The Boy's Tale Read online

  "Leave them with me, if you like. Colwin and I will show them more. Between the two of us, we should manage well enough and bring them back to cloister."

  It was a tempting possibility. Master Naylor had children of his own, Frevisse knew; and Colwin was one of their own people. But it was memory of Lady Adela's face, watching the doves soar away, that made up her mind. "Yes, that would be very good of you to do."

  Sister Amicia burst out of the stable doorway, flustered near to tears. "They won't listen to me! They've climbed into the hay mow and it's all filthy up there, they're covered in dust and they won't come down and we're going to be late!"

  "It's all right," Frevisse said. "Master Naylor and Colwin are going to see to them. We can go and we won't be late."

  "Oh, Master Naylor, how kind of you. How very kind. Thank you, thank you so much. I promised they'd see the piglets. There are some piglets, aren't there? They might come down for you if you mentioned the piglets? And lambs?"

  Sister Alicia’s effusions backed Master Naylor away from her. Frevisse, not waiting for her to finish, simply walked away, forcing her to follow.

  "There's Father Henry," Sister Amicia exclaimed, a little breathless in Frevisse's wake, as they reentered the inner yard. She waved happily to the nunnery's priest where he stood talking with Will at the foot of the guesthall stairs, and he waved back with a bemused look at seeing two nuns coming into the yard from outside. He was a burly young man, his tonsure almost hidden by unruly yellow curls, who looked as if he would be more skilled with a scythe in the field than cup and paten. Nor was he, to Frevisse's mind, among the clever people of the world, and his simplicity sometimes annoyed her; but it was a simplicity deeply given over to his faith and duties, and Frevisse feared the deeper fault lay in her pride rather than in his simplicity.

  With a sudden thought, Frevisse said to Sister Amicia, "You go on. I'll be just a moment longer."

  Drawn by the bell still clanging from the cloister, Sister Amicia hurried on without question. Frevisse turned aside toward the two men. They bowed to her and she quickly curtsied to Father Henry and bent her head to Will, following with, "Will, the children—the boys and Lady Adela—are with Colwin and Master Naylor in the stables. They're having an outing. Would you be free to join them, to keep watch over them until it's time they come in again?"

  Will said, "Gladly, my lady."

  "If it pleases you, I could go, too," Father Henry said. "There's safety in numbers when child-watching."

  "That would do very well, if you would be so good and have the time." Knowing that Father Henry had a fondness for children and animals that went with his simplicity of heart, Frevisse accepted his offer with a curtsy of thanks and hastened after Sister Amicia. It would hardly do to be late again.

  The office went its serene way to its end where Dame Claire said in her deep voice, "Fidelium animae per misericordiam Dei requiescant in pace." May the souls of the faithful, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. The nuns responded on one, low, long tone, "Amen," that sank away to silence.

  Her mind eased away from one problem or another for the first time since Prime at dawn, Frevisse would willingly have stayed where she was but custom required she rise with the others and follow Dame Claire from the church. Quiet in her obedience, she did so, coming out into the warm afternoon shadows of the cloister walk in time to see Ela from the guesthall and Father Henry coming along the cloister with the children in tow.

  Frevisse's own intake of breath was covered by those of all the other nuns as they realized what they were looking at. Led by Ela, Lady Adela was crying aloud, tears pouring down her face, but she was the least of the trouble. Behind her, Father Henry led Edmund and Jasper by either hand and at his arms' length, well away from himself and anyone else because they were covered feet to waists and up their arms with black filth. And they smelled. Even before they were near, it was miserably obvious that they smelled and that they knew it, their faces screwed shut against breathing in any more than they had to.

  It was also obvious that what they smelled of was pig-muck and, all propriety forgotten, Dame Alys bellowed, "What are you thinking of, bringing those filthy brats in here? They stink!"

  "Dame Alys," Dame Claire said in mild rebuke. "They do! You should have soused them off at the well before bringing them in here! Take 'em out and do it!" "Dame Alys!" Dame Claire said more forcefully. Dame Alys closed her mouth with an audible snap but nothing softened the glare she turned from Father Henry and the boys to Dame Claire. Ignoring her, Dame Claire held up her hand to stop Father Henry from coming any nearer and said, "Disaster overtook you, we can see that. We don't want them here. Take them to the laundry and have them cleaned, with my apologies to the laundrywomen. Dame Perpetua, take Lady Adela away. She isn't hurt or she'd not be howling so loud. Ela, find Jenet and tell her to take clean clothing to the boys. Dame Frevisse, you go with Father Henry and help." Frevisse, remembering she had asked responsibility for the children in their outing, smothered a protest, and followed Father Henry's hurried departure.

  The. laundry was with other work sheds and workshops directly needed by the nunnery, beyond a wall on the far side of the inner yard that could be reached by a back way beyond the kitchen or through a small gate from the yard. Father Henry chose the latter way, to be outside the cloister faster. Frevisse overtook him and the boys as they crossed the yard toward the gate, Edmund dragging back on his hand, protesting, "I don't want the laundry! I want a proper bath! They'll scrub too hard!"

  "A proper bath is for proper dirt," Frevisse snapped. "You're filthy far beyond that. And you'll be scrubbed as much as needed no matter where it's done. Stop yammering. We're the ones who have to smell you." Edmund, startled at her sharpness, went silent, and she demanded of Father Henry, "What on earth were they doing in the pigsty?" That being the only place they were likely to have found that much pig-muck.

  "They fell in," Father Henry answered, as embarrassed as if it had been his doing.

  "They fell—or jumped?" Keeping her distance, Frevisse circled ahead of them to open the gate.

  "Fell in. With the sow. And her piglets," Father Henry said, his voice shaking. He was distressed by more than the dirt and smell; under his tan he was white, and with good reason. A sow with piglets was vicious beyond any other yard-kept creature. If this one had reached either of the boys before someone grabbed them out, they would have been in need of far more than a scrubbing.

  "Master Naylor and I snatched them out right enough," Father Henry hastened to assure her, as if she could not see for herself they were untouched except by filth. "But it was a near thing."

  "She was grabbing for my foot," Edmund declared. "She didn't want Jasper. He doesn't taste good."

  "Be quiet." Frevisse shut the gate behind them and led the way toward the laundry shed. "How did they come to fall?"

  "They were on the top rail of the fence, sitting there and safe enough it seemed. They've the grip and balance of monkeys, or so I thought. But one of them fell and grabbed the other and in they both went."

  "It wasn't that way at all," Edmund protested. "It wasn't our fault!"

  "The rail rolled," Jasper said. "We couldn't stay on."

  "The rail rolled?" Frevisse repeated blankly.

  "The posts have holes through them." Father Henry let loose the boys to show with his hands. "The rails go through the holes. You know. Four rails up between each set of posts, and the ends of the next set of rails going through the same holes."

  Like most of Father Henry's explanations, it was less than clear but Frevisse knew the sort of fence he meant. The rails rested in the holes in the posts without being fastened. They could roll, but not very readily. The boys must have been jostling them badly and someone should have stopped them.

  "We didn't make it roll," Edmund insisted. "It wasn't our fault. It just did!"

  "It doesn't matter whether you did it on purpose or not," Frevisse said unsympathetically. She was not sure at whom she was more
angry: the boys for being so careless as to fall or the men for letting them sit there in the first place. Either way, the outcome was that they had to be cleansed of the dirt and stench when she would far rather have been praying for Domina Edith. Or seeing to almost anything else rather than them in their present state. Not bothering to temper her annoyance, she said, "What matters is that you're dirty and you have to be washed. And you're right. You are going to be scrubbed and very hard!"

  Chapter 13

  Edmund, Jasper, and Lady Adela sat on the low wall around the cloister garth, legs hanging over its grassy verge, brooding at a bright bed of gillyflowers in the morning sunshine. Except for the occasional thud of their heels against the stone, there was only the hum of bees among the flowers and the occasional whisper of skirts as a nun passed by.

  They were bored. Again.

  Lessons had been boring and Jenet was boring and St. Frideswide's was boring and, "I still have raw places where they scrubbed me too hard yesterday," Edmund muttered. He kicked a foot at a pale pink gillyflower just out of his reach and added for good measure, "I hate flowers."

  The three of them considered that for a while, and then Jasper said, "Mother loves flowers." And after a while, wistfully, he added, "I wish Father would come for us."

  Edmund punched him in the shoulder and said with a fierceness that threatened tears, "You be quiet!"

  "I don't have to be!" Jasper's voice rose to match Edmund's and his temper with it. Anger was better than crying.

  "If you fight," Lady Adela warned, "they'll send us all to our rooms!"

  The threat made both boys hesitate. A fight would have made them both feel better, but to go back to their room meant going back to Jenet, who had finally stopped crying but now just sat, sighing and drooping, more boring than sitting on a wall. They both subsided, went back to staring at the garden and kicking the wall.

  "I want to go out" Edmund muttered after a while. "There's nothing to do here."

  "Nobody is going to take us out again, ever," Jasper replied sadly. "And it wasn't even our fault." He was still aggrieved about that.

  "We could go just into the orchard," Edmund suggested. "Nobody would be very angry about that, if we didn't stay long. And nobody would miss us anyway." He swung around to hop off the wall but paused to see who was with him.

  "They've moved the key," Lady Adela said, aggrieved in her turn. "I can't open the gate anymore."

  "And we promised Dame Frevisse we wouldn't," Jasper said.

  Edmund swung back, and the thud of their heels and the bees' hum were the only sounds for a while. And then Lady Adela said, "A forced oath isn't binding."

  Edmund and Jasper looked at her.

  "What?" Edmund asked.

  Carefully, a little smugly, Adela explained, "If someone forces you to promise something, the promise doesn't count because they forced it from you. An oath made under . . . under duress . . . isn't binding."

  Edmund and Jasper considered that. It made sense. Jasper saw his brother start to grin and felt obliged to point out, "But the gate is still locked."

  "That one isn't." Edmund pointed to the door out of the cloister into the yard.

  "We'll be seen."

  "Maybe not. Come on."

  "If we're seen, we'll be sent to our room forever."

  "And if we're not seen, we'll be out and away. We'll go the way they took us to wash us yesterday. There's lots of places to hide and there has to be a back gate somewhere there. Adela will try it with me, won't you, Adela?"

  Lady Adela had already swung her legs back over the wall and slid to her feet. "Come on, Jasper. It's better than sitting here," she urged.

  That was true enough. And it was better to try and fail than to be a coward afraid to try at all. A true knight always dared, no matter how doomed a chance might be.

  Jasper tended to consider matters a little longer than his brother did but, a decision made, he was as bold or bolder. As rear guard, he watched behind them for anyone coming as Edmund and Lady Adela opened the door the smallest possible crack to look out and survey the yard.

  "There's nobody out there," Edmund said.

  "All's right here," Jasper whispered.

  "Then go" Lady Adela said, pushing at Edmund impatiently. "Run, before somebody comes."

  Edmund ran, Lady Adela close behind him, and Jasper far last, having taken time to close the door to cover their escape. He followed Edmund's lead to the side gate Father Henry and Dame Frevisse had taken them through yesterday. Beyond it, they were among the side yard's clutter of small buildings. The only one they knew was the laundry, and that they gave a wide miss in memory of yesterday's indignities but found their way, unnoticed by anyone who thought to stop them, to the nunnery's postern gate.

  It stood open. It was the common way in and out of the nunnery for the servants coming or going to the kitchen gardens or farther away to the village. No one was there; they went through unchallenged, paused long enough to decide which way to turn, and with no need to argue over it, ran along the nunnery wall, ducked their way among the garden plots, and disappeared into the trees along the stream at the bottom of the slope.

  Out of the sunlight there was sudden coolness. The sound of the water drew them, and they found it, running brown and clear between shallow banks, spangled with sunlight through the leaves overhead, rippling over smooth mud and rocky shoals.

  Remembering the anger roused by their wet clothing last time, they were satisfied at first to throw twigs and drop leaves into the water and challenge each other over whose would be first out of sight around the stream's curve. But soon Edmund had a particularly fine twig and as it swung away on the current toward the bend, in danger of going out of sight forever, he stripped off his shoes and hosen and waded in after it.

  "My leaf!" Jasper protested the swamping of his newest craft by Edmund's careless passing but Edmund ignored him, as was Edmund's usual way when he was set on something. And then he realized that what Edmund was doing was better than what he was doing and, forgetting his leaf, Jasper stripped off his shoes and hosen, too, and followed him into the water.

  "That isn't fair!" Lady Adela protested from the bank. "I can't! My dress will get wet!"

  "Too bad," Edmund called back without noticeable sympathy. "You're a girl and it can't be helped."

  Jasper saw Lady Adela's eyes tighten with anger and said, "You can follow along the bank. Come on."

  She stuck out her tongue at him, but she came, along the narrow, deep-trodden path along the stream that showed other people came this way and often.

  Around another bend the stream widened into a broad pool below steep banks. Edmund's twig had already drifted out toward the middle and he would have followed it but Lady Adela called, "You'd better see if it's too deep first."

  Edmund looked as if he were about to say that was a girl-thing to do, but Jasper dragged a long stick from a flotsam along the bank and poked out into the water. Hardly beyond where they stood, the stick went deep and still did not touch bottom. He and Edmund exchanged looks. Edmund shrugged. "Maybe we can learn to swim. Will told me he learned by being thrown into deep water. We could, too."

  "You'd better not," Lady Adela said.

  "We're not girls. We won't get our dresses wet," Edmund taunted. But he went no farther. Instead, he took the stick from Jasper and hurled it out into the pool. The splash was very satisfying.

  Adela in a temper at his taunt snatched up a short, heavy stick from the ground beside her and flung it into the water directly in front of him.

  "He! That's not fair!" Edmund yelled, stumbling back but still being spattered.

  "Good!" Adela yelled at him. "You're a boy and you're rotten!" She grabbed up and threw another stick, splashing him even more satisfactorily.

  "You're getting me wet!"

  "I mean to!"

  "Stop it!"

  She did not. Her third stick splashed between him and Jasper.

  "Come on," said Edmund. "Let's push her in." />
  He waded to the bank, Jasper after him, and scrambled out.

  "You wouldn't dare!" Lady Adela said, backing away.

  "Yes, we would."

  She hesitated, decided he meant it, and turned and ran, off the path into the underbrush, almost instantly out of sight.

  Edmund, still in a temper, would have gone after her, but Jasper stopped and called after him, "We don't have our shoes."

  Edmund pulled up, thought about it, then shrugged it all away as a waste of time, settling for saying loudly at the woods, "We're well rid of her anyway! And she'd better not tell anybody where we are either." Then he added to Jasper, "Come on. I bet I can throw farther than you can."

  It was more fun to throw sticks from the top of the bank, and watch the ripple patterns break against each other and make little dazzles, of sunlight over the water. They came, of course, to tussling and then to daring each other to jump off the bank into the water, but they both knew neither of them dared to do it, Will's story notwithstanding. Their cheerful arguing had come down to, "I will if you will."—"You go first."—when Jasper, knowing it was not going to happen, moved away to find another stick. He was saying, "Not until you do," when Edmund's shocked yell spun him around.