1 The Novice's Tale Read online

  The noise sharpened into a clatter of many hoofs on cobbles and rising voices. Thomasine jerked upright. One voice carried above the others and she was afraid she recognized it. Chaucer turned where he sat to look out, and Dame Frevisse crossed the room to join him. But Thomasine, sure now she knew who it was, huddled down onto her stool, as if hoping by some miracle a bush would grow out of the floor and hide her.

  Dame Frevisse, peering out, said with a feeling plainly far from devout, “God have mercy on us.”

  Chapter 2

  Domina Edith, waking as easily as she had fallen asleep, lifted her head. “What is it?”

  Dame Frevisse swung back in a gentle swirl of veil and curtsied, her face courteously bland. “Lady Ermentrude Fenner is just entering the yard.”

  “And seemingly she’s bringing half of Oxfordshire with her,” Master Chaucer added, not helpfully.

  Thomasine, her heart dropping toward her sandals at this confirmation of the visitor’s name, bit her lip against any sound. Domina Edith herself gave no sign beyond the merest fluttering of her eyelids before saying mildly, “I do not recall receiving any warning of our being honored with a visit from the lady.”

  Which was usual for Lady Ermentrude. She seemed to feel that the honor of her coming more than outweighed the burden of surprise. It may even have been that she enjoyed the frantic readying of rooms, the culinery desperation in the kitchen, and the general scurrying that followed her unannounced arrivals.

  Domina Edith brushed at her faultless lap. “She’ll wish, as always, to see me first. You must needs bring her, I suppose. But there’s no need to hurry her, mind you. Take time about it if you wish.”

  If Lady Ermentrude so wished, was the more likely, thought Thomasine. But Dame Frevisse only said, “Yes, my lady,” then hesitated in her curtsey and asked, “The guest hall kitchen… ?”

  The guest hall was new and barely tried, so there should be no surprise that things were still settling over there. Still, it seemed cruel that something should shift in the kitchen chimney just before the arrival of an important lady who inevitably traveled with a large retinue. There would be no stonemason to repair it for at least a week, and in the meanwhile nothing could be roasted in the guest kitchen fireplace.

  Domina Edith gestured with true regret. “We needs must use the priory kitchen. You should advise the cooks on your way to greet Lady Ermentrude.”

  Dame Frevisse nodded and went out. Thomasine, hoping to make Dame Frevisse’s departure her own, rose to follow her, but Domina Edith said, surprised at her, “Stay, child. Matters must be kept decent between Master Chaucer and myself. And Lady Ermentrude will be asking to see you, as always.”

  Thomasine knew it. And dreaded it. Lady Ermentrude was her great-aunt only by marriage, but that was small comfort. Her first husband had been Thomasine’s grandfather’s brother. When he died young, she married back into her own Fenner family, but with the Fenners’ inbred devotion to keeping tight hold on anything and anyone who might be of use or profit to them, she had not let loose her interest in her first husband’s people. Thomasine’s father had been raised in her household—something she had never let him forget—and for one miserable season Thomasine and her sister Isobel had been there in their turn, too, to learn highborn manners and a lady’s duties. Properly, they both would have stayed until their marriages were made, but Thomasine’s frail health had failed her and she had been sent home, leaving only Isobel to Lady Ermentrude’s attentions. Now Isobel was six years a wife, and Thomasine nearly settled into nunhood, where she hoped to find herself beyond Lady Ermentrude’s interference.

  But St. Frideswide’s was a particular charity of the Fenners and lately most particularly of Lady Ermentrude. Her gifts of food and money were always welcome, which gave her further excuse to drop in uninvited, and her visits always included a rude teasing of Thomasine, asking if she were ready yet to be taken away from this dull prison and given to a husband of good birth and manly vigor.

  Now, Domina Edith said, “Go to the window, child, and tell me what’s come with her this time.” To Master Chaucer she added, “Pray excuse my unseemly curiosity, but Lady Ermentrude’s visits…” She hesitated, seeking an explanation that would be both polite and accurate, and finally said, “Her visits sometimes put a strain upon us.”

  “She stayed a week with my lady wife and I one Christmastide,” Master Chaucer answered, his tone making very clear he understood all she had not said.

  Thomasine, having gone carefully to the window farthest from where he sat, reported dutifully, “My lady, there are at least ten men-at-arms come with her. And fourteen or fifteen outriders. I see five sumpter horses and two carriages of servants. Here are more sumpter horses coming.”

  “Is Lady Ermentrude on horseback or in a carriage?”

  There was no difficulty finding Lady Ermentrude among the clutter of her baggage and people. “She’s dismounting now, my lady. She was riding.”

  “Then she’s feeling well.” Domina Edith betrayed a faint regret at that. Lady Ermentrude enjoyed a touch of sickness as much as anyone could, keeping her servants and everyone else scurrying to fetch hot possets and cool drinks and an orange if they had to ride to Banbury for it, and cushions and blankets and her dogs to tumble and quarrel across her coverlet and someone to read her awake or sing her to sleep. But the only thing worse than Lady Ermentrude ill was Lady Ermentrude at her vigorous best, needing to be entertained late into the evening when all Christians should be in bed, and then betimes up and around, looking into every nook and cranny of nunnery affairs as if the bishop had sent her on a visitation in his place.

  “And baggage wagons besides the sumpter horses?” Domina Edith asked. The length of a visit could sometimes be guessed by the number of the lady’s chests and boxes.

  “Yes, my lady. They’re still coming through the gateway, but there are three so far.” Domina Edith could not hold back a faint sigh. “And two men with her dogs,” added Thomasine. “Hounds and lapdogs both.”

  Domina Edith sighed again. The hunting hounds would go into the kennels, but the lapdogs were tiny terrors that followed their mistress nearly everywhere, even into the church for Mass. “And the parrot?” Domina Edith asked. “Did she bring the parrot as well?”

  Thomasine looked among the women climbing down from the first carriage. “I don’t see…” she began but saw something worse, paused to be sure of it, and then said rather hopelessly, “There’s a monkey.”

  From other times, St. Frideswide’s knew that Lady Ermentrude’s occasional monkeys were the most thieving, noisy, dirty, troublesome creatures ever to come inside the nunnery’s walls. Every one of them had been wicked, nasty servants of the devil whose single grace seemed to be that they rarely lived long.

  “A monkey,” Domina Edith repeated, sounding as if she had been given a second hundred years in Purgatory.

  Master Chaucer’s shoulders twitched, and he found it necessary to extract a handkerchief from his undersleeve and blow his nose.

  “That’s very well for you, Master Chaucer,” Domina Edith said sternly, “since you’re meaning to ride on this afternoon.” Then to Thomasine, “Is Dame Frevisse to the courtyard yet?”

  Among the bright milling and shifting of people, wagons, and horses and the scurry of priory servants come to sort the rout into guest halls and stable, Thomasine was easily able to recognize Dame Frevisse, tall and black-gowned among the brown and cream livery of Lady Ermentrude’s servants and the brighter colors of her ladies. As Thomasine watched, she moved with direct purpose through their chaos to reach Lady Ermentrude, also easily seen in her trailing gown of sheeny apricot-and-blue silk, arrayed with great hanging sleeves and a fashionable padded headdress airy with yards of floating veil.

  How did she keep from frightening the horses? Thomasine wondered uncharitably. Dame Frevisse, having reached her, bowed a graceful greeting and began with only a word or two to draw her back from her busy shouting and gesturing at everyone
in the yard.

  “She’s speaking with Lady Ermentrude just now,” Thomasine dutifully reported.

  “As you can tell by the sudden ceasing of the lady’s voice,” Master Chaucer added.

  “But are they coming this way yet?” Domina Edith asked.

  “Now they are.”

  “The monkey, is it coming with her?”

  Thomasine hesitated. Close behind Lady Ermentrude were two women, one keeping well away from the other, who carried the long-tailed brown monkey perched on her shoulder. It had pulled her hat sideways and was shrieking in what seemed to Thomasine close imitation of its mistress. Both women moved as if to follow Lady Ermentrude, but Dame Frevisse lifted her arm in a polite but definite gesture. Thomasine could not hear what she said, but the women nodded and turned away to follow the flow of furnishings and people toward the guest hall.

  Master Chaucer, who had risen to his feet to watch along with Thomasine, said admiringly, “Frevisse could command armies. A pity she’s a woman.”

  Thomasine frowned at him, and beyond him caught an expression flitting across Domina Edith’s face that showed how little she thought of that remark also. But before his quick glance could see her disapproval, Thomasine smoothed it away and said, “The monkey is not coming, Domina. Nor any of the dogs.”

  Domina Edith gave a relieved sigh. “I should have made her hosteler long ago.” Master Chaucer looked pleased at this compliment of his niece, and she elaborated, “Lady Ermentrude had our last hosteler in near hysterics within a half day of her coming. And that time she had for once sent word ahead that she was coming.” She shook her head regretfully at the memory. “Sister Fiacre is much more content now as sacrist. Neither the altar linens nor vestments nor candles nor lamps shout at her, no matter what she does or doesn’t do. Shouting hurts Sister Fiacre’s feelings.” Domina Edith gazed off thoughtfully at nothing in particular. Thomasine hoped she was not going to sleep again. “But the monkey is not going into the new hall, is it?”

  St. Frideswide’s had two guest halls now, both within the priory’s inner wall. Travelers and visitors could stay the night or longer in them, enjoying the priory’s Rule-directed charity but leaving the nuns in peace inside their cloister. Only Dame Frevisse as hosteler needed to deal daily with them. Lesser sorts of travelers and superfluities of servants stayed in the old guest hall to the north side of the inner gateway, with its large single room for everyone to sleep in. The new hall to the gateway’s south was of stone and better built, with separate chambers off its central hall for noble guests and their near attendants. It meant that St. Frideswide’s charity was less evenhanded than it had been, but it still never failed, still always offered a roof to every head and food for every belly, charging only what the visitor cared to pay, even if it were nothing.

  But just now anyone who chanced to come would have scant comfort; Lady Ermentrude and her traveling household were rapidly filling up both guest halls at once.

  “The monkey and lapdogs are all going into the new hall,” Chaucer said.

  Domina Edith murmured, “God help our clean new floors.”

  Lady Ermentrude was out of sight now. Thomasine drew back from the window and said hesitantly, “Lady Ermentrude will be here on the moment. Should I go to the kitchen?”

  She was assigned to help in the kitchen today, and surely she would be more needed than ever now, with all the guests come and the guest-hall kitchen useless.

  But Domina Edith merely said in her faded voice, “Be sure the basin’s water is clean and the towel folded best side up.”

  So Thomasine took up the towel Dame Frevisse must have brought for Master Chaucer. Refolded and laid over her arm, it showed no use. And the water in the silver pitcher was still mildly warm as she poured it into the silver basin on the table. Burying a craven urge to flee, she took the basin and went to stand by the thick wooden door, bracing herself.

  Lady Ermentrude’s shrill voice was already rising from the stairs, complaining of the ineptitude of servants, the dusty roads, the complications of travel in hot weather. As always, the sound of her made Thomasine’s stomach knot; with an effort she kept her face under control as the door opened and Lady Ermentrude swept into the room in an excess of skirts and veiling and voice. Paying no heed to Thomasine, she paused to thrust her hands into and out of the basin, shook them briskly to make the droplets fly, and dried her fingers with little dabs at the towel while gazing around the room.

  There might have been a time when her features could have been called beautiful. There were fine bones under the aging skin and traces of rich natural coloring. But years of self-indulgence, most particularly in her famed ill temper, had creased lines more deeply down her face than need have been there, drawn out and narrowed her mouth, given her eyes a beady eagerness to peer and judge. She was still, as she had always been, elegant in bearing and dress; however, greed and selfishness had made a thin, brittle veneer of her good manners. And now she said, still eyeing the room, “Nothing changed. Even the dog in its basket the same. You are like God’s Holy Church, everlastingly unchanged!”

  She made it sound a doubtful virtue for anyone to have and certainly not one for which she personally had much use. Before Domina Edith could respond, Lady Ermentrude recognized Master Chaucer standing at the window and, tossing the towel at Thomasine’s face, advanced on him, her voice brightening. “Master Chaucer! What good chance to meet you here! We can have a fine exchange of news from Court and Queen.”

  With what looked to Thomasine like something less than pleasure, Master Chaucer took the plump hand held out insistently under his nose and kissed it before replying in cool tones, “I’ve long since left my service at the court and any word I’ve had of Her Grace Queen Catherine is third hand at best.”

  Thomasine had the small, sharp, sinful satisfaction of seeing her great-aunt very slightly disconcerted. Whatever Master Chaucer’s connections, he was nonetheless of common birth and should be more flattered by her attentions than he was showing. But he was too unexpected a windfall in the predictability of the nunnery—and too rich and too close to nobility far higher than her own—for Lady Ermentrude to take offense. Instead, with a condescending familiarity meant to make up for his own lack of enthusiasm, she exclaimed, “Dear man! You know full well I’ve been these past few years with Her Grace as one of her ladies-in-waiting.” To Domina Edith she added, as if she had not mentioned it on every possible occasion whenever she had been at St. Frideswide’s, “I’ve been with Her Grace now and again ever since she left the court to live retired.”

  She settled into the room’s second-best chair—Domina Edith had made no move to rise from the best—and turned her attention back to Master Chaucer. “I was with Her Grace not above a week ago. But I’ve left her service for good. Did you know that—and why?” She leaned toward him, a glitter of gossip in her eyes. “I told her my age was wearing on me and she gave permission for me to leave.” A beringed hand smacked a silken thigh. “Ha! I’m as young as ever I was. No, there’s going to be a scandal in that household. And the wise know better than to be near the mighty when there’s a fall from grace.” Lady Ermentrude’s head cocked sideways like a clever crow’s. “What rumors have you heard, Master Chaucer? About one thing or another?”

  “I’ve heard no rumors nor talk of scandal. And since you’re surely to be counted among the wise, you know the unwisdom of retelling any such to me or anyone, even our good Domina Edith, soul of discretion though she is.”

  His voice was mild, but Thomasine thought there was warning in his eyes. Lady Ermentrude paused before drawing a deep breath, her mouth opening to reply. Before she could, Domina Edith, apparently unaware of anything at all beyond the casual conversation, said, “My lady, I think < you’ve failed to recognize your niece.”

  She gestured to Thomasine, and Lady Ermentrude turned to stare at her as if demanding how she had dared to go unnoticed. Thomasine, to cover the sick tightening of her stomach, stepped forward and set the
bowl and towel on the table, her head bent to avoid her great-aunt’s gaze.

  But there was no avoiding her shrill summons. “Thomasine! Come here, child! Let me see you better!”

  Thomasine came as she was bidden and curtseyed, all outward politeness, but her hands were clenched up either sleeve, her eyes held carefully down to keep them from betraying her feelings.

  Lady Ermentrude took hold of her chin and twitched her face up and from side to side, eyeing her with the same scrutiny she gave a horse she was thinking to buy. “Indeed no, I hardly know you even when I look at you. You’ve sunk so far into nunhood you’re becoming quite a little worm.”

  She released Thomasine’s chin. Thomasine stepped out of reach and dropped her gaze back to her feet. “Yes, Aunt,” she whispered.

  “Pah!” Lady Ermentrude’s disgust was plain. “You become any meeker you’ll cease to breathe!” There was a familiar smirk to her voice as she added, “But you’re a novice yet and it’s not too late. There’s many a fine and lusty young man to be had. Half a dozen I know who’d have you at my word. And some two or three not so young but rich enough you’d find the marriage honey-sweet one way or other. Whatever way, I could have you married before Christmas if I set to. Master Chaucer and I, we made a goodly marriage between your sister and Sir John. She’d not be a knight’s wife now if it weren’t for us, and we can do as much for you, I warrant. Eh, Master Chaucer?”

  Young Sir John Wykeham had been Master Chaucer’s ward when Lady Ermentrude’s attention lighted on him. With no marriageable daughters or nearer nieces of her own to hand just then, she had decided Isobel would serve to bring him into Fenner circles, and since the marriage was in the young John’s interest, too, she and Master Chaucer had brought it about. The title of Lord D’Evers had died with Isobel and Thomasine’s father since there were no sons of the blood to carry it on, but the remaining inheritance was considerable, and with Thomasine purposed even then to be a nun, it would not be divided, only a smaller sum set aside to dower her into the nunnery. In every practical way, the marriage had been an excellent alliance. That Isobel and Sir John had fallen in love with one another between their first meeting and their marriage had been of no consequence one way or the other, merely a comfortable chance. More important was the fact that they had so far managed to have two sons and a daughter to secure the inheritance.