10 The Squire's Tale Read online

  Chapter 15

  Mistress Avys came then in a rush down the stairs with Katherine and Mistress Dionisia behind her, closing in around Lady Blaunche in a mingling of tears and outcry as they realized what they were seeing. Dame Claire came next, from the other way, the men parting from in front of her at her crisp words until she was at Robert’s side, could see, too, and looked from Benedict’s body, still in his mother’s arms, to Frevisse who, feeling as white and rigid as Robert looked, moved her head stiffly from side to side, telling her there was no more hope than there looked to be.

  But Lady Blaunche at sight of Dame Claire cried out in wordless plea and Dame Claire went forward, knelt, laid hand on Benedict’s chest and touched the side of his throat as if looking for heartbeat that too plainly would never be there again, before she said gently to Lady Blaunche, “He’s gone, my lady. Best let them take him now.”

  Clutching Benedict’s body closer, Lady Blaunche shrank back from her, looked around desperately for help there could not be and, not finding it, turned her face, her eyes shut, to the sky and the rain-washed dawn and cried out with a high-wrought despair, a cry of the death of all the world’s hope, of heart breaking and nothing left but pain and pain and more pain after that.

  Someone among the onlookers groaned, “Oh, God,” and it might have been Robert, but he was the only one who dared finally move toward her, a single step, enough that Lady Blaunche’s eyes flew open and fixed on him as if on an enemy, as she screamed at him, “Stay back from us! He’s none of yours! Stay back!” Screamed around her at everyone, “All of you! Stay back! You can’t have him!”

  Mistress Avys, weeping openly, laid a hand on her arm, trying, “My lady…”

  Lady Blaunche twisted away from her touch, making to shield Benedict’s body from her as well as from everyone else, crying, “He’s mine! Leave him alone! Leave him alone!” before she collapsed into weeping and bent over him, her hair sliding forward to make a curtain hiding both his face and hers.

  Master Verney and Sir Lewis began motioning and quietly ordering the lookers-on to leave and mostly they went willingly, carrying the drift of manor servants come out from kitchen and stable away with them. It was through the outspread of them drawing off that Master Geoffrey came half-running, his clerk’s gown unbelted and lifted out of his way to show bare legs and feet as if he had thrown it on after a hasty rousing from bed. Frevisse saw him catch a man’s arm and ask something, then freeze in a long look toward the clot of them still at the stairfoot before gathering himself and coming on with less haste but more purpose, ready by the time he reached Lady Blaunche to kneel down on one knee in front of her and say gently to the top of her head, “My lady, you have to let him go. He died unshriven…”

  Meaning Benedict’s soul had gone out of him unprotected from all the dangers that came after death.

  Robert made a protesting move but Frevisse put out a hand to hold him quiet. Whatever was done now would have to come from somewhere other than him as Lady Blaunche jerked upright at Master Geoffrey’s words and turned wild eyes on him while he went on steadily, meeting her gaze, “… and he should be in the chapel. We can best make prayers over him there, my lady. He’ll be safest there.”

  He left off then, giving her time to take it in, waiting while first her sobbing lessened, then stopped, and finally, straightening a little, she looked up through her hair to ask, faint-voiced, “You’ll go with him?”

  ‘I’ll go with him,“ Master Geoffrey assured her. ”I’ll take him there and see everything done that needs to be and then you can come to him.“ He went so far as to lay a hand over one of hers and say, gently still, ”Please, my lady.“

  Lady Blaunche straightened a little more, her hold on Benedict a little lessening. “I want…” she began.

  ‘You need to lie down,“ Master Geoffrey said. ”For a little while. Only a little while. For the sake of your other child.“ He let his eyes briefly drop toward her middle. ”My lady, please. For your other children, too,“ he added, and Frevisse and Robert both, belatedly, looked up toward the still-shuttered nursery window where, blessedly, Nurse must be keeping firm hand, St. Nicholas be thanked.

  ‘My lady, please,“ Master Geoffrey repeated, and now Dame Claire said gently in echo, ”For only a little while. For your baby’s sake.“

  Lady Blaunche looked up at her half-blindly for a moment before saying uncertainly, “Yes.” And when Master Geoffrey made to take Benedict’s body from her, she let him, then let Mistress Dionisia and Dame Claire help her to her feet, one holding to either elbow and Dame Claire’s arm around her waist to steady her as Master Geoffrey carefully laid Benedict’s body down and Master Verney came forward with his doublet off and folded into a pillow to put between Benedict’s head and the cobbles, as if somehow that would better things.

  Maybe it did. At least Lady Blaunche nodded weakly in thanks while she stared down at Benedict’s face a moment more before, crying quietly now, she at last let Dame Claire and Mistress Dionisia turn her away toward the stairs. She stumbled a little over her skirts and Mistress Avys made herself useful by crowding beside Mistress Dionisia to lift them aside for her so that it was all three women helped her up the steps, leaving only Katherine who instead of following came a few steps forward and knelt beside Benedict’s body, silently there a long moment with bent head and prayer-clasped hands before, with head still bowed, she rose and went after the other women.

  Only Frevisse did not go but stayed with Robert and Master Verney, Master Geoffrey, Gil and two other household men who, when Lady Blaunche was gone inside, came forward at Master Verney’s nod and, with Gil, took up Benedict’s body. As they moved off, slow with their burden, Master Geoffrey said, “I’ll go with them, to see to things.”

  Robert, standing staring at where Benedict had lain, made no answer and Frevisse had no authority for any, but Master Verney, without looking away from Robert, nodded that Master Geoffrey should; and when the clerk followed the three men and Benedict’s body away toward the chapel, there was silence then in the emptied yard except for somewhere beyond the walls, in the garden probably, a bird was singing gladness to the morning, until finally Robert drew a deep, aching breath, raised his gaze to Master Verney, and asked, “Father Laurence?”

  ‘I’ve sent someone for him.“

  ‘The crowner, too.“ The king’s officer who had to be summoned to any unexpected, ill-done death to determine if there was wrong and, if there was, where it lay and summon in the sheriff. ”He’ll have to come.“

  ‘Master Skipton will see to it someone goes for him,“ Master Verney said.

  ‘Oh, God.“ Robert pressed his hands over his face. ”Why this? Why to Benedict?“

  ‘Why,“ Master Verney said, looking to Frevisse, ”all those questions?“

  She held silent, gathering her reasons before she answered, very evenly, “Because they had to be asked.”

  ‘Because you doubt it was a simple fall down the stairs in the dark and rain?“ Master Verney pressed.

  ‘Because I think there’s a chance that it wasn’t, yes.“

  ‘Why think that?“ Master Verney pressed again.

  Robert was watching her now, too, and as much to him as to Master Verney she answered, “Because he made enemies yesterday and now he’s dead.”

  Robert refused that with a shake of his head. “No. There’s no one here would want him dead.”

  ‘Sir Lewis in fear for his son? His son in anger at everything Benedict said, both to him and at Katherine? You for the same reasons? You,“ she said to Master Verney, ”for fear he’d ruin the peace you’ve been so much a part of making?“

  ‘God’s mercy, Dame Frevisse!“ Robert protested.

  Unrelenting, she persisted, “There’s four without even knowing more than I do about him.”

  ‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t simply fall,“ Master Verney returned. ”Going in or coming out,“ he added, remembering her earlier questions.

  ‘How simple a fa
ll could it have been?“ Frevisse asked. ”He was lying feet toward the stairs, head away, as if he fell coming down, but no one saw him in the hall last night, for him to be coming out from there.“

  ‘He might have gone by the screen’s passage to somewhere else.“

  ‘Where?“ Frevisse asked.

  ‘The kitchen,“ Master Verney said, but doubtfully.

  ‘Why?“ Frevisse pursued. ”Wouldn’t he have had food and drink already brought to his room for the night? Or if not, why wouldn’t he send his man for it?“ Which brought to mind a belated thought. ”Where is his man?“

  ‘He doesn’t have a servant of his own,“ Robert said dully. He bent to take up his dropped belt and dagger and began buckling them on with blindly fumbling fingers. ”His mother thought that since I’d been on my own at Benedict’s age, no one serving me, it would do him good to be the same.“

  Keeping her thoughts on that to herself, Frevisse said, “Until more questions can be asked and someone says he was in the hall or somewhere else that he could have been coming from and down the stairs, we have to think that if he was on the stairs at all and fell, it had to be while going up them.”

  Robert looked up from his belt buckle. “If he was on the stairs at all?” he repeated.

  It had to be to the good that he was coming back enough to have caught that, though there was no pleasure for Frevisse in pointing out, “To fall while going up the stairs and land at the bottom stretched out and facing away from them as he was would be…” She paused to choose a word carefully. “… difficult.” To the point of being impossible.

  ‘You think he was pushed?“ Master Verney asked, frowning. ”That someone pushed him off the stairs?“

  ‘Or that he was never on them.“

  There were other ways than by a fall for necks to be broken but she did not have to say so; Master Verney, catching up to her thought, said on a rising note of disbelief, “You think he was with someone here and they killed him and left him lying in hopes no one would think he was dead from anything but a fall? Is that what you’re saying?”

  ‘I’m saying it could have been that way,“ Frevisse said stiffly. ”Or that he could have been killed somewhere else and his body dumped here at the stairfoot to make it look like he died of a fall.“

  ‘That would be dangerous,“ Master Verney pointed out. ”There’d be the chance of being seen carrying the body, no matter what hour of the night. There’s always folk about.“

  ‘Less chance last night than most times,“ Robert said. ”There wasn’t a torch or lantern stayed lighted in the downpour and wind gusts there were. Except for when there was lightning, the yard was thick dark, black as pitch.“

  ‘How do you know?“ Frevisse asked, not fully keeping sharpness out of her voice.

  Master Verney gave her a hard look but Robert only answered, “When I left Sir Lewis and the others at evening’s end, I didn’t want to see Blaunche again. I went to the children’s chamber to sleep instead of my own bed. It was storming again and the yard was dark then. I doubt anyone bothered with trying to keep anything lit last night. I assuredly gave no order for it.”

  ‘Who would be out in that rain to need the light anyway?“ Master Verney said.

  Pursuing her own way, Frevisse said, “So moving Benedict’s body would have been a gamble but a fairly safe one and maybe one that had to be taken no matter what if the body couldn’t be left where it was.”

  ‘But why kill him at all?“ Robert asked on a sudden note of anguish. ”Why?“

  ‘Because it may be more convenient—or safer—for someone if Benedict is dead,“ Frevisse offered.

  ‘As you’ve already said,“ Master Verney put in.

  ‘As I’ve already said,“ Frevisse agreed.

  ‘One of us,“ Master Verney said bitterly.

  ‘No!“ Robert protested. ”None of us!“

  ‘Then whom?“ Frevisse asked.

  ‘He fell,“ Master Verney said.

  ‘He didn’t fall,“ Robert said flatly. ”Dame Frevisse has the right of it. Lying like he was, he couldn’t have been going up when he fell, and unless you can find someone who says he came back after you took him out of here, he didn’t fall while going down, either, and that leaves only that he was killed by someone and probably somewhere else.“ He looked at Frevisse out of far older eyes than he had had yesterday. ”Find out who killed him. The way you did with Sir Walter’s mother.“

  ‘That isn’t a task to ask of her,“ Master Verney said. ”It’s for the crowner when he comes.“

  Robert had not taken his gaze from Frevisse’s face nor she from his. “She’ll do it,” he said. “Won’t you? You’ve started. Don’t stop.”

  Frevisse doubted she could have, with his will or without it, because this time yesterday Benedict had been alive and now he was dead, and whatever trouble he had been making yesterday, it had been a trouble that would have passed, would have been dealt with and ended sooner or later, one way or another, and he would have gone on with the rest of his life, to other troubles, surely, but to happinesses, too. To his two years in Master Verney’s household and marriage and children of his own and maybe, God willing, even old age.

  Now he wouldn’t.

  Now there was nothing left for him, of him, except the hope his soul would find peace and the certainty that through the years when he should have been living his life, his body would be no more than rotting in a grave.

  And, yes, the rights and wrongs of the matter were for the crowner to sift out, but, no, she could not let it rest because—she faced it squarely—she was angry. Very angry. And she asked, without directly answering Robert’s question, “Last night, Master Verney, when you left the solar with Benedict, where did you go with him?”

  Master Verney sent a look toward Robert who answered only, “Please, Ned.”

  And though he grimaced in displeasure, Master Verney said, “I took him to his room. It was the best place to have him out of the way, it seemed.”

  ‘You were there with him awhile?“

  ‘I stayed talking with him until he was quieted and I was sure he’d stay there, not go looking to make trouble again. We talked about having him out of here and into my household as soon as this Allesley matter was settled, instead of waiting until after Easter, and that helped enough that I thought he’d do well if I left him for the night and I did. Alive,“ he added pointedly.

  Frevisse said nothing to that nor bothered with asking either him or Robert how long it had been before he had returned to the solar. It hardly made a difference how long he had been gone. If one knew how, it took only an instant to break a neck. What mattered was where Master Verney had been later, after everyone was to bed, when Benedict’s body had been moved, and she was about to ask him when Katherine came suddenly out of the hall doorway above them, her hair pulled free from its loose night-braid and her eyes wide with fear as she cried down the stairs, shrill with panic, “Robert, help! Lady Blaunche!”

  Chapter 16

  With fear lurched into his throat, Robert flung himself up the stairs toward Katherine but she had already spun back inside and he only overtook her in the screens passage, to catch her by the arm and demand, “What is it?”

  Face flushed, Katherine said in a desperate rush, “She’s gone mad. We can’t stop her. Dame Claire said you were to come,” and would have pulled away from him then but he was quicker than she was, past her and into the hall where her own headlong coming to find him had left a startlement behind her and a clear path among the men that he took at a run, bursting into the solar and across it hardly aware there were men there, too, but he heard Blaunche’s screaming before he was to the stairs and hurled himself up their dark spiral, not knowing what he expected to find but finding it soon enough as he burst into the parlor where everything was witness that Blaunche had gone from numb grieving into grief’s high rage, with every cushion thrown from settle and window bench, joint stools smashed to pieces against the floor or into a wall, his cha
ir heaved over on its back, the tapestry pulled half down, and Blaunche standing, her back to him, in the midst of it all, briefly out of breath for screaming but looking about her for more to do.

  The women, even Dame Claire, were all driven back to the walls, Emelye clutching a torn cushion to her, sobbing uselessly, Mistress Avys crying out, “My lady, you’re childing! Pity the baby! Please!”

  ‘Pity?“ Blaunche gasped out at her. ”On the baby? Pity? If it dies before it’s ever born, that’s pity. You stupid woman. They’re all going to die. All my babies. Soon or later, they’ll all be…“ She ran out of breath, dropped to her knees and beat with white-knuckled fists against the floor until she could gasp out, ”They’re all going to be dead. Dead. All of them. That’s… all… there… is! Like Benedict!“

  ‘My lady…“ Mistress Avys sobbed, taking a step away from the wall.

  Blaunche turned wild eyes on her, stopped her where she was and said, cold with a sudden, horribly false calm, “I told you… to bring them to me. I told you… I want… to see my children.”

  ‘My lady, I don’t think—“

  ‘No, you don’t think!“ Blaunche stumbled to her feet, back into her rage. ”And you don’t know. You’ve never gone through having children, only to find out that it’s all for nothing. That all it comes to is that they die!“ Wrenching her skirts aside from her feet with angry hands, she lurched toward the corner where the children’s toys were chested and Robert came loose from his frozen horror to follow her, unsure how much he should try to quiet her or whether it was better to let her wear her anger and herself out, until she threw open the toy chest’s lid, slamming it back against the wall, and grabbed out the first thing that came to hand, Tacine’s doll, and began smashing it down against the chest’s edge, screaming, ”Like this!“ Gasping with the force of her blows. ”All of it… all of it… for nothing. For… nothing.“

  She gave over beating it, began wrenching with all her strength to pull off its arm and might have except Robert caught hold of her from behind, wrapped his arms around her to pin her arms to her body—knowing even as he did it that he did it more for Tacine’s sake than hers—saying with what he meant to be gentleness, “Blaunche, no. There’s no need. Let be.”