The Clerk’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Lady Agnes acknowledged the truth of that with a small, smiling bow of her head. “Not of late,” she agreed.

  They may have rarely met but there seemed to be a kind of understanding between them—an accord of spirit if nothing else. But no ease, Frevisse sensed. No more than between two men sparring with daggers to try each other out but not in deadly earnest. Yet. And abruptly Frevisse realized she had seen Lady Juliana before this. At the inquest yesterday she had sat between Mistress Champyon and Rowland Englefield and, yes, as Lady Agnes had said, her mother would very likely object strongly to her being here.

  Lady Agnes must have caught Frevisse’s sudden widening of eyes because she said, tinged with somewhat bitter mirth, “Yes. Juliana Englefield she was and her mother is trying to declare my grandson a bastard but here she sits instead of being turned from the door with a rude word.”

  If being frank was to be the way of it, Frevisse saw no reason to hold back. “Why?” she asked.

  ‘Because my idiot man let her in. She told him I was her god-aunt, of all improbable things, and that her name is Juliana Haselden.“

  ‘And so it is,“ Lady Juliana said. ”Besides, why should he turn me away? You like me and I like you and always have.“

  ‘Things change,“ Lady Agnes said. ”Don’t go presuming I haven’t.“

  ‘Besides,“ Lady Juliana said to Frevisse, ”I don’t back my mother’s claim to this manor of Reckling, so why shouldn’t I come here?“

  ‘You don’t?“ Frevisse said, neither to one side or the other but interested to see Lady Agnes up against someone as openly strong-willed as she was.

  ‘No.“ Lady Juliana smiled. ”It’s a foolish claim and a waste of money and time.“

  ‘Ah!“ Lady Agnes said. ”So you admit Stephen is her sister’s son, just as he claims, and your mother is lying.“

  ‘What I admit is that you and Stephen are known and liked here and hereabout. My mother is hardly known at all and, courtesy of you, probably not liked. If it comes to people swearing to the escheator that Stephen has been known for years to be Sir Henry’s son by my mother’s sister, there’ll be more than enough people around here who’ll swear so and very likely none who’ll swear otherwise.“

  A deep-set satisfaction on Lady Agnes’s face agreed with her. They were both, it seemed, well-satisfied women—Lady Agnes with the truth of what Lady Juliana said, Lady Juliana with her own clear-thinking to have seen it, but not satisfied about a great many things and seeing no reason to waste this chance to learn something, Frevisse said, “I’ve gathered your mother and her sister weren’t close.”

  Juliana laughed. “To say it gently, no, they weren’t. In truth, according to Mother, they could never abide each other and gladly went their separate ways once they were married.”

  ‘To the point of your mother not knowing whether her sister had a second child?“

  ‘Rose sent her word of young Henry’s birth, for certainty, and was bitch-spirited enough, my mother says, that if she’d had a second son she’d have sent her word of that, too, just to let her know Rickling was that much farther out of her reach.“

  ‘Rose died at Stephen’s birth,“ Lady Agnes said. ”I sent her word of both.“

  ‘What Mother says,“ Lady Juliana answered, ”is that she had word that Rose had died but no mention there was any birth, Stephen or otherwise.“

  ‘She’d be bound to say that, wouldn’t she?“ Lady Agnes returned.

  ‘She would indeed,“ Lady Juliana agreed, her smile like warm honey.

  Lady Agnes smiled back with verjuice and be damned to honey. “That still leaves us with the question of why you aren’t with her in this. After all, whatever the truth may be, there is a whole manor at hazard. Not to mention your stepfather’s ambitions.”

  Lady Juliana lifted a shoulder in a graceful, disclaiming shrug, rose to her feet, and crossed the room toward the window, saying as she went, “For one thing, I think wanting to be one of my lord of Suffolk’s dog pack is a mistake on my stepfather’s part.”

  ‘Do you?“ Lady Agnes asked with real interest. ”Why?“

  ‘Because Suffolk doesn’t have staying power. Lord Lovell does.“ She turned to Frevisse. ”My mother and aunt were in ward to Lord Lovell when they were small. He made the Lengley and Englefield marriages for them.“

  ‘And you were a lady-in-waiting to Lady Lovell for a while after your marriage to Sir Laurence,“ Lady Agnes put in. ”Your loyalty to the Lovells is very pretty.“ And much doubted, her voice if not her words said.

  It was unclear whether Lady Juliana’s slight bow of the head acknowledged her loyalty or admitted to the doubt as she answered, “Of course, it has to be considered that Lord Lovell doesn’t presently have Suffolk’s power with the king, but in the long run, to my mind, he’s the better, steadier man to follow, rather than haring off after johnny-jump-up Suffolk. As for the manor, what am I to care about it? I’m not the one who’ll benefit from it, am I? If Mother makes good her claim, it goes to my brother, not me. It’s all wasted effort and expense so far as I’m concerned.”

  ‘Ah.“ Lady Agnes leaned an elbow on her chair’s arm and shook a finger toward Lady Juliana. ”The Bowers have never been strong breeders. Your brother, now. He looks to be more Bower than Englefield, if you ask me. Five years come spring he’s been married and that wife °f his isn’t breeding yet, is she? And if he has no issue, toe manor comes to you, doesn’t it?“

  Lady Juliana laughed, turned back from looking out the window again. “You’ve been asking about us!”

  ‘Small need to ask,“ Lady Agnes retorted. ”Once your mother decided to make this hornets’ nest, people have been only too glad to tell me things whether I ask or no.“

  The high curve of Lady Juliana’s eyebrows arched higher. “Have they indeed? Well, fair’s fair, I suppose. We’ve heard things about you and yours, too.”

  ‘I warrant you have,“ Lady Agnes agreed. She smiled and Lady Juliana smiled back at her and there was nothing friendly at all between them, smoothly laid words or no.

  But it was Lady Juliana who looked away first, out the window, before turning back to the room and saying as if giving up the challenge laid down between them, “Time I went, I think. Before I outstay my welcome.” She crossed to take up her richly blue cloak from the chest at the bedfoot. “Unless I have already?” she added with a smile.

  ‘By no means,“ Lady Agnes said graciously, almost no razor edge behind the words. ”You’ve made my morning delightful.“

  Cloak over her arm, Lady Juliana returned in kind, “Thank you,” and added to Frevisse, as if it might actually have been, “A pleasure to have met you.”

  ‘And you,“ Frevisse answered, as blandly as if she had noted nothing beyond courtesies between them.

  ‘See her out, please, Letice,“ Lady Agnes ordered, and Letice, already on her feet, obeyed, going to open the door ahead of Lady Juliana and following her out, leaving a silence where Frevisse had nothing she wanted to say and Lady Agnes seemed waiting to be certain they were well alone before finally she burst out in disgusted mockery, ” ’God-aunt.‘ And ’I don’t care about the manor.‘“ She looked to Frevisse. ”Did you ever hear such foolery? And don’t tell you have because I won’t believe you. How was the widow? Grieving?“

  ‘Only over having been married so long to Master Montfort.“

  Lady Agnes snorted. “At least she’s neither fool nor hypocrite then. Have you been with her all this while?”

  Frevisse began to tell in detail of her going to Tierce and later to Sext, in hope of being so tedious that Lady Agnes would dismiss her, but she had not succeeded before Letice returned and Lady Agnes interrupted to ask, “Is she gone?”

  ‘Gone,“ Letice confirmed. ”The back way, though. Through the garden.“

  ‘The garden? Why?“

  ‘She said she’d come through the alleyway and meant to go back the same in hopes no one would notice her.“

  ‘The day that one wants
to go unnoticed will be the day Hell’s flames turn cold,“ Lady Agnes said.

  ‘And Master Stephen has just ridden in.“

  Lady Agnes brightened. “Has he?” She looked past Letice as if she were somehow hiding him. “Where is he?”

  ‘Not come in yet.“

  Lady Agnes’s heed snapped back to her. “Why not?”

  ‘I couldn’t say.“ But said, as if to the side of Lady Agnes’s question, ”Lady Juliana was just going into the garden when he rode in.“

  Lady Agnes went narrow-eyed with thought but only for a moment before slapping both hands down on the arms of her chair and pushing herself up to her feet with a small grunt at the effort but saying briskly enough when she was up, “Dame Frevisse, would you care to walk with me in the garden awhile?” Adding before Frevisse could reply, “Letice, fetch my cloak. And yours, too.”

  With for once no protests of worry over her lady, Letice hastened to obey. Frevisse, at first minded to refuse, decided to be curious instead, fetched her own cloak, and Waited at the stairhead while Lady Agnes made her way laboriously down, Letice waiting at the bottom in case of need. That done, Lady Agnes set off briskly enough for the outer door, thudding her staff against the floor with the force of her going. As Letice was opening the hall’s inner door ahead of her, Frevisse overtook them and moved past to open the outer, standing aside for Lady Agnes, then falling into step beside her, asking no questions as they crossed the narrow yard to the penticed gateway into the garden, past a saddled chestnut palfrey tethered by its bridle to a wall ring on the yard’s far side with no sign of its rider.

  The morning’s overcast was breaking away into high white drifts of cloud across a scoured blue sky, and Letice, sniffing the air, said, “Warmer again tomorrow.”

  ‘Or not,“ Lady Agnes rejoined at a harsh half-whisper. ”We could be to our elbows in snow by tomorrow for all you know. Now hush, the both of you.“

  For Frevisse, with nothing to say, that was easy enough, but Letice’s mouth was shut into a tight line over obviously a great deal she wanted to say as she moved ahead of them to open the gate and stood aside to let them go into the garden ahead of her.

  ‘And close that gate quietly,“ Lady Agnes ordered as she went in.

  There was no trouble over which way to go. On its left, the path was bounded by a waist-high, wide-latticed fence between it and what was surely the kitchen’s garden, its long beds waiting for spring’s planting, with here and there a snow-covered hump of something not cleared away last autumn, while on the right was the high stone wall between Lady Agnes’s garden and her neighbor’s. Only further on, past where the kitchen garden ended, did the garden open out into the common pattern of square beds and paths, here bounded on both sides and at the far end by tall walls hiding it from its neighbors. A turf bench ran along the rightward wall where there would be shade on summer afternoons; along the other, lean trees were spread and tied where they would catch the sun most of a summer’s day; and at the far end was a vine-covered arbor almost full across the garden’s width, only stopping short of a low door at the corner of the wall that must lead into whatever back way ran behind the houses there. In summer, grown over and green with leaves, it would be a private place but like all the garden it was naked now, its barren, brown vines unable to hide anything and assuredly not the man and woman standing within it, close-entwined to one another.

  Frevisse and Letice both stopped. Lady Juliana, though her back was to them, was easily known by her bright cloak but Frevisse did not know Stephen until he raised his head and, over Juliana’s shoulder, saw Lady Agnes stalking down upon them. Briefly he was startled. Then his face lighted with laughter and he bent his head to say something into Juliana’s ear that made her look around at them with laughter, too. She was flushed with a different warmth than the fire had given her indoors as she took a step backward out of Stephen’s arms and turned to stand beside him, neither of them looking either abashed or contrite. Indeed, Stephen said, chiding, as Lady Agnes stopped in front of them, “There now, Grandmother. Since when have you been wont to go for walks in the snow?”

  ‘Ever since I was hard put to believe Lady Juliana came to see me out of the mere goodness of her heart,“ Lady Agnes snapped. She was short of breath and leaning on her staff but none the less waspish with anger. ”Especially when that was followed by a wondering why my grandson was seen to ride into the yard but didn’t come into the house, he being no more given to cold strolls in the snow than I am that I’ve ever noticed.“

  ‘Grandmother, Grandmother,“ Stephen said with a regretful shake of his head. ”Remember what’s said about curiosity and the cat. If you catch your death of cold by coming out here about what’s none of your business, don’t blame me.“

  ‘I’ll blame you for anything I choose to. If it’s proverbs we’re about, best you remember, ’It’s ill to sin and worse to continue.‘ And I decide what’s my business and what isn’t. Don’t meet your wantons in my garden if you don’t want it to be my business.“

  Merry reproach lighted Juliana’s face. “I’m not his wanton, my lady. I’m his paramour. His love.”

  ‘Like Lancelot and Guinevere,“ Stephen said, drawing her closer to him with an arm around her waist.

  ‘Hah! You’re not Lancelot, boy, and that“—Lady Agnes pointed her staff at Juliana—”is no Guinevere, make no mistake.“

  Frevisse was suddenly angry at them all, Lady Agnes as much as Stephen and Juliana, because while there was no shame on their part, neither was there real anger on Lady Agnes’s. Despite all her outward wrath, she was enjoying the quarrel as much as they were, with a sharp pleasure in the heightened moment that made it worse, and Frevisse, with her feet growing colder and her anger hotter, was ready to turn around and walk away, back to the house and warmth, but Lady Agnes made abrupt end to it, probably feeling the cold herself, saying at Juliana, “If you want a man, best find you one you can marry for yourself, not sport with someone else’s husband. Now off to your mother with you and stay out of my garden with your nonsense.”

  For answer, Juliana only laughed and reached out a .hand to Stephen, who took it, raised it, kissed it, and stepped aside to open the door through the wall there, then saw her through with another kiss of her hand and a gallant bow to which she beautifully smiled into his eyes before she took her hand away from him and turned and left. Only as Stephen closed the gate behind her did Lady Agnes show her first deep displeasure, demanding, “How came my garden door to be unlocked, boy?”

  Stephen was ready for that, already taking a heavy key from his belt pouch under his cloak, answering, “With this.” Lady Agnes made an angry tching sound and held out her hand for it but Stephen, locking the door, laughed at her. “You still have yours, Grandmother. I had this one made years ago.” He put it back into his pouch. “You’d never have known about key or door if I hadn’t been late today and Juliana decided to make up her waiting time by visiting you.”

  ‘What I know now is that you’ve no scruples and no care, either, leaving my garden open for anyone to wander in that wants to.“

  Stephen came to her and with a hand under her elbow turned her back toward the house, saying kindly, “Don’t you know, Grandmother, that it’s peril gives sweetest love its sweetness?”

  ‘It’s supposed to be your peril, not mine, boy.“ But she let him lead her along the path, Frevisse and Letice standing aside to let them pass, then following while she went on at him, ”Though you’ll have peril enough if you’re found out by someone besides me. What do you think Philip is going to think of your playing his daughter false?“

  ‘Not much. He knows how these games go.“

  ‘You think that’s going to make him more mellow at your betraying of his daughter? You’re a fool, Stephen. How did you and this Juliana meet at all? In Lord Lovell’s household, I suppose?“

  ‘Of course. When I had my month-duty with him a year ago last summer. She was lately widowed and come to have Lord Lovell’s assura
nce of her dower lands. We took each other’s fancy, and here we are.“

  ‘You set to it with her a goodly while before you were married to Nichola then.“

  ‘Yes.“

  ‘Why not marry this Juliana instead, then, while you still had the choice?“

  ‘Choice? You know the fine Philip would have had from me if I wanted to buy him out of choosing my marriage. Besides, Juliana is to be enjoyed, not married. And you, Grandmother, of all women, surely don’t hold that a man can’t love more than one woman well?“

  ‘Don’t tell me what I hold and don’t hold, boy. What I’m telling you is that you’re putting yourself into peril for no purpose. You’re better off playing safe instead of foolish.“

  ‘ ’Safe‘ becomes ’dull‘ after a time, I find. After all, even Adam had Lilith as well as Eve.“

  ‘Remember how that turned out?“ Lady Agnes returned. They had reached the gate into the yard now and Stephen moved ahead to open the gate for her, but instead of going through, she stood still and asked at his back, ”Does Nichola know?“