10 The Squire's Tale Read online

  On that, he bowed and withdrew again and Lady Blaunche said grimly to the wall across the room, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  ‘Here, my lady.“ Having crumbled and stirred some dark, dried leaves into it, Dame Claire held out the cider to her. ”Drink while it’s still warm.“

  Lady Blaunche took it, sipped carefully, made an appreciative sound, and drank deeply, Dame Claire, Frevisse and Mistress Avys watching in silence. All the men were gone out now and Katherine and Mistress Dionisia not come back in, and when Lady Blaunche had finished and set the emptied cup aside, she stood up and said, calm and determined, though it was too soon for the herbs to have begun to work on her, “Well, if change roads we must, then change roads we will and we’d best be about it. Let’s be on our way, shall we?”

  Chapter 5

  That afternoon’s riding had an unease the morning’s had not, even though before they were far out of Banbury Lady Blaunche had given over being outwardly upset and was keeping up an almost constant talk to Dame Claire riding next to her again. It made Frevisse grateful for Katherine far more silent beside herself; but somehow Katherine’s silence was not a comfortable silence, no more than Lady Blaunche’s talk was easy talk, mostly about her ailments and her children with occasionally other things thrown in as they came randomly to mind and none of it of any interest to Frevisse. But just as Katherine’s quiet and few brief, stiff words came, after the first while of riding, to seem like a guard wrapped around thoughts she was keeping to herself, so Lady Blaunche’s almost ceaseless rattling began to have the feel of things said to hide thoughts.

  What things? Frevisse wondered.

  Or maybe it was simply her own and everyone’s unease at the weather that instead of settling was shifting from rain to not to rain again but never one or the other for very long; and the riding was less easy than it had been, the roads more muddied from more rain here, forcing them too often to ride aside, when hedges or walls allowed, onto the grassy verges or else to cut through pastures or fields not yet spring-plowed. All of that slowed their going so that it was nigh to mid-afternoon before they came around and down a steep curve of the road toward a village and into sight, at its near end, of a bridge with the water running high under it and a clutter of village men and a few women at both ends, some of the men knee-deep in water among the bridge timbers along the bank, everyone else standing above, calling suggestions down at them.

  In immediate distress, Lady Blaunche exclaimed, “Jack!” and he answered as quickly, “I’ll find out, my lady,” and rode forward while the rest of them drew rein. Dame Claire leaned to say something quietly—and probably quieting— to Lady Blaunche who gave her only a curt nod in reply without looking away from Jack while he talked briefly with some of the men on the bank below; calling down impatiently at him when he reined his horse around to come back, “Well?”

  ‘They say we can cross, no fear, my lady,“ Jack called back.

  From the rear Mistress Avys cried out, “Are they sure or are they just saying it?”

  ‘If they weren’t sure, they wouldn’t say it,“ Lady Blaunche said, heeling her horse forward.

  ‘But how can they be sure?“ Mistress Avys insisted.

  ‘Because they are,“ Lady Blaunche returned impatiently.

  Still holding her horse where it was, Mistress Avys protested, “They’re not the ones crossing it!”

  ‘Nor will we be if you go on sniveling,“ Lady Blaunche snapped. ”It’s safe enough if they say it is. Come on.“

  Directly ordered, Mistress Avys came, making small, unhappy sounds until, just short of the bridge, Lady Blaunche drew rein, looked back at her and said, “If you’re all that afraid, come ride with me but be quick about it.”

  Frevisse did not see why riding with Lady Blaunche would make the crossing any safer but she kept the thought to herself while they resorted themselves, Mistress Avys riding forward to join Lady Blaunche, Katherine swinging her horse around to Mistress Dionisia’s side, Dame Claire drawing back to ride beside Frevisse. The men waited with the patience of men who have no choice in a matter, Jack saying when it was done, “We’ll cross two at a time, please you, my lady?”

  Lady Blaunche agreed with a nod and Jack and the other forerider set their horses forward, rode onto the bridge followed by Mistress Avys’ prayers aloud to St. Christopher, and in only moments were across without mishap, Jack calling back, “All’s well. No trouble.”

  Mistress Avys’ prayers redoubled in might as she and Lady Blaunche rode forward in their turn, and Frevisse took this first chance to say anything alone to Dame Claire to ask, low-voiced and quickly, “How is it truly with Lady Blaunche? Is she endangering herself or the baby with this riding?”

  ‘She’s not that far along with child that riding is any way likely to do her harm,“ Dame Claire returned, as low and as quickly and neither of them looking away from the women now almost over the bridge. ”By all I’ve been able to tell, she’s a well woman.“ Dame Claire lowered her voice even further. ”The only ills she has are the ones she frets herself into, and because she’s one of those people who thinks the world will fall to pieces if they don’t manage everything and everyone within their reach, she frets herself into a great many ills.“

  From the far side of the bridge Lady Blaunche said, “Open your eyes, Avys. It’s done.” And raised her voice to add peremptory order, “The rest of you, come on.”

  They did, Frevisse and Dame Claire next, with Frevisse knowing as soon as she felt the bridge under her horse, the wood ringing hollow to its hoofs, that there was no danger. The bridge’s small trembling to the force of water rushing under it was no more than it should have been. She had crossed worse in her time and left all the prayers to Mistress Avys who went on at St. Christopher without pause until everyone was over, then finished fervently with, “Praise be to St. Christopher and all the saints,” as she made the sign of the cross on herself.

  Lady Blaunche clicked her tongue at her impatiently and said, “Jack,” with a nod at him and the other forerider to lead off.

  As they did, the rain began to spatter down again. There had been none heavy enough yet to soak their cloaks through nor was this, and with the road soon climbing to higher ground they had better going than they had had since Banbury, and Frevisse, settled into the riding now, was surprised when Lady Blaunche said of a sudden, with still several hours of riding light left and no sign the weather would worsen, “I’m minded to stop the night at one of my cousin Sir Walter’s manors not far ahead from here.”

  Her foreriders seemed as surprised, both of them looking back at her, Jack saying uncertainly, “My lady?”

  ‘The bailiff knows me,“ Lady Blaunche said. ”There’ll be no trouble over our spending the night.“

  ‘But…“

  Lady Blaunche snapped him short. “I’m tired.”

  With a shrug the man faced forward again, while on her own part Frevisse found she did not mind the thought of stopping sooner than they might have. The pace had been easy, suited to a childing woman and nuns far along in Lenten fasting but she had been too long away from any riding at all and knew that in a day or two she would be feeling today’s miles, with tomorrow’s still to be added to them. But her next thought, rising unbidden and unsought, was that Lady Blaunche had protested at having to come this way out of fear there might be nowhere to stay the night and now she had a cousin’s manor she was sure of. How was that?

  Frevisse shoved the wondering firmly away because whether the protest had been a slip of Lady Blaunche’s memory or not, it hardly mattered and there was nothing to be done about it, anymore than there was anything to be done about the heavy-hanging wilt of her veil beside her face, the day’s damp having long since defeated its every pretense of starch. That that was beginning to annoy her told Frevisse she was more tired than she had been realizing and she did not try to deceive herself over how grateful she was when they turned through a gateway into a small manor yard where the bailiff was alr
eady coming out of the hall door to meet them, probably warned that strangers were nigh by the skein of small boys who had left off playing in a flooded wayside ditch a ways down the road to run for the manor with cheerful yells. They had probably also told him that most of the newcomers were women, meaning they were likely simply travellers coming, not trouble, and the man greeted them smiling even before Lady Blaunche rode forward past Jack and the other forerider to announce herself and add, “Do you remember me, Master Humphrey, and can we have lodging for the night?”

  The man’s smile widened. “Bless me and yours, of course I remember you and you know you’re welcome to anything we have, from a roof”—he glanced up at the gray-hanging sky, the threat of rain still there—“to beds to a good, hot supper.”

  ‘All of those will be welcome,“ Lady Blaunche said. ”Thank you.“

  It was altogether a small place, a grange more than a manor, with no particular accommodation kept for the lord if ever he came to visit. Instead there was merely the hall with the kitchen off one end and a bedchamber off the other and nothing else except the byres and barns around the yard. Even the village was a good quarter-mile farther along the road and Frevisse briefly wondered where the bailiff’s family would sleep that night as his wife cheerfully cleared children and their things and her own and her husband’s out of the bedchamber that was apparently also parlor during the day while giving servants orders for stripping the beds and bringing fresh sheets to make them up again, while directing one of her women to be off to the kitchen to see what could be added to the evening’s pottage and ordering someone else to be off to the village to see who might have baked bread today.

  ‘Three loaves. That would be good. Four would be better,“ she called after the woman hurrying away.

  Blankets, too, Frevisse thought but did not say, because the family’s blankets would go back onto the beds readied for Lady Blaunche and the rest of them, leaving the bailiff’s family—she had so far failed to sort out how many children there actually were among the bustle of skirts—to take the servants’ bedding probably and the servants to make do as best they could. But there were always the byres and dry straw for the night, she supposed, and assuredly the woman seemed only cheerful about the whole business, shepherding children and stray servants ahead of her out of the bedchamber and into the hall where Lady Blaunche was sitting on a bench and the rest of them were standing, with Jack to hand in case he was needed and the other men gone off with Master Humphrey to see to the horses.

  Shooing servants and children on their way, Mistress Humphrey, with a basket of sewing on one arm and a year-old child on the other, paused to give Lady Blaunche a quick curtsy and assurance that all would be ready shortly. Lady Blaunche thanked her with a smile and a few coins. “Toward our supper,” she said, and with a pleased blush Mistress Humphrey thanked her and hurried on, saying over her shoulder that she would have ale brought for them, there was a new brewing.

  Before it came, the two servants readying the chamber finished and came out, one of the women coming to tell Lady Blaunche she could go in, if it pleased her. Lady Blaunche thanked her, gave each of the women a penny for their trouble and received their thanks and pleased assurances that if there was anything she wanted she need only ask for it.

  ‘I’m sure, and you have my thanks, but all I’m longing for just now is lying down,“ Lady Blaunche said kindly and sent them on their way.

  The bedchamber was larger than Frevisse had feared it would be, with a sufficiency of stools for sitting if one were unparticular about comfort but no fireplace for warmth or to take off the chill; for that someone would have to go back to the hearth in the center of the hall when the fire was built up for the evening, she supposed, and unfortunately there was only one standing bed with a truckle bed under it, and unless mattresses were to be brought from elsewhere, it seemed they would sleep three to a bed tonight. While wondering if anyone snored, she took off her cloak along with the other women and was looking for somewhere to hang it to dry when Lady Blaunche settled the problem by saying as she gave her own over to Mistress Avys, “We’ll have them taken to the kitchen. They’ll still be damp come the morning otherwise. Jack, everything seems well enough here. Go fetch our bags. The men should have them off the horses by now.”

  Jack bowed to the dismissal and went but scarcely two breaths later Lady Blaunche exclaimed, “Oh! I forgot to tell him…” and was out the door after him before she had finished.

  Frevisse, occupied with shaking out her skirts and wondering if anyone would mind if she shut the single window’s shutter against the chill draught, did not see Katherine go a few moments later, only heard Mistress Dionisia say, “Katherine, dear, where…” and looked up to find Katherine gone and her woman staring worriedly at the empty doorway.

  Katherine was of an age to see to herself—not fall into the fire or run out the back door to play—but one clear look at Mistress Dionisia’s face told Frevisse that tiredness was overtaking the woman rapidly now that they were done with the day’s riding and that nonetheless she was about to go after Katherine, her worry more than her weariness, and without thinking Frevisse said, “Let me go for her, Mistress,” and was out the chamber door before Mistress Dionisia could more than protest, “But…” But neither did the woman come after her, and after all Katherine had not gone far. The place was too small for the bother of a screen’s passage between the hall and its outer door and Frevisse saw her there at the hall’s far end, just inside the door to the yard but going nowhere, simply standing still, her head to one side as if she were listening. And she was, Frevisse realized as she neared her and heard Jack close outside, saying, as if not for the first time, “No, my lady. I can’t. Master Fenner was clear on it.”

  The hall was dirt-floored but with rushes over the packed earth and no way to come on Katherine silently; as Frevisse neared her, the girl looked briefly around and raised a hand, asking her to quiet as Lady Blaunche said, a little shrill with anger, “I know what Master Fenner said but I’m bidding you differently.”

  ‘Makes no odds, my lady. I can’t. None of us can. Master Fenner said you weren’t to be left. Not for any reason.“ Jack was apologetic but stubbornly certain. ”Makes no odds if things have changed. Master Fenner said…“

  Surprised at Katherine eavesdropping nor even minding she was caught at it, Frevisse turned away, back toward the bedchamber and the other women, then just short of there thought better of what she was doing and turned back to Katherine, meaning to bid her come away.

  She was too late. She had no more than turned when Lady Blaunche came in at the hall door, face to face with Katherine so abruptly that Katherine took a step backward and Lady Blaunche froze where she was, both of them staring at each other, rigid, before Katherine said, a little too loudly, her voice high with strain, “Where did you want Jack to go?”

  Lady Blaunche looked sharply past her to Frevisse, too far away to have overheard anything she must have thought, and said at Katherine with a haughty lift of her head, “If you’re rude enough to overhear other people’s talk, you should at least have manners enough not to ask about what you missed,” and swept past her in what would have been a swirl of skirts if they had not been heavy with damp.

  As it was, she came so swiftly Frevisse had only time to step aside and let her pass, with Katherine close enough behind her there was no chance to stop the girl and ask her what was toward even if Frevisse had wanted to and mostly she did not. What she mostly wanted was chance to catch up on the day’s missed Offices as best she might and hopefully serve Vespers’ prayers better, but as she left the hall, servants were coming from the yard with wood for building up the hearth fire and to set up the tables for supper, while the crowded bedchamber offered no better hope of quiet and Frevisse knew nowhere else away there might be here.

  Nor did it seem Dame Claire had any hope of escape; Lady Blaunche was complaining she felt a headache beginning and had a hand laid high on her belly as if expecting trouble
there shortly, too. That set Dame Claire to asking her questions and Mistress Avys to fussing over her, leaving Mistress Dionisia and Katherine to see to unpacking what was needed from the bags two of the men just then brought in, with Frevisse to meet Mistress Humphrey and a servant bringing a pitcher of ale and tray of cups and assure them all was well, nothing greatly wrong with Lady Blaunche, only the weariness of the journey.

  ‘Yes, indeed. Poor lady,“ Mistress Humphrey said with an understanding nod. ”Will she dine in hall, think you?“

  ‘I will,“ Lady Blaunche said from the bed, ”and hope you and your good husband will keep me company at table.“

  Mistress Humphrey beamed with pleasure, curtsied, said, “We’ll gladly, my lady, thank you,” and added to Frevisse and Dame Claire with another curtsy, “There’s thought taken for your fasting, too, my ladies. I’ve set cook to making a lovely gourd pie, please you.”

  They thanked her and she hurried out, sweeping a half-grown child peeping in at the door along with her as she went.

  After that it was a matter of seeing to Lady Blaunche’s care while trying to sort things out to their comforts, too, and everything made less easy by Lady Blaunche refusing to take anything Dame Claire offered her that might have quieted or made her drowsy.

  ‘That would hardly be kind to our host. I won’t come to table unable to make talk with him,“ she said.

  ‘If you kept your bed and had supper brought in…“ Mistress Avys started.

  Lady Blaunche waved the possibility aside. “Neither my husband nor my cousin Sir Walter would pardon such ill manners.”

  And in truth when supper was called, she rose to it readily enough, leading the way from bedchamber into hall as if naught had ever been amiss with her. Master and Mistress Humphrey had done well by her, with shiningly white linen on what was the “high” table, though the hall had no dais at all to make it higher than the only other one there was, and the pewterware at Lady Blaunche’s place shined to its best glow. The rest of them would make do with bread trenchers and wooden cups but the cups were clean and well-polished and the bread thickly cut. There was merely a momentary confusion after Lady Blaunche had gestured that she meant Master Humphrey to sit on her right side, Mistress Humphrey on her left with Katherine beyond her, when Katherine said no, she would wait on Lady Blaunche at table, please her; and added, before Lady Blaunche could more than begin to frown objection, “If you would grace me with the favor, my lady,” making a deep curtsy and glancing sideways as she straightened from it at the manservant hovering nearby, clearly assigned to see to Lady Blaunche and, equally clearly, unnerved by the task, uneasily shifting from foot to foot, giving point to Katherine’s very low murmur, “Your gown, my lady.”