The Squire’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  ‘We’ll ask. Someone else is coming.“ Dame Claire took a step back toward the stairs as Benedict, followed by Master Geoffrey, entered from them, both men pausing for a slightly startled moment at being confronted by two nuns, before Benedict bowed and said, ”Do you need something, my ladies?“

  It was the first time Frevisse had heard him speak more than a sullen word or two in answer to questions from his mother, and was surprised to see that on his own he was simply a well-mannered, pleasant-faced young man; but Dame Claire had been beside him at supper and was maybe not so surprised, answering him easily, “We’re wondering if someone could tell us where the chapel is. We’d like to make our evening prayers there.”

  Benedict started to point. “It’s across…”

  But Master Geoffrey said with a smile and a bow, “I’ll gladly take them to it, if they please.”

  Not of a mind to see if they could lose their way if left to themselves, they accepted his offer willingly and Benedict bowed and went on to wherever he had been going while Master Geoffrey said in answer to Dame Claire’s thanks, “It’s my pleasure.”

  Because Dame Claire had been in his company through the evening, diverting Lady Blaunche, Frevisse easily left them to walk together while she fell half a pace to the side and behind them, following into the hall and taking the chance to have clearer look at the clerk who was likely Dame Claire’s best ally in dealing with Lady Blaunche, judging by how deftly he had managed her too-obvious ill humour both before and after supper, even bringing her to smiling a few times. He was near to Robert’s age, his face smooth and open, his manner warm and easy, his plain black clerk’s gown neither too rich nor too poor to his place in a squire’s household and as neatly kept as his manners. He had no tonsure to go with it, though, and among the casual talk he made while leading them through the hall among the household servants beginning to bed down there for the night, he mentioned he was only in minor orders and doubted he would ever take greater.

  ‘The urge simply isn’t in me,“ he said as if both puzzled and regretful over that, going now into the screens passage, turning toward the outer door. ”I simply have to hope that what I’m doing is sufficiently to God’s will.“

  Beginning to feel her tiredness to the full, Frevisse wanted to tell him she did not care whether he was in greater, minor, or any orders at all; all she wanted was to be at her prayers; but that was mean-spirited and, knowing it, she chided herself that Master Geoffrey was making talk for courtesy’s sake, used to it as part of his duties here, not understanding that to her and Dame Claire silence was not only perfectly acceptable but even welcome.

  Dame Claire, doing better than she at courtesy, murmured in answer to him, “All anyone can hope is that we’re doing God’s will.”

  Outside, the clear, early evening sky was still full of light from the sunset’s afterglow, shaded from shining green above the roof of the buildings enclosing the courtyard’s west side to a deepening blue pricked out with the first silver glint of a star overhead. The evening’s damp chill as much as the hour had probably driven most people indoors; there were thin yellow bands of candle-, lamp-, and rushlights around shutters’ edges at some of the closed windows overlooking the yard but in the yard itself there were only two men talking at the gate and one of them was on his way out, the other closing the gate after him. For the night, Frevisse thought.

  Pointing as he started down the stone steps to the yard, Master Geoffrey said, “The chapel is there, between the gatehouse and my own chamber. I’ll see you to it, then find a lantern and come back to light your way to your chamber, if you will.”

  Dame Claire gave him thanks and Frevisse added her own, because by the time they had finished their prayers, full darkness would have filled the yard except for the islands of light around the lantern burning for the night beside the gateway and the other at the head of the hall steps, now behind them and confusing their feet with shadows as they followed Master Geoffrey down; a light of their own in an unfamiliar place would be welcome.

  But just where the hall lantern’s light was altogether lost to the thickening dusk Master Geoffrey stopped and turned to Dame Claire, his easy manner dropped as he asked with concern in his voice, “Now that there’s no chance we’ll be heard, can you tell me how well or ill it truly is with Lady Blaunche? Is it what she says? That she’s only over-tired and will be well enough by and by? Is that all there is to it or is she hiding worse and we should be afraid for her?”

  Dame Claire paused, probably considering how much he could be told, then seemingly decided to take him for the ally he had been so far and said, “It’s true she’s overtired, more than she should be from merely childbearing, but I gather from what I’ve been told that it’s always that way with her.”

  ‘Yes,“ Master Geoffrey agreed. ”Always.“

  ‘I gather, too, she too much tends to make it the worse by pushing herself beyond her strength.“

  ‘She goes at everything with her full heart,“ Master Geoffrey said. ”It’s both her boon and bane. Nor is Master Fenner, in all truth, as kind to her over it as he might be, I must needs say.“

  He need say no such thing, it wasn’t his place to, Frevisse thought but kept the thought to herself while Dame Claire asked, “You don’t think he can be appealed to for much help with her?”

  Master Geoffrey hesitated, then said, “No.”

  Dame Claire bent her head, considered that, looked up and went on, “This Allesley business isn’t helping, either. She’s wrought herself too high over it when what she needs is quiet, both for her own sake and the child’s.”

  ‘That’s Master Fenner’s doing again,“ Master Geoffrey said, ”and I don’t know what’s to be done to keep her from taking it all too deeply to heart the way she is.“

  ‘For her own sake and the child’s, she has to stop it,“ Dame Claire said. ”I’m giving her as strong doses of valerian as I dare and a borage cordial to soothe and cheer her some but she agitates herself out of their quieting sooner than I like. You know her better than I do. Is there anything that would serve to divert her even a little from fretting herself so continually?“

  ‘I read to her,“ Master Geoffrey said. ”That helps sometimes. Or I keep her in talk about anything except what worries her. I’ve done that often and often. She enjoys my talk. Say the word and I’ll keep her as much company as I can, divert her as much as may be. Once this Allesley matter is done and over with and past undoing, she’ll maybe let it go and be herself again and quieter, I can only pray.“

  ‘We all pray so,“ Dame Claire said. ”Yes, any distraction you can give would be to the good. I’ll set her woman to it with you, and Dame Frevisse and I will do what we can that way, too.“

  Frevisse had no pleasure at hearing herself pledged to helping with Lady Blaunche, but Lent was a time for penance and helping see to Lady Blaunche would serve as well as other things toward humility of spirit, she supposed as they crossed the darkening yard to the chapel. Master Geoffrey left them at the door, promising to return with a lantern, and Frevisse followed Dame Claire into the chapel’s hush, leaving the heavy wooden door ajar behind them.

  The silence of sanctified places always seemed different, deeper, to her than the silence of other places and here was no different. A quieting of spirit came on her as she made obeisance, then went forward to kneel at the altar. By the little ruby glow of the altar light, it was plain this was a cherished place. Gold thread gleamed in the embroidery of the altar frontal and although she understood that the household made do with the village priest rather than one of their 0wn, the pleasant smell of well-polished wood told that someone saw to more than merely the daily replenishing of the altar light’s oil. With a deepening ease of spirit, she set to Compline’s prayers, both she and Dame Claire knowing them well enough to have no need of their breviaries that they could not have read anyway by the slight light there was, intertwining antiphon and response and psalms through to the quieting petition Divinum auxilium
maneat semper nobiscum. Divine aid remain always with us.

  They were still kneeling, each in her own silent prayer, when lantern light from the doorway behind them made sudden sharp shadows around them, telling that Master Geoffrey was returned as promised. Not ready yet to leave either the chapel’s quiet or her prayers, Frevisse nonetheless crossed herself and rose with Dame Claire, going to join the clerk who murmured something about hoping he had not come too soon but otherwise respecting the quiet they brought out of the chapel with them, leading them across the yard to a doorway where he gave them the lantern, saying only, “My own door is back along on the right from here. I can find my way well enough but you’ve stairs to manage. Up them and to your left is where you want to go. May you rest well,” he added.

  They thanked him again and he bowed and drew away into the darkness as Dame Claire, lantern in hand, opened the door where he had left them and went in, past shut doors that led to ground-level chambers on the right and left, and up narrow wooden stairs, turned a little sidewise to let light fall past her for Frevisse to see her way, too, to the top and the door on the left that opened indeed to the chamber Frevisse recognized from this afternoon.

  In one of the beds someone was already snoring softly in deep sleep but the other one was still empty. No third mattress had been brought but Frevisse did not care. With the lantern set on the floor where its light would not disturb the sleeper, she and Dame Claire took off their stockings and shoes, put them beside a stool at the head of their bed, took off their gowns, wimples and veils, and laid them carefully folded on the stool. Any washing would have to wait until morning, and when Dame Claire had slipped into bed and to its wallside, Frevisse blew out the light and joined her, as grateful to be at last lying down as she had been to go to prayers and asleep almost before she had pulled up her share of the blanket.

  She awoke in what she supposed was the middle of the night, used to it from always rising then in St. Frideswide’s to go to Matins and Lauds. From Dame Claire’s breathing, she could tell she was awake, too, but there was no question of them going out to the chapel in the middle of the night here, nor should they be discourteous to the other sleeper by rising and praying aloud where they were, and silently, supposing Dame Claire was doing the same, she set to saying the Offices to herself as best she could and afterwards slid easily into sleep again, to awaken when Dame Claire did, again by habit, somewhat before dawn, in time for Prime. Without need to say anything or see what they were doing, they dressed in the room’s darkness and, having no way to light the lantern, groped their way down the stairs to the yard where the graying of the sky toward dawn gave them light enough to make their way back to the chapel.

  When they had finished and left the chapel, full light was not come yet but the yard was busy with people off to their early work, and chilled but satisfied, they returned to their room, to find it was Nurse who had been asleep in the other bed and was awake now, dressed and not in the least bothered by two strangers sharing her room, saying crisply while putting on her coif and tying it under her chin, “It’s only every other night I sleep in my bed anyway. The other nights, turn and turn about, I sleep with the children, and Anabilla—she’s the nursery maid—is in here. It’s her snuffling in her sleep you’ll have to bear with tonight. Now which of you is which? No one bothered with telling me yesterday. Dame Claire and Dame Frevisse, yes?”

  Dame Claire sorted out for her who they were and asked, “And your name? We aren’t to call you only Nurse, are we?

  ‘It’s what I’m mostly called,“ she said cheerfully. ”But if you’ve a mind to more, I answer to Mistress Welland, too.“ Not over-tall but brisk and sure of words and movement, she finished pinning her starched, sharply pressed, shiningly white veil to her wimple and cocked her head while fixing both nuns with her merry black eyes as she added, ”Or, if we turn friendly enough, I’m Florence. So mind your manners and we’ll see.“

  Something of the constriction that had bound Frevisse through the two days since leaving St. Frideswide’s eased, for no better reason than that here at least was one person without open confusions in her life.

  But there were increasing, cheerful child noises from beyond the stairward door and Mistress Welland said, slipping an apron over her head and tying it behind her while moving toward the door, “I’d best be off to see to them so Anabilla can fetch their breakfasts. By the by.” She turned back in the doorway. “I mean to tell the children that if they’re very good this morning, one or the other of the nuns might tell them a story this afternoon.”

  Then she was gone, before either Frevisse or Dame Claire could give answer to that, leaving them sharing a rueful look; and before they had gone beyond that to choosing what to do next, Mistress Avys knocked and entered from the solar, bringing them a breakfast of bare bread and weak ale.

  ‘Master Fenner said that’s as it should be, because of your Lenten fasting,“ she said worriedly, ”but my lady says that if you want more, you’ve only to ask and you’ll have it.“

  Frevisse’s stomach made a soft sound that told her more would have been welcome but she agreed, along with Dame Claire, that this was exactly what they should have and thanked her for it before Dame Claire asked, “How is it with Lady Blaunche this morning?”

  Mistress Avys pursed her lips and heaved a sigh. “Not so well as we could wish, I fear. She slept well enough, once she came to it, but she’s keeping to her bed this morning and said I wasn’t to say anything until you’d eaten, but since you ask, she wants to see you as soon as might be, please you.”

  Bread untouched in one hand and cup of ale in the other, Dame Claire asked, “What’s amiss?”

  ‘Now you eat,“ Mistress Avys said, nodding at the bread. ”You need your strength and she’ll bide till you come. I can’t say there’s any one thing greatly wrong with her, just too many things altogether, if you take my meaning.“ She dropped her voice as if giving a secret. ”The Allesleys come today.“

  Dame Claire questioned her between bites of the bread and sips of the ale, and Frevisse listened while eating her own, not learning much except what Mistress Avys had already told but gaining a suspicion that there were other things that could have been said but Mistress Avys would not. About what? Frevisse wondered, then quickly shut the wondering away because she had no business wondering about what was no concern of hers.

  Done with her breakfast, Dame Claire brushed at her habit to be rid of crumbs that were not there and hasted away with Mistress Avys without even asking if Frevisse would go with her. They knew each other well enough for her to know Frevisse would prefer not to, but when they were gone, Frevisse found herself left full in the awkwardness of being a guest where she did not wish to be and with nothing to do. Dame Claire at least had occupation but nothing was needed from her but to be here. She was no use to Lady Blaunche in her illness and, being uninclined to idle talk, had no interest in keeping company with the other women in the parlor; but neither was there anywhere else for her to he, and by the sounds beyond the one shutter set open to the growing daylight, the yard was even more busy with folk than it had been and surely everywhere else was, too, leaving her nowhere to be out of the way but here, with time on her hands and nothing to do with it.

  Except pray, she suddenly thought; and the day, dismal ahead of her a moment before, lightened. Prayer—the slipping aside from the World’s passing concerns into the greater quest of nearness to the Eternal—was one of the pleasures that had deepened through her years of nunhood but oddly enough time for prayer alone, outside the hours set for the Offices, was one of the most difficult things to come by in the nunnery.

  Nunnery life was a formed and carefully kept thing; a nun shaped herself to it, not it to the nun, and while that at its best provided a surprising freedom of spirit, it also provided for almost every moment of a day and so after all there was maybe something to be gained by being here at Brinskep, Frevisse thought as she slid from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting to her
knees on the floor, drew a deep, quieting breath and set, as the blessed Richard of Hampole directed, the love of her heart upward and her thought as greatly as she might on what she prayed.

  Eyes closed, head bent over clasped hands, she wound herself far into the intricate simplicity of prayer, losing thought of time and everything about her and when eventually she returned to where and when she was, she did not know how long Katherine had been standing at the window looking out into the yard; and when, still a little light-headed from her praying, she drew a deep, steadying breath, Katherine swung around from the window to say in quick apology, “My lady, I’m sorry. I tried to keep as quiet as possible.”

  Using the bed for help against her knees’ stiffness—she never felt the pain of them while she was praying, only when she was done—Frevisse rose to her feet, saying while she did, “I never heard you come or knew you were here, Mistress Katherine. You didn’t disturb me.”

  The girl tried to smile. Today instead of the plain gown she mostly wore, she was dressed in a full-skirted overgown of light wool dyed bright spring green, held in at its high waist, just below her breasts, by a wide belt of silver and enameled roses, its neckline collared with darker green velvet and plunging in a deep vee between her breasts to show her rose-colored undergown of fine linen. Rose velvet lined the overgown’s wide, open-hanging sleeves, too, that were turned back the better to show off both the velvet and the undergown’s close-fitted sleeves brought down to a careful point over her white, slender hands, and for good measure the rich darkness of her hair, loosed from its usual braid to fall down her back to well below her waist, was held back from her smooth forehead by a circlet of more silver and enameled flowers.