16 The Traitor's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  She had been taking her turn at kitchen duties, chopping vegetables, when Dame Perpetua came to tell her a man had asked to see her and was waiting in the cloister’s guest parlor. That was the small room just inside the cloister’s outer door kept for nuns to receive family and sometimes friends. A plain room, it was barely furnished with a table, a bench, a few stools. The man was sitting on one of the stools, his elbow resting on the table, his head leaning wearily forward into his hand. He was muddy and unshaven, and only when he rose to his feet as she entered did she know him and exclaim, “Vaughn!”

  “My lady.” His bow was slight, possibly because he might have fallen over had he made a deeper one. He was more than merely muddy and unshaven and weary. As she neared him, she saw he had the hollow cheeks and the gray smears under the eyes of someone who had eaten poorly and slept too little for far too long.

  That did not stop her demanding, “Where have you been all this while? Where’ve you come from? I pray you, sit down.”

  He sank onto the stool again, against courtesy, because she was still standing, but asked even while he did, “Is Noreys here? Did he get the letter?”

  “He got it, yes. He was wounded getting it. The priest…”

  “He’s dead. I know. I’ve been there. Do you know where Noreys is?”

  There was desperate need rather than anger in Vaughn’s asking, and Frevisse answered, “He’s here. We’ve been tending him. He was hurt. I told you.”

  “Does he still have the letter?”

  “It’s here and safe. What of you? Where have you been his while?”

  But Vaughn was laboring to his feet again. “Where is he? I have to see him.”

  It would be simplest if he collapsed in the guesthall instead of here, so Frevisse said, “I’ll take you to him.”

  As it happened, they were only a little behind Dame Claire going there, and Frevisse told Vaughn they would wait until the infirmarian had done with Joliffe.

  “How badly is he hurt? Why is he here?” Vaughn asked.

  “He’s well-mended now,” Frevisse said. “He’s here because he didn’t know where else was safe and where there was someone he could trust the letter to.”

  “You,” said Vaughn.

  “Yes.”

  “So you have it.”

  “No.”

  Dame Claire had looked around at them following her but asked nothing. Frevisse pointed Vaughn where to wait while she went into Joliffe’s room behind Dame Claire to see for herself how he did, glad to find he was far better, both of his wound and in strength, and he exclaimed in both surprise and relief at sight of Vaughn, “Where in twenty devils’ names have you been!” He stood up from the bed and held out his hand. As Vaughn came forward to take it, Frevisse shifted back to the doorway, both to signal to Ela that food and drink were wanted and to keep watch against anyone coming near. Joliffe, seeing Vaughn more clearly, made him sit down on the end of the bed, demanding while he did, “Why was it someone else at Sible Hedingham instead of you?”

  Vaughn took off his hat, ran a hand into his matted hair. “That was Gyllam.” Strength seemed draining out of him now he had seen Joliffe; he sounded as tired as he looked. “If I’d reached Hedingham as I should have, he wouldn’t be dead at all.”

  “Where were you?”

  “On my way to Denmark,” Vaughn said on a bitten laugh. “I couldn’t shake that misbred cur that was following me. He was like one of those damned stray dogs that won’t give up but won’t come near enough to be brained with a stone. He even picked up two more of his kind along the way somehow, so then there were three of them against Symond and me, and I didn’t dare chance openly facing them. Trying to lose them while not going to Hedingham or Wingfield, I ended up at Bishop’s Lynn of all places and took passage on a ship just ready to pull away from the dock. That lost them, and it was bound for Ipswich and that couldn’t have been better. From there it’s easy ride to Sible Hedingham. Except the wind turned against us and into a storm. We were driven northward, almost to Denmark, before we could come around and beat back. I didn’t land at Ipswich until a hell-damned week ago.”

  Joliffe sat down where he had been on the bed. “But then how did Gyllam come to be at Hedingham?”

  “The man I sent back to Lady Alice from Kenilworth reached her, told her Burgate was there. She swept off to Kenilworth herself to have him freed or know the reason why not. She succeeded. He’s at Wingfield now, in no good shape but alive and maybe he’ll better. He told her what he’d told Dame Frevisse. With no knowing where I was—or you—she sent Gyllam for the letter. That’s how he came to be there and killed.”

  Frevisse asked, “How do you know all this?”

  “Because at Hedingham when I came there the crowner and sheriff were tearing the place to pieces with questions. I named Gyllam for them and saw to him being buried and learned that someone who could have been Noreys had been there, too. All I could hope was that Noreys had the letter and was gone to Wingfield. So I went there.”

  Frevisse looked at Joliffe. “We seem to have suspicioned rightly.”

  Joliffe nodded. “Someone set Burgate to be followed, and then Gyllam was followed from him.”

  “That’s how I’ve read it, too,” Vaughn said. “It was all a trap and Gyllam died in it.”

  “And when you didn’t find me at Wingfield?” Joliffe asked.

  “I sent word to Lady Alice that …”

  “Sent her word?” Frevisse asked quickly. “She wasn’t at Wingfield?”

  “She was still at Kenilworth. The queen didn’t want to part with her.”

  He started to say more but Frevisse, seeing Tom coming with a tray with bread and cheese and three cups, warned, “Wait,” and Vaughn fell silent. She took the tray from Tom, thanked and dismissed him, set the tray on the bed between the two men, took one of the cups of dark ale, and stepped back to the doorway. Both men took bread and cheese and ate, Joliffe no less readily than Vaughn, but after several mouthfuls and a long draught of the ale, Joliffe said, “You can’t have waited for Lady Alice’s reply if you were at Ipswich a week ago and here today.”

  Vaughn shook his head while swallowing bread. “I didn’t wait, no. I came the only other place I had hope someone might know where you might be. And here you are. Dame Frevisse says you have the letter. How?”

  “Are you going to suspect me of killing Gyllam to have it?” Joliffe asked.

  “I’d have come with more than Ned for company if I thought that,” Vaughn replied flatly. “But I’m ready to hear what happened there.”

  Vaughn went on eating while Joliffe told him all that he’d told Frevisse, and looked the better for food, but before Joliffe had finished, grimness had joined the weariness in Vaughn’s face. With bread, cheese, and ale gone by then, he sat staring into his empty cup for a long moment, then looked up to say, “It’s like it was with Hampden and Squyers. A setting on of other men to do someone’s killing for him.”

  Frevisse and Joliffe traded sharp looks with one another before Joliffe said, “Except this fellow who set the villagers on is ready to do his own killing if need be.”

  Vaughn took a deep breath, let it out heavily, lifted his gaze from the cup to Joliffe, and asked, “Have you heard the news out of Wales?”

  “Some word of doubtful worth came yesterday that York is back from Ireland, that there was fighting in Wales because of it. And that he’s on his way to London to challenge the king.”

  Vaughn’s brows rose. “That’s more than I’ve heard.”

  “That’s because you didn’t hear it from Tad of the stable, back from Banbury,” Joliffe said easily.

  “Even Tad of the stable didn’t say all that,” Frevisse said. “By Master Naylor’s report to Domina Elisabeth, given us in chapter this morning, what Tad told him was there’s word running York is come back from Ireland and there was trouble of some kind with some royal officers in North Wales about it. Nothing was said of any fighting at all.”

  “What
I heard in Towcester as I came through,” said Vaughn, “is that royal officers made some kind of challenge against York in Wales, but he faced them down without it came to fighting.”

  “That’s to the good, anyway,” Joliffe said. “Was there word of where York is now?”

  “If word runs true, he’s headed for London.”

  “Which way?”

  “This. Up Watling Street.” The road that ran from near the Welsh Marches to London with a straight intent unknown to most English roads. “That’s what was being said in Towcester anyway, and that’s on Watling so there’s chance the report runs true.”

  “That will take him perilously near Kenilworth and the duke of Buckingham,” Joliffe said. “But I don’t see Buckingham sallying out to challenge York.”

  “Maybe not,” Vaughn answered grimly. “But there were men wearing Buckingham’s badge all over Towcester and supposedly headed for Kenilworth. Nor they weren’t the first to go through, if the tavern-keeper knew what he was talking about, and not all of them Buckingham’s either.”

  “York can’t afford to let them stop him,” Joliffe said as grimly. “He has to get to the king to defend himself before more can be done against him. And to face down Somerset before Somerset has time to take firm hold there. But if Buckingham has orders to challenge him, to bring men against him and make a fight of it after all … Or if Somerset is fool enough to try it …” He fell silent, frowning at the white-plastered wall beyond the bedfoot, probably seeing too many ill ways the business could go.

  Quietly into his thoughts Dame Frevisse said, “Master Naylor has sent a man to Banbury to see if there’s more to be learned, to know if we need to worry here.” Because it was never good to have a large, armed force of men in your neighborhood, even if only on their way to somewhere else.

  “York should come no nearer to here than Stony Stratford,” Vaughn said.

  “Master Naylor has set a watch anyway. If other lords are gathering men to bring against York, they could come this way.”

  “Men called to join York could come this way, too,” Vaughn granted.

  Joliffe came back from wherever he had gone in his thoughts and said, “And if they meet up with some other lord’s men, who knows what idiot thing could happen. The whole countryside closer to Watling Street and along it is likely swarming like an overset wasps’ nest with lords’ men not knowing whether they’re supposed to fight each other or not. It’s going to make getting to York with Suffolk’s letter difficult.”

  Frevisse and Vaughn both jerked their heads toward him, with Frevisse’s protest coming first. “You’re not fit to ride yet.”

  “Dame Claire said I could tomorrow.”

  “Dame Claire said you could if you had no good sense.”

  Joliffe made a “there you are then” gesture.

  “That aside,” Vaughn said fiercely, “you agreed it’s to go to Lady Alice first. You swore to that.”

  “I agreed to it,” Joliffe returned evenly. “I didn’t swear. And matters have changed since we agreed. Lady Alice is in Kenilworth. Do you truly want to walk into there with this letter in hand?”

  That stopped whatever angry thing Vaughn had started to say. Joliffe went on, “We could ride in but I’d not give a throw of the dice for our chances of riding out, and that would be the end of York ever knowing what’s in Suffolk’s letter or being able to do anything about it.” Thoughtfully he added, “It would probably be the end of us, too.”

  In the drawn-out silence after that, Frevisse could hear a distant squabble of voices in the guesthall kitchen— probably Luce and the cook in one of their usual happy discords, getting on with their lives without much worry over the greater discords of their betters. But how “better”, Frevisse wondered, were men who could tear a country’s peace to pieces for the sake of their own ambitions?

  Slowly Vaughn said, “So we go to the duke of York.”

  A silence drew out between them as they probably considered the difficulties of that before Frevisse said levelly, “I’ll speak to Domina Elisabeth about who should go with us when we go.”

  “Us?” Joliffe and Vaughn started together. “You …” Joliffe’s protest died but Vaughn said strongly, “Your part in this is done.”

  “It’s not,” she said, not arguing, merely setting out a certainty.

  Joliffe, probably familiar enough with his own stubbornness to know stubborn when he met it in someone else tried, somewhat more reasonably than Vaughn’s flat refusal. “If you come, another nun will have to come with you. It’s far from fair to make her part of what she isn’t.”

  “If all were fair in life,” Frevisse returned, “none of this would be happening at all.”

  Joliffe started to answer that, stopped, then said carefully, “I never knew you could be that ruthless.”

  Frevisse smiled bleakly and said, lightly mocking, “It’s given to no man to know everything.”

  Joliffe returned, with a slight bow and matching her mockery, “Then I must thank you that my ignorance is now a little less.

  “You are most welcome,” she mocked back. Then said, the mocking gone, “There’s this, too. By going with you, I can be my cousin’s voice to the duke of York. I’ll be able to speak more strongly on her behalf than you can, Vaughn.” She smiled very slightly. “Besides, the letter is presently in my keeping, and if I do not go, neither does it.”

  Vaughn looked startled.

  Joliffe laughed. “I didn’t know extortion was counted among a nun’s virtues.”

  Frevisse forbore to point out that there was probably much about nuns he did not know, and Vaughn asked, “Will your prioress be persuaded to this?”

  Frevisse looked at him and said, unable to keep dryness from her voice, “When I say the business is all on behalf or the duchess of Suffolk, she’ll agree to it. She has great hopes of the duchess’ favor in return for favors.”

  Vaughn stood up. “How soon can we leave?”

  “Sit down,” said Joliffe. “We’ve not settled how we’re to find York.”

  Frevisse thought it was less in obedience to Joliffe than the discovery of how tired he was that sat Vaughn down again; but he said strongly enough, “Find him? We take ourselves to Towcester and head north until we meet him.”

  “Do we know where York is or how fast he’s moving south?” Joliffe asked. “And what of all the lord’s men swarming between him and us?”

  “True.” Vaughn rubbed at his face with both hands. “I need sleep.”

  He needed sleep and a long rest and several full meals and soon, Frevisse thought; but Joliffe was saying, “Besides, if the murderous fellow from Sible Hedingham is still out there and after the letter, it will be near York he’s lurking now, having lost me. Not knowing more than we do of where York is, I say we cut well ahead of him and let him come to us.”

  Vaughn nodded frowningly to that. “Well before London, though. St. Albans?”

  “St. Albans,” Joliffe agreed.

  “You know the way from here?”

  “Southeast through Bicester and Aylesbury. Leaving this afternoon, we could be there late tomorrow. Meanwhile there should be a bed here for you to have the sleep you need while Dame Frevisse sees to everything for our going.” He turned his warm smile that she least trusted toward her and asked, “You’ll do that, my lady?”

  With no smile and clipping her words, she said, “I’ll see to it.”

  Domino Elisabeth met her request with a long silence heavy with unasked questions, first looking at Frevisse, then away, out the window beside her writing desk where she had been seated to her copying work when Frevisse came in. While Frevisse spoke, she had wiped the point of her quilled pen dry and then sat twirling it between her fingers, first one way, then the other. Only when Frevisse fell silent did she at last withdraw her gaze from the window but only to watch the quill’s feathered end as she turned and turned it, until finally she said, “St. Albans. Not to meet her grace of Suffolk, which might be reasonable, but for
a reason you have not said and one that I …” She finally looked at Frevisse again. “… would be better not to know?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “This man who’s been in our care is fit to ride?”

  “He’s able to and will, whether he should or not.”

  “Would it suffice if I sent one of our men with him? Rather than you and whoever else among us will have to go if you do?”

  “I wish that would suffice, my lady.” Domina Elisabeth could not know how very much she wished that, how much she wanted to stay here in St. Frideswide’s, apart from all the tangle of angers, ugliness, and treachery across England, not ride into maybe the middle of it. “But this matter of Lady Alice’s makes it something of my duty, too.”

  “Your first duty is to St. Frideswide’s.” My first duty, Frevisse thought, is to God. Besides that, Domina Elisabeth had other times been ready enough to send her from St. Frideswide’s at Alice’s need, whatever Frevisse had wanted. Feeling herself dangerously near to anger, she lowered her eyes in outward humility and said, “Her grace of Suffolk has entrusted me with this business. Unless you say otherwise, I’d do wrong to fail her in her need.”

  “How trouble-fraught is this business you’re on?” Frevisse bowed her head lower and held silent. If ordered to answer, she would have to; but Domina Elisabeth, maybe aware she was better off without an answer, said suddenly, sharply, “Well enough, then. Just mind that when the time comes, you let her grace of Suffolk know how far I’ve stretched the Rule and my rule here for her sake.”

  Frevisse sank in a deep curtsy, saying, “I will, my lady. I promise she’ll know and be grateful. Thank you, my lady.”

  “There’s going to be displeasure among the others over this,” Domina Elisabeth grumbled. “At me, at you, and at whoever goes with you.”

  “Could that be Sister Margrett again, please you?” Frevisse said; and added before Domina Elisabeth could ask why, “The fewer who know of the matter the better. She already knows something, and that way no one else need learn it.” And Sister Margrett had already shown how well she could hold back from questions best left unasked.