The Apostate's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Needing to rest after all that, Symond closed his eyes but lifted the fingers of his nearer hand to tell Frevisse he wanted her to stay. After a few moments, without opening his eyes, he murmured, “It’s been to the good. Between the widow with him and Cecely with Guy, he’s learned the cost of sport with women.”

  “And maybe that true dealing will cost him less in the end,” Frevisse said dryly.

  Symond gave a single, silent laugh. He lay quietly a moment longer, then opened his eyes and said, frowning upward at the rafters. “Guy talked me into helping him. I wonder if that’s why Guy was so willing to help him—that Guy had learned his lesson but the hard way and was having to live it out, whether he would or no, and wanted to save Jack from the same.” He looked at Frevisse. “Poison?”

  “Poison.”

  “That would be Cecely.” He closed his eyes again. “Why she’d poison Breredon, I don’t know. But me…yes, she’d like me dead.”

  Frevisse judged he was fading, would soon be to sleep, but she asked anyway, quietly, “Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t let her use Jack’s bill to extort money from me, maybe. She found it among Guy’s papers. Before he was dead or after, I don’t know. But after he was dead, she told me if I’d give her money, she wouldn’t tell John about it. Bitch.”

  “But you didn’t pay her.”

  Symond’s slack mouth twitched toward a smile. “I told her if she did anything of the kind”—His words had begun to slide apart as he slipped toward sleep—“I’d make trouble for her…like she’d never seen before.”

  Frevisse took another step forward, trying to reach him for just a little longer. “You told her you knew she was a nun.”

  But his breathing had evened into sleep. Geffe moved as if to warn Frevisse against waking him, but Frevisse knew better than to do that. She shook her head at Geffe to let him know his master was safe from questions for a while and started to leave, then turned back and, with no one but Geffe to see what she did, slipped the deeds and bill from her sleeve, took the bill, and held it out to him. He took it with a questioning look. Frevisse whispered with a small beckon of her head at the sleeping man, “For him. Tell no one else.”

  Understanding sharpened in Geffe’s face. He was bowing in ready agreement as Frevisse left him.

  Chapter 24

  Knowing there could be scant time before she would have to go to Tierce, Frevisse stayed in the guesthall kitchen only long enough to know that, despite what food and drink Abbot Gilberd had brought, there would soon be no avoiding sending someone maybe as far as Banbury to buy more because only so much could be had from the village. Domina Elisabeth would not welcome hearing that, but then, Frevisse did not welcome the thought of having to tell her, so they were even, she supposed, as she came up the outer stairs from the kitchen and saw John Rowcliffe and his son walking through the gateway from the outer yard, back from wherever they had been.

  Frevisse was immediately glad she no longer had Jack’s bill of obligation as she turned to meet father and son in the middle of the guesthall yard. They both bowed to her, and she said, with a bend of her head back to them, “I thought you would care to know that Abbot Gilberd is questioning Sister Cecely again this morning. I have a question for you in turn. These deeds that she stole from you, how did she come by them?”

  Rowcliffe made an irritated growl in his throat. “She told me a mouse had got at some of Guy’s papers, that part of the deed to Guy’s manor—that one that’s Edward’s now—was chewed and she wanted to see if there was a copy of it among my deeds and all. That was likely. We do that—keep copies of one thing and another in each other’s strongboxes, so if one is lost—fire or storm or mice or whatever—all isn’t lost. So I didn’t think that much on it. She came asking it one morning just as I was leaving with my wife to go to market day in Wymondham. On purpose, that was, I’ll wager. I just gave her the key to the box and told her to be sure to lock it when she was done and give my steward the key.”

  “When did you know they were gone?”

  Rowcliffe grimaced. “When she disappeared, and Edward with her. Right frighted we were that something had happened to them, until Symond gave up her secret. He knew more about the thieving wench than we’d ever guessed and said that if she was gone, she wasn’t gone empty-handed. That’s when I found the two deeds were gone with her.”

  “And they’re why you came after her.”

  “For Edward, too. I don’t want to leave the little mite to her. No telling who she’d sell him to. Well, James Breredon, plainly, but that’s no help to me. Better he be with family.”

  “How does he?” Jack asked. “When I talked with him, he said he was well enough, but is he?”

  “He and Mistress Petham seem happy in each other’s company,” Frevisse said.

  “You’re keeping him away from that mother of his?” Rowcliffe demanded. “She’s poison, she is.”

  Frevisse hid her thought that there it was again—poison and Sister Cecely together in the same breath—and said, “We’re presently keeping Sister Cecely away from everyone, except now she’s with Abbot Gilberd and Domina Elisabeth.”

  “Just so they remember to find out what she’s done with my deeds,” Rowcliffe grumbled.

  “She hid them with Edward,” Frevisse said and slipped them from her sleeve. “I don’t know that he knew for certain what they were, but he knew they aren’t his mother’s, and he gave them to me.” She held them out. “Here they are.”

  Rowcliffe gaped at her, while something like smothered fear started up in Jack Rowcliffe’s face and did not fade until his father had gathered his wits, took the deeds from Frevisse, and opened them. Jack could see then they were only the deeds, no damning bill of obligation with them, and he exclaimed, “That’s them! We’ve got them back!”

  “We do, indeed,” John Rowcliffe said, his eyes fixed on the parchment and satisfaction rich in his voice. “There’s a world of trouble saved.” More than satisfaction: naked relief. Glowing with it, he looked at Frevisse. “I owe you much for this. Is there aught I can do for your priory in return?”

  Frevisse had been going to prompt him to that thought. To have him come to it himself was even better, and she said, “We’re nearly out of food. I know you can’t leave yet, because your cousin is far from strong enough, but we’re almost out of anything to feed so many people, even with what Abbot Gilberd brought for his own use. If you could help with that, it would be repayment in plenty.”

  Rowcliffe gave a sharp nod. “That I can do. I’ll send two of my men off to—where’s nearest? Banbury? To there, to get—What would serve best?

  “Old Ela in the guesthall will be able to tell you,” Frevisse said. “Our thanks to you. It will take a great worry off us.”

  “As you’ve taken a great worry off me,” Rowcliffe returned, and they parted, pleased on both sides.

  The bell began to ring to Tierce as she closed the cloister door behind her, and she went gratefully to the church, glad for the coming respite of the Office. So she was not best pleased to find Dame Perpetua and Dame Amicia standing in the middle of the choir, not taking their places but staring at someone kneeling on the step below the altar. Someone not a nun. Not in that green dress. A green dress that Frevisse knew with a sinking heart, even before Elianor Lawsell turned her head to look back over her right shoulder at them. Despite the silence that should hold once the bell had rung to an Office, Dame Amicia started, “Who’s she? What’s she…”

  Frevisse made a sharp gesture, silencing Dame Amicia, and pointed to the choir seats. Dame Perpetua understood, started toward her own, then came back to take Dame Amicia firmly by one elbow and steer her toward her place while Frevisse went to her own. The other nuns, coming in, each had their turn at stopping and staring at Elianor, but with the example set by Dame Perpetua, Dame Amicia, and Frevisse, no one said anything, just silently took their seats. Only Dame Thomasine seemed not to note the girl.

  There was an uncertain pa
use then, when they were all in their places, but before Dame Juliana could decide to start the Office, Domina Elisabeth all unexpectedly came. She, too, paused at sight of Elianor, now facing the altar again with deeply bowed head and hands clasped in front of her. Frevisse, her own head bowed, could see only the lower half of Domina Elisabeth’s skirts but was able to tell by that how long—longer than anyone else—she stood there before finally stepping up into her place. More than that, when she began the Office it was unevenly, with a tremor in her voice, and it was soon clear that her mind was barely there. The nuns, depending on her for their lead, got almost none. Their first antiphonal “Alleluia” came raggedly, and raggedly the Office went from there, until Frevisse could only be glad when the closing “Amen” came.

  But with Tierce’s end, when Domina Elisabeth should have risen from her place and led the nuns from the church, she stood abruptly up and stalked toward the altar, demanding as she went, “What are you doing here? What do you mean, being here this way?”

  Along with everyone else, Elianor stood up, too. She turned around but stayed where she was and said, her voice only shaking a little, “I claim sanctuary. I want to be here. I claim sanctuary.”

  From beyond the rood screen where she must have been waiting for the Office’s end, Mistress Lawsell ordered, anger bursting from every word, “You come out of there, Elianor! You stop this foolishness and come here! We’re going home!”

  Elianor returned as fiercely, “I won’t! I’m going to be a nun!” And to Domina Elisabeth, no less fiercely, “She can’t force me to leave. I claim sanctuary. You have to let me stay!”

  Domina Elisabeth’s uncertainty, as she looked from one of them to the other was painful to see. She had never shown uncertainty about anything. But neither had she ever been absent or inattentive to the Offices before now. Only finally, sharply, did she draw herself up straight and order forcefully against the affront to her church and self, “Both of you be silent!”

  Mistress Lawsell’s mouth, opened toward another demand or protest, snapped shut.

  Still sharply, Domina Elisabeth said, “This is hardly something that will be settled by shouting. Not here or anywhere else, but most especially not here. Elianor, you’ve decided then that after all you want to be a nun? As your mother told us she hoped for you?”

  That was less a question at Elianor than a cold challenge at Mistress Lawsell, but it was Elianor who answered, saying scornfully, “She never hoped for me to be a nun. She lied to you about why we were here!”

  “Is that true?” Domina Elisabeth asked at Mistress Lawsell.

  Not seeming the least abashed, Mistress Lawsell said back at her, “Yes. Now tell her to come out of there. This can all be talked out at home.”

  Elianor started, “I won’t go! Once you have me back there you’ll…”

  Not raising her voice but with the full weight of her will on the words, Domina Elisabeth ordered, “Enough. Both of you.” And when the Lawsells’ mutual silence assured her that she was obeyed, she said at Elianor, “You may stay where you are for the time being.” And at Mistress Lawsell, over the beginning of a protest from her, “You will content yourself with waiting in either the guesthall or here in the church, with thought that prayer for forgiveness for lying to us would not come amiss.” Mistress Lawsell made again to say something, but Domina Elisabeth raised a hand to stop her, going on with unrelenting sternness, “This will have to content you for now. We presently have weightier matters on us than you and your daughter’s quarrel. When we have time, then we shall turn to your lies and misleadings. Now leave us. Or else kneel to your prayers.”

  Mistress Lawsell opened her mouth toward some manner of furious reply, then seemed to think better of it. Or maybe she was suddenly aware of the several servants there and staring. Either way, she drew herself up straight, jerked her head in very false respect at Domina Elisabeth, and stalked away, down the nave and out the west door. It was a heavy door, not easily dragged shut into a slam, but she accomplished it.

  When the thunder of that ended and she was gone, everyone’s gaze swung back to Elianor, who was still standing at the altar, glowing with triumph. She made as if to turn around and kneel again, but Domina Elisabeth ordered, “Come away from there. Come here to me.”

  Elianor startled, faced her, hesitated, then obeyed, with carefully bowed head and hands quietly folded in front of her in good nunly seeming.

  As unrelenting as she had been to Mistress Lawsell, Domina Elisabeth said, “You have been disobedient to your mother and possibly disrespectful to us. Dame Juliana will take you from here to the warming room. There you will wait in patience until we have time to consider this matter further. Dame Juliana.”

  Dame Juliana rose from her place and stood waiting. Elianor cast what might have been a frightened look into Domina Elisabeth’s stern face, dropped her gaze again, and followed Dame Juliana away. The onlookers beyond the rood screen were leaving, too, but the nuns stayed where they were, unable to go until Domina Elisabeth gave them leave.

  She should have dismissed them then. There was nothing to keep them there longer. Instead, she groped out a hand for the tall edge of her choir stall, took hold on it almost blindly, drew herself to it, bowed her head to the wood, and stayed there, bent over, clinging with both hands, silent and unmoving. Her nuns stayed equally silent, heads turning side to side as they looked at one another, no one knowing what to do until finally Dame Claire rose carefully from her own place and went to her, put an arm around her, drew her upright, and led her away, out of the church.

  Only when they were gone did the rest of the nuns, in silence and carefully, leave, too. In the cloister walk they were in time to see Dame Claire starting with Domina Elisabeth up the stairs to her rooms. Still no one said anything, simply went their separate ways in deep silence to whatever were their present tasks.

  Frevisse, needed nowhere else just then, slipped away to her desk in the cloister walk for some place to be. From habit, she opened the box that sheltered the paper, pens, and ink of her work but took nothing out and after a moment shut the lid again and simply sat.

  What was happening with Domina Elisabeth?

  For that while in the church just now, confronting Mistress Lawsell, dealing with Elianor, she had been herself, but the very difference of that to how she had been these past few days and how she had collapsed afterward only made more plain that something was very wrong, either bodily or mindfully. So far as Frevisse knew, Dame Claire had not been treating her for anything of the body. Was her trouble of the mind then?

  Whichever it was, the lack of her strong hand over them was starting to be felt in the cloister. From there it would soon spread through the whole priory if something was not done. So maybe it was just as well Abbot Gilberd was here. No matter how little anyone among the nuns wanted his meddling in their lives, best to have it quickly if it was needed, Frevisse thought.

  She also thought she would put off attempting to confess to Domina Elisabeth that Elianor’s presence in the church was her fault, that when she asked to speak to her mother alone this morning, somewhere in her mind—where she deliberately had not looked too closely—she had thought Elianor might very well take the chance to escape into the church. And Elianor had. Now the trouble of that—and Frevisse’s fault in it—had to be dealt with.

  Still, among the other present troubles, that one could wait. The why and who of Breredon’s and Symond’s poisonings mattered more, and she looked across the cloister to where Dame Perpetua now sat again outside Sister Cecely’s cell and knew that—whatever the how and whatever the why—Sister Cecely was surely the center of all.

  Cecely had given up pacing, could no longer sit on the hard bench, would not read their damnable breviary anymore, was tired of lying down on the thin pallet, was tired of everything and all of it. All she wanted was to grab Neddie and get as far and as fast from this place as possible.

  Except neither grabbing Neddie nor fleeing here were possible. N
ot while she was trapped in this room. Trapped here, all she could do was sit on the pallet with her back against the wall, her legs drawn up, and her arms around her knees, staring at the room’s nothingness.

  Both of her times with the abbot had gone badly. There was no disguising that from herself. He had had no interest in anything she had to say except admittance of her guilt and had been angry when she would not give it to him straight out and in so many words. Before she was brought before him, she had promised herself she would be humble to him, but when it came to it, she could not, could not. He had demanded of her where she had been and what she had done since she fled St. Frideswide’s, and she had refused him even a straight answer to that until she found he already knew all the answers, that he had already talked to John Rowcliffe and knew everything he wanted to know.

  The unfairness of that still overwhelmed her—that he was so openly ready to believe John Rowcliffe before he believed her.

  Nor had he cared at all about her grief for Guy. “Your paramour,” he had said coldly.

  “My husband!” she had said sharply back at him, no matter she had meant to gain time by seeming what they wanted her to be. Gain time until…

  And then what he had said about her dead babies. He ought to be damned to hell for that alone, let be all the rest!

  The doorway darkened with a nun coming in.

  Cecely did not bother to rise, simply raised her head, was not pleased to see Dame Frevisse, and stubbornly said nothing. Neither, at first, did Dame Frevisse. Instead, they stared at each other across the room’s small width until finally Dame Frevisse said, “Did it go well with Abbot Gilberd?”

  Cecely nearly spat into the rushes with disgust. “Him,” she said angrily. “Do you know what he said of my dead babies? He said that was God’s mercy, taking them in their innocence but sparing me, that I”—she deepened her voice in mockery of the man—“might have time to repent my sins here on earth, rather than pay for them in Hell after my death.” She went back to her own voice. “Hateful man! God’s mercy,” she mocked. “What God is is cruel.”