It had always been a bit of a trick to coax Big Jannes from his cups. And he was always vexed about it. I might have gone in and just spoken to him, but I didn't want any to remember our meeting. I passed by the window twice, three times, before I caught his eye. Inclined my head out toward the square.

He put his cup down and rose, setting his cap on his head and settling his belly over the top of his belt. After ducking through the door and peering round the square, he joined me. So to speak. As I stood by the corner, back to the building, he turned into the alley and made quick work of loosening his breeches to piss against the wall.

"Do you have to do that? I know what you've got without having to be shown it, don't I?"

"What is it, then?"

"Thursday. You'll be wanted."

"Same as-?"

"Same as always. And bring your own shovel this time."

I was gone before he was done and no one the wiser. I just had to find out who the body would be.

By the tolling of the church bells at Nones, still I had found no body. No one in the parish was in danger of dying. Not the new babe, not the Lievens's daughter. Not even the mason who had nearly sawn his leg in two. Even the butcher's widow looked better than I was used to seeing her. There were two babes yet to be born this spring, but neither of them due to be delivered until next month.

I'd sought out the youngest in the parish and the oldest. I even nosed around the former lace makers who lived in the darkest alleys and plied their new trade in the most hidden of places. Not one cough, not one sniff among them.

Panic started to clutch at my innards.

Surely someone would die. Someone always had. Always. I'd never had to go looking for a body like I'd looked this day. Only one hope was left me. I went to see old Herry.

I sighed as I looked at him lying there on the floor. "You have to understand, Herry, I'm doing this for Katharina. She's a lovely girl. I'm not a bad person. I would never think to do a thing like this, but it's Katharina's only hope. Can you imagine what those nuns will do to her if I don't? They'll throw her out onto the streets. And she knows nothing. Least nothing about any of that. She's not like Marguerite. Pardon me for saying what's only true."

His eyes rolled about, showing the whites as they slid from side to side.

"You've not long, Herry. We both know it. You'd be doing me the biggest of favors by letting me kill you now rather than dying later."

That was my plan. The only option I had left.

So how was I going to do it? I couldn't just wring his gullet as if he were the father's chicken I was to cook for dinner. I couldn't do that. His neck was too big, my fingers not long enough. I looked around the room for something. Nee, not a knife. I wouldn't do it with a knife as if I were some murderess. Something else. A kettle. I could dash him in the head with a kettle. That would finish him off.

Nee.

Nee, I couldn't see myself doing it like that.

"Couldn't you just die, Herry? And save me the trouble?" I didn't bother to turn round as I asked him. He couldn't answer me anyway, could he? That was one good thing. He wouldn't cry out when I did it. He couldn't.

I stood there, not knowing what to think. Not knowing what to do. Really, it shouldn't be so hard to kill someone.

There was the slightest of sounds. The dribble of liquid over straw. I knew what it was before I smelt it. "Shame, Herry. You've gone and soiled yourself again."

I rolled him off and made him a new pallet. Got him settled once more.

"I really don't want to do this. You know that, don't you?"

I patted his hand and then pushed up from the pallet. It was one thing to decide to kill a man, but another thing entirely to do it. What was I supposed to do? I could throw a rope over a beam and string him up, but he was terrible heavy, and then no one could say he'd just drifted off in his sleep. Not with the burns from a rope around his neck. There had to be some other way.

I needed inspiration, but I didn't feel as if I could pray for any.

Maybe...I could feed him something. In his potage. But, nee. Who knew how long it might take to work? And how much to give him? I'd just have to...do it. But, dear God, how?

His long, raspy breaths began to grate upon my nerves. Why did he keep so busy breathing when he was supposed to be dying? And why should I have to hear him? I unfastened my apron and threw it over his head.

There.

I wouldn't see him staring at me anymore. And maybe I wouldn't be able to hear him quite so well.

He gasped again.

But then he breathed again, and it was such a terrible sound. If he would just shut up his mouth!

I withdrew the apron and did it for him, pushing his jaws together.

They didn't stay.

He took another gasping breath as they fell apart.

I'd just have to tie them together. I took up my apron and knotted it at the top of Herry's head. "There now. Much better. If you don't mind my saying."

With Herry quiet, I could get back to my thinking. And so I did. But soon enough there came a great snorting sound. And how was I supposed to concentrate on finding a way to kill him when he kept distracting me like that?

I turned around and knelt down to find tears trickling from his eyes. Using the hem of my skirt, I dabbed at them. "It's not so bad, Herry. You know you've one foot in the hereafter already. What's the bad in going one day sooner? Or two? I don't think it would be more than three, if you pardon my saying."

That sound came once more. He was trying to breathe...and having trouble with the doing of it.

"Could you just...do you mind? I have to think, Herry, I really do." I pulled him to sitting and shoved a pot behind his head to keep it from falling back against the wall. "Better?"

It sounded better. He was breathing easier. And that set me to thinking. Breathing easier is something I wanted to do too.

I needed the money, but I didn't need it that badly, did I? Badly enough to murder poor Herry Stuer?

I reached out and took up one of his hands. Could have sworn he flinched. "There now. I haven't been in my right mind, Herry, and that's the truth. How could I hurt you? You'll live to die an honest death. And that's the best I can do for you. I'm just going to have to tell De Grote 'No.'"

No.

The word rang in the stillness of the room.

"Have you ever known anyone to tell the man 'No'?"

Herry closed his eyes.

"Thought not. I haven't either. Least no one who lived to tell about it. But why should I tell him 'Yes'? I've done too many terrible things for him to agree to do one thing more."

Herry sighed.

"I know it. Katharina's stuck in that abbey. And they're sure to discover her secret any day now, if they haven't already. But if God can't save her, then what kind of God is he? That's what the priest says. And I find I have to agree with him. 'On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.' That's exactly what Father Jacqmotte always says. I'm just going to have to tell De Grote 'No.'"

I had the coffin for De Grote. Everything was ready. Ready as it should have been. Except I had no body. Big Jannes came. I saw his shadow flitting between the gravestones. I called him to me and told him he didn't have to dig. He had only to drag the coffin over from the side of the church. Empty or no, it was going to have to do.

De Grote and his customer arrived soon after, their forms veiled by the clouds shifting across the moon. De Grote rapped upon the coffin. "Anyone in there?" He laughed one of his strange, silent laughs. Turned toward me. "Open it up, then."

Big Jannes glanced at me.

I nodded.

He prized the lid off with a chink of his shovel against the nails, and then a pull that distorted his face with the effort.

I turned away. Couldn't bear to look at De Grote's face.

There was a hissing intake of breath. An explosion of cursing. "There's no body!"

I shook my head.

"There's supposed to be a body there. The one I told you I'd pay for."

"No one died. I don't have one."

"You don't-!" It was as close as I'd ever come to hearing De Grote yell. Good thing he didn't. The priest might have woken. He stepped closer. "I ordered a body."

Somewhere out in the darkness of the cemetery, a dog whined. A strange, rolling growl of a whine. It made the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end, and the strings in my belly tighten.

"Nobody died."

"And yet, here we all are."

I shrugged. There was no body. What else could I say that I hadn't already said?

He took another step closer. So close I could feel his heat. "I asked for a body. You agreed to get me one. De Grote never gets cheated."

"I don't-"

"Say nothing."

I sent a glance toward the other man, De Grote's customer. One hand had gone inside his coat, and he was reaching toward De Grote with his other.

De Grote turned toward his customer. "Don't even think-"

"You promised to get my lace across the border."

"And I'll do it! There will be a body for that coffin. One way or another." He grabbed me by the arm and motioned to Jannes. "Bring that shovel here."

"Don't-! You can't-" I tried to wrench my arm from him. When that didn't work, I dug my heels into the ground. But the rain had turned the graveyard into a mire. My heels slid right out from under me.

"'Can't' isn't a word I use. I thought you understood that. No one crosses De Grote."

His customer grabbed hold of his shoulder and spun him from me. De Grote dropped my arm to grapple with him. From the darkness, that strange, growling whine came again. It was followed by a bark.

"Unhand me!" De Grote pulled a glittering dagger from his waist and advanced upon the man.

As the man retreated, stumbling over a gravestone, a streak of snarling fur swept past him. It leapt at De Grote, fastening his teeth about the man's throat. De Grote fell, arms flailing as he tried to beat off the dog. The creature tore at him as if he were an avenging angel come straight from God.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. I'd never seen such a sight. The creature ripped De Grote's throat out by the roots. And then he deposited it at his master's feet and sat there, wagging his tail, as if he'd done some clever trick.

Big Jannes gagged.

The man bent to pat the dog on the head. "Well done, mon cher."

The dog writhed for a moment as if in delight and then trotted away into the darkness.

The man walked over to De Grote and kicked at him. "There's your body."

I crossed myself. Least, I tried to. The trembling of my hands made hard work of it.

Big Jannes slunk out of the shadows. "What do I do with this?" He brandished the shovel.

"There's no need for it." There never had been. On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. I turned toward the man.

The customer plucked De Grote's dagger from the mud, wiped it on his coat, and then shoved it into his belt.

None of my business. I turned my attentions to the work at hand. "Move that lid away from the coffin, Jannes. So we can throw him in there."

Big Jannes crossed himself. "What? Just like that? Without a word from the priest?"

"He never did anything worth blessing."

"It's a wicked thing. I don't like it."

"And God didn't either. You saw what just happened to him."

He finally did as I'd said, propping the lid against a gravestone with a mutter.

I gestured toward De Grote. "Here, Jannes. You take up his feet while I take his hands." Before I could do it, the stranger had stepped in front of me and lifted De Grote's hands himself. He and Jannes settled him in the coffin, the way I settled my dough into the oven. A tuck here, a poke there.

"Have you got the...lace?" I didn't mean to be pushy, but I didn't want to spend more time than I had to with this particular body, looking at a bloody hole where his throat ought to have been. It wasn't natural.

The customer withdrew a packet from his doublet. "Where should I...?"

I shrugged. I'd always been charged with the bodies. Hadn't wanted to know about any of the other business. I had usually found my way back into the kitchen by this point. "Just put it in there somewhere. Where it's not so bloody. Someplace it won't be discovered if those border guards decide to have a look."

He bent over the coffin and then paused. Slipped the hand holding the packet inside. When he straightened, the lace was gone.