5 The Boy's Tale Read online

  Master Naylor was no more easy in his mind about the outlaws than she was about Maryon’s claim to be the children’s mother. And there was another thing. “Sir Gawyn was wearing a breastplate under his doublet. I think his squire is, too, from the way he moves.”

  Master Naylor frowned over that, following her thought. “The roads aren’t so unsafe that men usually go armored. Or if they do, they wear it openly, to warn attackers that they’re on guard and ready.”

  “So they were expecting they might be attacked, and at the same time wanted to seem like no more than plain travelers.”

  “And now neither of us thinks they are,” Master Naylor said.

  “No,” Frevisse agreed. “We don’t.”

  Chapter 4

  It was too late now to look to the kitchen for food, but fasting was familiar to her, and comfortable; the discipline freed the mind from the body’s demands. And just now her mind needed freedom to think through what had happened— was happening—and how much trouble it might mean for St. Frideswide’s if her suspicions were anywhere near the mark.

  Her soft-soled shoes made almost no sound on the stone paving as she made her way around the cloister walk toward the door and stairs up to the dormitory. In the relative privacy of her bed there would be time for thinking.

  But at the far corner of the cloister walk, someone rose from where she had been sitting on the low inner wall among the evening, flower-scented shadows and stood in her way. Maryon.

  Frevisse stopped. They regarded each other in mutual silence. There was starlight enough to recognize one another, used as their eyes were to the darkness, but not enough for Frevisse to read Maryon’s face in the moth-pale circle of her wimple and veil.

  Not that Maryon’s face had ever been easy to read, Frevisse remembered. When she chose, she had the wide-eyed innocence of a considering cat, her manners smooth and bland as skimmed milk, even when in danger of being considered a murderess, as she had been when last at St. Frideswide’s. Come in supposed service to the formidable and offensive Lady Ermentrude but actually a secret ward against that lady’s indiscreet tongue, her anomalous position had become known when Lady Ermentrude had died precipitously of poison, and only Frevisse’s refusal to be satisfied with the obvious had cleared her then.

  Driven by urgent need this afternoon, she had not been calm, and that told Frevisse something about how deep the danger might be, and something about Maryon herself. Even driven and afraid, she had had her wits about her and kept control of her tears and temper.

  In the hours since then, she had had time to recover her smooth calm. Her voice lilted softly with its Welsh inflections as she said gently, “I need to talk with you.”

  Her need matched Frevisse’s desire. Without speaking, Frevisse beckoned her along the walk to the slype, the place within the cloister where conversation that could not be delayed was allowed. The narrow passage led from the cloister toward the garden and was shadowed to deep darkness. Maryon hesitated before entering, listening for betraying sounds, and glanced around to be sure there was no one else near, before she followed Frevisse in. With a caution come from Maryon’s own wariness, Frevisse said barely above a whisper, “What do you want?”

  “First, to thank you for not giving away you knew me.”

  Frevisse bent her head in acknowledgment, and waited. Maryon glanced over her shoulder again and said, “Will anyone else remember me, do you think?”

  “Of the nuns, only Dame Claire and Sister Thomasine might.”

  “Dame Claire came to tell me of Sir Gawyn, that he’ll likely live, God be thanked, and she didn’t remember me then so that’s all right. Will you tell Sister Thomasine to say nothing, please?”

  “Sister Thomasine is so minded on otherworldly things that I doubt she’ll even notice your presence unless you talk face-to-face, and if you come to that, you can tell her yourself. Some of the guesthall servants might remember you, but it’s been five years since you were here, and a great many visitors have come this way since then.”

  “But we can stay in the cloister, can’t we?” Maryon asked quickly.

  “You still wish to claim sanctuary? Because that means that when the sheriff comes, he’ll have to know and there’ll be the question of why, and what law you broke and what king’s officer you’re fleeing.”

  “We’re guilty of nothing,” she said in a level voice.

  “But are accused of something, and need protection until you can prove your innocence?”

  Maryon hesitated before answering warily, “We’re accused of nothing but we need safety until we can leave here.”

  “All the men who attacked you this afternoon were killed. There’s nothing more to fear from them.”

  “No, not from them,” Maryon agreed.

  “From who then?”

  Maryon did not answer.

  Choosing her words carefully, Frevisse asked, “Do you still serve … the lady that you did?”

  Somewhere among the stones a cricket was chirruping; there was no other sound in the quiet thick as the darkness around them except their own breathing for the betraying while until Maryon said, “Yes.”

  “And the boys are her children, not yours.”

  As if the word came between clenched teeth, Maryon answered, “Yes.”

  “God help us,” Frevisse breathed fervently.

  Maryon grasped her arm in the dark with fingers far stronger than their white slenderness suggested and said, as near to open desperation as Frevisse had ever heard her, “It’s your help we need right now. For pity of the Virgin who suffered for her Child, hide these children here just this little while until we can go on our way. Help me to hide them.”

  “From whom? From what? Their mother is the queen dowager. Their half brother is the King of England.” The words sounded unreal even as she said them. “Who threatens them?”

  Maryon held silent.

  Pushed by her own fear, Frevisse said harshly, “I need to know more before I can agree to anything.”

  “How much do you want to know? All of it?”

  “No!” Frevisse exclaimed, with belated realization that she wanted to know only as much as necessary of the matter. What she did not know, she could not be held responsible for. But there was danger here beyond what had happened today. A danger she had helped to bring into St. Frideswide’s, and she had to understand at least a little of it. “Are you in flight from … their mother? Is that it? If so—”

  “She sent them away. We’re all of her household. She entrusted them to us, to see them to safety with their father’s folk in Wales.”

  “Why?”

  A night bird in the garden and the cricket still chirruping filled the silence.

  Frevisse put her hand over Maryon’s still on her arm, gripping it as tightly as Maryon was holding to her, to make her understand the urgency of what she was asking. “Who wants these boys so badly and frightens her so much, their mother sent them in secret flight across the country? Not the King, surely.”

  King Henry was fourteen years old and still governed by his royal council, but by all reports he was a competent, clever youth, not someone his own mother would fear.

  “Of course not! But he doesn’t rule, does he? It’s the lords around him who have power.”

  “And they’ve learned these children exist and want control of them.”

  Again rigidly, Maryon admitted, “Yes.” But then as if that had freed something—with so much said, more might as well be—she added, “My lady kept them secret all these years because she was afraid of this. She wanted her marriage to be simply her marriage, not something talked over, considered, arranged by lords who cared nothing and knew nothing of her.

  “So when she and Lord Owen fell in love, they both knew they had no right to but they were not able to help it. Truly they’re lovely together, like a lord and lady of a romance, but she knew she could only marry him secretly. The lords of the Council had already cut her off from her own son. She’s not allowed
to live with him, nor have any say in his raising. Visit him sometimes and send him pretty presents but that’s all, because she’s a woman and would weaken his kingship by spoiling him.” Maryon’s rich contempt of the lords of the Council was plain in her voice. “They deny her the child she has and would have refused her any marriage or children more because that would all be complications for our lords of the Council. A stepfather and half brothers to the King, no, they’d not allow that.”

  “So she married secretly and had her children secretly,” said Frevisse. And kept her secrets this long, which told a great deal about both her strength of will and courage and how beloved she must be by those who served in her household, that they had kept her secret as well.

  “And lived away in the country as much as might be and made a happiness for her and Lord Owen. But now the lords of the Council know,” Maryon said, “and there’ll be no more peace for her, poor lady, or for Lord Owen. Or for the children.”

  The pity sounded real, and the affection, too, emotions Frevisse had never seen in Maryon before. They might be feigned; she did not doubt Maryon was capable of great deceit when it served her purpose or the purpose of those she served. But the danger to the children this afternoon had been real, and so had Maryon and Jenet’s fear. Despite herself, Frevisse heard herself asking, “What lords?”

  “My lady most fears Gloucester.” The King’s uncle, and, until such time as King Henry had a son of his own, the King’s heir since the death of the duke of Bedford last year. “But there’s the bishop of Winchester, too, and the lords that follow him against Gloucester. He’ll not be behindhand in a matter like this.”

  Frevisse had occasion to know something of the bishop of Winchester firsthand and did not argue that but said instead, “Your lady lied to my uncle five years ago when he came to her with suspicion of what she’d done.”

  Maryon’s tone went milk-smooth again. “She told him true that she was secretly wed and would have a child by spring.”

  “And left out that she had two sons already,” Frevisse said tartly. “Couldn’t she have trusted him even that far?”

  “He trusted you with that knowledge,” Maryon said with a trace of that edge again. “Whom have you trusted with it?”

  “No one.”

  Maryon was silent while she tested that reply. Then with a little nod, she said, “That was well done. And as to the rest, what isn’t known can’t be told. Even now. We don’t know how much is known or by whom for certain. Word simply came that the boys were known of and men were coming for them. We left within the hour after that.”

  “And hope to reach Wales.”

  “Their father’s people will keep them safe there.”

  “Until—” Frevisse cut off the question abruptly; her curiosity was taking her too far into things she had no need to know. Instead she said, “We’ll give you what protection we can.” She heard Maryon’s held breath go out of her in a long sigh. “But the sheriff and crowner have to come because of the deaths. There’ll be questions asked and you’ll have to answer. Your being in the cloister will be suspicious.”

  ‘Then I’ll go to stay in the guesthall. That will make it simpler.” And put her in more peril if her fears were real, and there were men dead to prove they were. “But let the boys, and Jenet to care for them, stay in the cloister.”

  “There’s a child here already. Lord Warenne’s daughter. The boys can join her at her lessons, as if they’re meant to be here, too. If no one mentions them as being with you, then it might be all right. And they’ll be in the cloister and. safe.”

  She could feel Maryon nodding vigorously. “That might work. It might. Did you try your theory of the boys’ parentage on anyone before me?”

  “No. But I’m going to have to tell Domina Edith what’s toward and ask her approval for it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she is my lady,” Frevisse said, “and she still guides St. Friedeswide’s.”

  “They say she’s dying.”

  “But neither dead nor witless yet,” Frevisse said.

  “And you trust her.”

  “More than I trust myself.”

  Maryon’s fingers moved on Frevisse’s arm as if counting possibilities in the dark, before she let go and said, “All right. But no one else.”

  “No one else,” Frevisse agreed readily; and wondered how she had come to be—because she had assuredly not meant to be—in conspiracy with Maryon, who of all the people she had met in her life was among the most smoothly deceitful.

  Chapter 5

  The priory’s peace was undisturbed in the night, and the midnight office and the dawn’s prayers and then breakfast gave no chance for talk among the nuns. Frevisse, for the sake of sleep and to give her full attendance to prayers in their time, had let yesterday’s turmoil go from her mind until the problem of their guests needed to be dealt with again, but all through the nuns’ light breakfast of yesterday’s bread and a cup of flat ale in the refectory she was increasingly aware that Dame Alys must have used yesterday’s recreation time to talk at large about what had happened. Under the overt obedience to the rule of silence, there was a tremble of excitement among the nuns, with many glances exchanged, raised eyebrows, and questioning looks. Changes in daily life were few at St. Frideswide’s and excitements fewer. Frevisse knew the most would be made of this one, and they did not even know yet about the wounded man in the guesthouse and all the dead. She was not looking forward to chapter meeting this morning, their daily discussion of nunnery business, when they would all be free to ask questions. But at least through breakfast the Rule’s injunction to silence held, for though Domina Edith was of necessity not there, Dame Claire was in her place with her authority and her keen eyes moved from nun to nun, reminding them of their duty to eat and be silent for now.

  Breakfast was followed by Mass. Then from the church they went to chapter, following which, in the usual way of things, they would scatter to their morning’s duties. These warm summer mornings it was usually a tedium to gather in the room that served as chapter house, to sit about on their stools while one and another piece of business was brought out for discussion, and accusations and admittance of misbehavior among themselves were made and disciplines given. But today most of them bustled briskly along the cloister walk, with Dame Alys nearly treading on Dame Claire’s heels.

  Frevisse, less eager, came last, in no hurry for what was to come. Ahead of her Sister Thomasine, too, walked at her usual measured pace, head down, hands folded into her opposite sleeves. Frevisse supposed it possible she was unaware there was any particular excitement today at all. Given a chance, Sister Thomasine had the admirable ability to lose herself so deeply in contemplation and prayer that she forgot where she was or what other task she was doing even while she went on doing it. There was almost unanimous agreement throughout the priory that she was on her way to sainthood. Assuredly she was the most devout person Frevisse had ever encountered and, unless Frevisse prayed very hard against her own inclination, also one of the most annoying.

  Dame Claire waited outside the door while the nuns filed past her into the room and went to stand before their stools; then waited a little longer for Father Henry, the priory’s priest, to come hasting from the vestry to join them. His naturally red face was brighter than usual from his hurry as he strode firmly into the room and took his place beside the prioress’s high-backed chair. With everyone now in their places, Dame Claire crossed with her measured, quiet tread to Domina Edith’s chair, faced them, and said in her deep, clear voice, “Dominus vobiscum.” The Lord be with you.

  “Et cum spiritu tuo,” they responded. And with your spirit.

  At Dame Claire’s gesture, they all sat down together in a rustle of skirts and slight scraping of stool legs on the wooden floor but otherwise in scrupulous silence. Dame Claire’s present authority was imposed on her, not desired, but that did not save her from her responsibilities nor excuse any of them from obedience to her. She regarded
them wordlessly. Impatient to begin, they looked back at her, amusing Frevisse by how their faces gave away so much of who they were and what they were thinking. Or not thinking, as the case might be. Dame Alys was surly, ill-tempered as always against the world but more particularly today because of the present intrusion into the cloister. Sister Emma and Sister Amicia, shallow as a pair of plates, leaned toward one another, stifling nervous giggles of anticipation in their sleeves. Sister Lucy, Sister Juliana, and Dame Perpetua were on their dignity, attempting to show they were noticing neither the would-be gigglers nor Dame Alys’s swelling ire. Only Sister Thomasine was, as usual, apparently oblivious, seated on her preferred stool well to one side and to the back, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes downcast, ready for whatever was to come.

  “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

  They crossed themselves and bowed their heads for the prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance and blessing on the meeting. That done, Father Henry read the portion of St. Benedict’s Rule designated for the day, first in his halting Latin and then in English, followed it with a brief platitude meant to serve as commentary, blessed them, and left with rather more haste than dignity, probably sensing what was about to come.

  But Dame Claire forestalled them all again by saying, “To calm and settle ourselves, unsettled as we are by these present matters, we will do a silent paternoster now.”

  Dame Alys visibly swelled with indignation. A fragment of a giggle escaped Sister Amicia despite herself. Without bothering to look at her, Dame Claire said, “A score of aves on your knees before the altar before Compline.” Everyone’s heads bent quickly and the room was quiet for a parternoster while until a tiny, uneven stir of fabric marked each of them crossing themselves as they finished.

  Subdued but undeniable, expectation still showed on most of their faces.

  “I suppose,” Dame Claire said, “our first business must be the matter of our sudden guests and the satisfying of your curiosity over what happened yesterday.”