9 The Reeve's Tale Read online

  Mistress Naylor came along a garden path, bringing two cups of water for which her husband and Frevisse thanked her, but Master Naylor waited until she was gone away again before saying, “He was moved last night, then. He was killed last night, too?”

  ‘From the few men Perryn had had time to ask before he talked to me, nobody remembers seeing him since Saturday, likely.“

  ‘Saturday. And two more days since then,“ Master Naylor considered that. ”He was maybe not dead all that while. He might have been away and been killed when coming back.“

  ‘Not… to judge by the smell.“ In weather as warm as this, something dead was very quickly something rotting and, ”From what Perryn says about how far along the body is, he’s been dead about that long.“

  ‘But not lying out anywhere. That means the reason no one saw him for those two days was that he was dead, that someone killed him on Saturday, maybe Sunday, but kept the body hidden until last night.“

  ‘Yes.“

  Master Naylor stood up, paced restlessly to the edge of the arbor’s leaf-patterned shadows, stood with his back to her a moment, turned, returned, sat, and asked abruptly, “Two days at least since he was last seen, and no one missed him in that while?”

  ‘It doesn’t seem so.“

  ‘Not even Mary Woderove?“ Master Naylor asked.

  ‘I asked that of Perryn but he didn’t know. He hadn’t gone yet to tell her Tom was dead. I think he was hoping others would tell her first so he wouldn’t have to face her first grief at it.“

  Master Naylor nodded grim understanding of that.

  ‘But she started in at manor court,“ about which she had long since sent word to Master Naylor by way of Father Henry, ”telling Tom he ought to leave here. I heard her then, and Perryn says she was at it afterwards, too, telling Tom and anyone else in hearing that he ought to leave, make a start somewhere else, a new life for them both where everyone wasn’t against them. If she thought he had…“

  ‘Without telling her he was going to?“ Master Naylor asked.

  ‘Or maybe he did tell her he was going to, and she thought he was gone and didn’t say anything, to give him more time to be away. Only someone had killed him instead.“

  ‘Or else he wouldn’t go, refused to go, and she killed him,“ Master Naylor suggested.

  Frevisse could see Mary Woderove working into enough of a fury to want to kill even someone she was supposed to love if he refused her what she wanted. But, “I don’t see that she could have killed him, hid his body, and then moved it, all unheeded by anyone.”

  ‘She’s over-small to have moved it,“ Master Naylor agreed. ”Or done the rest, I suppose,“ he added. ”And why would she, come to that?“

  ‘From what I’ve seen of her, she’s a woman who likes to hold on to what she has,“ Frevisse said. ”The threat of someone leaving her might drive her into passion enough to kill, but she was already telling Tom to go, so that wouldn’t be it.“

  ‘No,“ Master Naylor agreed.

  ‘Was there anyone at all you know of might want him dead?“

  Master Naylor shook his head. “Tom was no worse a trouble than some others are hereabouts. Less than some, come to that, and not so often as others. Mostly he wasn’t even the kind of man who made men angry at him.” Master Naylor stood up and paced again. Frevisse realized with surprise that he was deeply angry. “The trouble was that Tom didn’t belong where he was. He couldn’t fit quietly into his place here but didn’t have the wits or skill to raise himself out of it on his own. He was no Gilbey Dunn. But given his chance…” Master Naylor stopped, staring down into his cup as if surprised to find he was still carrying it.

  Reluctantly Frevisse asked, “That’s why you thought he should have the Woderove holding and marry Mary?”

  ‘Mary is sharp enough and Tom works… worked well enough when he could see there was something in it for him. With a little luck, they’d have made a go of it. Between the two of them, they would have had a chance.“

  And now they neither of them would. And Master Naylor, in his constrained way, was unhappy over that. Frevisse had long known that he was a skilled steward, with a keen eye to the priory’s best interests. She had not known he also would take the trouble to see past someone’s outward seeming to their possibilities, though perhaps she should have guessed it because it was a useful tool toward making him so good a steward. But all she said was, “And since he and Mary were already… linked, all they needed was for the holding to be given to them.”

  Master Naylor came back to sit again. “Yes.”

  Frevisse carefully set to one side of her mind that he had told her something of that when last they had talked but she had let it go and had a part in refusing them because of her ready, easy dislike for them both. She was at fault in that, she feared, and must needs take closer look at herself over it; but just now what mattered was that someone had killed Tom Hulcote, and slowly she said, “Mary Woderove’s husband was killed away from here, luckily for them, since his death was so convenient to them.”

  ‘Or would have been convenient,“ Master Naylor said, ”if things had fallen out for them afterwards the way they hoped.“

  ‘Tom’s death isn’t as obviously convenient to anyone.“ ”Particularly to Tom,“ Master Naylor said bitterly. ”But then the question is,“ Frevisse said, holding to where she was going, ”for whom was Tom Hulcote’s death convenient?“

  Chapter 10

  Master Naylor had had no helpful answer to her question. From all he knew, Tom Hulcote had not mattered enough in anyone’s life—except Mary Woderove’s—for anyone to want him dead—and it was not dead that Mary wanted him. “He had no enemies I’ve ever heard of,” Master Naylor had said. “Nor friends, come to that. He wasn’t a man anyone cared that much about, either way.” Except for Mary Woderove, he had not bothered to add.

  ‘The men who were ready to make trouble at the manor court,“ Frevisse had said. ”Weren’t they friends?“

  ‘From what Father Henry told me, they’re just the usual lot who make trouble because they lack the wit to make anything else. They’d take up a sick dog’s cause as fast as Tom Hulcote’s, especially against Gilbey Dunn.“

  ‘What about Gilbey? He had no liking for Tom.“

  ‘Or Tom for him. If it was Gilbey found dead, it might be Tom I’d look to first, but for Gilbey to put himself to the trouble of killing anybody—you’d have to find good reason for it.“

  ‘The Woderove holding?“

  ‘It was by far a greater matter to Tom than it was to Gilbey. It would be Gilbey I’d look for to be dead because of it, rather than Tom.“

  And that had been all the help he could give her. Nor had she found out much more than that in the two days since then, because she had returned to the village to find too many of the children worsening, and almost all the hours since then had been taken up with their necessities. Last night she had been so tired that when her turn came to sleep, she had barely been able to unpin her veil and set it aside before she fell onto her mattress and was still so tired when she awoke that her fingers had fumbled at pinning it on again. But St. Roch be thanked, since dawn this morning seven more children’s fevers had broken, one after another in a welter of sweat and mothers’ tears and the need for dry sheets or blankets and turned mattresses and urging, urging the children to drink just a little more barley water, just a little, before they sank into their first deeply quiet, blessedly cool sleeps in days, often with their spent mothers stretched out asleep beside them.

  With all that, she had had little time to think of questions about Tom Hulcote, let alone ask them of anyone. She only knew, from undercurrents of talk among tired women and whoever of their family and friends came to help sometimes when other work was done that the uncertainty of Tom Hulcote’s death was beginning to take its toll.

  It was not that there had never been murder here before. Besides the several Frevisse knew too well it seemed, from what she half-heard and overheard, th
at some while back one man had done for another with a dagger in an alehouse quarrel, and ten years ago one of the Gregorys had clouted someone over the head with a shovel about a boundary stone, but those had been open killings, seen by others, the why and how and guilt known to everyone and the murderer seized while his victim’s body was still bleeding.

  Tom Hulcote’s death had happened secretly. No one knew why or where or by whom he had been killed. The only certainty was that his murderer was not a passing stranger and long gone. A stranger would have killed him and left, not chanced lingering for a day and more or bothered with shifting the corpse. But if it had not been a stranger, it had been someone here, and that meant there was someone among them who was able to kill a man and show no sign of it afterwards. Someone among them was a murderer and they had no way of telling who, and therefore, when there was chance, there were tight little huddles of talk among the women and worry over more than their children when presently their children were more than enough worry; nor did Frevisse doubt there was more talk in the village, and unsure looks and unspoken wondering and distrusts and wariness growing, with no cure for any of it so long as Tom Hulcote’s murderer went unknown.

  Worse—and this she hoped no one else had thought of—was that since no one knew why Tom had been killed, there was no certainty that his death would be the only one.

  She straightened, sore-backed, from helping small Elyn Denton drink her barley water and managed a smile down at the child, who smiled sleepily back, rolled on her side, and burrowed into her pillow, ready to nap, Frevisse hoped, until her mother returned from seeing to her older children still at home.

  ‘Please you, my lady, Simon Perryn is asking if you’d come out to him,“ Joane Goddard said in a low voice beside her.

  ‘Me?“ Frevisse said, looking where his children were bedded near the rood screen, Anne crouched between them, leaning over Lucy, whose fever was among those that had broken this morning.

  Joane’s voice dropped lower. “He doesn’t want her to know, please you.”

  Frevisse feared she knew what that meant but had no way to refuse it. Mistress Margery was sleeping in the sacristy, in easy call if needed, and enough mothers were awake again and seeing to their children that Sister Thomasine was hardly being left alone to it, and when she spoke briefly to her on her way out, Sister Thomasine merely said without looking around from persuading Joane’s boy Ralph, still fevered, to drink balm water, “Of course. Take as long as need be.”

  The rain that had been lightly falling since midday was drizzling to a stop, leaving behind it a thick, damp heat, but Frevisse paused inside the church porch to draw a deep breath of the heavy air with rather desperate relief. These past hot days, the church’s stone walls and thatch had held coolness in as hoped, but with so many people so closely kept and the shutters not opened during the days to protect the meseled children’s eyes from light nor after dark because of sick-making night vapors, the air was long since thickened with the smells there had to be among so many sick children as well as begun to warm, and she had not been outside since one brief time yesterday.

  But Perryn was waiting at the churchyard gate, leaning against one of the pentice posts, looking as weary as she felt, but he straightened as she joined him, bowed, gave her greeting that she returned, then asked him with a nod at the last slow dripping of the rain off the edges of the pentice roof, “Will this set the haying back?”

  ‘Most of the last cut was stacked before it started, and what’s left lying will dry without much hurt from this,“ he said. ”It’s what we couldn’t cut today we won’t make up.“ He nodded past her, toward the village green. ”The crowner’s come.“

  Frevisse turned to see two men in brown livery strolling across the green toward the alehouse. “When?” she asked, surprised no one had brought word of it into the church yet.

  ‘About an hour ago.“

  ‘Who?“ she asked.

  ‘Master Montfort.“

  The way Perryn said it told her that, like her, he had dealt with the crowner before and felt no better about him than she did. That Montfort might not come himself was something she and Master Naylor had discussed, with her own hope being, “He might not. It being ‘only’ a villein’s death, he might send one of his Sergeants rather than come himself.”

  ‘We can but hope,“ Master Naylor had replied.

  But hope had failed and he had come.

  ‘He’s at Father Edmund’s,“ Perryn said, ”and giving orders like no one had wit in the world but him.“

  ‘Has he called for the jurors yet?“

  ‘Almost as soon as he was off his horse. They’re there now.“

  Frevisse looked sharply away from the green to him. “Already? Why aren’t you there? You were one of the finders of the body.”

  ‘He said I wasn’t needed.“

  Frevisse saw now the hard set of Perryn’s mouth, the rigidness behind his face’s tired lines as he stared broodingly at the two men going into the alehouse, and she echoed with the beginning of alarm, “Not needed?”

  The jury inquiring into a death was made of the men who first found the body because they were ones most likely to know the closest details concerning the death. Or if the matter were complicated enough, the jury was made of them and men from neighboring villages, and even though Montfort’s usual way was to ask questions enough to have his mind made up before he had to deal with a jury, if this time he had already called a jury, then Perryn should have been on it, as one of the men who had brought in Tom Hulcote’s body.

  ‘He’s sent for Dickon, though,“ Perryn said. ”To witness. And ordered I wasn’t to go far.“

  Worse, thought Frevisse. Montfort was moving as if he already had answers, and if he did, she did not like what she was seeing of the shape of them.

  ‘It was to ask about Adam, though, I wanted to see you,“ Perryn said. ”He’s not bettering, is he?“

  That had been the question Frevisse had feared and she tried to find another answer than the only one there was but had to say, “No. Not yet.”

  ‘Will he?“ Perryn asked, his bluntness giving away more than Frevisse wanted to share of his fear. Colyn had bettered steadily since his fever had broken and Lucy had taken the mesels only lightly. But Adam…

  This past day and more he seemed hardly to know even his mother and still his fever refused to break despite everything they did. If it did not break soon…

  Low enough she hardly heard her own voice, Frevisse said, “We’re praying for him.”

  Perryn stepped away from her, past her where she could not see his face, but not quite quickly enough she did not see the pain there. He knew as well as she did that the answers to prayers were not always the answers sought for. And although she believed that whatever came, came by God’s will and therefore for a greater good than men could see, she had rarely found that to be much comfort against hurt or the harsh, present edge of grief, and for now she gave Perryn the only thing she could— her silence—looking the other way from him until behind her, he said tautly, “Here’s trouble coming.”

  Chapter 11

  A last few drops of the finished rain were falling off the thatch edge, sparkling in the thick sunlight, as Dame Frevisse drew aside and Simon stepped forward to meet the crowner’s man in the gateway.

  None too mannerly, the man asked, “You’re the reeve, right?”

  ‘I am, aye,“ Simon agreed. ”Master Montfort wants you.“

  There was no question but that he meant “now,” and although Simon already knew the crowner’s men followed their master’s manners, he still gave way to a smoulder of anger at the rudeness, said, “Oh, aye,” and would have added he’d be there just as soon as he had shifted a manure pile or two, but Dame Frevisse put in mildly, “Of course. Show us the way, why don’t you, fellow?” with somehow an edge on “fellow” that made the man flick an uneasy glance toward her.

  He had obviously had no order concerning a nun; nor had Simon had any thought but
that she would go back to the church, but she stood staring, waiting for the man to go, and after a bare moment’s hesitation, he gave her the slight bow he should have given earlier and turned away, back toward Father Edmund’s.

  Dame Frevisse followed, and Simon as he fell into stride beside her, asked low-voiced, “Is this something you should be doing?” Because if he had had choice, he would have stayed as far from Master Montfort as he could, not sought him out.

  ‘This is manor business and therefore mine,“ she said, still seeming mildly but with more of an edge under the words and her wimple and veil making it hard to read her face from the side.

  Nor was there time to pry more out of her, even if Simon had thought it possible. The priest’s messuage was only the other side of the churchyard. If Simon had cared to, he could have shown the crowner’s man the shorter way, through the narrow stile in the churchyard’s low stone wall for the priest’s use in going to the church and home again, but he was in no haste to come to Master Montfort. Around by the street and in through the fore-yard would be soon enough.

  There wasn’t even that much of a foreyard, since the priest’s place had garden, byre and barns all to the back, though the barn was larger than most since whoever was priest in the village collected tithes in kind from all Lord Lovell’s folk here and added church-gifts from the priory’s villeins to that for his services to them, all in all setting him up to rival Gilbey Dunn for wealth here and his profits going farther than most men’s because he had nor kith nor kin to see to, only sometimes a housekeeper, unless he was a priest who failed to keep to his vows, but the last lax priest had been in Simon’s grandam’s young years and a hard time he must have had of it, according to her, with himself to support and a woman he called his wife and their six children, and “If ever a man perished by surfeit rather than the sword, it was him, sure,” Simon’s grandam had always said when telling the story. “He sowed thick, as they say, but reaped thin. There wasn’t a brat worth breeding up in the lot.”