The Servant's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  In the original Rule, St. Benedict spoke of two meals a day, the main one at midday and a light supper in the evening, with variations, including fasts and late dinners, with never the flesh of four-footed animals to be served. The only part strictly observed at St. Frideswide’s was that they ate their main meal at midday. Today they were served mincemeat pies and cabbage boiled with caraway seed.

  Sister Thomasine, whose voice alone remained clear, had volunteered to be the reader at dinner until someone else recovered enough to take her place. They were reading from a borrowed book, St. Bede’s History of the English Church and People. They had arrived at the late seventh century and were hearing of the death of St. Chad, Bishop of Mercia, and of miracles associated with his burial place in the Church of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles. “‘Chad’s tomb is in the form of a little wooden house,’” read Thomasine slowly, “‘with an aperture in the side, through which those who visit it out of devotion to him may insert their hand and take out some of the dust. They mix this in water, and give it to sick men or beasts to drink, by which means their ailment is quickly relieved and they are restored to health.’”

  Ugh, thought Frevisse, I would have to be sick indeed before I would drink anything flavored with spiderweb and dead man’s dust.

  At the end of the meal, Domina Edith declared that everyone not so sick she must take to her bed was to come to the church and help Dame Fiacre sweep and dust.

  The priory’s sacrist had been slowly declining for some months. Now she had caught a cold like everyone else, and though she kept to her feet, she could not perform all her duties. This afternoon she sat on a stool at the foot of the altar and pointed to what needed doing. Frevisse found the dagger’s keen edge very handy for cleaning melted wax off the altar’s two brass candlesticks, a task she performed with grim thoroughness.

  When it was all done to Sister Fiacre’s satisfaction, they were dismissed. Frevisse went out to discover that Father Henry had returned from the village.

  She went to find him in his little house eating a late dinner. She sat down at his table and said without preamble, “What did you learn?”

  “Sym wasn’t much liked. He was given to quarreling. Little quarrels all the time, one after the other, for no real reason mostly.”

  “Any great quarrels? Or new quarrels just around now?”

  “There’s a girl, Tibby, whose folk weren’t happy he was showing her attentions. Nor did she care for him much either, it seems, but that wasn’t stopping him. There’d been pushing between her brother and him, and a few words, but nothing more.”

  “No daggers drawn?”

  “No. He was not known for daggering. All words and fists, was Sym, from what I’ve seen—from what they say.”

  “But he drew on Joliffe last night.”

  “Joliffe? You mean the player, in the alehouse? Yes, he did. But he was being goaded some, I guess. Too many words and the way the player was saying them and that the girl wasn’t minding. It went past what Sym would take.”

  Frevisse could see Joliffe deliberately outwording him, with a mocking smile and goading tone, until Sym was past wanting anything except to silence him. “But no great particular quarrel with anyone else?” she asked.

  “The talk is that there looked to be one shaping up with Gilbey Dunn. He holds the croft by theirs and has been wanting to take claim to their field strips. Talk is, Lord Lovel’s steward has been thinking maybe of letting him.”

  “Could he?” To give one villein’s share of the fields to another was no little thing and not easily done.

  “Oh, maybe yes, since Barnaby was going these past years the short way along to ruining them and Lord Lovel’s steward was none too happy with him for it. Yes, there was a chance.”

  “But now with Barnaby dead, Sym would have been given his chance to prove himself before anything was done about taking the land away.”

  Father Henry shook his head heavily. “Maybe not. Sym has been looking to go much the way of his father already and patience was pretty well out with him. But that wasn’t the whole of it. Seems Gilbey Dunn has been at Barnaby’s widow, wanting to marry her, and the general thought is that she will since she’s a poorly little thing who’ll be needing someone to see to her and her matters. He might not have been able to talk her around with Sym in a rage about it, but now with Sym dead, he’ll have no trouble with her. That’s what they’re saying. They quarreled badly yesterday, Sym and Gilbey Dunn, in front of the whole village.”

  “About the marrying?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Gilbey Dunn do?”

  “Nothing much.” He shrugged.

  “What about the girl? I’ve heard she went off with the player after the fight with Sym.”

  “And her folk are none so pleased with her about it,” Father Henry said. “She’s shut up in the house for so long as the players are here and apparently had best be thankful her father only gave her a small beating when she came home last night.”

  “Can you talk with her tomorrow?” she asked.

  Father Henry looked surprised and then nodded. “I should tell her to be a more dutiful daughter?” he suggested.

  “Surely. And ask her if she has any way of judging how long she was with Joliffe, and where they were, and—but not until you have the other answers from her—if he ever asked her where Sym lived.”

  Father Henry’s mind moved at its own steady pace but had the grace of holding on to what it was given. He thought for a moment, nodded again, and repeated, “Ask her how long she was with Joliffe, where they were, and then if he asked her where Sym lived.”

  “Yes. Exactly so.”

  “You think he did it?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” She was certain he had not, but it seemed better not to say so. “But if I can show he couldn’t have done it, then I can look elsewhere, do you see?”

  Chapter

  16

  SORE-NECKED AND ACHING, Meg raised her head from the table. Dimly, as her mind stirred back to awareness, she realized she had been sleeping. By the faint gray web of lesser darkness at the guesthall’s windows she guessed that dawn was nearing; and then she remembered where she was. And why.

  Slow with stiffness, she straightened on the backless bench, forcing herself to move. She reached out her hand to Sym’s wrapped body in front of her and stroked where she knew his arm to be. Father Henry had been with her a while last night; he too had promised her that Sym’s soul was safe, so surely it did not matter that she had fallen asleep at her praying. She had not meant to, had not known she was so tired, or she would not have told Father Henry that he did not need to stay, that she and Hewe would keep the watch. She had even said that maybe someone would be coming from the village, though she had half known that was not true. Some might have come if Sym were laid out at home, but the priory was not a village place and no one was friendly enough with her or Sym anymore to come there, where he had to stay until the crowner came.

  So Sym’s watching belonged to her and Hewe, and they had both slept.

  Meg smiled down at the curled dark shape in the rushes by the bench that was Hewe asleep. She had not expected him to stay awake with her. He had been a good boy yesterday, going to the village and back again twice over, seeing to things there so she could stay here. And he would do it again today, so she could go back to working for Dame Alys for her halfpence. They couldn’t afford to lose any more of those, or let Dame Alys think Meg was not needed here.

  Under the rough skin of her fingers the cerecloth was smooth and cool. Meg had never owned so large a piece of cloth in her life. And would never have given it away if she had, the way the nuns had simply given this one for Sym. That was a blessing, at least, because the only spare blanket had gone to wrap Barnaby for his grave. The nuns’ pity was a blessed thing.

  But then, they had more cloth where this had come from. More of everything. Meg had seen what they had folded and stacked away in chests in one of their storero
oms. And that had been just one storeroom. They had others. What was it like to have so much?

  In her mind she heard the nuns begin their singing in the church. She had heard them singing, when working in the cloister, and the unworldly beauty of their voices had stirred her mind. Singing and praying seven times a day, even in the middle of the night, every day, all the year round, was to her mind what the angels did in Heaven, too. How wonderful to be so close to Heaven here on earth! She rubbed at her tired eyes. Sometimes the beauty of the life they led tempted her into the sin of envy.

  The dim light was growing. She turned a corner of the shroud away from Sym’s face. She could not see his features yet, but remembered how they had been in the lamplight last night. A young face. Younger than he had looked for the last few years as his sullenness and temper had grown. Not a man’s face taut with tempers and desires and needs, but her sweet son’s face, all quiet and at peace.

  She stroked a finger along his cheek. The stubble of his beard pricked at her flesh, but his own flesh under it was cold and strange, not Sym at all. Meg took her hand away. She did not want to touch him anymore, just look at him while the day grew slowly into light in the hall, and think of what might have been if things had been some other way.

  She only knew that she was crying when a tear left a warm trail down her chill cheek.

  Hewe stirred to wakefulness a while after that. He huddled against her for a while, like a little boy again, until he was awake enough for Meg to tell him to stir up the fire. One of the servants had built it for them against the long night’s cold. It had burned down to a few coals while they slept, but enough was left that Hewe shortly had it roused. He crouched beside it, hands out to its heat, and said, “I’m hungry, Mam. Isn’t there food?”

  “We’re not guests here,” Meg said wearily. “Just bidersby. There’ll be something you can eat at home when you go there.”

  Hewe looked at her guiltily.

  “Did you eat what was left from the funeral foods?” Meg asked.

  Hewe nodded. “Yesterday. I was hungry.”

  Meg sighed. “I’ll find something in the kitchen here today for you.”

  “And come home soon?” Hewe asked hopefully.

  “Tonight,” Meg said. “I’ll do my day’s work and come tonight and bake. If I can find someone to watch by Sym.”

  “Father Henry will, if you ask. Or he’ll find someone. Then you can come.”

  “Then I can come,” Meg agreed, and added, “He’s a good man. A holy man.”

  Hewe faced the fire again with a calculatedly indifferent shrug. Meg patted absentmindedly at Sym’s shrouded arm, wondering why Hewe would not see what she saw in his becoming a priest, why he did not understand how right it would make everything.

  Dame Frevisse came a little while after that. Meg and Hewe both rose to their feet and Meg curtsied, saying, “My lady.”

  “Good morrow, Meg.” Dame Frevisse swept a sharp look around the hall. “You have wood enough. Has anyone brought you food?”

  Meg was surprised. “No, my lady.”

  Hewe made an eager movement and Dame Frevisse turned a smile toward him. “I’ll see that someone does,” she said.

  “Thank you, my lady,” Hewe said with undisguised grateful eagerness. Emboldened, he moved a little toward her and asked, “The players, my lady. Are they leaving today?”

  “Not today. They’re to do a play for us tonight. Nor I don’t think they can go until the crowner has come and talked with them.”

  Meg wondered at Hewe being so plainly pleased with that, but was distracted by someone else entering the hall; and more distracted to see it was Gilbey Dunn, with Peter and Hamon at his back.

  So far as she knew, Gilbey had never been so far into the priory before. Certainly Peter and Hamon had not; they were gawking to one side and another and up at the wide-beamed roof and at the glassed windows; and when they realized Dame Frevisse was there, they dragged off their hoods with clumsy haste and bowed at her nervously.

  Gilbey on the other hand, drew off his own hood smoothly and bowed as if well sure of himself, first to Dame Frevisse and then to Meg. Nor did he gawk; his look around the hall was quick and assessing, and when he spoke to Dame Frevisse his tone was confident behind its respect. “Asking your ladyship’s pardon, is it allowed I speak with Mistress Meg here, by your leave?”

  “Assuredly,” Dame Frevisse said. “She’s welcome to speak to whom she will. And I’m just leaving, so you may speak freely.”

  “And I’ve brought two friends of Sym to watch by him so young Hewe needn’t stay,” Gilbey added. “And you can step aside, Meg, so we can talk more private.”

  Meg wanted to deny him, to tell Hewe to stay and Dame Frevisse to make Gilbey go. But she lacked the nerve to be so bold and only watched helplessly as Dame Frevisse said, “That’s kindly done. Come, Hewe. I’ll see to your being fed. Meg, if you need aught, have one of the servants tell me.”

  “Thank you, my lady. And Hewe—” She caught at his attention as he went willingly away. “Don’t be biding here. You go on home and see to things.”

  He jerked his head in a grudging nod and left behind Dame Frevisse.

  Outside, at the head of the stairs leading down to the yard, Frevisse stopped and turned to Hewe. “That man. Who is he?”

  “Gilbey Dunn. He’s our neighbor and he’s been making trouble, and now I think he wants to marry Mam.”

  He said it so readily, with no particular caring one way or the other, that Frevisse was taken a little off stride. “Indeed,” she said. “And what do you think of that?”

  Hewe shrugged as if it did not matter much. “He’d treat her better than Da did, and so long as I stayed out of his way he’d not bother me.”

  “Your mother wants you to be a priest.”

  Hewe made a face like sipping vinegar. “And that I won’t be doing. But she won’t listen to me.” He brightened and pressed a hand over his belly. “Do you think I could eat with the players and save you the trouble of getting me something? I’m fair growled with hunger and it’s a long walk home.”

  Frevisse repressed a smile. “Yes. I’d think that would be all right.”

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  He remembered to bow and then was gone, leaping down the stairs and running across the yard to the other guesthall with far more eagerness than he had shown at any word from his mother.

  Frevisse watched him go and then the yard was empty. No one was out in the cold and deliberately she stepped backward, nearer to the closed door behind her. Its thickness muffled what was being said but close to it inside—well away from Peter and Hamon, she suspected—Gilbey Dunn was in earnest talk with Meg. At least she assumed it was Meg. She could only be certain of Gilbey’s voice, going on at length and strongly. If Meg was answering him in the occasional pauses, her voice was too low to be heard at all.

  Because she was not learning anything beyond the fact that Gilbey Dunn was come well out of his way to talk to Meg, and because she did not want to be caught eavesdropping, Frevisse left, not hurrying, but descending the stairs and crossing the yard with the outward purpose of seeing how matters were in the old guesthall but going as slowly as she might without actually stopping. She had finally stopped near the door of the old guesthall and was, in desperation, bending to check her shoe strap when Gilbey came out at last.

  To her surprise he did not go to the gate but across the yard diagonally, to the small wicket gate into the walled way that hid the storage and work sheds built along the inside of the priory’s wall between the guesthalls and the priory’s kitchen and back gate. Hidden from the courtyard but handy to the main life of the nunnery, it was usually busy with servants, but these were the Christmas holidays and not much in the way of usual work was being done. Frevisse, following Gilbey through the gateway at what she meant to be a discreet distance, found the area deserted. She paused. Gilbey was out of sight and there was no one to ask which way he had gone. The only movement was a w
hite drift of smoke from the laundry’s roof hole, showing that someone was there at least, and that cleanliness—like prayers—went on no matter what.

  So, too, did human anger, to judge by the roused voices Frevisse heard as she approached the laundry door. And one of the voices was Gilbey Dunn’s.

  The other’s, unsurprisingly, was Annie Lauder’s.

  Frevisse smiled narrowly. Gilbey was a bold man if he chose to quarrel with the priory’s laundress. Her will was as strong as her arms and she brooked no interference in her work or her life from anyone.

  Not needing to go too near the door to hear them, Frevisse stopped at the corner of the building. It helped that the door stood partly open, the laundry’s escaping hot, damp air roiling into a cloud as it met the outside’s chill.

  Annie was saying loudly, “Don’t go honeying to me, Gilbey Dunn! All the village knows you’ve asked her to marry you. You’re as great a fool as that son of hers was, God keep him, if you think I want to hear you wooing me again.”

  “What’s marriage got to do with us, girl? You know as well as I do that I’m not asking her for love. There’s sense to our marrying and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “As surely as I do. She wants to better herself and so do I, and here’s the way to do it.”

  “You’re always out to better yourself.” But she said it less angrily. “You’ve gotten what you want from me, and now you’ll have what you want from her, and that’s the end of it between us.”

  And Gilbey answered, “Why should it be over between us? Don’t you like what I bring when we’re together?”

  “It’s little enough you bring me,” Annie returned, but playfully now.