10 The Squire's Tale Page 18
His rage already going sick and gray inside him, Robert let himself be herded aside, while assuring Gil and Master Durant he was done. Dame Claire had joined Dame Frevisse and Mistress Dionisia around Katherine and Emelye and three of the arbiters were talking at Sir Lewis and Drew, making sure with words that there would be no sudden flare of trouble from there.
And now Ned had Benedict with an arm around his shoulders friendliwise—though likely Benedict would have trouble breaking his grip if he tried—and was steering him toward the door to the hall, Benedict not resisting him, and Robert could have laughed miserably at how quickly the sudden ugliness was over. Over except for what there would be when next he and Benedict had to deal together.
Over except for when next he had to face Blaunche.
Chapter 14
Frevisse had gone through supper with the unease of watching a dogfight about to happen and hoping very much she would be somewhere else when it finally did. That Benedict would be the cause she had little doubt from watching him through the meal, seeing an edge of rancor behind his sullenness that had not been there before, must have grown through the day spent too close to everything he was hating and probably only made the worse by seeing Katherine and Drew together and apparently glad to be. So when finally his anger broke into the open and he looked likely to come to daggers out with Drew, she moved at almost the same moment as Mistress Dionisia to have Katherine and Emelye out of the way; and then it was over, almost as suddenly as it had started, with no more than snarls and snapping and a sudden backing off, like a dogfight where the dogs decided they didn’t want it after all, except that Benedict, being guided toward the hallward door by Master Verney, turned to say venomously back at Robert, “Give her away then, you coward! But if you think I’m ever going to apologize for any—”
‘Your apology,“ Robert cut him off, ”is the last thing anyone thinks worth the having.“
It was too angrily said. Benedict started a step back toward him but Master Verney said, warning, “Benedict,” and Frevisse saw by the flinch of Benedict’s eyes that he suddenly realized how many men—and Katherine—were looking at him; saw him start to wish that he was out of there and that he did not know how to do it well, so that all he could manage was to draw himself up straight, shake off Master Verney’s hand, and leave with what she guessed he meant to be a proud, stalking walk but was only stiff with offended youth.
Master Verney followed him out, leaving behind them an awkward silence that first one man and then another and then the rest set to filling with talk about anything except what had just past, their voices a little too loud, their words a little jumbled. Emelye began to gabble, too, but Mistress Dionisia shushed her and said to her and Katherine both, “We’ll go upstairs now.”
But Katherine said back, “Not yet,” and, smiling, went forward to join Robert, Sir Lewis and Drew where they were beginning to share regrets and apologies all around. They broke off for Drew to begin offering the same to Katherine who, smiling, thanked him while gracefully making little of the need for it.
Beside Frevisse, Dame Claire murmured, “I’m away to Lady Blaunche,” and Frevisse nodded, wondering if she should go, too, but Mistress Dionisia was telling Emelye with a pinch on the arm to make it clear, “Go make talk, too. Help Katherine.”
Rubbing her arm offendedly, Emelye tried, “But Benedict might need me,” casting her eyes the way he had gone, looking like a sick doe.
Mistress Dionisia, taking none of that from her, said tartly, “What Master Benedict needs is the flat of a hand hard along the side of his head, and if you mention him again tonight I’ll use the brush on more than your hair come bedtime.” But at the same time she looked to Frevisse for help and, less for Emelye’s sake than Katherine’s, Frevisse gave a nod of understanding and took Emelye by the arm and with her to Robert’s other side as Dame Claire slipped away to the parlor stairs. Not that Frevisse envied her going. If the choice was between being with Lady Blaunche and staying here, here was the better. By a very little.
Katherine was telling a story about a quarrel she and Benedict had had when they were younger—something that led to thorns in his shoes and honey in her hair—as if what had just passed was nothing more than that, and before she had done, she had brought even Robert to laughter, leaving little Frevisse need do but follow her lead in keeping the talk in easy ways, until the evening was at last seemingly back to where it should have been, not much before Mistress Avys came at her best silent servant’s glide into the room, made her way with downcast eyes to Mistress Dionisia standing aside near the stairway and whispered something in her ear. Mistress Dionisia in her turn came to Katherine and from behind whispered to her, to which Katherine briefly nodded and said a moment later to Robert, Sir Lewis and Drew, “I pray your pardon. I’m asked for. By your leave, I’ll withdraw?”
They gave their leave with assurances that they regretted doing so, she curtsied to them, they bowed to her, and with a warm smile particularly to Drew, she left, taking Frevisse and Emelye with her, Mistress Dionisia and Mistress Avys following after, out of the solar and up the stairs. Only when they were in the parlor, with Mistress Dionisia closing the stairway door behind them, did Katherine give way, flinging her hands out violently to either side as if to shove unseen things away from her, before grabbing up her too-full skirts and fleeing across the room to the far side of the settle, to turn at bay and declare, pointing a fierce finger at the bedchamber door, “I won’t go in there. Not tonight. I won’t!”
Mistress Avys hurried toward her, making hushing gestures and saying, “No need. She hasn’t asked for you. She didn’t even have the children brought to her tonight. It was Dame Claire said you might want rescuing. She said to use Lady Blaunche for an excuse.”
Katherine’s defiance dropped away into an open, aching wish to believe her. “Truly?” she asked. And began to cry.
What sleep Frevisse managed that night was broken sometime by another storm, lightning-driven and thunderous, rolling over the rooftops in the darkness and, later, near to dawn, by another one that was still rumbling away into the distance when she arose and went to set back one of the shutters to the coming day.
Dawn was barely at its gray beginning but the morning air to her deep-drawn breath smelled wonderfully of wet earth and young growing things and she leaned on the windowsill, beginning Prime silently without thought of waking Dame Claire to join her. They had not gone to pray in the chapel last night before bed and had agreed then they would not go this morning, either, the manor being so crowded full °f men. It was Sunday and there would surely be Mass said in the chapel by the village priest that they could go to with the family and meanwhile Frevisse’s private thought was that a little more sleep would do Dame Claire no harm. The brunt of Lady Blaunche’s misery had fallen on her yesterday and last night and there would have been worse if Lady Blaunche had come to hear of what had passed between Robert and Benedict but Dame Claire had forestalled that— for everyone’s sake as well as Lady Blaunche’s—by mixing a three-times-potent dose of valerian and borage into undiluted wine and insisting that she drink it all swiftly, at almost a single draught.
Even with that, Lady Blaunche had staved off sleep awhile, but when it finally came Dame Claire had assured Mistress Avys that she would sleep the night through. “And I wish half the morning, too,” she had added to Frevisse later, on their own way to bed, passing through the solar again where the men were still in talk. “But that’s too much to hope for.”
Frevisse’s own thought had been that at least Lady Blaunche’s drugged sleep would give Robert chance of a good sleep, too. For herself, she surely felt the better for her own rest, disturbed though it had been by the storms; but she was not ready—never ready—for another day of Lady Blaunche’s miseries and tried for now to hold her mind only to the simplicity of the spring dawn and Prime’s early prayers until behind her the rustle of mattresses told her Dame Claire and Nurse were waking, with the murmur of a prayer from D
ame Claire and then Nurse saying with impatient surprise, “Here. What are you doing there?”
Frevisse swung around, with light enough now from the growing day to see Anabilla, the nurserymaid, sitting up from a huddle of blankets on the floor beside Nurse’s bed, rubbing her eyes and answering Nurse’s question sleepily with, “Master Fenner told me to.”
‘Master Fenner?“ Nurse threw back her covers and rose, reaching for her shift hung from the wall rail above her bed. ”What do you mean Master Fenner told you to?“ She dropped her shift swiftly over her head and reached for her gown on the same rail. ”He’d not want the children left alone all night. Get up.“
She prodded Anabilla with her foot and the girl shifted out of her blankets and to her feet in one deft movement, away from the foot, protesting the while, “He did!” She was fully dressed except for her apron folded neatly on top of a nearby stool and her shoes set under it. “After you’d gone to bed and the children were asleep but I wasn’t yet, he came in and said he’d…”
Outside, in the yard, a man yelled, harsh with alarm, whirling Frevisse back to the window. Dawn was swelling over the clear sky but much of the yard was still in shadow and in the time it took her to find the man in the darkness at the foot of the stairs down from the hall, Nurse and Anabilla with Dame Claire only a little behind them joined her in looking out. Even then she could not tell what the fellow was yelling for. There was nothing and no one else in sight…
Other men came spilling out the hall door above him, most less than half dressed, their shirttails loose, some without their hosen up, but all of them with some weapon in hand, mostly daggers…
Unless that was a shape at his feet that, yes, he was pointing at while he yelled too garbled and away from her for her to make out much of what he was saying but…
Frevisse pushed away from the window, past the other women and toward and out the door to their own stairs to the yard, meeting Robert coming from the children’s room, his hair disheveled, shrugging into his doublet as he came, his belt with its sheathed dagger in his hand. “What is it?” he demanded of her, starting down the stairs without waiting *°r answer. “All I could see was someone yelling.”
‘I don’t know,“ she answered, following. Her unthinking Pattern of dressing as soon as she rose from bed had her already gowned and veiled, able to go out, and she did, catching up her skirts and running well enough she was able to keep close at Robert’s back as he shoved in among the men crowded around whatever was the matter and therefore saw almost as soon as he did that it was someone lying sprawled on the cobbles. Saw, in the next moment, that it was Benedict. And that he was dead.
No one lived with their neck that twisted, their head bent that way.
With a moan Robert went down on his knees, belt and dagger dropped, and reached out toward him but stopped because there was so obviously no use. Instead, his hands fell helplessly back into his lap and, his head moving from side to side, trying to refuse belief, he said, low and in pain, “No. Blessed Jesus, no. Not this.”
Frevisse looked around for someone who would go to him, take him away from here and begin to give the needed orders, but everyone she could see seemed to be servants or Sir Lewis’ men for all she could tell of them. That was to be expected; they were who would have been sleeping in the hall, first to hear the outcry, nearest to come. Some were already going back inside to spread word but others were coming out, both from the hall and from around the yard, and she saw first Sir Lewis and Drew at the hall door and then, to her relief, Master Verney crossing the yard, somewhat more dressed than most, with doublet unfastened but strapping on belt and dagger as he came, shoving in among the men until his first sight of Benedict’s body brought him to a halt, pain sharp in his face. But he equally saw Benedict was past any help but prayers and went to take Robert by the shoulders, drawing him to his feet and a few steps backward, saying, “Come away. You don’t need to see more here. I’ll do what needs doing.”
Dumbly, Robert shook his head, not letting himself be drawn farther off, not looking away from Benedict’s body.
‘Come away,“ Master Verney insisted and looked around, asking, ”Has anyone gone for the priest?“
From the crowd’s back someone answered, “No need for haste there. That’s a dead ‘un.”
Master Verney cast a sharp look toward the voice. “You can take your mouth somewhere else.” He picked a man among the others. “Raulyn. See to Benedict being taken to his room…”
From where she stood close aside from Robert, Frevisse said quietly, “The body should be looked at before it’s moved.”
Without pause Master Verney included her in things with which he needed to deal. “Dame Frevisse, this is no place for you. Lady Blaunche will need…”
Robert straightened out of his friend’s hold, drew a ragged breath, said, “Do as she says, Ned. Look to see if there are any wounds on him.”
‘His neck is broken…“ Master Verney started.
‘And we want to be sure that’s all that happened to him,“ said Frevisse.
Master Verney looked to her, back to Robert, opened his mouth, shut it, rethought whatever else he had been going to say and said instead, “Yes. You’re right,” and, forestalling Robert, added, “No, not you. I’ll do it.”
Clearly not liking what he did any more than Frevisse would have if she had had to do it, he knelt and turned Benedict’s body over onto its back, careful of head and arm to keep them from flopping, as if that somehow mitigated the ruin there was of what had been a life.
But there was no more wound or blood or torn clothing to the front than on the back. Nor was there any way to tell how long he might have been lying there by how soaking wet his clothing was all around. With the night’s rains and the cobbles runneling water, he could have been lying there a half-hour or eight.
‘He’s only a little stiffened,“ Master Verney said, the words thick with the effort to speak evenly. ”He’s been dead a few hours maybe.“
Or he might have been unstiffening, for all they could presently tell, Frevisse did not say. There was such variance in how long it took a body to stiffen and unstiffen, depending on so many things difficult to gauge, that it was only sometimes a useful thing.
‘He fell,“ someone among the men said. ”Fell and broke his neck in the dark and rain. What else?“
‘How long was he in the hall last night after you and he left the solar?“ Frevisse asked Master Verney.
‘We only passed through. I saw him to his room, talked him a little further down, told him he was best to stay there, and went back to the solar.“
‘Did he come back to the hall later?“ she asked around at the gathered men. There was a general shaking of heads that he had not. ”Or did anyone see him anywhere else he could have been coming from and out the hall door here?“ she persisted.
Men looked around at one another but no one answered, except someone offered, “He could have been seen by someone not here yet.”
‘Or he might have fallen going up the stairs,“ another voice put in.
Frevisse did not bother with trying to find who was saying what, just asked of all in general, “You mean he tripped while going up the stairs, managed to fall all the way down, and landed facing away from them, breaking his neck on the way?”
Hesitancy spread out around her, someone finally saying. uncertainly, “That’s not likely, is it?”
She did not answer that. She was too aware that Master Verney was staring up at her from where he still knelt beside Benedict’s body, that Robert had not looked away from her since she had asked her first question, and that she had more to ask. But before she could, Lady Blaunche demanded shrilly from the stairs’ head, “What’s happened?”
When whatever half-word of something wrong reached her, she must have been dressing to go to Mass because although her hair was still unbound, she was in a bright azure gown rather than her bedrobe; she had to gather her skirts up in both hands as she started down the stair
s, demanding, “Who is it?”
If she noted Sir Lewis and Drew were there, almost at the stairfoot, turned to look up at her like everyone else— if she even knew what they looked like to know them at all—she gave them no heed as they stepped back out of her way along with the men at the stairfoot, the ones who had been blocking her from view of Benedict’s body.
By now there was dawnlight enough she knew immediately what she was seeing and it brought her to a sharp halt on the last step, frozen, disbelieving, until all at the same moment Robert began to move toward her and she began to scream and, screaming, let go her skirts and hurled herself forward. Only Sir Lewis’ quick grasp of her arm saved her from falling headlong, gave her balance long enough to fling off his hold and stumble off the last step and time for Robert to be in her way, between her and Benedict’s body.
She would have shoved blindly past him but he took hold of her by both arms and said at her past her screaming, “Blaunche, no! You don’t want to see!”
She stopped both her screaming and trying to push past him, stood white and rigid in his hold staring at him, just staring, as if she neither knew nor wanted to know who he was, only wanted him out of her way; and Robert abruptly let her go and stepped aside, leaving her to go forward the few paces more and sink, slowly now, onto her knees beside Benedict’s body. There was no sound, from her or anyone, save for the whisper of her skirts as they spread out around her as she knelt and in that silence she reached out first to touch her son’s hand lying outstretched on the cobbles near her, as if she would not believe he could be anything other than asleep. Then, slowly, she touched his cheek, first with only her fingertips, then her whole hand cupped against it, her warm flesh to his cold. And then, with a moan beginning somewhere deep inside her, she bent and gathered him into her arms as much as she could, holding him to her breast, his head cradled against her neck, her face pressed to his fair, wet hair as she began to rock him… rock him… moan… and rock him…