1 The Novice's Tale Read online

  “What is it? What bit you?” asked her husband, coming immediately to swing his foot under the table.

  “That stupid monkey!” she said, fierce with pain. “That stupid monkey bit me!”

  Sir John kicked again, hard enough to hurt, but the monkey, untouched, skittered out of hiding and scaled the bed curtains to sit on top, chittering in fright.

  “I’ll kill it!” Sir John said. His gaze and hands moved, looking for a weapon, but Frevisse said firmly, “We’ll have it down later. You’ll rouse Lady Ermentrude. Be quiet!”

  He stopped, confused, as if uncertain whether to glare at her or at the monkey. The animal stared down at them silently, his tail wrapped up across his chest and around his shoulders in comfort.

  “Please, John,” Lady Isobel said softly, holding out her injured hand to him. His anger vanished like mist wiped off a mirror, and he went to her again.

  “I’ll take her to the infirmary,” Dame Claire said. “To clean it and bandage it. Will you come, my lady?”

  “Lady Ermentrude?” Lady Isobel asked. “Who will stay with her?”

  “There’s no worry about that,” said the woman Mary on. “I’ll remain with her.”

  “And so will I.” Thomasine still stood beside the window, a slender child in her dark gown, solemn as if years of age were on her, her voice steady. “I need to make up for failing Martha.”

  “There was nothing you could have done, child,” Dame Claire said. “Dame Frevisse, will you see to what needs doing? And Lady Isobel, if you’ll come with me. When we have finished, doubtless Domina Edith will be wanting to hear from me about what’s happened. By your leave.”

  Frevisse nodded her agreement. As Dame Claire left, taking Lady Isobel and Sir John with her, Maryon closed the chamber door against the remaining staring faces. Thomasine turned, her hands clasped imploringly, to Frevisse. “Please give me leave to stay. I’ve been angry at Lady Ermentrude. And at Martha. My staying will be penance for all of that.”

  “Otherwise you’ll spend the night in church on your knees,” Frevisse said dryly. Thomasine looked surprised, and a little abashed, at being so well understood, and nodded. “Then you might as well pray here as there, and be of some use in the bargain. My lady Maryon, can you find some of Lady Ermentrude’s ladies to keep the watch in turns with you?”

  “I can do it alone. I don’t mean to sleep!” Thomasine cried out earnestly as Maryon nodded.

  “I did not think you did. But I doubt Maryon or any other of your aunt’s ladies will make the same sacrifice. They’ll take their turns while you keep your watch. And your silence,” she added as Thomasine opened her mouth to protest. “Go to your praying.”

  Frevisse ate her belated supper alone in the refectory ..The lay workers’ silence and long looks as they served her told they knew all there was to know about Martha’s death and were feeling it, even if they knew better than to ask her questions.

  When she had finished, Frevisse went to the church in search of Dame Claire. Martha’s body, already washed, wrapped in its shroud, and placed in a plain coffin, was resting on a bier before the altar, candled at head and feet, with Father Henry too deep in prayer beside it to notice her. At Compline Domina Edith would divide the night into watches and set the nuns in turn in pairs to praying in the choir for the salvation of Martha’s soul.

  But Dame Claire was not there, and after a brief prayer for Martha’s repose, Frevisse went out to the garden, where the nuns would be taking the last of their evening recreation before Compline and bed.

  Dame Claire was not among them. Frevisse, pausing in the gateway to look for her, supposed she must be with Domina Edith and was thinking of going to join them when she noticed that the other nuns were not walking or sitting as usual but standing in little groups along the paths, their low talking—allowed during this one time of the day— underrun with excitement and pleasurable agitation. She knew Martha had never mattered enough to any of them for there to be much grieving for her loss. It was simply that so sudden a dying provided eager gossip for an evening, even better than Lady Ermentrude’s regrettable behavior. Better that they gossip about someone beyond caring what they said, than about someone still able to be offended.

  Then, before she could withdraw, Sister Amicia, among the nearest cluster of nuns, saw her and called out excitedly, “Dame Frevisse!”

  Heads turned, and they all began to move toward her eagerly, Sister Amicia first. With resignation, Frevisse waited where she was.

  Sister Amicia, still the most eager, exclaimed, “Dame Frevisse, you were there! Nobody knows anything except she’s dead. Tell us please, was it awful?”

  With a quelling edge to her voice, Frevisse answered, “She was already dead when Dame Claire and I came in. Her struggle was over; she was only lying there. It was her heart, Dame Claire thinks. Have you seen her?”

  “No, she hasn’t been into the garden yet today.”

  The nuns crowding behind Sister Amicia nodded, making hypocritical murmurs of sympathy. Martha had been a fine cook, but fat, and not young, they agreed. A greedy stomach was bad for the heart.

  But Sister Amicia, with widened eyes, leaned nearer to Frevisse and whispered in awed, carrying tones, the question they all wanted answered. “She saw demons, didn’t she, come to torment Lady Ermentrude? Isn’t that what stopped her heart, truly?”

  Aware that everyone around them had heard that “whisper,” Frevisse let her impatience show. “I doubt it,” she said crisply. “There was distinctly no smell of brimstone in the room.”

  Irony was lost on Sister Amicia. She only blinked, a little disappointed. “But maybe there isn’t always. Brimstone, I mean. Do you think?”

  “Thomasine was there,” Frevisse said shortly, “and said nothing about seeing demons.”

  “Oh, but she did,” one of the other young nuns exclaimed gladly. “She said she saw them dancing all around Lady Ermentrude. She said that.”

  If talk of Lady Ermentrude’s demons was already this far into the priory, there was no hope of stopping it, Frevisse thought angrily. Curbing the rumors was all that was left. “That was this afternoon when Lady Ermentrude first came,” she said briskly. “Not when Martha was dying. And Thomasine never said she saw demons, only that she thought Lady Ermentrude was seeing them.”

  “But that’s nearly the same!” exclaimed Sister Amicia.

  “Not remotely the same. My saying you’ve seen angels in the sky doesn’t mean you’ve seen them, only that I think you have.”

  “But Lady Ermentrude was seeing something. She was terrified.”

  “She was seeing the effects of having too much wine in too short a time. Dame Claire will tell you that people who drink too often and too deeply think they see terrible things not really there.”

  Better Lady Ermentrude’s weakness be known than to have the whole priory giddy with rumors of devils for a year to come, Frevisse thought. She was satisfied by the shocked intakes of breath at her bluntness. Before anyone, even Sister Amicia, could think of anything else to say, she added, “Here’s Dame Claire come. I pray, excuse us.”

  She did not wait to be excused, simply took Dame Claire’s arm—as the infirmarian, surprised at so many faces looking at her all at once, paused beside her—and walked her away from them. Frevisse could fairly guess what they would say behind her, but she had long since accepted that among the various things she needed to do penance for was a recurring great impatience with stupidity. And their childish desire for gossip was a trial she did not care to put Dame Claire through just at this moment.

  She had glimpsed Dame Claire’s face as she joined her, and seen that she was looking tired and inward-turned, as she always did when someone in her care had died. That was why Frevisse had gone looking for her, to see if there was aught she could do to ease her friend’s heart.

  Away from the others, Frevisse let go of her arm, tucked her own hands into her sleeves to match Dame Claire’s quiet self-containment. “I know we always
say this to you but it’s true. There was nothing you could have done.”

  “I know. But it’s wearisome, being able to do nothing.

  And it was all so unlooked for. So sudden, with no time for being ready. I hate being able to do nothing.“

  There was no answer to that except platitudes, which were pointless, and after a moment Frevisse said instead, “Domina Edith has settled everything for the funeral tomorrow?”

  “Not tomorrow.”

  Frevisse looked at her, surprised. “Her relatives in Banbury will be wanting to bury her?”‘ So far as she knew, Martha Hayward’s distant cousins had never shown that much interest in her.

  Dame Claire said, “I doubt it. They might. But the crowner has to come.”

  “Ah.” Frevisse had forgotten that necessity. Martha Hayward had died suddenly, without being ill, and any unexplained death, whether by accident or illness or overt crime, meant the crowner was required. Though his proper duty was to determine if any fines or forfeits were due the king (with a portion going into his own purse), in order to do so, he had to ask questions, determine where any guilt lay. Or at last say there was no cause for any doubts, that the death was innocent, and give permission for the burial. Depending on where in Oxfordshire he was just now, and how long he took to arrive, the burial would hardly happen for two days at least, or even three. “He’s been sent for?”

  “One of Lady Ermentrude’s men has gone. And he’s to tell Lady Ermentrude’s son she’s ill. So there’ll be more trouble there, too.”

  The message might bring every Fenner who possibly could make the journey to St. Frideswide’s. Lord Walter would surely come, bringing Heaven only knew how many followers and friends. And the guest-hall chimney still needed repairing, and there was hardly room left for putting up a single poor traveler, much less another entourage.

  But if nothing else, their coming might divert idle tongues from talk of demons and devils. There was some bit of comfort in that, Frevisse thought.

  “And I should have told you already that Domina Edith wants to see you. Now, before Compline, if possible,” Dame Claire said.

  “Which gives me somewhere safe to go, and you had better find one, too, because Sister Amicia is strolling to intercept us.”

  “Oh merciful Heaven,” Dame Claire said, and turned toward the church as Frevisse left her for Domina Edith’s parlor.

  The old greyhound had raised itself up from its basket and was standing beside the prioress’s chair, accepting bits of biscuit when Frevisse entered. Domina Edith looked up and nodded, finished with the dog, patted its head, and told it to go lie down again, which it obediently did. “And you, Sister Lucy, may go walk in the garden with the others awhile,” she said to her attendant. “Dame Frevisse will keep me company until Compline.”

  After Sister Lucy made her curtsey, Domina Edith gestured Frevisse to sit on the window seat across from her. Domina Edith sat as if sinking into sleep for a few moments before raising her head and saying, with no sign of sleepiness at all, “Martha ate and drank before she died. A milksop from our kitchen. Wine from Sir John. Herbs from our infirmary.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Frevisse answered quickly. Then she made the mental leap to overtake the prioress’s mind and said, startled, “Surely not!”

  “Surely not,” Domina Edith agreed firmly. “There was nothing wrong with any of it, but the crowner will be here, asking questions, and there will be talk. There is always talk when someone dies without obvious cause. I would like the answers known before the questions begin. Who made the milksop?”

  “Thomasine was sent for it. I don’t know if she or Dame Alys or one of the lay workers made it. It might have even been Martha herself.”

  “Do find out, please. And what particularly went into it. The wine she drank was Sir John’s?”

  “He brought it because it’s Lady Ermentrude’s favorite. It was to hand and easier to use than gathering the keys to the priory’s supply just then.” •

  “Very reasonable and thoughtful. The herbs?”

  “Dame Claire sent Thomasine for them. She was very specific which box she wanted, and was satisfied with what Thomasine brought.”

  Domina Edith drew a deep sigh and let it out heavily. “That all seems reasonable. It is only a pity that Dame Alys makes so great a matter of the quarrel between her family and the Fenners, and her wishing she could have a hand in it, since the food came from her kitchen.”

  “True. But she may have had no hand in the milksop.”

  “But Thomasine surely did. And with the medicine. She had both of them at one time or another, and everyone knows how plainly terrified her aunt had made her.

  “Not terrified enough to kill,” Frevisse protested.

  “That is what must be made clear to Master Montfort when he comes. Thomasine is strung too high for her own health and an accusation of murder could destroy her.”

  Frevisse, frowning, said, “You don’t think—”

  “No. She has been here long enough for me to take her measure. She could not hide such a deed, if she had done it.”

  “No,” Frevisse agreed.

  Domina Edith nodded her bobbing nod that sometimes led off into sleep, and her voice after a pause was dreamy. “She has a holiness sometimes alarming to behold. Men have been killed in mishandling holy relics, you know.”

  Frevisse hesitated, having lost the prioress’s path of thought, wondering how far toward sleep she was. “Yes?” she said, prepared to slip away if there was no reply.

  But Domina Edith looked up shrewdly from under her wrinkled eyelids, not sleepy at all. “I would be more afraid man pleased to have a living saint on my hands. And if I’m afraid of so much holiness, how must she feel, finding God working within her? It’s small wonder she looks half-sick with dread so much of the time. And now there’s her talk of demons. What happens when Master Montfort begins questioning her?”

  “I don’t know, Domina.”

  “I want you with her as much as may be through these next few days. Where is she now?”

  “With Lady Ermentrude. I gave her leave to stay. She wants to spend the night there, in penance for her anger at Lady Ermentrude and Martha.”

  Domina Edith smiled a small smile. “People who cause such anger so deliberately should be the ones to do the penance for it. Which I daresay Martha is doing now, wherever she is, may I be wrong.” She crossed herself. “And Lady Ermentrude—but Dame Claire thinks she will live.”

  “It seems likely.”

  “And enjoy recovering her health among us, doubtless.” Domina Edith quieted the grumble in her voice. “But may she live a good long while yet, she and her monkey and her parrot and her dogs, and visit us many more times after this, amen.”

  “Amen,” Frevisse replied.

  “You mean for Thomasine to keep watch all night?”

  “Some of Lady Ermentrude’s women will keep it in turns with her. Otherwise I think she’d spend the night on her knees in church and this seemed a better choice. By your leave.”

  “My leave is given. But bring her to Compline. And see that she eats. Holiness is no excuse for mortifying a body God has already seen fit to make so weak.”

  Lady Ermentrude still slept, to Thomasine’s heartfelt relief. The crucifix lay on her pillow, ready to hand if needed; the goblet, with fresh wine and a new infusion of Dame Claire’s quieting medicine, sat on the table along the wall. There was nothing she need do except pray. All the women had gone to the hall for supper and she was alone. The prie-dieu waited in its corner, but Thomasine stood at the foot of the bed, watching Lady Ermentrude’s sleep and trying to form the words that, for once, disconcertingly, did not want to come. It was a relief rather than interruption when a small scratching at the door was followed by Isobel looking cautiously in and then entering, closing the door softly behind her. She came to stand by Thomasine and asked, “How does she?”

  “Still sleeping. I think it’s sleep. She breathes evenly and hardly stirs.” />
  “What does your Dame Claire say?”

  “That if she sleeps quietly the whole night, she will probably mend.”

  “You look as if you could sleep yourself. You’ve had a wearying day,” Isobel said.

  Thomasine shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep. She needs my prayers. I need my prayers,” she amended softly, then turned her wide eyes fully on her sister and said, “We all need everyone’s prayers.”

  Taken aback, Isobel said, “What?”

  Thomasine looked to Lady Ermentrude again. “Death struck at her, you know. Meant to take her but missed, and Martha was taken instead. Didn’t you feel it?” She was very careful to keep her voice calm, but the calm was stretched taut over a hysteria she was unsure of holding. She looked again at her sister, who looked desperately anxious to understand. They had never been much together, never particularly close, but they were sisters and there ought to be a bond between them. “I keep watching her, wanting to see what it looks like to escape Death so narrowly.”

  “Thomasine!” Isobel breathed, with a kind of horror.

  But Thomasine needed to say the words, was too wrought into her own feelings to stop, and continued despite Isobel’s stare. “And I’m afraid Death will try again. I tried not to hate her but I did. I maybe still do, even after watching her suffer so horribly. It. was ugly and awful, the way she suffered, but I had no pity at all for her. She’d been awful to me and I had no pity. I’m so wicked, there was no pity in me at all and I still don’t think there is! Oh, Isobel, what am I going to do?”

  Tears came then, with the last wailing question, and Isobel, who understood the tears if nothing else, put her arm around her shoulders and drew her backward to the bench under the window. “Sit,” she urged. “Sit here with me.”

  Willing to be told what to do, Thomasine obeyed. They sat down together, and letting go completely, Thomasine buried her face in her sister’s lap and sobbed.

  Isobel patted steadily at her shoulder until the tears eased and Thomasine made to sit up again. “You’ll need this,” Isobel said, offering a handkerchief.