The Reeve's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  ‘I told you…“ Mary started at him.

  ‘The thing is not to tell them,“ Father Edmund snapped.

  ‘Her husband’s death for a beginning,“ Frevisse said.

  Father Edmund dismissed that sharply. “He was killed miles from here by thieves.”

  ‘He was killed here by Tom Hulcote. And by his wife. Who’d plotted it with you beforehand.“

  Mary tore a hand free of Father Edmund’s hold to grab the front of his surcoat and demand up at him, “You see?”

  Ignoring her, his harsh gaze fixed at Frevisse, he said with contempt, “You’re being foolish, Dame.”

  Ignoring his contempt, she answered, “And then the two of you killed Tom.”

  ‘We never…“ Mary started shrilly.

  ‘Be quiet!“ Father Edmund snapped. ”She’s nothing more than guessing.“

  ‘It’s gone past guessing,“ Frevisse thrust back. ”It must have been troublesome, Mary having a husband and two lovers all at once. Was that why you decided to be rid of two of them, Mary? Or was it Father Edmund who thought out how to be rid of them? Or the two of you together?“

  Goaded, Mary cried out, suddenly fierce, “You’re guessing! You’re lying!”

  With a certainty weighted by her anger, Frevisse said, “The ‘clever’ part was having Tom kill your husband for you first of all. You told him that if he did, he’d have you and the holding both, didn’t you? That’s how you brought him to it, isn’t it? But how did Matthew come to be both clubbed and stabbed? Tom on his own wouldn’t likely have needed to do both. One or the other, but not both. What happened? Did Tom balk at the last or did Matthew put up more fight than you thought he would and you had to club him down for Tom to stab?”

  With a snarling ugliness, all beauty stripped from her, Mary let loose of Father Edmund to turn fully toward her, starting to answer that, but Father Edmund caught her by the shoulders, pulled her back against him, said over her head, fierce now in his turn, “Say nothing, Mary. Nun, on peril of your soul, be silent.”

  ‘I doubt it’s my soul is in peril,“ Frevisse answered and thrust on, ”Clever, too, to put Tom to all that trouble of making it seem Matthew wasn’t killed here at all. Having him ’leave‘ the day before your deliberate quarrel with Matthew, then steal and sell the horse and dump Matthew’s body well away, all so there’d be no suspicion on either of you. He did all that so he’d be able to have you openly, have Matthew’s place in every way, and all the time you meant that he’d have nothing.“

  ‘No! None of that happened! None of it!“ Mary cried.

  His arms around her, holding her to him, Father Edmund said contemptuously, “Let her say what she wants. It’s the only thing will satisfy them. Hearing her lies. It makes no difference. There’s nothing proved, however much she says.”

  Because that was too true, Frevisse said with contempt to match his own, as if she had proof in plenty, “And while Tom was seeing to Matthew, you went about to be rid of Master Naylor.”

  Perryn and the other men—save Christopher, who didn’t know about it—roused to that, Perryn demanding, “How?”

  ‘He simply sent word to Lord Lovell that he thought he recognized Master Naylor as villein born,“ Frevisse said, as confidently as if now she were not making an outright, utter guess. ”He knew that on your own, Perryn, you’d never give the Woderove holding to Tom Hulcote. Therefore he saw to Master Naylor being out of the way, lest he persuade you otherwise.“

  Father Edmund’s hesitation to deny that told Frevisse, to her relief, that she had guessed rightly. In all of this, his accusation to Lord Lovell against Master Naylor was the one thing of which there would be firm proof. If he denied it and somehow she had the proof in hand, then everything else he had denied would be suspect, too, and while the advantage was still hers, Frevisse said at him, “It’s the other reason you couldn’t wait over-long for Matthew’s body to be found. Tom had to be refused his bid for the holding before Master Naylor was released.”

  ‘And that’s why Tom was in Banbury at St. Swithin’s time!“ Bert exclaimed. ”To spread rumor of Matthew’s body so someone would find it!“

  Walter, John and Hamon were at last looking more grim than confused, beginning to see how the pieces, proof or no, all held together damningly. Father Edmund, able to read the shift and trying to regain lost ground, said with new fierceness, “What are you gaining by these lies, Dame? Who set you to them?”

  ‘My brother!“ Mary cried. ”He hates me!“ Refusing to be turned, Frevisse said bitingly, at Mary again, ”That left you only Tom to be rid of. As planned, he was refused the holding and you set to urging him to leave, telling him there was nothing left for him here. But he wouldn’t go. He meant to stay. Is that why you killed him? Because he wouldn’t leave you? Because he loved you too much? Or did he find you and Father Edmund together in a way he couldn’t mistake and was so angry that all you could do was kill him to keep him quiet?“

  There was nothing beautiful about Mary now. Eyes hating, she strained forward against Father Edmund’s hold, snarling, “You dirt-mouthed bitch!”

  Frevisse leaned toward her in return, not caring what her own face showed, demanding, “Was it you he went for in his anger, and Father Edmund struck him down? Or did he go for Father Edmund first, and you did for him? The way you did for your husband. Did Tom have time to know it was you killing him? Did he have time to know just what your ‘love’ is worth?”

  Mary screamed then, wrenching against Father Edmund’s hold, too furious even for words, wanting only to come at her. Hamon shifted hurriedly off the bench and away while Father Edmund, struggling to hold her, said, “Mary, no! She’s guessing. It doesn’t matter what she says! She doesn’t know anything!”

  Frevisse, ignoring him, leaned farther forward, tauntingly near to Mary’s reach, and sick though the words made her, said goadingly, “And when you’d clubbed him down, Mary, was it you who stabbed him twice over to be sure he was dead? Or was that something you managed to leave to your other lover to do?”

  ‘Dame!“ Father Edmund said with a fury that brought Mary to sudden stillness in his hold. ”Enough! On your obedience, Dame, be silent!“

  Frevisse straightened, slowly, her eyes locked to his, letting him see everything she thought of him and what he could do with his priestly “obedience” before she said, cold and deliberate, “And then you hid his body while you remade your plans to cover what you’d done. It took you Sunday to think it out, Monday to accomplish it, and that night, finally, you were able to take him—how? by wheelbarrow, its wheel well greased to go unheard in the night?—out by the back way to dump him in a ditch the way that he’d dumped Matthew.”

  ‘Guessing,“ Father Edmund said.

  ‘The pieces fit,“ Frevisse returned. ”Every one of them. Down to Gilbey Dunn’s belt and Simon Perryn’s hood.“

  ‘What…“ Father Edmund faltered on that, not shifting swiftly enough to follow where she had gone.

  ‘The belt and hood you told these men to say nothing about,“ Frevisse said. ”The belt and hood stolen from Gilbey’s house and here.“

  Mary gave a vicious, desperate laugh at that. “There! There’s your lie! I’ve never been at Gilbey’s house this half year and more, and anyone will say so!”

  ‘No one says you’ve been at Gilbey’s house,“ Frevisse said sharply back at her. ”You came here and took your brother’s hood. It was Father Edmund who went to Gilbey’s and took the belt.“

  Mary stared, while Father Edmund’s face went tightly shut, with thoughts racing behind it, but Frevisse gave him no time to sort them out, saying quickly at them both, “I’ve asked. The belt and hood were where they should have been on Monday morning. After that they were gone. Someone took them. The only person both here and at Gilbey’s that day is Esota Emmet, and there’s nothing against her in any of this. The only others possible are Walter Hopper and Hamon Otale. Walter came here, and Hamon as his man was at Gilbey’s.”

  ‘Th
ere then!“ Mary cried. ”It could have been them!“ And at Perryn, ”It could have been! Make her admit it could have been them!“

  ‘Save that there’s nothing—nothing“ Frevisse said in sudden, open, blazing anger, ”to tie them to either Matthew’s death or Tom’s, but everything to tie you and Father Edmund. Beginning with your lust.“

  Chapter 22

  There had been no other way to do it.

  Or if there was, she still did not see it.

  With head bowed and arms wrapped tightly across herself, Frevisse went on pacing back and forth the length of the path between Anne Perryn’s garden beds with the same measured tread she would have paced St. Frideswide’s cloister walk if she could have been there. And she deeply wished she was. Or, better yet, on her knees before St. Frideswide’s altar, praying herself toward quietness.

  But it would be days more before she could be there, and when the men had taken Mary Woderove and Father Edmund off to Master Montfort, with Dickon following along for curiosity’s sake, she had stayed here, to be alone until the trembling stopped; until she could undo the sickened ugliness left in her by the deliberate, cold rage she had summoned up to deal with Mary Woderove and then with Father Edmund because she could see no other way. She had come to understand, that little while she had questioned Mary on the green, that Mary’s anger was a cunning one—real enough but used like a weapon to have her own way. What no one had ever done before was use anger purposeful as her own back at her, until Frevisse did, and it had worked where maybe nothing else would have, just as proof he had never thought to see set up against him had brought down Father Edmund, had held him silent as Simon Perryn had risen to his feet at the head of the table and, looking at his sister and his priest with a face dark not so much with anger but the soul-deep misery of betrayal, said, “Aye, priest. It wasn’t enough to kill Matthew. To kill Tom. To whore my sister and break your vows. You had to try to make innocent men look guilty in your stead.”

  Stiffly, as if it made a great difference, Father Edmund had answered, “I had no hand in Matthew Woderove’s death.”

  Mary had cried out at that, pulling away from him, turning to face him. “No hand? No! You only urged me on to it, planned it with me. How I’d bring Tom to do it and everything and then how we’d be rid of Tom afterwards!”

  ‘I never meant Tom’s death,“ Father Edmund had answered sharply. ”I only meant for him to leave.“

  ‘And so did I!“

  ‘But when he wouldn’t,“ Perryn said, ”you killed him. Both of you.“

  ‘He found us together,“ Mary had said, sullen against the wrong he had done them. ”He would have killed us both, he was that mad. Would have killed you first,“ she added savagely at Father Edmund. ”It was you he was going for!“

  ‘And so you hit him from behind with what?“ Christopher had asked.

  ‘A piece of firewood, like you said, you clot! It was what was to hand.“ She had pointed accusingly at Father Edmund. ”And even then I had to tell you to stab him! That he wasn’t dead and he had to be!“

  Frevisse went on walking, not regretting what she had done, only wishing the anger’s sickened residue, still curdled like churned lead in her stomach, would go away. It would, she knew. If not today, then later. Given time and prayers enough, she would finally cleanse its ugliness out of her.

  Unlike Mary, who would almost surely take her ugliness to the grave with her, still seeing no reason she should not have killed two men to let her have a third unhindered.

  And Father Edmund?

  At thought of him the little quiet Frevisse had so far won back shredded away. There were priests in plenty like St. Frideswide’s Father Henry, men who held to God’s way as closely as they could despite the sins of the flesh that called to them as readily as to anyone else. There were, less often, priests who gave way to those sins. Priests fat with gluttony or corrupt with avarice or damned with pride or lost to lust. But to be a priest and murder a man… To take a man’s life without giving him chance to save his soul…

  Frevisse found she was standing at the far end of one of the garden paths, staring down into a cabbage plant, noting with rather desperate care the particular cabbage-shade of its green, the fine patterning of its heavy leaves…

  ‘My lady?“

  Too deep in contemplation of the cabbage, she had not heard Perryn come and looked around to find him standing a respectful distance away along the path behind her, and said the only greeting she could think of between them. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

  ‘I’ve been sorry about her a long while more than you have,“ Perryn said steadily. ”You did what needed doing. She couldn’t be let go. Neither of them could.“

  Frevisse nodded, grateful he understood, and moved away, out of the path and toward the apple tree at the garden’s edge, plucking a tall-grown basil plant’s leaf as she passed, crushing it between her fingers, breathing in its spicy richness, something that blessedly would never change, no matter what vileness happened in the world.

  Perryn followed her under the burdened branches, out of the sun into the apple shade, and as she sat on the bench there, gesturing him to join her, she asked, “Master Montfort was willing to believe what you told him?”

  ‘Not gladly,“ Perryn said. ”It was Master Christopher he listened to. Master Christopher’s his son, as happens.“

  ‘I know.“

  ‘I reckoned that you did. He listened to him right enough, and believed him. He’s furious at losing his grip on Gilbey’s goods, though.“

  ‘He would be.“ For Montfort this whole misery of lives put to waste undoubtedly came down at the last to the single hateful fact that he would make no profit from it.

  Perryn looked up through the apple branches into a distance of sky, the silence stretching out between them before he said, still gazing away, “They’ll hang her, won’t they?”

  Frevisse nodded.

  They neither of them mentioned Father Edmund. Mary would be tried at county court, found guilty, and hanged, but Father Edmund’s priesthood put him beyond sentence of death. He would be tried, as Mary would be, and found guilty, but then be given over to his bishop to be kept in the bishop’s prison under penance until, inevitably, he was pardoned. There would be no hope of any great preferment in the Church for him afterwards but he would have his life. And Mary, Matthew Woderove, and Tom Hulcote would be long dead.

  Bitterly, Frevisse hoped his penance would be hard beyond the ordinary.

  Beside her, Perryn said, “One thing. I had the priest write out a confession of his lie against Master Naylor while we were there and Master Montfort witnessed it. Dickon has taken it off to the priory.”

  ‘Did you? Has he?“ Frevisse said, her heaviness suddenly lightened.

  ‘Will it be enough to have him loosed, do you think?“

  ‘With that in hand, Domina Elisabeth will have him out of guard by this afternoon’s end.“

  Perryn gave a satisfied sigh. “That’s all right then. It’ll be good to have things back the way they should be. Not,” he added as if it was something that surprised him, “that it’s been all that bad to work with you.”

  ‘Nor with you,“ Frevisse said and meant it but had to add, ”No matter how glad I’ll be to give Master Naylor back all his duties.“

  Perryn made a half-laugh at that. “Aye. Each to his own.” He stood up. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Now I’m off to the church, to see how it is with Anne and the children.”

  ‘Please, tell Sister Thomasine I’ll be there soon.“

  Perryn slightly bowed, started away, stopped, turned back to her, and said, “I wonder, my lady, if Father Edmund ever thought ahead.”

  ‘Ahead?“

  Unlikely though it was, what looked to be laughter seemed trying to happen at the corners of Perryn’s mouth. “Aye. Ahead.”

  Frevisse caught his thought. “You mean ahead to…” she began but broke off, fighting down laughter of her own.

  �
��Aye,“ Perryn said. ”Ahead to what would likely happen when Mary tired of him.’“

  And despite of everything, they both began to laugh, laughter serving, for now, along with prayer, against the ache of mourning.

  Epilogue

  There was done and autumn come and Frevisse was standing with Master Naylor, with Sister Thomasine to hand for propriety’s sake, to watch the cutting of the last grain in the last priory field. In the weeks since she and Sister Thomasine had returned to the nunnery, she had seen no one from the village and not even Master Naylor until today. He had taken his duties back from her as soon as he was freed, and for the few days between then and when it had been judged safe for her and Sister Thomasine to return into the nunnery, she had simply tended to the children in the church, more than willing to leave all other matters to anyone who wanted them, except for a single harsh exchange with Master Montfort, who had made it plain that her intrusion into business not her own was tolerated only because note of it could be shifted to his son. Master Christopher had sought her out to apologize for that, but she had told him truthfully he was welcome to anything of worth it brought him, so long as he made good use of it.