5 The Boy's Tale Read online

  Chapter 3

  St. Frideswide’s had never grown much beyond its small founding by a pious, wealthy widow on the last century, but without greatly prospering, neither had it dwindled. Within its outer wall were the ample barns, sheds, workshops, and storehouses given over to the priory’s worldly necessities, and shut away from them by an inner wall and the cobbled courtyard were the church and cloister that were the priory’s heart, where the nuns were supposed—according to the holy Rule of St. Benedict—to live out their lives. Around the four sides of the covered cloister walk were ranged the church, their dormitory and refectory, small chapter and warming room, kitchen, and all other rooms necessary to their work and life. Beyond them was a walled garden where the nuns could walk for recreation and, beyond that, an orchard enclosed by an earthen bank and ditch where, sometimes, they were also allowed to go.

  The widow’s endowment had been sufficient for all this, but had allowed for no luxuries. Even the church itself had kept within the modest bounds of the priory’s resources, boasting only a small, plain nave with a strong-beamed wooden roof and clear-glassed windows. Before the altar were choir stalls for twenty nuns, though St. Frideswide’s had never grown to so many and now there were only nine besides their prioress.

  Frevisse went to her place on the south side of the choir with Dame Perpetua, Dame Alys, Sister Lucy, and Sister Emma, facing Dame Claire, Sister Juliana, Sister Amicia, and Sister Thomasine across the way, knelt briefly and then settled herself into the familiar seat, ready to remove herself from the world’s troubles into the intricacies and pleasures of Vespers.

  The deep ways of prayer had saved her two years ago when she had had to come to terms with choices she had made that had led to deaths. She knew from bitter experience that prayer did not free one from the world; but it gave, at the least, respite from the world’s troubles and, at best, led into the places where strength to face the power of the world could be found. In prayer when her need was greatest, she had found acceptance in herself of whom she was. And now, as so often, she found in the day’s psalm something apt to her own feelings and need.

  “Domine, non superbit cor meum, neque extolluntur oculi mei, Nee prosequor res grandes aut altiores me ipso …” they chanted. Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty. Nor do I pursue matters too great or high for me. No, I have quieted and subdued my soul …

  Frevisse wove her voice among the other nuns’ through the plainsong, all their voices familiar to her from so many other times through so many years. Consciously, she softened her own to allow Sister Thomasine’s light, sweet certainty and joy to carry part of the psalm that Frevisse knew she particularly loved.

  “Sicut parvulus in gremio matris suae: ita in me est anima mea.” Like a child in its mother’s lap; so in me is my soul.

  Sister Thomasine had come to St. Frideswide’s with a child’s simplicity, and her wholehearted wish to be here had not diminished with time.

  The psalm ended gently with the reassertion that their hearts were not proud, and in a whisper of skirts, the women sat for the scripture reading.

  Quietly, out of nowhere, the thought slipped across Frevisse’s mind: Maryon is not the mother of those children.

  Distracted, she found herself following that idea away from the service. There had been no mention or hint of husband or children when Maryon was here five years ago, and the older boy was surely six or seven years old and the other very close to him in age. Of course Maryon might have married a widower and the children were his. But they had been surprised—the younger one obviously—when she claimed them. And Maryon’s look at him had been a warning, one that he had readily heeded. Warning of what?

  And if that claim of Maryon’s was false, what about her story of being attacked on the road by outlaws? Something had happened, surely. The boys’ indignation at being snatched from the fight had been real. But what exactly? Outlaws were a scattered menace and none had been reported near here in a long while. And when any such made brave to attack travelers, they usually chose a party rich enough to make it worth their while, which almost invariably meant upon a high road. Wealthy travelers rarely came the byways near here. And Maryon, though well-bred, was not noble or of a merchant family. At best she was gentry, and Welsh gentry at that. There was no indication of wealth enough to draw outlaws down on her. She and the boys were all plainly dressed, and Jenet was no more than a common servant. The horses were of good breeding, but there was nothing particular about them or their harness to indicate rich travelers. Nor could there have been many men in the party, or there would have been some to spare to ride away with the women. Or had their attackers been so many?

  Master Naylor would know by now, or shortly. He would have sent out men to learn what had become of the rest of the party and whether there was still danger that might come their way. Could she find a way to talk to him before Compline?

  Frevisse came to herself with a guilty start. None of that should be her concern. She was no longer hosteler; the women and the boys as guests of the priory were Dame Alys’s concern.

  Except Maryon had asked for sanctuary.

  Not shelter or safety but sanctuary, which the church was required to give to those who asked for it. But why had she asked? Sanctuary was specifically for those in flight from the law.

  Vespers ended on its sigh for those who were gone forever beyond worldly care. “… requiescat in pace …” Rest in peace. Amen.

  The words sank to silence, and for a moment no one moved in the choir, all of them quiet in the moment of the peace that came with the words.

  Then Dame Alys rose with her accustomed vigor, and Sister Emma and Sister Amicia unthinkingly rose with her. But Dame Claire was cellarer now, and held precedence in Domina Edith’s absence; it was her place to signal when they all would rise. The more discreet—Frevisse and Dame Perpetua, Sister Lucy and Sister Thomasine—remained seated, their heads bowed, waiting Dame Claire’s lead. Sister Juliana, less discreet, looked at Dame Alys with open indignation. Dame Claire, without apparent offense, merely raised her eyes to Dame Alys.

  And Dame Alys, belatedly realizing her error, glared at Sister Emma and Sister Amicia as if they had caused it, and sat back down forcefully enough the choir stall’s wood groaned. Dame Claire waited a moment, then rose to lead them from the church.

  The hour between Vespers and the day’s last prayers at Compline was for recreation, when ordinary, even idle, talk was allowed. The anticipated ease was already in their movements as they came out the door into the cloister walk, and most of the women turned toward the slype, the narrow way that led out into the garden. But Frevisse, coming among the last, saw Ela, a servant from the guesthalls, slip among them to catch Sister Thomasine by the sleeve and draw her aside. The others went on but Frevisse slowed, and Dame Claire, waiting beside the slype to see everyone out, came back to see what the trouble was, since Sister Thomasine was infirmarian and if Ela wanted her, then someone was ill or hurt. Dame Claire had been infirmarian before Sister Thomasine and still cared more for those duties than any other ever given her in St. Frideswide’s.

  “It’s those who were with the women,” Ela was saying. “They’ve been brought in. Master Naylor’s men found them and one of them’s hurt, bad hurt by the look of him.”

  Sister Thomasine looked to Dame Claire. “I’ll need your help if it’s very bad,” she said.

  Dame Claire nodded. “Go see him. I’ll fetch what we’ll need and come after you. Dame Frevisse, will you go with her?”

  “Assuredly,” Frevisse said. Sister Thomasine had shown herself skilled and sympathetic as infirmarian on occasions of illness but no more than nervously competent when there were open wounds, as happened sometimes among the priory’s villeins at their work or some village roughness. That after her first wince at some hurt, she then did the best that she was able, no matter how ill she looked while she did it, had given Frevisse respect for her. Now she smiled at Frevisse with shy gratefulness as they turned to
follow Ela out of the cloister.

  Across the yard there was a cluster of men and servants at the foot of the steps to the new guesthall, in such excited talk among themselves they did not see the women coming until Frevisse was near enough to hear, “… like bloody hog-butchering it was, all across Lough Meadow. I’d not known a sword could let that much blood out of a man. You’d think—”

  The man broke off with elbows digging into his ribs from both sides, and belatedly a way was made for the nuns. Frevisse glanced at Sister Thomasine, who was never comfortable outside the cloister and least comfortable among men, but though she was pale, she was unhesitating. Someone was hurt and she was needed and that mattered more than her feelings.

  The hurt man had been laid on one of the beds in a side chamber off the main hall of the guesthouse. There were too many people in the room, and Ela, having done her duty, stepped aside, leaving it to Frevisse to order everyone out who was not needed there, only asking one of the men who by the blood of his hands had helped carry the victim in, “Where’s Master Naylor?”

  “Seeing to having the bodies brought in before dark.”

  “How many?”

  “No idea. I saw three and there might be more than that. It was a nasty piece of business all around. He might know.” He jerked his head at a man standing tautly at the foot of the bed, all his attention focused on the hurt man. “He’s one of them.”

  Sister Thomasine was by the bed now, hands clasped to her breast, her head bent in prayer before she began. More practically, Frevisse ordered one of the servants hovering beyond the doorway, “Bring hot water, a basin, clean cloths, quickly,” and moved to the hurt man’s side.

  He was an older man, somewhere in his middle age, roughly dressed for riding, his clothing ruined by a great stain of blood soaking his left shoulder and down his sleeve. He lay very still, eyes closed, the rigid set of his mouth betraying he was conscious and in pain. Someone had pulled his doublet open at the collar and wadded torn cloth inside his shirt to slow the bleeding. Along the bare side of his throat his pulse jerked as if his heart labored unsteadily. Carefully, knowing there was no way this was not going to hurt, Frevisse said, “We have to take off your clothing to tend your wound.”

  The man opened his eyes. They were dulled with his pain but he said coherently enough, “Someone said they reached here safely. The boys, the women.”

  “They’re safe,” Frevisse assured him. “They’re here and safe.”

  He closed his eyes again. “Then do to me what you need to do.”

  A while later, Frevisse stood again beside his bed, looking down at him. His face was gray and sunken, drawn older than his years now, and he was no longer conscious, which was a mercy, considering what Dame Claire had had to do to his shoulder.

  “But he’ll mend well enough,” she had said before she left, “if it doesn’t infect. And if he will take nourishment enough when he recovers consciousness.”

  She had looked nearly as exhausted as he did. Beside her, Sister Thomasine had been blanched with the strain of suffering with him, but she had never faltered in wiping away blood or holding torn flesh while Dame Claire sewed it closed or anything else that had been asked of her through all of it, and at the end had gathered up the bloody clothes and instruments into a basin and said she would see to their being cleaned and put away so Dame Claire might go and have a belated supper.

  “Mind you come eat, too, before you go to pray for him,” Dame Claire had said firmly, and Sister Thomasine had bent her head in shy, quick agreement because the church was always her resort in any need, and with a man’s life now the need, she was more likely than ever in the passion of her prayer to forget that the Rule bade there should be sufficient hours of sleep in each day as well as hours of work and prayer.

  She and Dame Claire were gone now, and so were all the servants but Ela scrubbing the blood off the floor, and the man who had been at the foot of the bed when Frevisse first came. He had shared with her the task of holding Sir Gawyn as still as might be when Dame Claire began to work over his wound, until unconsciousness had ended the necessity. He was a lean man, solidly rather than heavily built, and almost as gray as his lord with exhaustion under his natural ruddiness. He had called the knight by name in that harrowed while and to judge by his care and distress was likely his squire.

  “I don’t know your name,” Frevisse said to him.

  He looked up from his lord’s face with a vague surprise, as if he considered himself irrelevant, but recovered almost on the instant and bowed his head to her and said respectfully enough, “Will Tendril, my lady.”

  “You’re unhurt? You weren’t hurt in the fight?”

  “No, my lady. Only bruised a bit, and a scratch.” He showed the long tear in his sleeve, from elbow to shoulder, and the dried blood on the strong arm under it. He grimaced. “That will take some mending.” He seemed to mean the shirt more than the arm.

  “Someone here will do it for you gladly. You were lucky.”

  “And so was Colwin. But Hery, he’s dead, and Hamon, too, and that’s a pity. Your man said he’d see to their bodies?”

  Frevisse reassured him, “If he said so, then he will. Where’s Colwin?”

  “Seeing to the horses, I suppose. He helped me bring Sir Gawyn off, but he had little stomach for seeing blood. He’d have been no use here.”

  “How did you come to be attacked? How many were there?”

  “Five, I think.” Will was doubtful. “There were trees and I didn’t take time for a clear count. They’d split up and come on us from front and back.”

  “Were they outlaws? Thieves?”

  Will shrugged. “What else would they be? We weren’t doing anything but riding on our way when they saw us and though we’d have avoided them, they came at us. So we fought.” He turned to look at Sir Gawyn again. “His shoulder won’t be what it was, will it?”

  “Dame Claire did what could be done.”

  “Oh, aye, there’s no doubting that. I’ve seen many a man have worse care after a battle. But it’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “Bad enough.”

  “But he’ll live?”

  “He looks to be strong, so likely he will. But it’s unlikely he’ll ever have full strength in his left arm again, and maybe not full movement.”’

  Will dropped his head with troubled sadness and his forelock of bright hair fell forward. He pushed it back with a slow hand. “That’s not good for him.”

  “No. But we can pray for better and maybe it will come,” Frevisse said. “Now you look as if you need to eat and be off your feet. Ela, have you finished there? See to food being brought, and a mattress. You’ll stay here?” she asked Will.

  “Better me to watch him than anyone else,” he answered, as she had thought he would.

  Dame Alys had apparently not come to the guesthall to see if all was in order for their guests. Frevisse gave what orders she thought necessary for the night to various of the servants besides Ela and then went in search of Master Naylor, though by now it was well beyond the time she should have been inside the cloister.

  Beyond the gateway, the long, soft light of the summer’s evening filled the outer yard. The warm and quiet day was drawing to a warm and quiet close, as if there had been no panic and fear at the cloister door, or a badly hurt man in the guesthall, or dead men to be buried. None of that seemed any part of St. Frideswide’s, but only an aberration of the moment now past and ready to be forgotten.

  But it was not past. There was still much to be dealt with, and Frevisse was glad to see Master Naylor detach himself from a group of men talking beside the gate out to the road and start toward her across the outer yard. The gate, Frevisse noted, was closed and barred, a thing usually done only at the edge of full dark. And there was at least one man on the roof of the gatehouse over it, where there would be a long view of the countryside in most directions.

  “Dame Frevisse,” the steward said with an inclination of his head as they met near the
middle of the yard. Through experiences neither of them had wanted to have, they had learned respect for each other, and he asked more directly than he might have any of the other nuns, “How does the knight? The wound looked bad.”

  “Dame Claire thinks he’ll live if it doesn’t infect. His squire could tell me almost nothing about what happened.” Or had not chosen to. “What have you learned?”

  “Only that they were traveling and were attacked by outlaws. The men fought while the women fled with the boys for safety. Two of the men were killed and five of their attackers.”

  “The man I talked to, Sir Gawyn’s squire, thought only five attacked them.”

  ‘That’s what the other man said, too, when I questioned him. If so, then this band of outlaws at least is finished.”

  “But you’ve seen fit to close the gates and set a guard.”

  “And have sent warning to the village to be on-watch and a man to the sheriff and Master Montfort.” The sheriff both for protection and to look into this breach of the King’s peace; Master Montfort because he was crowner, with the duty to look into any violent or uncertain deaths and determine where the wrong lay and what was owed the King in fines and forfeitures.

  “Have there been any reports of outlaws hereabouts?” Frevisse asked.

  “None for years.”

  “Did Colwin have any idea why they were attacked?”

  “None. He says they just attacked without any reason he knows of.”

  “And do you believe him?”

  “No.”

  Frevisse waited but he went no further until she prodded, “Why not?”

  Slowly, as if wishing to keep his thoughts to himself until he had had longer to think them over, Master Naylor said, “Any outlaws looking for prey worth their while around here would have to be on the foolish side of their work, and these men were too well dressed and well weaponed to have been fools.”