2 The Servant's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  They separated, Bassett and Ellis to one side, Joliffe to the other, and faced around toward the curtains that parted on cue, drawn by a hidden cord—not by Piers; he and his star still shone over all.

  And not Rose, for there, on a chest covered with a richly brocaded cloth of gold and silver—or painted canvas, more likely—she sat, the swaddled form of a baby in her arms.

  Such was the magic of that moment, that it was not an acrobat in a cheap blue gown holding a pillow tightly wrapped, but the Virgin herself, and her Babe. Her long hair spread around her shoulders, haloed by candles set behind her and the infant cradled lovingly to her breast, Rose was a very worshipful icon.

  An enthralled sigh passed through the watchers. The three Kings knelt and in effective speeches offered their gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold. Mary held out her hand to them in acceptance and each came forward to gaze at the Child. While they held the tableau, the Angel sang the Gloria again. Then the curtains swung down across the scene, and Angel and star slipped down from view and it was over.

  For a breath-held moment there was no movement or sound in the hall. Then Montfort said firmly, “Well done. Well done.” Domina Edith began a clapping that was immediately joined by every pair of hands in the room. Voices added complimentary remarks as the applause died, a small child began to cry, and the three Kings and the Angel appeared from behind the curtains to take their bows, setting the applause off again.

  With a fine sense of what was suitable, Mary did not appear, partly to allow the vision of her to remain untouched, and partly because, as a woman, she ought not to have been in the play to start with.

  When everything had sorted itself out to a kind of order and the actors had disappeared again behind their curtains, Domina Edith rose to her feet. The priory servants and Montfort’s men eased back to the walls again as the prioress began her slow way toward the door and her nuns moved into place behind her. Frevisse, glancing around the hall, saw Roger Naylor with one of his daughters in his arms, both of them smiling at each other. Annie Lauder stood with a clot of women all exclaiming over the wonderfulness of what they had just seen. Meg’s Hewe stuck his head out around the edge of the players’ curtains, and ducked back as soon as he saw himself observed. He was grinning like a boy who has just gotten away with a whole tray of sweets.

  Beside her Dame Alys was muttering about the warm spiced cider waiting for them by Domina Edith’s orders when they had finished Compline. “There’ll be none left for Shrovetide, mark my words, and then you’ll hear complaining.”

  Frevisse forbore to point out that since she was hearing complaints anyway, she might as well have the spiced cider to go with them, and shut out Dame Alys’s voice, wanting to keep some of the gladness the play had made in her. Players were good, they gave harmless pleasure and even holy inspiration with mere words and posings. She would not believe they were damned for their trumpery, even if every bishop in England declared it to be so.

  Chapter 22

  Dawn came late and reluctantly, graying the walls. A cluster of bells near the dormitory door was jangled by a servant, the wake-up call to Prime. The air was damply chill and immediately sank through flesh into bone the moment the covers were thrown back. The nuns dressed in shivering, snuffling, coughing haste, and huddled themselves into a brief double line mat hurried to the warming room where no fire had yet been built and so was even colder than the dormitory. Their shivering did not ease until they were in the refectory, which, being next door to the kitchen, was warm and fragrant from the ovens’ discharge of fresh-baked bread, though that treat would not come until dinner. Frevisse wrapped both hands around this morning’s sole nourishment, a hot, sweet, sharp-flavored drink made of honey and rose hips, that soothed both face and inside with drinking it.

  Afterwards, she crowded with the rest near to the new-built fire in the warming room until chapter, and eased her stool back toward the heat after it began. She did not in the least object, even mentally, to the meeting’s length today, because she was storing up heat. She likely would not have another chance to get near a fire until long after midday when she must spend three frozen hours in the church keeping watch by Sister Fiacre’s coffin.

  Chapter over, going out was inevitable, and decided she would do the more pleasurable of her duties first and crossed the yard to the old guesthall. Inside, all of last night’s trappings were gone, packed away into the chests and baskets set against the wall. The players were again in their plain clothes, gathered near to the fire, with Piers lying on a stack of blankets beside his mother, his head in her lap, and Ellis sitting nearby, stabbing his dagger into a hapless log, jerking it out, and stabbing it in again, while Bassett and Joliffe were in close talk with Hewe. She wanted to speak to him presently. From Bassett’s gesturing, Frevisse thought he was telling the boy a story; and thought, too, it would be a long time after the players were gone before their glamour would fade for the boy.

  Joliffe saw her first, raised a hand in greeting, and started to speak, but Ellis jumped to his feet and demanded, “Any word from the crowner? We thought he’d let us out of here today and all the word we’ve had is that he’s not done with us, we have to stay.”

  Frevisse shook her head. “He’s still asking questions.”

  “It’s not right.” Ellis flung back onto the floor and assaulted the log again.

  Hewe, with a stubborn set to his face, did not try to fade into the background, though neither did he look toward Frevisse, but continued talking softly with Bassett.

  Piers raised a languid hand to scratch his nose and Frevisse said to him, “You sang very beautifully last night. You’re not ill again, I hope?”

  Piers shook his head as his mother lifted an edge of a blanket to tuck it across his knees. “No. I’m well. Only she”—he rolled his eyes toward his mother—“says it’s too cold to risk me going outdoors to play.” His disgust was plain.

  “We’ve not cosseted you all these days so you can go and sicken again,” Rose said. “The cold is bitter today. We can only hope there’ll be snow to soften it.”

  “Oh, yes. Snow so we can’t go anywhere even if that visiting idiot gives us leave,” Ellis grumbled.

  Meanwhile, Hewe was heard to exclaim suddenly, “But I could do that part! I could be Herod! I’d tear a passion like you’ve never seen before. Let me show you!”

  He sprang to his feet and began to assume a pose of amazing ferocity. But Bassett laughed and took him by one lifted arm to say, friendly-wise, “No you don’t, cockerel. Herod’s part is for a full-grown man, such as me, when our company has grown enough to do it. You’re still an unfleshed stripling.”

  “He could be a servant to my Wise Man,” Joliffe said. “We’ve got a gown that might fit him, if the hem were raised.” Hewe turned to him, bright with eagerness. With a stir of unease Frevisse saw that Bassett and Joliffe weren’t altogether teasing. And Hewe was not jesting at all.

  “I think,” she said carefully, “you may be forgetting he’s Lord Lovel’s villein and not free to take to the high road, with or without you. Let alone what his mother would say to the matter.”

  Hewe swung around to her, his face darkening again with stubbornness. “Lord Lovel has villeins in plenty,” he declared. “His steward won’t miss me, he won’t even look for me. And Mam will marry old Gilbey, so she’ll be taken care of, too.”

  “She means you to be a priest,” Frevisse said, aware that she should take offense at his too-presuming speech. “Have you been going into the priory church lately?”

  Hewe kicked sullenly at the rushes. “I stay away from churches so my mother won’t think I’m weakening. She may mean for me to be a priest, but I don’t.” He looked up eagerly at Bassett. “I want to be a player!”

  “Hewe,” said Meg from the doorway. “You don’t.”

  They all turned toward her standing there, her bare hands tucked up into her armpits, her shoulders hunched down to conserve her meager body’s warmth. She had no cloak or h
ood, only her rough dress and her kitchen-spotted apron. Her face was raw red with cold and her voice hoarse, but her gaze was rigid on her son as she said, “I told you and told you to stay with your brother. There’s villagers coming to take him home soon; for shame if they find him all alone.”

  “But the crowner—” began Hewe.

  “The crowner’s given leave for us to take him home. There’s to be the wake today and you are to stay with him until they come, so you can tell me they are here.”

  Hewe scuffed at the rushes and would not meet her gaze. “Ah, Mam, it’s so cold there—”

  “And you could find nowhere to be warm but here with this sort?”

  “They’re not bad—” Hewe flashed.

  “They are.” Meg did not sound angry, only tired. “You come along. You’ve praying to do, and penance, too, for not caring for Sym like you ought, and for not doing what your mother tells you.”

  Hewe flared again. “He never cared for me! Anyhow, I’m sick of praying! How can you say I’m to be a priest? I’ve no mewling, mincing priest in me!”

  “You hush your words. Don’t say one more word.” Meg’s voice came out flat, but still not angry. “You come with me,” she repeated. “Now.”

  Slow footed, he went. When he came close enough, Meg’s hand whipped out to grasp his arm, hard enough that he flinched and cringed from her. Meg, still not acknowledging anyone else was there, left, taking him with her.

  Ellis let out a heavy breath. “There’s a woman who knows her own mind. Who would have thought it? Too bad the lad won’t be back.”

  “Yes, that’s a pity,” said Bassett. “He had possibilities.”

  “Did he?” Frevisse asked, surprised.

  “Indeed. He has a better voice than most, and all the priest teaching she’s forced on him has given him a quick memory. He was the one working the curtain yestereve, and he did it as well as any of us would. He’s aflame to join us, and I would he could, for he might do us proud.”

  “Well, no use crying over spilt milk,” Ellis said. “There will be others down the road, and I pray it’s not a long journey, for with more players we can do more plays.”

  Piers said, “Shall I talk to him later?”

  “No,” Joliffe said. Still looking toward the closed door beyond which Hewe and Meg had disappeared, he added, “He’s frightened of her.”

  “And well he should be,” said Ellis. “Did you see that clout she fetched him yesterday? I warrant his ear is still ringing.”

  “You don’t understand,” Rose said. Like Joliffe, she was looking where they had gone, with a strange expression on her face. Her tone echoed his. “He’s frightened of more than that.”

  “He hates what she wants for him,” Bassett said. “As if we haven’t got enough bad priests.” He broke into old-fashioned English. “ ‘And shame it is to see, Clene sheep and a shitty shepherd.” Begging your pardon, my lady.“

  “Since those words were written by my great-uncle, I can hardly object.”

  “Old Geoffrey is your—” Bassett was both surprised and awed. “Did you ever see him? No, of course not, you’re not old enough. But you must know his son.”

  “I was partly raised in his household. He’s told me many stories of his father.”

  “Well, I never! As I live and breathe! My lady, you take my breath clean away!”

  Nearly Frevisse laughed at him, covering her mouth to hide her smile. To be related by marriage to the son of a famous writer was hardly to be famous oneself. Yet his pleasure and awe were warming to one who had too long practiced humility and self-denigration.

  Rose said, “But we have thanks to be giving to Dame Frevisse for what she has herself done for us. Joliffe, you should speak up.”

  “I keep trying. But I keep being interrupted.” Joliffe rose to his feet in a single long, graceful movement and swept Frevisse a deep bow. “My lady, you did me good service yesterday. My thanks to you shall be eternal, my gratitude unending, my repaying of the debt perpetual, if that becomes possible.”

  Frevisse answered his bow with a deeper than necessary curtsey and answered, “My thanks for your bounteous thanks but be assured that seeing justice done is my recompense in full.” She straightened and added drily, “Besides, I doubt either of us could bear that much gratitude for very long.”

  Joliffe grinned. “But it’s so grand while it lasts.”

  Frevisse smiled and went away, moving hastily only when out in the cold. She crossed the yard to the new guesthall to see what Montfort was up to. A quick look around as she entered told her that all was in order in the hall. Frevisse went on to Montfort’s chamber. The man on duty outside its door shook his head at her as she approached and said, “He’s busy now, Dame, questioning another.”

  A loud questioning, so loud that Frevisse did not need to strain to hear. As she paused, Montfort’s voice came strongly through the closed door, and then another man’s right after, declaring no, he had not.

  “Gilbey Dunn!” Frevisse exclaimed.

  “Came in this morning of his own will,” the guard said obligingly. “Said he’d come home late last night and heard this morning he was being looked for, and walked in before we even knew he was about.”

  Come in of his own will he might have but Montfort did not sound mollified by it. But, “I’ve a right to go where I please, so long as I come back in goodly time, and I did! Look you, I was in Banbury for a day. I’ve a sister there, a freewoman, and was minded to see her and it was nobody’s business I meant to go so I wasn’t telling no one, was I? And I wasn’t to know you’d be swinging in here wanting me that very day. Nor have I run off, I’m here, so why be yelling at me for it?”

  “You mind your tongue or you’ll be looking for it one of these days,” Montfort bullied.

  “Now, you don’t know my lord so well as you think,” retorted Gilbey. “He’s a fair man and so’s his steward, and they don’t punish a man for speaking his mind, even if he is a villein. Especially me, for I’m the best laborer in all the village, and an honest man.”

  A voice slipped in between them, too low for Frevisse to make out the words but enough for her to recognize. “Father Henry?” she asked.

  “Your priest? Yes,” the man agreed, and added hastily, “Here, now, you can’t be going in there.”

  But Frevisse had already lifted the latch. Montfort would bring Father Henry around to saying anything—or else believe what he wanted to believe out of anything Father Henry said—if left to himself, and she wanted the truth as it was, not as Montfort preferred it to be.

  Montfort, red-faced and leaning forward across the table where his clerk was busy scratching down all that was being said, whirled to glare at her coming in. “You’ve been putting your nose in again, woman!” he snapped. “Sending this priest to ask questions that are no concern of yours. That will have you in trouble yet, you mark my words.”

  Frevisse murmured with a feigned humility, “ T pray your forgiveness yet again.” And could not forbear asking, “Has he been of use to you?”

  “Maybe. Some.” Not liking giving that much ground, Montfort swung back toward Gilbey Dunn standing in the room’s center like a thick-necked, stubborn bull. Their glares were mutual. “So you left the alehouse early, you say, just after the fight between this player and Sym and went home to bed, you say.” Montfort made it sound a crime.

  “Aye. I went home. It was late and I’m not minded to sleep in the alehouse.”

  “And you heard the furor when Sym was found and stayed in your bed anyway?”

  “ T heard the noise but was warm in bed. They sounded like no more than drunken fools to me and I stayed where I was.”

  Montfort said, “It’s illegal to ignore the hue and cry.”

  “It wasn’t a hue and cry, it was a clot of fools seeking to go on a loon’s errand.”

  “So you stayed in your house the rest of the night?”

  “Aye.”

  “Alone?”

  “… Aye
.”

  Frevisse thought not, but she said nothing.

  “This Sym was no friend of yours, though, was he?”

  “You’d be hard put to find anyone who liked him, quarrelsome as he was.”

  “And what did you have against the nun Sister Fiacre?”

  That sidestep caught Gilbey flat for a moment. “Who?”

  “The priory sacrist. She keeps the church in order. She’s been murdered, too.”

  “Is she the one? I heard a nun had her bread baked in the church, but I didn’t catch the name. I’ve no idea what she even looked like. For all I know I never set eyes on her in all my days, let alone ever speak to her. What could I be having against her?”

  “And you’ve some tale of where you were the afternoon that she was killed? You were seen coming in the back nunnery gate about then, let me tell you that much.”

  So Montfort had actually found out something she had not. But as Gilbey Dunn’s face furrowed into stubborn lines, she thought of something else. Sullenly he said, “There’s those always watching others when they should be tending to their own work.”

  “That’s as may be but what business had you here that afternoon?”

  “None that’s any man’s business but my own. And I never went near the church where she was killed! You’ll not find anyone can say in truth I did.”

  “Then where were you, man?” Montfort demanded. “Have it out.”

  Gilbey’s mouth clamped down in tight refusal. He would have to say it sooner or later but he was stubborn enough to make it later if he could. Frevisse, with an excess of impatience at both of them, said sharply, “If you really want to know, go ask Annie, our laundress. She can probably tell you where he was that afternoon. And she knows better than anyone why his bed was warm enough he didn’t leave it the night that Sym was killed!”

  Gilbey’s face went white and red by turns as he gaped at her. Fools, she thought, and turned on her heel to stalk out of the room.