The Bishop’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  She stood awhile inside the doorway, letting the silence envelop and soothe her, before she finally knelt to pray. But she had barely begun when low voices outside the chapel’s shut door broke her concentration. She tried to pray in spite of them, but although their words were obscured by the chapel door, their emotions were not. A young man and a woman—or perhaps a girl—her tone desperate, urging something to the man, who answered with an urgency of his own.

  Then there was a third voice, another man’s, raised loud enough to leave no doubt about what he said in anger and bitter satisfaction. “I thought you’d both disappeared most conveniently!”

  The girl answered, her own words clear with matching anger now. “How did you know where we were? Who told you?”

  “I’m not the fool you wish I were. There aren’t mat many places in a house this size and full of people you could go to be alone. Once Jevan said you were both gone, I could guess where you were easily enough.”

  “Jevan!” the girl said bitterly.

  The young man began to say something, but was cut off scornfully by the older man answering, “You’re just idiot enough to think that, boy!”

  Goaded into raising his voice, the young man snapped, “Not so much an idiot as to think you can keep us apart forever!”

  “You’d better think it, boy, because I can!”

  The girl cried out desperately, “We love each other!”

  Brushing past Frevisse on his way to the door, Sir Philip said under his breath, “Jesus, God in heaven.”

  Supposing the young woman might take better to her presence and hoping the men might abate their anger because of it, Frevisse rose to follow the priest.

  In the small antechamber to the chapel, Sir Clement Sharpe had his nephew, Guy, and his ward, Lady Anne, blocked into a corner. Neither of the young couple looked intimidated or shamed; side by side, they faced his towering anger at them with anger of their own, the girl’s hand laid possessively on Guy’s arm.

  She was dressed now in a dark amber, high-belted houppeland and had loosed her pale, honey-colored hair in a haze around her head and shoulders. In the shadowed room she looked as delicately lovely as a carven angel, her brightness the focus of the dark anger between the two men.

  “Love has nothing to do with whom you marry,” Sir Clement was saying with a sneer. “You marry whom you’re told and to the best profit. I paid money for that right and profit, and you’ll remember it!”

  Before either Guy or Lady Anne could reply, Sir Philip said, “You’ll do better to remember where you are, and why, and lower your voices.”

  His own voice was low, at church level, with no temper in it, but it stopped them and brought Sir Clement around to face him, clearly willing to turn his anger that way. But then with what Frevisse could only read as a dawning delight, he exclaimed, “God’s sweet breath, it’s Philip Base-born! You’re looking well above your place in the world!”

  “And you’re disgracing yours,” Sir Philip replied evenly. “This is a house in mourning, and on the other side of this door is the cause of it. Take your family squabbling somewhere else. Or better, let it be until you leave Ewelme.”

  Sir Clement cast a scornful glance at his nephew and Lady Anne. “Better to tell them than me!” he retorted. “It’s their disobedience, not—”

  “You’re too loud in the near presence of God and death,” Sir Philip interposed.

  “Don’t you dare speak to me like that, you field whelp! I know—”

  “Enough to mind your manners in the earl of Suffolk’s house, surely.” Sir Philip cut him off more sharply. Sir Clement drew up short. In that brief advantage Sir Philip said as calmly as before, “May I suggest you and your nephew and ward go to supper quietly now?”

  The sideways lift of Sir Clement’s mouth was more sneer than smile. “You may suggest. And I may do exactly what I want.”

  He twitched his head in parody of a bow to Sir Philip, then seemed to notice Frevisse for the first time and bowed more credibly to her, then held out his hand demandingly to Lady Anne. Her chin jerked up and her lips tightened, but she stepped away from Guy, made a curtsy to Sir Philip and Frevisse, and, spurning the hand, left the antechamber. Sir Clement, pointedly ignoring his nephew, followed her. Guy, darkly flushed and silent, bowed in his turn and went after them.

  When they were gone Frevisse said, “Despite all that, I have the distinct impression Sir Clement was enjoying himself.”

  “I’m quite sure he was.” Sir Philip turned. The small room’s single low-burning lamp was at his back; in what shadowed light there was, the deep pockmarks of his face were not visible, giving him momentarily the handsomeness he would have had without them. But it was handsomeness without expression as he said, “Strife has always been Sir Clement’s favorite pastime.”

  “You know him, then?”

  “He did give the impression of knowing me, didn’t he?”

  If there was amusement in Sir Philip’s voice, it was very dry. More than anything, his polite-and-nothing-else tone and expression told Frevisse that he intended—and expected her—to say no more about what had passed between him and Sir Clement.

  Matching him in discretion, Frevisse said, “What of his nephew and the girl? There seems to be trouble there.”

  “It’s been a while since I had anything to do with Sir Clement or any of his family. I have no idea what that was about, beyond guesses that you can make as well as I.” Now there was very definitely mockery in his tone.

  “I daresay I can,” Frevisse said. “Though of course we may both be wrong, it being none of our business.” She turned back to the chapel to use what little time she had left for prayers. She noticed Sir Philip did not follow her; his place beside the coffin remained empty.

  Chapter 5

  Cardinal Bishop Beaufort put aside the last of the correspondence and nodded to his clerk. “Have someone take them in the morning.”

  With a bow, the man gathered the pages up and carried them away. They would be folded and sealed and given over to a messenger, but none of that need concern Beaufort now he had read them over and given his signature. He was deeply committed to efficiency, and that included having servants he could depend on for minor details.

  That nonetheless still left a great deal for him to do.

  Beaufort had come directly to Thomas from a meeting of the Great Council. Nothing of importance had been decided, as usual, there being too many factions squabbling for control. Never mind that most of the faction leaders were unable to manage even their own affairs; each had convinced himself and his followers that without him the government would fall into chaos.

  So, generally, it was necessary that Beaufort manipulate them with such tact that they failed to realize that he was—far more than they—governing the direction the kingdom went. Able to judge more deeply and assess more broadly than most men both their needs and weaknesses, he was usually successful.

  He had—fully knew and fully admitted to himself that he had—a drive to power that had taken him now almost to the limit of his ambitions. But the ability to foresee what others would do and the effort to bring them to his will was tiring upon occasion.

  Eyes shut, Beaufort rubbed his forehead with his large, beringed hand. What he wanted right now was time for mourning, and there was none. He had taken on the main burden of overseeing the funeral arrangements because he could see—couldn’t anyone else?—that Matilda was barely holding in one coherent piece. Beaufort thought the better of her for it. She was a place-proud, tongue-wagging woman who had longed for the honors her husband had refused. Beaufort had listened to an amused Thomas’s reasons for rising no higher than an esquire, had accepted them but never understood them. Matilda had neither understood nor accepted.

  Though their daughter’s marriage to an earl and the prospect of noble grandchildren had soothed her somewhat, she had never let Thomas forget what he (and she) could have been.

  So her effort to cope with the funeral burden whil
e keeping silent over her own pain was, in Beaufort’s view, more grace and courage than he had expected from her, and he had willingly taken as much of the burden from her as he could.

  But it was a burden. With Chaucer gone, Beaufort felt far lonelier than he had felt since he was a child, when his deeply kind, endlessly loving, greatly beautiful mother had gently explained to him the realities of his life—that nowhere in England was there anyone like himself except his two brothers and sister, bastard children of the royal duke of Lancaster, fourth son of King Edward III. Had his father married her before their birth—but he could not— they would have had right to the highest places in the realm. As it was, they were barred from any claim to anything not given them by someone else’s grace. A grace they were not assured of.

  But out of their father’s love for their mother, the grace had come. Places in their father’s royal household for his two brothers, eventual marriage to an earl for his sister, and for himself what he had longed for most—learning and the priesthood. Oxford, and then the Church, with a bishopric in his early twenties despite his bastardy.

  And then long past the time when anyone would have expected it, and to the wonder of all—not least their children—John, Duke of Lancaster, had married the mother of his bastard children. And King Richard II had legitimized them with right goodwill and grace.

  But John of Lancaster had died not long thereafter, and his eldest son and legitimate heir, Beaufort’s half brother, Henry of Hereford, had set Beaufort a problem that could have ruined him. Henry of Hereford, as arrogant a man as had ever lived, had always quarreled with his cousin King Richard over matters trivial and important. It was not that either was so very wrong, but that they were two very different men. Their enmity had become a fight for the Crown.

  Beaufort had been bound to King Richard by temperament, gratitude, and deep oaths of service and loyalty. But there was also the tie of blood to his half brother. And—he would admit in his most private moments—a fellow feeling with Henry’s ambition to greatness.

  He had gone to Thomas, the one man he could open his mind to, if not the depths of his heart. Thomas, safely removed from the quandary, had said with warm sympathy, “If you were a less ambitious prelate, you could retreat to your bishop’s palace and outwait what they’ll do. But you’ve put yourself too far forward, and you’ll have to choose between them or give up any hope of either of them favoring you anymore, whoever wins.”

  And Beaufort, as nearly always, had seen which way the matter must go, early enough that he had thrown his support to his half brother without seeming to hesitate. He had won that gamble; his half brother had become King Henry IV. Only Thomas had known how hard that decision had been.

  And even Thomas had not known how deeply Beaufort had grieved for King Richard’s death when it was over with.

  But that had not affected his service to the new House of Lancaster on the throne. He had served his half brother to the height of his abilities, and his son King Henry V after him, and now his grandson King Henry VI, Beaufort’s own great-nephew, in an upward spiral of prominence and power.

  It had not been easy, of course. There had been setbacks, enemies made, repeated frustrations. Through it all, whatever had gone wrong or right, Thomas had been there, nearer to him in mind and abilities than anyone else, the one person left since his mother’s death to whom he dared grieve and complain, and receive back sometimes sympathy, sometimes humor, sometimes rebuke, always understanding.

  Leaning back in his chair, his elbow on its arm, his hand over his eyes, fingers pressing on his aching eyelids, Beaufort was aware of his servants moving softly around the chamber behind him. Someone would shortly need his decision about something, and he had better be gathering up his wits to give it. And there was supper to go to. Tonight the family would dine in the parlor again, and he must be kind but firm and never in any way disrespect his position.

  Then tomorrow there was the funeral and the funeral feast, where he must be even more a pillar of the family and an honor to both the Crown and the Church, whose representative he was. He said a prayer for both his own endurance and Matilda’s.

  Someone had come to stand silently in front of him, waiting to be noticed. Beaufort drew a deep breath and brought his mind back to the problems of the moment, then dropped his hand into his lap and lifted his head.

  It was a relief to see Sir Philip there, who was inclined to talk only when he had something needful to say, and was to-the-point and sensible when he did.

  “Yes?” Beaufort asked.

  Sir Philip bowed deeply. “I regret the need to trouble your grace, but thought you might want to be forewarned that Sir Clement Sharpe has come.”

  “Is he in his usual humor?”

  “Very much so.”

  “You’ve spoken with him, then.”

  “Been insulted by him and turned the other cheek so he could insult it, too, would be a more accurate description.”

  Beaufort’s mouth quirked with appreciation. “I daresay so. I’ll take what steps I can to limit his… activities. And Sir Philip…”

  The priest paused in his bow of leave-taking. “My lord?”

  “There has been and there will be little chance to talk through these few days, so I may as well ask you here while we have the chance. What are your plans now that Master Chaucer is dead?”

  Two years ago, Thomas, at the death of his household priest, had asked Beaufort to recommend someone to replace him. Beaufort recommended Sir Philip, a minor member of his own household then, both because of the man’s clear intelligence and because of what he had made of his initially limited chances in life.

  Priest to a wealthy household was a position a man might comfortably have for life. Thomas had been pleased with him, and so far as Beaufort had been able to learn, so was the rest of the household, to the point where it appeared he could look forward to being priest to the earl of Suffolk now. One of several priests, of course, since the large household of an earl required more spiritual sustaining or more churchly show than a single priest could provide.

  Sir Philip tilted his head as if he found the question puzzling and unexpected. “Your will is mine in this, my lord. Of course.”

  “You have no preference?”

  “Only to trust to your judgment regarding where I can best serve.”

  The answer was impeccable, as everything Sir Philip did seemed to be. But it showed nothing of the man’s real desires. With a nod and a small gesture, Beaufort dismissed him. Sir Philip bowed and withdrew, going past Beaufort’s shoulder and out of sight toward the door.

  Beaufort brooded at the air in front of him for the length of a long drawn breath, then roused with a shake of his head and a grunt at his own unspecific dissatisfaction and set himself to the duties of the evening.

  Chapter 6

  After almost a month of damp chill and overcast skies, the funeral morning arrived sharply cold under an achingly blue sky.

  The funeral procession would form in the outer yard across the moat at mid-morning. Chaucer’s pall-draped coffin would be borne on a black cart drawn by black horses in procession to the church in the village, where Bishop Beaufort would conduct the funeral rites and the coffin be consigned to its tomb. Then the living would return to the manor for the feast, and the dead would remain, his soul already gone to heaven, his body to wait for Resurrection Day.

  At least with the new, bitter cold, the road would be more frozen, Frevisse thought as she partially opened a shutter in the parlor to see the day. For today, all of Ewelme was shutter-closed in the darkness of mourning, and her aunt’s bedchamber and the parlor would remain so for another month at least. But for the moment Frevisse and Dame Perpetua had the parlor to themselves.

  In the band of chill sunlight she had let in, Frevisse sat down on a stool across from Dame Perpetua, with cushions from the window seat to kneel on, and began Prime’s prayers. Since it was Sunday, the prayers were elaborated from their everyday patterns, but the c
ore remained the same.

  “Domine Deus omnipotens, qui ad principium huius diei nos pervenire fecisti: tua nos hodie salva virtute; ut in hac die ad nullum declinemus peccatum, sed semper ad tuam justitiam faciendam nostra procedant eloquia, dirigantur cogitationes et opera.”

  Lord God almighty, who has brought us to this day’s beginning: save us by your power, that in this day we turn aside into no sin, but always go toward your justice; turn our words, our thoughts, and works toward your will.

  By God’s will. For God’s will. In God’s will.

  But Chaucer, who had been more near to her in mind than anyone else in her life, as dear to her as her own parents, was dead. By God’s will, she would never see or hear or laugh or speak with him again in this life that might last, for her, so many more years.