15 The Sempster's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  Dickon set the bowl beside Dame Frevisse. Still with her fingertips, she handled one of the hose enough to find by the shape of the cloth where the wearer’s knee had been and put that part into the water, saying, “If the cloth has kept damp enough in the midden that the blood hasn’t set…”

  ‘Blood?“ Mistress Hercy said sharply.

  ‘… or if it isn’t too mixed with rubbish ooze…“ Dame Frevisse was scrubbing the cloth against itself while she spoke, but her words trailed off as the water turned faintly pink. Dame Frevisse sighed and sat back, leaving the hose still partly in the water.

  Mistress Hercy asked again, quietly now, “Blood?”

  Just as quietly Dame Frevisse answered, “Probably.” She prodded the hose with a forefinger, and a small swirl of pink spread outward from it through the water. She looked around and up at Mistress Hercy and said, still quietly, “In the crypt, beside Hal’s body, I saw where someone had knelt in the blood-softened dirt. Now here are discarded hosen, at least one of them apparently bloodied at the knee.”

  Anne understood what she was saying and surely so did Mistress Hercy, but the silence drew out and out, and Dame Frevisse and Mistress Hercy looked at one another in it, and Anne and Dickon watched them until finally, quietly, Mistress Hercy said, “No.”

  Dame Frevisse stood up and held out her hand. Dickon hurriedly brought her the towel hanging beside the water pitcher, and while she dried her hands, she bade him, “Wrap those up again. Then pour that water out the southward window. You’ll tell no one about any of this.”

  Steadily, Dickon asked, “My father?”

  ‘Not even him. No one. But when you’ve finished with the water, go find Master Weir and ask him to come here. No. Find Lucie first and tell her she’s to walk in the yard with you for a while rather than come back here. Then find Master Weir.“

  ‘Yes, my lady.“ He wrapped the hose again, poured the water out the window, bowed to her and all of them, and left.

  None of them moved or spoke until he was gone, but then Mistress Hercy went forward, took up the oiled-cloth bundle, and said, “This is mine to see to.”

  Dame Frevisse did not argue that, only asked, “Was Master Grene here the night Hal disappeared?”

  ‘He was out and hadn’t come home when I went to bed. For him to come home late was usual enough, though, and he was here in the morning. Anne, was he with you?“

  Taken aback, Anne said, “With me? No! Why ever should he be?”

  ‘I’ve seen he has an eye for you. I’ve sometimes thought you must have a lover. I thought it might be him,“ Mistress Hercy said without apology.

  ‘No,“ Anne said hotly. ”Raulyn has never been my lover.“

  ‘Wise of you,“ Mistress Hercy said and returned to Dame Frevisse with, ”He could have been with friends that night, or at some guild meeting. They’re forever having guild meetings.“ She looked at the bundle she held. ”That doesn’t answer this, though.“

  ‘He buried them in the midden,“ Dame Frevisse said, ”thinking they would be taken away, with no one the wiser. He’d probably taken care to keep his shirt clear, and washing his hands clean of blood would have been no great matter, but he had no way to wash these out and had to be rid of them. It was only his bad fortune that everything’s been set awry by the rebels and the scavagers didn’t come when they should have.“

  ‘His bad fortune and God’s will,“ Mistress Hercy said. ”Otherwise, how would we ever have known?“

  ‘What you’re saying,“ Anne said faintly, with a sickening mix of disbelief and certainty, ”is that Raulyn killed Hal.“

  The sound of someone coming up the stairs turned them quickly that way, Anne maybe not the only one afraid it was Raulyn. But it was Daved, and he made his bow to them all, and said, “My ladies.”

  Mistress Hercy looked at the nun. “What…” she began.

  ‘Master Weir and I have already determined that almost surely Raulyn killed Brother Michael.“ Even said flatly as that, the words were like a blow, but Dame Frevisse went on, ”Now I can tell him we’ve found what makes it likely Raulyn likewise killed Hal.“

  Mistress Hercy, having caught breath for words, said, “Killed Brother Michael?”, at the same time Daved demanded, “Hal, too? You’re certain?”

  ‘Certain enough,“ Dame Frevisse said.

  Mistress Hercy turned away, her need to sink down somewhere so plain that Anne sprang up to put an arm around her waist and take her to the window seat. Around all her swirl of thoughts, Anne grasped that this must have been of what Daved and the nun had talked in that while they spent aside from everyone in the solar, because he seemed not surprised, only far from happy.

  Clinging to Anne’s arm even after she was seated, Mistress Hercy asked, the words strangled, “What are we going to do?”

  Daved turned to her. “Little, while London is still taken up with the rebels.”

  ‘Hal and the friar both,“ Mistress Hercy said hoarsely. ”My God. Why?“ She suddenly looked at Daved, and her voice strengthened. ”Because of you. He killed the friar to save you…“ Her voice flattened again. ”No, not you. Himself.“

  ‘We think so, yes,“ Dame Frevisse said, and level-voiced, Daved told what they had determined and why. Mistress Hercy stared at the floor and nodded as he went on; and when he stopped, she raised her eyes to him and asked, weak with hopelessness, ”But why Hal?“

  ‘For gain,“ Dame Frevisse answered. ”You just told me…“

  With widening horror Anne broke her frozen silence, exclaimed, “Lucie’s marriage. He did it to add Hal’s share to hers.”

  ‘Lucie’s marriage?“ Daved asked sharply.

  Dame Frevisse told him briefly of that, and then of the hosen that Mistress Hercy still held in their bundle.

  ‘Something has to be done with that,“ Daved said with a nod toward it. ”Raulyn should not know we have it.“

  “Raulyn,” Mistress Hercy said in a horror-fraught whisper. “ How do I keep him from them when he comes back?” Her voice began to rise with alarm. “From Pernell, from Lucie. If he…”

  ‘They’re safe from him,“ Daved said. ”They’re both of use to him and not a danger. They’re safe. The only danger lies in any of us—you and I and Mistress Blakhall and Dame Frevisse—betraying that we know about him. Can you keep a fair seeming toward him? Toward everyone? As if nothing had changed?“

  ‘I have to,“ Mistress Hercy said faintly. ”I can. Yes.“ But a new appalling thought took her, and she said more sharply and with new pain, ”Pernell! This will tear her heart out. He’s ruined her and her heart will break and she’ll have nothing left. Between the crown’s claim against him as a murderer and the Church’s for sacrilege, everything will be gone. Pernell…“ She choked on tears and stopped.

  Daved went to her, took the bundle from her hands and set it on the floor, then took her hands in his own and said steadily, “The law can’t take her dower. She’ll still have that and everything she brought to the marriage. Nor there’ll be no one who blames her, and she’ll still have Lucie and little Robert and the new baby and you.”

  Mistress Hercy gasped, “The baby. And Robert. They’re his. Raulyn’s. Blessed St. Anne, what if she hates them for that? For being his. What if…”

  Daved gently shook her hands. “Heed me in this,” he said. “Don’t look so far ahead or think her such a fool. Look only at these next days. They’re the ones we must get through, until London is itself again.”

  ‘What if it’s never itself again?“ Mistress Hercy demanded on a rising tone of fear and misery. ”What if…“

  ‘Your merchants and men of power won’t hold tolerant of Cade’s ways and robberies for long. They’re likely already turning against him. We have only to wait it out. But we have to wait it out without Raulyn knowing what we know. You must seem as if nothing is changed.“

  Mistress Hercy lifted her head, straightened her back. Her mouth firmed and her eyes narrowed and she said from far inside her strength,
“He’ll know nothing from me.”

  Daved smiled on her, gave her hands a firm, approving shake, and stood up, picking up the bundled hosen as he did. “Good, then. This I’ll put somewhere for safekeeping.” He looked aside to Anne. “And you, Mistress Blakhall, can you keep countenance through this?”

  Anne met his gaze and said evenly, “I can feign whatever I need to.” Why not, when so much else of her life, like his, was feigned? Right now she was feigning against a desperate, despairing longing to beg him to go with her anywhere away from here, to go somewhere there would only be each other and no one else and nothing but their love. But all she very quietly said was, “For as long as need be.”

  Her reward was Daved’s smile and a warmth deep in his eyes that told her he understood everything she had not said.

  Chapter 27

  The afternoon passed in dread-filled waiting. Anne sat at the southward window for the sake of the light and went on mending Daved’s doublet. Dame Frevisse kept to the other window, looking outward. There seemed nothing to say between them nor with Mistress Hercy, who came and went, busy with Pernell and the household, her first sharp, open anguish and dismay gone behind an outward seeming that nothing had changed. But once, coming from Pernell in the bedchamber on her way to somewhere else in the house, she said as she passed through the parlor “I wish she’d begin her birthing. It would take her mind from things.”

  And Mistress Hercy’s mind, too, Anne thought. Where Daved was and what he was doing, she didn’t know. She only hoped he was not gone out, because through the afternoon there was a constant churn of broken noise coming and going along close-by streets, large gatherings of men passing with shouts and loud laughter. None of it came along St. Swithin’s, and though several times she thought she heard shouting at the barriers, no fighting ever seemed to break out.

  She had finished mending the doublet and was moving its bottom button to replace the one that was gone when Lucie joined her from wherever her grandmother had been keeping her busy. Anne welcomed her company and settled her to sewing on her sampler beside her, but soon Pernell came from the bedchamber, a bedgown wrapped around her, saying as she went awkwardly to her chair, “I can’t bear it in there anymore. Lucie, come show me your work. Anne, talk to me about anything at all. My lady,” she added to Dame Frevisse with a small nod of greeting, probably having forgotten her name. Dame Frevisse nodded back.

  Anne and Lucie gave Pernell what distraction they could, but she startled at every outburst of noise, until finally to cover outside sounds Anne began a chanting, clapping game with Lucie, insisting Pernell take her turn, and when Mistress Hercy returned from whatever she had been seeing to elsewhere in the house, they drew her into it, too. Their cold suppers brought on trays ended it, startling Pernell with how late the day was gone, but as she began a worry over Raulyn, Emme came in, exclaiming, “The master’s back! He’s in talk with the men but said I should come tell you!”

  ‘He’s unhurt?“ Pernell cried.

  ‘Unhurt as ever can be,“ Emme said as if it were by her own doing he was here and unscathed.

  Anne’s unbidden thought was how much better it would have been if he had fallen in some wayward violence in the streets and never come home again. But Pernell gasped, “Praise to all the saints.” And when Raulyn bounded up the stairs and into the parlor, exclaiming as he crossed to Pernell, “Here! I’m back! Safe, sound, not a hair on my head harmed,” Anne’s mind faltered away from the certainty Daved and the nun had built in her. Raulyn couldn’t be what they said he was.

  He kissed Pernell and swung around to the rest of them, saying grandly, “My ladies.”

  Daved appeared quietly through the doorway. Raulyn gestured to him with a laugh. “He’s come to see I don’t alarm you with wild tales but all I have is the truth. The tide is turning against Cade in London!”

  ‘Has turned,“ said Daved far more calmly, ”But isn’t near to full flood yet.“

  ‘It’s Cade’s own doing,“ Raulyn said with unabated eagerness. ”John Geste—you know, he has the house by Tower Street—had him to dinner today, trying to keep to Cade’s good side, the fool. After his goodly dinner, Cade had his men strip the place to the walls!“

  ‘Merciful Mary!“ Mistress Hercy cried, and Anne and Pernell, ”He didn’t!“ and ”Oh, no!“

  Carried by his own excitement, Raulyn went on eagerly, “There’s only the beginning. He has his men searching the city for men he’s named, taking their goods and them, and holding them to ransom. Though how they’re to buy themselves free when he’s taken everything of theirs he can lay his hands on…” Raulyn laughed. He seemed not to note that no one else did. “He’s had another man beheaded, too. Not a Londoner. Someone the Essex rebels handed over to him. But he had Lord Saye’s body cut into pieces and—”

  ‘Enough,“ said Mistress Hercy.

  With immediate contrition, Raulyn quickly kissed Pernell. “No more of that, my love, no. The thing is, though, that such of his men as Cade still controls are doing as much hurt as the ones he doesn’t, and London isn’t half-liking it.” Pernell began a small whimper, but Raulyn snatched hold of her hands and said, “Not to fear. He’s so far only interested in the richest of the rich, not middling sorts like us. Besides, we’re safe as in a castle here. With the lane guarded and our own gates… Daved, tell her,” he said as Pernell went on shaking her head from side to side, wide-eyed with her fears.

  Daved, smiling, came to kneel beside her, took one of her hands from Raulyn and kissed it like a knight to his fair lady before he said, “Good mistress, I promise you there is no lady in London more safely kept than you are here.”

  Too frightened to be readily comforted, Pernell started to ask, “But what if they—”

  ‘There was a man hanged himself for fear of all the ’what ifs’ he thought of,“ Daved said, kind and solemn together. ”We’ve done better than merely worry over ‘what ifs.’ We are barred and guarded and armed and ready for anything. No one will come near you or yours, we promise you. Nor will you have to endure much longer. A day maybe, but no more. London’s lords will endure much but not being robbed of their earthly goods. There’s where Cade has lost them. London will be making common cause with Lord Scales in the Tower before we know it.“

  ‘And this will all be done, and we’ll be rid of Cade and his rebels,“ Raulyn said. ”In the meantime we’re well-guarded here, I promise you with all my heart.“

  ‘And with that promise,“ Mistress Hercy said to Pernell, ”let you go back to bed and have your supper there. Raulyn will come with you. You, too, Lucie. Keep your mother company.“

  Daved stood up and aside, and Raulyn and Mistress Hercy helped Pernell to her feet and away into the bedchamber, Lucie drifting in their wake. From the window seat Dame Frevisse asked quietly, “Master Weir, do you believe what you’ve said about London and Lord Scales?

  ‘I do indeed. I was out for a time, and matters are much as Raulyn said. Jack Cade will likely be unpleasantly surprised and soon.“

  ‘How bad will it be, do you think? When it comes to fighting.“

  ‘There’s no way to truly say. We’ll have to take it as it comes. Hopefully it will not come here. Now by your leave…“ He bowed to her and Anne together and began to move toward the stairs.

  Anne took a step after him, saying a little desperately, “Daved.”

  He turned again and she held out his doublet to him. “Mended,” she said.

  He returned and took it from her with thanks and nothing more, except everything she wanted to see was in his eyes, and she hid nothing in her look at him. Then he was gone, leaving her to yet more waiting. To waiting and fear and longing. Nor could she escape into the bedchamber to cope with Pernell’s fears instead of her own, not while Raulyn was there. Daved, Mistress Hercy, and Dame Frevisse were so certain of his guilt, and their reasoning and proofs had brought her to believe it, too; but it was still so hard. Raulyn. And what if their proofs were not enough and there were no wa
y, after all, to make Raulyn’s guilt sure to jury and judges? What would they all do then, if Raulyn was accused and then acquitted?

  Raulyn came from the bed chamber, passing through the parlor with a word and a smile that Anne returned before going to join Mistress Hercy and Lucie in keeping Pernell company. Twilight was well along. Night would be soon. Pernell wanted them all to stay with her tonight, and Mistress Hercy said firmly they would, promising for Anne without asking her, so that Pernell finally drank the wine her mother had mixed with valerian and a little poppy powder, Mistress Hercy saying, “There’s nothing there will hurt the baby. Not so much as his mother grieving and worrying herself to death would do.”

  She even gave a little to Lucie, and soon both she and Pernell were sleeping. Anne wished she had a like escape, but Mistress Hercy did not offer it, only soon went away to her other business, leaving Anne to the night and her thoughts. It was plain weariness after last night that brought her, undressed to her undergown, to lie down beside Lucie on the truckle bed. She even slept awhile, but where two nights ago the darkness had been taut with silence and uncertainties, and last night been now and again broken with noises, tonight London seethed and stirred, and she was awakened time and again to listen as loud groups of shouting, laughing, or quarreling men passed on one street or another. Twice, shouted exchanges with the men keeping St. Swithins’ barriers roused her sharply out of sleep, and although no fighting followed, the effort to sleep finally became too much and she gave it up and went to sit at the chamber’s window, opening the shutter a little to the night. There was nothing to see but the black line of London rooftops against the blue-black sky and sometimes the trailing glow of torches carried along nearby streets.

  She was still sitting there when Mistress Hercy came in, still fully clothed in her gown and wimple and veil, going silently by the small light of a carried candle to see how Pernell and Lucie did. She said nothing and neither did Anne, and she went away again, leaving the door a little ajar and Anne envying her that she had something to do besides wait. Unable to sit longer Anne stood up and moved silently to the door. Not wanting to waken Dame Frevisse if she were sleeping, Anne opened the door wider with great care but saw the nun sitting at the southward window, straight-backed and unmoving, looking outward. Like Mistress Hercy she was still fully clothed, a black shape in the shadows in her black Benedictine gown and veil, with only the strong line of her profile pale against the lesser darkness of the night sky. Anne stood still, watching her, wondering about her. What had brought her to be a nun? Had it been her choice or someone else’s? Had there been a lost love? Or never a love? Or was love of God all and enough for her, the way it was supposed to be for a nun?