The Boy's Tale (3 page)

Frevisse sidestepped as the gray's haunches swung toward her and caught the reins of the boy's horse out of the woman's hand. Holding them near the bit, she soothed the horse with hand and voice, while the woman dismounted, jerking her skirts impatiently clear of the saddle and moving to lift the boy down. "Jenet!" she ordered again.

Frevisse, seeing Jenet still entangled with reins and child, other people's confusion, and her own crying, said, "I'll bring her. Go on in." She also saw, with relief, that Roger Naylor, the priory's steward, was coming through the gateway from the outer yard, with a look on his face that said he would put an end to whatever was happening. Knowing she could leave the handling of horses and settling of servants to him, she pushed her way to Jenet and curtly ordered the men clinging to her reins and bridle, "Hold the brute still." She had been hosteler a few years ago, charged with care of the priory's guests and visitors; the men had obeyed her then and did now as she pointed at one of them with her order and said to the other, "You help him down. No, not her, the child first. Give him to me. Jenet, let him go. It's all right."

Like the men, Jenet responded to the straightforward commands, surrendering the little boy to the man who easily lifted him down and handed him to Frevisse. The child squirmed in her hold, tearless and fierce despite everything around him, and demanded, "Put me down! I can walk!"

"Not here." Frevisse matched his preemptory tone. "At the door." She set him firmly on her hip—he was small but nonetheless a solid weight resisting her hold—and turned to take him into safety, only to find that Dame Alys had come from somewhere and was blocking the doorway with both her bulk and considerable temper. Dame Alys was hosteler now, and clearly resentful at having no part in what was happening.

She had once been cellarer of the priory, second in authority only to the prioress herself, and at her best in the work of kitchener that had come with the office. She had been skillful at seeing the cooking was done well, and in the priory's kitchen there had been only servants to terrorize and unfeeling pots and utensils to batter, but when offices were changed, as changed they had to be, according to the Rule, she had done less well as sacrist. She had no delicacy of touch for. the embroidered altar cloths; candles broke when she merely picked them up; goblet and paten and candlesticks had suffered from her harsh scrubbings. In a new shift of offices last winter she had been made hosteler, a duty she performed much as she did any duty she was given, with much vigor and no tact. As hosteler, she was in charge of the two guesthalls that flanked the gateway across the courtyard and—by her own officiousness if not according to the Rule—responsible for anything and everyone in the guesthalls' vicinity, which just now she apparently considered to include the courtyard and cloister door. A large, well-fleshed woman with far more vigor than sense, she was declaring over the heads of everyone in front of her, "What's all this about then? Just someone tell me that! What's this about?"

The first woman, the boy's hand firmly in hers, thrust a servant out of her way to come at the door and Dame Alys and said into her face, "Let us by at once. We're in danger!"

"Danger? The only danger here is from your mad horses!

There's no one coming in here until I know what's toward."

"We were attacked by men who may be just behind us. We want sanctuary! In God's name, you have to give it!"

"Just like that then?" Dame Alys scoffed. "This isn't a wayside tavern you can come tumbling into without a by-your-leave, no, it isn't."

Frevisse pushed between the desperate woman and Dame Alys and said, "She's asked for sanctuary. That puts them under my care, I'm sacrist." She was not sure how accurate that claim was, but she doubted Dame Alys knew any better; no one had ever claimed sanctuary at St. Frideswide's before. "Let them in."

"With who knows what at their heels? Without even knowing what they are?"

Behind Frevisse, Roger Naylor said, "I've had the outer gate shut and ordered men to guard it. No one else is coming in without we will it. What is all this?"

His question was to the woman but before she could answer, Dame Alys declared, "It's trouble, that's what it is. Bursting in here without so much as a crave-your-pardon or—"

"I think we had best have them inside, Master Naylor," Frevisse said firmly across Dame Alys's rising voice. "They've asked for sanctuary and I've given it. Anything they need to tell us is better heard with fewer ears about."

Master Naylor nodded brisk agreement. "Dame Alys understands that well enough, I'm sure," he said, his expectation that she would agree implicit in his voice. He was the priory's steward and no one had authority over him outside the cloister except Domina Edith herself. Besides that, he was a man, with a man's natural command. Dame Alys glared but with a stiff, grudging nod, she stood aside.

The slender, intense woman went first, leading the boy by his hand, saying over her shoulder, "Hurry, Jenet."

The other woman, still sniffling, obeyed, reaching to take the boy from Frevisse's arms with, "It's all right, M-Master Jasper. It's all right now. No need to be afraid anymore."

The boy cast her an indignant look and squirmed away from her hands. "I'm not afraid! I would have fought if you'd let me! I wouldn't have run! I would have stabbed them with my dagger!"

Frevisse set him down, said, "In! At once!" Jenet snatched his hand and dragged him into hoped-for safety; and indeed it would be a godless pursuer who would follow them in there intending harm.

But Frevisse turned on the threshold to say, "Master Naylor, you'll tell us what is toward? If anyone—comes?"

"I've set men at the gates and sent warning to the village. I'll see to it none comes in but who belongs in here, and bring word when there's any to tell."

Frevisse nodded, satisfied he would do whatever needed to be done, and followed the others into the cloister as someone finally began to ring the bell for Vespers now that the trouble in the courtyard had quieted. The world's troubles, even when they came into the cloister itself, should not distract from the priory's purpose of prayer. Dame Alys slammed the door shut with thunderous force behind Frevisse and stalked away along the cloister walk toward the church. Frevisse called after her, despite the rule of silence that was supposed to prevail inside the cloister, "Will you light the altar candles, please you, Dame Alys?"

Dame Alys gave a curt nod without looking back. Frevisse turned toward the women and children who had, for at least the time being, somehow become her responsibility. She realized, finally having a clear look, that she knew the dark-haired woman who was in charge of them. Five years ago she had come to St. Frideswide's in service to—and a spy on—a lady who had then been murdered here.

Maryon. That was her name.

The woman met her look at that moment, saw the recognition in it, and slightly shook her head, a warning in her eyes. She did not want to be known. Before Frevisse could decide whether to heed the warning or not, the older of the two boys grabbed at Maryon's arm as if he had been trying less overtly to capture her attention for a long time and said in loud accusation, "You made me leave Sir Gawyn! You wouldn't let me help him!"

"You're not old enough to fight yet, Master Edmund, nor nearly big enough," Jenet interposed earnestly. "That's why the men were there. To protect you. So we could escape to here, away from the bad men. Mistress Maryon did what she was supposed to."

Edmund and Jasper gave her mutual, scornful glances. But Maryon said, "It was our duty. We had no choice. It's what we had to do. You understand?" Her tone indicated they had better, and like her look at Frevisse, it contained a hidden warning, too, one that both boys caught. They closed their mouths abruptly over something else they had been going to say, except the next moment Jasper burst out, aggrieved past silence, "Hery took my dagger!"

"Then he'll bring it back to you, surely," Maryon said. Before they could say more, she laid a hand on a shoulder of each of them in a firm grip and said to Frevisse, "My sons, Edmund and Jasper."

Edmund barely hesitated before bowing his head to her; the smaller boy, Jasper, sent a quick startled look at Maryon, then caught himself and echoed his brother's bow. Both straightened, their gazes on Frevisse as if expecting something from her, and she gave them a slight dip of her own veiled head. That seemed to surprise them, too.

They were so nearly alike except in height, with their dark red hair and gray eyes, that their identical stare could easily be disconcerting; but Frevisse was not easily disconcerted. She said briskly, "I'm Dame Frevisse, sacrist of St. Frideswide's. You're welcome to whatever shelter and comfort we can give," she added to the two women.

Jenet was mopping her face dry with the hem of her dress, still not recovered but better contained. Maryon, composed and steady-eyed, said, "We thank you."

While they had talked, the nuns had been gathering from whatever afternoon tasks they had been about, moving along the other sides of the cloister walk toward the church. There had been glances but no one had stopped, and now a few of the more devout layservants were hasting belatedly in their wake. "Maud," Frevisse called, and one of the women' paused, questioning, then came eagerly, glad of a chance to see the strangers more closely, here where strangers so rarely came.

"Take our guests where they may wash and rest, and find them something to eat and drink perhaps," Frevisse ordered. "The warming room for now, I think. After Vespers we will consult Dame Claire about what might be best."

"I could take them to Domina Edith's parlor," Maud offered.

"No. No need to disturb her with this yet." Dame Claire was cellarer now and could make what decisions presently needed to be made and spare Domina Edith as much as might be. Especially until Frevisse had had time to learn more about whatever deception Maryon was involved in this time.

Chapter
3

St. Frideswide's had never grown much beyond its small founding by a pious, wealthy widow on the last century, but without greatly prospering, neither had it dwindled. Within its outer wall were the ample barns, sheds, workshops, and storehouses given over to the priory's worldly necessities, and shut away from them by an inner wall and the cobbled courtyard were the church and cloister that were the priory's heart, where the nuns were supposed—according to the holy Rule of St. Benedict—to live out their lives. Around the four sides of the covered cloister walk were ranged the church, their dormitory and refectory, small chapter and warming room, kitchen, and all other rooms necessary to their work and life. Beyond them was a walled garden where the nuns could walk for recreation and, beyond that, an orchard enclosed by an earthen bank and ditch where, sometimes, they were also allowed to go.

The widow's endowment had been sufficient for all this, but had allowed for no luxuries. Even the church itself had kept within the modest bounds of the priory's resources, boasting only a small, plain nave with a strong-beamed wooden roof and clear-glassed windows. Before the altar were choir stalls for twenty nuns, though St. Frideswide's had never grown to so many and now there were only nine besides their prioress.

Frevisse went to her place on the south side of the choir with Dame Perpetua, Dame Alys, Sister Lucy, and Sister Emma, facing Dame Claire, Sister Juliana, Sister Amicia, and Sister Thomasine across the way, knelt briefly and then settled herself into the familiar seat, ready to remove herself from the world's troubles into the intricacies and pleasures of Vespers.

The deep ways of prayer had saved her two years ago when she had had to come to terms with choices she had made that had led to deaths. She knew from bitter experience that prayer did not free one from the world; but it gave, at the least, respite from the world's troubles and, at best, led into the places where strength to face the power of the world could be found. In prayer when her need was greatest, she had found acceptance in herself of whom she was. And now, as so often, she found in the day's psalm something apt to her own feelings and need.

"Domine, non superbit cor meum, neque extolluntur oculi mei, Nee prosequor res grandes aut altiores me ipso
..." they chanted. Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty. Nor do I pursue matters too great or high for me. No, I have quieted and subdued my soul . . .

Frevisse wove her voice among the other nuns' through the plainsong, all their voices familiar to her from so many other times through so many years. Consciously, she softened her own to allow Sister Thomasine's light, sweet certainty and joy to carry part of the psalm that Frevisse knew she particularly loved.