The Boy's Tale (26 page)

"Domina Edith—"

"—directed me to trust you and I am, as best I may. But she's beyond questions or answering now."

"Then Maryon knows, and Sir Gawyn."

"Who are probably as marked for death as all their men have been."

Dame Claire's blunt, practical mind could be uncomfortable upon occasion. Inwardly flinching, Frevisse answered bluntly back, "That's why it's still better you don't know."

"I begin to doubt that," Dame Claire snapped and again made to leave.

But Frevisse asked, "How is it with Domina Edith?"

To her surprise Dame Claire's anger drained away into a slight, pleasured smile as she said gently, "Very peaceful. Go up to see her if you want. We agreed in chapter to go one by one through the day, as we chose, to see her, pray by her briefly, say good-bye." Behind the smile tears welled up. No matter how peaceful the parting, it was parting forever. Dame Claire tried to say something else, could not, shook her head, and went. Left alone, Frevisse made a short prayer asking for strength and mercy, and then went to find a servant to send in search of Master Naylor.

She waited for him in the cloister and stepped outside the cloister door into the yard to talk with him when he came. He took the orders grimly, made terse agreement to them, and asked bluntly, "Are you sure of what you're doing?"

"No," she said back, and reentered the cloister.

There was only a little while until Sext, and though she would rather have allowed someone else the task, she supposed she should tell the boys of Will's death as well as what else was toward. She turned toward their room, in time to see a flick of child-sized movement disappearing into their doorway. Anger born of frustration clenched in her. Were they such fools they still didn't know their danger and understand they had to stay in their room? And where were Tibby and Jenet with their strict orders to keep them in it?

Grimly, Frevisse went along the walk, rapped sharply on the door frame since the door already stood open, and went in without waiting to be asked. Tibby and Jenet rose to their feet with bobbing curtsies, a little startled at her suddenness. Edmund and Jasper sitting on the rush matting playing at something with straws looked up, ready to be interested in anything new. Lady Adela, standing beside them, dropped in a deep curtsy and said, understanding Frevisse's face before anyone else did, "It was me in the passage, Dame, not them! They've stayed in here just as they were told to."

"And you've only come to keep them company," Frevisse said, no less grim outwardly but her anger dissipated by the child's explanation. "Not lead them out to mischief again?"

"No, Dame." Lady Adela shook her head urgently to show how sincerely she meant it, her fair hair flicking around her shoulders with her vehemence. "We won't go out anymore, ever, until you say we can."

"You promised me that before and you went anyway. Why should I believe you now?" Frevisse included Edmund and Jasper in the accusing question.

"Because we know it's dangerous now and won't do it again. Will we?" Lady Adela asked Edmund and Jasper.

Both boys shook their heads. They seemed none the worse for yesterday, except for a kind of solemnity, a wariness to their watching, that Frevisse had not noticed in them before. Partly she was glad of it; it meant yesterday's terror had left a lesson and they would assuredly be more careful because of it. But it also angered her, because it was a lesson they should not have had to learn so young.

But all she said was, "That's good then. See that you remember it, please." Including Jenet and Tibby in what she had to say next, she went on, "But I'm afraid I have bad news to bring you."

"Colwin is dead," Jasper said sadly. "He was drowned where we nearly were. Dame Perpetua told us."

"She came between breakfast and chapter to tell them," Tibby explained quickly. "She thought it best they know as soon as might be and hear it from her rather than someone else."

"That's well," Frevisse said, sick with what she had to say next. They had seemingly absorbed Colwin's death well enough, but they had known Will better. What his death would mean, coming so close after everything else, she did not know. "But last night sometime—we don't know when yet—Will was killed, too. In the guesthall."

Tibby's mouth dropped open. Jenet shrieked and threw her apron over her face, pressed her hands to it, and began to rock and keen. Lady Adela sank down on her heels between the two boys and put her arms around Jasper. He and Edmund stared up at Frevisse, their eyes huge and shocked.

"I'm sorry," Frevisse said, feeling the words were useless.

Tibby stood up. "I'll bring something to drink from the kitchen. Cider. Something. We need something."

"That would be good," Frevisse agreed, and Tibby left. Frevisse sank down to the children's level, to see their faces directly. Stricken and silent, they stared back at her, nobody heeding Jenet wailing across the room. To the children Frevisse said, "We'll find who did it. We don't know yet but we'll find out."

"How did they kill him?" Edmund asked.

"He was stabbed. In the heart. He would have died almost as it happened."

"Did he fight them?"

"He didn't have a chance to."

"He should have fought them! Jasper and I would have fought them!" Edmund's anger was not enough to stop the tears welling up and sliding down his face. "They won't kill us like that! We'll fight them if they come!"

"Nobody is going to kill you," Frevisse said. "You're safe here."

"They've killed Hery and Hamon and Colwin and Will," Jasper said in a curiously calm voice. He was not crying; he was not doing anything except sitting there and saying the truth with horrible certainty as he stared into nothingness over her shoulder. "They tried to kill us at the pigpen, and they tried to kill us at the pool, and they'll go on trying because they don't want us to be alive anymore."

"Jasper," Frevisse said in agony for the pain and fear he was refusing to show. "Who would want you dead? Why?" Those were the most basic questions of all and she had no answers to them.

But Jasper did. He shifted his eyes and looked at her. "The people my mother is afraid of. She sent us away because she's afraid of what they want to do. She was trying to save us."

Trying to pretend he was not crying, Edmund said, "We thought they'd all been killed when we fought them by the stream, before we came here, but there must be more of them. They'll try to kill Sir Gawyn and Mistress Maryon next!"

"No they won't. We're going to bring Sir Gawyn and Mistress Maryon into the cloister, into the infirmary, and there'll be guards at all the doors. No one will be able to reach them here. Or reach you either." Unable to face Jasper's expression that refused even that little hope, and not knowing what to do about Edmund's tears, Frevisse rose to her feet and snapped, "Jenet, stop wailing! You've done nothing else since you came here and we're all tired of it!" To the three children, more gently, she said, "I have to go see to other things now. Edmund, Jasper, you will stay here, in this room. You understand now? No going out for anything unless I say you may?"

"We'll stay," said Edmund. "We won't go out at all." Jasper nodded.

Frevisse thought Lady Adela would stay with them, but the girl followed her from the room, trotting as best her limp would let her to catch up and then stay beside her as Frevisse went along the cloister walk.

Well away from the boys' room Frevisse stopped. Lady Adela stopped with her. "Do you want something, child?" Frevisse asked. Lady Adela had never sought her company before.

Her hands clasped prayerfully in front of her, her face tipped up to see Frevisse's eyes, Lady Adela asked, "They
will
be all right, won't they? You won't let anyone hurt them?"

"I'm doing all I can to keep them safe, and so are other people. And no one will hurt you, either, so you don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not," Lady Adela said indignantly. "Not for me. It's just that I love Jasper and I mean to marry him, and so no one had better hurt him."

Improbable young love was something Frevisse had no time or patience for just now. "My Lady Adela," she said with what restraint she could manage, "you are Lord Warenne's daughter. I don't think you can go choosing whom you will marry." She refrained from adding, "And especially you should not choose either of these boys."

As much as her soft, sweet face allowed, Lady Adela's expression hardened in unwonted stubbornness. "My father doesn't want me and I'll choose whom I like, no matter what he says."

"Lady Adela—" Frevisse began, then decided this was not an argument she had to participate in, most especially now. Instead she asked, "Why did you break your word and go out yesterday?"

Startled by the change of direction, Lady Adela answered, "An oath given under duress isn't binding. You made us promise not to go out so it didn't count."

"An oath isn't . . . Who told you that?"

"Isn't it true? We thought it was true or we wouldn't have gone." Lady Adela seemed distressed at the idea her argument might have been wrong.

Frevisse gathered her wits and replied as clearly as she could. "If you're forced to swear an oath because someone is threatening your life, if you're in danger and have to make a promise to save yourself, that's an oath made under duress and you are not bound by it. But it wasn't that way when I asked you to promise, was it?"

"No-o-o," Lady Adela admitted. "I suppose not."

"So who told you about duress?"

"I promised I wouldn't tell."

"Was it someone here?"

"Y-e-s."

"Lately?"

"Y-e-s." Lady Adela had become quite interested in her toe tracing the line of the stone paving in front of her.

"Lady Adela, I think you had best tell me. You love Jasper. He and Edmund are in danger, and I need to know everything I can if they're to be kept safe." With difficulty, Frevisse made her tone mild.

Reluctantly, Lady Adela said, "Now he's dead, he won't mind or be in trouble for it. There's that."

"There's that," Frevisse agreed, holding tightly to her patience. "So please tell me."

"It was one of the men who belong to Edmund and Jasper."

"Will? Sir Gawyn's squire?"

"No. The other one. The one we met at the stables that day. The bigger one. The one who drowned."

Colwin. "Yes," Frevisse said. "I know who you mean." But" not what it meant. It was simply another shape among the pieces she was gathering but none of them fit together yet with any sense. "When did you have chance to talk to him about oaths?"

"That day at the sty, before Jasper and Edmund fell in. He was asking what we did all day, shut up in the nunnery, and didn't we ever want to be out. So I told him about how we
had
been out and how you'd made us promise not to do it anymore, and then he told me about oaths made under duress. Only he was lying?"

"He was lying," Frevisse said firmly. "What were Edmund and Jasper doing while you talked with Colwin? Did they talk to him, too?"

"Not then. They mostly talked with Master Naylor." "Who else was there before the boys fell in?" "Father Henry and Will and the pig man and some other men from the stables, I don't know their names."

"So there were you and Edmund and Jasper, Father Henry, Master Naylor, Will and Colwin, and the pig man and some men from the stables." She went through the names slowly, ticking them off on her fingers. Lady Adela's head bobbed to each one. "Anyone else?"

Lady Adela's head changed from bobbing to shaking. "No one else."

"And you were talking to Colwin when the boys fell in." "No, I'd stopped that. I was just standing on the bottom rail of the fence—Master Naylor said I couldn't go up higher because I'm a girl." It was plain she scorned that reasoning. "I was leaning over to watch the piglets. I wasn't talking to anyone."