The Bastard's Tale (8 page)

Another thought came, equally unwanted.

For thirty years and more, there had been nothing but rivalry and hatred between Bishop Beaufort and Gloucester. How did Joliffe—Bishop Beaufort’s man— come to know someone who wore the duke of Gloucester’s badge—whether his bastard son or not—well enough to offer him refuge and what looked much like friendship?

The cold wind, catching at cloaks and veil as she and John came through the Cellarer’s Gateway into the shelterless open of abbey’s Great Court, was less discomforting than the question that came next.

What was Joliffe playing at?

Chapter 7

Crossing, with John’s hand firmly in hers, among the ever-busyness of people coming and going in the abbey’s Great Court toward the stone-built length of buildings that was partly the abbot’s palace, partly wealthy guest rooms, partly offices for abbey officials, Frevisse’s immediate want was to be done with her duty to John and then escape to prayer in one of the abbey’s many chapels until time for Vespers.

What she also wanted was time to consider Joliffe. He had chosen to tell her who he was when she could not question him well, and she did not think for even half a breath that was by chance. She did think it was because of this Arteys, though. Why was Joliffe befriending him?

Or seeming to befriend him. Had Bishop Beaufort ordered that? Because if he had and Arteys was indeed Gloucester’s son, it was foul to use him unwittingly against his father. Or was he unwitting? She knew nothing particularly good about Gloucester. Maybe his son was willing to be used against him.

But more than her questions about Arteys were her ones about Joliffe. How did he come to be working for Bishop Beaufort? Had Bishop Beaufort known she and Joliffe knew each other when he decided on her coming here? If so, what else hadn’t she been told, and wasn’t being told?

Questions and more questions and she doubted Joliffe would give her any chance to ask them. She was to look, to listen, to tell. That was what Bishop Beaufort had written he wanted from her. But he had to know she would also think. He had made use of her thinking before now and once she had even used it against him.

But what she most deeply wanted at this moment was simply to be far away from all of this, at least in mind, for a while. She wanted to kneel quietly in prayer, go to Vespers, have supper in the guesthalls refectory, say Compline’s prayers with Dame Perpetua afterward, and then, please God, go simply to bed.

The penticed walk running the length of the buildings along the courtyard’s east side gave welcome shelter from the wind but even more welcome was escaping it altogether as she and John went inside and up the stairs to the rooms given over to Suffolk and his people. In keeping with Suffolk’s importance, they were among the best the abbey could offer its guests. Large, with polished wooden floors, pattern-painted ceilings, a small fireplace in the middle of the three, and windows overlooking the abbot’s garden and the river, they were presently somewhat crowded with traveling chests lined along the walls and the general clutter of too many people in too small a space, but at this hour of the day less full of people than they often were. As she and John passed through the first room, a few squires rose and bowed. In the second, John’s nurse was sitting on a stool pulled near to the fire with a handkerchief to her nose and two ladies-in-waiting were busy with shaking out a dress that had crumpled while packed and debating whether it would need to be pressed or if hanging it up near the fire would be enough. They gave brief curtsies when Frevisse and John entered and Nurse made to rise but Frevisse said, “No, don’t.”

The woman gratefully didn’t. Her rheum had bettered but, “That wind,” she had said, snuffling, as she put John’s cloak around him to go to the players today. “It would do my head no good.”

Frevisse had agreed and now supposed she should encourage Nurse to nurse herself longer and said, taking off John’s cloak and laying it aside on a chest, “You were wise to stay inside today, Nurse. Shall we plan for me to take him tomorrow, too? Even if the wind stops, you don’t want to be out in the cold.”

‘If you would, my lady, I’d be so grateful.“ Nurse wiped at her red, raw, running nose with the tired handkerchief and told John, ”You go play, dear,“ pointing him toward a corner and some of his playthings. ”This rheum is just hanging on and on. Poor Master Denham is still in the infirmary.“

‘My lady asked to see you when you came in, my lady,“ one of the ladies interrupted. ”If you will.“

Nurse nodded toward the doorway into the next chamber. “She’s there.” And hastily pressed the handkerchief to her nose again, groaning, “I don’t know. I just don’t know…”

Leaving her not knowing, Frevisse crossed the room, tapped lightly at the door already standing half-open, and entered the bedchamber. The high, curtained bed took up much of the room, a tree-trunk-long traveling trunk along one wall took up more, and at night when the truckle beds were pulled out from under the bed for John and the more favored servants, there was very little floor left open at all, but this afternoon the lesser beds were out of sight and way and so were the several waiting women usually attendant on Alice. Instead Alice was sitting with a woman Frevisse did not know on the cushioned bench under the window, and Alice greeted her with, “Frevisse. You’re here. Good. Leave your cloak anywhere and come sit with us,” then asked, while Frevisse laid the cloak on the chest and drew a small, curved-back chair to them, “How did it go with John?”

‘He knows his part perfectly,“ Frevisse was glad to say. ”You’ll be pleased with him.“

Smiling at that, Alice nodded toward the other woman. “Mistress Tresham, please you to meet my cousin Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide’s priory near Banbury.” Frevisse and Mistress Tresham bent their heads to each other while Alice went on, “Mistress Isabella Tresham. Her husband is Speaker for the Commons this Parliament.”

Both Alice and Mistress Tresham were lovely with all the grace and grooming that wealth and a high place in the world could give. Their elaborate headdresses framed their faces with padded cauls covered with figured satin, gold netting, and a froth of pale veiling so light it floated with the slightest movement of their heads. Their gowns—Alice’s in her favored dark blue, Mistress Tresham’s in rich brown—were both furred with sable around their deep-veed necklines and heaped in excessive yards of fine-woven cloth around their feet.

Frevisse’s uncomplicated veiling of white wimple around her face and a black veil over it and her outer gown with its plain practicality and reasonable length— although, by courtesy of Alice’s gift, of fine black wool and fur-lined—were severely plain, but it was a plainness Frevisse had chosen and preferred, and matching her cousin’s graciousness, she said, “I believe I met your husband once, Mistress Tresham. At dinner at Lady Alice’s in London. He was to be Speaker then, too, as I remember.”

From that small ground a few mild exchanges were made, Mistress Tresham asking about St. Frideswide’s and how long Frevisse had been a nun there. In return, Frevisse learned the Treshams were from Northamptonshire. “Not so far a ride to here as you had,” Mistress Tresham said. Alice said she had had the shortest ride of the three of them, having come only from Wingfield, perhaps thirty miles away. Then they all agreed that despite the rigors of winter travel, frozen roads were to be preferred to muddy ones, and all the while Frevisse felt that under the surface-seeming she was not the only one uneasy in her thoughts. In both Alice and Mistress Tresham there was something else, and nonetheless she was surprised when, after a pointless comment that spring would be here before they knew it, Alice suddenly said, “Isabella, let me ask her.”

Mistress Tresham regarded Alice a quiet moment before saying, “Go on then.”

Alice paused, troubled, then said, “Frevisse, you have a chance to hear things we won’t. What’s being said about the duke of Gloucester? Do people truly believe he’s coming with an army against the king?”

Frevisse was immediately somewhere she did not want to be—in the middle of too many people wanting to know what she knew, without being certain what she should tell any of them. For gaining time she tried, “Shouldn’t they believe it?”

Alice was her father’s daughter, not to be turned aside that easily. “Frevisse, don’t. Please. I… we need to know. Do people believe those some thousands of men on Henow Heath are called up because Gloucester is bringing an army against the king? What were the players saying?”

‘The players are too bound up in their play to pay much heed, one way or the other.“ Frevisse hesitated, then asked anyway,
”Is
Gloucester bringing an army?“

‘He may be. Everything is uncertain.“ Including Alice’s voice as she said it.

Joliffe had it right, then, Frevisse thought. Gloucester was bringing no army. Alice’s half-lie had been given unwillingly but was still a lie and Frevisse ventured, “But Suffolk has gathered those men. He must be expecting Gloucester will make trouble of some kind.”

‘Gloucester always makes trouble of some kind,“ Alice returned quickly. She stopped, turned her look to Mistress Tresham, then back to Frevisse and added, ”But Suffolk has promised there won’t be a battle. Otherwise we’d send John away.“

‘What will there be instead?“ Frevisse pressed.

Alice shared a look with Mistress Tresham, asking her something. Mistress Tresham made a slight, refusing movement of her head, leaving whatever it was to Alice, who looked down at her lap a moment before raising her gaze to Frevisse and saying, “We don’t know what there will be. That’s what has us…” The word she wanted was
afraid,
Frevisse thought; but Alice finished, “… uneasy.”

They were that and more, but all Frevisse could do was slightly lift her hands to show she had nothing to give.

Alice sighed and Mistress Tresham stood up. “It was worth asking, anyway,” she said. “I’d best leave now. By your leave, my ladies. There’s this evening to ready for.”

Alice and Frevisse likewise rose, but Frevisse stayed where she was while Alice saw Mistress Tresham to the door. Low words passed between them and Mistress Tresham briefly touched Alice’s arm before Alice called one of her ladies to see her out, then returned to Frevisse at the window. Frevisse sat again but Alice stayed standing, silently looking out, until after a few moments she turned and sat down, her face quiet with what looked to be worry to which she saw no end. “The pity is that Isabella and I like one another,” she said, “but must needs watch everything we say together, unless it’s about our children or our gowns, because…” She broke off and made a helpless gesture.

‘Because of who your husbands are,“ Frevisse said. The king’s chief lord in the royal government and the Speaker for the Commons of England. Two men whose interests might sometimes run together and much of the time would not.

Alice nodded weary agreement.

Sorry for her, Frevisse asked gently, “What is it, Alice? You must have some thought of what’s making you… uneasy.”

‘Of what’s frightening me, you mean. All I know is that something is deeply wrong and I don’t know what it is, nor will Suffolk tell me.“

‘You’ve asked him?“

‘I’ve asked him.“ Alice’s rare anger burned suddenly on her delicately boned cheeks. ”He patted my shoulder and said I wasn’t to worry. He said he has it all in hand, but he wouldn’t say what it is.“ The bitter edge to Alice’s voice shifted to barely in-held desperation. ”All that we’ve done this far we’ve done together. Why isn’t he telling me this?“

‘Because he knows it’s something you’ll try to turn him from,“ Frevisse said. When Alice did not refuse that, she tried, carefully, ”The talk has been that Gloucester has hope of winning a pardon for his wife. Could it be he’s bringing men enough to force the matter?“

‘I can’t see him thinking he could force a pardon from the king. No one would let him.“

‘Is he likely to get it without force?“

‘No.“ Alice was flatly certain of that. ”If he won mercy for Lady Eleanor, it would mean he was returned to the king’s favor. Everyone who’s against Suffolk would join Gloucester and we’d be back to arguing endlessly over peace with France.“

That was probably too true. Gloucester had opposed ending the French war. Only after he was out of the way had Suffolk been able to bargain a French marriage for the king and make a truce. If Gloucester came from disgrace into any kind of favor, he would attack that truce and maybe that marriage, and all those among the lords and commons opposed to Suffolk would willingly join him. Factions were inevitable around the king but each needed a leader to be effective. Because no one had moved into Gloucester’s place with those against peace with France, Suffolk had held almost unchallenged power these past few years, and one of the things he must want least in the world was Gloucester rising up to challenge him again.

Alice seemed about to say something more, but the slightest of taps at the door interrupted her. The daylight had been falling away rapidly while they talked. Here at the window they could still see each other’s faces but the lady-in-waiting who came in at Alice’s bidding was in shadows as she asked, “Would my lady like a lamp brought now?”

‘What?“ Alice answered distractedly. ”Yes. Thank you.“

The woman withdrew and the bells to Vespers began their calling from the abbey’s tower, bold down the wind. Alice flinched her head up and toward the sound as if startled by an unexpected thing, although it sometimes seemed to Frevisse, used to St. Frideswide’s lone, untuneful bell in the cloister garth, that church bells were as common here as air. That Alice flinched at them told her more of how far astray things must be for her, but she only said, “By your leave, Alice, I’m minded to go to Vespers.”