The Reeve's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  He and the rest of the jurors seemed to think that ended it, though he was carefully not looking at Tomkin and John’s furious faces, but Simon asked, “And their weapons?” because any weapon used against someone was supposed to be seized, to be sold or recovered by way of fine, for the lord’s profit.

  Martin cast him a perturbed glance, but Tod Denton on the rear bench tugged at Martin’s tunic hem, bringing him down to whisper in his ear, the other jurors leaning to listen and all of them nodding agreement before Martin straightened to say for all of them, holding in a grin, “The weapons they used being stones, we leave it to you and Master Naylor to decide their worth and if you want them.”

  ‘Stones be damned!“ John snarled. ”What about my fence and garden that goat ruined?“

  Martin added hastily at Master Naylor and Simon, “And we leave the matter of damage done to fence, garden, and goat to both of you, too,” and sat down quickly.

  ‘Not that there was any damage done that goat,“ Tod put in. ”She’s a hide like an ale cask. I went to see her and couldn’t find even a bump.“

  ‘Damn the goat!“ John yelled. ”It’s my garden and fence that took the hurt!“

  ‘If you kept your fence mended…“ Tomkin began at him.

  Master Naylor suggested, without raised voice, “There can be fines for disrupting court, you know.”

  Both men shut up and Master Naylor asked Simon, “How would you say we should decide this goat and fence and garden, Perryn?”

  Since Master Naylor had so tidily dealt with the worst part of the problem, Simon took this share of it willingly. “I’d say it only right that Tomkin replace what the goat ate in the garden. Three cabbage plants and a dozen young onions.”

  ‘Ha!“ John exclaimed triumphantly while Tomkin went red-faced and Simon went on, ”And John must repair his fence and keep it in repair to the common good or be fined one pence again whenever there’s trouble with it proved against him.“

  Now Tomkin went, “Ha!” and John red-faced, but their wives, knowing a good time to escape even if their husbands did not, came forward, each to take her own man by the arm and draw him off.

  It had all gone far more simply than Simon had feared it would, but now they had to face the next matter, and despite it looked to be simpler, a mere shifting of a lease from one man to another, he knew there was going to be trouble not so easily gone around as Tomkin Goddard’s and John Gregory’s.

  Father Edmund was summoning the men forward now and all the differences between them were unhappily plain to see. Matthew Woderove glanced from Simon to Master Naylor to the jurors, trying for confidence but his shoulders already beginning to huddle against what he feared was coming. Even his clothing betrayed him—tunic and hosen and shoes as worn and tired and past their best as he was—while Gilbey Dunn, taking place beside him, wore prosperity’s certainty as easily and well as he wore his wide-cut, well-dyed, knee-length gown of finely woven dark russet wool, his hosen unpatched, his soft leather shoes so new they hadn’t lost their shape yet. There could hardly be doubt whether or not the lease for Farnfield, a stretch of rough pasture land along the woodshore beyond the fields, should go to Gilbey, except for knowing how hard the loss would be for Matthew, much though he deserved it, having let the land go to waste while he held it.

  Still, the decision would have been easier, Simon thought, if he could have disliked Matthew. It should not have been difficult; the man had no skill at anything, failed at everything, including his marriage to Simon’s sister, though Simon had several opinions—not all of them to Matthew’s fault—about where the failure lay there, and he had long since stopped asking himself how Mary had ever come to marry so hapless a man, there hardly ever being answer to what drew such ill-suited folk to one another, though between Matthew and Mary, Simon knew it had had much to do with Matthew being the handsomest boy in the village in his time and bidding fair to be one of the richest men if he kept on with what his father had begun. But he hadn’t. Nor was he handsome anymore, being one of those men who left their best looks behind them well before they were thirty. Not that Simon felt he had much to his own credit on that side, but at least he’d had the sense to marry Anne and not some shallow-wit like his sister who couldn’t do more for a man than make his life miserable when she didn’t have all she wanted…

  Simon made a hasty prayer of penance for the thought’s unkindness and set himself to what had to be done here and now, regardless of how he wished things were for Matthew. Though Gilbey Dunn and Matthew were both Lord Lovell’s villeins, the land and lease in question belonged to St. Frideswide’s, and so it was to Master Naylor that Gilbey was stating his desire to take over the lease on Farnfield since it had come to its end at Midsummer yesterday.

  By form, Master Naylor asked, “And you, Matthew Woderove, are you desirous of giving it up?”

  Although he had to have known the question was coming, Matthew hesitated as if surprised at being asked, said, “No,” uncertainly, then tried for firmer. “No. No, not at all. It was held by my father and then by me for twenty years now. I want to renew the lease.”

  Simon inwardly sighed. He had known it was unlikely that Matthew would simply let it go but he had hoped it anyway. What made despising Matthew difficult was that he tried so hard, meant so well in everything he did, even if it was all to such little avail. Over and over again he had failed where he should have succeeded, ignored where he should have paid heed, and now, because he had ignored the Farnfield land for so long, he was about to fail in his bid to keep it, and failure to keep land was nigh to the worst failure a man could have. He would still have his main holding and the land that went with it, inherited from his father, but leased land was the lord’s to take back and give elsewhere if need be, and Matthew had let it become necessary.

  With his face and voice seemingly disinterested in the matter though surely he was having much the same thought, Master Naylor said to Matthew, “You understand that twenty years make changes in things and the lease can’t be renewed under the old terms. What terms do you offer in their stead?”

  ‘I…“ Matthew fumbled to a stop, looked around for help that wasn’t there, gathered himself, and said, blinking rapidly, ”I offer the old terms and… and three pence more rent a year.“

  It was not much of an offer but more than he probably should make, considering he had probably been losing money on the land instead of making it, with the waste he’d made of it these past five years.

  Master Naylor looked to Gilbey. “And you offer?”

  ‘A shilling and a half rent a year and a tithe of whatever profit I make from the land above that,“ Gilbey said evenly. Half again as much the ready money Matthew presently paid, plus a tithe that was no part of the present lease. Discontented murmurs ran among the onlookers at such a hopeless outbidding of Matthew. There was little liking in the village for Gilbey Dunn.

  Master Naylor leaned a little forward to ask Gilbey with open curiosity, “What is it you plan to do that makes the land worth that much to you?”

  Gilbey made a small shrug as if it hardly mattered. “Pasturing, I think. I’ve a mind to run a few more milch cows and maybe some beef, once it’s cleared to use again.”

  He said it simply but Simon doubted that was the whole of it. Gilbey and money found their way to each other too often and too seemingly easily for anything to be that simple. And here was Gilbey, sure enough, beginning to bargain, saying, “But I’d not expect to pay above half-rent this year, what with the cost of clearing it and me not able to use it until that’s done.”

  ‘But still answer for the tithe,“ Master Naylor returned, knowing Gilbey as well as Simon did, ”supposing you should make something from it this year after all.“

  ‘Aye, I’ll still answer for the tithe,“ Gilbey agreed, with a shade of grudging behind the words.

  Master Naylor looked to Matthew. “Can you better what he offers?”

  Matthew sent an angry look Gilbey’s way before saying sull
enly at the ground in front of himself, “No.”

  Master Naylor looked to Simon, asking as he had to, for form’s sake, despite they already knew what Simon must needs answer, “What say you, Perryn? Would I do well to give the lease to Gilbey Dunn or not?” Wanting Simon’s yea or nay in the matter because Simon was Lord Loveil’s reeve and Gilbey and Matthew were Lord Lovell’s villeins.

  And Simon answered strongly, refusing to be a coward at it, “All considered, I see no reason he shouldn’t have it for what he’s offered.”

  He looked at Matthew then, trying to let him see that he was sorry, but an outraged exclaim behind Matthew had already jerked his head around toward his wife shoving out from among the onlookers. A dull, deep flush swept up Matthew’s face as he moved to stop her; and Simon’s own wife, Anne, was behind her, trying, as Simon had asked her, to hold Mary back and talk her into quietness, but Mary was having none of either Anne or Matthew. Leaving Anne behind and passing Matthew with a sideways swipe that shoved his reaching hand away, she closed on Gilbey, to say fiercely, thrusting a pointing finger at his face, “You’ll put your nose into other people’s lives once too often, Gilbey Dunn. That’s our land you’re taking! You mind what I say!”

  “Mary, please,” Matthew pleaded from behind her. “It’s done. Come away. Please.”

  “Our land!” she insisted at Gilbey who was making no move to answer her, only standing there, and now Anne was there, too, taking her by the arm, trying to make her heed but being as ignored as Matthew was.

  It was Father Edmund saying from the table with his quiet priestly authority, “Mary. That’s enough,” that stopped her. She pulled up short, threw him a glance hot with anger, threw other glances at Simon and Master Naylor no less angry, then let herself be drawn away by Anne, with Matthew following close on her other side; and as Anne circled her away around the onlookers, Mary turned her anger and thrusting finger on him instead, making Simon glad not to hear what she was saying while they went.

  Beside him Master Naylor took up as if undisturbed by any of it and said, “Then, Gilbey Dunn, let the lease on Farnfield be yours on these terms. To run for ten years, from Midsummer to Midsummer, at a shilling and a half rent a year and a tithe of your profit above that, with the rent to be one shilling for this first year because of the land being much in waste. Agreed?”

  Gilbey opened his mouth as if to protest the change to what he had offered, then changed his mind and said, “Agreed.”

  He and Master Naylor and Simon all looked to the jurors, their decision not needed in a matter like this but their witness wanted against later disagreement, should it come. They all nodded understanding of what had passed, and Master Naylor said, “Let it be so noted,” to Father Edmund, who nodded in return without looking up from his pen scratching across paper.

  Gilbey bowed to Master Naylor and to Simon and withdrew, leaving Simon glad to be finished with both him and the lease despite knowing there would be listening to Mary over it later. Their father had always called her his ‘little bird’ because she had been—and was—so small built and lively, pretty in her childhood and pretty enough now, for that matter, he supposed, but the word for her that always came to Simon’s mind was “shrew,” and as good a question as to why she’d married Matthew Woderove was why had Matthew had married her.

  Still, to each their own and, “There’s only the dividing of William Bonde’s land between Alson and young William still to do today,” he said.

  ‘And that should be no trouble?“ Master Naylor asked in his ear as Alson Bonde hobbled forward on her son’s arm. Her husband had been St. Frideswide’s villein and therefore how his property would go between his widow and only son was Master Naylor’s concern, but he freely depended on Simon’s knowledge of the village and its folk in such matters, just as Simon depended on his in others, and Simon whispered back, ”No trouble. They’re well agreed, the last I knew.“

  Father Edmund rose to bring his own stool for old Alson sit on although it meant he’d have to stand to write and was thanked by her smile as she sat down gratefully.

  Master Naylor inquired what the custom was concerning the Bonde holding, and Alson, whose legs might be old but whose wits were well with her, said the custom was for half of it to go the widow for her life, the other half to the eldest son. “And that part is easy enough,” she added, “there being only young William,” patting her son’s hand where it rested on her shoulder as he stood beside her.

  Young William was somewhere past thirty years old, having been born toward the end of the king-before-last’s reign, and though he was married and had three sons of his own, none of them were named William, and he was likely to stay ‘young William’ all his life, however old he came to be.

  ‘You say the same?“ Master Naylor asked him.

  ‘I do.“ His certainty was easy and unhesitant. There were few complications in young William. A fondness for too much ale on a Sunday afternoon or holiday, followed by a desire to sing more loudly than anyone so constantly far off key should ever do, was the worst that could be said about him. He was good to his wife, good to his children, good to his mother, and even if he seemed never to have a thought of his own about how things should be done, he followed other folks’ ways and how things had always been done without making trouble over it. There was no reason Simon knew that he shouldn’t have his share of his father’s holding, nor did the jurors, when Master Naylor asked them, ”What say you? Is this dividing evenly between widow and eldest son the custom as you know it for the Bonde holding?“

  The jurors had been ready for the question. They bent toward each other in busy comment only briefly before Tod Denton, as the oldest, said for them all, “Aye, that’s the way it’s been since any of us remember. The holding divided ‘tween widow and eldest son, with her share going back to the son when she dies. God keep you in possession of it a long while yet, Alson,” he added.

  ‘Thank you, Tod, and the same to you with yours,“ she answered.

  ‘Then let it be put down as such,“ Master Naylor said, closing the matter.

  And what pity it couldn’t all be that easy, Simon was thinking soon afterwards, when he and Master Naylor were still sitting on the oak tree’s bench but at ease, bowls of ale in hand and everyone gone away to other business, except for Simon’s sons, Adam and Colyn, sitting side by side on one of the oak’s upheaved roots, waiting fairly patiently for their father to have done and come away to his other business this afternoon which wasn’t to be weeding that furlong in Shaldewell Field after all; he had forgotten his promise to take them fishing after manor court until he had turned from thanking Father Edmund for his help and found the two of them waiting behind him, smiling, each with a bowl of ale in one hand and fishing pole in the other.

  ‘Mother said you might forget,“ Adam had said cheerfully, ”and said we should bring you these to help sweeten your remembering.“

  So he and Master Naylor were having a drink and a friendly word before they went their ways, partly because it didn’t hurt to stay friendly with a man you had so often to work with but mostly because Simon simply liked him. Steward though he was and strong hand though he kept over all the nunnery properties, letting nothing go by that was St. Frideswide’s due, Master Naylor was a fair man who had never, to Simon’s knowledge, misused his place or power.

  Simon tried to be the same himself, and it pleased him when they could talk together almost as friends, though “almost” was as near as Master Naylor ever came with anybody, Simon thought. Still, “almost” was better than “not at all,” and Simon made bold to ask, as he and Master Naylor rose to their feet, ready to part company, and Adam and Colyn leaped up to come take the empty bowls back to the alehouse, “How goes it at the nunnery then? All still well with your new prioress?”

  ‘All’s well, so far as I can tell, with both her and the nunnery,“ Master Naylor said. ”There’s nothing to complain of there.“

  And even if there had been, he would likely never
have said so, Simon thought, idle talk not being Master Naylor’s way.

  But there was never harm in asking.

  Chapter 2

  The warm days of June were drifted into the warm days of July, with the early haying done, the shearing and its noise of sheep finished, and the weather still holding fair, giving hope for the late haying and, God willing, harvest. Though for now, Frevisse told herself, it should be enough that this year of our Lord’s grace 1440 had, thus far, gone so quietly in every way.

  She was come out from the cloister into St. Frideswide nunnery’s walled garden to sit on the turf bench in the sun-speckled shade of the chestnut tree through this quiet while of the afternoon with one of the nunnery’s account rolls, intending to bring the kitchen accounts to date, but somehow very little of them was being done because now that she was here it seemed enough merely to sit, letting the day happen around her. The garden, with its high walls and single gate, its herb-edged flower beds and careful paths, the vine-shadowed arbor, the turfed seats along the wall, their grass grown with small daisies, was a place unto itself. All of summer seemed held here, touched by no more of the world beyond its walls than came in with the busyness of the bees and sometimes birdsong.