The Outlaw's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries)

by Margaret Frazer

  “He's an oaf!" Edward declared, his face colored with indignation. “I'll tell Father you're upset, and that you want to see him. He should hear more than Colfoot's side of it."

  “No, Edward, wait." Magdalen reached a hand to stop him, but he had pushed past his brother and was gone. Magdalen sank back in the chair, looking abruptly exhausted. “Oh dear."

  The other boy grinned from the doorway, less moved than his brother. “Will Colfoot's more bluster than anything. Father will send him off with a flea in his ear."

  “Oh, Richard," Magdalen sighed. With an effort she recalled her good manners and stood up to introduce Frevisse. “Dame Frevisse, this is my nephew Richard Payne. Richard, Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide's Priory."

  “Good sir," Frevisse said, giving him a small curtsey.

  Richard returned a creditable bow, though its dignity was marred by his wide grin that seemed as much a part of him as his light-brown hair. He was average-grown for twelve years old, with his mother's mild coloring and, Frevisse thought, an easier nature than his older brother.

  “Edward just thinks he's older than he is," he explained. “Father is forever having to bring him back to being only fifteen. Ouch!"

  Richard spun and dived away into the shadows behind him. There was a scuffle so brief that Magdalen had not time to reach the door before Richard was back, hauling a much smaller boy by the scruff of his tunic. “It's Bartholomew," he said disgustedly to Frevisse. “He wants to meet you, too. So he hit me from behind." Someone jerked at the back of his doublet. “And so does Kate," he added.

  As he set his unrepentant brother in the doorway, a little girl pushed in beside him. Except that she was slightly taller, they were so alike they could have been twins. Darker-haired than their older brothers, they had their father's and Magdalen's clear gray eyes, bright now with a mischief that faded under Frevisse's cool gaze.

  “Bartholomew. Kate." Richard lightly thumped each on the head along with their names. “They're all trouble. Don't ask them in."

  Frevisse had no particular way with children and did not intend to ask them in. She gave them another slight curtsey. Kate returned it and Bartolomew managed a shy bow and then they both giggled. Frevisse was about to ask them their ages when behind them a girl's voice said, “Here you are. Mother says you're to come. She's in the solar."

  “This is my other sister, Katherine," Richard explained. “Now you have to meet her, too."

  Katherine Payne did indeed resemble her mother, just as Magdalen had said, down to her uncertainty and shy willingness to please. She and Frevisse exchanged curtseys, but clearly her main concerns were to take Kate and Bartholomew to Mother and leave her aunt and guest in peace. With Richard's help, the withdrawal was made somewhat gracefully, and Magdalen closed the door after them.

  She had recovered her quietness. A little ruefully she smiled at Frevisse. “Sister Emma is deeply asleep to have slept through all of that."

  “Mistress Payne sent some poppy syrup to help her rest."

  “That's very good of Iseult. She rarely parts with any of it. She treasures her poppy syrup for the times when she cannot bear one of her backaches any longer. Though I doubt I've known her to give way to the need above once a year. Isn't it strange." Magdalen had sat down on the window bench and taken up her embroidery. “Someone who seems so frail, so easily led, isn't actually either. She runs her household very well, and if I suffered with the backache the way I've seen her suffer, I'd have drained that poppy syrup to the dregs at the first chance."

  “Did she have a bad fall?" Frevisse asked. She would rather have talked about what had passed between Magdalen and Will Colfoot, but decided to let Magdalen lead the conversation.

  “No. Something went wrong at Kate's birth. Iseult's never been fully well since then."

  “But she had Bartholomew afterwards."

  Magdalen made a sad little shrug. “As will happen," she said gently. “And he's a delightful child. If you don't have to be with him all the day," she added, smiling.

  They went on chatting, about the Payne children, about how different here was from St. Frideswide's, the weather that looked like turning to rain again. Simple things that stirred no deep interest but passed the time. Frevisse asked for some mending to occupy her hands. Bess returned, but Magdalen told her she would not be needed until dinner; Maud did not come at all. Once, distantly, there was more door-thudding somewhere in the house. Momentarily Magdalen was tense again, not looking up but frozen over her work. Then she picked up her sewing and went on as if she had not paused.

  Except that she looked out the window unusually often, seemingly watching for something, and her work lying idle while she did, she seemed as before. Eventually Frevisse brought the conversation around to Master Payne and found Magdalen had no hesitation at all in talking of him, her respect for her brother clearly deep and strong.

  “But he works himself so hard. All this is his doing." She gestured to include the room and all of the house beyond it. “Our father was a freeman and did well enough in his own way. He held almost a hundred virgates under Lord Lovel. But Oliver, beginning with that, has worked his way up to being steward to properties around here for half a dozen lords. They look to him to see that all goes well and to their profit, and it does. There's not a man among all their manor officers he oversees that has any just complaint against him. He's from home too often and that saddens Iseult, but she understands."

  How had Oliver Payne become involved with Nicholas then? Frevisse wondered. What business could they share? But that was not a question she could ask. Instead she said, “This Will Colfoot is one of his men?"

  “Will Colfoot-" Magdalen began with as near scorn as her soft voice was likely to manage. But she stopped herself, looking again out the window as she said more evenly, “He works for himself and no one else. He began small but now holds lands hereabout, enough to make him feel he's Oliver's equal. No, he feels he's Oliver's better. He feels he's better than most and the equal of everyone else."

  “He's not a pleasant man, I gather. And you don't wish to marry him?"

  Magdalen shook her head. “He buys lands from freemen who can't go on. He's cruel about it, buying very cheaply from those in the most desperate need and boasting to the countryside about what he's done. He makes money, he manages his properties well, but he's not - a kind man."

  Frevisse wondered if Magdalen's husband had been kind. And whether Magdalen valued kindness in a man so much because he had been kind, or because he had not.

  “He hopes to be a sheriff someday, I think," Magdalen went on. “And maybe a justice of the peace. And whatever else will give him power and impress men with his greatness. He's very fond of himself." She laughed unexpectedly. “Take care. If he learns you're Master Thomas Chaucer's niece, you'll have no peace from him this side of your convent walls because he'll set out to have you tell your uncle all about him, worthy as he is."

  “It's truly sad how my uncle never listens to my opinion on such worldly matters," Frevisse said drily. “I'd best avoid this Colfoot if I can. Perhaps I can come down with Sister Emma's chill."

  Earnest despite Frevisse's teasing, Magdalen said, “Yes. Avoid him if you can."

  It was said that there had been a time in the long-past beginnings of the world when there had been three orders of men, each doing in peace the God-given duties they were born to. First were those whose lives were dedicated to prayer, for the sake of their fellow men and all the world. Next were those who fought to protect the godly against the world's evils. Third were those who labored in the fields or crafts, sustaining those who prayed and those who fought for their well-being.

  It was a sign of the world's degeneration that this holy division no longer held. A fourth order of men had somehow grown into the perfection of the three: Men who neither grew nor made nor prayed beyond the ordinary, nor fought for anything but their own gains. They bought and sold what they had not grown or made, and treated property not as something s
ettled to a family for generations but as another thing for them to buy and sell for no more than the sake of the money it would bring. That their lives were a corruption of God's plan was evidenced by the corruption of their living.

  Or so it was claimed.

  In the reality of everyday Frevisse had found neither purity of purpose nor utter corruption in anyone she had encountered, no matter in which of the orders they were supposed to belong. So near as she could tell, the world had degenerated past purity of purpose in anyone, and the most that could be hoped for was godliness enough in whatever life one lived to save one from damnation at the end.

  She and her uncle - himself one of the new order of men – had discussed such matters at length upon occasions, because they concerned him very nearly. He lived by what he gained in a variety of ways, had wealth to live whatever life he wanted, and power enough to refuse to serve on the royal council when he chose. He was neither priest nor knight nor simple laborer and, as he once said, “I must have some place in God's plan of things, for nothing happens by chance, only by his will. But if I listen to the priests I'm very possibly damned for being outside their holy three. What do you think?"

  When her uncle asked her what she thought, he always truly wanted to know. He might afterward argue with her, but was always willing for her to argue back. Because of him, Frevisse had come to trust her mind and be bold in using it. That time she had answered, “I think it can be said that none of God's three orders are so pure of purpose now as they were made to be. There are those in every one of them who will not go to Heaven after the lives they've lived on Earth. So if salvation is not assured to those, then I suppose that neither is damnation assured to those outside God's given orders."

  Thomas Chaucer had large laughter when he was truly amused, and he had laughed then, reaching out to squeeze her hand as he declared, “You glad my mind as surely as you comfort my soul."

  This Will Colfoot was also clearly beyond the pale of the three orders; and to judge by everyone's reaction to him – including Frevisse's – he was not among the saved.

  But God saw with other eyes than those of man, Frevisse reminded herself. She had no right to judge who was saved and who was damned. That sort of presumption endangered her own soul. And, aware that she had scanted too many services of late, she crossed herself and bent her head in a momentary asking for forgiveness.

  Magdalen, gazing out the window, did not notice.

  The serving man Jack knocked at the door, come to bid Magdalen to her brother. She laid her sewing aside with a slight sigh and a tightening of her mouth, but went out silently. Frevisse continued mending the rend in the knee of a boy's hosen.

  Sooner than she expected, she heard Magdalen on the stairs again and looked up as she came through the door, then rose to her feet, startled by Magdalen's white, strained face. Not looking at her, Magdalen shut the door and stood with her back against it, breathing rapidly, her mouth set in a hard line. All the color was drained from her cheeks; her gray eyes were huge, glittering. She was in a rage, but there was a tangle of other emotions too that Frevisse could not immediately read – fear perhaps among them.

  Frevisse waited while Magdalen visibly recovered herself to the point where she could straighten from the door and say in almost her normal voice, “It seems you're to have my companionship somewhat more sternly than we intended. My brother has asked me to stay in my room as much as may be for the time being."

  “Why?" Frevisse asked incredulously. “Because you won't marry Colfoot?"

  Magdalen gave a harsh, short laugh and paced toward the window. “No! Oh no. He doesn't want that either. He will support me in that. He must." She wrung her clasped hands around each other, fighting some inward agony or anger. “No. He's right so far as he understands it. But it will make no difference." She knelt on the window seat and stared out toward the orchard.

  “But is he going to keep you here against your will?" Frevisse asked.

  “Oliver? No, certainly not. He's not like that." But she did not sound completely certain. “Besides, he has no legal authority over me. I'm of age and widowed, with properties of my own. I can do as I choose." She let go of her anger; misery replaced it in both her suddenly dejected body and her voice. “His only real hold on me lies in our affection for each other, and just now that's making pain enough. I'm not his prisoner, no. I can go. If I want to."

  Her tone ended the conversation. Magdalen wanted no comforting, nor to talk of what had happened. In silence she took up her sewing and her waiting at the window. For that was what it was, Frevisse had decided. Magdalen was waiting. For someone? Someone of whom her brother strongly disapproved? Someone certainly not Will Colfoot.

  Dinner was brought to them with a broth for Sister Emma that Frevisse kept warm on the hearth. When she woke, Sister Emma seemed a little better for her sleep, but she was still breathing with difficulty and groggy from the poppy syrup. She ate only as much broth as Frevisse had patience to insist on, then slept again.

  Mistress Payne came in after dinner with her daughter Katherine as Frevisse finished the prayers for Nones. The resemblance between mother and daughter was even more marked as Katherine, with no childish restlessness, sat demurely with her embroidery - a cushion cover with an intricate pattern that she was working with careful stitches and great patience – while her elders talked past her to each other.

  Not that their conversation was very much. Magdalen's confinement was never mentioned, nor Master Payne, nor Colfoot, only general household matters – that Edward had enough shirts to see him through to winter but that Kate's hems were above her ankles again and there was no more to be let down and what was the point of putting hosen on Bartholomew if he was forever tearing them to pieces with his games.

  They had moved on to whether the summer was going to continue as wet as it had been, and what would happen to the harvest if it did, when footsteps too heavy for one of the children and too certain for a servant crossed the room outside Magdalen's door and someone thudded in loud hurry on the door. All three women and Katherine looked up with mingled expressions of alarm.

  “Come in," said Magdalen, rising, but was barely to her feet before her brother had entered.

  Without greeting, he said, “Colfoot's been found dead along the road, hardly a mile from here."

  Chapter Eleven

  Oliver's gaze swept all of the women's faces as he spoke.

  “God's pity on him!" Mistress Payne exclaimed. In unison she and Frevisse crossed themselves, with little Katherine only slightly behind them. Magdalen, her gaze and her brother's locked over something Frevisse could not read, was last and slowest, her hand tracing the cross across herself as if she barely knew she did.

  “What happened to him?" Mistress Payne asked. “Who found him? Where have they taken him?"

  “Adam coming back from the farther meadow came on him in the road. There was no help for him and Adam came back with the news. They're fetching a hurdle now to bring him here. I'm going with them so I can testify to the crowner when he comes."

  Mistress Payne hurried toward the door. “There will be things to be readied. Where will they put him?"

  “In the feed room by the stable," Master Payne answered, still looking at Magdalen.

  And almost as if he willed the words from her, she asked, so low she could barely be heard, “How did he die?"

  “Stabbed to the heart." He ignored his wife's pained exclamation. “Or near enough that he must have been dead in minutes. There was not much blood around him, Adam said."

  With a distressed sound, Mistress Payne gathered Katherine to her and left the room. Her husband stayed only a moment longer, his eyes locked to his sister's. Then he turned on his heel and followed his wife.

  Magdalen sagged down onto the window seat. Frevisse went to her to lay a hand on her shoulder and ask, “What is it?"

  Magdalen began to speak, then stopped; began again, shook her head against whatever she had been about to say, and fina
lly managed, “Nothing. He was alive and now, all suddenly, he's dead."

  There had been more than that between her and her brother. But Frevisse was not in her confidence, and, unable to press Magdalen for more, she let it drop and turned instead to the practicalities of the matter.

  “The crowner will have to be sent for," she said. “And the sheriff, too, for something like this."

  Magdalen willingly picked up the shield of conversation. “Surely. My brother will know what to do. He'll see to all of it." She faltered. Before she ducked her head, Frevisse thought tears glimmered in her eyes. Not for Colfoot, surely. Still looking down, Magdalen said, “Will you do me a kindness, Dame Frevisse? A small one?"

  “I owe you several great kindnesses, for my sake and Sister Emma's both," Frevisse said readily. “What would you have me do?"

  “Go down to supper tonight with the family and tell me afterwards everything that was said. About Will Colfoot and... anything else."

  Frevisse had no trouble making the promise, confessing to herself that it was for more than a service to Magdalen: Her own curiosity was among the worldly things she had not yet sufficiently curbed in her nunnery life.

  On the heels of her promise, both Bess and Maud returned. Bess was promptly sent to say that Dame Frevisse would dine with the family tonight, but Maud remained, full of what little was known and eager to talk it around and about for as long as she could make it last. Bess's return let them start all over again. Magdalen did not try to curb them; their chatter filled the time and covered her own silence the short while until they were summoned to fetch Magdalen's supper. As Frevisse went with them from the chamber, she heard Sister Emma's querulous voice from the bed, asking sleepily why there was all this talk. Frevisse did not turn back.

  Downstairs in the screens passage the two women went into the kitchen and she continued to the hall. There the trestle tables had been brought out and set up in U-shape, the opening toward this kitchen end of the hall to make serving easier.