The Bastard's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

‘You risk being seen and known,“ Bishop Pecock warned.

  ‘She said the sooner done the better. Besides, who would she send for me?“

  ‘Points well taken.“ Though Bishop Pecock looked as if he would rather not take them.

  The other nun appeared at the stall’s open end, gave them all a quick look, but asked of Dame Frevisse, “Nones?”

  ‘Dame Perpetua.“ Dame Frevisse sounded as if she had forgotten her, then said, ”Bishop Pecock, we wondered if you’d hear our confessions.“

  Confession. Arteys had not been thinking of this as Shrove Tuesday but, yes, he wanted confession, to purge his soul and be given penance for his sins before Lent began, and maybe Bishop Pecock, looking at him just then, saw that in his face because his momentary hesitation at Dame Frevisse’s request went away and he said, “Of course. If you wish it. And here is as good a confessional as any.”

  He heard Dame Perpetua first, then Dame Frevisse, while Arteys waited, seated at one of the tables, gathering up his sins, as it were, to have them ready. When his turn came, he went willingly to kneel in front of Bishop Pecock seated at his desk, put his hands between the bishop’s, and with bowed head and closed eyes said the ritual words, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  He first confessed things that, four days ago, would have seemed heavy to him—that since he last confessed he had fallen into anger, been sometimes slothful at his duties, once been envious, once been gluttonous over candied ginger…

  He trailed to silence.

  Bishop Pecock waited a moment, then asked, “And?”, knowing as well as Arteys did what else there was to say.

  Softly Arteys said, “I killed a man.”

  ‘Of purpose and in anger?“

  ‘Of purpose. But not in anger.“ Arteys stopped. Could that be right? Slowly, working his way through the thought, he said, ”There wasn’t time for anger. I wanted to stop him, that was all.“

  ‘Tell me about it.“

  Arteys almost said, “I already did.” But Bishop Pecock was plainly not one of those priests who simply took a confession as it came and gave penance by rote. He was one of those who probed, wanting to know what the sinner understood about his sin, the better to help him clear his soul, and with head still lowered and eyes still shut, Arteys obediently told the killing over again, careful at the words, wanting them right both in his head and aloud.

  When he had finished, Bishop Pecock asked very gently, “Is the pain lessened?”

  Arteys held silent a moment before raising his head to look at the bishop’s quiet face. “Yes. That’s wrong of me, isn’t it?”

  ‘No. That’s right of you. The purpose of penance is to heal, not to keep the soul’s wounds open.“

  ‘I haven’t done penance yet.“

  ‘Did you enjoy telling me how you killed him?“

  “No.”

  ‘Nor did I think you would. The telling was a penance in itself, then. And each telling puts more words between you and the act, setting it further off from you. Therefore, your telling served both as penance and a beginning of healing.“

  ‘I’ll never be healed.“ He hadn’t let himself know that fear until now.

  ‘Not of the knowledge of what you did, no, but of its weight on your soul, yes.“ Bishop Pecock laid a hand on the top of Arteys’ head. ”Remember that. Confession and penance are to free you from guilt’s weight, lest the burden bear you down and twist you from your rightful shape. Now, for the rest of your penance.“

  Afterward, feeling raw inside but cleaner, Arteys left the library with Dame Frevisse. He thought that, as always, life would soon sully him again but for this little while, whatever happened next, he was cleansed and lightened and he held to that feeling as they came out of the passageway’s cool half-darkness into the windy sunlight and happily noisy crowd filling the Great Court. The King’s Hall was only a little aside from there along the walk, its doorway flanked by half a dozen guards, some of them in Suffolk’s livery. Silent until then, Dame Frevisse said, “Wait here,” went, and spoke to one of the guards just as trumpets sang out from inside the hall, only a little muted by stone walls.

  She returned to say, “They’re beginning the second remove already. There’ll be a third remove and then Joliffe’s farce before they’re done. What about our own dinner in the meanwhile? We should eat at least one pancake today, shouldn’t we?”

  She tried a smile that looked as stiff as Arteys’ own face felt as he tried a smile back to her. Too many things were twisted together inside him, and in her, too, he guessed, for easy smiling. But pancakes were a tradition on Shrove Tuesday, a way to use up the fats and eggs forbidden during Lent, and he said, “We should.”

  Among the foodsellers in the Great Court there were choices of pancakes a-plenty. Pan-cooked and soft; fat-fried and crisp; thin; thick; plain battered or dyed green or red or saffron; alone or wrapped around spiced meat. Dame Frevisse chose and bought, and with a warm, meat-filled pancake in his hand, Arteys found he was hungry. They walked together through the crowd and booths and merriment while they ate and even stopped awhile among all else there was to see to watch a man beating a small drum slung from his belt while piping on a triple whistle and dancing for a delighted knot of children. Dame Frevisse dropped a coin into his waiting cap when they moved on toward a stall selling crisp cakes.

  ‘Let me pay this,“ said Arteys.

  ‘Let Bishop Beaufort. This is his money I’m using.“

  Arteys liked that thought enough that he let her, and her smile and his were slightly easier as she handed him one of the thin cakes, saying as they walked on, “It’s surprising the weight that the small, good things of life have against life’s great troubles.”

  That was true, Arteys found as he thought about it. He had been—he was—heart-deep afraid through these past several days but now, because he was out in a merry crowd and sunlight and was eating a crisp cake that tasted good, he could remember—and almost feel— what easy happiness was like.

  But they came back finally to the King’s Hall, where an outburst of laughter from inside brought Dame Frevisse to say, “The play is on. I’d best go in, to be ready when it ends. Wait here.”

  He wanted to. He also wanted, almost as much, to walk away from it all, to leave and pretend there was nothing he could hope to do. But he owed his father better than that, owed Suffolk more than that, and said, clenching silence around his fear, “I’d rather go in. I want to see them.” Suffolk and the lords who were making all this happen.

  Dame Frevisse gave a long look into his face before saying, “Come then.”

  Because the guards in Suffolk’s livery both knew her, she was let in without trouble, and because Arteys was with her, so was he. Inside, the wide doorway from the screens passage into the great hall was crowded with servants watching whatever was happening in the hall and laughing aloud. Dame Frevisse moved through them with a firmly murmured, “Clear, please. Clear,” and they did, both for her and for Arteys at her heels, but once into the hall, there was no going onward. With tables, trestles, and benches removed, the whole middle length of the hall had been given over to the players, everyone else drawn back to stand along the walls save at the far end where King Henry, Queen Margaret, Abbot Babington, Suffolk, Lady Alice, York, Buckingham, Dorset, several high churchmen, and other lords and ladies were seated on the dais. The best Dame Frevisse could do was ease sideways along the wall just inside the doorway, making a small place for herself and Arteys to stand.

  He had no way to tell what the play was about, except there seemed to be several pairs of husbands and wives in improbably colorful peasant garments, apparently hilariously quarreling with each other. It took him a few moments to find out Joliffe, looking particularly strange in a tattered yellow and green tunic, his hair greased to stand out from his head. He was paired with a big-bosomed, large-bottomed, loud-voiced woman whom Arteys only barely recognized as the young man who had been Lady Soul, while the man who had been Wisdom was to one s
ide, rat-tatting madly on a drum whenever some wilder moment of the play needed it.

  Whatever was going on, their audience was almost helpless with laughter, and Arteys’ anger that these past days had been almost all at Suffolk jerked sickeningly in him as he watched King Henry wiping laughter-tears away. How could he sit there laughing, no sign of grief about him at all? How could he leave Gloucester to die without a word, without anything, even the comfort of his own people around him? For Suffolk, Gloucester had never been anything to him except someone in his way. But how could King Henry truly believe Gloucester had turned traitor to him after all this time and be so cold about it?

  If, in that moment, Arteys had had to choose between his blood-cousin the king and the hound Gelert back in Wales, it would not have been King Henry he chose.

  The play ended with a rat-tatting of the drum and the players mock-fighting at each other for better places as they made a line below the dais, their deep bows marred by elbows jerking sideways into other people’s rib and elbows jerking back, all while they tried to keep a most earnest dignity. Laughing hard, King Henry motioned one of the squires standing attendance behind him to take a small purse to Master Wilde, who stepped forward and received it with a bow so low his head nearly touched the floor. Queen Margaret, wiping her eyes with one hand, pointed one of her waiting ladies to give a like purse to Joliffe, who made great show of being too weak in the knees with shyness to step forward until rudely pushed by his fellows on either side. He matched Master Wilde’s bow but stumbled over his own feet when he made to step back to his place so that he lurched against the player next to him, who gave him a hard push into the man on Joliffe’s other side, who shoved back as Joliffe shoved the first man, then turned to shove him, the whole line instantly in chaos and the players making a running retreat down the hall in a flurry of colors and noise and the onlookers’ laughing and clapping, the servants parting to let them into the screens passage and away.

  Low in Arteys’ ear, Dame Frevisse said, “I’m going to try to reach Lady Alice now. Go to the dark end of the screens passage and wait for me.”

  The crowd was spreading out across the hall and servants were bringing trays of drinks and sweets to serve to the king and queen and others on the dais, everyone still loud with pleasure from the play. Arteys had no trouble slipping out and to the passage’s far end from the door, taking with him the sudden hurt that this was how today would have been for Gloucester, for him, for all of them—an ordinary holiday among ordinary other days—except Suffolk had darkly twisted everything out of shape and out of hope.

  A few people were leaving the hall, most going the other way from where he stood but not many past him to the stairs, mostly servants and no one particularly noting him standing very still in a corner until Dame Frevisse came out of the hall, Lady Alice with her, one of her ladies following. Lady Alice bade the woman stop before they reached him, came on with Dame Frevisse, and said as he made a low bow to her, “Arteys. I remember you. You came sometimes with your father to court. I’m sorry beyond measure for all that’s happening.”

  Her warm voice and courtesy confused him. “Yes, my lady,” he said, making himself think of her as Dame Frevisse’s cousin, not Suffolk’s wife.

  ‘Dame Frevisse wants me to view this dead man, to see if maybe I know him. You want to go with me, I gather, to see him, too. Yes?“

  ‘Yes, my lady.“

  ‘That’s all she’s told me and I gather she would rather I didn’t ask more, so I won’t. There’s something I’d ask of you, though. Ask me yourself, in your own words, for my help in seeing this man. Then, if there’s trouble about it later, I can honestly say you asked me and maybe not have to bring Dame Frevisse into it.“

  ‘Alice?“ Dame Frevisse asked, openly surprised.

  Lady Alice looked at her. “I’m afraid. I’ve told you that. Nothing feels safe anymore. I’m not putting you at risk if I can help it.” She looked to Arteys again. “Sir?”

  ‘My lady, will it please you to help me have sight of the man who was found dead in the river?“ he asked.

  Lady Alice granted that with a gracious inclination of her head. “Now ask Dame Frevisse to speak to me on your behalf. That way, if she’s brought into it after all, I can say you asked for her help in speaking to me and that, so far as I know, that’s her only part in this. Because, so far as I know, it is her only part.”

  ‘Alice, if you think this is all that unsafe—“ Dame Frevisse began.

  ‘Dame Frevisse,“ Arteys said before she could say more, ”would you aid me to speak to your cousin, Lady Alice of Suffolk?“

  Her mouth a tight-shut line, Dame Frevisse nodded that she would. “Thank you,” said Lady Alice. “Now all we need do is find where this body is.” She beckoned her waiting lady to her. The woman came readily, making a curtsy to Lady Alice and Dame Frevisse while giving a slight smile and upward look through her lashes at Arteys. “He’s comely, yes,” Lady Alice said crisply, “but leave off your looking for now, Madelayn. This dead man who was found in the river. I’ve heard you and the others talking about it. Has anyone named him yet?”

  ‘No, my lady. Rafe says no one has even been able to see him since he was brought up from the river.“

  ‘Not even a priest?“

  ‘He’s been prayed over, I suppose, surely,“ Madelayn said. ”But he’s not in church or chapel or anything like that, you see.“

  ‘Where is he then?“

  ‘In the prior’s garden, my lady.“

  ‘In the prior’s garden? Your Rafe has been telling you stories.“

  ‘No,“ the woman protested. ”There’s a shed there. The body was put in there.“

  ‘Why in a shed in the prior’s garden?“ Lady Alice demanded.

  Madelayn looked doubtful. “To have it out of the way while the holidaying goes on?” She brightened a little. “But it’s to be moved. Rafe had the dawn watch on it this morning and says there’s talk it’s going to be.”

  Guard on a dead body? Arteys wondered, while Lady Alice asked, “Where’s this garden?”

  ‘I know it,“ Dame Frevisse said. ”If it’s walled and on the other side of the prior’s courtyard from the library.“

  ‘That’s it,“ said Madelayn.

  ‘Good,“ said Lady Alice. She gathered her full skirts forward from where they trailed behind her, draped them over her arm, and started for the outer door.

  ‘My lady, you’ll need a cloak,“ Madelayn protested.

  ‘Have mine,“ said Arteys, beginning to unclasp it.

  ‘Thank you. Madelayn, fetch me my own from wherever it is and bring it after me.“

  The woman made quick curtsy and hurried away. Arteys laid his cloak around Lady Alice’s fashionably bare shoulders and moved ahead to clear the way for her and Dame Frevisse. Outside, they turned along the walkway, not making open haste but moving quickly to the passageway through to the abbot’s garden.

  ‘You’ll be missed from the hall,“ Dame Frevisse said.

  ‘Waiting on the queen does not excuse one from bodily needs. If we do this quickly, no one will ask where I’ve been,“ Lady Alice answered. ”And quickly is how we want to do this, I think?“

  In the abbot’s garden the sounds of the fair were distant beyond the buildings and there were few people to be seen. The prior’s courtyard was empty of anyone and even quieter. Only at the gateway through the head-high wall around the prior’s garden were they able to see the lone man in plain brown doublet and hosen sitting on a bench beside the door to a shed in the far corner, his head back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, an axe-headed halberd leaning against the wall beside him. Arteys tried the gate but the latch did not lift and the man on the bench stood up, fumbling up his halberd as he called, “No one’s to come in. Go away.”

  Arteys stepped aside, giving way to Lady Alice, who moved forward and said back, “Simmon, I’m coming in. Open this gate.”

  Simmon’s pause was barely there before he
leaned the halberd against the wall again and came hurrying. The garden was small—four squared plots with paths between and turf benches along the walls. The guard had the gate open in hardly a moment, trying to explain something, but Lady Alice swept past him toward the trellised shed, saying, “We’ve come to see the body found in the river.”

  Left with the choice of hurrying ahead of her to open the door, or not, Simmon chose to hurry and grabbed it out of her way barely before she would have had to stop or walk into it. As it was, Lady Alice stopped and ordered, “Go in and open the shutter. It’s too dark to see anything. Why is the body here instead of a chapel or the church? Do you know?”

  ‘I don’t know anything, my lady,“ the guard said, scurrying inside to unlatch and push aside the one window’s shutter. ”I wasn’t told anything but not to let anyone in. That’s all I was told.“

  ‘Why aren’t you in livery?“

  ‘I was told not to be, my lady.“