The Clerk’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Unless, of course, having disposed of Montfort, she planned next to dispose of her brother and thereby clear her own way to inheriting the manor and possibly other things, depending on how the Englefield lands from their late father were entailed.

  Maybe she should consider Juliana a little further. The question of the dagger was the same for her as for her mother, and she knew Goring well enough to come and go the back way to Lady Agnes’s garden. But Stephen had very likely told her that, and even supposing she somehow knew how to reach the infirmary garden, it was hardly likely she—or her mother, come to that—could have gone there and come back without being noticed and remembered by someone and more probably several someones. It was possible, Frevisse was willing to grant, but hardly a chance a murderer would care to depend on, surely?

  The only thing made simpler by considering Juliana as the murderer was that she would have had no trouble coming near enough to Montfort to use the dagger if she had chosen to let him think she was attracted to him…

  Frevisse pulled back from the pointless unkindness of that thought. Juliana was already too unkind to herself to need more unkindness from anyone else.

  But had Christopher even asked about where she was that afternoon?

  That was something else she would have to ask him or Master Gruesby when the chance came. She equally wanted to see the letter that had come to Montfort from Lord Lovell, though how a letter he had not yet read could have brought on his death she did not try to guess. And another thing she should have asked about before now was how Montfort had been lured to the garden at all. There had to have been a message. Why had nothing been said about it or about who had brought it?

  Frevisse rubbed at her face with both hands, her mind beginning to congeal with too many questions still to be asked. She was warm again, though, and curled back onto the bed. To fill some of the time until she could ask the questions, she should spend at least a while in prayer for Montfort’s soul after letting the uneven and disjointed past few days serve as excuse not to, needful though she knew it was. Given Montfort’s greed and uncare for anyone but himself in life and the suddenness of his death, his soul was likely lost beyond hope in Hell, but there was always the chance there had been some small piece of virtue in Montfort, enough to have rescued him into Purgatory where at least there was hope of winning through the torments there to Heaven. And if there was the smallest chance of saving a man’s soul, even Montfort’s…

  With more grimness than grace, Frevisse brought herself to, “A porta inferi, Domine, erue animam eius. Domine, exaudi orationem meant. A porta inferi, Domine, erue animam eius…” From the gate of Hell, Lord, rescue his soul. Lord, hear my prayer. From the gate of Hell, Lord, rescue his soul…

  She had always believed that a prayer with her heart and mind behind it was worth more than one of merely words but though she tried now for better than only the sound of her own voice, she did not feel she had much succeeded by the time the nunnery bell freed her to go to Vespers.

  Chapter 13

  At Vespers’ end, while St. Mary’s nuns hurried off to their supper in the refectory, Frevisse went out with Domina Elisabeth into the last of the day, with swathes of creamy clouds across the pale sky and a faint-orange sunset fading down behind the westward hills as they made haste back to Lady Agnes’s, into the warmth and ordered hurry of the tables being set up for supper in the hall there. Although there were no other guests and only a single remove of beef and mutton pie, a fish tart cooked with fruit and spices, garlic boiled to tenderness and savory with saffron, salt, and cinnamon, and yesterday’s gingerbread with warmed honey and nutmeg poured over it, the meal went on longer than any nunnery meal might have done and by its end Frevisse was stifling yawns and grateful when, as they rose from their places, Domina Elisabeth asked Lady Agnes’s pardon because she and Dame Frevisse wished to withdraw to their chamber to say Compline and go to bed nearer to their usual hour than they lately had.

  ‘We’ve had days busier than is our wont and been keeping late hours into the bargain,“ she said, smiling. ”By your leave, a night closer to our proper way of things will do us well.“

  ‘An early-to-bed will do me no harm either,“ Lady Agnes said, adding with a look at Letice, ”So I’m told,“ and they parted with mutual wishes for a good night and sound sleep.

  Frevisse, at least, after she and Domina Elisabeth had said Compline together and hastened into their warmed bed, had both the good night and sound sleep but found the morning none the easier to face. Hurriedly dressed and with Prime’s prayers hurriedly said, they descended to the hall’s fire-warmth and breakfast, to learn that Montfort’s funeral would be that afternoon, for a certainty.

  ‘His son’s to be back this morning,“ Emme said, setting wedges of cheese next to the bread already on the table, ”and what with the dozen people I’ve heard came in yesterday and some more expected this morning, there’s enough to do it proper. There’s been no stinting on the feast neither, from what I’ve heard. The inns and bakers are beside themselves with readying it all. But won’t Domina Matilda be glad when it’s all done with and things are quiet again?“

  Domina Elisabeth agreed she would be indeed. Silently so did Frevisse because, when it was all over and done, Mistress Montfort and her people would leave and maybe by tomorrow night there would be place for Domina Elisabeth and her in St. Mary’s.

  ‘Even the weather is to the good,“ Emme went on, taking up the pitcher to pour more ale for Domina Elisabeth. ”Not nearly so cold today. There’s some friends of Lady Agnes will be here to dinner and they’ll be glad of the better riding. Oh, and Mistress Letice said to tell you Lady Agnes will be lying in this morning, to be rested for when they come and for this afternoon.“

  She left them then and while they ate and drank Frevisse wondered how it was at the nunnery, with the Office of the Dead to be said at the usual hours of prayer and the funeral to be readied for, but was turned from her thoughts by Domina Elisabeth asking if she would spend the morning with her and her cousin. ‘To give her different company the while, please you?“

  ‘Of course,“ Frevisse said, as courtesy demanded, but found, once the words were out, that she did not mind doing it. There would be small chance she could ask questions of Master Gruesby today and no chance at all of talking with Christopher. Nor was she much minded to be caught in talk with Lady Agnes and her friends and there would be no sheltering in the church, busy with final readying of the grave and all. To be out of the way of everything for at least a few hours seemed the best chance the morning held.

  It held other chance, too, beginning when they discovered as they came outside, cloak-wrapped and ready to hurry, that there was small need. Just as Emme had said, yesterday’s freezing cold was gone, the air almost mild, with a soft dripping from eaves and the rising sun a red-orange ball through thin white clouds. Giving up hurry, they crossed the street into the nunnery foreyard and along it toward the cloister door through the early morning come-and-go of servants about their business, until Frevisse saw Dickon standing in the further gateway through into me stableyard, holding a pitchfork but only busy at watching people, not doing anything himself except, when he saw them, to raise a hand in greeting.

  With a sudden thought Frevisse said, “My lady, there’s Dickon. May I have a word with him? It’s his first time so far away from home and I wonder how he’s doing.”

  Domina Elisabeth glanced toward him. “Master Naylor’s boy? Of course.”

  She could have beckoned him to come to them, but not wanting Domina Elisabeth to hear what else she wanted from Dickon, Frevisse went toward him, quickly enough that although he promptly set the pitchfork aside and came to meet her, they were well away from Domina Elisabeth and as by themselves as they were going to be in the busy yard when they met and she asked as he straightened from his bow to her, “How goes it with you and the others? Is everything well?”

  ‘It’s crowding up in the stable, there’s so many folk come in now.“
He was cheerful about it. ”Keeps it warmer at night. We’re fed well, too.“

  ‘Straw,“ she said, pointing at bits of it caught in his hair.

  He brushed it away and asked in his turn, “How goes it with you, my lady?”

  ‘I’m beset with too much talking and not enough to do.“ Surprised at herself for saying that aloud and at Dickon’s laugh, she went on quickly, ”There’s something I’d have you do for me.“

  Dickon brightened even more. “Surely, my lady.”

  ‘I’d know how easy or hard it is to go along the back wall of the nunnery from outside without being seen. There’s a part of the wall along there that’s only wicker hurdles. I’d like to know about that part especially. How easy it is to come to and anything else about it you can see. Without you being noticed at it. Without anyone else knowing what you’re doing.“

  ‘Especially the murderer,“ Dickon said. ”That’s what it’s for, isn’t it? It’s about Montfort’s murder.“

  Dickon would have been small use to her if he weren’t sharp-witted but Frevisse said quellingly, “Yes. So be careful.”

  ‘Careful as a king in his counting house, my lady,“ he said, cheerful as if she’d given him a holiday. ”I promise.“

  She left him with hope he’d keep his promise, rejoining Domina Elisabeth who asked, “All’s well with him?”

  ‘With him and with the other men, he says. They’re keeping warm and are well fed.“

  Domina Elisabeth laughed. “Then all’s well.”

  But not with Frevisse, busy with being displeased with herself for not having asked Dickon to do this two days ago, in the church when she’d had the chance and should have thought of it, rather than letting it go until now. What else wasn’t she doing? Of what else hadn’t she thought? And was she not thinking of them, not doing them, be cause she cared too little about finding out Montfort’s murderer? With that thought troubling her, she followed Domina Elisabeth through the cloister, this morning almost as busy with servants as the yard had been, preparations for the funeral and afterwards leaving no peace even here until they reached the infirmary and its quiet, not even the infirmarian there.

  ‘Ysobel may be sleeping,“ Domina Elisabeth said softly. ”Wait here while I see.“

  Careful of the inner door, she let herself into the next room and Frevisse waited, content where she was beside the work-marred table among the mingled, familiar, pleasant odors of herbs and oils and other things, but the respite was brief before Domina Elisabeth returned to the door and nodded for her to come on.

  There was need in all nunneries, since all sleeping and living spaces were shared, only the prioress having any privacy, for somewhere the ill could be kept apart, either to avoid contagion or simply to spare the nunnery the disturbance that inevitably came with caring for the ill-Like St. Frideswide’s, St. Mary’s room for this was plain, with white-plastered walls and a few beds—four of them here, with a small table between each pair of them—and a single, shuttered window.

  That much Frevisse saw before Domina Elisabeth closed the door, returning the room to a gloom broken only by the fierce, low glow of burning coals in a brazier set near the first bed inside the door. By that little light Frevisse could see only a little of the woman slowly, possibly painfully, shifting herself higher on the pillows there, until Domina Elisabeth lighted a splinter at the brazier, and sheltering its burning tip with her hand, returned to the table to light the oil lamp waiting there. In the small yellow spread of light from the low lamp flame Frevisse saw Sister Ysobel more clearly, lying back against her pillows now with her eyes shut while she recovered from the effort of moving even that slightly. She wore a long-sleeved winter undergown, her head was wrapped in a white kerchief, and her age was difficult to judge, wasted with illness as she was, her face sunk into thin flesh stretched over blunt bones, her eyes into hollows under her dark brows. She might have been Frevisse’s age or much older. Or possibly much younger. Not that age much mattered by now. What mattered more at this far end of living was how good or ill someone had lived the life they had had and how well they would see it out.

  And how much more suffering the body would have to endure before the soul was able to go free.

  Domina Elisabeth laid a hand on her cousin’s lying on top of the blanket and asked gently, “Is there anything you’d like? Anything I can get for you?”

  Sister Ysobel opened her eyes. There was far more life in them than in her wasted body and her whisper was strong as she answered, “What I’d like is the window opened.”

  Domina Elisabeth drew back from the bed, distressed. “Oh, Ysobel, you know that wouldn’t be to the good.”

  Clear air in a sickroom was unhealthy, a danger to the ill, but, “What’s it going to do?” Sister Ysobel asked, laughter tingeing her voice. “Kill me? Dame Frevisse, if you would be so good.”

  Without comment, Frevisse went to the window, set high enough in the wall that she had to stretch to reach the shutter’s catch, slipped it aside, and lowered the shutter, letting in the early morning’s light and a draught of cold air. Behind her, Sister Ysobel began to cough and Frevisse turned around to see her with a handkerchief pressed over her mouth, struggling with the spasm while Domina Elisabeth hurriedly poured a cup of water from the pitcher on the table beside the lamp, turned away from her cousin so she did not see—perhaps purposefully did not see—when her cousin’s coughing stopped and Sister Ysobel sank flat against her pillows again, her hand with the handkerchief dropping weakly to her side. But Frevisse saw and wondered into what terrors she would fall if ever there was that bright-red spotting of blood on a handkerchief of her own, before Sister Ysobel recovered strength enough to close her fingers around the handkerchief, hiding it.

  Maybe she was past the terror of knowing she was going to die. She was calm, anyway, as she sipped from the cup Domina Elisabeth held to her lips and she smiled when she was done and said to them both, “Thank you.” She moved a hand slightly toward the bed beside her own. “Sit, if it please you.” And when they had settled side by each on the bed’s edge, she asked, “What have you done since I saw you yesterday, cousin?”

  ‘Nearly nothing,“ Domina Elisabeth answered. ”Talked with your prioress. Had supper. Went early to bed and slept. And here I am again.“

  ‘What a dull world I’m leaving. Sister Joane told me when she brought my breakfast that the funeral will be this afternoon. You’re going, the both of you?“

  ‘It seems best we do, since we’re here.“

  ‘Then you can tell me all about it afterwards.“ Spare of movement, either too weak or else saving what strength she had for when she had greater need of it, she smiled toward Frevisse without turning her head. ”My cousin tells me you’ve had to do with murders before this one, yes?“

  Silently accepting that Domina Elisabeth had had to find things to talk of through the hours she had spent with her cousin, Frevisse granted, “Sometimes, yes.”

  ‘She says you’ve skill at finding out murderers.“

  ‘By God’s grace, yes,“ Frevisse admitted.

  ‘Have you been doing aught to finding out our murderer here?“

  There were times when lying would be comfort and convenient but even then a sin and Frevisse said, ignoring the interested turn of Domina Elisabeth’s head toward her, “I’ve thought about the murder, yes.”

  ‘And you’d rather I didn’t ask you about it,“ Sister Ysobel said, smiling more.

  Frevisse smiled back. “Much rather.”

  ‘Then I won’t.“ She paused for breath. ”On the other hand, you’re welcome to ask me whatever you like about it.“

  ‘Oh, Ysobel,“ Domina Elisabeth protested, ”you don’t want to think about such a thing now, do you?“

  Sister Ysobel turned her smile toward her cousin. “Come now, Elisabeth. You have to know that presently I have a particular interest in death.”

  Frevisse had noted before now that the dying were often able to speak more lightly of their
mortality than those around them could. Domina Elisabeth was silenced for the moment by Sister Ysobel’s question as Sister Ysobel said to Frevisse, “Is there anything you want to ask me?”

  If nothing else, it would pass the time, both for her and Sister Ysobel, and Frevisse said, “Your rosary. Could you show me how you were praying with it that day? How fast or slow you were telling the beads.”