She stood in the center of the hall, fists on her wide hips, glaring over her handful of minions as if she were a commander rallying particularly stupid troops for battle. It was Dame Alys’s opinion that, generally speaking, everyone was more stupid than herself, and servants particularly so.
Nor was she pleased to see Frevisse, or interested in dissembling her displeasure. “What are you wanting here, Dame?” she demanded. “This isn’t your place anymore.”
Frevisse had long since learned that the best way to deal with Dame Alys was to say as little as possible and to say it very mildly. Now she bowed her head in acknowledgment of Dame Alys’s blunt truth and said, “I’ve Dame Claire’s permission to speak with Mistress Maryon.”
“About having those whelps out of the cloister, I hope,” Dame Alys snapped. “She’s with that man.” She jerked her head toward Sir Gawyn’s room. “And he’s as welcome to be out of here as those brats are.”
Frevisse curtsied a small thanks and left her.
Sir Gawyn’s room was one of the guesthall’s smaller ones and plainly furnished. There was the bed, a crucifix hanging on the wall opposite its foot, a small table beside it, and a joint stool. The table was crowded with the clutter of necessities—a basin, a pottery jug, a roll of bandages, and various bowls and cups. Sir Gawyn lay as Frevisse had last seen him three days ago, his eyes closed and very still; but he was no longer sick-gray with pain, only pallid, and had been shaven and washed and his hair combed so that, even lying as he was, drawn and colorless, obviously worn with blood-loss and pain, Frevisse could see that though he was not handsome, there was an attractive strength in his face.
His squire, Will Tendril, was leaning against the wall beside the crucifix, arms crossed on his chest, his gaze on the floor in front of him. Maryon seated on the joint stool, in reach of both the table and Sir Gawyn, was telling her beads in her lap. She and Will both looked up as Frevisse paused in the doorway. Then Will straightened from the wall and Maryon rose to her feet, alarmed questioning in her face. Frevisse smiled reassurance that nothing was wrong and gestured for her to come out of the room.
“I’m awake,” Sir Gawyn said. “You don’t have to go.” He turned his head on the pillow to see who was there, his eyes fever-bright but not burning. He frowned a little. “You were here at the first. When we came. I remember seeing you then.”
“She’s Dame Frevisse,” Maryon offered.
Recognition sharpened his gaze. “Dame Frevisse,” he repeated. “Yes, Maryon has talked about you. Will.”
Will had come forward a step when Sir Gawyn first roused. Now, without needing further order, he bowed and went out of the room.
“He’ll see that no one overhears us,” Sir Gawyn said. “Is everything all right? The boys?”
“They’re well. But they stole out of the cloister this afternoon—no, they came to no harm, only got themselves wet and happy playing in a stream and not so happy after I found them and brought them back inside.”
“Where was Jenet?” Maryon demanded.
“Gone to the village church, I gather.”
“To pray over Hery Simon’s corpse.”
“I suppose so,” Frevisse agreed. If that was the name of the man she had loved.
At the man’s name Sir Gawyn’s mouth had tightened. Now he asked, “When will they be buried?”
“Tomorrow, if the sheriff and crowner are readily satisfied. They’re to be here by this evening, had you heard?”
“Master Naylor sent word of it,” Maryon said. “What’s taken them so long?”
“I gather they had to finish sorting out the rights and wrongs of a quarrel broken into deadly violence at a village on the far side of the shire before they could come here.”
“That’s as well,” Sir Gawyn said. “I’ve more of my wits about me now than I would have had if they’d come sooner, and more strength for it.”
“You look far better than you did.”
“It doesn’t much feel better.?’ His right hand went toward his left shoulder’s bulk of bandages, but he did not touch it. “But I’m better than being dead like Hery and Hamon anyway.” He laid his hand along his side again.
“And he’s fevered no more than’s to be expected,” Maryon said. “Your Dame Claire is very good. If everything goes on as it is, we’ll maybe be able to leave before the month is out.”
Her soft Welsh voice lilted over the words, but Sir Gawyn, his eyes closed again, lay with his face rigidly still and no response. Pretending she did not see, Frevisse said, “Then we must find more for the children to do, if they’re to be kept in the cloister so long a while.”
“Jenet should see to them,” Maryon said. “She’ll have to stop so much grieving over Hery.”
“She’s doing as well as she’s able, I think. It’s mostly that we have so little to offer Edmund and Jasper here to entertain and occupy them. What I wanted to ask you was whether we might allow them to go outside the cloister, if someone was with them all the while and they stayed inside the walls? Not until the sheriff and crowner are gone, certainly, but afterwards? It would help them be quieter the rest of the time, I think.”
“They might be less apt to go looking on their own if we allowed them that much,” Maryon agreed thoughtfully.
“And I’ll try to have someone besides Jenet to watch them, too.” Perhaps Sister Amicia, who burbled like a never ending brook about how sweet and pretty and charming and witty they were.
Softly Maryon said, “He’s sleeping again.”
Her attention had never fully left Sir Gawyn. Now Frevisse saw that his breathing had evened, his face eased. Sleep was probably the best thing for him through these days, and in silent agreement, she and Maryon left the room.
Will stood a few feet beyond the doorway, in talk with a short, stocky man, rough-dressed as if he were a groom or man-at-arms; by the sword at his side, he was the latter. “Colwin,” Maryon said to him. “Is everything well?”
“Aye, mistress,” Col win answered with a bow. “I’ve been out to exercise the horses is all, and Will and I are trading places now.”
With Sir Gawyn ill, the men had apparently accepted that authority now centered on Maryon. From what Frevisse knew of her, she would handle it well, and woe to anyone who thought she could not. With glimmering amusement, Frevisse wondered what had passed between Maryon and Dame Alys here in the guesthall, with their very different ways and very similar wills.
A flurry and bustle of something out of the ordinary around the outer door made them look across the hall. “I think the sheriff and crowner are here,” Frevisse said with sinking heart.
Maryon returned to Sir Gawyn without a word. Will and Colwin exchanged glances and moved to flank the room’s door.
Frevisse wished there were some way to reach the cloister without encountering the crowner Master Montfort. The few times he had come here, he had never approved of her interference in his business. And she had never approved of either his arrogance or his ignorance. But he and a man she assumed was the sheriff were already entering the hall with perhaps half a dozen of their entourage behind them. Dame Alys was bearing down on them to make welcome, and there was no likelihood of avoiding any of them unless Frevisse chose to make an ignominious retreat to the kitchen and hope for a chance to slip out later.
She chose not to do that. Hands tucked into her sleeves and her gaze lowered, she started across the hall with the thought that if Dame Alys and Master Montfort would ignore her, she would willingly ignore them.
Probably Dame Alys gladly would have, but as Frevisse circled to pass them with no more than a respectful inclination of her head in their direction, Master Montfort said, “Dame Frevisse, is it not? You’re no longer hosteler so what do you here? Interfering again? I won’t have it. This is the one I warned you of, Master Worleston. Take heed, Dame Frevisse, he’s been warned. He knows about you and won’t have you interfering any more than I will.”
Her expression carefully mild over the seet
he Master Montfort always roused in her, Frevisse made curtsy to Master Worleston. He made bow back, and they both took the chance to look directly at one another. He was a well-fleshed man, with the high color of good living, dressed in a dark, calf-length houppelande cut sensibly for riding with none of the excess of sleeves that Master Montfort indulged in to show his importance. Frevisse saw that he was more amused than anything by Master Mont-fort’s introduction of her as he said, “Dame Frevisse, my pleasure to meet you.”
“God bless you in your duties,” she responded.
“She was just leaving,” Dame Alys declared. “She was only here on errand from Dame Claire and she’s finished with it, aren’t you, Dame?”
“Indeed,” Frevisse agreed, bowed her head slightly to Master Worleston and Master Montfort, and left the guest-hall with her temper nearly intact.
Chapter 9
There was a brief rain the next morning, pattering lightly away to nothing, and the sunlight breaking through by the time Frevisse came out of the church at mid-morning, that much of her day’s duties completed and half her penance of five hundred paternosters and two hundred aves well begun. The other part of her penance—to drink neither ale nor wine but only water through the coming fortnight—was neither so easy nor so readily disposed of, but she was smiling inwardly—outwardly would have been unsuitable just now—because the great benefit of a penance was that it cleared the conscience. And she was free and clear from her responsibility for Sister Thomasine because her plea that Sister Thomasine had acted under her order in leaving the cloister had saved Sister Thomasine from any penance of her own.
In the cloister walk she paused to gaze into the garth where every leaf of grass and petal of flower was sparkling with crystal droplets. The air was rich with the smell of wet earth and growing things, and Frevisse drew a deep breath, letting everything but the moment’s loveliness slip from her mind. She had learned the value of life’s momentary beauties and to enjoy them when they came.
This one was ended by Dame Claire hurrying along the cloister walk toward her, a small, stoppered pottery jar in her hand. When she saw that Frevisse had seen her, she beckoned with her head for Frevisse to follow her into the slype. Gathering herself back to duty, Frevisse did, and there Dame Claire held out the jar to her, saying, “Would you take this to Mistress Maryon? I told Sister Thomasine that I’d do it today, she so hating to go among strangers and there being so many there just now, but there’s a problem in the kitchen that I have to see to if we’re to have dinner on time. Mistress Maryon can put it on the wound, that’s not a problem, but I want to know how his hurt looks and would rather you told me than have it from a servant.”
Though Frevisse had hoped to avoid both Master Mont-fort and Master Worleston, she understood both Dame Claire’s needs and Sister Thomasine’s and took the jar with a reassuring smile. “Willingly, Dame.”
“Thank you,” Dame Claire said and sped away toward the kitchen.
The rain had kept most of the sheriff’s and crowner’s entourages inside so far that morning, but, like the sun now, they were coming out, down the stairs from the guesthall to sit on the well curb in the courtyard or wander out the gate to see what there might be to do in the while until their masters were done here. Frevisse, her hands tucked up her opposite sleeves with the jar in one of them and her head bent down so the forward swing of her veil on either side obscured her face, passed among them and through the hall unnoticed, she thought, to Sir Gawyn’s room.
Only Sir Gawyn and Maryon were there. He was raised a little higher on the pillows than yesterday and was not so pale, but the red across his cheeks made Frevisse ask without other greeting, “Are you fevered?” A fevered infection of the wound was the main thing to be feared in a wound like his.
“No,” said Maryon too quickly, as if to avert the possibility by firm denial.
Tersely Sir Gawyn added, “I’ve just finished an unpleasant time with the sheriff and that idiot of a crowner.”
Frevisse had had her lesson that a little while spent with Master Montfort usually raised a person’s choler as well as color. “And did you satisfy them?”
“I think so. Montfort at least. The sheriff has more wit about him, but there was nothing he could particularly fault other than that this is an out-of-the-way place for outlaws, but that was hardly our fault. We were traveling and we were attacked.” Sir Gawyn closed his eyes and with a heavy breath eased down farther in the bed. “But it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped.”
“They’re questioning Will and Colwin now,” Maryon said. “We hope that will be the end of it and they’ll go.”
“They won’t talk with you or Jenet?”
“They asked if I confirmed what Sir Gawyn said, and I did; and they don’t seem interested in trying to learn anything from someone so shaken she’s in the care of the nuns.”
“And Edmund and Jasper?”
“None of us has mentioned them.”
“What of the dead?”
“They went to see them yesterday, before supper, and have given permission they be buried. The funeral is this afternoon, with burial in the village churchyard.”
“Even the outlaws?” Who should not be buried in consecrated ground.
“Not knowing who they were, no one can be sure they were actually outlawed, and so your priest has said they could be buried in the churchyard,” said Mistress Maryon.
“I’ll see the boys are watched so Jenet can go to the funeral Mass,” Frevisse offered.
“That would be good of you.”
Frevisse handed her the small jar. “Dame Claire sent me with this for the wound. She said you’d know what to do and that I was to see how the hurt looked.”
Maryon turned toward Sir Gawyn. “Can you bear it now, or would you rather rest a time?”
Sir Gawyn’s smile was bleak. “Best do it now and have it over.”
Frevisse stood across the room while Maryon uncovered the wound. Sir Gawyn bore the necessary movement and pain in silence, but despite Maryon’s great care, he was pale again when it was done, his mouth tightly shut, his chest rising and falling heavily with his effort to steady his breathing. Maryon looked around for Frevisse to come to the bedside.
Not given to squeamishness, Frevisse inspected the hurt closely. The flesh was still ugly around it but not red or swollen or streaked with discoloration nor smelling of rot. As nearly as Frevisse could judge it looked as well as could be hoped for, and far better than it had looked four days ago.
Sir Gawyn crooked his neck to see the gash and asked, “Does she know what she’s doing? That mouse-meek nun that’s come the other mornings says it’s to heal from inside to out, rather than crusting over and healing to inward.”
“There’re arguments for both ways,” Frevisse said, “but Dame Claire and Sister Thomasine have both had good fortune with this one.”
Sir Gawyn gave a short laugh. “And how many sword gashes come your way in a nunnery?”
“Not swords but scythes and knives and carelessness enough around the village that they’ve had their chance to deal with deep cuts and the like.”
“This wasn’t carelessness,” Sir Gawyn said bitterly.
“It was,” Maryon corrected. “The man meant to kill you and missed.”
Sir Gawyn laughed. “True enough! Careless of him to miss and more careless of him to not stop my blow in return.”
While they talked, Maryon had poured wine into one of the bowls on the table. Now, taking up the bowl and a sponge, she came back to the bedside. Sir Gawyn drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tensed for what was coming. Her own face set in a match to his, Maryon laid clean cloths along the wound and began with all the gentleness she could to soak it with wine. Despite the cost to them both, she did it thoroughly, then blotted it dry with a clean towel, put aside the bowl and sponge, and took up Dame Claire’s jar of ointment. Gently, gently, her fingertips touching him as lightly as possible, she spread it over the wound, and as she set the jar a
side said softly, “There. It’s done for today. I only need to re-bandage it.”
Sir Gawyn had shuddered soundlessly under her touch. Now he drew a deeper breath and his hands unclenched from the bedclothes, though sweat was beaded over his face. As Maryon began to bathe his face and neck with a clean cloth and water, he opened his eyes and smiled at her. “I’ll be all right.”
Maryon smiled back. “I intend you to be.”
Something more than merely tending to his hurt was going on between them, Frevisse thought. Had it begun here, or existed before?
A sharp rap at the door was all the warning Master Montfort gave before entering the room. Without bother of greeting he stared assessingly at Sir Gawyn’s shoulder and said, “There’s a bad one, and you’re lucky if it doesn’t infect. I’ve seen a deal of wounds in my time, you know. I will say that one looks like it’s healing, but you’ll never have your strength in the arm again. In fact, I’d be very surprised if you even could lift your hand head-high when it’s healed.”
Before Sir Gawyn could answer, Maryon said with sharp scorn, “Time will tell. And the infirmarian here is very skilled. It’s not for you to predict doom or joy.”
“I deal in the truth, woman,” Master Montfort returned, drawing up straight to display his dignity in the face of a mere woman’s opinion. “I said it because I see it. People need to face the truth, no matter what it is.”
But both Frevisse and Maryon had had experience with Master Montfort’s idea of truth. For him, truth tended to be what he found most convenient or enhancing of his reputation. Because Maryon looked as if she were about to tell him so to his face, Frevisse said mildly, “Have you and Master Worleston come to a conclusion yet?”
Master Montfort swung his displeased attention to her. “That’s what I came to tell these folks. That everything is settled as much to our satisfaction as we expect it to be. They were feloniously attacked by men bent on robbing them and who have paid for their stupidity with their lives. There’s not even a fine in it for the Crown and probably not much profit from the felons’ belongings when we sell them. A sorry business all around.” He fixed a harder glare on Frevisse and added, “So I trust you don’t think you’ve found a twist in the matter and are bent on making something other about it?”
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