The Reeve's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  ‘But you,“ Frevisse had protested to Father Henry. ”You’re not forbidden.“

  Father Henry had looked sheepish, as if something were his fault. “I have to say the Mass.” And therefore the priory could not do without him, even at the danger.

  But it meant Sister Johane was left with the duties of cellarer for who knew how long. And with Sister Emma as kitchener…

  Her meals and Sister Thomasine’s meals were brought thrice daily from the nunnery kitchen, that their keep not fall on the village, and Dame Claire sent medicines by way of Father Henry, and Domina Elisabeth had sent word that prayers were being said for the sick, and all that was very well, Frevisse thought, walking through the brief shade of the inner yard’s gateway into the hot sunlight of the priory’s outer yard, but brought no end to the hours of ill children and frightened parents and lack of prayers there had been these four past days and were still to come. Even with keeping the Offices as best they could in the shortened form allowed when out of the nunnery, none of them—not even Matins and Lauds at midnight—ever went uninterrupted by a child or several waking restless with fever and discomforts; and most of their mothers had no servants at home and needed to go back and forth from church to house and were tiring, needing Frevisse and Sister Thomasine more and more through the days as well as the nights. Some of the men tried to be of help with at least their own child or children but most of them hadn’t the way of it. Why a man who mucked out byres every day of his life should be put off by a small child’s dirtied napkin or anyone’s vomit was more than Frevisse understood. But she thought that, for many of them, the trouble was they could not help letting their fears come too much between them and what needed to be done; most of the women let nothing—fear least of all—come between them and their children’s needs. In truth, for most of them the greater their fear, the fiercer they were in doing what needed to be done to keep their children alive, no matter the dirt or ugliness of it.

  Interestingly, Father Henry in his own way was as fierce, though it had taken Frevisse a while to see it. Between his duties at the nunnery—and sometimes instead of his duties, she suspected—he was always with the children, two beds at a time if need be, holding hot, restless hands, telling stories and more stories, all kinds of stories, quieting children who needed something besides their own and others’ misery to listen to, diverting mothers who needed the same. It was a pity that Father Edmund, as he admitted and anyone could easily see, was small use with children and less use the more ill they were, but he made up for it by being constantly out and about through the village, comforting people in their homes, lending a hand here and there as need was, or else praying at his own house since his church was no good to him at present, he smilingly said.

  Unfortunately the case was much the same with Frevisse. She had never had nor ever wanted a way with children. But then neither had Sister Thomasine ever desired motherhood, devoted from girlhood to the cloister and prayers, but she had given herself over to the children’s care far more wholeheartedly than Frevisse had, to Frevisse’s shame. But then Sister Thomasine was also pleased beyond measure to be, all day and all night, in a church, uninterruptedly in sight of the altar except when she and Frevisse withdrew into the sacristy where mattresses had been brought for them to sleep in a little privacy. Though Sister Thomasine never stayed there long but after only brief sleep would rouse and slip back into the chancel to kneel and pray before the altar until she was needed again.

  Frevisse suspected that, ill children or no, Sister Thomasine had rarely been more happy.

  Unhappily, that did nearly nothing to improve Frevisse’s struggle with her own ill humor, one admittedly greatly compounded of fear, because it frightened her to see how quickly a child could fall ill, frightened her more to see how quickly it could worsen, frightened her most of all to know how easily any one of them could die.

  Behind her the cloister bell ceased ringing, telling her the other nuns were in church now, in their places in the choir beginning Sext, and she slipped one of the Office’s antiphons over her uncalm thoughts. Suscepisti me, Domine: et confirmasti me in conspectu tuo. You have received me, Lord: and you have strengthened me in your sight. It loosened some of the knots in her with the comfort that, whatever happened, there was always the shelter of prayers and the certainty of Something Else beyond the burdens of everyday and the briefness of mortality.

  But consideration of mortality brought her back to why she was come to see Master Naylor.

  Beside the steward’s door the two guards stood up, slow in the heat. For a moment Master Spencer’s man looked as if he was about to challenge her but decided it was not worth the bother, while the priory guard, the same who had been here last time she came, knocked at the open door and asked, “Is it true what’s said about Tom Hulcote? He’s been found dead?”

  ‘Yes,“ Frevisse said and nothing more. She had had enough talk of his death from Ienet Comber on their way here and the sun was cramming down hot on her head. What she wanted was to be in shade somewhere, not more talk to no purpose.

  As before, Mistress Naylor came, wiping her hands on her apron but suddenly fear on her face as she saw Frevisse who said quickly, understanding, “Dickon is well.”

  Mistress Naylor gave a small gasp of relief, then hurriedly made belated curtsy, murmuring to her apron, “Thank you, my lady. Come in, please you.”

  Grateful to be out of the sun even if inside were no cooler, Frevisse did, asking, “May I see your husband?”

  Mistress Naylor, already edging past her to lead the way through the house, said, “Surely, my lady. How do the other children?”

  ‘One of Simon Perryn’s sons and a few others look to be past the worst. The rest are still very fevered.“

  ‘The Blessed Virgin keep them,“ Mistress Naylor said and led the way into the garden, where this time Master Naylor, his daughters and little son were in the bean-vine arbor, all their heads together over a boat he was carving from a piece of scrap wood, Frevisse saw as she came near, hearing him say before any of them knew she was there, ”… and when I’m out of here, we’ll all go sailing it down the stream.“

  ‘And Dickon, too?“ the older girl asked.

  ‘And Dickon, too.“ Then he saw his wife and Frevisse and stood up, tense for the moment he took to read by his wife’s face that nothing was wrong. Then he was simply as Frevisse best knew him, briskly at business, giving the knife he had been using to the older girl and the half-made boat to his son, saying, ”Here’s Dame Frevisse come to see me. We’ll finish the making this afternoon.“

  The younger girl started to protest, but her mother took her by the hand with, “Let’s see what we can find to make a sail of,” and they all went with her unprotestingly.

  Master Naylor gestured Frevisse to sit. She gestured that he should, too, and when they both were, he asked, “Is it about Tom Hulcote?”

  ‘You’ve heard already,“ Frevisse said ruefully.

  ‘Word never trips when coming from village to here, that I’ve found,“ Master Naylor said. ”The guard passed it in an hour ago.“

  ‘Did he also tell you it was Dickon found the body?“

  ‘Dickon?“ Master Naylor made to stand sharply up but caught himself back from the useless movement and demanded, ”How did it come to be Dickon who found him?“

  ‘He was coming back a long way around after seeing the cows out to pasture this morning. Something to do with setting snares, I think, but didn’t ask closely.“ Because he should not have been setting snares.

  Master Naylor understood that, too, and asked nothing about it, only, “How is he? Where is he now?”

  ‘I haven’t seen him. I gather he’s with Bess the ale-wife.“

  Master Naylor nodded, satisfied with that. “He’ll do well enough with her. Now, about Tom. What happened?”

  As evenly as she could, Frevisse said, “From what Perryn tells me, he’d been stabbed in the back and the side of his head crushed in.”

&nbs
p; Master Naylor’s mouth twisted on the ugliness of it, matching what she felt inside. “Where?” he asked harshly.

  ‘He was found in the ditch above Oxfall Field.“

  ‘Found?“ Master Naylor repeated. ”You mean he wasn’t killed there.“

  ‘Perryn says he looks to have been killed elsewhere. The only blood there was on him and there should have been more.“

  ‘Perryn says. You haven’t seen for yourself?“

  It was not so strange a question as it might have been. Over the years there had been other brutal deaths at St. Frideswide’s and from them Master Naylor knew that Frevisse took more interest in the how and why and who of them than might be thought right to a woman. But this time she only answered, “No. Perryn and some other men had fetched the body in. I only knew about it afterwards.”

  But when he had come to her to tell her of it and say that Master Naylor should be told as soon as possible, she had taken the chance to ask him more, and now when Master Naylor said, “There was rain yestermorning at dawn. The blood might have washed away,” she was able to say back, “Perryn says he can’t have been lying out that long. Almost nothing had been at him in the night, and…” The thing was ugly enough to think without having to say it aloud. “… the birds had only just started on him.”

  Mistress Naylor came along a garden path, bringing two cups of water for which her husband and Frevisse thanked her, but Master Naylor waited until she was gone away again before saying, “He was moved last night, then. He was killed last night, too?”

  ‘From the few men Perryn had had time to ask before he talked to me, nobody remembers seeing him since Saturday, likely.“

  ‘Saturday. And two more days since then,“ Master Naylor considered that. ”He was maybe not dead all that while. He might have been away and been killed when coming back.“

  ‘Not… to judge by the smell.“ In weather as warm as this, something dead was very quickly something rotting and, ”From what Perryn says about how far along the body is, he’s been dead about that long.“

  ‘But not lying out anywhere. That means the reason no one saw him for those two days was that he was dead, that someone killed him on Saturday, maybe Sunday, but kept the body hidden until last night.“

  ‘Yes.“

  Master Naylor stood up, paced restlessly to the edge of the arbor’s leaf-patterned shadows, stood with his back to her a moment, turned, returned, sat, and asked abruptly, “Two days at least since he was last seen, and no one missed him in that while?”

  ‘It doesn’t seem so.“

  ‘Not even Mary Woderove?“ Master Naylor asked.

  ‘I asked that of Perryn but he didn’t know. He hadn’t gone yet to tell her Tom was dead. I think he was hoping others would tell her first so he wouldn’t have to face her first grief at it.“

  Master Naylor nodded grim understanding of that.

  ‘But she started in at manor court,“ about which she had long since sent word to Master Naylor by way of Father Henry, ”telling Tom he ought to leave here. I heard her then, and Perryn says she was at it afterwards, too, telling Tom and anyone else in hearing that he ought to leave, make a start somewhere else, a new life for them both where everyone wasn’t against them. If she thought he had…“

  ‘Without telling her he was going to?“ Master Naylor asked.

  ‘Or maybe he did tell her he was going to, and she thought he was gone and didn’t say anything, to give him more time to be away. Only someone had killed him instead.“

  ‘Or else he wouldn’t go, refused to go, and she killed him,“ Master Naylor suggested.

  Frevisse could see Mary Woderove working into enough of a fury to want to kill even someone she was supposed to love if he refused her what she wanted. But, “I don’t see that she could have killed him, hid his body, and then moved it, all unheeded by anyone.”

  ‘She’s over-small to have moved it,“ Master Naylor agreed. ”Or done the rest, I suppose,“ he added. ”And why would she, come to that?“

  ‘From what I’ve seen of her, she’s a woman who likes to hold on to what she has,“ Frevisse said. ”The threat of someone leaving her might drive her into passion enough to kill, but she was already telling Tom to go, so that wouldn’t be it.“

  ‘No,“ Master Naylor agreed.

  ‘Was there anyone at all you know of might want him dead?“

  Master Naylor shook his head. “Tom was no worse a trouble than some others are hereabouts. Less than some, come to that, and not so often as others. Mostly he wasn’t even the kind of man who made men angry at him.” Master Naylor stood up and paced again. Frevisse realized with surprise that he was deeply angry. “The trouble was that Tom didn’t belong where he was. He couldn’t fit quietly into his place here but didn’t have the wits or skill to raise himself out of it on his own. He was no Gilbey Dunn. But given his chance…” Master Naylor stopped, staring down into his cup as if surprised to find he was still carrying it.

  Reluctantly Frevisse asked, “That’s why you thought he should have the Woderove holding and marry Mary?”

  ‘Mary is sharp enough and Tom works… worked well enough when he could see there was something in it for him. With a little luck, they’d have made a go of it. Between the two of them, they would have had a chance.“

  And now they neither of them would. And Master Naylor, in his constrained way, was unhappy over that. Frevisse had long known that he was a skilled steward, with a keen eye to the priory’s best interests. She had not known he also would take the trouble to see past someone’s outward seeming to their possibilities, though perhaps she should have guessed it because it was a useful tool toward making him so good a steward. But all she said was, “And since he and Mary were already… linked, all they needed was for the holding to be given to them.”

  Master Naylor came back to sit again. “Yes.”

  Frevisse carefully set to one side of her mind that he had told her something of that when last they had talked but she had let it go and had a part in refusing them because of her ready, easy dislike for them both. She was at fault in that, she feared, and must needs take closer look at herself over it; but just now what mattered was that someone had killed Tom Hulcote, and slowly she said, “Mary Woderove’s husband was killed away from here, luckily for them, since his death was so convenient to them.”

  ‘Or would have been convenient,“ Master Naylor said, ”if things had fallen out for them afterwards the way they hoped.“

  ‘Tom’s death isn’t as obviously convenient to anyone.“ ”Particularly to Tom,“ Master Naylor said bitterly. ”But then the question is,“ Frevisse said, holding to where she was going, ”for whom was Tom Hulcote’s death convenient?“

  Chapter 10

  Master Naylor had had no helpful answer to her question. From all he knew, Tom Hulcote had not mattered enough in anyone’s life—except Mary Woderove’s—for anyone to want him dead—and it was not dead that Mary wanted him. “He had no enemies I’ve ever heard of,” Master Naylor had said. “Nor friends, come to that. He wasn’t a man anyone cared that much about, either way.” Except for Mary Woderove, he had not bothered to add.

  ‘The men who were ready to make trouble at the manor court,“ Frevisse had said. ”Weren’t they friends?“

  ‘From what Father Henry told me, they’re just the usual lot who make trouble because they lack the wit to make anything else. They’d take up a sick dog’s cause as fast as Tom Hulcote’s, especially against Gilbey Dunn.“

  ‘What about Gilbey? He had no liking for Tom.“

  ‘Or Tom for him. If it was Gilbey found dead, it might be Tom I’d look to first, but for Gilbey to put himself to the trouble of killing anybody—you’d have to find good reason for it.“

  ‘The Woderove holding?“

  ‘It was by far a greater matter to Tom than it was to Gilbey. It would be Gilbey I’d look for to be dead because of it, rather than Tom.“

  And that had been all the help he could give her. Nor had
she found out much more than that in the two days since then, because she had returned to the village to find too many of the children worsening, and almost all the hours since then had been taken up with their necessities. Last night she had been so tired that when her turn came to sleep, she had barely been able to unpin her veil and set it aside before she fell onto her mattress and was still so tired when she awoke that her fingers had fumbled at pinning it on again. But St. Roch be thanked, since dawn this morning seven more children’s fevers had broken, one after another in a welter of sweat and mothers’ tears and the need for dry sheets or blankets and turned mattresses and urging, urging the children to drink just a little more barley water, just a little, before they sank into their first deeply quiet, blessedly cool sleeps in days, often with their spent mothers stretched out asleep beside them.

  With all that, she had had little time to think of questions about Tom Hulcote, let alone ask them of anyone. She only knew, from undercurrents of talk among tired women and whoever of their family and friends came to help sometimes when other work was done that the uncertainty of Tom Hulcote’s death was beginning to take its toll.