8 The Maiden's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  “I don’t know anything about poison!” Robyn choked out frantically.

  “But two people have been poisoned,” Frevisse said. “William, was he among those with Eyon the night he died?”

  “Eyon?” Robyn said wildly. “What about Eyon?”

  “No one has said so,” William answered regretfully.

  “What are you talking about?” Robyn wailed. Too loudly. William choked him off again and Frevisse, ignoring his question, said, “You were the last person with Lady Jane tonight before she fell ill with poison.”

  “I don’t know anything about poison!” Robyn croaked.

  Frevisse suspected there was too much real ignorance in him for him to feign false ignorance that well but she said, “Her wine was poisoned and you were there with her when it was.”

  “I didn’t do anything with her wine!” Hope glistened in his desperate eyes above William’s unrelenting grip and he babbled out, “Herry! He brought her wine!”

  “I was there when he did,” Frevisse said. “He brought me wine as well.”

  “No, you weren’t there! You’d gone into Lady Alice’s bedchamber. Lady Jane was by herself. Herry brought her wine. I didn’t go over to her until he left her. I hadn’t anything to do with wine!”

  Herry.

  Could he have overheard her asking Lady Jane to tell her about Eyon being murdered?

  Sickeningly, Frevisse thought it very well possible and said, “Let him go, William.”

  “We can’t just let him go!”

  “He can’t leave Coldharbour. He’s locked in with the rest of us. Let him go. We have someone else to find.”

  Reluctantly, unfully convinced, William freed him and Robyn slumped against the wall, hands to his throat, careful over the marks of William’s fingers that were likely to stay there a while, Frevisse saw with satisfaction as she said coldly at him, “I suggest that when this is done and Coldharbour’s unclosed again, you take yourself out of here before Lady Alice has chance to deal with you. For now, just go away.”

  He gaped at her until she stood aside and William grabbed him by the arm, dragged him from the wall, and thrust him out the door toward his room. That done, William said, “The cur didn’t even ask if Jane were living or dead.”

  “He wouldn’t. He’s one of those who never have wit enough to care for anyone but themselves. Now we have to find this Herry. Elham I think his name is.”

  “Herry Elham?” William paused “Why?”

  “Because the wine he served both Lady Jane and me was plain, but what he later served to her alone was spiced. She sickened. I didn’t. Was he with Eyon the night he died?”

  William’s anger was her answer as he said, “Wait here. I’ll see if he’s in his room,” and went away but came back in only a moment with, “He’s not there.”

  The day had had too many hours in it; Frevisse was tired, thinking was not coming easily, but she said, “He was at all three places. With Eyon. At the river gate. With Lady Jane.”

  “I’ll find him,” William said, curt with anger and understanding.

  “He’s a different matter than Robyn,” Frevisse warned. “If he’s not quickly found, a hunt will have to be set for him.”

  They were returning toward the screens passage while they spoke, William nodding unwilling agreement to her as they came into it to find that instead of the settled quiet there had been, a crowd of men in Bishop Beaufort’s livery were straggling disorderedly out the door to the rearyard, a cold wind shoving inward past them to chill the place. William moved quickly to catch one of the last of them on the threshold and ask, “Is his grace going?”

  “And none too soon,” the man answered, pulling loose, fighting down a yawn, keeping going.

  Frevisse, with the cold air cutting at her own weariness after the hours of heavy indoor air, moved past William into the open doorway. Why was Bishop Beaufort going? What had changed his purpose? Had a messenger come? Or, improbably, had he quarreled with Suffolk? It was a hurried going, that was certain. Some men were already strung out across the yard toward the river gate, others were still going down the steps, most of them no more than shapes and shadows in the darkness between the guttering torches at the head and foot of the stairs and the lanterns flanking the river gate. Bishop Beaufort at the stairfoot, briefly in the failing torchlight there, would have been recognizable anyway, with his height and ample robes…

  Frevisse jerked upright, staring, certain but frozen for the moment needed for her certainty to jar her mind to working before she snapped at William, “Come,” grabbed her skirts from under her feet and went down the stairs, threading among men who did not understand she wanted them out of her way, her going slowed her by their confusion so that Bishop Beaufort and those closest around him were across the yard into the yellow edge of lantern light at the gateway before she overtook him, shoving in between the men nearest him and into his way.

  Pulled up short by her in front of him, he demanded, “Dame, what do you here?”‘ and it flickered through her mind that he must be tired, too, if he could put no better front on it than that.

  It gave her confidence to say boldly back, “The better question is, my lord bishop, what do you do here?”

  His visible displeasure increased and his answer was tense. “The hour is late and I’m going home.”

  In equal terseness she answered back, “I thought no one was to leave Coldharbour tonight.”

  “Choices can be changed and without your leave, dame.”

  His tone was as cold as the wind slicing through her layers of gown and undergown, and the surrounding men shifted and drew back a little, as if his displeasure might too easily spread from her to them, but Frevisse held where she was, wrapped her arms around herself to hold off the shivering, and said back at him, “It was agreed no one would go. Not with things as they are.”

  “Things as they are do not include me or my household men. The hour is late and I am going, dame.”

  He made to move on but, careless with anger, Frevisse stayed in his way. “One of the men you’re taking with you isn’t of your household. More than that, he…”

  “That will suffice, dame!” Bishop Beaufort made a sharp gesture at the men around them to stand back. “Away. This matter must needs be dealt with now, I see.”

  But as they obeyed, Frevisse pointed and said, “Not him. Let him stay where I can see him.”

  Bishop Beaufort twitched a look at Herry Elham trying to be lost among the other men and Herry stopped where he was, a half dozen paces away, while the others drew off twenty paces more, except William, come against good sense to stand close behind her.

  “Now, dame.” Anger replaced by weary patience, Bishop Beaufort pitched his voice for only her and perforce William and maybe Herry to hear. “You’ve gone far and fast in a direction I didn’t think you’d take. Much of it is Herry’s fault.” He gave Herry a harsh look to which Herry bent his head in agreement. “He overstepped in poisoning Suffolk’s niece, I grant you that. However awry the blood has gone in her, she should be above such meddling as Herry did. But he’d overheard her warn you the other day that there was danger and then tonight heard you ask her what she’d learned about a man’s death. A murder no one was supposed to think was murder. He thought to protect himself by silencing her before she said more to you. Herry very rarely makes a foolish move but that was one of them and all it’s done is bring on what he was trying to avoid, his removal from Suffolk’s household.”

  Trying to govern her voice to match his reasonableness, however little she felt it, and appreciating William’s strength in holding quiet, Frevisse said, “He did kill Eyon Chesman then?”

  “He did, and did well to do it. The man had come to know too much about what passed through his hands concerning Orleans. He purposed to sell what he knew to Gloucester.”

  William stirred at that. Bishop Beaufort gave him a hostile glance, deigning to notice him openly for the first time, but Frevisse said, “Eyon Chesman was his c
ousin and he’s betrothed to Lady Jane and he’s helping me in this.”

  “Then I trust he can keep his mouth shut as well as I know you keep yours. No, this Chesman’s death was necessary. There’s proof of what he meant to do, a message he sent to Gloucester saying he had something to sell. The message was passed back to one of Gloucester’s men in Suffolk’s household, to find out from Chesman what he had.”

  “One of Gloucester’s men?” Frevisse asked. “He has more spies here and you know it?”

  Bishop Beaufort raised his eyebrows as if in wonder at her innocence. “I know he has—he had—one. I presume he has more. I do in his household and he probably has in mine.

  Unfortunately for Chesman, Gloucester’s man in Suffolk’s household who had the message is also my man.“ He made a slight sideways inclination of his head toward Herry. ”Him. That’s one reason I’m displeased he’s lost his place here. He’s been very useful. Tonight when he came to tell me what he’d done, I told him you would find him out and he suggested I persuade you to be quiet on the matter. I told him I didn’t think it likely. Was I wrong?“

  “No.”

  “So I thought and decided it best to have him out of here before the matter came into the open.”

  “And knew the only way to do that was go yourself, taking him with you. But there’s still the question of who attacked the duke of Orleans. Was that your Herry, too?”

  Untouched by either the dislike or the contempt she put in that, Bishop Beaufort answered simply, “No. That problem still remains, unhappily enough. And now what?” he added, swinging to face a disturbance and shifting among the men behind him, in time for Robyn Helas, his doublet only half fastened, one hose unstrapped, his cloak trailing over an arm, to shove out from among the men, stumble forward, and fall to one knee in front of him. Gabbling even before his knee hit the cobbles, Robyn cried, “She found me out! I can’t stay here. She’s threatened to have me killed. Her.” He threw Frevisse a hating look. “You have to take me with you.” Bishop Beaufort jerked up a hand, silencing him, and looked to Frevisse. “What,” he asked rather wearily, “have you found out about him?”

  Briefly but sparing nothing, Frevisse told him. Part way through, Bishop Beaufort closed his eyes as if the burden of listening had become too much, and only asked, when she finished, “You have the poems safe now?” and when she answered, “Yes,”—they were presently in her own belt pouch—turned an unpleasant eye on Robyn to say, “She has them all? You haven’t tried to do anything else clever, have you?”

  “No, my lord! She has them all. I swear it! Take me with you!”

  “I gave you a simple thing to do. Seduce a woman into talking to you about things she shouldn’t. But it seems you did it all as ill as might be, I’m not greatly interested in men who play games as badly as it seems you played this one. And now you want me to rescue you?”

  “It wasn’t my doing, my lord! It went that way despite me!” There would probably never be way to make him understand that if things went ill for him, it was quite probably as much, if not more, his fault than anyone’s.

  For Robyn, whatever went wrong for him would always be because of someone else, not him: a comforting if inefficient way to look at life, Frevisse thought, and said, “I pray you, take him with you.”

  Bishop Beaufort gave her a harsh, assessing look. “Take him with me so I’m the one who has to deal with him instead of you?”

  “Yes.” Belatedly she remembered to add, “my lord.”

  Bishop Beaufort’s look at her did not soften, but he made a sharp gesture at Robyn to rise, saying, “You’ll come with me. No, save your thanks until I’ve finished dealing with you.”

  The possibilities implicit in that reached even into Robyn’s wits and his thanks broke off. Bowing deeply and more deeply, he retreated among the waiting, cold, impatient men, and with another gesture Bishop Beaufort bade Herry go, too, but as he started to draw off, Frevisse protested, sick with knowing her protest was no use, “You can’t take him, too.”

  “I can, dame,” Bishop Beaufort answered flatly. His look and voice said he was no more pleased with her than he was with Robyn. “And I am.”

  “He’s a murderer and an attempted murderer,” she insisted.

  “And no longer a concern of yours, dame. What needs to be dealt with is that you now know far more of my dealings than I like, and have interfered with them, too.” He included William with the slightest glance aside to him. “Both of you. What I’m going to assume is that you’ll both do nothing with what you know except forget it. Robyn. Herry. All of it.”

  As threats went, it was politely made but it was threat nonetheless, and after a long moment in which neither of them moved, Frevisse finally made a small, ungracious nod of agreement and William bowed his head.

  “Good,” Bishop Beaufort said. “Now I will be going.

  Good fortune in finding out who tried for the duke of Orleans, Dame, because I promise you, that is one thing I had no part in and I want to know who did because I very much need Orleans alive.“

  That, at least, Frevisse believed. But it also opened another possibility and she asked, stopping him before he had quite begun to move away from her, “Has anything been found out yet from the man who tried to kill him at Winchester House? Anything that might help me here?”

  In the pause then there was silence enough to hear the shuffle of the waiting men, the slap of the river against stone and wood, a cock crowing somewhere off among London’s gardens, before Bishop Beaufort gestured William to move away, waited until he was out of hearing, and then said, very low, “No one tried to kill his grace of Orleans at Winchester House.”

  Quietness beyond reach of any sounds around her closed on Frevisse. A stillness so deep it was only with difficulty she managed to say, “That was another lie?”

  “A necessary one.”

  Frevisse did not think she ever wanted close look at what Bishop Beaufort considered necessities, as he went on, “An attempt on his life added urgency to his meeting with the king, both for Orleans and King Henry. One afraid for his life, the other afraid to lose this chance at peace. Interesting, in its way. So many lives to be saved by having peace but the saving of one familiar life so much more compelling than the saving of uncounted unfamiliar ones. To think Orleans, his own kinsman, is in grave danger adds pressure to King Henry’s thought of having peace. Therefore, an ‘attempt’ to kill him. It helped that you were here because I knew that with you to help her, Lady Alice would be able to carry through his ‘rescue.” “

  Controlling her voice, Frevisse asked, “Who knows it was a lie?”

  “Myself, the man who did the carefully botched stabbing, and the two men guarding him, from whom he’ll shortly escape, having revealed nothing.”

  “You didn’t even tell my lord of Suffolk it was all nothing?”

  “Suffolk? He’d be the last I’d tell. He has no subtlety and, worse, he thinks he does. Now if you’ll pardon me, I think we’re near to dawn and I’ve yet to see my bed tonight.” He made the sign of the cross at her. “Go with God, Dame. His blessing and mine be upon you.”

  Chapter 27

  She and William did not watch Bishop Beaufort and his people go but turned away, on her part because she did not want to risk sight of Herry or Robyn again, sick with knowing there was nothing more she could do against them. Nor did she want to know what was in William’s mind; and with everything unsaid between them, he and she crossed the yard back to the hall, up the stairs to the watchman huddled ear-deep in his cloak in the failing torchlight there, waiting to bar the door when they were in, the way his fellow was dropping the bar across the now-shut riverward gate, the thud of its falling clear in the freezing air. And that, Frevisse thought, was that, so far as Herry Elham and Robyn Helas were concerned. They were safe away; and while one part of her was relieved to be rid of them, a far larger part was bitter with their escape. Bitter, too, with the knowledge that she was no nearer to finding who had tried, an
d might try again, for Orleans’ life.

  Distantly the cock crowed again and another answered it. How near was it to dawn? Not that it mattered. Come what may, she had to go to bed. There was no more thinking left in her.

  If there had been, she would not be standing here in the cold at the head of the stairs, she thought, with William waiting patiently behind her but surely as tired and cold as she was.

  Not sure how much of her aching was weariness, how much was discouragement, she went in, William following her, saying, “At least we’re rid of them, my lady.”

  “And that’s something to be thankful for,” she agreed, giving him a half smile over her shoulder, wishing she meant it.

  The watchman followed them in and closed the door, probably hoping for nothing now but them to leave so he could pull his bedding out from where he had kicked it hurriedly against the wall at Bishop Beaufort’s leaving and settle himself to a little more sleep across the doorway, but Frevisse turned back to him, a thought dredging up from her mind, to ask, “Fellow, have you seen Master Bruneau tonight? Lately, I mean. Since things quieted but before Bishop Beaufort left?”‘

  “I’ve not noticed much quieting tonight,” the man grumbled. “Bishops at all hours, going, coming back, going again. Some man dripping blood on the paving here and half the household trampling and shouting all over it and who’s to wipe it up but me? Yes, Master Bruneau went out since then, and in again.”

  “When?”

  “A while ago is all I could say to it. Went out, was gone a time, came back.”

  “But he did come back?”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “Has there been anyone else, except for Bishop Beaufort and his people, come or go?”‘

  “None else. It’s not a night for being out if you can help it, is it?”

  Frevisse agreed it was not and left him to his comforts, going on into the hall, William with her.

  So Master Bruneau had been out and about to see to what she had asked of him, but where was he now? If he had not bothered to seek her out, he must have found nothing to report and probably was gone off to bed, supposing she would have done the same by now. She wished she had. But it seemed questioning Master Bruneau on what he had learned could wait until morning since he had not found it urgent, and by then, please God and given rest, she would have more wits working than she did now.