The Boy's Tale (5 page)

Dame Alys had apparently not come to the guesthall to see if all was in order for their guests. Frevisse gave what orders she thought necessary for the night to various of the servants besides Ela and then went in search of Master Naylor, though by now it was well beyond the time she should have been inside the cloister.

Beyond the gateway, the long, soft light of the summer's evening filled the outer yard. The warm and quiet day was drawing to a warm and quiet close, as if there had been no panic and fear at the cloister door, or a badly hurt man in the guesthall, or dead men to be buried. None of that seemed any part of St. Frideswide's, but only an aberration of the moment now past and ready to be forgotten.

But it was not past. There was still much to be dealt with, and Frevisse was glad to see Master Naylor detach himself from a group of men talking beside the gate out to the road and start toward her across the outer yard. The gate, Frevisse noted, was closed and barred, a thing usually done only at the edge of full dark. And there was at least one man on the roof of the gatehouse over it, where there would be a long view of the countryside in most directions.

"Dame Frevisse," the steward said with an inclination of his head as they met near the middle of the yard. Through experiences neither of them had wanted to have, they had learned respect for each other, and he asked more directly than he might have any of the other nuns, "How does the knight? The wound looked bad."

"Dame Claire thinks he'll live if it doesn't infect. His squire could tell me almost nothing about what happened." Or had not chosen to. "What have you learned?"

"Only that they were traveling and were attacked by outlaws. The men fought while the women fled with the boys for safety. Two of the men were killed and five of their attackers."

"The man I talked to, Sir Gawyn's squire, thought only five attacked them."

'That's what the other man said, too, when I questioned him. If so, then this band of outlaws at least is finished."

"But you've seen fit to close the gates and set a guard."

"And have sent warning to the village to be on-watch and a man to the sheriff and Master Montfort." The sheriff both for protection and to look into this breach of the King's peace; Master Montfort because he was crowner, with the duty to look into any violent or uncertain deaths and determine where the wrong lay and what was owed the King in fines and forfeitures.

"Have there been any reports of outlaws hereabouts?" Frevisse asked.

"None for years."

"Did Colwin have any idea why they were attacked?"

"None. He says they just attacked without any reason he knows of."

"And do you believe him?"

"No."

Frevisse waited but he went no further until she prodded, "Why not?"

Slowly, as if wishing to keep his thoughts to himself until he had had longer to think them over, Master Naylor said, "Any outlaws looking for prey worth their while around here would have to be on the foolish side of their work, and these men were too well dressed and well weaponed to have been fools."

Master Naylor was no more easy in his mind about the outlaws than she was about Maryon's claim to be the children's mother. And there was another thing. "Sir Gawyn was wearing a breastplate under his doublet. I think his squire is, too, from the way he moves."

Master Naylor frowned over that, following her thought. "The roads aren't so unsafe that men usually go armored. Or if they do, they wear it openly, to warn attackers that they're on guard and ready."

"So they were expecting they might be attacked, and at the same time wanted to seem like no more than plain travelers."

"And now neither of us thinks they are," Master Naylor said.

"No," Frevisse agreed. "We don't."

Chapter
4

It was too late now to look to the kitchen for food, but fasting was familiar to her, and comfortable; the discipline freed the mind from the body's demands. And just now her mind needed freedom to think through what had happened— was happening—and how much trouble it might mean for St. Frideswide's if her suspicions were anywhere near the mark.

Her soft-soled shoes made almost no sound on the stone paving as she made her way around the cloister walk toward the door and stairs up to the dormitory. In the relative privacy of her bed there would be time for thinking.

But at the far corner of the cloister walk, someone rose from where she had been sitting on the low inner wall among the evening, flower-scented shadows and stood in her way. Maryon.

Frevisse stopped. They regarded each other in mutual silence. There was starlight enough to recognize one another, used as their eyes were to the darkness, but not enough for Frevisse to read Maryon's face in the moth-pale circle of her wimple and veil.

Not that Maryon's face had ever been easy to read, Frevisse remembered. When she chose, she had the wide-eyed innocence of a considering cat, her manners smooth and bland as skimmed milk, even when in danger of being considered a murderess, as she had been when last at St. Frideswide's. Come in supposed service to the formidable and offensive Lady Ermentrude but actually a secret ward against that lady's indiscreet tongue, her anomalous position had become known when Lady Ermentrude had died precipitously of poison, and only Frevisse's refusal to be satisfied with the obvious had cleared her then.

Driven by urgent need this afternoon, she had not been calm, and that told Frevisse something about how deep the danger might be, and something about Maryon herself. Even driven and afraid, she had had her wits about her and kept control of her tears and temper.

In the hours since then, she had had time to recover her smooth calm. Her voice lilted softly with its Welsh inflections as she said gently, "I need to talk with you."

Her need matched Frevisse's desire. Without speaking, Frevisse beckoned her along the walk to the slype, the place within the cloister where conversation that could not be delayed was allowed. The narrow passage led from the cloister toward the garden and was shadowed to deep darkness. Maryon hesitated before entering, listening for betraying sounds, and glanced around to be sure there was no one else near, before she followed Frevisse in. With a caution come from Maryon's own wariness, Frevisse said barely above a whisper, "What do you want?"

"First, to thank you for not giving away you knew me."

Frevisse bent her head in acknowledgment, and waited. Maryon glanced over her shoulder again and said, "Will anyone else remember me, do you think?"

"Of the nuns, only Dame Claire and Sister Thomasine might."

"Dame Claire came to tell me of Sir Gawyn, that he'll likely live, God be thanked, and she didn't remember me then so that's all right. Will you tell Sister Thomasine to say nothing, please?"

"Sister Thomasine is so minded on otherworldly things that I doubt she'll even notice your presence unless you talk face-to-face, and if you come to that, you can tell her yourself. Some of the guesthall servants might remember you, but it's been five years since you were here, and a great many visitors have come this way since then."

"But we can stay in the cloister, can't we?" Maryon asked quickly.

"You still wish to claim sanctuary? Because that means that when the sheriff comes, he'll have to know and there'll be the question of why, and what law you broke and what king's officer you're fleeing."

"We're guilty of nothing," she said in a level voice.

"But are accused of something, and need protection until you can prove your innocence?"

Maryon hesitated before answering warily, "We're accused of nothing but we need safety until we can leave here."

"All the men who attacked you this afternoon were killed. There's nothing more to fear from them."

"No, not from them," Maryon agreed.

"From who then?"

Maryon did not answer.

Choosing her words carefully, Frevisse asked, "Do you still serve ... the lady that you did?"

Somewhere among the stones a cricket was chirruping; there was no other sound in the quiet thick as the darkness around them except their own breathing for the betraying while until Maryon said, "Yes."

"And the boys are her children, not yours."

As if the word came between clenched teeth, Maryon answered, "Yes."

"God help us," Frevisse breathed fervently.

Maryon grasped her arm in the dark with fingers far stronger than their white slenderness suggested and said, as near to open desperation as Frevisse had ever heard her, "It's
your
help we need right now. For pity of the Virgin who suffered for her Child, hide these children here just this little while until we can go on our way. Help me to hide them."

"From whom? From what? Their mother is the queen dowager. Their half brother is the King of England." The words sounded unreal even as she said them. "Who threatens them?"

Maryon held silent.

Pushed by her own fear, Frevisse said harshly, "I need to know more before I can agree to anything."

"How much do you want to know? All of it?"

"No!" Frevisse exclaimed, with belated realization that she wanted to know only as much as necessary of the matter. What she did not know, she could not be held responsible for. But there was danger here beyond what had happened today. A danger she had helped to bring into St. Frideswide's, and she had to understand at least a little of it. "Are you in flight from . . . their mother? Is that it? If so—"

"She sent them away. We're all of her household. She entrusted them to us, to see them to safety with their father's folk in Wales."

"Why?"

A night bird in the garden and the cricket still chirruping filled the silence.

Frevisse put her hand over Maryon's still on her arm, gripping it as tightly as Maryon was holding to her, to make her understand the urgency of what she was asking. "Who wants these boys so badly and frightens her so much, their mother sent them in secret flight across the country? Not the King, surely."

King Henry was fourteen years old and still governed by his royal council, but by all reports he was a competent, clever youth, not someone his own mother would fear.

"Of course not! But he doesn't rule, does he? It's the lords around him who have power."

"And they've learned these children exist and want control of them."

Again rigidly, Maryon admitted, "Yes." But then as if that had freed something—with so much said, more might as well be—she added, "My lady kept them secret all these years because she was afraid of this. She wanted her marriage to be simply her marriage, not something talked over, considered, arranged by lords who cared nothing and knew nothing of her.

"So when she and Lord Owen fell in love, they both knew they had no right to but they were not able to help it. Truly they're lovely together, like a lord and lady of a romance, but she knew she could only marry him secretly. The lords of the Council had already cut her off from her own son. She's not allowed to live with him, nor have any say in his raising. Visit him sometimes and send him pretty presents but that's all, because she's a woman and would weaken his kingship by spoiling him." Maryon's rich contempt of the lords of the Council was plain in her voice. "They deny her the child she has and would have refused her any marriage or children more because that would all be complications for our lords of the Council. A stepfather and half brothers to the King, no, they'd not allow that."

"So she married secretly and had her children secretly," said Frevisse. And kept her secrets this long, which told a great deal about both her strength of will and courage and how beloved she must be by those who served in her household, that they had kept her secret as well.