The Hunter’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  ‘Besides,“ said Ursula at her sister, scornfully, ”they have to wear it.“

  Lucy wiped at her forehead. “Then there’s another reason I’ll never be a nun.”

  Lady Anneys wiped at her forehead, too, then pressed her hand to it, her eyes closed. For coolness’ sake, she wore only a loose veil over her hair and no wimple at all, but her face was an odd shade of white and Frevisse asked, thinking the day’s warmth was too much for her, “My lady, are you ill?”

  ‘One of my headaches,“ Lady Anneys said.

  ‘It isn’t better?“ Ursula asked, then said to Sister Johane, ”She took fennel and that usually helps.“

  ‘It hasn’t this time,“ Lady Anneys said. ”It’s that the day’s so warm, I think.“ Her voice wavered, as if thinking were difficult. ”It’s worsening. Do you have something stronger that might help, Sister?“

  ‘Yes, but you’d best come inside, out of the sun, and lie down while I ready it.“ Sister Johane sounded very much like Dame Claire in one of her brisker moments. ”Ursula, please pick me some balm and bring it after us. I’ll be in the kitchen after I’ve seen your mother to her bed.“

  Lady Anneys and Sister Johane went away together, Ursula picked a goodly handful of the balm and hurried out of the garden after them, and Frevisse asked Lucy, “What can I do? If you point me to what a weed looks like, I can try to pull out nothing else.”

  ‘I’m tired of weeds,“ Lucy said. ”Let’s head the basil for a while.“

  Frevisse was willing to that. Whereas one green plant looked much like another to her, making her a peril in the garden when it came to weeding, she could tell a plain leaf from a flower and plucking off the flower stems from basil plants, to keep the herb usable for longer, was well within her ability. Besides, the spicey scent of the basil in the warm sunshine and on her fingers was pleasant and soothing and she was willing to be soothed just now. Even Lucy’s talk was undisturbing, since so little thought needed be given to it, Lucy giving so little to it herself. She started with mourning her mother’s headache, went on to say she liked the smell of basil, and, “Sister Johane is so clever about herbs. She made my eyes stop being red after I’d cried so much for Tom. She’s given me something to bathe them with when I’ve been crying again. I don’t know what it is, though.”

  ‘Eyebright,“ Frevisse murmured.

  ‘That might be it. There can hardly be anything more useful than knowing how to do things like that, don’t you think? I mean to have her teach me things like that while she’s here. When there’s less going on.“

  Frevisse kept to herself that thought that Lucy was probably someone who often meant to do things, only to be satisfied that the intent was as good as the deed and did nothing. Working far more slowly from plant to plant than Frevisse was—despite Frevisse was making no haste—Lucy had talked her way around to how she hoped Ursula didn’t go back to the nunnery, she was better at reading aloud than Lucy was and so Lucy didn’t have to do it if Ursula was home—“Besides, I like listening better than having to read”—by the time Sister Johane came back into the garden, her own sleeves rolled up now and worry on her face. Interrupting Lucy as if she knew that were the best way to get a word in, she said, “Dame Frevisse, I know it’s almost time for Nones but I’m in the midst of mixing the drink for Lady Anneys and I’d like to sit with her after she’s taken it. Might I miss prayers this time?”

  ‘There are more ways than one to pray,“ Frevisse said. ”What you’re doing can be prayer in its way. And it’s certainly a mercy. Of course go on with it.“

  Lucy watched Sister Johane hurry out of the garden and said as if the two had no business together, “She’s quite pretty. Why did she ever become a nun?”

  Frevisse settled for, “Her aunt was our prioress at the time,” and that was sufficient to satisfy Lucy, who shifted to talking happily of her hope that Hugh would see to arranging her marriage soon.

  ‘Though he’ll probably marry Philippa before he sees to mine, and that will have to wait until we’ve done the mourning time for Tom.“

  Frevisse had been about to excuse herself to say Nones but asked instead, “Does Philippa mind she’s to marry Hugh, not Tom?”

  ‘Oh, I don’t know she liked Tom better than she likes Hugh so it’s much the same to her, I should think.“ Lucy gave another sigh, this one just short of tears. ”It’s Tom I feel sorry for. I do so miss Tom. Everything is so wrong without him.“

  ‘Wrong?“

  Not the same. I was already used to Father being gone, and Master Selenger had been coming to see Mother all the time and that was so sweet—except she went away and I don’t understand why, except it was too soon after Father died for her to be interested in Master Selenger, I suppose— and Tom was going to marry Philippa. Everything was good and now it isn’t. I hardly get to see Elyn or Philippa, and Master Selenger isn’t welcome here anymore and Hugh is unhappy…“

  ‘More unhappy than after your father’s death?“

  ‘Oh, much more unhappy. He loved Tom.“ She lowered her voice. ”He doesn’t want to be lord of the manor. He just wants to be with his dogs and go hunting.“ She tossed her head. ”But that’s just too bad for him. He’s just going to have to make the best of it and that’s all there is to it.“

  Frevisse had long since ceased to be surprised that “that’s all there is to it” always applied to other people and rarely to the person saying it. She knew she should go aside to her prayers now, but since Lucy was so ready to talk and another chance with her alone might not come so easily, Frevisse quelled her conscience and said, “If Hugh’s badly missing his father and brother, that makes it all harder for him.”

  ‘If anyone is missing Father, it’s Hugh,“ Lucy granted. ”They both liked the hounds and hunting. Now there’s just Hugh likes the hunting. Until we can be friends with Sir William again, I suppose.“

  ‘Don’t you like the hunting?“

  Lucy shrugged a shoulder. They had finished with the basil but she was too happy with talking to move on to something else. “Not much. Noise and blood. That’s all it is.”

  ‘But you were there on the hunt the day your father died, weren’t you?“

  ‘There for the hare-hunting? Never.“ Lucy found the thought displeasing. ”You can’t imagine how stupid that is-No, Mother and Philippa and I were at the gathering place with the food and servants, that’s all. That’s the only good part about the hunting. We eat and sit on cushions by the stream and talk. That day we sang, too. Philippa and her uncle sing lovely together. And Miles,“ she added, as if surprised. ”He can sing, too, when he wants to. But he hardly ever wants to.“ She giggled. ”He did that day, though, because Philippa was.“ She leaned toward Frevisse and lowered her voice, as if imparting a choice secret. ”I think he’s fond of her. You know?“

  ‘Ah,“ Frevisse said, trying to sound only lightly interested. ”And is she fond of him?“

  Lucy frowned. “She likes him but I can’t get her to say it’s more than that, no matter how I push her to.”

  Frevisse held back from pointing out that if Philippa was to marry Hugh, trying to make her admit to caring for Miles was hardly kind. Instead, while she looked for a way to lead on to anything about Sir Ralph’s murder, Lucy went on, “They went off together that day. That’s all I know. And they didn’t hurry back even when the shouting started. When Hugh found Father’s body, there was so much shouting, you know.”

  ‘They went off together? Miles and Philippa? Looking for the dog that ran off, you mean?“

  Lucy laughed. “Hardly! Father went, and Hugh and Degory, and they were no more than gone when Sir William said he might as well look, too, as sit there, and he and Master Selenger went off, too. I asked Miles if he wasn’t going to go. He said he wasn’t, but Philippa said she was tired of sitting and wanted him to walk with her.”

  ‘So the forest is fairly open there?“ Most forests—especially those kept for hunting—were less trees than open ground, with large clearing
s and little undergrowth. It was something Frevisse only now considered about Sir Ralph’s death. How had he been so away from the others that he could be killed and no one either see or hear it happen or catch sight of his murderer?

  But Lucy said, “Oh, no. It’s not open at all. The king’s forest—the royal chase that Father has right… had right to—that’s clear and open, of course, but Father always kept our woods thicker. For coverts, you know. If the deer had places to hide, they’d stay nearer, that’s what he said. He only let the villagers use it a little, for fattening the pigs on acorns in the autumn and hardly at all to gather wood. He and Tom used to quarrel over that. Tom said it wasn’t fair people had to go so far for wood—there’s another bit of woodland at a far end of the manor—and Father said he didn’t care. I remember once Tom yelled at him, ‘If you didn’t like pork, you probably wouldn’t even let the pigs in to fatten,’ and Father yelled back, ‘You’re damnably right I wouldn’t!’” Lucy laughed, then lowered her voice again, though Frevisse didn’t know who else was likely to hear her. “But I think the villagers took more wood from there than Father knew about and I think Tom let them. He just kept quiet and never fined anyone unless Father caught them at it himself.”

  ‘But Philippa wanted to walk there?“

  Lucy shrugged her shoulder again. “There are paths. They went off along one of those.” She lowered her voice to almost a whisper and leaned toward Frevisse. “I don’t think Mother or Elyn liked it but I asked Elyn something and kept her talking to me until they were gone.”

  And they had not come quickly back even when the shouting over Sir Ralph’s body began. Frevisse, not worried Lucy would make too much of any questions—the girl enjoyed talking too much to pause for thinking—asked, “So you and your mother and Lady Elyn were alone, still at the gathering place, when Sir Ralph’s body was found? What did you do?”

  Lucy’s eyes grew big. “We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t even know what the shouting was about.” Whatever horror there had been that day had been, for her, replaced by the pleasure of being horrified by it all over again. “Nobody else knew either. Sir William came crashing back into the clearing, wanting to know what was happening, were we all right, told us to stay there, then ran off toward the shouting. The dogs all started barking and we tried to quiet them and then Degory came, with a great, bleeding scratch down one side of his face, and he was crying and said Sir Ralph was dead and he had to fetch Tom and Father Leonel. After that Mother and Elyn and I just stood there, holding on to each other, not even crying, just waiting to find out what had happened, not believing it could be that bad. It was forever before Tom and Father Leonel came and of course they didn’t know anything either, but then Master Selenger came back to us and he knew. Sir William had sent him and he told us all that someone had killed Sir Ralph and that Father Leonel and Tom had better come see the body because they couldn’t leave it there for the crowner, but Mother and Elyn and Philippa and I had better go back to the manor. It was terrible.”

  ‘When did Philippa and Miles come back to you?“

  “Oh, sometime then, while all that was happening. We told them what Degory had said and Miles went off to join the rest of them.” Lucy lowered her voice again. “We were never even let to see Father’s body when they brought it back. Did you know that? Not even Mother. Isn’t that awful?”

  Frevisse agreed it was, tried to think what else she might get out of Lucy, but decided to excuse herself at last to say Nones. “I’ll just go into the arbor if that won’t bother you.”

  Oh no, of course it won’t. But don’t you need your book?“

  It’s in the bedchamber and I won’t chance disturbing Lady Anneys. I know it mostly by heart.“

  By heart,“ Lucy said with awe. ”Oh, my. I mean to learn some of my prayers that way sometime. I mean, besides the paternoster and ave.“

  Frevisse granted that would be a good thing and went to settle to Nones in the arbor, leaving the girl poking among the feverfew for weeds.

  Chapter 16

  Lady Anneys was not at dinner but, “I gave her something to help her to sleep as well as ease her headache,” Sister Johane said to Hugh’s question.

  Nor was Miles there, and when Ursula asked about him, Hugh answered, “He said at breakfast he was going off to Beech Heath. That’s too far for being back by now.”

  ‘He’s always gone somewhere,“ Ursula complained. ”Even more than before.“

  ‘He’ll be gone altogether after Michaelmas,“ said Lucy. She leaned forward to say past Hugh to Frevisse and Sister Johane, That’s when he means to go to his own manor in Leicestershire.” She sat back and added to Ursula, goading older sister to younger, “We’ll probably never see him again after that.”

  “Of course we’ll see him,” said Hugh impatiently, shoving the cheese tart to her instead of politely serving her.

  Lucy stared indignantly first at the tart, then at him, but Ursula reached for it and willingly helped herself while insisting, “He doesn’t have to go. Father hardly ever went. He could just stay here like always.”

  ‘He’ll want to marry, you goose,“ Lucy said. ”His wife won’t want to be here with all of us. Whoever she is,“ she added, trying to sound meaningful about it.

  No one chose to take a meaning from it; or if they did, they kept it to themselves in a thick silence that made Frevisse wonder if some besides Lucy had thoughts about Miles and Philippa. Did Hugh suspect he might have a rival for his proposed wife? The day of the inquest, when everyone had been here and she might have noted something, Frevisse had known too little about anyone to be much judging what she saw. Had she seen anything particular between Miles and Philippa then? Or between Hugh and Philippa, come to that. She remembered nothing, but it had hardly been the time or place for something that way, anyway. But what if Lucy was not merely making trouble when she talked of Miles and Philippa? What would happen if that was real and they were foolish?

  In the while she had been here, it had become plain to her that there was friendship between Hugh and Miles. That made her think better of Miles than she might have. With his bitter edge and sharp tongue, friendship with him could not have come easily; that it was there between him and Hugh meant there must be more to him than she had so far seen. And judging by the tender way Lady Anneys had leaned from her chair and stroked Miles’ hair back from his hot forehead the other evening, when he had been sitting °n the parlor floor playing at jackstraws with Ursula, and how he had paused to smile up at her, he was—as Father Leonel had said—a son in all but blood, as dear as Hugh and her daughters openly were. Frevisse guessed that despite all that Sir Ralph had done to ruin these people—when they might have chosen to be as savage to each other as he was to all of them—they had all banded together instead, made a hard knot of family against him and guarded each other as best they could. And that, Frevisse suspected, was Lady Anneys’ doing more than anyone’s. She had outwardly submitted to Sir Ralph because she had to and must have kept much of herself buried beyond his reach through the years of her marriage; but she had never surrendered. She had loved and sheltered her sons and Miles and her daughters as best she could and now—if she could have peace for a while and a chance to heal—maybe she could become herself, instead of Sir Ralph’s wife, just as they all had chance to live as themselves now Sir Ralph was dead.

  And yet…

  Listening without heed to Lucy trying to persuade Hugh that they all needed to go to Banbury market next week— “For something different to do!” she pleaded—and him telling her, “Not while harvest is on,” and eating without noting the pottage of broad beans fried with onions and sage set before her, Frevisse probed at the uneasy edge of her thoughts. And yet… what?

  Behind the affection among them all and beyond the relief of Sir Ralph’s death and the still-raw grief for Tom there was something else.

  She put a word to it.

  Wariness.

  Not that wariness was unreasonable, given the hel
l Sir Ralph seemed to have kept them in while he lived.

  But he was dead now.

  Was it simply that it was too soon after his death to leave behind all the old ways of feeling? Lucy seemed to have done so; Frevisse felt no undercurrents or shut doors in her. But from the others… even Ursula… there was that sense of wariness, of being guarded. Against what?

  The meal was ended. As they rose from their places, Ursula asked, “Can you keep us company awhile, Hugh?”

  He tweaked one of her long, braided plaits. “I fear not. I’m going out with Father Leonel to see how the harvest is coming on.”

  ‘The way Tom used to,“ Lucy said, all mournful.

  Hugh sent her a glance of dislike. “Yes. Like Tom used to,” he snapped, then said to Ursula, more kindly, “I want to see how much longer it’s likely to be before we need to hunt a deer for the harvest-home feast.”