The Boy's Tale (14 page)

Familiar with Dame Claire's frustration when she could not heal as well as she wanted to, and with no comfort for it, Frevisse held silent. Her longer step measured to match to Dame Claire's, they walked on, and in a while, more quietly, Dame Claire sighed and said, "But what there's no help for there's no use weeping over, and I've been like this before, over other things I couldn't help, haven't I?"

"Often and often."

Dame Claire made a small, rueful laugh. "And I should be grateful for what skill God has given me instead of complaining over what I lack."

Too prone to that failure herself, Frevisse made no answer, and Dame Claire went on, "Mistress Maryon has asked if the boys might come this evening to spend some time with him. As diversion for both him and them."

"That's likely a good idea. Could Lady Adela go, too, do you think? To save jealousy."

Dame Claire smiled widely. "She's not the quiet child we thought she was, is she? What do you suppose she's been up to that we don't know about?"

"I've been wondering," Frevisse admitted.

"And there'll likely be trouble if she doesn't go with Jasper and Edmund this evening?"

"Possibly. If she sets her mind to it. And she might, if she feels the boys are being favored over her."

"We surely don't need more mischief." Dame Claire sounded more amused than annoyed. "You'd best take her, too, then."

"I'm taking them?"

"Directly after supper, if you will." Sensing Frevisse's unwillingness, she added, "Would you rather Dame Alys did it? Or Sister Amicia?"

"I thought—" Frevisse broke off. She had not thought about it at all. She knew Dame Claire was not serious about either Dame Alys or Sister Amicia but did not want her to be serious about her instead. "Jenet," she suggested.

"Jenet has collapsed. The funeral was too much for her. She came back in hysterics and is in the infirmary, asleep with something Sister Thomasine gave her. Tibby is watching after the boys. Do you want Tibby responsible for them outside the cloister?"

"I'll miss Compline. And be late to bed."

"I give you leave for it."

Frevisse realized that the objections she was making against going were out of proportion to the matter. She was trying, she realized, to stay as far as she could from a problem for which she had no solution and which worried her both because of her helplessness and the danger there was in it. But at least she knew the danger and no one else in the cloister did. She bent her head and said far more evenly than she felt, "I'll gladly do it."

The boys were undressed down to their shirts and hosen, enduring under protest Tibby's attempts to wash their necks. Unnoticed for the moment in the doorway, Frevisse watched Edmund duck grimacing away from the washcloth despite Tibby's grip on one ear and writhe as if the water running down his back was boiling oil until, exasperated, Tibby snapped, "You don't do this for your Jenet, do you? You stand still for her, I warrant, or she clouts you."

Edmund exclaimed indignantly, "Nobody ever clouts us!"

"And I'm sure I believe that, don't I? Not clout silly little boys? Who'd not?" Tibby said scornfully and pushed the back of his head, assuredly not as hard as she would have one of her brothers, but Edmund jerked away and rounded on her angrily.

"Don't you dare push me! Nobody pushes me like that! We're—"

"—very loud in a very quiet place," Frevisse said. And when all three looked at her, she added mildly, "Is this the way Mistress Maryon wants you to behave?"

Jasper, less angry than his brother, grasped her warning before Edmund did and looked instantly discomfited. Edmund, caught between his rage at Tibby and indignation at being interrupted, was less quick but caught her meaning soon enough to snap his mouth shut over whatever he had been going to say, flushing a red nearly as dark as his hair.

Pretending she noticed nothing of it, Frevisse said, "And now you have to dress again because I'm taking you both to see Sir Gawyn."

There was no trouble after that in their cooperating with Tibby. While Frevisse waited, they shrugged into their jerkins and found where they had kicked their shoes under the bed and let their hair be combed to tidiness with resolutely no fidgeting, then stood straight and still while Frevisse looked them over and pronounced them fit.

"And Lady Adela is to go with you, since she's become your friend," she added.

They had no objection to that either, so long as they were going to see Sir Gawyn and miss their bedtime in the bargain.

Dame Perpetua had Lady Adela tidy and waiting in the cloister. The girl curtsied prettily to Frevisse and then to Dame Perpetua, as mild-mannered as ever. But Frevisse caught the corner of a glance she gave Edmund and Jasper and knew the girl was as eager as they were.

The boys had not been in the yard since their precipitous arrival. Now, as they crossed it, Edmund swerved aside toward the well. Frevisse caught his arm, bringing him along with the rest.

"I only want to look down it," he protested.

"We're expected at the guesthall and it would be rude to be late."

"My looking down the well won't make us so much later," Edmund insisted. "Hardly later at all. Not so late that anyone would notice."

"People notice what you particularly don't want them to notice," Frevisse said. "That's something you'd best remember." She barely kept herself from adding, "my lord."

Their father might be a next-to-nobody, but it was clearly their mother's royal blood that told in both boys when they were crossed. "And besides, it's too late now, we're here," she added as she bustled them up the stairs into the guesthall.

Will rose from a joint stool outside Sir Gawyn's closed door as they approached. He bowed to Edmund and Jasper and then to Dame Frevisse and Lady Adela, before cocking a teasing eye at Jasper and saying, "I've something for you that you lost, my lord."

Jasper looked puzzled. Will reached behind his back, drew something from his belt, and held it out to him. Jasper exclaimed, "My dagger!" and took it from him eagerly. "Hery took it in the fight! I thought it was lost!"

Will laid a big hand over Jasper's on the hilt, making the boy look up at him. "I found it in Hery's hand, when he was dead," he said quietly. "Don't ever forget how he and Hamon died to keep you safe."

Solemnly Jasper met his look. "I won't forget."

"Was there blood on it?" Edmund asked. "Did he use it on anyone?"

Frevisse frowned, both at the question and at the eagerness on all three children's faces for the answer. But Will seemed only amused, taking their bloody-mindedness in good part. "Aye, there was blood enough. He'd done someone with it."

The dagger was clean now, but the children gazed on it with an awe more properly reserved to holy relics, and Frevisse said briskly, "I think we'd best go in now."

Will, taking the hint, rapped at the door and opened it for them. Edmund entered readily enough, and Lady Adela with him, but at the last moment Jasper hesitated, an odd expression on his face, as if he thought he might be sick but did not know for sure. Before Frevisse could urge him on, Will leaned close and said to him, too low for anyone in the room to hear, "It's none too bad, my lord. He was up and walking a ways this afternoon. And the wound is bandaged. There's nought to be bothered over."

Jasper glanced at him with brimming gratitude and went in. Frevisse, ashamed of not having understood as quickly as Will had, murmured, "Thank you," and followed, Will bowing her through the doorway.

Because fresh air was known to be bad for any sickness or hurt, the room was shuttered and in shadow even on so fine an evening. A candle burning on the table beside the bed gave the only light, as well as a warm color to Sir Gawyn's face. He was sitting far more up against the pillows and looked marginally better than he had this morning, laughing at something Edmund had just said and chiding, "But you shouldn't say so, my lord. They've given us good shelter and comfort here."

"Dame Frevisse," Maryon said before Edmund could go farther about whatever he had complained.

Frevisse indicated with a silent movement of her hand and head that she could be ignored for this while, and went to stand in the shadows across the little room. The visit was for Sir Gawyn and the children; she did not need to be considered part of it.

Edmund had already climbed onto the bed to sit by Sir Gawyn. The knight now put out a hand and drew Jasper to the bedside. His hand on the boy's arm, his other hand on Edmund's knee, he smiled at Lady Adela and asked, "And who is this lovely lady come with you?"

"Lady Adela," Edmund said casually. "She's been here in the nunnery for years and years."

"She's Lord Warenne's younger daughter," Maryon said more formally.

Sir Gawyn bent his head to her as respectfully as if she were a grown woman. "My lady. If ever I may serve you."

Lady Adela bent her head in return and said with equal courtesy, "I thank you, good sir."

Impatient with such courtesies, Edmund asked, "Does it hurt much? Your wound? Is it very bad? Where is it?"

"Here." Sir Gawyn indicated his left shoulder. "And no, it hardly hurts at all anymore, unless I forget and move the wrong way. But it's ill to talk of wounds around ladies. It distresses them."

Edmund scorned that. "Mistress Maryon has been tending you. She's not bothered."

"And Lady Adela doesn't care," Jasper put in. "She likes that sort of thing. We've told her all about the battle."

"It was a little small for a battle," Sir Gawyn said.

"A bloody skirmish!" Edmund enthused. "And more of them than of us!" He bounced to his knees on the bed and struck vigorously with an imaginary sword at an imaginary foe somewhere behind Sir Gawyn's head.

Sir Gawyn winced at the jerking of the mattress and loosed Jasper to take hold of his shoulder. Edmund, chagrined, immediately sank down to stillness beside him, eyes wide on his face. Jasper, pale as Sir Gawyn suddenly was, pressed closer to the bed, a frightened hand laid on the knight's thigh. Mistress Maryon started to say something angrily, but Sir Gawyn held up his hand enough to stop her.

"It's all right. He didn't mean it." He drew a deep, steadying breath and smiled at Edmund. "But don't bounce again, all right?"

Edmund shook his head. "I'll be still as anything. It really does hurt, doesn't it?"

"It really does hurt," Sir Gawyn agreed, then added with mock sternness, "but only sometimes. Like when you bounce."

Carefully, as if afraid the words might jar him too much, too, Jasper asked, "When will you be better? When are we going to go? Tomorrow?"

A little shortly, Sir Gawyn said, "Not tomorrow."

From her place at the foot of the bed, Maryon put in, "Nor the next day even. Not until he's strong enough to ride. You'll have to go on being patient and doing what Dame Frevisse and the other nuns tell you for the while."

All three children made faces at that, and Lady Adela declared, "I want to come, too, when you go."

"You can't," Edmund said. "It's our adventure."

"It could be mine, too."

"No, it can't."

"It can!"

Into their escalating anger, Maryon said smoothly, "This was a quest laid on them by their—lord and they have to see it out as he wished, companioned with none but those he sent with them at the start."

"A quest," Lady Adela said, awed. "For what?"

"They're not allowed to say. That was laid on them with the quest itself."