9 The Reeve's Tale Page 11

  How did the women take it, Simon wondered? The children’s fevered restlessness and crying. The smells.

  The men came and went, seeing how things were, giving what help they could, which never seemed to be much; and such women as didn’t have sick children were in and out, bringing food and drink and taking fouled bedding away and bringing it back clean. That was what Cisily did when she wasn’t helping nurse his three, but Anne and others never seemed to leave. Nor the nuns either. That was something Simon wouldn’t have expected but there they were, the two of them, as tireless as the other women.

  And today Colyn’s fever had broken just ere dawn. Simon made the sign of the cross on himself at the thankful thought. The boy would better now, and Anne had been able to fall asleep beside him, leaving Cisily to watch over Adam and Lucy, still dangerously deep in their own fevers but somewhat quieted from some brew Mistress Margery had given them, and Simon had dragged himself up from the joint stool where he had sat most of the night and come home because things there could not be left to Watt and Dickon without he at least see how they did and do some of his share, too.

  But nonetheless here he sat, doing nothing, and with a heavy sigh for his own weakness, he braced hands on knees, readying to force himself up and on with the day.

  And found, in a little while, that he hadn’t moved at all, was simply sitting with his eyes closed, nigh to drowsing.

  He was that tired he couldn’t trust himself, seemingly.

  Or maybe he just didn’t want to face everything there was to do because whenever he did that these past few days, he started to be afraid in different ways than simply for the children. There was the haying, first of all. The weather could not be better for it. Save for a little rain at early morning yesterday, there had only been hot, dry skies since manor court, even the nights bringing little ease from the heat and the dew drying fast off the grass in the mornings—but here they were, like to lose more of the last haying than they kept because with so many of the women seeing to the sick and others having to do double work at home because of it and Matthew gone, they were short of folk to go to the fields, even for the weeding that needed doing, let be the haying. And workdays owed the lord came before their own work so it would be his hay that was done first anyway and already it was less than two weeks to when Simon hoped to start the harvest. The first fine harvest there had looked to be after the string of bad years, and if they lost it, there would be dying in the village from more than mesels, and he was reeve, with it laid on him to make things come out well despite of everything, and he was afraid…

  Simon slapped his hands down hard on his thighs, stinging himself to better wits. He was tired. That was all. Things were better than they had been for years, and they had seen their way through those and would through this.

  And after all and come what may, none were dead yet.

  Except poor old Matthew, who’d had naught but his burial after all, with Simon and some others digging a hasty hole—hardly big enough to be called a grave to Simon’s mind—in a corner of the churchyard that same day he’d come home, and a few people—and Mary’d at least not grudged Matthew that much of her time—had gathered for Father Edmund’s prayers over the box before the dirt had been shoveled back in. No wake or aught else, but Simon had vowed to buy his soul some Masses later, when there was time. But what in the name of St. Chad had Tom Hulcote been thinking of, coming up to him before they’d even cleaned the dirt off the shovels, to demand whether Simon was going to decide in his favor or not over the Woderove holding? Later, with time to think, Simon had reckoned it was Mary had put him up to it, but at the time all he had been was furious at him. Even now, Simon felt a hot shadow of that anger stir in him, along with the irk of knowing he was going to have to confess and do penance for it when confession time came round again.

  Simon realized he had gone off on his thoughts again and pulled himself upright on the bench and then to his feet, to stand with fists planted on hips while he looked around the yard, trying to convince himself he was ready to get on with things. Thanks be to St. Roch that Dickon had been meseled years ago and so was safe from it this time and was doing all his share and more around the place with Watt.

  But where were the two of them? Simon wondered, unable to bear the yard’s quiet now he was full awake again. Lucy wasn’t raising her voice somewhere around the place nor Cisily clattering a spoon against the morning porridge pot nor Anne telling someone to wash their hands if they thought they were going to eat at her table nor one of the boys teasing the other into mischief instead of to the morning milking. There was just this… terrible… quiet.

  But it was past milking time, Simon told himself sternly, grabbing hold to something that didn’t make misery course through him. That was why there was no stamping or lowing from the byre; Watt and Dickon had already done the milking and Dickon taken the cows to pasture while Watt carried the milk to Ienet Comber who was seeing to it for Anne in return for a tithe of it, which was better than letting it go to waste for lack of anyone doing anything with it at all. But had they done the mucking out yet? If not, he would. See to his own and then to rest, he reckoned and started for the barn, only to almost be run into by Dickon flinging at full run from around the house corner. The boy swerved and stumbled, and Simon reached out and caught him back to balance. In return, Dickon, gasping, caught hold on him, as Simon said, “Hai, hold up,” and held him steady on his feet, seeing he was gray-faced under a sheen of sweat. “Are you gone daft, boy, running in this heat? You’ll make yourself sick and then where’ll we be, eh?”

  Still clinging to him, Dickon panted out, “It’s Tom Hulcote! You have to come!”

  ‘Tom Hulcote be damned. You come over here and sit while I fetch you something to drink.“

  ‘He’s up by Oxfall Field,“ Dickon gasped, desperate to say the words. ”In the ditch there. Dead.“

  ‘Drunk, you mean,“ Simon said. ”Or down with the heat, maybe.“

  “Dead,” Dickon sobbed. “All broken in. His head. All… all…” He couldn’t make the words come fast enough around his need to breathe and his tears, now it was safe to cry. “His head… it’s all… smashed in.”

  Chapter 9

  Frevisse returned to the priory in company with Ienet Comber bringing curded cheese to the nunnery kitchen. They parted in the kitchen yard with Ienet’s promise that when her business with the curded cheese was done, she would wait there to keep Frevisse company back to the village, and Frevisse cut through the priory’s side yard, meeting only servants, to a small gate into the inner yard, the shortest way to Master Naylor’s house. She had intended no pause along the way but as she latched the small gate closed behind her the bell beyond the cloister walls began to ring to Sext and she stopped, her hand on the latch, her throat tightening with longing for the nunnery church’s deep, familiar quiet, her own place in the choir stalls, the weaving of nun’s voices through the Offices’ prayers and psalms…

  But that was all forbidden to her for this while. She could not even enter the cloister, and she bowed her head, whispering some of the words from today’s Sext… Deus, Qui temperas rerum vices… Confer salutem corporum, Veramque pacem cordium… God, Who governs time and fortune… Give health to the body, And true peace to the soul. Turning it from a prayer for herself into a prayer for others far more desperately in need than she was, she drew a deep, steadying breath and turned toward the gateway to the outer yard.

  But to have been brought to this because of Sister Thomasine…

  That day in the village churchyard, while Mistress Margery and Father Edmund and Father Henry were talking the women around to keeping the ill children together in the church, she and Sister Thomasine had been left in the lee of things, aside and quiet, on the verge of going home, Frevisse had thought until Sister Thomasine had said, “We’ll have to send word to Domina Elisabeth we’re staying.”

  Frevisse’s immediate response was that no, they weren’t, but years of nunhood had given her
some governance over her tongue, making her hesitate, when this time she should not have, before saying carefully, “We’ll have to ask her permission.”

  ‘Father Henry can ask for it when he goes back for Dame Claire,“ Sister Thomasine had said.

  More to Frevisse’s mind had been withdrawal to the nunnery themselves and a brief explanation to Domina Elisabeth followed by her refusal, but it hardly mattered and she had let it happen Sister Thomasine’s way because Domina Elisabeth would never give permission for them to stay, however she was asked.

  But from what Father Henry said when he returned, it seemed that their prioress had never had the mesels, nor had Dame Juliana or Sister Cecely, and so she had forbidden them to return for this while, in fear they would bring the infection with them. Moreover, she had refused Dame Claire to come, only given her leave to send all the advice and herbs she would.

  ‘But you,“ Frevisse had protested to Father Henry. ”You’re not forbidden.“

  Father Henry had looked sheepish, as if something were his fault. “I have to say the Mass.” And therefore the priory could not do without him, even at the danger.

  But it meant Sister Johane was left with the duties of cellarer for who knew how long. And with Sister Emma as kitchener…

  Her meals and Sister Thomasine’s meals were brought thrice daily from the nunnery kitchen, that their keep not fall on the village, and Dame Claire sent medicines by way of Father Henry, and Domina Elisabeth had sent word that prayers were being said for the sick, and all that was very well, Frevisse thought, walking through the brief shade of the inner yard’s gateway into the hot sunlight of the priory’s outer yard, but brought no end to the hours of ill children and frightened parents and lack of prayers there had been these four past days and were still to come. Even with keeping the Offices as best they could in the shortened form allowed when out of the nunnery, none of them—not even Matins and Lauds at midnight—ever went uninterrupted by a child or several waking restless with fever and discomforts; and most of their mothers had no servants at home and needed to go back and forth from church to house and were tiring, needing Frevisse and Sister Thomasine more and more through the days as well as the nights. Some of the men tried to be of help with at least their own child or children but most of them hadn’t the way of it. Why a man who mucked out byres every day of his life should be put off by a small child’s dirtied napkin or anyone’s vomit was more than Frevisse understood. But she thought that, for many of them, the trouble was they could not help letting their fears come too much between them and what needed to be done; most of the women let nothing—fear least of all—come between them and their children’s needs. In truth, for most of them the greater their fear, the fiercer they were in doing what needed to be done to keep their children alive, no matter the dirt or ugliness of it.

  Interestingly, Father Henry in his own way was as fierce, though it had taken Frevisse a while to see it. Between his duties at the nunnery—and sometimes instead of his duties, she suspected—he was always with the children, two beds at a time if need be, holding hot, restless hands, telling stories and more stories, all kinds of stories, quieting children who needed something besides their own and others’ misery to listen to, diverting mothers who needed the same. It was a pity that Father Edmund, as he admitted and anyone could easily see, was small use with children and less use the more ill they were, but he made up for it by being constantly out and about through the village, comforting people in their homes, lending a hand here and there as need was, or else praying at his own house since his church was no good to him at present, he smilingly said.

  Unfortunately the case was much the same with Frevisse. She had never had nor ever wanted a way with children. But then neither had Sister Thomasine ever desired motherhood, devoted from girlhood to the cloister and prayers, but she had given herself over to the children’s care far more wholeheartedly than Frevisse had, to Frevisse’s shame. But then Sister Thomasine was also pleased beyond measure to be, all day and all night, in a church, uninterruptedly in sight of the altar except when she and Frevisse withdrew into the sacristy where mattresses had been brought for them to sleep in a little privacy. Though Sister Thomasine never stayed there long but after only brief sleep would rouse and slip back into the chancel to kneel and pray before the altar until she was needed again.

  Frevisse suspected that, ill children or no, Sister Thomasine had rarely been more happy.

  Unhappily, that did nearly nothing to improve Frevisse’s struggle with her own ill humor, one admittedly greatly compounded of fear, because it frightened her to see how quickly a child could fall ill, frightened her more to see how quickly it could worsen, frightened her most of all to know how easily any one of them could die.

  Behind her the cloister bell ceased ringing, telling her the other nuns were in church now, in their places in the choir beginning Sext, and she slipped one of the Office’s antiphons over her uncalm thoughts. Suscepisti me, Domine: et confirmasti me in conspectu tuo. You have received me, Lord: and you have strengthened me in your sight. It loosened some of the knots in her with the comfort that, whatever happened, there was always the shelter of prayers and the certainty of Something Else beyond the burdens of everyday and the briefness of mortality.

  But consideration of mortality brought her back to why she was come to see Master Naylor.

  Beside the steward’s door the two guards stood up, slow in the heat. For a moment Master Spencer’s man looked as if he was about to challenge her but decided it was not worth the bother, while the priory guard, the same who had been here last time she came, knocked at the open door and asked, “Is it true what’s said about Tom Hulcote? He’s been found dead?”

  ‘Yes,“ Frevisse said and nothing more. She had had enough talk of his death from Ienet Comber on their way here and the sun was cramming down hot on her head. What she wanted was to be in shade somewhere, not more talk to no purpose.

  As before, Mistress Naylor came, wiping her hands on her apron but suddenly fear on her face as she saw Frevisse who said quickly, understanding, “Dickon is well.”

  Mistress Naylor gave a small gasp of relief, then hurriedly made belated curtsy, murmuring to her apron, “Thank you, my lady. Come in, please you.”

  Grateful to be out of the sun even if inside were no cooler, Frevisse did, asking, “May I see your husband?”

  Mistress Naylor, already edging past her to lead the way through the house, said, “Surely, my lady. How do the other children?”

  ‘One of Simon Perryn’s sons and a few others look to be past the worst. The rest are still very fevered.“

  ‘The Blessed Virgin keep them,“ Mistress Naylor said and led the way into the garden, where this time Master Naylor, his daughters and little son were in the bean-vine arbor, all their heads together over a boat he was carving from a piece of scrap wood, Frevisse saw as she came near, hearing him say before any of them knew she was there, ”… and when I’m out of here, we’ll all go sailing it down the stream.“

  ‘And Dickon, too?“ the older girl asked.

  ‘And Dickon, too.“ Then he saw his wife and Frevisse and stood up, tense for the moment he took to read by his wife’s face that nothing was wrong. Then he was simply as Frevisse best knew him, briskly at business, giving the knife he had been using to the older girl and the half-made boat to his son, saying, ”Here’s Dame Frevisse come to see me. We’ll finish the making this afternoon.“

  The younger girl started to protest, but her mother took her by the hand with, “Let’s see what we can find to make a sail of,” and they all went with her unprotestingly.

  Master Naylor gestured Frevisse to sit. She gestured that he should, too, and when they both were, he asked, “Is it about Tom Hulcote?”

  ‘You’ve heard already,“ Frevisse said ruefully.

  ‘Word never trips when coming from village to here, that I’ve found,“ Master Naylor said. ”The guard passed it in an hour ago.“

  ‘Did he al
so tell you it was Dickon found the body?“

  ‘Dickon?“ Master Naylor made to stand sharply up but caught himself back from the useless movement and demanded, ”How did it come to be Dickon who found him?“

  ‘He was coming back a long way around after seeing the cows out to pasture this morning. Something to do with setting snares, I think, but didn’t ask closely.“ Because he should not have been setting snares.

  Master Naylor understood that, too, and asked nothing about it, only, “How is he? Where is he now?”

  ‘I haven’t seen him. I gather he’s with Bess the ale-wife.“

  Master Naylor nodded, satisfied with that. “He’ll do well enough with her. Now, about Tom. What happened?”

  As evenly as she could, Frevisse said, “From what Perryn tells me, he’d been stabbed in the back and the side of his head crushed in.”

  Master Naylor’s mouth twisted on the ugliness of it, matching what she felt inside. “Where?” he asked harshly.

  ‘He was found in the ditch above Oxfall Field.“

  ‘Found?“ Master Naylor repeated. ”You mean he wasn’t killed there.“

  ‘Perryn says he looks to have been killed elsewhere. The only blood there was on him and there should have been more.“

  ‘Perryn says. You haven’t seen for yourself?“

  It was not so strange a question as it might have been. Over the years there had been other brutal deaths at St. Frideswide’s and from them Master Naylor knew that Frevisse took more interest in the how and why and who of them than might be thought right to a woman. But this time she only answered, “No. Perryn and some other men had fetched the body in. I only knew about it afterwards.”

  But when he had come to her to tell her of it and say that Master Naylor should be told as soon as possible, she had taken the chance to ask him more, and now when Master Naylor said, “There was rain yestermorning at dawn. The blood might have washed away,” she was able to say back, “Perryn says he can’t have been lying out that long. Almost nothing had been at him in the night, and…” The thing was ugly enough to think without having to say it aloud. “… the birds had only just started on him.”