8 The Maiden's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  “The yeoman was probably William,” Frevisse offered.

  “Ah. Likely. And anyone else used in it, the bishop’s men as well as Suffolk’s, will only know what they have been told to do, not why they are doing it. And Bishop Beaufort will have had some probable reason for being so late at Coldharbour and another for being called home. So it may not be so bad.”

  But Orleans did not quite settle again; and when, a while later the barge began a leftward swing across the current, the rowers stroking harder, he held the forward curtain aside to look out again. Wind and snow leaped in the gap together, but Frevisse caught brief sight of London Bridge ahead, a thicker blackness pricked out with lights at windows here and there above the brighter darkness of the Thames, before a snow veil blurred it, lost it, and the barge was swinging further toward Coldharbour’s landing where torches and wall-hung lanterns showed considerable number of men—a great many men for this time of night—moving around another barge and a smaller wherry, both moored below the landing stairs.

  Their steersman was bringing the barge in above landing stairs on the river’s flow, having to shout his orders over a wind gust, but the barge glided in against the stonework with no more than a solid thud and minor shudder, and as the ropes were tossed to tie it up, Orleans and Frevisse disentangled themselves from the furred robes and rose, Frevisse at least finding herself stiffened with the sitting and cold and grateful when Orleans held out his hand to help her, saying, “My thanks for coming as you did, my lady.”

  “Your grace is welcome.” Though it had been more for Alice’s sake than his.

  Another snow squall swept down on them as they left the tilt, and still holding her hand, Orleans drew her close, coming between her and it and saying into her ear while he did, “If you could possibly be helpless, it might serve to help hide me.”

  She understood what he wanted, let him keep hold of her hand and grabbed hold of his arm with her other so that he had to back along the walkway to where they could mount to the landing. Above them, the steersman was making trouble over tying up the barge, moving back and forth, distractingly sending one man one way, another man another. To go on giving Orleans reason to keep his back to the light when he stepped up onto the landing in the midst of the steersman’s fussing, Frevisse made her own trouble with skirts and cloak and her balance, keeping hold on Orleans even when she was safely up. The steersman crowded past them one last time, a coin passed from Orleans to his hand, he bowed and touched his cap in thanks, and they were on their own, Frevisse thinking it was a pity she was so nearly Orleans’ height; if she had been smaller, he could have bent over her as he had the boys, but as it was, the cold and snow and wind were helping to confuse and hurry things; no one was lingering, everyone was moving head down and quickly, and Orleans managed to walk half a step ahead of her, head turned sideways and a little down and back toward her, as if he were worried over her and watching her every step. In return, she clung to his arm as if she needed it and guided him a little among the scattering of men between them and the gateway where what had to be the first foam of people preceding Bishop Beaufort from the hall were just coming. With even the least luck, if she and Orleans were noticed at all, it would be only vaguely and with no interest compared to the surge of men around Bishop Beaufort as he now moved into view. Or if there was interest, it would be in her, a probably lewd wondering at why a nun was out at night in company with a man, rather than particular curiosity at Orleans, so long as he was not recognized.

  They slipped aside from the bishop’s approach, away from the crowding around him and the strongest torch and lantern light, into the thicker shadows of the gateway arch, Frevisse to the wall, Orleans still turned to her, his back as much as might be to everyone else. Bishop Beaufort was passing them, striding in a cleared space all his own, no one presuming to press in on him but the score and more men around him elbowing among themselves for place, even here and at this hour hoping for his notice. Crowded to the wall but looking ahead, Frevisse could see that when they were past, the flurry of men would be less, a handful scattered across the yard and most of them hurrying heads down from the wind to anyplace else but there. Once she and Orleans were clear of the gateway, it was going to be small matter to cross the yard to the garden door that should still be unlocked or else Alice or someone else there waiting to let them in…

  Orleans lurched against her, stumbled she thought, pushed by the crowding maybe. But instead of recovering, he clutched with bruising force into her arm, his other hand fumbling for hold on her cloak as he started to sag to the ground. Confused, Frevisse caught at him, tried to hold him up but was carried down with him to her knees, Orleans sagging further over so that she shifted her hold on him, trying for a better one, then jerked her hand away from a wet warmth, thrust her hand out into the torchlight, and found it dark with the gleaming redness of bright blood.

  Chapter 24

  Orleans sank further, curling into pain, and Frevisse grabbed hold of him again. Around them, a milling awareness of something wrong had started and “Help me!” she demanded of the faces turning her way but was only stared at until William came shoving between men and stooped to her and Orleans, asking, “What is it?”

  “He’s been stabbed,” she said harshly.

  William started to make protest against that but caught himself and came to Orleans’ other side from her, bent to put an arm around his shoulders, asking, “My lord, can you stand?”‘

  For answer Orleans struggled to rise with short, heaved breaths that were a fight against pain. Between them, Frevisse and William helped him until, on his feet, eyes shut, body clenched in on the hurting, Orleans said, “I can walk. Get me inside.”

  William, ignoring voices beginning to rise with questions around them, ordered at near men he knew, “Adam, help me here. Take Dame Frevisse’s place. Andrew, John, clear us a way. Herry, run ahead, find Master Hyndstoke, tell him he’s needed, there’s a man hurt. Tell my lord and lady, too. Run!”

  Frevisse saw recognition dawn on Herry as he looked at Orleans and then with a sharp nod he was gone, shoving back through the gawking men. Adam, an older man in yeoman’s livery with no need to understand more than that he was needed, was taking Orleans away from Frevisse, leaving her free to swing back toward the landing with thought that Bishop Beaufort had to be told; but she came up short against Master Bruneau just pushing out from among the men there, looking past her confusedly toward William and Adam and Orleans. Too bewildered yet to be alarmed, he asked, “What’s happened? My lady sent me to tell you come in through the garden. I’m late. Is that…”

  Frevisse clamped her unbloodied hand onto his arm. “Don’t say him. Yes. He’s hurt, stabbed. You have to go tell Lady Alice he’s hurt but alive before anyone else does. Understand?”

  “She sent me to tell you…” he began again but took hold on his wits, cut himself short, and was away, shoving through the sheep-milling men aside from where two squires were clearing way for William, Adam, and Orleans while Frevisse turned back through the gateway, pushing among the men there with angry force, out onto the landing again, where Bishop Beaufort, poised to step down into his barge, was turned questioningly back. At the sight of her as she came from the gateway’s shadows his questioning sharpened to alarm, and scattering startled men, he came back toward her, met her in the middle of the landing with the wind shoving at his robes, at her cloak and veil and skirts as he demanded at her without courtesy, “What is it?”

  “My lord of Orleans is stabbed.”

  Bishop Beaufort stared at her incomprehendingly, then swore, “Blessed St. John of the bosom of Christ!” belatedly thought to cross himself and started to go past her. “How badly is he hurt?”

  Frevisse moved into his way. “He’s alive and being helped. What you need do is give order for all ways out of Coldharbour to be locked and watched. Now, before whoever did it leaves. No one in or out by land or water, and blood looked for on anyone trying to leave. Blood looked for on a
nyone.”

  Abruptly Bishop Beaufort grasped what she was telling him, said “Yes,” and began giving rapid orders around him. Leaving him to it, Frevisse headed back through the seethe of men toward Coldharbour’s hall and Alice. She encountered Suffolk in the screens passage, heading toward the outer door, saying to Master Gallard among the people crowded around him, “I’m going to stop Beaufort from leaving. He’ll listen to no one but me and we need him in this! Lady Alice will see to what needs doing here.”

  Frevisse stood aside to the wall to let him pass, then overtook Master Gallard as he turned back into the great hall, asking him, “Where has Orleans been taken?”

  “Lady Alice’s bedchamber,” he answered. “The stairs to there are wider than to my lord Suffolk’s. He could be carried.”

  “He was walking!”

  “Not when he reached here,” Master Gallard said grimly.

  There was a clutter of women and servants in the lady chamber, talking and exclaiming. Frevisse wasted no time on them or on Lady Sibill guarding the doorway to Alice’s bedroom and exclaiming with the rest of them how terrible it was; willing to explain to Frevisse, too, but Frevisse pushed past and shut the door against her. Let her guard it from outside.

  William and Adam were just lowering Orleans onto the bed, where the bedcovers had been stripped to the bedfoot and a thick, dark blanket laid over the sheet, to take the blood there would be. He was still conscious; he groaned despite their care, and Alice, close, hands twisted together, desperate-eyed and desperately calm, flinched but did not cease ordering her women, “Katherine, tie back the bedcurtains. We need more light there. Aneys, find Master Hyndstoke and bid him hurry, on his life. And fetch the priest. Tell him to come with what’s needful, there’s a man hurt. Jane, yes, you’re heating water, thank you. Wine,” she demanded and went herself before anyone else could, to pour a goblet full from what had been waiting for her bedtime, ordering as she did, “William, lift him so he can drink. Adam, guard outside the door. Send people away. Tell Lady Sibill to be quiet. Lady Jane, Dame Frevisse, you stay. The rest of you go. All of you.”

  They went as she ordered, leaving Frevisse and Lady Jane. At the bed William with an arm behind the pillows had raised Orleans enough that he was able to drink when Alice came to him and held the goblet to his lips. He gave her the smallest of smiles when he had done, then closed his eyes again while William laid him carefully down. But when Alice had set the goblet aside and began to undo his doublet, he took her by the wrist and said gently, as if there were no one there to hear him but her, “No, sweetling. Let be. You shouldn’t see it.”

  Alice began to answer, “If I can stop the bleeding…” but a man undoubtedly the doctor came hurriedly in, followed by two assistants carrying things, and on the instant, brisk with certainty, made the matter all his own, and Lady Jane went to draw Alice back from the bed, out of the way and aside to Frevisse standing beyond the fireplace.

  William joined them there, going not to Lady Jane but Frevisse’s other side from Alice, to whisper in her ear, “There’s blood on your cloak and hand, my lady.”

  Frevisse had forgotten there would be; now noticed it was dried and stiff on her and drew back and went to the wash basin and pitcher of water that had been waiting for Alice. With her mind clamped shut against thinking that what she washed off was blood out of a someone she knew, she cleaned her hand, took off Orleans’ cloak and laid it over a chair for someone to deal with later.

  The priest came in then, carrying his box of necessaries and purple-stoled for the last rites, but Master Hyndstoke shot him a sideways look without raising his head from helping cut Orleans’ clothing away and said, “Not yet.” The priest looked to Lady Alice, the quarrel over precedence between doctors set to save the body and priests set to save the soul being an old one, and Alice hesitated before nodding in confirmation of Master Hyndstoke’s refusal.

  “Pray, and be ready if the need comes,” she said, and the priest set down his gilded box on the chest at the foot of the bed with a reproachful look at her and knelt to pray.

  “You should sit, my lady,” Lady Jane said, but Alice shook her head in refusal and stayed where she was, where she was able to watch whatever was done to Orleans while the men unclothed him to the waist and then eased him to his unhurt side for better view of the wound. Suffolk and Bishop Beaufort entered during that, would have gone to the bed but were waved back by the doctor, so that Bishop Beaufort settled for demanding from where he was, “How is it? How bad?” And when Master Hyndstoke gave him only a grunt for an answer, asked “Orleans?”

  Breathing unevenly, riding the pain of whatever was being done to him, Orleans answered tersely, “I’m here.”

  “See that you stay that way,” Bishop Beaufort ordered and Orleans gave him a half choked laugh for answer as Master Hyndstoke straightened and stepped back from the bed, dropping the bloodied cloth he had been using into the bloodied water of the basin one of his assistants was holding ready to hand. “There now, my lord.” He looked to Bishop Beaufort and Suffolk. “It’s none so bad as might be. Not dangerously deep. A long scrape between the lower left ribs but nothing vital touched, nothing that won’t mend if we keep infection out.”

  There was a general crossing of breasts, the priest bowed his head more intensely to his praying, and Orleans twisted his neck a little to see the rended flesh between his ribs.

  “More expertly done than the last attempt,” he said. “But you would think whoever wants me dead would hire men more skilled at it.”

  Frevisse’s hand heavy on Alice’s shoulder reminded her to hold quiet; it was Suffolk who exclaimed, “Thank God they haven’t! Someone wants you dead, man. Don’t talk of it so lightly.”

  Closing his eyes, Orleans said wearily, “Good my lord, I have lived a long time knowing there are men who want me dead. Lightly is the only way I dare to take it.”

  As Master Hyndstoke and his men closed in on Orleans again. Bishop Beaufort moved up the far side of the bed and leaned over, saying something to Orleans but neither his words nor the duke’s audible beyond the bed, while Suffolk came to Alice, took her hands, and said comfortingly, “There, love. You shouldn’t be here for this. We’ll see to him now. Go to my bed for tonight.”

  “I’ll stay,” Alice said quietly. “You may need me.”

  “My brave lady,” Suffolk put his arm around her waist and drew her to lean against him, facing the bed.

  Behind them, Frevisse reached out to touch Lady Jane’s arm, drew her attention, beckoned for her to come away. With wary puzzlement Lady Jane did, and except William took a step to follow them, changed his mind, and stayed where he was, they left unnoticed. Outside the door Adam let them pass without comment, but in the lady chamber several of Alice’s ladies hurried forward with questions, and other people who Frevisse doubted had reason other than curiosity to be there followed them, so that in her most preemptory voice she said, “Lady Sibill, isn’t it time you should see these ladies to bed?” deliberately making it more order than suggestion.

  But Lady Sibill, ever fond of having charge of anyone, took it readily and set to bustling the other ladies away from the door and toward their own room. It did not clear the lady chamber of everyone but those left drew off warily. It had to be far past the hour when Coldharbour’s folk should all have been in bed and sleeping but first Bishop Beaufort’s long stay through the evening and then the upset of the attempt on Orleans—though of that, so far, there were probably only rumors and uncertain reports of what had happened and to whom— had been enough to keep people up and interested and far too many of them—servants and household officers and folk in Bishop Beaufort’s livery—were gathered here, hoping to know more. There was even a squire with goblets of something to drink on a tray passing among them, but no one presumed to approach as Frevisse drew Lady Jane aside to a corner and asked, “How is it with you?”

  Surprise widened Lady Jane’s eyes. “I’m well,” she said, then repeated it, as if to be
sure, “I’m well.” And added, as if only just now realizing it, “But I’m frightened.”

  So was Frevisse but she did not say so, only, “With reason. You were right in your worry for Orleans and likely you’re right that Eyon’s death wasn’t chance and now I want to know everything you know of it, everything you’ve learned about when and how he died.”

  The things she should have made effort to learn before.

  “My ladies?” The squire who had been serving wine around the room appeared from behind her, holding out his tray, offering the two goblets left on it. “Wine?”

  “Herry,” Frevisse said, recognizing him, remembering his name as she and Lady Jane each took a goblet, welcoming the wine but asking, “By whose orders?”

  Herry twitched his head toward the room behind him where most of those left were in Bishop Beaufort’s livery, with merely a scattering of Suffolk’s people. “Master Gallard says that if we can’t be rid of them, we must act as if they’re welcome.” He sounded as unpleased with it as could be expected, set to serving at an hour when he could otherwise hope to be to bed.

  He started to draw back but Frevisse said, “A moment, please. I need to ask you something.”

  He stopped, looking at her questioningly. “My lady?”

  “You were there when the duke of Orleans was stabbed.”

  “Yes, my lady.” The answer was a little wary, showing he had sense enough to know that being where a murder had been attempted was not the best of places to have been, but she needed him to use his wit free of suspicion and kept her voice easy as she asked, “I was wondering what you saw. Who you saw. Did you know the duke of Orleans was there?”

  “No,” he answered, openly enough. “Not until William was ordering me away and I saw his face in the torchlight.”

  “You saw no one with a drawn dagger?”