The Boy's Tale (29 page)

"But for my cousin to come visit me would be a smaller matter."

Alice nodded. "Exactly. Now, why did you write that letter? What do you know here about something that's so far gone barely farther than the lords of the Council?"

It was request and demand both. And a just one.

Frevisse pressed her hands over her face and drew a deep, steadying breath, then tucked her hands quietly into their opposite sleeves, lifted her head, and said, "Queen Katherine's two younger sons are in sanctuary here."

Alice hissed in her breath through her teeth. "Frevisse, this is dangerous."

"That I know," Frevisse agreed tersely, and told her of the attack on the boys' party before they arrived at the priory, explaining in brief how the boys came to be here, ending with, "And now two more of the men who came with them are dead."

"Dead? How?"

"One drowned, the other stabbed. And two attempts have been made to kill the boys."

"Do you know by whom? Or why?"

"No. Ideas but no answers. Alice, are they truly so important that they should be costing men's lives?"

"They're the King's half brothers, and their mother's brother is king of France, for all our government refuses to say so. Yes, they're that important."

"And you mean to take them away. To Bishop Beaufort."

'They're plainly in deadly danger else. Once they're in my care, under my protection in Suffolk's name, they're safe."

"From whom?"

"Frevisse, you could just let me take them. You might be better not knowing all this."

"There have been a great many dead men on the priory's hands because of whatever this is. Four of the men who were traveling with the boys, the five men who attacked them, whose names we don't even know."

"I know them," Alice said.

"What? Who were they?"

"They were our men. From our household."

"Alice, they tried to kill the children!"

"If they did, it was wholly against orders. No, I think they tried to intercept them, as they had been told to do. They were the ones who were attacked. They had been most strictly told the boys were to be kept safe and brought to me."

"Why?"

Alice drew a deep breath. "Frevisse, this is dangerous."

"I've gathered that," Frevisse said dryly. "So is ignorance and right now I'm very ignorant of what is toward here."

They stared at one another, not in challenge but in assessment—Alice determining how much could be told, Frevisse judging how much truth there would be in it.

"It's this way," Alice said. "We learned the boys were gone almost as soon as their mother sent them away, their brother one direction, these two another. We could guess where they were going and sent men to intercept them if they could."

"How did you know?"

"By a spy in the queen's household," Alice said simply. "The same way we knew about the boys at all."

"How long have you known about them?"

Ruefully Alice admitted, "Barely two months. No one has been concerned about Kathenne. She's been living so quietly, away from court, making no trouble for anyone, we thought. Only lately has there been any rumor that that wasn't the truth of it, so only lately did we manage to . . ."

She paused, looking for the word. Frevisse offered, "To insinuate someone into her household?"

"To corrupt someone already there," Alice said. "Their secret depended on their people keeping it. They were very careful of who was around them."

"Not careful enough, it seems."

"There is a point for everyone—" Alice reconsidered. "—for nearly everyone, where the price is high enough to buy their loyalty."

"And you found your person and the price."

"And apparently so did Gloucester."

The duke of Gloucester, the King's uncle, known to resent the limits of his power in the government.

"Do you suppose his agent found the same person your agent did?" Frevisse asked.

"I don't know. I suppose once you begin to be treacherous, you may be indiscriminately so. The point is, Queen Katherine is in deep trouble for marrying one Owen Tudor without the royal Council's permission, and for having royal children by him. It was foolish of her. Careless."

"At least three children's worth of carelessness."

"How did you know there are three?" Alice asked sharply.

"We have two here and you said their brother went another way, meaning at least one other."

"Well, there's going to be a fourth. The queen is pregnant yet again."

It did not seem to Frevisse that four children instead of three would make the matter much worse, so she simply asked, "What will happen to her for this?"

"She's been put under guard, discreetly, at Hertford for the time being. Tudor has been arrested—"

"For what?"

"Gloucester will think of something. It was his doing. What could be handled quietly he's going to turn into a wide-blown scandal, like the fool he is."

Frevisse almost asked why again but stopped herself. Enough of her curiosity was satisfied, and whatever politics were going on, with Queen Katherine, her husband, and their children as pawns and probably helpless ones, it was not her business. Edmund and Jasper were, and she asked instead, "What do you want with the children?"

"Someone has to have control of them. Better us than Gloucester. Especially since it seems he wants them dead, judging by what you've told me."

Frevisse refrained from asking exactly who "us" might be. Presumably, whoever in the government was presently ranged against Gloucester, and that undoubtedly included the earl of Suffolk. Her letter to Alice had raised trouble she had not counted on. "And if you have control of them?"

"If?"
Alice questioned.

"They've been given sanctuary here. We have to know what's intended by you or whomever you'll give them over to, before we'll allow them to go with you."

Alice lifted her eyebrows slightly. "Pardon me? I don't know if I understand you."

"I mean that the children are under our protection." Such as it was, but Frevisse did not add that. "We can't simply give them over to you because you've come for them."

"You wrote to me about them."

"In confidence, for advice, and unaware you had so deep an interest in them. I trust you, but I need to know more. What do you intend for them?"

Alice's momentary haughtiness eased. "You're right. I'm too used to giving commands to those who have to take them without explanation. You won't and you shouldn't. This is the way it is. Gloucester is outraged by this marriage. He sees it as a desecration of royalty and his late brother's memory. He'd execute Owen Tudor if he could, but I think that will be stopped. The queen will be put into honorable confinement in a nunnery, near London probably. Gloucester won't be satisfied with less, and her foolishness has earned it." Alice had never let her own warm heart interfere with her common sense or her ambitions. "As for the children, they're a complication for so many different reasons it can't be said what will become of them eventually, but I purpose to put them into Barking Abbey outside London. My husband's sister is abbess there and they'll be as safe as anywhere, beyond anyone's reach until we know what to do with them. King Henry is gentle-hearted. I think he won't reject them or their mother—his mother—when the matter comes to him."

"But here and now someone is trying to kill them," Frevisse pointed out. "Apparently someone working for Gloucester."

"That would be my guess, too," Alice said. "I think Gloucester would have them put down like cross-bred pups out of a purebred bitch if he had the chance. He assuredly has the wealth and power enough to buy someone for the deed if he wants."

Buy someone. Buy someone desperate enough to face what it might cost to win the reward Gloucester would give.

Neither she nor Master Naylor could believe anyone of the nunnery had been so suborned, that anyone they knew was capable of such killing.

But if, given what she knew so far about the murders, she could not believe that anyone of the nunnery had killed Will and Colwin and was trying to kill the boys, then it had to be someone not of the nunnery.

Someone not of the nunnery—but in it.

Sir Gawyn. Maryon. Jenet.

One of them.

And she had brought them all together, into reach of the children.

"Frevisse?" Alice asked, seeing her mind had gone away somewhere.

"I have to go," Frevisse said abruptly. "Stay here, I pray you, until I come back."

"What is it?"

"I think I see the answer to what's been happening and it's ugly and I have to deal with it now, before— Pray, excuse me." With haste too great for better manners, she left Alice where she stood.

Chapter
22

Tibby and Jenet were together at the table, Tibby's elbows on it, chin in her hands, Jenet twisting her apron's corner, while they talked of their loves—Tibby with plans, Jenet with tearful regrets for her loss.

"Oh yes, we'd hoped to do that. A little house of our own somehow. In Leicester maybe. I've folk in Leicester. Hery, he could turn his hand to anything and I'd maybe raise extra in the garden to sell at market. My uncle, he would have helped us start. But now it's all come to nothing," Jenet mourned.

"My Peter is good at almost anything he puts his hand to, too. He's always saying to me . . ."

It didn't matter what Peter said; they weren't really listening to each other, only talking to keep each other company. Edmund and Jasper had half an ear to them, on the chance they might say something interesting but mostly, taking advantage of the women's distraction, they were busy in the far corner with Edmund's dagger, carefully pricking apart the rush matting for no good reason except they hadn't found anything better to do, though even memorizing Latin prayers for Dame Perpetua was beginning to seem possibly more interesting.

So they raised their heads eagerly to the sound of footsteps outside the door and were already on their feet when Sir Gawyn appeared in the doorway.

"You're better!" Edmund exclaimed.

"Somewhat, yes," Sir Gawyn agreed. His left hand was tucked into his belt, to ease his shoulder, but he had apparently come from the infirmary alone.

Tibby and Jenet sprang to their feet and made deep curtsies. "You." He nodded at Tibby. "Could you bring us something to drink? It's a warm day."

"Yes, sir. As quick as may be," she said readily.

"And have something for yourself along the way," he added.

Tibby smiled more widely at him. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Sir Gawyn stepped in and aside to let her go out, then leaned against the doorjamb.

"Come and sit," Edmund urged.

"Not just yet," Sir Gawyn said. "Jasper, come here."

Jasper went to him eagerly, ready to help him to the bed or a stool or wherever he wanted to go. Sir Gawyn laid a hand on his shoulder and looking down at him said, "I need you to come with me, out of here."