The Hunter’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Miles straightened. “Because I didn’t know before. Now it’s all of a whole. He killed Sir Ralph and then tried to ruin Lady Anneys, all as a way to have control over the marriages so he could profit from them.”

  ‘It was a savage murder done on Sir Ralph,“ Dame Frevisse said, her voice still soft and careful, her gaze still fixed on Miles. ”He wasn’t hit only once. He wasn’t simply killed. His head was smashed in, struck, and crushed again and again and again. That wasn’t murder merely for profit’s sake. It was murder done from hatred, and I’ve heard no one say Sir William hated Sir Ralph. But you did. You still do.“

  Hugh straightened away from the wall and said, “We all hated Sir Ralph. That makes it likely for any of us to have done it. Me as much as Miles.”

  ‘Yes,“ Dame Frevisse agreed without looking away from Miles. ”Except you didn’t deliberately murder Sir William. Miles did.“

  Lady Anneys stood up, protesting, “He didn’t!” as Hugh exclaimed, “You’re wrong,” and Philippa said, “No!”

  Only Miles said nothing and Dame Frevisse looked away from him to Hugh to ask, “You know what happened to make Bevis attack Sir William?”

  ‘Miles stumbled and while he was off guard Sir William went for him,“ Hugh answered without hesitation. ”Went for him with the dagger. That’s enough to set any wolfhound from defense to attack when they’re defending someone the way Bevis was defending Miles then.“

  ‘I know,“ Dame Frevisse said. ”I’ve had to do with wolfhounds before this.“

  Hugh went wary, hoping his face was as blank as he meant it to be. Most nuns were of gentry if not noble families; any of them might well have had to do with hounds before entering the nunnery. But the way Dame Frevisse said it warned him there was something more than that.

  ‘Wolfhounds,“ she said, ”except when on the hunt, are the gentlest of dogs. They’re bred to be.“

  ‘Except when on the hunt or defending someone,“ Hugh said.

  ‘Or when they think they’re defending someone,“ Dame Frevisse said. ”You could see what happened even more clearly than I did. Miles didn’t truly stumble, did he?“

  A swift denial of that would have been best; but Hugh, fatally, froze and Dame Frevisse returned her look to Miles. “You seemed to stumble as Sir William came at you with his dagger. Bevis was defending you, and because you seemed thrown off your balance and off guard, he did what he had been warning he would do. He attacked.”

  ‘He was defending Miles,“ Hugh said fiercely—the more fiercely because Miles was saying nothing.

  ‘Sir William knew wolfhounds, too,“ Dame Frevisse said. ”He must have known how far he could push what he was doing, His dagger thrust wasn’t meant to come anywhere near to Miles and it didn’t. It was because Miles seemed to stumble just at that moment…“

  ‘Did stumble,“ Hugh said sharply. ”Not seemed. Did“ Said it too sharply, too desperately, willing Miles to say nothing, to let things lie where they were, leave the denying to him.

  Maybe Miles would have, but Philippa stood up and said, “It wasn’t my father killed Sir Ralph. I did.”

  Chapter 22

  In weary, protesting grief Lady Anneys said, “Oh, Philippa, no,” at the same moment that Miles stood up, saying, “Philippa!”

  Ignoring them both, Philippa said at Dame Frevisse, “Anyone can tell you I’d left the gathering place and wasn’t there when Sir Ralph was killed.”

  ‘You left the gathering place with Miles and you came back with him,“ Dame Frevisse said.

  ‘He… we didn’t stay together. He went off one way and I met Sir Ralph and… killed him.“

  ‘That’s feeble,“ Miles said at her angrily. ”It’s the truth,“ Philippa returned, refusing to look away from Dame Frevisse.

  Miles caught her by the arm and turned her roughly toward him. “Stop it!”

  Philippa looked down at his hand on her. He looked, too, then jerked his hand away from her as if burned and would have turned away except Philippa now caught him by his arm, holding him where he was before she moved closer to him, took his face between her hands, and said up at him, intensely tender, “Never think it, my heart. He never cared what he did. You do. You’re not him in any way.”

  Hugh held back from any word or movement, until after a long moment of staring down at Philippa, Miles closed his eyes and let out a shaken breath, accepting what she had said. She put her arms around him and his arms went around her and they clung together. Hugh breathed again. If they could hold like that—together and silent—then there was chance…

  ‘My guess would be,“ Dame Frevisse said evenly, ”that Sir Ralph did indeed come on you in the wood, Philippa, but you were with Miles, and Sir Ralph went into a rage. He did something or said something or both, and Miles killed him.“

  Philippa turned around, out of Miles’ arms, to face her. “No. It happened like I said.”

  ‘That can’t have been the way of it, Philippa,“ Lady Anneys said. ”You had no blood on you when you came back to the gathering place. I know. I looked for it on everyone and there was none on anyone. Not on you or Miles or anyone. You don’t have to tell this lie.“

  ‘It’s not a lie. It’s no more a lie than saying Miles set Bevis to kill my father!“

  And Miles did the one thing Hugh had hoped he would not do. He turned his head and looked at him—a long meeting of their eyes—and Hugh knew that everything he was feeling was naked on his face for Miles to read there— beginning with the sickened certainty that Miles had indeed deliberately set Bevis to kill Sir William.

  Hugh had had that dark knowing with him all day, since he had wrenched his eyes away from Sir William’s torn corpse and seen, instead, Miles’ face triumphant with raw pleasure.

  Then Bevis had staggered and they had realized he was hurt and had both gone to him, and when Miles saw how bad the wound was, he had grabbed the dagger out of the rib-bone where it had stuck, and made at Sir William’s corpse. Only when Hugh had grabbed him and they had stared into each other’s faces did Miles seem suddenly to understand what he had been about to do—maybe saw Hugh’s horror at him, too—because his raw savagery had turned to something close to that same horror and he had dropped the dagger and hidden his face.

  Since then Hugh had taken care not to meet Miles’ gaze. Until now. When very surely Miles could see his certainty that it wasn’t only Sir William he had killed.

  And still Dame Frevisse went on, now at Miles, saying, “Philippa will lie for you for as long as she has any hope it will save you. She’ll lie and you’ll lie and others will believe your lies or pretend to believe them and lie for you, too, until neither you nor anyone else knows when you’re telling the truth and when you’re not. You won’t know what the truth is anymore, even between each other. You know too well how long-lived anger can corrupt and darken lives. Do you think living in lies won’t do the same?”

  Miles was heeding her. He had turned his head away from Hugh and was listening to her, and Hugh searched desperately for something to say, anything he could say to keep Miles or Philippa from answering her.

  But it was Lady Anneys who said with quiet force, “Leave it, Dame Frevisse. All of it. Sir Ralph’s death. Sir William’s death. Leave them as they are. And you, Miles, you will be quiet. You’ll say nothing else. Nor you, Philippa. Leave it, Dame Frevisse. Here and now it’s done.”

  ‘It can’t be left where it is,“ Dame Frevisse insisted. ”You can’t—“

  ‘We can.“ Lady Anneys did not raise her voice. ”We’re broken pieces of what should have been a family. Sir Ralph’s cruelty kept us from ever being whole and we’ve had too little chance to mend since he’s been dead. We need that chance. We’ll never be as we might have been if we’d been always whole, but mended is better than broken, healed wounds better than unhealed wounds. If we start searching for ’justice‘ now, everything will only be made worse, broken into pieces so small we’ll never mend. Leave it as it is. That Sir Ralph was killed by some
one unknown who will never be caught. That Sir William brought his death on himself. Leave it and leave us to make what we can of what we have left. Please.“

  That last was as much command as plea.

  ‘The truth—“ Dame Frevisse started to answer.

  Lady Anneys cut her off. “The truth is that between them Sir Ralph and Sir William tore us all into pieces and broke us, and if ever we’re going to mend, the truth of things here is no one’s business but our own.” Her voice hardened into plain command. “So leave it.”

  Dame Frevisse stared at her. She stared back. No one moved. No one spoke.

  Then Miles drew breath as if to say something, and more sharply than Hugh had ever heard her speak, Lady Anneys ordered at him, “No.”

  And Miles held silent.

  Dame Frevisse rose abruptly to her feet and went toward the door. Hugh barely gathered his mind enough to open it and stand aside before she reached it, and without even glance at him, she left, leaving silence behind her save for the soft fall of the rain outside the window.

  It was a long silence. Then finally Lady Anneys drew an unsteady breath and was no longer rigid but only sitting, her shoulders a little bowed, and that released the rest of them. Miles gently seated Philippa in her chair again and stayed standing beside her while Hugh crossed to sit on the chest under the window where Dame Frevisse had been, and reached a hand toward Lady Anneys, who gave him one of her own, holding to him tightly as she said softly, “It would have maybe been better, Philippa, if you’d said nothing.”

  ‘I was afraid,“ Philippa said. ”I was afraid that if she went on saying…“ She stopped but the unsaid words were there, no need to say them. If Dame Frevisse had gone on saying what she had been saying about Sir William’s death, Miles might have admitted what none of them wanted to hear. ”I was afraid,“ Philippa repeated and left it there.

  ‘Unfortunately,“ Lady Anneys said, her voice oddly empty of feeling, ”what she said about lies and their corruption is true. And it’s a pointless corruption here among us, because, lie how we may, we know the truth. That one of us did kill Sir Ralph.“ She looked at Miles, who looked back, his face as empty as her level voice going on, ”We’ve all known from the very first that it was one of us who killed him. It’s only been desperate pretense that it wasn’t.“

  In silence again, she and Miles looked at each other. Then he said, “I killed him. Yes.” He straightened. Weight seeming to slip from his shoulders. A weight that had been crippling him, Hugh realized. And now that those few words were said, Miles said the rest, pouring it out with a hatred-tainted anger oddly mixed with raw grief. “Sir Ralph came on Philippa and I alone together. It was too apparent why we were together and alone. He flew into one of his rages. He was so angered he choked on it. He couldn’t even yell he was so furious. He backhanded me in the face and swore he’d see Philippa locked up until she was married to Tom and that he’d geld me if I tried to see her again. He grabbed Philippa by the arm. He hurt her and I hit him.” Miles stopped and looked at Hugh. “The way one of us should have done years ago, because all the years when I hadn’t hit him were in that blow. I knocked him down and before he could get up I kicked him in the head and then I took up a rock that was there and… finished it.”

  Hugh had dropped his gaze to the floor before Miles finished, unable to look at him, remembering what Sir Ralph’s head had been like. As if all the beatings he had ever given had been returned to him in one. And maybe they were all thinking that because for a long moment no one said anything. Only finally, with no particular feeling except curiosity, Lady Anneys asked, “How did you do that and stay unbloodied?”

  Perhaps because she asked it so evenly, Hugh was able to look up and watch Miles as he answered evenly back, “I had my doublet off when Sir Ralph found us together. It was my shirt and upper hosen that took the blood. I washed the shirt…”

  ‘We washed it,“ Philippa said, claiming her part in it.

  ‘We washed it,“ Miles agreed. ”We went away from Sir Ralph’s body, back along the path we’d taken from the gathering place to where there’s a small stream. We were there when you found him, Hugh.“ Miles looked at him and this time Hugh met his look, accepting it because his mother and Philippa were accepting it. ”That’s why we were so long coming back to everyone. I had to put the shirt back on wet, but the doublet is thick. By the time it was soaked through, it passed for sweat if anyone noticed at all. I don’t think anyone did. Not with all else that was going on. And the doublet is long enough it hid most of the blood-spattered part of my hosen and they were dark enough the blood didn’t much show after I’d rubbed some dirt over them. By the time I gave them over to be washed here, the blood was so long dried there was no telling it wasn’t from the hunt.“

  ‘Then all we had to do was keep quiet,“ said Philippa. ”Pretend to know nothing more than anyone else did.“

  She said it simply but then shuddered, her hands suddenly gripping each other in her lap, and she began to cry. Miles dropped to his knees in front of her, taking her hands in his own and looking up into her face, saying, “I’m sorry, Philippa. I’m sorry it came to this. I’m sorry.”

  Philippa fell into greater sobs and bent forward to put her arms around him and her face against his shoulder. He put his arms around her waist, his face pressed against her hair; but behind him Lady Anneys said, “Now admit the rest,” and Miles jerked back from Philippa.

  Without rising, he pivoted to face Lady Anneys and said, barely above a whisper, “The rest?”

  ‘The thing Philippa kept you from saying to Dame Frevisse.“

  ‘No.“

  Lady Anneys leaned toward him. “It has to be said.” Her voice was low and steady, her look at him unwavering. “It’s leaving it to rot in the dark will poison your life and Philippa’s.”

  ‘He doesn’t have to say it,“ Philippa said, laying her hands on Miles’ shoulders from behind. ”There’s no need!“

  But there was need. If Hugh had not seen Miles’ face after Sir William’s death, he might well have failed to understand that, but what he had seen in Miles then should not be left in silence where the rot of it would only spread. The only hope Hugh had came from the horror that had swept though Miles afterward, because it meant he was not dead inside himself to what he’d done. But it had to be said. Whatever damage the truth would do among them, lies— or even a silence that was the same as lies—would do worse.

  ‘Miles,“ Lady Anneys said. ”Philippa already knows. We all know. It’s for you that you have to say it. Admit to it. Accept it. Leave no room to lie to yourself about it. It’s how I survived those years with Sir Ralph. By never lying to myself about what I felt or what I thought. It’s by truth and whatever penance goes with it that we stay strong and grow. Not by darkness and lies. You have to say it.“

  ‘No,“ Philippa sobbed.

  ‘Philippa, you have to accept it as fully as he does,“ Lady Anneys said relentlessly. As she must have been relentless with herself all of her years with Sir Ralph. ”You have to accept it or else reject him because of it, but don’t think you can ignore it or deny it. It can’t be left to twist and go foul in the dark between you. Miles.“

  Miles stood up, turned to Philippa, took her by the hands and drew her to her feet, then let go her hands and said, “I killed your father. I seemed to stumble because I knew that would set Bevis at him. I meant for Bevis to kill him.”

  And now it was Philippa who had to choose but her choice had been made before ever Miles said anything and she drew close to him, whispered something in his ear that no one else heard, and then, as Miles sank to his knees in front of her, his body shaken with sobs, she sat quickly down, and took his head on her lap, her own tears falling on him as she leaned over him, holding him.

  ‘How often I wished,“ Lady Anneys said softly, maybe for only Hugh beside her to hear, ”through the years, that I could have cried. Instead of simply hating.“

  But she had not simply hated, Hugh
thought. She had loved, too. Loved strongly enough that they had not been destroyed by Sir Ralph’s dark-heartedness. They had all been tainted by it, yes, but not so destroyed that, now, they couldn’t face the darkness and fight it instead of giving up to it.

  Not so destroyed that they couldn’t love.

  The rain had stopped and the cool, gray afternoon was drawing on when Sister Johane found Frevisse in Lady Anneys’ arbor. The thick leaves had kept off most of the rain; the benches were dry enough and in the while that Frevisse had been there only Alson from the kitchen had come out once, to ask if she wanted anything. Frevisse had not and otherwise she had been left alone; had tried to pray but not much succeeded; had tried to make peace with her thoughts and utterly failed. So she welcomed the distraction Sister Johane might be.

  But Sister Johane sat on the facing bench, still a little unsure of her welcome, and explained, “Lady Elyn has come to cry on her mother for a while. Lucy and I came back with her.”