6 The Murderer's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  There was nothing uneasy in the silence among them then as they walked on. Fidelitas romped away to see to a beetle crossing the path ahead of them, but it flew ponderously off, bumping her nose as it went, and she came back to Lionel’s side, eagerly lifting her head to him to be petted. He obliged her.

  Frevisse asked, the question coming more easily than it would have before they laughed together, “Of all the shrines of saints there are, why are you going to St. Kenelm’s in particular?”

  Lionel’s look went from her to Dame Claire and back again, and she thought he was judging how they would take him directly talking of his curse, but at the same time his brief smile was appreciative of her directness, and his answer matched it. “Why Kenelm? Because I’ve tried so many of the others to no avail. St. Margaret, of course. St. Peter. St. Madron in Cornwall. St. Giles.” Lionel smiled a little bitterly at the irony of that. “Even so far afield as St. Dympna in Flanders as my need for hope widened. All to no noticeable avail.”

  “And why Kenelm now?” A child saint martyred for his goodness in the face of his sister’s ambitions seemed an odd choice.

  Lionel’s gaze on the path ahead of them went distant, to somewhere no one could see who did not live as Lionel was forced to live. And from far inside that somewhere he answered, more to his own heart than her, “Because St. Kenelm surely understands the grief of a life never fully lived. A life ended before it was well begun, the way his was. Maybe out of that understanding, he’ll have pity on me. I have no hope in anything anymore except holy pity.”

  Frevisse wished sharply that she had not asked; but it was Dame Claire who sought to draw him back to them with, “At least you have a good friend in Martyn Gravesend. A better friend than most men have, no matter what their lives are like.”

  “He’s my good friend indeed,” Lionel argued. “I’ve been shown that much mercy in my need. Though I doubt my need justifies how much he’s let his life be twisted to accommodate my need.”

  “Does he see his life as twisted?” Frevisse asked quickly. “Or does he see it as a choice he freely made and freely holds to?”

  Lionel’s gaze finally came back from whatever distance or depths he had been seeing. He turned to her, as if facing her would help her more clearly understand his answer and he needed her to understand it. “He made his choice freely, but he made it years ago. Matters change for every man. I’m bound by a necessity I can’t be rid of, no matter what I do. Martyn is bound by his choice and that’s a thing he can change if he chooses to. But what if he feels it’s a choice he cannot make?”

  “Do you want him to?”

  “No. For my own sake I don’t want him to. But for his sake I’ve told him that he can.”

  “And he says?”

  “He says he wants no change.”

  “But you don’t believe him.”

  The lines down Lionel’s face beside his mouth that were too old for his years deepened. “If I had the chance and choice, I’d be as far away from the life he lives as I could possibly go. It’s hard to accept he willingly stays, given the choice.”

  “But you’ve given him the choice and he’s chosen to stay,” Dame Claire said. Her deep voice softened. “We were talking of choice just now, Dame Frevisse and I. Even knowing how different, how much more comfortable our lives might have been if we’d chosen otherwise, we still hold wholeheartedly to the choice we’ve made. It may be that way with him.”

  “He’s maybe done what so few people do,” Frevisse said. “He’s knowingly chosen a duty that matters more to him than what other people would see as pleasures. He’s maybe accepted what’s so rarely accepted by anyone despite all Christ’s teachings. That we’re all responsible for one another. If not for each other’s actual souls, then at least for each other’s bodily well-being, to do what we can so that souls aren’t corrupted by our bodies’ miseries.”

  “Our bodies’ miseries,” Lionel echoed. Frevisse inwardly flinched. Caught up in working through her thought, she had forgotten that the body’s misery was something more horribly real to Lionel than mere words.

  Edeyn’s bright voice interrupted, calling from the arbor entrance, “Lionel! My ladies! I’ve come to warn you we’re going in.”

  Frevisse’s gaze was on Lionel’s face in the moment that Edeyn called, and she saw the momentary, unthinking pleasure there as he lifted his head and turned toward his cousin-in-law, a pleasure instantly buried behind an everyday smile and answering wave back to her as he casually called, “We’re coming.”

  But Frevisse had seen enough that, taken together with what she had earlier observed, she could guess that here was another grief cutting at Lionel’s heart. The grief of love where there should not be love. A love without hope. And she wondered, with aching pity, how long he had hurt with that as well as all his other pain—and wondered, too, how sick to his soul he was of other people’s pity.

  Chapter 10

  They were finally come back to their chamber, the evening finished, the shutters closed over the window against the bane of night air. The room had not been meant for three people to share at once along with their servants and now that damned bitch for bad measure. If they all moved at once, they were in each other’s way more than they were out of it, but of course and inevitably Lionel had to be seen to first, the rest of them shoved aside the while.

  Just now, for once, that suited Giles well enough. Sitting on a chest against the wall near the door, one leg drawn up to cross his arms on as he waited, he watched while Lionel was changed from his best gown to a rougher doublet, the servants seeing to warm water for him to wash face and hands in, bringing a clean towel for him, taking his belt and dagger to put away until tomorrow, waiting with his other shoes; Martyn changing, too, into a more serviceable doublet to see him through what was coming, all of them like so many idiot ants, not a full brain among them if they were all added together, not one of them able to make the smallest guess toward how useless everything they were doing was.

  The lamps’ light had shoved the shadows back into the curtained depth of the bed and the room’s corners, so he had to control his face at that thought. It had brought laughter too close to the surface. He shivered a little, with nervousness, not fear, the nervousness of eagerness, and he enjoyed the feeling. What he wanted was so near now. All he had to do was wait while these fools went their fools’ ways, just as they always did when they knew an attack would come soon. See Lionel into rough clothing that would not come to grief with his groveling on the floor. Send him and Martyn off to whatever church or chapel was to hand. Leave them to pray for Lionel to be spared this time.

  How long had Lionel been doing this, and still he could not grasp it was going to do him no good. He prayed and he prayed, and over and over, his prayers were ignored. Every time his demon came and was probably as amused by now as Giles was at Lionel’s useless attempts to be rid of it. Lionel was a fool. He’d be taken as he was always taken and sprawl out on the chapel floor with his grunting and spittle until it was over, when he could just as well go to bed and let it take him in comfort and more conveniently.

  But where would be the glory for Martyn in that? No, Lionel would go to the chapel and Martyn would go with him, and they would kneel together, making their pointless prayers, and then Lionel would convulse and Martyn would tend to him, and afterward Lionel would be grateful and Martyn, the arrogant bastard, would go on living off of him.

  Only, after tonight, he wouldn’t.

  Giles rocked slightly back and forth, containing his pleasure with difficulty, because tonight was going to be different. A little while longer, that’s all he had to wait, and then things were going to be very different. Finally.

  To give his tension some release he said at random, “I saw that stable oaf Petir today.”

  Lionel turned from the servant who had been fastening up his doublet and asked, “Petir?”

  From the side of his eyes, not seeming to, Giles watched Edeyn’s and Martyn’s reactions mo
re than Lionel’s. They were more likely to be the amusing ones since Lionel had never understood anything about Petir. Edeyn looked up from where she was sitting on the window seat, heeding him but going on stroking that damned white bitch that fawned on her almost as much as it did on Lionel. Martyn’s back was to him, picking up Lionel’s cloak from a stool.

  “The fellow you had to turn away last year or so,” Giles said to Lionel. “He’s back in the stables here.”

  Still nothing from Edeyn, but Martyn, feigning more concern at folding Lionel’s cloak over his arm than in Petir, said as if it were a minor matter, “He came to us at Mistress Edeyn’s marriage but wasn’t satisfied and so came back to Minster Lovell.”

  Lionel nodded vaguely, probably still not remembering anything at all about the man, his mind on other things. It was Edeyn who asked, “How did it go with him?”

  “Right enough so far as I could tell.” With a slight edge, Giles added, “I didn’t make occasion to talk to him,” reminding her that he had not forgotten the reason he had used to force Martyn to send the man away.

  If she flushed, there was too little light to see it. Not that it mattered except as momentary diversion. There had been nothing on her part except simple-witted flattery at a stable scruff’s admiration. Giles had made her understand the unsuitability of being pleased by that with hard talk and some heavy bed-play and seen to Martyn sending the oaf away. Except he had happened to see him today, he would not have bothered with thought of him again, or bothered with mention of him except for his own diversion, to see himself through this fussing time Lionel and Martyn were so pointlessly indulging in.

  The bitch stirred under Edeyn’s hand, rose to its feet, and began to whine at Lionel. Edeyn tried to quiet it, but it had lost interest in her and left her to go across to Lionel where he sat on the bed edge changing from his good leather shoes to cloth ones whose toes would not scuff on the chapel floor while he knelt. The bitch ran its head in under his arm, nosing into his hold, whining more insistently, and he paused to stroke its head, a hand cupped under its chin while he asked, “What’s the matter, girl? Are you ready to leave us? Tired of us?”

  The bitch pushed against him harder, whining up into his face as if in real distress. Lionel patted her but rose, ready to go.

  “Edeyn, see to her, won’t you?”

  Edeyn went to him, but the bitch did not want to be held. It tried to follow as Lionel moved away toward the door, and Edeyn knelt and wrapped her arms around its neck. It ignored her, whining more.

  “It’ll bite you,” Giles said without moving to help her.

  No one heeded him. Martyn had opened the chamber door and was standing aside for Lionel to pass. Lionel turned in the doorway to look back. At the bitch? At Edeyn? Giles was not sure and had the thought that it was two bitches together, both looking at Lionel with matching expressions of distress, hurt, and worry.

  For a moment Giles thought that Lionel was going to answer them, but his cousin shook his head instead, at them or at something in himself, and left. Martyn followed, shutting the door, and the room was suddenly much larger, more at ease.

  “You’re not taking that bitch to bed with us,” Giles said.

  Edeyn did not answer except to stand up, releasing the cur as she did. It went immediately to the shut door, sniffed at its lower edge and up to the handle to be sure there was no way out, whining lightly.

  Edeyn nodded at her maidservant, who had been waiting at the room’s far end to come forward and begin readying her for bed. Giles rose for his own man to do the same for him. Tonight, with Lionel gone, the bed was theirs. Last night they had had to make do with the truckle that pulled out from under it because, as always, Lionel had come first. For once the thought brought Giles more amusement than bitterness. There was going to be an end to that now. All he needed was for Lionel to reach the chapel and for there to be time for the household all to settle. Everything else had already been put into his hands. He only needed that little more.

  “Put my bed gown there,” he said, pointing at the foot of the bed when he was undressed and ready to lie down.

  His man obeyed and then turned down the coverlet and sheets as Edeyn’s woman was doing from the other side. Across the room the bitch had given up trying to go out and had lain down, a tight bundle of displeasure, in front of the door. That was a complication Giles did not want. Tersely he said, “That cur will whine all night if it’s left there. Bring it up on the bed, Edeyn.”

  She smiled at him, the first gladness she had shown since they came back to the room, and while he lay down, went to scoop up the bitch. As she brought it back with her to the bed, it whimpered but did not resist. But then it wouldn’t, would it, given the chance of a bed instead of the floor, Giles thought.

  “Not between us,” he said as Edeyn began to push it toward the bed’s middle. “Keep it on your side.”

  Edeyn pulled it back and put herself between it and Giles, speaking soothingly to it. For once her attention turned away from him failed to annoy Giles. If anyone chanced to wonder why he did not make use of Edeyn tonight, the bitch there would be reason enough.

  The servants drew the curtains around the bed. Giles lay in the shadows, listening while they set the room to rights and then settled on their pallets on the floor. Beside him Edeyn lay with her back to him, still talking to the bitch. It might be well to let her keep it afterward, if Lady Lovell agreed. It would give her something to weep over until the baby came, a distraction so she would be less inclined to cling to him. Let her cling to the bitch instead.

  The light from the single small lamp left to burn through the night shone dimly through the curtains, their woven pattern of vines and leaves showing in dark relief against it. Waiting for sounds of sleep around him, Giles speculated on how much a full set of curtains like that might cost. Of course these might have cost Lord Lovell nothing, if they were loot out of France. Much of this place was likely furnished with French takings. He had had it easy enough, hadn’t he? A strong inheritance, a rich marriage, French loot. No wonder he could live like this. Some folk had it harder.

  But if you were neither coward nor fool, there were ways to make the luck you were not born to. Giles smiled to himself in the darkness. Making his own luck was what he meant to do tonight.

  He waited, keeping himself still with an effort. His man slept first, his light snoring a sure sign he was gone and unlikely to rouse until kicked awake in the morning. Edeyn’s breathing evened next. Giles felt her slacken next to him and dared rise up a little to look down at her, still on her side, her arm over the bitch’s back. The little cur itself was awake right enough. Its head lifted to look back at him, but it made no sound or other movement and since that was all he wanted from it, he sank back down to wait the while longer until snorts told him the maidservant was gone deep to sleep, too.

  He held himself in check even then, forcing himself to quietness a little more, to be sure of all of them. Then with great care he slid to his feet and reached to take his bed gown with him. The bitch raised her head to watch him go but made no sound or other movement as he slipped from between the bed curtains into the room.

  The servants were rolled into their blankets on their pallets across the room, well out of his way to the door. He wrapped his bed gown around his nakedness and took time to sit on a stool to put on his shoes. The floors were cold enough he did not want to risk being chilled to the point of shivering; the shoes, soft-soled, would make no noise if he walked carefully. He shivered as he rose but that was from excitement, not cold, and he willed himself to control it. For just now every emotion had to be kept in close check, until everything had been done and all the matters afterward settled. Then there would be pleasures enough and time to indulge in them.

  The chamber door made no sound as he went out and eased it shut behind him. He stood for a moment in the antechamber’s darkness, listening, but so far as he could tell, there was no one else stirring. Even from the great hall so near to h
and, where most of the Lovell servants bedded for the night, there was no sound. He looked down at the night lamp’s thin line of light showing under his own door’s edge, the door’s thickness all there was between him and safety, bed. Just that, and nothing to stop him going back to them.

  Nothing but his intent and his necessity. And for both of those he had will enough to see him through what little had to be done. He realized he was smiling to himself in the darkness and moved cat-footed toward the stairs up to the chapel.

  He made no betraying sound as he went. He had taken time that afternoon, when there was no one to notice him, to ascend and descend the stairs twice, to count them and how many paces it was from their head to the chapel door on the likelihood it would be shut, leaving him no light to go by.

  He had been right about that, he found. He ascended into darkness, but, sure of his going, paused only at the head of the stairs to listen to the slight smother of laughter from behind the door of the priest’s room. It lay to his right, opposite the chapel, and the lamplight at its bottom and low voices from inside meant the two priests—Sire Benedict and the nuns’ large oaf—were sitting up late, probably over wafers and wine of a better sort than what they gave at the altar. Priests did well for themselves, and house priests better than most, though if he had been reduced to priesthood, his choice would have been to be a nunnery’s priest, with easy living and a plenitude of women to hand.

  He silently laughed at himself, standing there thinking about women and priests, for Christ’s sake, when he had something better than either to deal with just now.

  The chapel door gave to his careful push. He eased in, paused to be sure he was not heeded and that Lionel and Martyn were exactly as he had expected them to be, kneeling at the altar, their backs to him, then closed the door without sound and slid along the wall into the nearest corner’s deep shadows.

  Lionel was nearer to the altar, Martyn a little behind him and to his left. Lionel’s knees must be callused by now from all his useless praying. And Martyn? Giles grinned to himself. Whatever Martyn had, he was sure to go straight to hell for his hours spent in this pretense of prayer and for his fawning on a damned man. Straight to hell.