4 The Bishop's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  “But Sir Clement had not pursued it into court yet?” “And curtail his sport? The torment of the uncertainty of his victims was among the things he most enjoyed.”

  “By your words, he had more victims than Sir Philip,” Dame Frevisse said. “Sir Philip won’t be the only one who might be glad to have him dead. Possibly he’s not even the only enemy who was present at the funeral feast.”

  “Most assuredly. Now mind this: Sir Philip does not know how much I know about him. He only knows we both agreed Sir Clement was a pain better avoided if possible. So when you begin questioning people about Sir Clement and his death…” Dame Frevisse raised her eyebrows at the word “when.” Beaufort did not care. She was going to do this thing for him, whatever she thought. “… he will have no reason to suspect you are especially interested in him, since you cannot know there was especial reason for him to want Sir Clement dead. Do you understand?”

  Chapter 10

  Frevisse found that on closer acquaintance she did not much like Bishop Beaufort. Nor the way that he was watching her across the little distance between them with the remote calculation he would probably give to a property he was thinking of investing in. And she doubted he cared that she was watching him as warily as she would an adversary about to make a threatening move. He did not care, she thought, whether a person liked or disliked him, so long as they did what he asked. And did it well.

  What had Chaucer told him about her? Why would such a powerful man ask this of her? In a cool, level voice that she hoped matched his own, she said, “I understand and will try to do as you wish, my lord bishop.”

  Bishop Beaufort nodded, then made a graceful gesture of dismissal. He would always be graceful in success, Frevisse thought, and wondered how he was in defeat. She rose, made low curtsy to him again, and left. Dame Perpetua silently followed.

  Interested and speculative looks were turned on them by people in the outer room, but Frevisse walked through without raising her head, the cloth-wrapped bundle pressed against her middle by her folded hands, her veil swung forward on either side of her face in appearance of holy modesty.

  In truth she was feeling nothing remotely like holy, and just then modesty was the least of her concerns. But she wanted no one to speak to her; she did not trust her ability to answer well or even politely. She wanted to be alone, to think how best to do what Bishop Beaufort was asking. With the instinct of her years in St. Frideswide’s and her knowledge that with Ewelme crowded with guests tonight there was no private place to go to, she retreated to the chapel.

  In its antechamber, as Frevisse reached for the door handle, Dame Perpetua touched her arm, stopping her. “Dame Frevisse, how is it with you?” she asked gently.

  Frevisse turned to her. “How much did you hear of what he asked of me?”

  “All of it, I think. Will you be able to do what he wants of you?”

  It had been for her common sense and good manners that Perpetua had been chosen to come with her; nor did Frevisse have any doubt of her discretion. But this was not something she thought she could share. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice sharpened with her own desire not to be burdened with the problem. “I don’t even know if I know how to try.” She reached for the door again. “I need to pray awhile.”

  Behind her, Dame Perpetua said quietly, “Prayer is meant to be a strength and guidance, not a hiding place.”

  Frevisse paused as the justice of mat warning struck to the soft core of her conscience. She had no reply. Her darkness was her own, and God had not yet shown her the way out of it. Until he did, prayer was her only ease. And her only guidance. She did herself that much justice: she was searching for a way out of the darkness of her regret, a way through forgiveness—God’s and her own—into acceptance of her deeds, not into escape from them, or denial. And prayer was the only way she had. Prayer was not her hiding place but her hope.

  But that was not something to be put into words here and now. After a moment, not answering Dame Perpetua, she went on into the chapel.

  Sir Clement’s body was laid out where Chaucer’s body had been yesterday. There was no coffin yet; the body, completely enveloped in a white shroud, rested on boards set on trestles covered with black cloth, seemly enough until a coffin could be made. His relatives would depart with the body tomorrow, Frevisse supposed. No, the crowner still had to come, as he always did, to investigate any uncertain or violent death. Neither Sir Clement’s body nor his family would be able to leave until then, and there was no way to know yet when the crowner would arrive.

  She crossed to the far side of the chapel, Dame Perpetua behind her. It was dim here, well away from the door and from the light of the few candles set around Sir Clement’s bier. She recognized Jevan kneeling at the head of the coffin, his face above his clasped hands touched with the warm golden candlelight. Three others, one of them Master Gallard, the usher, by his shape (but subdued and motionless for once), knelt in a row beside the coffin, facing the altar, their backs to her. In a hush of skirts, Dame Perpetua sank down to her knees beside her. Frevisse followed her onto the familiar hardness of stone floor, bowed her head, folded her hands together—and found that instead of going readily into the comfort of prayer, she was staring blindly at the floor in front of her, thinking of the problem she had been set.

  There was no question but that she must do as Bishop Beaufort had asked. He was her religious superior, and there was nothing immoral or illegal about his request. Though St. Frideswide’s Priory was in the bishopric of Lincoln, not his of Winchester, he was still a bishop and moreover a cardinal, and his power and influence stretched where he wanted them to in England. If she failed to obey him, she might suffer for it in some way. But if she tried and honestly failed, she thought he would accept her failure without blame.

  But the problem remained of how to attempt what he had asked.

  He doubted Sir Clement had been struck down by God. Why? And why did he believe it possible that Sir Philip had murdered him? He wanted to know what had happened because he had plans for Sir Philip and wanted to be sure of him. Sure that he had not committed a murder—or sure that he had? her mind treacherously suggested. She was not sure Bishop Beaufort had made that distinction clear when he asked her to learn the truth.

  But at least he had given her the priest’s possible motive. The threat of villeinage was a heavy threat to hold over a man. And yet Sir Philip had been singularly undisturbed by the insults Sir Clement had thrown at him yesterday, as if neither they nor Sir Clement particularly mattered to him.

  Or had he been hiding his true reaction with exceptional skill?

  And if he or someone else had killed Sir Clement, how had it been done?

  Poison was the obvious answer. The doctor would have spoken out about any wound, and there had been the strange struggle to breathe, as if Sir Clement were being throttled by an invisible foe, and the swollen face, the rash, and the red welts.

  But how could he have been poisoned? Sir Clement, like everyone else, had shared his food and drink. Lady Anne and Guy had shared his food; she and Sir Clement had shared a goblet; yet only Sir Clement had sickened.

  Even if in some way it had been poison, Sir Philip had been well down the table from Sir Clement at the feast. Except that once, when he had come to quiet Sir Clement’s outburst, just before Sir Clement had called down God’s judgment on himself. Had Sir Philip goaded that from him? Perhaps, but as nearly as Frevisse could remember, he had not been close enough to the table to have put poison into any food or drink. But perhaps, if it was poison, it had been given earlier. What else had Sir Clement eaten or drunk? Breakfast, surely. Was there a poison that was so slow to act?

  Or perhaps the poison had come later. Sir Clement had been the only one to drink the wine in Sir Philip’s chamber, just at that point where he had appeared to be recovering. What if God’s hand had touched him but not closed on him, only leaving him with warning of his sinful mortality and an opportunity to change? Had Sir Philip�
�or someone else, Frevisse added conscientiously—taken the chance of what was meant to be God’s warning on Sir Clement to kill him?

  The poison had worked swiftly there in Sir Philip’s room, with symptoms seemingly identical to those that had struck Sir Clement in the hall. And since no one could have foreseen God’s action, how would they have had a poison so readily to hand, and one that matched so well?

  She would need to talk to the people who might know or have seen more. And ask the doctor his ideas on the nature of Sir Clement’s death. Doctors always had ideas; ever insecure in their inevitably lost battle against mortality, they generated theories as readily as a master smith made weapons.

  But whatever she did, whatever she asked, the matter came back to the question of whether Sir Clement had died of God’s holy will or man’s sinful intent.

  A darkness came between her and the candles, and she looked up to find Sir Philip an arm’s length away, looking down at her.

  She glanced toward the bier and saw the empty place where he had been kneeling. She had been so distracted with her problem when she entered that she had not realized the taller man beside Master Gallard had been Sir Philip.

  Now he bowed his head to her slightly, in acknowledgment of her noticing him, then tilted it to one side, asking her to come with him.

  She would have to talk to him sometime; at least this way he had sought her out, and so might be less guarded with his answers. With a sense of duplicity, because she had not been praying, Frevisse briefly bent her head and crossed herself, then rose to go with him from the chapel. Dame Perpetua followed her and in the antechamber, as they drew to a far corner, she stopped by the door, her hands quietly in her sleeves, her head bowed, just as she had been with Bishop Beaufort.

  With no waste of words over any greeting, and not even a look at Dame Perpetua, Sir Philip said, “His grace the bishop wished to speak with you.”

  “And did,” Frevisse answered, sure he already knew it. What he probably wanted to know was why, but she had her answer ready. “He had a message for me from my uncle. My uncle charged him with it on his deathbed, and he wished to give it to me personally.”

  “God keep your uncle’s soul,” Sir Philip said. “And that was all?” His gaze dropped deliberately to the bundle she still held against herself, then returned to her face.

  Her expression bland, Frevisse said, “What else should there be?”

  Matching her tone, he said, “Your uncle spoke of you upon occasion. He was fond of you. More, he valued your intelligence.”

  Frevisse bent her head humbly, as if to disparage the compliment, and said nothing.

  “And I think he spoke of it to Bishop Beaufort, too.”

  “That would have been very kind of him,” Frevisse said.

  “His grace the bishop is not content that Sir Clement’s death was God’s will.”

  Frevisse could not help a start of surprise. “He isn’t?”

  “Didn’t he say so to you?”

  “Did he to you?”

  “He questioned me about every particular I observed of Sir Clement’s attack and death, and I don’t think he was satisfied with my answers.”

  “Why? What did you tell him?”

  “You saw it, along with everyone else in the hall and then in my room.”

  “But you were closer. And I didn’t see what happened in your room until I came at almost the end.”

  Sir Philip gestured impatiently. “You saw enough. He was better, able to breathe with less effort and talking lucidly. And then he was struck again and died. You saw that.”

  Frevisse nodded. She had seen that. She wished she could more clearly remember where the others had been around the room, what they were doing before the second attack, what their faces had betrayed of their feelings. She crossed herself. “As if God had begun to remove his hand from him, and then struck him down after all.” She shivered with memory. “Did he say anything before then that I didn’t hear? Anything so unrepentant, or…” She hesitated. “… so blasphemous there was no salvation for him?”

  “There was no repentance or fear of God in him at all. He was himself, ill-tempered and demanding as always.” Sir Philip paused, then added, “Perhaps that was what brought God’s final anger down on him. That even so plainly warned, he saw no error in his ways.”

  Drawn along that path of thought, Frevisse quoted, “ ‘What, do you think your life was given to you forever, and the world’s goods with it?”“

  “ ‘Nay, nay, they were only loaned to you, and in a while will go to another,”“ Sir Philip answered.

  It was a game Frevisse loved, and she was good at it; but this time she had to admit, “I know the quotation but don’t remember the source.”

  “It’s from Everyman” Sir Philip said. “I’ve never seen it performed, but your uncle had a copy of it.”

  The chapel door opened quietly on its well-oiled hinges, and Jevan Dey came out. He paused at the sight of them, then closed the door and bowed. The lamplight in the antechamber was as dim as yesterday, but where its shadows obscured Sir Philip’s ruined face, they deepened the tense, exhausted lines around Jevan’s mouth and eyes, making him look more nearly his uncle’s age than his own. “My lady,” he said to Frevisse, then turned to Sir Philip. “I thank you for giving my uncle his final absolution. We were all too… stunned to ask for that. For his soul’s sake, my thanks. If he comes to peace at last, it’s by your hand.”

  “And God’s will,” Sir Philip said. “But for your kind words, thanks.” He gestured toward the chapel. “I’ll pray for him whenever I can.”

  Jevan’s smile was taut. “There’ll be few others who’ll come willingly. He made himself disliked. And his death has made people afraid even to be near his corpse.”

  “At least there’s someone with him now,” Frevisse said.

  Jevan shrugged. “I doubt prayers will aid his soul. If ever any man was damned directly to hell, it was Sir Clement. But he appreciated the forms. When it suited him. My own presence beside him this while is the last thing he can require of me.”

  He chopped his sentences as if following a thought all the way through were difficult for him. It was weariness rather than grief lining his face so deeply, Frevisse decided.

  Sir Philip said, “But you can go rest now, can’t you? You’ve done enough for this day, I think.”

  “I want to find Guy. He should be here, too. For form’s sake, if nothing else. He’s Sir Clement’s heir.”

  “And you?” Frevisse asked. Jevan was Sir Clement’s nephew, too, and surely heir to something.

  Jevan’s attempt at a smile made sharp, unamused angles in the lines around his mouth. “I’m Sir Clement’s dog. If he had his will in this, I’d have my throat cut and be buried at his feet. That would have pleased him more than my prayers.”

  He was too tired for any pretense, Frevisse thought, or for clear thinking. Food and rest and the wearing off of shock would be the best things for him now. As he bowed and moved to leave, she said, “If you see Robert Fenner without Sir Walter near”—Jevan would understand—“please tell him I’d be glad of a chance to talk with him once more before he leaves.”

  “Certainly, my lady. My lord.” He bowed to them again, and left.

  “If you’ll pardon me,” Sir Philip said with a bow of his own, “I’ll go with him, I think, to be sure he eats and does indeed sleep tonight, rather than coming back here to pray again.”

  “He had no fondness for Sir Clement, so it’s doubly to his credit to do what he’s doing,” Frevisse said.

  “But that makes it no less tiring. Doing right from a sense of duty is more wearing than doing it from affection.”

  “And so has greater merit.”

  “Truly,” Sir Philip agreed. “By your leave, my ladies.” He bowed and left them.

  To Dame Perpetua, still silently standing to one side, Frevisse said, “I suppose we should go to Aunt Matilda now.” For her, in this, affection and duty together were g
oing to be equally wearing; she wished someone was going to bid her have her supper, then go to bed and be done with the day.

  But no one was likely to. Resigned to that, she led the way toward her aunt’s parlor.

  Robert Fenner met them at the foot of the stairs. “Jevan said you wanted to see me,” he said, with no more greeting than a quick bow and a glance over his shoulder toward the hall. “Sir Walter is not pleased to be among those left to each other’s company in the hall. He hoped for a chance to talk with his worship, the earl of Suffolk.” His tone caught both Sir Walter’s arrogance and his own ridicule of it.

  “And lacking that pleasure, he’s spreading his discontent wherever he best can,” Frevisse said.

  “As ever,” Robert agreed. “So I can’t be gone long.”

  Understanding the hint, Frevisse asked directly, “What do you know about Sir Philip’s relationship to Sir Clement?”

  “The priest? Your uncle’s household priest? Nothing.”

  “It’s said his father was a villein of Sir Clement’s father. Basing, I think the name was.”

  “Ah!” Robert nodded. “I know the common gossip there. Basing bought his freedom with his wife’s money, and then went on to increase her small fortune to a larger one and set the sons he had by her in places well above villeinage.”

  “Sons?” Frevisse asked.

  “Two of them, if I remember rightly. The priest and another one. I don’t know about the second one. But I do remember talk that Sir Clement liked to claim the purchase from villeinage had not been valid and that father and sons were both still his property.”

  “The father is still alive?”

  “I think not.”

  “But both sons are alive.”

  “I suppose so. I haven’t heard otherwise.”

  “And how valid is this claim of Sir Clement’s?”

  “Probably not at all or he would have pursued it, I suppose. Or maybe he had more pleasure in holding the claim over the sons’ heads, threatening to bring it down on them whenever he chose and meanwhile enjoying drawing out the torture?”