The Apostate's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

Master Rowcliffe spun from the door. “Well?” he demanded at her. “Is she here?”

  “Sister Cecely has returned to us, yes,” Frevisse answered evenly.

  “What of the boy? Is he here, too?”

  “There’s a child with her that she says is her son.”

  The second man laughed. “‘Says is her son.’ She knows Cecely.”

  “Then she’s here!” Master Rowcliffe made that an accusation.

  Frevisse could not see where accusation came into it, and before she could answer, a third man, much younger than the other two, sitting his own horse the other side of Master Rowcliffe’s, said to him calmingly, “So we don’t have to carry on like madmen. We’ve overtaken her. She won’t slip away again.”

  “By Saint William’s bones she won’t!” Master Rowcliffe snarled.

  Having had time to look at them all, Frevisse judged the three men were likely related. They resembled each other in face and garb and good horses. The three other riders, hanging a length or more to the rear, looked by their clothing and lesser horses to be servants, probably ready to give aid if needed but equally willing to leave the shouting and all the rest to their betters—and very willing to be distracted by the guesthall’s two servants, Tom and Luce, just come up the steps from the guesthall kitchen and starting across the yard toward them, carrying trays laden with wooden cups.

  Frevisse sent a quick prayer of blessing toward Ela for the distraction. Men with a welcoming cup of ale in hand were less likely to be reaching for weapons, and she reached for a cup from the tray of the servant coming to the two men nearest her, saying with forced outward calm, “Thank you, Tom.”

  Tom ducked his head in answer. He was trying to keep his face servant-straight but she could see the unnerved fright in his eyes and she gave him the slightest of smiles, hoping to reassure him. The nunnery did not need its servants going useless with fear.

  Holding that smile, she turned back to Master Rowcliffe who had now taken a step back from the door and was glaring at it, probably adding its offence at staying closed to all his other angers.

  “Master Rowcliffe?” she said courteously, holding the cup out to him. “If you would do us the honor?”

  He swung around. “What?” He glared past her at his companions, all of whom already held or were reaching for cups of their own. He hesitated, but courtesy won over ire for the moment and he took the cup from her, mixing muttered thanks with, “This makes no difference.”

  “Still,” Frevisse said quietly, “if you’re not pounding on the door, someone may be the more likely to open it to you.”

  Small snorts of laughter from his two companions earned them Master Rowcliffe’s glare before, unwillingly, a smile tugged at his own mouth. He drowned it with a long gulp of ale, then held the cup out for Tom, still standing nearby, to take and said, “Right then, Symond, and yes, Jack. She won’t get away again and there’s no need for me to carry on like a madman.” He switched his look to Frevisse and demanded, “I want to see her. And the boy. Is he well?”

  “He’s well,” Frevisse said. She moved past him to the cloister door, adding, “For the rest, you would do best to speak to our prioress about it.”

  Before he could answer that, she knocked lightly at the door and to her relief it immediately opened. Master Rowcliffe started to stalk forward, and the younger of his two companions began to dismount as if to follow. Before Frevisse could say that allowing Master Rowcliffe into the cloister was as far as she was ready to go, the other man put out a hand to him, bidding, “Stay, Jack. Leave it to your father for now.”

  Master Rowcliffe looked over his shoulder and nodded agreement with the man who must be Symond, and Frevisse, thinking that explained something of who the men variously were, went into the cloister, letting go the smile she had been keeping on her face. Sister Margrett, standing with her hand on the door’s latch, whispered as she went past, “Should I bar it?”

  Not knowing if Master Rowcliffe heard that but having to suppose he did, Frevisse said, clear-voiced, “No need. They’ve come on reasonable business and mean no harm.” Except perhaps to Sister Cecely, and Frevisse had to admit, if only to herself, that just at this moment she would not mind harming Sister Cecely herself for having brought this on them. Whatever this was.

  Frevisse could not help the sharp suspicion that, whatever it was, right was more probably on Master Rowcliffe’s side than Sister Cecely’s, and trying to curb the anger simmering under that thought, she led Master Rowcliffe into the cloister walk, where she came to a startled stop, confronted by St. Frideswide’s nuns gathered in two groups, one to either side of her, standing at the near corners of the cloister walk, barring any further way into the nunnery without they were dealt with first.

  There were not many of them, admittedly, even when Sister Margrett slipped past to join those on the right, but grouped in the walk’s shadows, garbed alike in black and white and standing all together, with Domina Elisabeth one pace ahead of those to the right and all their heed and hers fixed and stern toward Frevisse and Master Rowcliffe, their offered challenge was enough to pause anyone.

  Frevisse felt Master Rowcliffe come to a full and startled halt behind her. She turned back to him, to see him holding up his empty hands in token of surrender even while his gaze searched among them for Sister Cecely. Frevisse had looked for her as quickly as he had, but she was not there, and he brought his heed back to Domina Elisabeth and said with the care of someone meaning to stop a quarrel, “My lady, I mean no harm here. I swear it. I’ve only come seeking someone who’s done me wrong.”

  “If so,” Domina Elisabeth said sternly, “then you should have come with less show of anger, frightening us all.”

  Frightened was not what they looked. Defiant, yes, and ready to be openly angry if pushed to it. But frightened? No. Domina Elisabeth had made good use of the time that Frevisse had gained her, and Master Rowcliffe bent his head to her and said as if he meant it, though choking a little on the words, “For that I apologize. I was in the wrong.”

  Domina Elisabeth accepted the apology with a gracious single nod of her head. “Let us talk peaceably then,” she said. “If you’ll come with me.” She moved forward, toward the stairs up to her parlor, adding, “Dame Frevisse, come with us. The rest of you thank God that all is well and return to your tasks.”

  Since no nun should be shut away alone with a man, someone had to go with Domina Elisabeth as she led Master Rowcliffe up the stairs to her parlor, the chinging of his spurs on the stone steps a harsh, strange sound in the cloister. Frevisse followed them willingly, sorely wanting to hear all of what Master Rowcliffe had to say, not whatever shortened version might come to chapter meeting tomorrow.

  In the parlor there was evidence of the flurry Master Rowcliffe’s arrival had brought on, but he probably took no particular note as Domina Elisabeth said with a nod toward the desk standing where the light from the window fell well, “If you would, my lady.” While Domina Elisabeth crossed to the tall-backed, carven chair that had been every prioress’ since St. Frideswide’s was founded, Frevisse went to the desk to stopper the inkpot there and wipe clean the pen that Domina Elisabeth had dropped in her haste. A black spatter of ink from the cast-down pen marred the clean surface of the page she had just begun to write on but Frevisse thought a little careful scraping would make that right.

  Meanwhile, Domina Elisabeth sat, said, “Now, sir, what do you claim is your quarrel with us? And your name, if you please,” making a gracious gesture that gave him leave to sit in the room’s other, lesser, chair, facing her from the other side of the fireless hearth.

  Her manner and that she had sat and begun to question him before giving him leave to sit were all meant to make clear who held authority here. Maybe not sure how he had been put so completely wrong-footed in the matter, he sat, then answered, respectfully enough, “I’m Master John Rowcliffe. I come from near Wymondham in Norfolk. I’ve no quarrel with you, my lady.” He scowled. “Not unless you mean
to protect her.”

  “Protect whom?” Domina Elisabeth asked evenly, making him work for it.

  “My late nephew’s whore.”

  Domina Elisabeth’s eyebrows rose and Master Rowcliffe said defensively, “Well, that’s what she was. Now he’s dead. Drowned two months ago, along with another nephew of mine. I’m left their executor, and she’s run off with what isn’t hers to take and my nephew’s son. You’re welcome to her. Sure as sinning, I don’t want her back. But I want back what isn’t hers to have!” He went sullen, having to know that outburst put him in the wrong again. He cast an angry look, as if it were her fault, at Frevisse where she now sat on the bench below the window, her hands folded on her lap. Then back at Domina Elisabeth, he said, “This is where she came from. She’s come back here, hasn’t she? From what this woman says, she has. I want to see her.”

  “Where she came from?” Domina Elisabeth asked, dangerously quiet.

  Seemingly not hearing the danger, Master Rowcliffe lost hold on his patience again and burst out, “Saints’ breath, woman! She was a nun! Now she’s run back to the hole she bolted from!”

  “You knew she was an apostate nun?” Domina Elisabeth said coldly. Because a nun or monk who forsook their vows was supposed to be thereafter an utter outcast, neither sheltered nor protected by anyone but given over immediately to the law, for the law to give back to the Church for discipline and penance. To have known his nephew had a nun for his paramour and done nothing about it…

  “Of course we didn’t know! Guy sang us some song about her being a poor orphan of good family but no fortune about to be forced into a brothel, and how he had rescued her.”

  “You believed that?” Domina Elisabeth asked, echoing Frevisse’s own doubt.

  “Why not?” Master Rowcliffe returned. “It was the kind of idiot thing Guy would do, given the chance. Besides, he was of age, with income of his own. Who he married was his business, not ours. They were clearly besotted with each other and we left them to it.”

  “When did you find out the truth about her?” Domina Elisabeth asked.

  “A week ago, if that much. After she ran off. I’d have let her go and good riddance, but she took Edward with her.”

  “He is her son, isn’t he?” Frevisse put in.

  “He is, poor whelp.”

  “How did you find out about her past?” Domina Elisabeth asked. “She surely didn’t tell you.”

  Master Rowcliffe gave an angry snort. “Last year, when my fool nephew had had just about enough of her, he told—” He seemed to think better of saying who had known Cecely was apostate and yet done nothing about it until now. “He told someone, who told us after she disappeared. We didn’t have anywhere else to look. Or we had too many ways to look, but thought we’d try this one first. So here we are. Now, where is she?”

  Domina Elisabeth answered coldly, “You cannot take her from here. Our abbot has been told…”

  “Saint Apollonia’s teeth! I don’t want her! You’re welcome to her. What I want are the deeds she stole. And Edward. What’s she going to do with him, kept in here? I want my nephew’s son, and I want those deeds. After that, she’s all yours. I wish you joy of her.”

  “Word of her has been sent to our abbot,” Domina Elisabeth said, yet more coldly. “We’re awaiting answer from him. You are welcome to wait with us. This is plainly something not to be settled on your word or mine alone.”

  She stood up. Perforce, so did Master Rowcliffe and Frevisse.

  “In the meantime”—Domina Elisabeth started toward the door—“you surely wish to speak with her. I’ll take you to her now.”

  Openly off-balanced by her suddenness, Master Rowcliffe followed her from the room and down the stairs, and Frevisse again followed them both. Only in the cloister walk, going toward the church, did Master Rowcliffe recover enough to say at Domina Elisabeth’s back, “I’m not here to make trouble. I don’t want anything from her but what’s rightfully mine. That’s all I’m here for. You understand that?”

  Without looking back at him, Domina Elisabeth said, “I understand I have heard something of Sister Cecely’s side of the matter and something of your side. Beyond that, I look forward to hearing what you have to say to each other.”

  So did Frevisse.

  Chapter 12

  Domina Elisabeth had sent the nuns back to their tasks, true enough, but following her and Master Rowcliffe into the church, Frevisse saw that somehow those tasks all seemed to be there. Sister Margrett and Sister Helen were sweeping the nave’s stone paving. Dame Juliana and Dame Perpetua were working dust cloths through the fretted wood of the rood screen despite it had just been dusted for Easter. Even Dame Claire had forsaken her usual work among her herbs in the infirmary and was with Dame Amicia along the choir stalls, polishing the brass candleholders as if they, too, had not been well-seen to last week. Other than Dame Johane who was likely still with the injured village man, only Dame Thomasine was where she might best be expected to be—just standing up from where she had been kneeling on the lower of the two steps up to the altar.

  Sister Cecily was at the altar, too, but had not been kneeling, instead was standing with her back to it, stiffly straight, head up, hands clenched together at her breast.

  Master Rowcliffe started toward her with a triumphant, “Hah!” but Domina Elisabeth put out an arm, barring his way, then pointed into the nave beyond the rood screen and said, “There. You can talk to her from there.”

  “From there?” he protested. “But she’s…”

  “She will come forward. You will stand on that side of the rood screen. She will stand on this. We will all talk,” Domina Elisabeth said.

  “I won’t!” Sister Cecely cried.

  “You will,” Domina Elisabeth corrected coldly. She gave a nod to Dame Claire and Dame Amicia. Needing no better order, they instantly dropped their polishing cloths and went to Sister Cecely. Each taking her by an arm, they shoved her forward. Master Rowcliffe, apparently satisfied, went around the rood screen into the nave and turned, hands on hips, to confront Sister Cecely as they brought her to the end of the choir stalls, still several yards from him and still firmly held by them both.

  None of the nuns were pretending to any work now, were all openly staring, save for Dame Thomasine who had turned away to kneel again.

  If Sister Cecely was frightened, her defiance and anger were hiding it as she twisted her arms free from Dame Claire and Dame Amicia and challenged at Domina Elisabeth as much as at Master Rowcliffe, “You can’t force me out of here! I claim sanctuary! For Neddie, too!” She pointed at Master Rowcliffe. “You want Neddie dead. I claim sanctuary for us both!”

  Before Domina Elisabeth could answer that, Master Rowcliffe said impatiently, “Oh, give over, you dawe-brained woman. I don’t want you out of here, and he’s safer with me than with you any day of the year. These women and your abbot and all are welcome to you. What I want are Edward and the deeds you stole.” He looked around. “Are you sure you haven’t lost him? You’re that careless it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Of course I haven’t lost him!”

  Domina Elisabeth said quietly. “He’s safely here. You can see him later, if you like.”

  “So long as he’s well,” Master Rowcliffe answered.

  “You can’t have him!” Sister Cecely exclaimed. “I claim sanctuary for him, too!”

  “You give me those deeds and we’ll talk about Edward.”

  “I don’t have them. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You have them. I want them. They’re not yours.”

  “I don’t have them!”

  “What deeds?” Domina Elisabeth asked.

  “To two of our best manors,” Master Rowcliffe answered. “I knew as soon as I knew she’d gone that she would have taken more than just the boy. That’s how she’s paid back Guy’s putting up with her all these years. By stealing from us.”

  “They’re Neddie’s manors!” Sister Cecely excla
imed hotly. “They should have come to Guy when George died, so they’re Neddie’s now!”

  Master Rowcliffe heaved a huge sigh of impatient anger and said aside to Domina Elisabeth standing like a judge between them, “George was my elder brother’s son. Guy was my younger brother’s boy. They were both of them my nephews, and they drowned in the same shipwreck, both without heirs of the body, and so all the family lands they held come back to me. That’s how the inheritance was set up two generations back.”

  “Guy has an heir!” Sister Cecely said furiously. “He has Neddie!”

  “Your Neddie is a bastard. You and Guy were never married. Couldn’t be, could you? Not when here is where you belonged all along. Neddie has no claim on anything except the manor Guy bought and willed to him.”

  “You’d take even that from him if I didn’t protect him!”

  “I would not. What’s his is his,” Master Rowcliffe replied with the harsh patience of someone who has had to say that several times too often. “What I want—what we all want—is to protect him from you.”

  “I’m his mother!”

  “You’re a whore and a fool,” Master Rowcliffe threw back at her.

  Someone among the nuns gasped at that bluntness. Sister Cecely was already too colored with anger to color further with shame—supposing she felt any—and before she could make any answer, Master Rowcliffe added, “Nor it’s not as if you were left with nothing, woman. All you had to do was bide where you were and behave yourself.”

  “And wear black all my days and live on whatever nothing I was allowed and do as I was told and be expected to be grateful for it,” Sister Cecely scorned.

  Master Rowcliffe raked her with his gaze. “You’re wearing black now, seems to me. And what’s this ‘nothing’ you’re on about? Guy left you a good widow’s dower out of Edward’s manor. You’d not have lived poor.”

  “Until Neddie came of age!”

  “That’s ten years and more away!”

  “And then what happens to me?”

  “You could always have come back to your nunnery,” Master Rowcliffe said with hot mockery.