10 The Squire's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  ‘Over what?“

  ‘This Allesley business. What else? I don’t know what set them off. The other women and I were with Lady Blaunche in her bedchamber and they were in the parlor and we didn’t hear what started them, only from where they were too angry to keep their voices down. First it was Benedict shouting that Master Fenner was a fool not to keep Katherine’s wealth in Fenner hands instead of giving it over to people who didn’t deserve the luck. Master Fenner shouted back that no matter what Benedict thought and come what may, he was to keep his mouth shut while the dealings with the Allesleys went on or he’d find himself out the door for once and all and not a penny with him to see him on his way.“

  ‘What did Lady Blaunche do at that?“

  ‘By then she was sobbing and trying to leave her bed and Mistress Avys and Master Geoffrey were trying to keep her there and I went out to those two fools in the parlor.“ Grim as Dame Claire sounded over it now, she must have been more so then. ”They were so busy being angry they didn’t even know I was there until I came between them and told them what I thought of them.“

  ‘And that ended it?“ Frevisse asked, not doubting it did. Despite that Dame Claire was so small-built a woman, when she was angry she was not someone with whom anyone usually argued.

  ‘It would have for Master Fenner. He backed away, said well enough that he was sorry, and started to make for the door, but…“ Dame Claire’s steps slowed, and although no one else was near enough to hear, dropped her voice even lower than it already was. ”But Benedict said after him— thank mercy too low for anyone but Master Fenner and me to hear him—that the reason Master Fenner wouldn’t let him have Katherine was because Master Fenner wanted her for himself.“

  Not trying to hide she was startled but quick to Robert’s defense, Frevisse said, “He’d not be so willing to give her up to the Allesleys if that were the way of it.”

  ‘That’s my thought, too. But the look on his face…“ Dame Claire shook her head at memory of it. ”He looked as if he wished the floor would open up under Benedict and take him, and it was as if he could barely get the words out when he said he didn’t care what Benedict thought about anything so long as he kept it to himself and kept out of the way until he could keep his manners better than he kept his tongue. Then he left and Benedict started in to see his mother and I told him he couldn’t and he went away across the room to gloom to himself, I suppose.“

  And had still been glooming at dinner, by the look of him. But he had kept his tongue, at any rate.

  “Then I went back to Lady Blaunche,” Dame Claire was going on, “just in time to see her grab Katherine by the wrist…”

  ‘Katherine was there?“

  ‘Being readied for the Allesleys, with Lady Blaunche telling that girl Emelye and Mistress Dionisia everything to do as if they had no wits of their own. Emelye may not, come to that. But Lady Blaunche caught hold on Katherine and told her to remember that all she need do is flat refuse to marry an Allesley, and Master Fenner would never force her to it.“

  Frevisse shook her head slowly in what she wished was disbelief that while Robert was working to make the best he could out of what was never his fault, his wife was still intent on balking him by any means she could manage. Briefly, she looked toward Katherine and Drew, laughing together, and then up at the parlor window, from where all the garden could be seen by anyone leaning even a little way out, and said, “If she sees them together thus, she’s going to be even more unhappy than she is.”

  ‘Merely unhappy would be a blessing. What she’ll be is furious. I can only hope she’s kept to her bed the way I ordered.“

  ‘Who’s with her now?“

  ‘Master Geoffrey, Mistress Avys and Emelye. For what it’s worth, so far as Mistress Avys and Emelye count. Mistress Avys enjoys being upset with Lady Blaunche, I think, and Emelye is too afraid of her—or at least too wary—to be much use. Master Geoffrey is more use than both of them put together and doubled. When all that Mistress Avys has to offer is pity for ’my poor lady’s plight‘—and that’s like tossing dry pinecones into a hot fire; all it does is stir Lady Blaunche to greater fretting—Master Geoffrey at least tries to quiet her by reminding her that too much choler is good for neither her nor the child. And just ere dinner, to divert her, he brought out an account roll he said she should work over with him.“

  ‘To give her something else to think on than her wrongs?“

  ‘Even so. Mind you, when she saw it was the accounts for this manor there’s all the trouble over, she threw it across the room and swore at him and was reaching for something else to throw—at him, I think—but he caught her hand and pointed out that maybe they could show by plain figures from the account roll that the manor had gained in worth while she held it, and if they did, then the Allesleys would have less grounds for demanding compensation along with its return.“

  ‘Someone should have thought of that before,“ Frevisse said.

  ‘I think someone did. Gil had just come to fetch Katherine down to dinner and I was near him and half heard him mutter, ’… thinks we’re all sheeps’ heads.‘ My guess would be Master Fenner thought of it long since but knew Lady Blaunche would take nothing of it from him.“

  ‘But she took it from Master Geoffrey.“

  ‘Just now, angry at her husband as she is, she’ll take just about anything from anyone else, rather than from him and from Master Geoffrey before anyone else.“

  Frevisse cast her a sidewise, questioning look to which Dame Claire shook her head.

  ‘No, I don’t think there’s anything untoward between her and Master Geoffrey. He flatters her and is pleasant company because that’s the surest way to keep his place, from what Mistress Avys has said about how the last clerk of the household lost his, but Master Geoffrey has sense enough to know…“ Dame Claire broke off and said instead, her voice changed, ”Here comes what could be trouble.“

  Frevisse had been walking with her head down but she raised it at Dame Claire’s warning in time to see Mistress Dionisia rising to her feet from the bench and Gil and Drew’s servant straightening from where they had been leaning against the pentice post to make curtsy and bows to Benedict and Emelye just coming through the gateway. Worse, Katherine and Drew, just finishing another circle of the garden, were approaching the gate with no way to turn aside from the newcomers; and without need to say anything between them, Frevisse and Dame Claire walked a little the faster, to bring them up to the others sooner—before anything could happen, was Frevisse’s thought but all that she said aloud, very low, was, “Sent by Lady Blaunche, do you think?”

  As quietly, Dame Claire returned, “Without even pause for doubt, yes.”

  They joined the others just as Benedict was saying in not the most friendly of voices, “We thought to enjoy the garden, too, while the weather is fair.”

  ‘Of course,“ said Katherine pleasantly if somewhat too quickly, and after a gap of silence, the six of them looking at one another, she added, ”We’ve been fortunate in the weather, haven’t we?“

  It was generally agreed they had, and Emelye added brightly, “Though I love the way everything smells so sweetly after rain, don’t you?”

  It seemed everyone did, and while they were agreeing on it, Katherine began to drift away toward the nearest garden path. Inevitably, Drew drifted with her, and if her intent was to put distance between Drew and Benedict, she was helped by Gil stepping forward at that moment to ask Benedict, “Am I wanted at the hall, do you know, sir?” because when Benedict turned with a scowl to tell him that he wasn’t as far as Benedict knew, Katherine took the chance to turn full away to the path, Drew going with her.

  Benedict, turning away from Gil, as quickly took Emelye by the elbow and moved to follow but even more quickly Frevisse said to Dame Claire, “Shall we walk?” and with more haste than grace shifted the two of them directly into Benedict and Emelye’s way, between them and Katherine and Drew. The respite would be brief because, although the gar
den paths were only wide enough for two to walk side by side at a time, the garden was laid out in the common way, with squared beds with paths all right-angled between them, and if Benedict was set on making trouble, there was nothing to stop him from turning into a crosspath to go around the garden beds and come face-on to Drew and Katherine sooner or later, with no likely way Frevisse could see to stop him, and to Dame Claire’s whispered question, “Is there anything we can do?” she could only shake her head.

  It was Drew who had a solution, although it took her a time to see it, thinking at first that at every crossing of the paths he was directing Katherine with small, gracious gestures of his hand to turn leftward or rightward into the crosspath simply for the sake of varying from the straight way he and Katherine had gone from garden’s end to garden’s end before this. Not until perhaps the fifth or sixth time he turned did she see of a sudden what he was doing and it told her that either Katherine had warned him Benedict might want trouble or he had quickly guessed it for himself. Whichever way it was, he was wending a way that would deliberately keep himself and Benedict apart, because after he and Katherine had turned at a corner of the path, anyone behind them had the choice of following them or turning the other way or going straightly on. If Benedict went straightly on after they had turned, then all Drew and Katherine need do to avoid coming face-to-face with him was at the next crossing of paths turn away, putting more distance between them and him. If Benedict turned the opposite way to theirs, then they need merely slow their pace and wait to see which way he turned at his next crosspath, to know which way to turn farther away from him. And if Benedict simply followed them, then Frevisse and Dame Claire were there, forever a discreet half-dozen paces behind Drew and Katherine and constantly in his way. Benedict could only break the pattern by walking more quickly and that he could not do because of Emelye, talking happily away at his side, keeping him to the same strolling pace as Drew and Katherine, Frevisse and Dame Claire despite how he turned one way and then another, trying to come around face-to-face with Drew again but failing every time.

  And then across the several garden beds that were come between them, just before she and Dame Claire turned away after Drew and Katherine yet again, Frevisse saw him pull up short, his eyes widening with the understanding that maybe he was not being thwarted by chance. He was not fully certain of it yet, she guessed, and for a while longer he went on trying to change the pattern to his favor, but as he found that he could not except by resorting to an ungraciousness that would put him openly in the wrong, his brows came down in a scowling stare at Drew’s back, his face darkening out of ill temper toward plain anger.

  And what would come of that when he was no longer trapped by manners and the garden’s paths, Frevisse did not look forward to seeing.

  Chapter 11

  Rescue came with one of Robert’s servants, sent to bid Katherine and Drew back to the hall. They were not far from the gateway when they saw him coming and met him there, Mistress Dionisia, Gil and the Allesley servant near to hear, too, as the man gave his message and Drew asked, “They’re done for today?”

  ‘Yes, sir.“

  ‘And all’s well?“ Katherine asked as if she would have held back from it if she could. ”No shouting that I heard,“ the man said cheerfully. Benedict, coming up then with Emelye a little short-breathed from haste beside him, muttered something, low enough he could be ignored, but then as the others moved to leave the garden, he started a purposeful move toward Drew. From the corner of her eye Frevisse saw that Gil had expected as much and was moving to cut him off with a look on his face that boded no good to Benedict and without thinking she veered from Dame Claire and across Benedict’s way, to his other side from Emelye, clumsy with her skirts so that he had to falter his stride first for them and then to bow to her while she said, ”For change, why don’t I walk with you awhile, Master Benedict? And Emelye, you can keep Dame Claire company.“

  Awkwardly, Benedict said, “Yes. If you like,” as Gil fell back to join Mistress Dionisia and Drew’s man, and Dame Claire, only a little behind Frevisse’s purpose, drew Emelye ahead to walk with her behind Katherine and Drew going out the gate.

  To leave Benedict less time to sort out what had happened and despite the weather never having been among the things of which she much cared to spend time talking, Frevisse said at him, “Will the weather hold, do you think, or is there going to be more rain?”

  Benedict, perforce, joined her in trying to find something worth the saying about how there had been rain yesterday and there might be more tomorrow or that, possibly, there might not, most of the way back to the manor yard, until Frevisse took pity on his effort and asked out of memory of something half-heard in other talk, “I understand you’re to go into someone else’s household after Easter.”

  Benedict’s sullen countenance changed, brightening much the way one of the much-discussed rainy days did when clouds parted to the sun. “Ned Verney’s,” he said. “He’s our northward neighbor here. I had chance at Sir Walter’s but I’d rather serve Ned, all taken in all. It’s only for two years, until I come of age and into my own, but better with Ned than somewhere else.”

  ‘You don’t mind he’s helped bring on this arbitration she asked, knowing she should not but wanting to know.

  Benedict’s face predictably darkened but not at Ned Verney. “It’s not that much his doing. Robert is the one who’s afraid to fight the Allesleys for what’s ours. When Ned saw he couldn’t change him, all he did was help him out before he made a worse fool of himself over it.”

  That was not the way Frevisse had heard of the business from Katherine and Mistress Dionisia, nor did it sound like Robert as she knew him but more like Lady Blaunche’s displeasure talking; but there was no doubting Benedict believed it, which was pity because it would have been better every way if he had been on Robert’s side instead of his mother’s and to turn him before he goaded himself back into worse humour, she asked, “How soon after Easter do you go to him?”

  His willing talk about that kept them until they passed under the gatehouse arch and into the manor yard where horses and men were already waiting for the arbiters coming down the steps from the hall, with above them Robert, Sir Lewis and Ned Verney coming out the door.

  ‘There’s Ned,“ Benedict said. ”With Robert,“ he added darkly.

  For the first time Frevisse gave Ned Verney a long look. He was a match for Robert in age and build, with the look °f a man confident of himself and his place, standing in talk with Robert and Sir Lewis at the head of the stairs while the arbiters went to their horses. To Frevisse’s relief, as she and Benedict, now sullenly silent, followed Drew, Katherine, Dame Claire and Emelye around the edge of the yard, circling wide from the waiting horses and riders, the talk among the three men looked to be serious but not grim, and when they descended to meet Katherine and Drew just Caching the stairfoot there were smiles and pleasantries all round before Robert, looking past Katherine, saw first Emelye, which puzzled him, and then Benedict. Anger mixed with worry crossed Robert’s face in a fleeting frown but Frevisse had been delaying Benedict as best she might by lagging her steps, and there was time for courteous farewells between Robert and Drew and chance for Drew to thank Katherine for her company and her to thank him for his, with a smile that Drew more than willingly matched. By the time Benedict, sullen again, joined them, she was making courteous farewell to Sir Lewis and Master Verney in their turn.

  Frevisse, with nothing more she could do, faded aside to join Dame Claire standing a little apart with Emelye, thinking how much at sorry odds Benedict was with everyone else’s mutual courtesies, returning only a curt bow of the head and no word at all to Sir Lewis’ good-day to him and giving Drew even less—only a glare to the other’s farewell. Both men ignored his discourtesy, turning away to their horses, but Master Verney, coming after them toward his own horse, gave Benedict a clenched-fist shove to the shoulder in passing that might have been from friendliness except it was hard
enough to sway Benedict backward a step, almost off his balance. It took Benedict by surprise but he caught himself without saying anything and stood, unpleasant-faced, until the Allesleys and Master Verney and everyone else were riding out the gateway in the clatter of hoofs and jingle of harness and Katherine and Emelye, followed by Mistress Dionisia, started for the stairs. He moved then to follow them but Robert caught hold of him by an upper arm and said with low-voiced anger, “You wait.”

  Benedict twisted slightly, trying to break loose without being plain about it, but could not and stood still, glaring at Robert glaring back at him. Above them on the stairs, Katherine and Emelye looked briefly back but Mistress Dionisia bustled them inside and Robert, hand still clenched around Benedict’s arm, demanded, “What do you think you gain by acting the cur the way you did just now?”

  Benedict tried again to pull loose and go on past him. Robert, control of his anger visibly slipping, wrenched him back.

  ‘More to the point, what are you doing here at all after I told you not to be anywhere around Drew Allesley if you couldn’t put a fair face on?“

  Around the now uncrowded yard there were still too many manor folk to see what was happening, and Gil took a step forward with the look of meaning to come between them, then stopped, thinking better of it. Dame Claire, with different instinct, made to draw back and leave, but Frevisse, caught like Gil between wanting to stop them and knowing she could not, held where she was. And now Benedict, letting go hold on his own anger, said fiercely, twisting loose of Robert’s hold, “I don’t have to do what you say. Without my mother, you’re not anything!” He made to turn away, adding, “I’m going for a ride. It stinks here.”