5 The Boy's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  “Maybe it’s only in Wales we remember. Maybe you’ve never heard. When a winding sheet standing up beside a candle flame begins to bend, the person it points to is marked for death.”

  Despite herself, Frevisse felt the creep of a small chill up her own spine. The “winding sheet” had been pointing toward the bed. Toward Sir Gawyn. And toward the children.

  Chapter 12

  By morning Frevisse knew how foolish her reaction had been to Maryon’s fear. Assuredly Mary on had believed about the “winding sheet” of candle wax, but there were a great many such beliefs in the world, and very few of them proved true often enough to count for anything.

  And any last thought she had about it disappeared in chapter meeting when Dame Claire asked for their especial prayers for Domina Edith after Sister Thomasine, as infirmarian, had explained in her soft voice, “It’s not so much that Domina Edith is markedly worse as that she’s simply … less here. She’ll leave us soon. It could be any time.”

  Frevisse, in her own grief, had the comfort of the church itself, spending more than even her usual time there, doing again what was already done, cleaning into its far corners, dusting the choir stalls, polishing the altar steps to greater sheen, making more perfect the already shining altar furnishings, smoothing again and again the altar cloth as she prayed for the repose of Domina Edith’s body and the safety of her soul.

  She was rarely alone while she did. No one’s duties around the nunnery were slacked; that would have been disrespect for all that Domina Edith had expected of them through her years; but the nuns came as they could, simply or in twos or threes, to kneel below the altar in prayer for however long they could spare from their other duties; and the cloister servants, kneeling farther from the altar but there in whatever brief moments they could take from their work; and even the boys and Lady Adela, brought by Dame Perpetua after their lessons.

  A different hush than usual filled the cloister. Not the hush of work gone about in silence but a hush of waiting. And in that hush the burst of the boys’ laughter and their sudden running in the cloister walk on their way to their afternoon lessons jarred beyond the usual. Jenet quickly shushed and curbed them, but Frevisse flinched at the broken silence and saw Sister Emma and Sister Juliana, just entering the church, look back into the cloister with resentful frowns. She considered a moment, then went to find Dame Claire, and when the children came out from their lessons, she was waiting for them with Sister Amicia.

  Edmund stopped short at the sight of her. Behind him Jasper stopped, too, but Lady Adela bumped into Jasper and he lurched into his brother and they had to sort themselves out with an unnecessarily enthusiastic use of elbows before Edmund shook himself free and said with great and earnest innocence, “We weren’t going to do anything!”

  “I’m sure you were not,” Frevisse agreed, and wondered what they had had in mind before her appearance forestalled them. “But Dame Claire has given permission, if Dame Perpetua agrees”—she emphasized that so they would understand this was no lightly given favor—“for Sister Amicia and I to take you out of cloister to see more of the nunnery than you have until now.” As eagerness leaped up in the boys’ faces, she saw Lady Adela’s stricken face over Jasper’s shoulder and added, “And Lady Adela, too, of course.”

  Lady Adela swung around to Dame Perpetua behind her, caught her hand, and pleaded, “Please you, Dame, may we go? Please?”

  Dame Perpetua looked surprised to see so much eagerness from so usually demure a child, but said with some hesitation, “I don’t see why not, so long as you stay with Dame Frevisse and Sister Amicia and do what you’re told.”

  “I will! I promise I will!”

  “Then go on and be a good girl. And you be good boys.”

  Edmund and Jasper nodded unhesitating agreement. Frevisse suspected that all three of them would have agreed to anything for the chance of going out. She remembered too much of herself as a child and knew too much of other children to have any warmhearted notion that children were inherently innocent. Indeed, what she had seen of children seemed to support the doctrine of original sin.

  Conversely, Sister Amicia had the notion that children were God’s innocent lambs, and as they left the cloister to cross the yard toward the gateway to the outer yard, she was saying, “We’re going to have a lovely time, aren’t we? And you’ll behave yourselves just as you promised Dame Perpetua because it’s good little boys and girls who go to heaven, you know.”

  Sister Amicia always had all the obvious words for any occasion. But though Frevisse invariably found her tedious, she had chosen her as companion now precisely because she was not likely to notice if the boys inadvertently said or did anything that betrayed themselves. For the sake of that, she intended to endure Sister Amicia patiently, but intending was not the same as doing, and she barely held back a sigh as Sister Amicia pointed at the doves strutting on the cobbles near the well across the yard and exclaimed brightly, “See all the pretty doves? Don’t they look pretty with the sunlight on them? All those pretty colors in their feathers! Aren’t they pretty?”

  A look passed among the three children, and with unspoken agreement and not an instant’s hesitation Edmund and Jasper broke into a run toward the well. The doves burst up in a wildness of wings at their precipitous coming. Ignoring them, they leaped up the steps to the well and flung themselves belly-down over the coping to peer into its depths.

  With distressed exclamations Sister Amicia scurried after them and caught hold of their belts as if they were sliding head down to destruction. Frevisse, with better opinion of their common sense, stayed where she was, looking at Lady Adela. The girl had run a few limping steps after the boys but stopped when the doves had flown and now stood with her head bent back to watch them as they swung high around the yard, rising and rising against the sky until they wheeled away over the wall and out of sight. She went on gazing after them into the empty sunlight, her look of longing so intense it told Frevisse more about her than any one thing else in all the months since she had come to St. Frideswide’s. Lady Adela would never stay inside St. Frideswide’s if ever she were given chance to go.

  But meanwhile Sister Amicia was still clinging to the boys, trying to pull them back, which only meant they clung more tightly to the stones, squirming against her hold while she cried at them, “Come away before you fall! You’ll fall in and drown!”

  Lady Adela blinked, came back to herself, and ran to fling herself onto the coping next to Jasper.

  In added agony, Sister Amicia cried, “Dame Frevisse, I’ve only two hands!”

  Without raising her voice, Frevisse said, “We can stay here until we’re out of time or we can go on. The choice is yours to make.”

  The children glanced at each other and slid backward to their feet, Edmund and Jasper deftly twisting out of Sister Alicia’s hold as they did.

  “The stables,” Edmund declared. “We want to go to the stables and see how our horses do.”

  That was reasonable enough. Frevisse led the way, the children behind her, and Sister Amicia last, telling the children they had to be more careful, not take foolish chances like that, she had heard of a boy who came to a terrible end at the bottom of a well. The only response among the children was Lady Adela complaining, “I didn’t see any stars. They say you can see stars if you look down a well, but I didn’t see any.”

  “It has to be a deep, deep well and this one isn’t,” Edmund said.

  “It doesn’t have to be a deep, deep well,” Lady Adela retorted. “Only a deep one.”

  Before that could escalate into an argument over what was deep and what was very deep, Frevisse said, “Isn’t that your man Colwin in the stable doorway?”

  The outer yard of St. Frideswide’s stretched to the outer gateway that opened onto the road. Around it, enclosed by the nunnery’s outer wall, were the stables, byres, sheds, and a scattering of workshops needful to the nunnery’s daily life. Just to the left outside the inner gateway were the long
stables, and it was indeed sturdy Colwin standing in the doorway, talking with Master Naylor.

  Edmund hallooed him and waved. “Our horses! We’ve come to see our horses.”

  Jasper turned to Lady Adela. “They’re proper horses. Not ponies. We rode them all the way from home to here.”

  Edmund had not waited for Colwin’s or anyone’s response. He was running toward the stables. Jasper and Lady Adela paused long enough this time to ask Frevisse with a look if it was all right. She had meant to visit the stables anyway, and would welcome an inconspicuous chance to talk with Master Naylor, so she willingly nodded for them to go on. Jasper tempering his pace this time to Lady Adela’s, they went on eagerly.

  Frevisse and Sister Amicia followed more sedately. Though the children pelted straight on into the barn, Master Naylor and Colwin waited to bow to the approaching nuns before Colwin followed the children. From what little Frevisse had seen of him, she judged he had blunt good sense enough that the children would be safe in his care, but she said to Sister Amicia anyway, “You’d best go in, too, to be sure they keep out of the muck. I need to spend a word with Master Naylor.”

  “I haven’t been in a barn since ever so long. I just love the smell of new hay!” Sister Amicia exclaimed and disappeared happily into the stable shadows.

  To no one in particular Master Naylor said, “The new hay isn’t in yet, we’ve only begun to cut it. There’s only the last of last year’s hay in there just now and it’s gone musty.”

  “She’ll probably not know the difference,” Frevisse said.

  Master Naylor was not given to showing much of his feelings on his face. He merely shook his head once and turned his attention fully to Frevisse. “May I help you, my lady?”

  “I was wondering what you told the sheriff and crowner.”

  “No more than I had to.”

  “About the children?”

  Master Naylor’s brows drew down a little. “I had word from Dame Claire they weren’t to be mentioned if it could be avoided. They weren’t mentioned.”

  He fixed a look on her that said he was willing to have that explained to him, but Frevisse slid away from it. “Have there been any … unusual … travelers of late, staying in the guesthalls, either one?”

  “Won’t Dame Alys tell you that?”

  “Things seem to go better the less Dame Alys and I talk together,” Frevisse said wryly.

  With no hint of wryness in return. Master Naylor answered, “I could see how that might be.” He had not enjoyed his necessary dealings with Dame Alys when she had been cellarer, and matters had not improved now she was hosteler. “There’ve only been the usual sort of traveler. None who’ve stayed more than a night.” His gaze on her face sharpened. “And no one I’ve heard of asking questions out of the ordinary except you. What should I be looking for?”

  “Anyone interested in the boys.”

  “Why would someone be interested in the boys?”

  His direct, sharp question and her worry nearly drew the answer out of her. But though it might help for him to know, he was in the long run of it safer in ignorance. He could not be held accountable if he truly did not know who the children were. So against her inclination Frevisse shook her head and only answered, “I can’t tell you. But there may be people who would think them … safer in their hands.”

  “Dame Claire knows this? Knows what you’re about?”

  “And Domina Edith.” Who knew far more than Dame Claire and had surely given Dame Claire direction to order Master Naylor to silence. Or had she confided more than that to Dame Claire? Frevisse suddenly wondered.

  Distant beyond the gateway and courtyard and cloister walls, the bell began to ring for Nines.

  “Oh no!” Frevisse said. “I didn’t know time had gone so far. The children have hardly been out at all. They’re not going to be happy being taken back so soon.”

  “Leave them with me, if you like. Colwin and I will show them more. Between the two of us, we should manage well enough and bring them back to cloister.”

  It was a tempting possibility. Master Naylor had children of his own, Frevisse knew; and Colwin was one of their own people. But it was memory of Lady Adela’s face, watching the doves soar away, that made up her mind. “Yes, that would be very good of you to do.”

  Sister Amicia burst out of the stable doorway, flustered near to tears. “They won’t listen to me! They’ve climbed into the hay mow and it’s all filthy up there, they’re covered in dust and they won’t come down and we’re going to be late!”

  “It’s all right,” Frevisse said. “Master Naylor and Colwin are going to see to them. We can go and we won’t be late.”

  “Oh, Master Naylor, how kind of you. How very kind. Thank you, thank you so much. I promised they’d see the piglets. There are some piglets, aren’t there? They might come down for you if you mentioned the piglets? And lambs?”

  Sister Alicia’s effusions backed Master Naylor away from her. Frevisse, not waiting for her to finish, simply walked away, forcing her to follow.

  “There’s Father Henry,” Sister Amicia exclaimed, a little breathless in Frevisse’s wake, as they reentered the inner yard. She waved happily to the nunnery’s priest where he stood talking with Will at the foot of the guesthall stairs, and he waved back with a bemused look at seeing two nuns coming into the yard from outside. He was a burly young man, his tonsure almost hidden by unruly yellow curls, who looked as if he would be more skilled with a scythe in the field than cup and paten. Nor was he, to Frevisse’s mind, among the clever people of the world, and his simplicity sometimes annoyed her; but it was a simplicity deeply given over to his faith and duties, and Frevisse feared the deeper fault lay in her pride rather than in his simplicity.

  With a sudden thought, Frevisse said to Sister Amicia, “You go on. I’ll be just a moment longer.”

  Drawn by the bell still clanging from the cloister, Sister Amicia hurried on without question. Frevisse turned aside toward the two men. They bowed to her and she quickly curtsied to Father Henry and bent her head to Will, following with, “Will, the children—the boys and Lady Adela—are with Colwin and Master Naylor in the stables. They’re having an outing. Would you be free to join them, to keep watch over them until it’s time they come in again?”

  Will said, “Gladly, my lady.”

  “If it pleases you, I could go, too,” Father Henry said. “There’s safety in numbers when child-watching.”

  “That would do very well, if you would be so good and have the time.” Knowing that Father Henry had a fondness for children and animals that went with his simplicity of heart, Frevisse accepted his offer with a curtsy of thanks and hastened after Sister Amicia. It would hardly do to be late again.

  The office went its serene way to its end where Dame Claire said in her deep voice, “Fidelium animae per misericordiam Dei requiescant in pace.” May the souls of the faithful, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. The nuns responded on one, low, long tone, “Amen,” that sank away to silence.

  Her mind eased away from one problem or another for the first time since Prime at dawn, Frevisse would willingly have stayed where she was but custom required she rise with the others and follow Dame Claire from the church. Quiet in her obedience, she did so, coming out into the warm afternoon shadows of the cloister walk in time to see Ela from the guesthall and Father Henry coming along the cloister with the children in tow.

  Frevisse’s own intake of breath was covered by those of all the other nuns as they realized what they were looking at. Led by Ela, Lady Adela was crying aloud, tears pouring down her face, but she was the least of the trouble. Behind her, Father Henry led Edmund and Jasper by either hand and at his arms’ length, well away from himself and anyone else because they were covered feet to waists and up their arms with black filth. And they smelled. Even before they were near, it was miserably obvious that they smelled and that they knew it, their faces screwed shut against breathing in any more than they had to.

>   It was also obvious that what they smelled of was pig-muck and, all propriety forgotten, Dame Alys bellowed, “What are you thinking of, bringing those filthy brats in here? They stink!”

  “Dame Alys,” Dame Claire said in mild rebuke. “They do! You should have soused them off at the well before bringing them in here! Take ‘em out and do it!” “Dame Alys!” Dame Claire said more forcefully. Dame Alys closed her mouth with an audible snap but nothing softened the glare she turned from Father Henry and the boys to Dame Claire. Ignoring her, Dame Claire held up her hand to stop Father Henry from coming any nearer and said, “Disaster overtook you, we can see that. We don’t want them here. Take them to the laundry and have them cleaned, with my apologies to the laundrywomen. Dame Perpetua, take Lady Adela away. She isn’t hurt or she’d not be howling so loud. Ela, find Jenet and tell her to take clean clothing to the boys. Dame Frevisse, you go with Father Henry and help.” Frevisse, remembering she had asked responsibility for the children in their outing, smothered a protest, and followed Father Henry’s hurried departure.

  The. laundry was with other work sheds and workshops directly needed by the nunnery, beyond a wall on the far side of the inner yard that could be reached by a back way beyond the kitchen or through a small gate from the yard. Father Henry chose the latter way, to be outside the cloister faster. Frevisse overtook him and the boys as they crossed the yard toward the gate, Edmund dragging back on his hand, protesting, “I don’t want the laundry! I want a proper bath! They’ll scrub too hard!”

  “A proper bath is for proper dirt,” Frevisse snapped. “You’re filthy far beyond that. And you’ll be scrubbed as much as needed no matter where it’s done. Stop yammering. We’re the ones who have to smell you.” Edmund, startled at her sharpness, went silent, and she demanded of Father Henry, “What on earth were they doing in the pigsty?” That being the only place they were likely to have found that much pig-muck.