” And it was hardest for the girls, it seemed. “We need movement, eh? Come, let’s go to the hall.” Rising, Kate asked Jennet to see what she might do with the dough.

  Out in the hall, where there was space, Kate led Petra and Marie through a set of exercises that strengthened their arms for archery, then made a game out of seeing who could stand still the longest. When at last Elric and Matt arrived, without Berend, the girls were exhausted, their disappointment expressed with long faces and teary eyes, but no melodrama. They each took one of Elric’s hands as they led him to a chair by the fire, begging him for information. He looked exhausted, his eyes shadowed, his movements heavy as he settled into the chair. Kate sent Matt to the kitchen to fetch Jennet with some refreshment.

  “I saw Berend moved to far more comfortable quarters, and Sisters Clara and Agnes from the Martha House are seeing to the sores from the shackles and ensuring that he has food that will speed his healing,” Elric assured Marie and Petra. “Until we have something that will satisfy the king’s men, he is safest at the castle.”

  “Is he? Is he really?” asked Petra.

  “I believe that to be so in the circumstances,” he said.

  She gave him a solemn nod.

  “Might we visit him there?” asked Marie.

  “No. That would be unwise,” said Elric.

  The child kicked a stool, but did not whine.

  Kate touched his shoulder. “Jennet will bring you food and drink while I see the girls to bed,” she told him.

  She coaxed Marie and Petra out the door and up the steps, promising that she would tell them all she could in the morning.

  “Do you trust that he is safe?” Marie asked when they were settled in bed.

  As safe as Elric can make him, Kate thought. But to them she merely said, “I do,” then hugged them both before blowing out the lamp near the door. “Now try to sleep. You want to give those muscles a good rest after all that effort, eh?”

  She tiptoed out, pausing on the landing with a warm sense of gratitude for the small rituals involving the children. Her touchstones, they steadied her. As she moved down the steps she whispered prayers that she was about to hear nothing that she might not share with the girls in the morning. But the guardedness of Elric’s gaze as she entered the hall warned her that those particular prayers would not be answered this night.

  As Kate listened to Elric’s account, his respect for Berend strengthened her resolve to tell him about her part in Margery’s flight. He already knew that she was in the city, Berend had made that plain. But as she, Jennet, and Matt posed questions, particularly regarding Berend’s decision to go to Pontefract, her ease dissolved.

  “You were satisfied despite his lack of explanation?”

  “I left out the parts he prefers you hear from him, not me.”

  “Because?”

  “He saw how it pained you to have learned so much about his past from me.”

  And from Bess, she thought. “I will go to him in the morning.”

  Jennet was the first to rise, excusing herself to go check the kitchen and the yard even though Lille and Ghent had sat by the door all the while, listening for signs of intruders. Then Matt rose, offering to fetch more ale. Kate thanked him.

  Alone but for the hounds, Kate studied Elric, staring into the fire with haunted eyes. She was moved by how deeply he felt Berend’s pain, having heard in his tone whispers of Berend himself.

  “I am sorry I came away without him,” he said.

  “No. You accomplished more than I had hoped. I am grateful.”

  “He curses himself, but I see him as an honorable man. Many of us look back with horror and vow to redeem ourselves. But he has embraced that vow with all his being.”

  “How did this redeem him? He’d already condemned the plot.”

  “You will see.”

  She was quiet a while, retracing Berend’s journey, his betrayal by either the abbot or Salisbury’s kinsman.

  “So much suffering,” she said, “and for what? Another king who sees enemies in every corner?”

  “How can King Henry be otherwise? A thief knows he has no right to what he’s taken. He can never be secure.” Elric had begun to tap his thigh with the felt hat he ha
d taken off when he grew warm by the fire, beginning slowly, gradually speeding it up, until he tossed it from him with a curse. “We seem incapable of learning from our mistakes. Think of what happened when Richard’s great grandfather was put aside.”

  “The last King Edward proved a far better king than his father.”

  “It was not the son who struck down his father, but his mother and her lover,” said Elric. “They proved to be tyrants.”

  This was a change, to speak treason so bluntly to her. Berend’s suffering seemed to have pushed back the mask, revealing the man beneath the façade of the great earl’s captain of Sheriff Hutton Castle. Not so long ago—could it be but a year?—she had thought him a heartless, self-satisfied instrument of Westmoreland. No longer. About to share what she had learned about Horner, and then steel herself to tell him about Margery—if he could see Berend’s pain, surely he could see Margery’s—she hesitated as he suddenly rose up and paced over to the fire. When he turned to face her, he had that old expression, cold eyes, stiff, soldierly stance.

  “I trust you have told Lady Margery her jewels are safe?”

  Startled, Kate said, “Told her?”

  “You could not bring yourself to trust me?”

  “Who is withholding information from whom?” This was not how she had meant to broach the subject, damn him.

  “I promised Berend.”

  “I promised Lady Margery. It was not my secret to share.” Had one of his men seen Jocasta at the guesthouse, arriving alone, departing with Margery? And deduced so much? Had they followed Kate?

  Just tell him, tell him everything, Geoff urged.

  Now, when he is angry?

  “Where is she?” Elric asked so coldly Kate wanted to spit at him.

  But she needed his help. Holy Mary, Mother of God, help me find the words he can hear.

  “Sit down, I pray you,” she said. “I have much to tell you. So much I’ve wanted to tell you.”

  “But you did not trust me with it?”

  “Why would I, when you—” She stopped. This would not serve her purpose. Softening her voice, she said, “I did not know who I might trust. Her manservant came to me for help, and I gave it before I knew the enormity of what I’d undertaken, the danger I had brought to my family.”

  “When?”

  “The night before our celebration. I pray you, Elric, sit. Standing there, looking down on me, judging me—I cannot think clearly.” He did not move. Mulish man. “I cannot begin to understand her suffering.” Kate disliked that his nearness had her whispering. “To witness her husband’s attack, to hold his severed head, Elric. And then to have the king condemn her for wanting to bury Thomas. You have heard the tale from Berend, how it sickened him. How can Ralph Neville condone this?”

  “I cannot divine my lord’s private thoughts. We have communicated through messengers, careful to say as little as possible. But he would say it is not for him to judge his lord.”

  “You do not know his heart?”

  “I have prided myself in my honor, my unquestioning obedience to my lord. But of late . . .” A slow shake of the head, as if waking himself. “It is clear I do not know your heart.”

  Her heart? “Please. Sit beside me and I will tell you all.”

  At last he came to perch beside her, at the edge of his chair. All the while she spoke, he kept his eyes on the fire, never looking her way.

  She told him of Carl’s disappearance and murder. Her fear, her doubts about Margery’s account. “Berend’s tale of how they came to be traveling together—Margery did not tell me. Did he explain how her jewels came to be in the case?”

  A part of her enjoyed witnessing Elric’s discomfort as he realized he had forgotten to ask about that.

  “No matter. I shall ask him in the morning,” she said. “Or Margery.”

  “She is at the guesthouse now?”

  “Do you still vow to keep her safe?”

  Elric shot Kate an angry look. “I am a man of my word.”

  “I will hold you to that.” Kate explained how she had sent Jocasta Sharp to fetch her. “The Sharp home is always open to those in need. No one will mark a maidservant arriving there.”

  “Not in ordinary times. But Sir Peter and Captain Crawford, Parr and Sawyer—I have sent for more men from Sheriff Hutton. I will put a guard on her home.”

  Kate looked at him, surprised. “You will do this for me?”

  That did not provoke a look. To the fire, he said, “Not for you. For Lady Margery, and for Berend.” He made an exasperated sound. “God’s blood, woman, Carl’s murder—You curse Lady Margery for her dishonesty? Look to yourself.” Now he faced her, shaking his head.

  “Had it been you, a friend in need, with the gates about to close and shut them out in the cold for the night, would you have turned them away?”

  “No! What do you take me for? In God’s name, woman, look at all I have done for you.”

  He was right. She felt the full weight of her deception. She had betrayed the one person who had done nothing but help her in this crisis.

  “I wish I could go back to that night at the guesthouse, when we talked after your men had gone. I wish that the moment you spoke her name I had said, ‘She is here. Will you help?’”

  “Do you?” He looked doubtful.

  “With all my heart.”

  He grunted and looked away.

  “There is more you need to know.” She told him what Jennet had discovered about Jon Horner.

  “To catch a widow while yet in mourning, while she is most vulnerable. Cur,” Elric growled. “Cecily Wheeldon, you said?”

  At least he was listening. “Yes. Why?”

  “I found her arguing with Kevin outside Horner’s house. She said she wanted to comfort the housekeeper, but what if she wanted—” He sat back, raking a hand through his hair. “What?”

  “She wanted to find her missing glove?” Kate whispered, determined to tell him all.

  “Glove?”

  She crossed the hall to fetch the scrip in which she had hidden away the things she had found in Horner’s chamber. She handed him the elegant leather item.

  He held it out toward the light of the fire, turning it over, back. “It is the sort of thing she would wear.”

  “The woman who owned the glove might have helped Horner back to his room when he fell ill,” said Kate, “dropping the glove as she struggled to get him into bed, then, when she stepped out into the cold morning and realized she had only one, did not care to return. To be there as he struggled to live.”

  “You think she poisoned him?” He touched the mysterious herbal ball in her hands. “May I see that?” She handed it to him. He sniffed it, felt it, then loosened a small piece of it with his nail and lifted it to his mouth.

  “What if it’s poison!” Kate cried, plucking the ball from his hands.

  “It is a bezoar stone. Used to protect oneself from poison, or lessen the effect.”

  Interesting. Horner had been protecting himself. “I have heard of them, but I have never seen one.”

  “Ah.” He smirked. “Now you have.”

  She wanted to slap him. Controlling the impulse, she returned to the point. “So Horner feared he was being poisoned, or might be. He knew he courted danger. But we don’t know the glove is Cecily Wheeldon’s.”

  “Nor do we know that it belongs to his poisoner. But it would be worthwhile speaking to her.”

  “I will think of a way.”

  He nodded.

  “I suppose you won’t believe that I had resolved to share all of this with you tonight.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  They were sitting in uneasy silence when Matt returned with ale, serving them both, then withdrawing.

  “Did you tell Berend that Lady Margery was safe?” Elric asked when they were once more alone.

  “Yes. Just that. Did he tell you?”

  “No. He did not betray you.” The words were meant to wound. They did. He put his bowl
aside, slapped his thighs. “I need to find Parr and Sawyer.”

  Kate rose, calling the hounds to her. As she walked out of the hall with Elric and the dogs, a man of the night watch hailed them from the street. “If the sheriffs wish to speak to folk about Berend’s honor, I am at your service, Mistress Clifford.”

  “I will remember that,” she said. “Bless you.”

  Elric nodded to the man, then strode off into the night without a word.

  In the kitchen, Kate slumped down onto a stool by the fire, reaching her hands out to the warmth. “Elric knows everything,” she said to Jennet.

  “Good. He is a good man.”

  “Is this from your eyes and ears?”

  A nod as Jennet handed Kate a cup of something spicy and almost too hot to hold, then bent to plump the pillows on the pallet she had arranged for herself near the fire.

  “You will need a man, by and by,” said Jennet.

  “Hand me the heated stone so I can warm my bed, eh?”

  Kate had not the heart to speak of her despair. But apparently it was obvious.

  “He did not take it well, coming so late?” Jennet asked.

  Kate shook her head and rose, clutching the stone.

  Up in the solar Kate wrapped the stone she had brought from the kitchen and placed it beneath the mound of blankets so that it might begin warming the bedclothes while she undressed. Usually she loved the moment when she finally stretched out on her back beneath the bedclothes, the strain of the day draining away. Jennet had found a laundress who scented the bedding with rosewater and lavender blossoms, and the fragrance rose round her as the stone and her body heated the cloth. This was sweetness, the warmth lulling her to sleep.

  But not tonight. Her mind raced, and her heart lurched between fear, anger, remorse. There was more to Berend’s story, something he felt the need to explain to her. Was everything she had believed about him a lie? And Margery. Why were her jewels nestled with those of the Earl of Salisbury? What was her connection to the uprising?

  She cursed herself. As soon as she had learned of Margery’s possible complicity in the plot she should have confided in Elric. Stupid stupid woman. No, coward. That is what she was, a coward. Once she had set foot on the path of deception she had been afraid to step off and trust Elric. Now she had lost him. Lost a friend, a comrade in arms, a potential lover. Yes, she admitted to herself that she had hoped to lead him there. Bloody fool. All for the sake of a friend who had not told her the whole truth about how she came to be hunted.