by Candace Robb
The girl glanced at her, then went back to staring at the hedge.
“Are you conjuring your true love?” Kate asked.
“My what?”
“When we were little, Geoff and I believed that if we stared at something long and hard enough with an image in our minds of what we most wished for, it would appear.”
“Did it work?”
“Only once. But that was enough to make believers of us.”
“What did you conjure?”
“Lille and Ghent’s eldest brother, Macbeth.”
“Macbeth?” Marie sat up, staring at Kate. “You named your noble hound for a Scots king? I thought you hated the Scots.”
“A Scot who killed Scots,” Kate noted.
“Did you conjure him from the dead?”
“No. He and Melisende had been chasing down a deer and disappeared into a wood where we dare not go. Melisende returned, but not Macbeth. Father could not call for him—if our enemies knew Macbeth was in their wood, they would hunt him down. So Geoff and I, we did what we could.”
“And he came.”
“Wolfhounds are smart. Maybe it helped that Melisende was sitting with us.” Kate drew Marie close and kissed the top of her head. “So what shall we conjure?”
“Nan,” Marie whispered.
Not what Kate had expected. “Why Nan?”
“They took her because of the golden baby Jesus. They want to know where it is.”
Kate lifted Marie’s chin. Her heart broke to read the fear in the child’s eyes, see the quiver of her lips. She pulled her onto her lap. “What golden baby Jesus, my love?”
“That man told me I could have any ribbons I wanted if I told him where they kept it.”
“What man? Tell me, Marie.”
“In Hazel Frost’s yard. I was waiting for Petra and Sister Brigida. I thought he was one of Master Frost’s friends. He walked right through the street gate and knelt down to greet me most courteously.” A little sob. “If I had told him, none of this might have happened. But I didn’t know. I’ve never seen a golden baby Jesus.”
The hackles on Kate’s neck rose. “Where did he think you had seen it?”
“In the Martha House. He said the beguines had brought golden idols from Strasbourg.”
“I have seen no golden idols, have you?”
Marie shook her head.
Is that what Robin sought? Fool’s treasure? Geoff whispered in Kate’s head.
“Did you tell Sister Brigida?”
Marie shook her head again, then buried her face in Kate’s shoulder and sobbed.
God in heaven, all this because of a rumor? Was it possible? “There, there, my love, you are safe. I will not let anyone harm you.” Meeting Jennet’s eyes, Kate gestured for her to come take care of Marie.
“Thank you for telling me, Marie.” Kate kissed her head, then lifted her chin, dabbing at her eyes. “When did this happen?”
Marie screwed up her face. “Petra had a tummy ache on Saturday, so we did not go to Hazel’s, and we never go on the Lord’s Day. Friday, it was.”
Two days before the intruder. Kate nodded to Jennet as she approached. “My brave Marie. You have been most helpful.” She kissed her forehead. “We will talk again, eh? For now, would you help Jennet take the bowls into the kitchen?”
“You are going away?”
“Just across to talk to the sisters. Stay with Jennet and the hounds. I will not be long away. I just need a word with them.”
As Kate started toward the hedge, Ghent gave a little meep and rose to catch up. Marie followed, flinging her arms round him, asking him to stay with her. Bless the child. She could be so prickly, but a little attention at the right time, and she softened. Would that she were easier to understand.
As Kate crossed through the hedge a gust of wind blew her skirts about her.
Eleanor glanced up from the prie-dieu as the opening of the door set the altar cloth and the Blessed Virgin’s silk finery fluttering. Standing in the doorway, Kate cleared her throat to announce her presence. All three sisters—four if one counted Agnes—raised their heads from their prayerful bows and looked at her.
“Sister Brigida, Sister Agnes, I would speak with you.”
Eleanor caught Brigida’s arm as she began to rise. “When we are finished with our prayers, Katherine.”
“I will go to her now,” Brigida said, removing Eleanor’s hand and pressing it firmly as one would a puppy, telling it to stay. She rose and crossed the room. Agnes followed. Kate paused, waiting for her mother’s protest. But Eleanor simply returned to her prayers.
Plucking a bench from the kitchen, Kate placed it facing the small bench beneath the plane tree. She took a seat, inviting the two sisters to sit across from her. Without giving either time to speak, Kate repeated what Marie had just told her. At one point Brigida attempted to explain why Marie had been alone in the yard, but Kate held up a hand and continued. Brigida’s negligence was another issue. When Kate mentioned the golden baby Jesus, Agnes gasped, Brigida frowned.
“Golden?” Brigida shook her head. “It is wood and cloth.”
“So he was right that you have such a doll?”
“Many beguine houses have them. The Christ child in a manger, or a cradle. We place it on the altar during prayers and reflect on the great love God has for us that he allowed his only Son to be born as a human child so that he might live on this earth and suffer with us, show us the way. It is not a doll, and certainly not an idol. No more than the statue of the Virgin or Christ on the cross. But it has no monetary value.”
“Why have I never seen it?” Kate asked. “Have you?” she asked Agnes.
Agnes bobbed her bowed head. “I have.”
“Has Nan?”
“I believe she has,” Agnes whispered.
“Why have I not seen it?” Kate repeated.
“We keep it hidden away when we are not reflecting upon it,” said Brigida. “It has been misunderstood. Men of the Church have sneered at us, saying we play at mothering the Christ child. Some even say we pretend to nurse him. They ridicule us. For no reason. As I said, the purpose is the same as the images in churches—the statues, the crosses. I will gladly show you—there is no gold.”
“Sister Agnes,” Kate touched the woman’s arm. “I think you know something you aren’t telling us. Speak.”
The woman shifted on the bench and raised her head. Her cap was damp. Overheated despite the chill in the air that was raising the down on Kate’s neck. Agnes tucked her chin close, causing her multiple chins to line up beneath her, rather like a cat puffing up to intimidate its opponent.
“Well?” Kate said.
“There is a bit of gold thread in the baby’s garments, and a little gilt crown circling his head. Nan might have asked me if it was of any value.”
“She might have?”
An impatient sigh. “I do not recall all our conversations. She is my maidservant. Was mine. And her prattle is mostly silly. Baubles, men, how tedious she finds her work. I would slap her if I listened to it all. But you get little work out of a maidservant too often slapped.”
Not so unlike her mistress. Kate just nodded.
“Do you think she told Robin that the Christ child was a golden idol?” asked Brigida.
Agnes shrugged.
“This incident took place before the night of the intruder,” said Kate. “Friday. Why was Marie alone in my cousin’s yard, Brigida?”
The sister frowned up through the crown of the plane tree as she thought back. “Petra had a bad tummy. I had escorted her to the privy.”
As Marie had reminded her, Petra had spent Saturday and Sunday in bed. “So Nan told Robin at least a week ago.”
“You are quick to blame Nan,” Agnes snapped. “Poor thing is missing.”
“Do you have a better explanation, Sister Agnes?” Kate asked sweetly. “Was it you who bragged of golden treasures in the Martha House?”
“No! No. Dame Eleanor explained to me why the Christ child is
tucked away upstairs, and I told Nan.”
Remembering Agnes’s comments about Nan’s chatter, Kate asked, “Did you tell Nan why it is kept hidden, or simply that it must be?”
Agnes’s gaze slid sideways. “She wanted to see it up close and I refused. I said it was kept secret.”
“Oh, Sister Agnes,” Brigida whispered.
Yes.
Now Agnes’s eyes began to shine with tears. “You do not think Hans died for this?”
“I don’t know,” Kate answered honestly. “If you would leave us now, Sister Agnes.”
“Do not blame yourself overmuch,” said Brigida. “Now is the time to open your heart to the Lord.”
Much good that would do. “If you think of anything that might help us find Nan, come to me at once,” Kate said.
Agnes bowed to both of them and walked slowly back to the house.
“You are thinking of Friar Adam and his questions about idols?” Brigida guessed.
Kate nodded. “My mother said you were taken aback by it at the time. So it is not a question one might expect a friar to put to you?”
“No. I thought he meant it as an insult. But why would he wish to steal it?”
“To bring it to light as proof that the city should shun beguines?” Kate shook her head. “Perhaps he might have encouraged the theft, but the murder I cannot see. For all that I dislike him, he is a man of God. What he might not have considered is that he has no control over the greed of thieves.”
“They might have hoped to keep the golden idol for themselves.” Brigida glanced up as a gust of wind shook the leaves, dropping several in their laps.
“Or they hoped that where there is a little treasure, there might be much more. So they questioned Hans, got angry . . . I admit I cannot make sense of it. Hans and Robin’s trespass might not even be related.” Each new fact seemed but to inspire more questions.
Brigida lifted one of the leaves and twirled it between her fingers. “I do not understand the yearning for others’ possessions. They might fight for the king or the duke and earn their way honorably.”
“You are a true innocent, Sister Brigida.”
Brigida took it as an affront. “Not innocent,” she said with some heat. “We have seen much in our work in the community. I believe most people strive to do good and avoid evil, yet evil is ever in our paths. Some have the strength to resist, others do not. If we might only teach them the benefit.”
Kate disagreed. “You have no control over others. Friar Adam’s belief that he might impose such control is an error for which many have suffered. Perhaps. I cannot yet prove he is behind this.”
“For my part, I regret that I was not there to protect Marie.”
“I do as well.” It was not the time to placate the woman. “You will be more vigilant going forward. In any case, for the nonce you are tutoring the girls in my home, out of danger, so nothing can happen.” As Kate rose, she told Brigida she would go to Dame Jocasta in the morning to speak with her about a more suitable confessor. “We do not want Friar Adam to return.”
“No, Dame Katherine. He is not welcome in our Martha House.”
As Kate rose so that Brigida might return her bench to the kitchen, her gaze wandered toward John Paris’s property next door to the Martha House. It lay on the side with the alley in which Dina, Robin, and Kevin had struggled, and the soldiers had intervened. At her own gate, she called to Lille and Ghent. Jennet came to see why. When Kate told her that she meant to talk to John Paris, Jennet shook her head, not liking the idea.
“I have never trusted that man. Wait until one of us can accompany you.”
“I will have Lille and Ghent with me—John fears them. And his wife, Beatrice, should be home at this hour. John fears her almost as much as he does the hounds. I will be safe.”
A workshop and several tumbledown sheds lay between the Martha House and John Paris’s narrow, L-shaped dwelling. At one time all the property on this eastern side of Hertergate had been owned by one wealthy merchant, and Kate guessed that what was now the Martha House had been the primary residence. It had a more gracious façade than the house she approached, despite its added wing. Perhaps it was the lack of trees and the dark patches of damp and mold creeping up the plaster façade. So near the river, such a house required constant care, and this one did not receive it.
An olive-skinned manservant with dark eyes and a suspicious frown opened the door, courteously but pointedly asking her to state her name and her business. Kate had met him a few times but could not recall his name. And he clearly did not remember her.
A frail voice from somewhere behind him saved Kate. “Alonso, step aside so that I might see my visitor.”
Alonso obliged, revealing the speaker to be Dame Beatrice, Mistress Paris, though so changed since the last time they met that Kate would not have recognized her had they passed on the street. Seated in a wheeled chair fashioned from parts of a garden cart, Beatrice reached out to take Kate’s right hand in both of hers. Despite the house retaining the warmth of the day, the woman’s hands were icy. And no wonder, her skin was stretched taut on her skeleton. A wasting sickness?
“May God bless you, Dame Katherine, it is a joy to see you so well. And your grand dogs. Lille and Ghent, if I am not mistaken. My memory is not what it was since my illness.”
“I did not know you were ill,” said Kate. “Perhaps one of the beguines next door—”
Beatrice gave what seemed an annoyed shake of her head. “I am well cared for by my husband and Alonso.” She reached back to pat the hand of the manservant now standing behind her chair, ready to wheel it at her order. “You must forgive him for his caution.”
“Of course. And I will not tire you. I came to speak with your husband.”
“John? Ah.” Beatrice’s face registered disappointment.
“Do you ever venture out? Might Alonso bring you round to my house for dinner one day soon?”
A sad, slow shake of the head. “Alas, no, I have not stepped out into the light in a long while. I am told that you now have a niece living with you, as well as your mother just across the hedge in Agnes Dell’s home.”
“My niece, Petra, yes,” said Kate.
Beatrice’s eyes shone with tears—of delight or regret or illness, Kate could not guess. “Perhaps your niece might visit me some time. I should like that.”
“We shall! And the beguines—”
Another, more pointed shaking of her head. “I will not have them on my property. I let Isabella Frost know that I disapprove of her hiring one of them as a tutor for her daughter. Fallen women. I will not have them here.”
“Fallen women? I assure you—”
“Magistra Matilda tells me beguines invite such women into their houses, indeed welcome the return of those among them who have fallen from grace.”
Kate was surprised Beatrice would listen to such gossip, but more surprised by the source—not Isabella but the sister. “Magistra Matilda welcomed the sisters into her house and knows they are virtuous women. I pray you misunderstood her.” Was this Beatrice’s bitterness regarding her husband’s relationship with her neighbor? Or the illness? It did not matter. The woman was pinched and angry. “I will warn them not to stray near your home, Dame Beatrice.”
“Alonso, show Dame Katherine to the master’s parlor.” Beatrice reached down to touch Lille, who was nearest, but, sensing the woman’s mood, the hound backed out of her reach.
Alonso came round from the chair and led Kate and the dogs through the hall into the narrow wing of the house, pausing in front of a carved screen that acted as a partial wall. “Master John, Dame Katherine Clifford is here to see you. And her grand hounds.”
A soft mutter, as if repeating Kate’s name and puzzling over it, and then the sound of a chair being moved, footsteps. John Paris appeared, in tidy dress, if slightly worn at the elbows. Work clothes, Kate guessed.
“Dame Katherine. I pray nothing is amiss?”
“Faith, it is, Jo
hn.”
He thanked Alonso and sent him back to his mistress, inviting Kate to take a seat in his parlor, a comfortable room with a small brazier for winter, windows high in the south and north walls allowing the strengthening breeze to stir the air in the room and cool it. He kept his distance from Lille and Ghent. He was uneasy near all animals, including horses. It was said he had never learned to ride. A story behind that, no doubt. Perhaps a fall as a child. Or a nip. She motioned for Lille and Ghent to sit at her feet and proceeded to tell her tale, keeping it simple: an intruder, no doubt a thief, in the kitchen of her mother’s new home, a frightened beguine, and, one morning later, a servant found in Thomas Holme’s garden, beaten to death.
“God help us,” John whispered, crossing himself. “Do you believe the thief returned, with deadly intent?”
She realized it might sound so, that in simplifying the tale she had not specified where her mother’s servant now resided. But she did not take the time to correct it. “I come in the hope you might assist me with some information about someone you once employed who appears to be involved. A man named Robin. Agnes Dell says that you fired him for thieving?”
“Agnes? Oh, yes, she knew of the incident, of course.” He looked uneasy, averting his eyes. Because of his liaison with Agnes, or something else? “Greedy cur, that Robin. He and his friends as well. I caught three of them in the warehouse one night, filling sacks with spices and animal hides.”
Kate watched John closely as he spoke, observing how he repeatedly moved his left shoulder up and back as if to loosen a knot in his back, how his foot would start tapping, he’d realize what he was doing, stop it, begin again. He said he had noticed items missing from the inventory within a fortnight of Robin’s switch from day laborer to night watchman, so he had set a trap, a second watchman who would already be in the warehouse, laying low to spy on Robin when he arrived. Unfortunately, the man John chose turned out to be one of Robin’s comrades in crime. Or Robin had convinced him to join him. Either way, wares continued to disappear, so John took it upon himself to make surprise visits.
“Took four such to catch the louts. And a third they’d invited so they might carry more. I let them all go and set my own private guard round the warehouse.”