The Boy's Tale (13 page)

"We're done here, right enough. I doubt there's more to be learned from these folk. But I'd like to know more about the men who were killed." He shook his head to clear his concerns away, smiled and slightly bowed to her. "My pleasure to meet you, Dame Frevisse. Your uncle always spoke praisingly of you."

Frevisse curtsied in reply. "My thanks for your kind words. I hope we meet again, sir. God be with you until then."

"And with you."

Another time, Frevisse would have been pleased to have made Master Worleston's acquaintance. He was both intelligent and personable. But just now Master Montfort's stupidity was more desirable, and Master Worleston's acute-ness made her uncomfortably aware of how thin was the screen of untold truths she had agreed to help Maryon maintain.

And what other untold truths and possibly lies did Maryon have that Frevisse did not know of?

She did not like that thought, nor the fact that there was nothing she could do about it.

But because there was nothing to be done, she pushed it away and began to consider what the boys could do this afternoon while Jenet was gone to the burying of Hery and the others.

Chapter 10

Master Worleston, Master Montfort, and their entourage rode out of St. Frideswide's in early afternoon. From the cloister walk, Frevisse heard the clatter of their horses on the cobbles of the inner yard and then the quiet afterwards and drew a deep breath of relief. Master Worleston's inquiries, if he went on with them, might bring him back here later but for now the priory was clear of him and Master Montfort.

She went to the boys' room, knowing they and Lady Adela were at lessons with Dame Perpetua in the chapter house but in search of Jenet. As expected, she was there, sitting on a joint stool mending the torn heel of a boy's hose. When Frevisse knocked, she rose quickly to her feet with, "Come in, please you," and a-curtsy. She was a plump young woman with a pleasant face and probably pretty enough when she was not red-eyed and tear-puffed from too much crying.

Nodding at the hose still in her hands, Frevisse said, "The children are hard on their clothing?"

Jenet twitched a small smile. "Not so very hard. They're good boys." She seemed unable to make up her mind whether to put the hose down or go on holding it. She dithered it from hand to hand instead, and when Frevisse asked, "You're going to the funeral this afternoon?" she pressed it over her mouth to stop a sob before gasping, "Yes, please you." She hiccuped on a dry sob despite her efforts and blurted, "He's to be buried this afternoon, Hery is, and someone ought to be there. He was a good man. I'm sorry about yesterday, about not being here." Tears brimmed in her eyes and started to spill over. "But I really must go this afternoon. I really must."

"Of course you must," Frevisse said soothingly, though she did not feel particularly soothing. She regretted the woman's grief but did not want to be soaked by it. "I've only come to tell you the boys will be seen to, you don't have to worry about them while you're away."

She had also come to make sure Jenet was still there and not so hopelessly unreliable as to have slipped away again even after yesterday's reprimand. It was all very well for her to be grieving, but it was Frevisse who would be doing a fortnight's penance on water for her carelessness.

Jenet, all gratitude and tears, sobbed, "You're kind. You're so very, very kind. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you . . ."

Frevisse left her gratefully weeping into the hose. She had arranged with Dame Claire that Dame Perpetua and Sister Lucy would spend much of the afternoon in the orchard with the children. They were Dame Claire's choice—Dame Perpetua because the children were most used to her, Sister Lucy because Dame Claire felt she needed respite from her almost constant care of Domina Edith. Though it was by her own wish and with her whole heart that she did it, Sister Lucy was not so very much younger than Domina Edith herself; the long effort was wearing on her, and an afternoon's quiet in the orchard would be good for her. Frevisse was to take her place with Domina Edith for the while.

She went now up the stairs to Domina Edith's rooms. Sister Lucy was waiting at the parlor door, to forestall her knocking. To Frevisse's inquiring look, she made gestures that Domina Edith was sleeping and that all was well. Frevisse nodded that she understood and, smiling, gestured that Sister Lucy could go. After a last careful look into the bedroom, she did, and when the shuffle of her slippers had faded down the stairs, the pleasant quiet of the summer's afternoon settled over the parlor.

Briefly, Frevisse went to the windows overlooking the yard. It was too early in the afternoon for any new travelers to come seeking the priory's hospitality for the night, and with the sheriff and crowner gone with their men it was presently a quiet scene. While Frevisse watched, Dame Claire, recognizable even from the back and above by her short height and firm step, appeared below and crossed to enter the new guesthall. Going to look in on Sir Gawyn for herself, Frevisse supposed.

She raised her gaze past the roofs to the sky, adrift with white clouds across the blue of a perfect summer's afternoon that promised no more rain for a while. The haying had begun this morning. After three famine years of harvests spoiled by cold and wet, this looked to be a good year.

But for St. Frideswide's there would be the sorrow of losing their prioress.

Frevisse left the window and crossed the parlor to stand in Domina Edith's bedroom doorway. The prioress lay small beneath her sheet and so quiet that Frevisse took an anxious step nearer, looking to be sure she still breathed.

Slightly, steadily, the sheet rose and fell. Obscurely ashamed of the momentary clutch of fear around her heart, Frevisse went silent-footed to kneel at the prie-dieu against the wall and pray, not for Domina Edith's continued life but for ease of passing when it had to come and, for herself, the grace to accept it. Willing acceptance of what had to be was among the lessons Frevisse had set herself to learn here in St. Frideswide's, but she was aware it was something in which she was as yet imperfect.

At least she had learned to go deeply into prayer, and as always when her praying went best, she lost awareness of time. It was Domina Edith who drew her back with a whispered, "Dame Frevisse?"

Frevisse hastily ended her prayer and rose to go to the bedside. "Yes, Domina. Dame Claire thought it would be well if Sister Lucy was outside awhile in the lovely day."

"That was good of her. I'm glad of it. And glad to see you." She lifted her hand off the sheet, barely. Frevisse reached out to take its age-thinned flesh and fragile bones gently in her own. Domina Edith's fingers closed around hers, and the prioress murmured, eyes shutting, "That's better." And after a pause, "I drift, and it helps to have someone to hold to." She opened her eyes and looked directly into Frevisse's face. "You won't be prioress after me, you know."

Without thought, Frevisse hurriedly crossed herself and fervently exclaimed, "God forfend I should be!"

Domina Edith smiled. "You would have been my choice, you know."

Frevisse did not try to hide how appalled she was at the idea. "No, I didn't know. I don't want the office."

"That is among the reasons that would make you best for it. But you won't be elected. Don't fear it."

Caught between the desire to ask why she would not be and the sudden confused realization that until this moment she had been refusing even to consider what would happen after Domina Edith's death, Frevisse held silent. Domina Edith's eyes closed again but she went on, "My hope is that it goes to Dame Claire. That's why I made her cellarer."

Because so many duties fell to the cellarer, it was usual for whoever had done well in the office to be elected the one step higher to prioress when the need came.

"I don't think she wants it either," Frevisse said.

Softly, from some distance of memory, Domina Edith said, "Nor did I. But one learns. God's will is wiser than ours, and one learns." She sighed and was silent. Frevisse waited, and in a while, as if unaware there had been a gap in their conversation, Domina Edith went on. "It's that you are so very much yourself. It makes you uncomfortable to so many people. You show too well how impatient you are of their silliness and carelessness and the lies they want to believe to make themselves comfortable. That's why they will not want you for their prioress. As if a prioress's purpose was to make them comfortable." The notion amused her. "But I'm sorry for it. You would do well."

There did not seem to be anything to say to that so Frevisse said nothing. The quiet drew out between them then. In the afternoon's pleasant warmth and the comfort of Domina Edith's presence, fading though it was, Frevisse came near to drowse herself and was unready when Domina Edith said, "It's quite all right, you know. It will be a great freedom. To be quit of the body."

Again without thinking, Frevisse said, "But not easy."

"Oh no, not easy." Domina Edith was gazing at the ceiling, serenity in her eyes, her voice soft with the drift of her thoughts. "Not easy at all. Nor as simple as it probably ought to be. But then nothing is so simple as it ought to be. Not love or hate or fear or even hope." She made a small, negative move of her head on the pillow. "No, hope is the least simple of all, I've sometimes thought. It requires so much of so many other things, including courage. And courage isn't simple either." Her eyes closed. The sheet rose slightly and fell deeply with the effort of her breathing; and in a while she said, quite clearly, "Only God is uncomplicated."

This time, after another while, it was Frevisse who broke the silence, not knowing if Domina Edith slept or not but needing to say aloud, "We'll miss you, my lady. Very much."

Eyes still closed and so softly Frevisse nearly did not hear her, Domina Edith murmured, "It won't be for a while yet. But only a little while." And the corners of her mouth lifted in the slightest of smiles.

Chapter
11

The day faded gently into evening. Within the garden's high walls the shadows had begun to lie long, but the day's pleasant warmth and the flowers' scents lingered, and overhead the sky bloomed with the rose light of the westering sun.

It was the hour for recreation and the nuns strolled the garden paths mostly in twos and threes, their voices cast low, as soft and easy as the evening. Even Dame Alys, talking at Sister Juliana, was audible over barely half the garden.

Frevisse walked at first with Sister Lucy, exchanging thoughts on how Domina Edith did, neither of them saying their foremost thought about her—that it could not be much longer—until there was nothing else to say but that and they fell silent. Sister Lucy paused over the promising buds of the Madonna lily in its tall jar at the opening of the arbor, leaving Frevisse to walk on alone, and at the next juncture of paths Dame Claire joined .her. Frevisse knew her well enough to think it was not by chance, and as they fell into step beside each other, she asked, "What is it?"

Dame Claire did not immediately answer but finally said, "Sir Gawyn asked to see me this afternoon. About his shoulder."

"It's worsened?" It was possible a wound could turn that suddenly, despite how well it had looked this morning.

"No. It will heal well enough, I think. But he's taken it into his head that even if it does, he'll not have full use of his arm again."

"That's Master Montfort's doing," Frevisse said. "He came in while the wound was uncovered this morning and said a wound like that would leave him crippled. I never thought—Sir Gawyn had taken his measure and I didn't think he'd heed aught Master Montfort had to say."

"I think Sir Gawyn half knew it anyway but was refusing the knowledge until forced to face it."

"You're sure he'll be crippled then, no matter how well it heals?" Frevisse realized her sick feeling at the thought could only be faint echo of what Sir Gawyn felt.

"I tried not to say it to him that plainly but, yes, that's what it comes to. I could be wrong. Folk have surprised me before. The body does things"—Dame Claire made a tense, frustrated gesture with both hands—"and we don't know why. But I think with him there's been hurt deep enough that the muscles will never have their cunning back. And there's nothing more I could have done or can do for him. There's so much hurt can be done to a body and so little—
so little
—we can do to mend it. It makes me angry!"