15 The Sempster's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  But she was momentarily out of questions; and Mistress Hercy, her eyes shut again, looked by her shallow, even breathing to be lightly sleeping; and Frevisse folded her hands into her lap and bowed her head, looking for a prayer that might comfort. Rather than something from one of the missed Offices, what came into her mind was the prophet Micah’s question, “For what does the Lord your God require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly in his ways?” And when all was said and done, what else did God require? Christ had said everything was summed up in “Do to others as you would have them do to you, and love your neighbor as yourself.” If that was all that was asked of mankind—to love, to be kind, to do justice, and to live humbly—why did mankind live instead in angers, hatreds, fears, and greeds? Why were there men like Raulyn Grene—and God guide her right and forgive her if she were wrong about him—who ruined lives without care for anyone but themselves?

  The answer was supposed to be Eve’s and Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden—the Original Sin from which all others came. But Christ’s death was said to have redeemed mankind from that Sin, so if the Great Sin was paid for with Christ’s death, what were sins since then? Were all sins no longer part of the great Sin but only petty sins, with men more petty with every one they did, lessening themselves sin by sin until they dwindled away into hell, their souls too shriveled to reach toward heaven anymore?

  And why should Daved with his love and his courage be damned forever, while someone like Raulyn Grene could save his soul if on his deathbed he declared he repented of all his sins?

  She knew it was not as simple as that. Theologians wrote their thick volumes of arguments and declarations, all followed by thick volumes of church law to enforce those declarations, so it could not be as simple as she saw it.

  Or it was that simple, and Mankind’s sin was crowned in its folly by teaching by way of endless arguments and tangled laws that salvation was more difficult to have than ever God had meant it to be.

  She was thankful to be saved from thinking those thoughts further by the maidservant Emme hurrying into the parlor. At the other window Lucie’s soft laughter at Dickon’s cat’s cradle games had not disturbed Mistress Hercy, but at Emme’s footfall she immediately lifted her head and asked, “What is it?”

  ‘Cook wants some ginger from the spice chest, please you,“ Emme said with a quick curtsy.

  With a weary sigh, Mistress Hercy pushed herself to her feet. “First, let me see how Mistress Grene does. Wait while I do, on chance you need to fetch anything. No, dearling,” she added to Lucie who had stood up, ready to go with her. “You stay there. Your mother doesn’t need you yet.”

  Lucie willingly turned back to Dickon, and as Mistress Hercy left them, Frevisse said to Emme, gesturing to the bench, “Sit down while you can.”

  Emme did, saying, “Bless you.” She was a plain-faced, plain-mannered woman, past her young days but not old, looking to be of settled ways, and making a guess Frevisse asked, “You’ve been with Mistress Grene a long while?”

  ‘Since before she was Mistress Grene,“ Emme said readily. ”She was Mistress Depham when I first came to her and not even a mother yet. I’ve seen all her children born and helped to raise them. I remember when Hal…“ She wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron. ”Poor lamb. At least he had a mostly happy life, and that’s more than many can say.“ She gave a chuckle a little choked by her tears. ”The worst that ever came to him was he and Master Grene were chalk and cheese together.“

  ‘They didn’t get on well?“ Frevisse asked, keeping her voice level. ”Oh, they didn’t quarrel, no, but they couldn’t find two things together to say to each other most of the time. Master Grene, he’s all sharp wits and doing things. Hal, he let life be easy. Wasn’t given to hurrying things. He and Master Grene were both the happier when he went off to Master Yarford.“ She was dry-eyed now and even a little smiling. Talking seemed to comfort her, and Frevisse said, to keep her talking, ”Well, it’s a blessing Mistress Hercy is here for all this. Master Grene must be most grateful.“

  ‘If he is, it’s the first time he’s been,“ Emme said, just short of a snort.

  ‘Chalk and cheese again?“ Frevisse asked lightly.

  ‘More knife and whetstone. One’s always sharpening the other, if you see what I mean.“

  ‘They don’t get on?“

  ‘They do, and they don’t.“ She shrugged. ”Not of one mind about most things, and neither of them behindhand in telling the other. Except they both agree he was a good marriage for my mistress.“

  ‘Still, they’re together in keeping Mistress Grene from the worst of all this,“ Frevisse ventured.

  ‘They are that. Even though it’s not as if any of us would say aught to Mistress Grene would make her hurt worse.“

  ‘My guess is that Hal’s death has taken Mistress Hercy far harder than she shows.“

  ‘Oh, by the Virgin’s mercy, yes,“ Emme said. ”It’s all for her daughter’s sake she keeps such a good front. Hal was her dear and no mistake. The spit of her late husband she used to say. It’s been cruel hard on her, for certain.“

  ‘Is there any thought at all among the household about who could have done it? Has there been anyone around here of late that shouldn’t have been, taking more interest in things than they should have? Any strangers?“

  ‘Oh, we were asking ourselves that before anyone else was,“ Emme assured her. ”But it wouldn’t be around here they’d be looking but at Master Yarford’s, wouldn’t they?“

  Frevisse hadn’t hoped for better answer to her question. She was merely going blindly, hoping to blunder into something.

  A servant carrying a wide, well-laden tray came from the stairs. “Mistress Grene’s dinner,” he said with a glower at Emme. “Cook gave up waiting for the ginger.

  Emme stood up, saying, “I’ll be blamed for that, sure,” and would have gone to open the bedchamber door ahead of him, but Dickon with a young man’s interest in food was quicker, and Emme stayed where she was, going on to Frevisse, “No, the only thing strange of late is that pair of hosen gone missing, and I was blamed for that, too, and it was no more my fault than the ginger. As if I’d lose a pair of hosen between here and the laundry basket and not see them on my way back.”

  Quickly Frevisse said, “That’s just the sort of thing a servant gets blamed for when it’s not her fault at all. When was this?”

  Willing to have someone sorry for her wrongs, Emme sat down again. “Last week. No, I tell a lie. Monday it would have been when Mistress Hercy was counting out the household laundry before it went to the laundress in Birchin Lane. That’s like her, you know.” Emme was openly a-grieved. “Mistress Grene has always left the counting to me, and I’ve never lost anything. But Mistress Hercy must see to everything herself, and there’s this pair of hosen gone missing. ‘Shouldn’t there be more than one pair of Master Grene’s hosen here?’ she asks and sends me off to search the bedchamber for them. I didn’t find them and had to hear about it afterward, and what I wanted to tell her was that if they aren’t in the bedchamber and aren’t in the dirties, then they aren’t anywhere, and it’s not my doing!” Emme’s indignation had brought color into her cheeks. “That’s the truth of it, no matter what she thinks! But it’s me that’s blamed, and Cook will blame me for the ginger, too,” she added bitterly, “which is no more my fault than that was.”

  Chapter 25

  After Emme left her, Frevisse stayed at the window with her suddenly sharpened thoughts, knowing her own dinner would be brought to her in good time. Servants were in a household to serve, but they also saw and listened to all they could of things done and said. She had had no secrets out of Emme, merely what anyone in the household was likely to know, and that Emme’s view of matters was probably not that of either Mistress Hercy or Raulyn Grene did not lessen its worth. Briefly, Frevisse wondered what the servants in St. Frideswide’s said among themselves about her and decided she did not want to know. The line between humil
ity and humiliation could sometimes be too thin.

  Lucie had followed Emme into the bedchamber, and Frevisse called Dickon to her and ordered, “When you go down to your dinner, don’t tarry over it. Eat and come straight back. I need you for something.”

  Dickon brightened. “You know something, don’t you? You’re going to find out who killed the friar, aren’t you?”

  Frevisse said quellingly, “What I know is that there are more things I want to know. Eat and come back, and don’t say anything to anyone about me while you’re at it.”

  ‘Not a word. Does Father know what you’re doing?“

  ‘Your father knows.“ Whether he approved or not was another matter. ”Go on.“ As afterthought, she added, ”You could bring my dinner when you return, to save someone else the steps.“

  Dickon bowed and left with eagerness for more than the bread and cheese and cold meat that were likely waiting for him.

  The servant came out of the bedroom. Frevisse told him that her man would be bringing her meal, then asked, “Has Master Grene come back yet?”

  ‘Not when I’d come up“ the man said, bowed, and left Frevisse to her continuing uncomfortable thoughts. If what she suspicioned against Raulyn were even half true—if he were guilty only of Brother Michael’s death—Pernell’s life was going to be torn to unmendable shreds; and if the rest of what Frevisse feared was true—if Hal’s death were his doing, too—Pernell’s pain would be hardly bearable. As great as her grief now was, what would it be then? And her anger. Because anger would surely come, later if not sooner, maybe made the worse because she had borne Raulyn a child and was carrying another for him at the very time he killed her first-born. Would she see her children by him as tainted with Hal’s blood because they were Raulyn’s, and come to loathe them, even hate them? All that should be set, too, to Raulyn’s account in Heaven’s reckoning against his soul, Frevisse thought. The sin of Pernell’s hatred should lie as heavily against him as against her, because he was the wanton, willing cause of it all.

  Frevisse had found before now how narrowly most murderers saw the world. For most people their own needs and desires were what mattered most to them, but most people also granted the worth of other people’s needs, accepted other peoples’ right to their own desires, their own lives. Murderers like Raulyn Grene were otherwise—not simply first in their own regard but only. Other’s were worthless unless of use to them; and if someone else’s death might be of worth, then murdering them was reasonable. Only fear of being caught could stop such a man—or woman. Other things than a blind heed of only the self could bring a person to murder, Frevisse knew, but she did not think it was so with Raulyn Grene. But if he had killed Hal, what she didn’t see was why he had. There had to be more gain from it than being rid of Daved Weir, but what?

  Someone was coming up the stairs too heavily and slow to be Dickon, even if he were carrying her dinner, and she was not surprised when Father Tomas entered. She rose to her feet and curtseyed to him, and he made a small sign of blessing at her, but when he would have gone onward to the closed bedchamber door, she said, “I pray you, Father, come sit a while. If you’ve been praying all this while beside Brother Michael, you’ve more than earned the right to rest.” And added with a nod toward the bedchamber, when he still hesitated, “They’re at dinner in there just now. Have you eaten?” Because he was so pale and bow-shouldered with weariness, she doubted he had yet broken fast today.

  ‘Just now I have eaten, yes,“ but accepted her offer of rest, sitting down on a nearby chair as if his back and knees hurt, which well they might if he had been kneeling on the cellar floor most of this while. ”I have done what I could for the dead,“ he said. He nodded toward the bedchamber. ”How does she?“

  ‘I haven’t seen her. Her mother and Lucie and Mistress Blakhall are with her.“

  Hands on his knees, rubbing them, Father Tomas nodded. “Good. Good.”

  Not knowing how much time or other chance she might have, Frevisse said, “A question, if I may, Father. About Hal.”

  ‘Poor Hal,“ Father Tomas said with a sad nodding.

  Frevisse was abruptly irked. She had not gathered Hal had been “poor Hal” while he was alive. Why should he be rendered “poor Hal” forever afterward by his death? Death, in whatever guise, did not cancel out the good days there had been in a life nor the uncounted ordinary days, blessed by their ordinariness. Let him be Hal who came to a wrongful death, not “poor Hal” as if his death was all there had been to his life. And a little more sharply than she might have, she asked, “Was he much given to brotheling?”

  Father Tomas’ eyes flew open. “What? Mercy of Mary, no!”

  ‘Would you have known?“

  ‘I was his priest. I would have known. Of his own choice he had even made a vow to me that he would stay chaste until his marriage. His last confession—“ Father Tomas stopped, his burst of indignation run out, then said wearily, ”No. I do not see him brotheling.“ And a little sharply, ”Why?“

  ‘Mistress Blakhall said someone had told her that was why Hal went out that night.“

  ‘No.“ Father Tomas shook his head firmly against that. ”No.“ He shook his head as if understanding none of it and said, sounding bewildered with grief and weariness, ”From what is said, he was lured out deliberately to be killed. But why? That is what I do not see.“

  ‘And why try to make it seem Jews had done it and in your church? Have you enemies?“

  ‘Enemies?“ Father Tomas sounded only the more bewildered. ”No, I have no enemies. Nor did anyone know of my family. Only Daved Weir.“

  ‘Did he?“ she asked carefully, covering her surprise. ”How?“

  ‘He brings letters from my sister and takes mine to her.“

  ‘And from the rest of your family, too?“

  ‘Such as still live, they do not write,“ Father Tomas said. ”They live as Christian, but in the heart they are not. When I took on the heart as well as the seeming and wished to be a priest, they cast me out. They do not know my sister writes to me or me to her.“ Father Tomas’ tired face firmed and he straightened, made the sign of the cross in the air between them, and said in the set and certain voice of a priest, ”What I have told you, I enjoin you to keep secret forever.“ He made the sign of the cross again. ”I bind you to silence on it now and forevermore.“

  Frevisse opened her mouth in what would have been resentful protest but stopped herself. Both as a priest and as a man protecting himself Father Tomas had the right to enjoin that silence on her. Whether he had the right to keep his family’s grievous secret was another matter, but by enjoining silence on her, he kept it his problem and not hers, and she willingly gave up need to think about it in favor of strict obedience to his priestly command, saying quietly with bowed head, “As you will, Father.”

  That did not mean she was done with questions, though, and as she raised her head, she asked, “Do you know why Brother Michael was in St. Swithin’s Lane yesterday when he was attacked?”

  ‘He had been at the church again with his questions.“

  ‘Of you? Or about you?“

  ‘Of everyone. And much about me, I think, yes.“ Sadness as well as weariness showed in the priest now. ”There are people not pleased now they know about me.“

  And Brother Michael’s prodding and questioning would have only made that worse. That was beyond her help, though, and she asked, “Did he say he was coming here? Or was he maybe going somewhere else?”

  ‘I do not know whether he was coming here or simply taking this way back to the friary.“ Father Tomas frowned. ”Though if he were bound for Grey Friars, it would have made better sense to go by way of Candlewick to Budge Row than this way.“

  ‘Was there anyone else in the street besides the men who attacked him?“

  ‘A few people.“ Father Tomas frowned more deeply. ”But those men went only at him.“

  Frevisse remembered Brother Michael had said they asked if he was the friar who had been pr
eaching at St. Paul’s.

  ‘They were likely Lollards,“ Father Tomas was going on. ”They looked more London roughs than rebels, so I think.“ His voice went sadder. ”My shame is that when they attacked him, I only stood there, staring. It was Master Weir and Master Grene, come from the other way, who went to him. God forgive me, but I do not know if it was fear held me back or my dislike of him.“

  Nor could anyone answer that truly except himself; but for what comfort it might be, Frevisse said, “You were pulling him from among their feet when I saw you. That’s more than many would have done.”

  ‘But was it for shame or for love of God?“ he asked sadly.

  Another question only he could answer, and a little silence fell between them, until a flurry of voices in the yard bought him to join her at the window to see Raulyn crossing toward the house, talking excitedly to two of his household men. One of them laughed to whatever he was saying and turned back to the gate. Raulyn and the other, still talking, went up the outside stairs and into the house.

  ‘Not ill news, anyway,“ Father Tomas said, drawing back. From the bedchamber Pernell’s voice rose, querulous and frightened. Father Tomas turned that way. ”I should go to her. By your leave.“

  He bent his head to Frevisse. She curtseyed in return, and he went to rap slightly at the bedchamber door and go in, leaving Frevisse with the hope that he was as he seemed: a caring priest whose deepest desire in life was serving God.

  Raulyn came so quickly up the stairs and into the room that she barely had time to blank her face before he was saying merrily, “Cade has them where it hurts! He’s made that fawning Stockwood an alderman, God save us, and is forcing I don’t know how many others to open their purses to him because he’ll let his men loose on them if they don’t!”

  Pulling out the one good thing she heard in all of that, she asked, “He still has that much hold over his men?”

  ‘More hold than I thought he’d have by now,“ Raulyn said. ”The city’s own curs, they’re another matter. He’s had a few of those chopped for thieving he didn’t order. He’s had Hawardan out of sanctuary and dead, and that’s as much to the good as anything he’s done!“