The Traitor's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  With every Office, with every prayer and psalm of pleading and praise, the tight binding of worry Frevisse had carried with her these past days loosened a little more. What she could do, she would do. Beyond that, all was in God's hands, and—returned to bed after Lauds—she fell to sleep more easily than she had been able to for some few past nights.

  Vaughn showed he was not best pleased that in the morning she and Sister Margrett said Prime with the nuns before riding on, but to his good he did not try to make up the time by pushing their pace any harder than he had yesterday. They kept to the same rhythm of walk and trot and gallop, and the miles went by. Cambridge's crowded streets slowed them somewhat, but beyond there the level roads through open countryside of wide pasturelands made for unhindered riding. At St. Neot's they crossed a river by way of a timber bridge—always to be preferred to a ferry or fording—but farther on the land began to rise into hills more definite than the ones they had ridden out of yesterday. That slowed their going, but there was still goodly daylight left when they reached the stone-built market town of Higham Ferrers and Vaughn turned them south toward the Treshams' manor at Rushden. He knew the way, so no time was wasted in asking it, and very soon they turned down from the highway and rode through a small parkland and an open gateway into the foreyard of a manor house with its surround of stables and other buildings.

  All was far less fine than Wingfield—its hall smaller and older, the spread of buildings less—but the gates stood open in welcome, and because Vaughn had sent one of the men ahead to warn of their coming, someone had been watching for them, and Master and Mistress Tresham came from the enclosed stone foreporch to greet them as they drew rein. A servant came from the stable, too, to lead their men and horses away while the Treshams greeted Frevisse, Sister Margrett, and Vaughn with the hope their ride had been easy and questions of how Lady Alice was when they left her, and saw them into the house. Because Vaughn was there in Lady Alice's name, he was being given something of the courtesy that would have been hers and went with them, through the great hall to the solar where wine and small, freshly made, berry cakes were waiting.

  The Treshams were much as Frevisse remembered them from the few times she had met them in Alice's company: Master Tresham a well-mannered man in his fine later mid' die years, aware of his own wits and worth without need to wear them heavily for the world to see; Mistress Tresham graciously well-matched to her husband in years and wits and worth and manners. While her husband asked Vaughn questions about their journey and for what news he might have, Mistress Tresham soon asked Frevisse and Sister Margrett if they should care to ready for supper, and having drawn promise from Master Tresham that, yes, he would see Vaughn to his room in just a few minutes, she led Frevisse and Sister Margrett upstairs to a pleasant chamber from which someone looked to have been hurriedly removed.

  When Frevisse said as much, Mistress Tresham admitted with a smile, "Our son. Thomas. He has his own home now, at another of our manors, Sywell, not far away. His wife died last year and his little boy is staying with us. We're dealing for another marriage for him, but meanwhile he comes to see Jack, which means we get to see more of him. The only trouble," she warned, half-laughing, "is that he and his father go on at each other at length over where the rights and wrongs of the world lie. They're nor of one mind about it, and best I warn you, because you'll probably have to listen to them at supper. I'll send someone for you when it's time to go down, and leave you in peace until then."

  She withdrew, and Frevisse and Sister Margrett used the respite to wash their faces and hands and say a hurried Vespers before a serving woman came to lead them downstairs, back to the solar again. The Treshams dined in the newer fashion—apart from their household, the great hall left to their servants while they were private in the solar. Like all else at Rushden, the meal was done with quiet grace, served with no great show but with no lessening of courtesy. There was an ease to it all that told here were a man and wife who had made choices about their life and were well-pleased with it.

  Rushden might be less fine than Wingfield, but there was the quiet sense of family and a well-loved home that told that here "less" was no loss. Certainly neither Master nor Mistress Tresham showed any sign of thwarted ambitions, only the grace of people pleased with their lives.

  Their son Thomas was something of another matter, Frevisse covertly noted. Much about Vaughn's age, he had all the bearing of a young man ready to be ambitious in the world. His manners were faultless but he joined in his father's and Vaughn's talk with a restless eagerness. When Mistress Tresham had again asked after Lady Alice, this time in caring detail, and Frevisse had told what she could, Sister Margrett asked about Mistress Tresham's grandson, and while they shared stories of him and Alice's young John, Frevisse listened to the men's talk. Master Tresham and Vaughn were past sharing reports of how things were elsewhere to sharing their thoughts on matters, with Thomas joining in strongly, until Master Tresham said somewhat sharply at him, "That's a fairly simple view of matters."

  "Simple?" Thomas protested. "Do you truly think the Commons have boiled up over half of England all of their own? That there's no one was behind it?"

  "What's behind it are a few years too many of wrongs gone on so long and deep that men were finally goaded into rebellion to make someone listen to them," Master Tresham returned. "No one has to be 'behind it'. However ill-guidedly, most of these rebels are no more than trying to better things."

  "They may honestly think that's what they're doing, the most of them," Thomas said. He reached out and tapped a firm forefinger against the table top. "But I tell you they're being used. Behind everything, it's York has stirred them up."

  "York," Master Tresham scoffed. "Name me one thing— one thing—York has ever done that shows he's treacherous."

  "He wants the crown. That's a certainty."

  "Certain for whom? He's never made a single move that way. You can't name one thing he's done that says he's out to have it. Unless you've learned to read his unsaid thoughts and found it there, you're ..."

  "You don't have to read unsaid thoughts to know what's in them. What about ..." Thomas had taken up a spoon to add ginger sauce over the portion of roast chicken in front of him but forgot himself and was waggling it at his father instead. His mother cleared her throat delicately, without directly looking at him. Thomas paused, said, "Pardon," laid down the spoon, and went on but no less intensely, "What about last April? That shipman, in Stony Stratford when King Henry was passing through on his way to Leicester. That fellow who beat the ground with a flail and yelled that York would do the same to traitors when he came back from Ireland. What of that?"

  "You can't condemn York because a half-mad fellow— and how much in the way of wits can a shipman in Leicester, days away from any coast, have about him?—rants his name in the public street. 'There's many talk of Robin Hood who never drew a bow.' These claims that York's behind these risings is as much a fable as 'Robin Hood' is. Just because there’s talk doesn't make a thing true."

  "Then why is he named time and again?" Thomas demanded. "In this Jack Cade's demands, for one?"

  "If you'd read those demands instead of only listening to your friends around the king mouth about them, you'd know the demand was for York to be acknowledged King Henry's heir. Which he is and that can't be changed until King Henry has a son, may God and the Blessed Virgin bless him that way soon."

  "Ah!" Thomas exclaimed, triumphant. "Arrow to the target's heart! Let York be declared the king's heir and the °ext thing you know he'll have King Henry dead."

  "That's like saying a son, because it's known he'll inherit when his father dies, is beyond doubt planning his father's murder," Master Tresham said scornfully. "No." He raised a hand, forestalling his son's answer to that. "There's no ground to hold York guilty of anything except being born with royal blood, which is hardly his fault. You show me one thing you can prove he's done . . ."

  "These rebellions aren't just happening," Thomas insi
sted. "Someone is behind them. Someone is the head of it all. Like with the body, take care of the head . . ." He made a slicing motion with the side of his hand across his throat. "... and the rest will settle quickly enough. I say it's York needs to be . . ." He made the slicing gesture again.

  "And I say," Master Tresham returned as strongly, "that York is the one lord I've seen who's done his every duty honorably these past years and at cost to himself, not gain. Chopping York won't cure the wrongs that have been done or solve people's angers. What's needed is for the king to face up to all the wrongs there've been, satisfy the Commons of their just complaints, and give justice where justice is due and punishment where it's been earned. And it hasn't been York who's done aught that needs punishing."

  Thomas opened his mouth toward answering that, but his mother said with the calm of a woman used to an ongoing debate, "And now we'll find something else to talk about over our meal's end and this very good wine from Normandy. Our steward was fortunate with it. It's from a cask from one of the last shipments out of Caen."

  Her firm turn of their talk took them to easier matters and by unspoken agreement they all kept the rest of their talk that evening no further afield than the likelihood the weather would hold for the next few days; some mild questions about St. Frideswide's and interest in the priory's scrivening business; advice from Mistress Tresham on which of the queen's ladies would most want to hear truly how Lady Alice was for friendship's sake; the discovery that the Treshams knew Sister Margrett's father, a draper in Northampton—had bought the new hangings around their bed from him two years ago. The great troubles of the world were left to fend for themselves, even by Thomas. Only as Mistress Tresham was leading Frevisse and Sister Margrett to their bedchamber by candlelight did she comment on her son, saying not so much in apology as rueful explanation, "We maybe set him into the king's household too young. Or maybe he simply read too many stories of chivalry while he was growing up." She laughed a little. "He's determined he's one of the queen's true knights, ready to stand in her cause against the world."

  "Is so much of the world against her?" Frevisse asked, matching Mistress Tresham's lightness.

  "Not that I've heard. But what's the use of being the queen's true knight if you can't protect her against something?"

  Still smiling, she left them to their good night's sleep and in the morning, after a plain breaking of their night's fast and thanks given all around—by Frevisse and Sister Margrett for the Treshams' courtesy in receiving them so well and by the Treshams for the nuns' courtesy in stopping there—they rode on their way.

  Vaughn again sent one of their men ahead, this time to let Sister Margrett's family know she would soon be there, and despite they made good time, the road easily following a river valley between pasture and open fields, by the time they reached Northampton on its strong rise of ground and rode along and around and into a street near the marketplace, not only Sister Margrett's parents were waiting to greet her at their door, but her brothers and sister, their spouses and children, and a solid score of various other kin "whom Frevisse did not try to sort out in the two hours spent with them and with much talk and food and drink, until Sister Margrett said they must ride on.

  That saved Frevisse or Vaughn being the villain in breaking up the happy family gathering, for which Frevisse thanked Sister Margrett as they rode away by the Warwick road.

  Sister Margrett gave a forceful sigh. "I love them dearly but, dear goodness, there's a great many of them. It will be so good to be back in St. Frideswide's. Mind you, memories of the fine foods at your cousin's may trouble my mealtimes for a while, and St. Frideswide's is going to seem so small and quiet, but still, it will be good to be back. Enough is enough, after all. Except . . ." She turned her head to give Frevisse a shrewd look past the edge of her veil. "... I don't know what's troubling you and only hope it doesn't come back into St. Frideswide's with us."

  That startled Frevisse, before she realized she had small reason to be startled. She knew she had not been hiding her worries very well; knew, too, that Sister Margrett was no fool: she had to have been seeing more than she had chosen to say. And Sister Margrett went lightly on, freeing Frevisse from need to answer, saying, "At least the weather has been good for most of our journeying."

  They lost that good weather by mid-afternoon. The air turning sullen and heavy under thickening clouds, and a little beyond Daventry the rain began, sullen and heavy like the air, bringing no cooling with it, making worse that they had to put on their cloaks with the hoods up. The almost treeless fields to either side of the road blurred behind the screen of rain, the road turned slick under their horses' hoofs, and Vaughn brought his horse alongside of Frevisse to tell both her and Sister Margrett, "Ed hoped to reach Warwick for the night, because Kenilworth is an easy ride from there, but Em thinking now we'd best stop at Southam. There's a good inn there."

  Sister Margrett nodded strong agreement to that, and Frevisse said, "Yes. Very good," the more readily because she was in no great hurry to reach Kenilworth. Later tomorrow would serve as well as sooner for such a useless errand as this one.

  Chapter 13

  Two main roads crossed in Southam, with Northampton and Warwick opposite ways on one of them, Coventry and Oxford their two directions on the other. The inn was of a size and comfort in keeping with that, and after an ample supper followed by a good night's sleep, Frevisse was in better humour to face the next day than she had thought to be. The rain was done, the clouds were thinning toward a fair day as the sun rose, and as they mounted their horses in the innyard Frevisse could not help thinking that Banbury town was merely ten miles to the south of here and St. Frideswide's not far beyond it. If they turned that way, they could be there before . . .

  "Twelve miles or so to go, my ladies," Vaughn said, gathering up his reins. "With luck you'll be there not much after midday."

  Frevisse took up her own reins and turned her horse to follow him out of the innyard.

  The day had cleared to open sunlight and few high-drifting clouds by the time they approached Kenilworth's rose-gray walls and towers. From atop the square bulk of the Norman keep inside the walls, the queen's banner with her heraldic arms of Anjou impaled with her husband's lifted and fell in a small wind, showing crimson, blue, silver, gold.

  "So she's still here," Vaughn said as they approached the outer gateway with its double stone towers.

  In surprise, Sister Margrett said, "They told us in Warwick that she was."

  "They can say that in Warwick without knowing that she's moved on without telling them first," Vaughn answered easily. "As it is, she's been here long enough she'll likely welcome what small change of talk you'll bring her."

  He said that just as he turned his heed to the gate-guards, leaving Sister Margrett and Frevisse looking at each other, both unsettled at thought they might be supposed to divert the queen, however slightly. They neither of them said so, though, even to each other, while Vaughn explained their business to the guard and showed his warrant as the duchess of Suffolk's man. Given leave to pass, they rode on, through the cool shadows of the long stone gateway arch into the quarter-moon curve of the walled and garrisoned yard that protected the next towered gateway.

  There they had to wait while the guards jested with the driver of a horse-pulled cart piled with hay before they let him through, plainly someone they knew and about his expected business. They gave Vaughn hardly more trouble, glanced at his warrant and waved him on. This time, though, as they rode out the far end of the gateway arch both Sister Margrett and Frevisse exclaimed and without thinking drew rein to stare to either side of them, because rather than riding into another wall-circled yard, they were on a wide causeway raised on an earthen bank across a broad, shining, blue lake that spread away on both sides, curving around the rose-stoned castle walls where ahead of them another stone-towered gateway waited.

  Vaughn, stopping his own horse, turned in his saddle and said, grinning, "It's something, isn't it?"
<
br />   "It is," Sister Margrett answered almost breathlessly, while Frevisse nodded agreement. Most often, a castle's best outer defense was a steep-sided, grass-grown ditch, wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, meant to make assault by men and siege weapons difficult or, at best, impossible. This lake would serve the same purpose very well; and meanwhile served for pleasure: several shallow-bottomed boats were afloat on it, one with a man fishing, two others with several people in each, shaded under gaudy-painted canvas tilts, too far away on the bright lake to be certain what they did but looking as if merely easily drifting.

  "Would the queen be out there?" Sister Margrett asked, wide-eyed.

  "I'd say there'd be far more out there if she were," Vaughn said, and they rode on again.