The Apostate's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  If that was the way of it, then Breredon’s sickening could have been done to confuse the attempt on Symond when Jack made it.

  She had already thought of that as a possibility, without having any name or reason to put to it. This bill of obligation maybe gave her someone with a reason. Or, come to it, if Jack feared Breredon was lying about what he wanted from Cecely, feared Breredon wanted these deeds after all, and knew the bill of obligation was with them, could he have been willing to kill him to block him having it?

  And finding that whatever poison he gave Breredon was insufficient, had he given Symond a larger dose of it, whatever it was, when attempting his death?

  But how had Jack known Sister Cecely had the bill?

  Well, it could well have been among Guy Rowcliffe’s papers. Symond would have known it was there, and if he and Jack had looked for it after Sister Cecely fled and not found it, they could well suppose she had it.

  For the first time Frevisse wondered how Sister Cecely had come by the deeds. Those had assuredly not been in Guy Rowcliffe’s keeping.

  Never mind that for now.

  She refolded the parchments and slipped them into her undergown’s sleeve again, stood up, and tucked her hands into the opposite, fuller sleeves of her overgown in the ordinary way. With her hands folded in front of her that way, there was no way to tell she carried anything hidden, and that was surely safest, since it might be that two men had come near death because of these deeds and bill. Sister Cecely could not have known it would come to that danger, or she would not have used her son for hiding the things. Nor had Edward been thinking of his own safety when he gave the secret away. He simply had wanted to do right instead of wrong, had wanted truth instead of lying.

  Frevisse thought, with a touch of bitterness, that if people simply told the truth, the way Edward had, and were good and brave to one another, there would be far less sadness and hurt in the world. Far less.

  Among other things, there would not be two men in the guesthall who had come near to dying because someone was lying and hoping to hide it.

  As Frevisse passed through the infirmary’s outer room, leaving, Dame Johane was frowning at small glass vials and Frevisse did not trouble her with any question. Once in the cloister walk, though, she stopped, pausing while trying to choose between the several things she could do next. She was yet again considering going to Domina Elisabeth when Alson came from the stairs to the prioress’ rooms and along the walk, head down, carrying a pottery pitcher and hurrying, passing Dame Margrett sitting outside Sister Cecely’s door without a word, probably returning to the kitchen, not seeing Frevisse at the corner of the walk until Frevisse said her name.

  Alson stopped, her head jerking up. She made a short, bobbed curtsy, saying, “My lady,” and looking unsettled, even frightened.

  “What is it?” Frevisse asked, with a glance past her, back toward the prioress’ stairs. “How is it with Domina Elisabeth? Is she still in talk with Abbot Gilberd?”

  At just above a whisper, Alson said, sounding as frightened as she looked, “She’s crying.”

  “Crying? Domina Elisabeth?” Of any of the things Frevisse had thought to hear, that was not one of them. “Is the abbot angry at her and she’s crying for it?”

  “No,” Alson whispered, almost as if giving away a secret. “It’s more like he’s trying to comfort her.”

  That explained nothing, but it decided Frevisse on what to do next. She nodded at the pitcher and asked, “Is that for the kitchen?”

  “Aye, and I’m to say they won’t be wanting more before Vespers. It’s a good thing the abbot brought wine or we’d be near to out now.”

  “I’ll take the pitcher and your message,” Frevisse said, reaching for it. “I want you to go to the guesthall and tell Mistress Lawsell’s daughter I’d to speak to her in the church. Just the daughter, not the mother. Make that plain.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Alson gave over the pitcher, bobbed another curtsy, and hurried back the way she had come.

  Frevisse went on to the kitchen, delivered the pitcher and the message, then went on around the cloister walk and into the church. The rain had sometime stopped but the sky was still low and gray, and the church, too, was gray with shadows. Even the light above the altar seemed dull and small as Frevisse curtsied toward it before passing through the rood screen, to wait for Elianor in the nave. While she waited, she slipped the parchments from her sleeve again, separated the bill of obligation from the deeds, slid the deeds back into her undergown’s sleeve but kept the bill in her hand, hidden in her overgown’s looser sleeve.

  The girl came soon, alone and eagerly, saying as she rose from her curtsy to Frevisse, “You wanted to see me?”

  “In truth,” Frevisse said, “I want to see Jack Rowcliff without his father, and by you seemed the best way to do it.”

  While Elianor was still looking surprised at that, the west door, that she had shut behind her, opened again and Jack came in. Seeing Frevisse and Elianor together, he hesitated, but at Frevisse’s sharp beckon, he shut the door and came toward them. While he did, Frevisse said to Elianor, “If you would like to go beyond the rood screen and kneel in prayer at the altar, you have my leave to do it.”

  Delight bloomed in Elianor’s face. She made a short curtsy and swiftly, happily, left Frevisse as Jack neared them. While he looked, confused, back and forth between Frevisse and Elianor’s departing back, Frevisse held up the bill of obligation in front of him. Pulling his heed away from Elianor, and thrusting his head close to the bill, he was probably just able to read it in the gray light, so that it was a moment before he realized what he was seeing. His eyes widened. He straightened sharply and asked in open surprise, “How did you come by that?”

  Frevisse saw no alarm, no sudden wariness, no quick calculation going on across his face or behind his eyes, only the surprise. Not until she said, “Sister Cecely had it,” did his face tighten with alarm and anger.

  “Hell’s fires,” he said. “We feared as much.” Sudden alarm took over from the anger. “Who else knows about it, knows it’s here?”

  “Not your father,” Frevisse said dryly and watched him ease a little. So she had guessed rightly there. She slid the bill into her sleeve again. “Nor your cousin Symond yet, if that’s who you meant with saying ‘we.’ I mean to ask him about it, though.”

  “But not my father!” That was clearly first in the youth’s concern.

  “Symond first, and maybe not your father after that. It will depend on what Symond has to say.”

  “He’s still too ill to talk.”

  “I’ll wait until morning. He should be better by then. In the meanwhile, we shall hope no one else falls ill.” She very deliberately added, heavy with meaning, “And that Symond does not worsen.”

  Jack frowned at her, seeming perplexed. Then he startled into understanding and burst out in confused protest, “You think he’s been…You don’t think I…You don’t mean you…” He could not seem to get the words out.

  “Don’t I?” she challenged.

  “That I…that Symond was…that I…” He still could not find the words and finally settled for, “No!”

  “There’s good chance someone sickened him of a purpose, yes,” Frevisse said steadily. “And Master Breredon before him.”

  “No!”

  Believing him more with every protest he made, she relented enough to point out, “Better than that there be disease spreading among you all.”

  “Yes,” he said uncertainly. “Maybe.”

  “But better yet that no one knows the truth while we’re still trying to learn who did it.”

  “Yes,” he agreed again, still doubtful.

  “So you won’t say anything about it, even to your father,” she ordered. “Not before I’ve talked with Symond.”

  Jack nodded slow agreement to that, too, before asking, “But if it’s tried again?”

  “After two failures? I think they’ll be careful for a time.”


  She prayed so, anyway—there being nothing else she could do about it for now.

  Jack looked past her, toward Elianor, she supposed. Firmly gentle, she said, “She means to become a nun.”

  Jack’s gaze snapped back to her. “Oh. But…her mother…”

  “Is on the hunt for a husband for her. To her mother, you are no more than prey.”

  That way of looking at it had plainly never crossed his mind before. At the change in his face as the thought took hold on him, Frevisse had to hold back a smile while ordering quietly, “Go back to the guesthall now.”

  He bowed and went. She waited until he would have reached there and been there for a few minutes before she went herself for her end-of-day visit, to be sure all was as well there as it might be.

  Thankfully, it was. At Mistress Lawsell’s inquiry after Elianor, she murmured that she had left her in prayer in the church; and when Mistress Lawsell showed sign of alarm and intent to go there to fetch her out, Frevisse said that the church was chill and damp and Elianor surely uncomfortable by now and she meant to go herself to send Elianor back to the guesthall.

  That Elianor would be uncomfortable in the church satisfied Mistress Lawsell into leaving her daughter to Frevisse, and finished in the guesthall, Frevisse did return to the church, into the choir to Elianor kneeling at the foot of the two steps up to the altar. The girl’s hands were clasped, her eyes lifted to the cross, and she did not stir until Frevisse laid a hand on her shoulder and said, “Best you go now.”

  Elianor looked up at her, blinking somewhat dazedly. Frevisse knew the feeling of coming back from some far place. It came from being deep into prayer, well beyond the bonds and boundaries of the world, and she waited patiently while the girl gathered herself back to here, to now, and stood up shakily, to make a deep curtsy to the altar and a lesser one to Frevisse before going slowly, silently away.

  Frevisse herself went to her seat in the choir and sat gratefully down, there being small point in going elsewhere; the bell would surely soon ring for Vespers. She thought briefly of how Elianor’s deep quiet after prayer was a better sign toward nunhood than her high excitement had been. Then she let go of that thought and all others, not even trying to pray but simply sitting in stillness, giving both her mind and body respite from the need to think and the need to do, if only for this little, little while.

  Chapter 23

  Domina Elisabeth came to Vespers but kept her head deeply bowed through the Office, and since the fading light of the overcast day was not yet thickened enough for the expense of candles, Frevisse had no chance to see if she bore the marks of tears until the Office was done. Only while Domina Elisabeth gave them her blessing at the end did Frevisse see that, yes, her eyes had the red rims of much crying and her face the tired sag of someone lately gone through a hard and wearying time.

  What had been passing between her and her brother? Surely he had not spent the time scolding her over Sister Cecely? The time for that had been when Sister Cecely first fled. If anyone was to be scolded now, surely it was Sister Cecely.

  Domina Elisabeth left them again after Vespers, returning to her rooms for supper to be taken up to her on a tray. This was no more her usual way than the rest of the day had been, and midway through her own supper the terrible thought came to Frevisse that perhaps Abbot Gilberd wanted to leave Sister Cecely here, for them to see to her punishment, and that Domina Elisabeth had been pleading against it, had gone even to the point of quarreling with him and, having lost, could not yet face her nuns with the ill news. The possibility of a quarrel between their prioress and their abbot was less frightening than the chance that Sister Cecely might become part of their life here again, and as supper finished, Frevisse tried to put the thought of it from her.

  Although the rain was stopped, the evening was not an appealing one for spending the hour of recreation in the garden. Most of the nuns left the refectory for the warming room, but Frevisse did not join them. Her day had been very long, and last night very short of sleep. She would happily have said Compline right then and gone straight to her bed, yet she could not bring herself to quiet sitting in the warming room, instead chose to pace the square of the roofed cloister walk. She had spent many an hour of recreation walking there, often in easy talk with Dame Claire, often simply by herself. Its familiarity and quiet could be a balm on troubled thoughts or to a trying day’s weariness. This evening, though, it was a cheerless place, with twilight heavy under the cloud-thick sky, and the closed door to what was become Sister Cecely’s cell a too constant reminder of what Frevisse wanted not to think about for a time. Nor did Dame Claire join her. Instead it was Dame Thomasine likewise slowly pacing around the cloister walk, her head bowed as usual, her hands folded into her opposite sleeves just as Frevisse’s hands were into her own sleeves. But whereas Dame Thomasine was probably so far into prayers as barely to know anyone else was there, Frevisse was all too aware of the folded parchments still in her undergown’s left sleeve.

  She did not know how much Mistress Petham had weighted her words toward making Edward give up the deeds and bill. When she told him he could keep his secret, she had maybe been even-worded, but equally she might have made it plain, under the words, what she thought he ought to do and thereby forced him to it. Still, he had given his own reason for doing it, Frevisse remembered. He had said his father had told him people should be good, and he had understood he should not have the parchments. So even if Mistress Petham had brought him to give them up, he had known why he should and, in the end, had done it willingly, Frevisse thought. Willingly and bravely.

  Why did it have to take so much courage to do what was right?

  Why was it that the ill-doers and liars seemed able to do wrong so much more easily, while those who did well and right seemed so often to have to fight themselves to do it? It was the ill-doers who should need the greater courage, going so far aside as they did from what was right. Yet they mostly seemed to do it with such ease.

  It had been fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Eve and Adam had eaten. Before then there had been no choice between right and wrong. There had been simply being. Frevisse found it difficult to imagine what life would be if it were simply being, living sure in the love of God without need of all the choices that knowledge had brought on mankind.

  Maybe it was laziness that let people do wrong rather than right. Ignorance was easier than knowledge, and so they did not trouble themselves with knowledge of right and wrong, of good and ill, but simply settled for doing whatever came easiest to them in the moment, while despising anyone who tried to live for more than easy greed and shallow pride and momentary pleasures.

  She had noted before now how often those who did ill despised those to whom they did it, being too cowardly to face the truth of their own actions.

  If more people were willing to be as good and brave as small Edward had been today—were as willing to the truth as he had been—there would be far less hurt in the world, she thought sadly.

  Of course he had hurt at doing what he did, but it was the brief hurt of pulling out a thorn, against the long hurt of leaving it in the flesh to rot.

  It came to her then that in her thought-slowed pacing she had just passed Dame Thomasine for the second time, that Dame Thomasine was no longer walking, was simply standing at the low wall around the garth, looking across to Sister Cecely’s shut door. The door was almost gone from sight in the growing dusk, and even if there had been light, there was nothing to see there, not even someone sitting guard. For now the door was simply tied shut, because all the nuns were at the end of their day’s work, and all the cloister servants were at their end-of-day tasks. Whosever’s turn it was among the servants would come in a while with her bedding and settle across the door for the night, the door staying tied until morning, Sister Cecely alone behind it, no other company than her own thoughts through all the night hours. So from here in the walk there was nothing in particular to see, and Frevisse turned back t
o Dame Thomasine, stopped beside her, and asked quietly, “Dame, is aught amiss?”

  The younger woman went on looking at the door, the smallest of frowns between her brows, and only after a long moment did she finally say, very low, still staring across at the door, “I’ve never wanted to be what she’s been. I’ve never had urge to give up everything to the desires of the flesh. I never have. Nor I don’t now. But I’m so…” She looked up at Frevisse with pleading eyes, as if confessing to a thing of shame. “I’m so tired.”

  All unexpectedly Frevisse was reminded of a small child too worn out to know that what it needed was simply bed, and she took Dame Thomasine by the arm, turned her around, sat her down on the low wall there, sat beside her, and said gently, much the way she had spoken to Edward this afternoon, “Then rest a little.”

  Dame Thomasine gave a small sigh, folded her hands in her lap, bowed her head, and seemed to shrink in on herself as she settled, huddling round-shouldered as if the weight of her habit were too much on her thin body.

  After a moment of nothing else, only the cloister’s quiet, Frevisse said gently, finding the words as she went, “That you’re tired is no unlikely thing. You’ve burned with the fire of loving God for a good many years now. Have lived more fully in that love than anyone I’ve ever known. It would be no surprise if you’ve burned yourself away to nearly nothing inside your poor body.”

  She did not know from where that thought had come. Dame Thomasine’s holiness was so much a part of St. Frideswide’s life that for a long time there had been small reason to think about it. It simply was, the way their whole pattern of life here was, without deep need to wonder about it. In truth, that someone as holy as Dame Thomasine lived there among them was even, perhaps, a small, secret source of pride to some. What that holiness might be doing to Dame Thomasine had never been a matter for thought. Except once, a long time ago, Domina Edith had said something about it, hadn’t she? But Frevisse did not remember what. Whatever comfort she could give Dame Thomasine had to come from what she could think herself, and she said, “You haven’t been kind to your body, you know.”