The Clerk’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Frevisse meant to return to the church, to try to pray for Montfort’s soul better than she had so far. Thinking about Nichola, she even made it to the nave door and a few steps in before she stopped. The smell of incense still hung in the air and the pale, thinning cloud of it among the rafters, but from where she stood there was no other sign there had been a funeral here. A man’s passing from earthly life had been noted and dealt with and those who had been there were moved on, were even now eating, drinking, and making merry in the guesthall, in the full knowledge—willfully though they might ignore it in the forefront of their minds—that tomorrow might come their turn.

  At the thought Frevisse made an impatient sound at herself. There were few things so true as old proverbs, but come what may—including tomorrow—she did not feel like praying for Montfort just now. Let him fend for himself, she thought, knowing she was in the wrong even as she thought it but nonetheless turned away, left the church, and crossed the nunnery yard to the gateway. A few poor folk were clustered there, waiting for whatever alms of food or money might be given out as was usual at rich funerals. Doubtless they did not wait in vain. Just as there would be enough and more left from the funeral feast for Dickon and any other servants in the nunnery, Montfort would have seen alms to the poor as necessary to his after-death glory as masses, candles, incense, and his wife’s mourning clothes.

  Guilty that even now she could not think charitably toward him, Frevisse passed among them and into the street and turned not toward Lady Agnes’s but away. By right and Rule she should be out nowhere alone unless merely to Lady Agnes’s house, but she had suddenly had enough of this going back and forth from Lady Agnes’s to the nunnery to Lady Agnes’s like a feathered cork in a badly played game of shuttlecock. When she had chosen to become a nun, she had made willing trade between the freedom she would gain for her soul against the freedom she would lose for her body, but here in Goring that binding to other people’s will was coming between her and being able to do much at all toward finding out Montfort’s murderer. If she was slack at that task because she did not greatly care that he was dead, then she was grievously in the wrong and to put herself in a different kind of wrong by going to the mill alone was nothing compared to the wrong of being so uncaring over a man’s death.

  Even Montfort’s.

  So, at a firm walk, meaning not to tarry over the business, head bowed and hands tucked into her sleeves to maintain something of propriety, she went along the street and turned at its corner into the street leading down to the timber and white-plastered mill. That street Aided at the mill ditch and the high-railed wooden bridge across it into the millyard, and because her curiosity had more to do with the ditch than the mill, Frevisse stopped on the bridge to see what could be seen from there. From at the upstream railing, with the rush of white-foamed water loud below her, she could see at least one island in the river there and that the mill ditch had been dug off the river’s narrow curve around it, with still force enough from the Thames’s strong flow to drive the millwheel but probably the sluice gate that controlled the flow into the ditch easier to maintain without the full force of the river against it.

  She crossed to the bridge’s other side, into the shadow of the mill and its tall, undershot millwheel, driven by the force of the water flowing against its blades down in the ditch, turning it steadily, steadily, the dark wood rising wet and glistening out of the deep ditch’s shadows into the daylight and around and down again with the familiar groan of wood and gears that went with all millwheels.

  Looking first down into the ditch with its dark swiftness of water and then along it toward the nunnery, Frevisse knew she had been right to think no one would easily or readily have crossed it; but according to Master Gruesby, the ditch had been drained the day Montfort was murdered. That would have left it vilely muddy and undoubtedly with some water still in the bottom but not the obstacle it would be today. That day there would have been only the steep ditch sides to be overcome, and sliding down into it would be easy, while the stones that Dickon said were half-buried in the bank would maybe have been enough to make climbing up to the garden fence and down again possible without too hard a scramble at it. And afterward? For leaving the ditch? A scramble then would serve, she supposed, with a toehold here and there and a dagger thrust into the bank for a handhold, with a moment lying flat just below the crest of the bank, clinging to the grass while looking over the top to see if it was safe to go the rest of the way.

  Once out of the ditch and on the path along it, there would only be overly muddied boots or shoes and maybe clothing to explain but with soft weather there would have been mud enough in more places than the mill ditch for a man to be muddied honestly.

  Satisfied of all that, she crossed the bridge and the mill-yard to the mill’s door and pulled the rope on the bell— meant to be heard over the grinding stones—hanging there. The miller opened to her almost immediately, and while he was still staring with surprise to find a nun on his doorstep—and not even a Goring nun, as he could easily tell by her habit—she said, “I want to look out your upstairs window,” and started forward, supposing he would get out of her way.

  She supposed rightly. He moved aside, saying, “Aye, my lady. If you like, aye,” as she passed him. Open-backed, thick plank steps went steeply up the near wall to the hole in the mill’s loft floor. The miller was still bemusedly saying, “Aye,” as she climbed them, to find that the loft was where the miller lived, a single, sparsely furnished room to which she gave no heed as she crossed to the window in the south-facing wall. The shutter was down, letting in what there was of the day’s thin sunlight and giving her a clear view of the nunnery’s whole west side and the length of the ditch, too, as well as the wide meadow that lay between it and the Thames and, at the meadow’s far end, the willows that blocked sight of Ferry Road, all as Dickon had said, and look as hard as she might, it told her no more than she knew already. There was everything she had expected to see and no more. Just that and no answers.

  Nor were any answers to be had for certain about the nunnery windows she could see from here. Except for one, they all looked to her to be set too high for anyone to have sight of anything from inside them except sky. But the one nearest this end of the nunnery, looking out from the second storey of a steep-roofed building set against the church tower… She studied it and judged that from it there would be view of the ditch and meadow and she wondered how to find out to what room it belonged.

  With seemingly nothing else to be gained from here, she returned down the stairs to the miller still standing beside his open door and asked him, “The day the man was killed in the nunnery, did you ever happen to look out your window up there? At any time?”

  She could see him wondering why she was asking as he answered, “Nay, my lady. I didn’t. I wasn’t here. There was no point, the mill not running. I’d went to visit my daughter over in Streatley. She’s married to the miller there.”

  ‘You were gone all day?“

  ‘I made sure of the sluice gate at dawn, that it was tight shut, and was away on the first ferry of the day and didn’t come home until just at sundown.“

  ‘The mill hadn’t broken down unexpectedly then? You’d planned to shut it down?“

  ‘Oh, aye, my lady. Order’d been given for the workmen a good week ahead. It was just some cracked blades of the wheel that needed seeing to and better it be done before they were worse than later, that was all.“

  She thanked him and left, with him looking no clearer than when she had come as to why she had been there at all. Since that could not be helped, she forgot about him before she was across the bridge, was only wondering as she went back up the street what she had gained and decided it was very little. Nothing she had seen had changed anything Dickon had told her, and if it helped to know the miller had not been there that day, she did not yet see how. That he would be gone to his daughter’s was something that could have been as easily known through Goring as that the mill would
be shut down for the day, not limiting at all who could be suspected.

  What she wanted now, she realized as she turned the corner into the street between the nunnery and Lady Agnes’s, was to be alone for a while without need to think about anything, most especially Montfort. She was worn down by the day, tired and not particularly happy, and if she had thought she could reach her room at Lady Agnes’s without having to talk with anyone, she would have gone there. The church would have been her next choice if she could have sat there quietly without feeling duty-bound to try yet again to pray for Montfort’s soul but what she wanted just now was to be without need to think about anything for a while, most especially him.

  But since she had small hope of rest at either Lady Agnes’s or the church, she would settle for a chance to have more answers to questions and took her way back through the priory gateway and past the guesthall toward the cloister door. People who must have ridden in today for the funeral and hoped to be home before dark drew in were scattered about the yard in their various groups, their horses being brought for them, and she passed among them with her eyes down, to avoid being seen. That was an illogical thing but she had found over the years that it worked well and certainly no one spoke to her here before she reached the cloister door.

  Her light pull on the bell rope was answered almost before she let go of it by a servant who stared a moment and then stepped quickly aside with a bobbing curtsy, saying half-laughing, “Pardon, my lady. I thought it would be someone’s kin again. They’ve been so coming in and out all the day to see one or another of the nuns that I’ve been set as doorkeeper, you see.”

  ‘A busy day all around,“ Frevisse said politely. ”Might I go to see Sister Ysobel, do you think?“

  ‘Surely. You know the way, yes?“

  ‘Yes. Thank you,“ Frevisse said over her shoulder, already on her way.

  Today, after so much coming and going as the servant woman said there had been, the cloister felt fraught with it, even though there were only a pair of nuns in low-voiced talk on the other side of the cloister walk. Frevisse went the other way around from them, quickly and with her eyes down, just as she had crossed the nunnery yard, into the side passage and to the infirmary, entering without even a knock to find it blessedly empty of anyone else. The murmur of someone reading aloud beyond the shut door to the bedsroom told her Sister Ysobel was not alone but here there was only herself and she leaned with both hands on the battered worktable and closed her eyes, drawing a slow, deep breath, taking the chance to quiet herself, if only for the moment.

  Steadied after a few moments, she straightened and went on and at her slight scratch at the door the reading broke off and Domina Elisabeth bade her come in. She did, to find not only Domina Elisabeth there but Lady Agnes, the both of them seated on the bed beside Sister Ysobel’s, with Sister Ysobel lying higher on her pillows than yesterday, her face bright with interest rather than fever as she greeted Frevisse before anyone else could, saying with a gesture to the foot of her own bed, “Pray, sit, my lady. How good of you to come! Have you brought me more talk of what’s gone on today?”

  Frevisse sat, careful not to jar her, but admitting, “I doubt I can add much. You’ve surely heard of the funeral from Domina Elisabeth, and Lady Agnes probably saw and heard more in the guesthall afterwards. I talked mostly with Master Montfort’s clerk, Master Gruesby.” She tried to think of something she could say about him but a man with less to be said about him than Master Gruesby she had never met.

  ‘You were talking with the Champyons,“ Lady Agnes said and was a little unfriendly in the saying.

  ‘I was.“ Frevisse had not thought those few moments would go unnoted, if not by Lady Agnes herself, then by someone who would tell her of it.

  ‘What about?“ Lady Agnes asked, almost demanded.

  ‘The only thing they’re presently interested in. That manor of Rickling.“

  Indirectly that was the truth. If truth could be indirect. She would have to give thought to that later but the answer satisfied Lady Agnes. More friendly, she said, “Humph.” And then, “What did you think of them?”

  To that Frevisse could straight enough answer. “I found them unpleasant.”

  ‘They’re that, right enough,“ Lady Agnes agreed curtly.

  With a smiling, sideways look toward Domina Elisabeth, Sister Ysobel asked, “How is the widow doing? Lady Agnes says grief hasn’t bowed her down.”

  ‘She’d be a fool if it did,“ Lady Agnes muttered.

  More judiciously, Frevisse said, “So it seems for now. How she’ll be later…”

  ‘When she won’t have to keep in her glee anymore,“ said Lady Agnes.

  ‘Lady Agnes, that’s hardly charitable,“ Sister Ysobel remonstrated with a flicker of laughter.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to be charitable. Unless she’s a fool, she can’t be grieving over being quit of Montfort. He was a petty man, come to a petty end.“

  ‘He was murdered, Lady Agnes,“ Domina Elisabeth murmured, ”and needs our prayers.“

  ‘He does indeed, after earning so many curses in his life. The wonder will be if he gets any. Prayers, I mean. The curses are assured.“

  “As much to go away from that as toward his own ends, Frevisse said, ”Sister Ysobel, a question. There’s a window overlooks the garden here from its north side. Where does it look out from?“

  ‘The nuns’ dorter,“ Sister Ysobel said. She smiled. ”So it therefore doesn’t truly overlook the garden or anything else.“ Because windows in a nunnery’s dorter were usually set too high for looking out of.

  And besides that, no nun was supposed to be in the dorter during the day. At the hour when Montfort was murdered, whoever had killed him would have been doubly safe from being seen from there, not only in the garden but as he came and went along the ditch because the dorter’s other windows were those small, high ones Frevisse had seen from the mill.

  That left only the one, large window to wonder about but she held back from a question about it with Lady Agnes there to hear her, lest questions be asked back at her about why she was interested—and how she came to know about it at all.

  But now she had to wonder who, among those most possibly Montfort’s murderer, would have likewise known it was the dorter overlooked both the garden and the way the murderer had to come to it.

  ‘As for curses,“ Lady Agnes went on, back to where she had been, ”the Champyons have their share of them, too, right along of Montfort. If ever there was a pair worth the cursing, they’re it. And that son and daughter of hers, too. Strutting at the funeral was as if they belonged there.“

  ‘Cecely may feel she does have some claim to belong here,“ Sister Ysobel ventured.

  ‘It’s been—what—thirty years since she was at school here,“ Lady Agnes scoffed.

  ‘Surely not that long, has it been?“ Sister Ysobel demurred.

  Lady Agnes shrugged. “Near enough. The point is that she and Rose were both at school here when they were girls, and Cecely hasn’t been seen or heard from by any of the nuns since she left.”

  ‘You mean Mistress Champyon was here in the priory as a girl?“ Frevisse asked, careful to sound barely interested, a little discomposed to be given information that she wanted but for which she had not asked yet.

  ‘Yes,“ Lady Agnes said. ”Just as I was. Years before her, of course, but I made friends then, both among the nuns and the other girls, that I’ve kept to this day.“ She paused on a thought. ”Well, not to this day. All the nuns I knew then are dead, God keep their blessed souls, save for Sister Margaret. She yet lives but we never agreed together. Nun or no, she’s a pushing woman and always has been. But I’ve other friends I’ve kept since then, women I’ve known all our lives. And now their daughters and grandchildren, too.“ Lady Agnes paused, momentarily turned inward, before adding, ”That shows how old I’ve grown, doesn’t it? But the point is that Cecely was here at school and has the priory or anyone in Goring heard aught from her since she left? Do
es she have any friends from when she was here? Has she been to see anyone since she has come back? No and no and no again. All she’s come for is to make trouble and what does that say about her?“

  ‘It’s maybe her husband who wants her to have naught to do with anyone here,“ Domina Elisabeth suggested.

  ‘It would have to have been her first husband as well as this second one who wanted it,“ Lady Agnes pointed out sharply. ”I’d like to think a husband has ever had the upper hand with her, but I’ll lay no money to it. No matter how much this one looks like he’s at the forefront of this business, never think for a moment that she’s not the one pushing to make it happen. All for that lump of a son of hers and never doubt it.“

  ‘What about her daughter?“ Frevisse did not resist asking.

  Lady Agnes opened her mouth to snap some answer back but stopped, with a sharp look at Frevisse, before saying tartly, “She’s a whole other set of problems and not mine, thank God.” She rose stiffly to her feet. “Well. I think we’d best be going, my ladies.”