1 The Novice's Tale Read online

  “Oh yes, I’m hurting.” Lady Ermentrude grimaced and nodded jerkily, her voice harsh. “I’ve ridden too hard and I’ll be sore for it tomorrow. I hurt.” She sighed heavily. “But it was for you, sweetling. You’ll not be forced into those vows. Not now! Ha! I’ll see to it. You’ll be safe with me. You’re free, or nearly.” A lewd grimace, meant to be a wink. “And I’ll find you a lusty husband. You’ll have a good one coming to you after this.” She looked around. “You, Wat! Bring my horse!” she swung back to Thomasine. “You get up behind, ride the crupper, and we’ll be away before they know it.”

  “Wait, no!” Thomasine, in rising panic, tried harder to pull away. “I can’t go with you! I don’t want to! Aunt, please, no!”

  Lady Ermentrude’s hold tightened, and she looked toward the sun as if to estimate the hour, but its brightness made her wince and shade her eyes with her free hand.

  A low voice over Thomasine’s shoulder said, “It may be best if you just go with her.”‘

  “There’s sound advice,” remarked Lady Ermentrude, gesturing at Wat to hurry with her horse.

  Thomasine looked quickly backward to see who dared approach with advice. He was dressed in Lady Ermentrude’s livery, a tall youth a little older than herself perhaps, brown-haired and quiet-eyed, so certain and unmocking in his tone and face that Thomasine forgot to be terrified of him.

  “But she’s taking me away! I don’t want—”

  “She’s not well,” he interrupted, but quietly. “A little in her cups, I would guess. She’ll not be going away, with or without you. Help me with her into the guest hall while she’s still on her feet.”

  “But her horse—”

  But he stepped around her. “Here, this way, my lady,” he said in a respectful tone, while waving Wat away. “You’re tired. You should rest before riding on. And your horse could use a breath, as well. There’s wine in the guest hall and a place to sit.”

  “What’s that you say?” Lady Ermentrude muttered, fiercely at first, then peering at him. “What? Oh, yes, that would be good. To sit down. All’s so bright out here. I need to sit, out of the sun.”

  The youth took hold of her elbow. “I’ll help you, if it please you, my lady.”

  Lady Ermentrude, her eyes half shut against the sunlight, moved her head in long, slow sweeps from side to side. “Yes,” she muttered. “Yes. But you—” Her grip on Thomasine’s arm tightened remorselessly. “You come, too,” Her voice swelled back into rage. “By God’s breath, there’ll be no sacrificing this pretty lamb! No vows this Michaelmas or ever!”

  The youth looked at Thomasine and lifted his chin in a gesture of reassurance that she grasped onto with grateful eyes. She yielded as best she might to Lady Ermentrude’s pressing fingers. Despite her heart’s thudding with fear and revulsion, she even began to help guide Lady Ermentrude toward the guest hall. Lady Ermentrude’s walk was increasingly near to a stagger the further they went. By the time they reached the steps, she was leaning on the youth hard enough that he had to brace himself with all his strength to keep her on her feet.

  One of her ladies, her eyes frightened, hurried up the stairs to open the door. At the bottom Lady Ermentrude groped with her foot for the first step, missed it, tried again, and found it. The youth steadied her, murmuring encouragement. Muttering under her breath, Lady Ermentrude reeled up four stairs, swaying drunkenly on every one, first against the youth, then against Thomasine, but never loosening her hold.

  Intent on her fear and disgust and Lady Ermentrude, Thomasine failed to hear the clatter of other horses coming into the courtyard until they were nearly to her and a familiar voice cried out, “Thomasine! What’s amiss?”

  With vast relief Thomasine recognized first her sister and then her brother-in-law as they reined in beside the stairs. Their matching chestnut horses were streaked and darkened with sweat, and Isobel rode astride as she only did when haste was more important than fashion. Behind them a clot of mounted men-at-arms and an ill-laden packhorse crowded the gateway.

  “Isobel!” Thomasine called, holding out her free hand to them. Lady Ermentrude’s head came up and swung loose-necked from one side to the other as she tried to focus on who had come. Then she thrust the boy aside and yelled, “Wicked! Wicked! You won’t have her! You hear me? You won’t have her!” Her voice dropped, and her eyes bulged like onions in her flushed face as she thrust her face close to Thomasine and hissed, “Stay close, you hear? Say nothing, nothing, nothing until we’ve reached the bishop. Then we’ll see who’s taking vows and who isn’t, who goes into cloister and who doesn’t!”

  Wine fumes and fear made Thomasine back down a step, her stomach twisting. “Please, Aunt,” she whimpered, hating the sound of her own helplessness. “Please, it’s Isobel and Sir John.”

  “Wicked!” Lady Ermentrude shouted. “Keep back and out of this!”

  “Aunt, listen to us,” Sir John said calmly, strongly, but Lady Ermentrude’s head came up as if at an insult.

  “You listen!” she spat back, but then swayed, her eyes unfocusing. Her mouth gaped and worked, then she swayed away without continuing.

  Thomasine had never seen anyone so drunk this close before. It seemed a kind of madness that had her by the arm and would not let her go. Giving way to terror, she pried at Lady Ermentrude’s clutching fingers with her own free hand, but to no use. Lady Ermentrude seemed not even to notice and reeled forward again, on up the stairs, dragging Thomasine with her. “Inside. I want in out of the sun.”

  The youth was back at her side, taking all her weight on himself but managing to say over his bent shoulder at Sir John and Isobel, “Stay back, pray you. Let me bring her in and settle her.”

  Thomasine, looking back, pleading for help with her eyes, saw Sir John place a restraining hand on his wife’s arm, nodding his head. Then her aunt had her into the guest hall, out of the bright day into shadow. For a moment Thomasine was half blind. Lady Ermentrude herself came jerkily to a halt, leaning against the youth, pushing him into the stone-thick corner of the door frame. Her free hand to her eyes, she moaned softly, “Ahhhh. That’s better. The sun was too strong. Ah, my head!”

  “Come sit,” the youth said quietly. “Rest.”

  “Rest,” Lady Ermentrude agreed thickly. “Sit.”

  She let him help her, jerking Thomasine along, toward a chair set near the long trestle table in the room’s center. She sank into its cushion with a groan, her eyes shut but her grip still strong on Thomasine as she growled, her voice distorted with anger, “They can’t force you. Remember that.”

  “No one is forcing me to anything!” Thomasine cried. “Stop saying that!”

  Lady Ermentrude, eyes tightly closed and breathing heavily, said only, “No ssssacrifice to wickednessss.” With her chin drawn in toward her throat and her head moving restlessly from side to side, she drew the sibilants out like sizzling fat.

  “Would you care to wash your hands, my lady?”

  Dame Frevisse’s voice was cool and smooth as silver, deep with respect. As Lady Ermentrude had sunk into the chair Dame Frevisse had come from among the gathered, staring servants and was standing now in front of her, a wide, shallow basin in her hands and a white linen towel over her arm. Lady Ermentrude lifted her head almost blindly, her eyelids half closed over her distended eyes as if the light were too strong for her even in the shadowed hall. There was an effort of comprehension behind her flushed face. Shaking her head, she let go of Thomasine’s arm to feel with both hands at her throat with a bewildered and oddly feeble gesture. “Th-th-thirssss-tee.”

  Thomasine, freed, stayed where she was, held by a glance from Dame Frevisse and an uncertainty that her legs would hold her if she tried to move.

  Dame Frevisse, speaking in her same careful voice, asked again, “Would you care to wash your hands, my lady?” and stepped forward to kneel before Lady Ermentrude, holding out the basin. Lady Ermentrude, answering familiar form with familiar gesture, let loose her throat to dip her fingers in
to the water. But the bewildered look stayed on her face, and her mouth, like a fish newly caught, opened and closed soundlessly.

  “Thomasine,” Dame Frevisse said softly, not taking her eyes from Lady Ermentrude’s face, “would you fetch us a sop of warmed milk and honey to soothe my lady’s throat?”

  Thomasine dared back away a step, then another, and, safe out of Lady Ermentrude’s reach, bobbed a quick curtsey before turning to flee from the hall.

  In the enormity of her terror at Lady Ermentrude’s drunken madness, she forgot to be afraid of the yard and everyone in it. A gabble of voices met her on the doorstep, but her only thought was of escape, however temporary, into the cloister kitchen, until her brother-in-law called out to her, “Thomasine! What’s toward in there?”

  He and Isobel were still mounted on their palfreys, their few followers clustered behind them. To Thomasine they were familiar and safe, and she went down the steps to them quickly, saying in hushed tones, “She’s drunk. She rode in drunk and raving.”

  “About what?” Isobel asked with sharp concern.

  “About my not becoming a nun. She keeps saying over and over again she means to stop it, that she won’t let it happen. This is not like her usual teasing. It’s worse. It’s… different.”

  Isobel turned a worried look on her husband. His own face was as puzzled and concerned as hers, but it was Isobel who said, “She wasn’t drunk when she came on us yesterday, but she was raving then. It must be madness.”

  Thomasine’s eyes widened at this echo of her own thought. She whispered, “I thought that, too.”

  Sir John swung down from his horse. He was tall and tanned, with firmly drawn features, easily handsome. Six years of marriage and its comforts had begun to thicken his waist and soften the flesh along his jaw, but at nearly thirty he still had the clear, fair skin and easy eyes of youth, as if fatherhood and the responsibilities of lordship were not yet enough to settle him.

  One of his men came forward to lead his horse away as he moved to his wife’s side. She leaned forward into his hands, and he lifted her as lightly to the ground as if she were a child. She matched Thomasine with her fair hair and green-hazel eyes, but was five years her elder, had borne three children, and was more mature in face and body, a woman where Thomasine was still a girl. Her eyebrows were plucked into thin, fashionable arches, and her riding dress was in the latest style, wide-sleeved and belted high under her fashionably small breasts, the collar laid out neatly around her shoulders. She neither wore nor needed demeaning face paints; her complexion was nearly as fresh and clear as Thomasine’s own. Now, with troubled expression, she turned from Sir John to Thomasine and asked, “But wherefore mad? She arrived yesterday without warning, already angry, and set to ranting before she’d dismounted. No matter what we said, she was cruel and harsh in her words all the evening and left in a fury this morning. Now she’s come here, still angry, and would have nothing but you away from St. Frideswide’s. That’s all she’s said? That she wants you out of St. Frideswide’s?”

  “She says it over and over,” Thomasine said. “Her raging has her throat hurting and I’m to fetch milk sops and honey for it. I’ll be back as soon as may be. Pray pardon me.” Breathless with so much speaking, she curtseyed in haste and moved swiftly on across the yard.

  Chapter 4

  The place within the cloister where the world most boldly intruded was the kitchen. Not only in its shape: it was a squat, ugly room with two big roasting fireplaces and a bake oven in its farther wall, sturdy locked pantry cupboards against the other walls, and an array of heavy tables in its middle for the carving, mincing, kneading, mixing, setting out, and gathering in of whatever needed preparation for the meals of the day. No pious silence here: because there was such necessary work to be done—and mostly by lay servants not under vows—the rule of silence did not hold; instead of hand signals and nods, there was ordinary conversation broken by curt orders, the words mixed among a secular clatter of dishes, clang of heavy iron pots, ring of large stirring spoons tossed from pan to counter, slap of bread being kneaded, whisht of knives slicing at vegetables, and the occasional scraw of saws carving up some unfortunate pig or ox. And over all of that was almost always Dame Alys’s big voice, stronger than the noise and kitchen odors. Dame Alys was cellarer, second only to Domina Edith in the priory. She was in charge of overseeing labor, land, and buildings, and since St. Frideswide’s was too small to have a kitchener under her orders, Dame Alys saw to that office, too—food and drink and firewood and so the kitchen itself.

  Word of Lady Ermentrude’s arrival had come this far already, and Dame Alys was in full cry. “So now we’re bound to cater to her drunk as well as stupid, are we? Her and that mighty baggage of followers.” Dame Alys slammed an iron stirring spoon down on a table to emphasize her wrath. Since she was a large-boned woman running to muscle rather than fat, the spoon bent visibly.

  The three laywomen and the sturdy chief cook, a man, cast looks at one another and went on with their business. Dame Alys’s rages were as immense and sincere as her penances, and she seldom actually injured anyone in them. But she was always more interested in venting spleen than in being soothed or hearing anyone’s helpful replies, and no one bothered saying anything.

  Now, straightening- the spoon between her hands, she pointed it at Thomasine hesitating in the doorway and said, “You’re come to tell me she’s asking for her dinner already, aren’t you? Well, you can tell her from me I need more warning than that to set a proper meal under her nose. Would to God it were in my power to serve her as she deserves. Spoiled fish and rotten apples, with ditch water for a drink, that’s what she’d have. And I’d stand over her with a cleaver to make sure she ate and drank it all!”

  She paused to draw breath. Into the momentary lull Martha Hayward said, without looking up from a mixing bowl and whatever she was beating in it. “That would be enough to start a real feud between the Godfreys and the Fenners.”

  “What say you?” Dame Alys said indignantly. “There’s been no bloodshed as yet, but there’s a feud all right. And the blood will come soon, too, if they don’t stop pushing to take our property away from us!”

  Martha, bold to grin at Dame Alys, said, “And meanwhile the lawyers’ cost enough to break both families. Aye, lawyers love a good quarrel between great families.”

  “Never you mind lawyers! It’s Lady Ermentrude who is the heart and soul of the Fenners’ wanting to grab what isn’t theirs. And may their souls be damned to hell for it and hers to the hottest part, amen. She’s a Fenner who married a Fenner and bred Fenner brats and that makes her thrice as bad as any of them and now she wants her dinner, la-de-da. Ha!”

  “She’s no worse than many another great lady,” Martha Hayward said stubbornly. She was shorter than Dame Alys but nearly as broad, bulked out in fat from taking a serving size instead of a taste of anything that she judged in need of sampling. Along with her kitchen duties, she had collected little responsibilities such as seeing to the prioress’s greyhound, and so gave herself such airs that she felt secure enough to be rude to nearly everyone, save Domina Edith herself. Only three things kept her from being sent away: her light hand with pastry, her skill in drawing the maximum of flavor from a minimum of costly spices, and the fact that she was there at Lady Ermentrude’s request, as she was always glad to mention, given the chance. “I was in her service most of my life and only left it because she lessened her household after her husband died, God rest him, and she was going to be a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. I’m here because she asked me to be, God bless her. So let me tell you if you don’t know already…”

  They did know already. Anyone who ever came within ear’s reach of Martha Hayward for any time at all knew everything about her and all she knew of Lady Ermentrude and every great personage who had ever crossed her path.

  Dame Alys slammed the spoon down again, this time onto a pot lid, which now would need a tinker to mend it, and said loudly over Martha’s flux of
words, straightening the spoon as she did, “So why are you standing there all baa-eyed, child? What’s her ladyship wanting to eat this time? St. John’s bread and fresh-whipped cream?”

  “She’s ill,” Thomasine said hurriedly. “Dame Frevisse wants warm milk and sops with honey for her.”

  “Ill’s a nice name for it,” Dame Alys snorted. “The word that reached the kitchen was ‘drunk.” So go on! You know how to do that much, don’t you? No, not my new bread,“ she added as Thomasine moved toward the rows of cooling loaves that would go into the refectory for the nuns’ dinner. ”Here, never mind, it will be quicker to do it myself.“

  Talking half to herself, Dame Alys went to a shelf beside a cabinet and took down a half loaf of bread. “Last week’s will do more than well enough for someone too ‘ill’ to know the difference. It’ll soften in the milk anyway. And where’s that pitcher of milk— Ah.” The small pitcher was on the hob, staying warm. Dame Alys took a clean pottery bowl from a shelf of them. She broke the bread into it and poured the warm milk over it. The honey was in another cupboard; she spooned a dollop into the mix and stirred it until the bread began to soften.

  All the while, she and Martha Hayward traded comments about whether or not there was a feud and how seriously Lady Ermentrude had involved herself in it. Just as she picked up the bowl to hand it to Thomasine, they both stopped. “Listen,” Dame Alys said.

  But they were already listening, heads turned and mouths open. Because somewhere someone was screaming. Thinned by distance and stone walls, a high and drawn out cry wavered, fell and rose again in agony.