No one questioned when she and Dame Perpetua withdrew as they had done yesterday, to say Prime in the parlor. And when they had finished, she asked Dame Perpetua, “Will you help me with something?”
Dame Perpetua looked up from shaking straight the folds of her skirts. “If I can,” she said. “What is it?”
“About Sir Clement’s death.”
Dame Perpetua’s expression showed her discomfort with the doubts which Bishop Beaufort had expressed, and she said with less confidence, “What do you want me to do?”
“If it wasn’t God who killed Sir Clement, then it had to have been poison. I need to know what kind it could have been.”
“But Sir Clement shared every dish, just as we all did.
And his goblet, too.“ Dame Perpetua moved immediately to the same objections Frevisse had to the problem. ”How could he have been poisoned and no one else?“
“If we can learn what poison it was, perhaps we’ll know. There may be something among my uncle’s very many books that would enlighten us. Would you help me look?”
The frown drawn between Dame Perpetua’s brows disappeared. Books were her worldly passion, and there were very few of them at St. Frideswide’s Priory. But she subdued her obvious eagerness and despite a sudden shine in her eyes said with quiet agreement, “Yes, surely, I’ll help you all I can.”
Chaucer had found he could deal with his business better the farther he was from his wife’s domestic concerns, and so the room from which he had run his merchant ventures and other dealings was at the far end of Ewelme’s range of buildings. While they went, Frevisse explained what she wanted. “I talked with the physician. He says Sir Clement died of a cramping of his throat and an effusion of fluids. His throat constricted and strangled him.”
Dame Perpetua made a small, distressed sound. It was expected she would be upset by the very thought of such a death, but she was also a clearheaded woman; she would be of more help the more she knew, rather than cosseted in ignorance.
Frevisse went on, “But he didn’t just simply die. You saw him choking in the hall, but when I saw him a while later, in Sir Philip’s room, he was so much better I thought he was going to live.”
“What?” Dame Perpetua asked incredulously.
“The strangling had subsided to the point where he was sitting up, able to talk a little, even drink some wine.”
“He was that much improved?”
“Except that he had broken out in red welts over his face and neck and arms, and their itching was tormenting him.” Frevisse deliberately did not mention Dr. Broun’s assertion that the welts were patterned like an open hand. She wanted someone else’s observation on that and did not want to distract Dame Perpetua with something she was not sure of. “Then soon after he drank the wine, the choking came back and he died, with barely time for the last sacrament.”
“God have mercy on him. You think there was poison in the wine?”
“I don’t know. That’s the trouble. I don’t know anything that would kill someone the way Sir Clement died. That’s what I hope to find in my uncle’s library—something about poisons that cause those symptoms. The strangling and welts and unbearable itching.”
After a moment of considering that, Dame Perpetua said very quietly, “Oh my.” And after another moment of thought: “Then you think his worship may be right and Sir Philip did murder Sir Clement?”
“I don’t know clearly yet what to think. But I’ve begun to wonder why God would kill a man in so elaborate a way, instead of more directly, simply, there in the hall as example to all.”
“Dame Frevisse! You’re questioning God’s will? Even at the orders of a cardinal bishop that’s so perilous! How can you—” Dame Perpetua gestured in wordless distress at the plight of being caught between God and the order of a prince of the Church.
“I know. But what if it wasn’t God’s will? What if Bishop Beaufort is right and it was a man’s will in this? Or if God did indeed strike at Sir Clement, there in the hall, not to kill him but only to warn, and someone took advantage of it to poison him?”
“Surely God would strike down in his turn anyone who dared do such a thing! It would be blasphemy!”
Frevisse refrained from saying God never seemed overly prompt in striking down blasphemers in these days. Like other sinners they seemed to flourish far longer than their deserving. Instead she said, “I’d be more than glad to leave the matter to him. But Bishop Beaufort has directed otherwise. Dame Perpetua, this is my burden, not yours. If you would rather be left clear of it, it’s your choice and I’ll understand.”
Dame Perpetua straightened, her face firm, her hands tucked purposefully up her sleeves. “No. You asked for my help and I’ll gladly give it, along with my prayers to keep us safe. And I don’t suppose there’s blasphemy in what we’re doing, since we only seek to understand God’s will more clearly, to his greater glory and our salvation. Besides, I want to see your uncle’s books.”
Frevisse had feared the chamber might be locked, but the door handle gave to her touch and the door swung easily open. With a mixture of emotions she did not try to sort out, she faced the place that, for her, had been Ewelme’s heart.
The room was narrow but long, and despite the years since she had last been there, all its furnishings were familiar. She remembered Chaucer saying with amusement at his wife’s everlasting desire for change, “I bought what I wanted and needed at the start. Why should I change when they are still sufficient to me? Let my room be.”
His desk was set where the light would be best over his shoulder from the windows with their wide seats, where Frevisse had sat reading for many an hour, lost to her proper duties and deeply happy. Chaucer had gathered books all through his life, beyond the considerable number he had inherited from his father. They had long since passed the bounds of being neatly closed away in a chest. He had given over one wall of his room to aumbrys for them, where they were safe behind closed doors but easily reached. Even then, they had always overflowed through the room, and Frevisse had been free to read what she chose, and Chaucer had gladly discussed or explained or argued at length anything that had puzzled her or caught her interest.
In this room, in her uncle’s company, she had had a freedom she had had nowhere else in all her life, except in her love of God.
A remembered figure straightened from his bent posture over an open chest across the room. Master Lionel, her uncle’s clerk. Frevisse was glad she had seen him several times the past few days so there was no surprise at his white hair, stooped shoulders, and wrinkled face. He had been only in late middle age when she lived here; now he was old. He peered at her across the room through magnifying lenses held on his nose by leather thongs looped around his ears before saying, “Frevisse. Come again,” as if it had been only hours since she had last been in his way and he was no more pleased now than he had been then. He had never approved of the time Chaucer had spent on her, to the neglect of business that was the heart and soul of Master Lionel’s existence.
“Dame Frevisse,” he corrected himself. And added, “He’s gone, you know. He isn’t here.”
“I know.” Startled, Frevisse responded with instinctive gentleness. Her uncle had not particularly mentioned Master Lionel during his last few visits to her. She wished now that he had, because more than Master Lionel’s appearance was changed. “But may I come in? He always welcomed me here.”
Master Lionel looked around the room as if searching for a reason to refuse her, as if certain there was one there. “What do you want? He’s gone.”
“My friend has never seen his books. I wanted to show them to her.”
“It’s all right, Master Lionel. I’m sure she’s welcome here.”
Intent on the elderly clerk, Frevisse had not noticed Sir Philip standing in the contrast of shadow at the room’s farther end and partly obscured by an open aumbry door. He came away from the bookshelves now, still speaking to the old clerk. “You can go on with your work. I’ll see
to them. Master Chaucer would welcome her, you know. So shouldn’t we, also, in his name?”
Master Lionel swung his head from Frevisse to the priest, then to Frevisse again and back to Sir Philip. The effort seemed to confuse him. He shrugged. “As you think best.” He turned back to the chest, and Sir Philip motioned for Frevisse and Dame Perpetua to come in.
He faced the shelves and pointed at various volumes as if they were what he spoke of, as he said, low and brisk, “He’s outlived his wits. It started about two years ago, but Master Chaucer wished him happy and found things for him to do, since he’s happy here.”
“He still works?” Frevisse asked.
“No, but he thinks he does. He’s supposed to be putting the papers in that chest in order and listing all the ventures they pertain to. They’re all only draft copies, so it doesn’t matter if he shifts and shuffles all day, every day, and scribbles nonsense on that great roll behind him and never gets any forwarder. Can I help you?”
“It’s only as I said. Dame Perpetua would be glad of a chance to see my uncle’s books, to spend time here if she could.”
“And you would not mind seeing them again either.”
“This was my best place to be, before I entered St. Frideswide’s,” she answered, for the first time wondering what he knew of her from her uncle and, more to the immediate point, how they would look for what they needed with him at hand. There were far more books here than she remembered; of course Chaucer had gone on adding to his collection after she left. Nor did she have any idea where any particular books might be. Chaucer had loved to rearrange and reclassify his treasures; she had helped him do it often enough to know that, so there was no telling where anything might be now. A great many of them were spread and stacked in no order at all around the room, used at some time and not put back. That had also been her uncle’s way, and one of her chosen tasks had been to sort and put volumes away when the chamber finally became too disordered. There was no guessing where to find what she wanted, and she dared not ask Sir Philip.
Dame Perpetua had already drifted away, opening aumbry doors and drawing volumes from the shelves, murmuring like a mother to beloved children as she went. This was a feast for her after the nine books that were all the priory had to offer. Given enough time, Dame Perpetua would gladly go through every book in the room. Somewhere among them were books of health, medicine, physic, surgery even, that might have what they sought. The problem was Sir Philip. He would have to be diverted, so they, or at least Dame Perpetua, could search unbothered.
Taking a book at random from the shelf beside them, she asked him, “You’re a lover of books, too?”
“I doubt his worship the bishop would have recommended me to Master Chaucer if I were not.”
Frevisse looked suitably impressed. “My uncle mentioned he had a new priest for the manor but said nothing in particular about you. Have you been here long?”
“Three years. Your uncle was a pleasant man to serve.”
“But challenging upon occasion.” Casually, Frevisse moved away from the shelves. “He enjoyed ideas, and discussing them with other knowledgeable people.”
Sir Philip moved with her. “That’s true enough. I had to make good use of his library here to keep even near to pace with him.” He smiled at the memory; it was the warmest expression Frevisse had yet seen on him. “He was not given to quiet acceptance of anything.”
“He had questions about most things, and wanted answers,” Frevisse agreed.
“To know wisdom and discipline, to understand the words of prudence, and to undertake the formation of doctrine, righteousness, fate, and…‘” Sir Philip hesitated over what came next.
“‘… equity,”“ Frevisse supplied, ”“that subtlety be given to little children, and to those waxing in years, cunning and understanding.” From the first chapter of Proverbs.“ Caught up again in the game she had so often played with Chaucer, one of them citing an authority, to see if the other could identify the source and, even better, complete the quotation. Without considering the propriety of saying so in such company, she said, ”So the wise collect proverbs, saith Solomon. But my uncle and I—and you, I think?—would collect whole books instead.“
Sir Philip nodded. “You’re quite right, and widely read, I gather. All the books in Master Chaucer’s library?”
“All the ones that he had when I lived here. But so many of these I’ve never seen. No one seems to feel books would be a benefit to the nunnery, though ‘Saint Paul says that all that is written is written to our learning—’” Deliberately she stopped short of the quotation’s end.
“ ‘So take the grain and let the chaff be still,”“ Sir Philip said, gravely carrying it through. ”That is from Geoffrey Chaucer’s tales and ’Now, good God, if it be your will as says my lord, so make us all good men, and bring us to his high bliss, amen.“”
“Amen.” Frevisse picked up a book lying on the window seat beside them and idly opened it. It was in Latin verse, and scanning a few lines, she recognized it for Ovid. Her uncle and—he had said—his father had both loved Ovid’s work. She had occasionally regretted her own Latin was too weak to share their pleasure in it. She closed the book and laid it down again, wondering who had had it out. Sir Philip? Carefully, beginning to want to know more about him, she said, “My uncle was forever asking his priest to find out at length about one thing or another. Had he asked you for something in particular in the while you’ve been here?”
“Lately he had me copying various books he wanted for his own. I finished a new work of Boccaccio’s at Michaelmas—”
“New?” Frevisse asked ironically. The Italian writer had died well back in the last century.
“Newly in English at any rate.” The corners of his mouth twitched. If Frevisse had thought him given to amusement, she would have suspected he was suppressing a smile. He said, “It’s a very traditional tirade against women. Quite passionate actually.”
Aware that he was watching for her reaction while he spoke, Frevisse asked with unfeigned amusement, “Did he do a matching treatise equally fair to men?”
Sir Philip laughed aloud, deep and full and so surprising that Dame Perpetua looked up from the book she held and Master Lionel broke his concentration on a handful of papers long enough to stare offended at them before returning to his work.
“The translator assures us,” Sir Philip said, “that the work is put into English for its literary form, not its sentiments.”
“How very comforting,” Frevisse responded drily. “How did my uncle come by it?”
“He borrowed it from his grace the duke of Gloucester with permission to make copy of it—”
“The duke of Gloucester? The duke of Gloucester loaned one of his precious books to a relative of Bishop Beaufort!”
Besides creating scandals and upheaval in the royal government, principally against Bishop Beaufort, the king’s uncle Gloucester’s great passion was a devoted—and expensive—pursuit of books not readily had in England.
“A precious book of which I daresay the duke’s and your uncle’s may be presently the only copies. His grace of Gloucester commissioned the translation. It seems the love of books is stronger than the hatreds of politics.”
“It must be.” But then her uncle had never been particularly good at hatreds. “They take too much energy and concentration,” he had said. “I have better things to do.”
Sir Philip looked across the room toward the desks beside the window. He hesitated, then said, “Lately Master Chaucer had set me to copying out a book of the deeds of Arthur that I’d never seen before. Or to be more precise, the deeds of Sir Gawain. Would you care to see it?”
“Yes! Assuredly!”
“It’s here.” Sir Philip crossed to the smaller desk, behind Chaucer’s but placed the same way, left end to the window for better light for the writer’s work. Frevisse followed him as he folded back the cloth covering the desk’s slanted top to reveal a sheet written half-over in fine, bl
ack italic script next to a thin book held open by a copyist’s usual small lead bars laid across the top of its pages. With care that told how much he valued the book, Sir Philip put aside the bars and inserted a paper scrap in his place before picking it up and handing it to her.
It was bound in green leather, soft to her touch. Frevisse stroked it, delaying the pleasure of opening a work she did not know. But only briefly; her eagerness was too much.
“It’s in English,” she said in surprise. Most stories of King Arthur that she had encountered were in French. Not all, but most.
“And verse, for good measure,” Sir Philip said.
“ ‘Since the siege and the assault was ceased at Troy, The burgh broken and burned to brands and ashes, The man that the trammels of treason there wrought…’” Frevisse read. “Oh, this has a goodly way to it!” Forgetful of any other purpose, she sank down on the window seat, intent on the wonder of having something entirely new to read. “”If you’ll listen this lay but a little while…‘“
“Here’s where you’ve all gone to!”
Startled, Frevisse looked up, along with Dame Perpetua. Sir Philip turned sharply. Only Master Lionel kept on with his business; no one ever came looking for him. One of Aunt Matilda’s maidservants entered the room. “Can you come?” she asked with a quick curtsy directed at both Frevisse and Sir Philip. “My lady the countess prays it. My lady her mother has taken to crying again and can’t stop. My lady the countess feels one or the other or both of you might be able to help her.”
Frevisse was already rising and putting the book back on the desk as Sir Philip said, “Assuredly.”
“Dame Perpetua, will you stay here?” Frevisse asked. There would be no fear of impropriety in Master Lionel’s presence, and this was the chance they needed.
“If I may,” Dame Perpetua said. She had made no move to relinquish the book she was holding. “I doubt I’d serve more than small purpose in going.”
4 The Bishop's Tale Page 10