He said that sadly and crossed himself. Frevisse and Joliffe copied him but Joliffe asked while he did, “When?”
‘About three of the clock this afternoon. Not long after I reached him.“
‘It was a quiet death?“
‘As deaths go, yes.“
‘No sign of poison or anything else amiss?“
‘Nothing.“
Not that that proved anything, Frevisse thought. Poisoning could be done with sufficient subtlety to leave no sign. But even Bishop Pecock forebore to point that out in the long moment they stood silent, before Joliffe said heavily, “You’re in the right. Everything being as it is, the best we can do is wait.”
‘But will you?“ Bishop Pecock asked.
He and Joliffe exchanged a long, mutually assessing look before Joliffe bent his head slightly toward him and said with only faint mockery, “I will.”
‘Until we find something we can do usefully, rather than foolishly,“ Bishop Pecock said.
Joliffe bent his head again. “Until then.”
The pity was, Frevisse thought, that waiting would likely be, of almost all things, the hardest.
* * *
She found out all too soon how hard it was. A message sent that evening to Alice, asking to see her, brought no answer, leaving her to a night restless with circling thoughts and too little sleep. In the morning the church draped in the mourning purples of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent did nothing to help. Even the weather was gone gray again. The only comfort was that the air still had a mild edge, giving hope for spring; and at the end of Prime one of Alice’s ladies found her, to say Alice would see her in the Lady Chapel after Mass if Frevisse would be so good. Frevisse sent back her thanks and word that she would be there.
It was by force of will that Frevisse held her mind to the Mass but, after it, parted from Dame Perpetua with a willingness she hoped did not show and crossed the church to the north transept and the Lady Chapel. It was newer than most of the church, all pale stone and painted statues below tall windows and a blue-painted, golden-ribbed ceiling, with a carpet woven mostly in the Virgin Mary’s blues on the altar steps.
Knowing she would fail, Frevisse did not try to pray but simply waited until soon—not soon enough—Alice came. Gowned in deep purple except for the wide curve of her high, gold-and-pearl-trimmed headdress and the pale gray yards of fine silk trailing from it, she left a gray-gowned lady-in-waiting behind her at the doorway and came, the long train of her gown whispering across the chapel’s tiled floor, to where Frevisse waited. Without greeting, she held out two folded pieces of parchment, each with a large red wax seal hung from it by a ribbon and said, “Your deed. Confirmed and sealed with the king’s own signet. You should have no trouble with it. And a grant from the queen after I reminded her of her promise to you. A small property of her own to St. Frideswide’s.”
Both taken aback with surprise and greatly pleased, Frevisse took the parchments, thanking Alice and asking that she thank the queen, too, on the priory’s behalf.
Alice waved that aside, saying bitterly, “What she gave you cost her nothing but a clerk’s effort and some ink, paper, and wax. She’s hardly had the property in her hands to know she’s given it away. It’s come from what they started grabbing from Gloucester before he was even dead and they’ll be taking more.” The bitterness deepened. “It’s like watching carrion crows on a corpse.”
‘Alice…“
‘There’s a jest running among them, too, that yet again Gloucester has taken the easy way out of trouble. ’Took it lying down, too,‘ that idiot Bart Halley said and they all laughed. King Henry has even ordered there’s to be no mourning. What’s the matter with him? With them all?“
‘What happened yesterday after I left you?“
‘Yesterday.“ Alice circled back through her thoughts as if going a long way and said no less bitterly, ”I told Suffolk the ’truth‘ we’d prepared of how we came to there. I said I knew no more than you did why Gloucester’s son wanted to see the body. That’s true, you know. You must know something about it but I know nothing and therefore know ’no more‘ than you do. Though Suffolk didn’t hear it that way nor did I mean him to. Then I asked him why, since the dead man was one of our people, he hadn’t been seen to properly. Suffolk laid his hand on my shoulder and told me it wasn’t something I need concern myself about.“ Darkly, she added, ”He’s going to do that once too often.“
And when he did, he was going to be sorry, Frevisse thought, but she only asked, “Did he say why he’d kept the man unknown?”
Alice’s voice and face closed over some hurt so inward that it was past anger. “He didn’t. Even when I asked. He didn’t say anything at all. He just walked away.”
‘You know Gloucester’s men are all being arrested?“
‘Yes. Has Arteys been taken, do you know?“
‘He was among the first, I think,“ Frevisse said quietly. ”Can you find out what’s to be done with him, with them?“
‘From what I hear, they’re being sent to a number of places, to be held until matters are ’sorted out.‘ I think Suffolk and the others are using them to show there was reason for Gloucester’s arrest. They’ll be held a time, then they’ll be freed. There won’t be a trial or even investigation worth the name.“
‘There won’t be?“
‘How could they risk something that might show there was no treason? There wasn’t, was there? So they won’t dare bring any of them to trial.“
That made good sense. Frevisse wished she believed that Suffolk had good sense, but there was no point in saying so and Alice, drawing a sharp, deep breath, was shifted to brisk business, saying, “You’ll want to be away to St. Frideswide’s as soon as may be, now you have your grants safe. If you can be ready by midday, I’ve given order for some of our men to go with you then. You can be a goodly number of miles on your way before dark.” Tears were suddenly in the way of her smile as she held out a hand to Frevisse. “I shall miss you.”
Her own smile as unsuccessful, Frevisse took her hand and said all the things that should be said for courtesy’s sake and not the thing they both knew—that she was being sent away as deliberately as young John had been, for her own good and to have her out of the way. There being no point to objecting, she did not but asked, because she had to, “Alice, do you want to know why it mattered for Arteys see the body?”
Alice’s hold on her hand tightened. “No. I know I said I wanted the truth but now I don’t. I can’t. Not if I’m to go on.” A moment longer she stood looking into Frevisse’s face before, with her tears beginning to slide free, she let go and turned away, with nothing Frevisse could do but let her go.
Chapter 24
When she and Dame Perpetua rode into St. Frideswide’s yard at the end of a few days’ easy journey, there were glad cries and then much talk. Even removed as the nunnery was into northern Oxfordshire, they had had some tangled word of the duke of Gloucester’s arrest but nothing after that and there had to be much telling of things seen and heard, with Dame Perpetua all too often saying, “But Dame Frevisse saw more than I did,” and questions turned her way. That meant several drawn-out days of balancing along a line of what she could truthfully tell among all the things she must not say, until finally the questions and talk wore out and the nunnery’s familiar quiet and familiar days closed around her.
They should have been like balm to a hurt and, a little, they were, but the hurt did not heal. She had her duties again, and the welcome hours of prayer and all the usual small troubles and small pleasures of ten women sharing cloistered life, but behind it all, under it all, around it all, there was the waiting, just as she had known and dreaded there would be.
She had thought it would be as much as a few weeks of waiting, but the weeks went on through all of Lent, past Easter, past the end of spring, into summer. From such travelers as came their way and servants’ talk brought back from Banbury, there was word of Gloucester’s body carried in barre
n procession to St. Alban’s abbey in Hertfordshire for its burial, of Parliament’s uneventful end, of Bishop Beaufort of Winchester’s death in April, with of course talk of how he and his life-long rival Gloucester had come at the end to die so nearly together. A packman on his way from London told there was a general rumbling there against the marquis of Suffolk, both over Gloucester’s death and the way the French truce was going, but everything that came as far as St. Frideswide’s was thinned and made uncertain by distance, with nothing about Gloucester’s arrested men beyond a passing mention that some had been freed, uncharged and untried.
Waiting became a hollowness in Frevisse, so familiar after a time that she hardly knew how she had felt before it. Midsummer came with its hot days and the haying was done and sheep shearing finished before finally word came and even then it told her nothing, was not even directly to her. In a letter to Domina Elisabeth, Alice asked that Frevisse be allowed to come to her in London, not bothering with a reason, simply asking it, knowing Domina Elisabeth would not refuse. She had even sent two men with the messenger for escort, and the next morning Frevisse rode out with them and Sister Amicia, who could barely believe her good fortune at Domina Elisabeth having chosen her to go not only out into the world but to London.
Sister Amicia would not have been Frevisse’s first choice but her talk and exclaims and—after their first two days of riding—complaints at being stiff and sore kept a little at bay Frevisse’s worries and wondering about why Alice had summoned her; and at night when her thoughts might have closed in on her, the weariness of having ridden from first light until long into dusk drew her quickly down into almost dreamless sleep. That the men were pressing hard to be back to London was clear but no questions Frevisse asked brought answer why, nor did they talk much among themselves for her to overhear, until finally—not understanding but accepting it—she stopped asking anything of them.
They came in sight of London in the fourth day’s midafternoon. Frevisse made them draw rein on Hampstead hill and wait while Sister Amicia, silenced at last, stared her fill across the fields at the city stretched along the broad Thames, its several scores of church spires needled toward the clear sky above the dark crowd of roofs, with the great spire of St. Paul’s thrusting highest of all, gold glinting at its point, while ship masts forested the river and away to the right Westminster Abbey rose like a cream-pale cliff against the distant Surrey hills.
Even for those used to seeing it, it was a sight worth looking at, and only when Sister Amicia caught up to her wonder and began to exclaim again did Frevisse nod at the men to ride on. They did, down from the hills into the valley, with Frevisse obliged to tell Sister Amicia that they would not be going into London yet. Sister Amicia protested that and Frevisse left it to one of the men to explain, “We’re for Holborn, my lady. Or nigh St. Giles-in-the-Fields out Holborn way. That’s where my lord of Suffolk has his place.”
‘But London!“ Sister Amicia wailed.
‘We’ll likely have chance to see it before we leave,“ Frevisse said, careful to make that a hope, not a promise, then padded it with telling what little she knew about lately built Suffolk Place.
Like everywhere near London, the village around St. Giles-in-the-Fields church had grown since Frevisse had last been there. Suffolk was not the only lord to have come to where St. Martin’s Lane on its way north crossed the ways to Reading and Uxbridge out of London, near both to the city and the king’s court at Westminster but without the crowded streets and overbuilt Strand along the Thames. Their halls and houses gleamed with newness among the fields, their gardens spread around and behind them. Frevisse knew Suffolk Place by the blue banner with its gold leopard heads lifting on the afternoon’s slight breeze above the gateway even before they turned from the road to ride into the broad, cobbled yard enclosed on two sides by walls, on a third by a low run of buildings, on the fourth by the great hall with a roof-tall, stone-traceried oriel window thrust out from its side into the yard.
While Sister Amicia exclaimed at the sight of it all, the ungracious thought crossed Frevisse’s mind that Suffolk had clearly built to match his own opinion of his importance.
At the foot of the broad, roofed stairway up to the hall’s stone-arched doorway their escort gave her and Sister Amicia over to the liveried servant who descended to meet them. The man even took their two small bags to carry and said when he had led them up the stairs and into the wide screens passage, “I’d see you to your room first and send to tell my lady you’re here, but she’s given order…”
‘… that she would see her cousin as soon as she arrives,“ said Joliffe, coming out of the great hall into their way. Frevisse’s eyes were still half-blinded in the shadowed passage after the bright out-of-doors but she knew his voice as he went lightly, easily on, ”If you want to see this other good lady to their room, I’ll see Dame Frevisse to Lady Alice, if you like.“
Despite Sister Amicia dithered a little at parting from her, Frevisse sent her on her way without pity or compunction; but as the servant led Sister Amicia off, Joliffe gave no chance for questions, only bowed briefly and started away, leaving Frevisse to follow him into the great hall where servants were setting up the tables for supper. In the better light there she saw, though hardly believed, that he was in the Suffolk livery of buff and blue, which gave her to hard, silent wondering as they left the hall, passed through several rooms, down other stairs, and through another door to outside again, onto a graveled walkway bordered by a low green hedge with gardens lying beyond it. They looked to be as perfect and new as the house, laid out with patterned beds and paths, trellised and arbored and with a fountain’s soft sound from somewhere. Ignoring all that, Frevisse demanded at Joliffe’s back, “What are you doing here? Who are you now?”
Joliffe turned around, wholly feigned innocence on his face. “My lady? I’m Master Noreys, of course, here because I’m master of pastimes to my lord and lady of Suffolk.”
‘Bishop Beaufort is dead.“
‘He is indeed, leaving me in need of honest work. Hence, here I am.“
‘Why haven’t you sent me some word of what’s happened?“
Joliffe’s lightness instantly disappeared. “Because there hasn’t been word to send until now, and now it’s bad enough that Lady Alice needed you to be here and quickly.”
He turned and started away again into the gardens. Frevisse followed, asking, “Does she know about you?”
Joliffe looked back. “She knows enough. Bishop Beaufort recommended me to her.”
‘And Suffolk? Does he know?“
‘No.“
She was not used to so little laughter in him and asked, more sharply than she meant, “And now? What’s happened that Alice wants me here?”
‘Better that she tell you.“
He turned through a gap in a high, square-clipped yew hedge into the small garden it enclosed, a square of greensward dotted with tiny white daisies in the grass around the double-tiered, stone-built fountain Frevisse had been hearing. Three ladies were seated with their sewing there on a turf-topped brick bench while a fourth, on a cushion on the grass, played lightly on a lute. They all paused to greet Master Noreys by name, smiling, and he bowed to them with a polite, “My fair ladies,” that for some reason set them giggling as he led Frevisse across the garden to the head-high brick wall that made its far side and through the gateway there into a yet smaller garden, enclosed all around by the wall, its grass likewise starred with daisies, with a turf-topped brick bench along one side. But here there was trellis-work lightly covered by young vines on three sides and a climbing pink rose on the fourth and Alice was seated on the bench, gowned in green as summer-rich as the close-trimmed grass, with only the lightest of white veils over a small, jeweled, padded roll to cover her hair.
With a book open on her lap, she looked perfectly the gracious, wealthy lady at repose, but by the spasmed way she shut and laid the book aside, Frevisse doubted she had been anything like at repose or even readi
ng, and while Joliffe closed the gate, she came to take Frevisse tightly by both hands, saying, “You’ve come. Thank St. Anne,” and drew to the bench to sit down without letting go of her. “It was a good ride? Everything went well? You’re well? Did Dame Perpetua come with you again?”
The questions were all what the moment called for but they came in a rush, driven rather than given, and Frevisse, taking back her hands, answered steadily that the ride had gone well, that she was well, that Sister Amicia—“whom I think you’ve never met”—had come with her, not Dame Perpetua.
Joliffe had followed them across the grass. Not invited to sit, he stood beside them and Frevisse could feel his waiting, as taut as Alice’s graciousness, and she asked, going to the point, “What’s the matter? Why have you sent for me?”
Alice looked up at Joliffe. “You didn’t say anything?”
He made her a slight bow. “I thought it was for you to do, my lady.”
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