The Boy's Tale Read online

  Jasper ducked again, but lifted his head for breath as they galloped out the far side of the trees into an open field. Somehow Edmund was ahead of them all, clinging to a horse he probably no longer controlled but with Mistress Maryon close on his flank. Hery Simon was still beside Jenet, still holding her rein, and they were clear of the fight and away.

  But behind them was the drum of other hooves. Hery looked back and swore. He had lost his sword somewhere, but he reached to snatch Jasper's dagger from its sheath, yelled at Jenet, "Ride, mistress!" and swung his horse back on their trail.

  Jenet cried out, "Hery, no! Not alone!" But he was gone, and no one turned back after him.

  Chapter 2

  The cloister walk was warm with the late afternoon sunlight. Frevisse, coming out of the church after making sure that all was in readiness for Vespers, walked along it slowly, head down as if in prayer. But she was watching the flick of her long skirts across the lines of paving stones as she walked, not thinking of very much at all. She was glad of the warmth and the quiet in this little while before the bell would be rung for the next-to-last office and all St. Frideswide's nuns would come from their afternoon tasks to the single task of prayer in the church.

  Not all of the nuns, she corrected herself; and some of the pleasure of the day gone through in quietness and her tasks well done went from her with the thought. Domina Edith, their prioress, had not risen from her bed since Easter week. Only Sister Lucy among the nuns could remember a time when Domina Edith had not been St. Frideswide's prioress, and now Domina Edith was dying. Not of anything in particular or in pain but simply under the weight of her many years, in a fading whose end was sure and yet would leave an aching gap at the priory's heart.

  But beyond the low inner wall of the cloister walk, in the sunshine of the garth quartered by its four walks meeting where St. Frideswide's small bell was hung, the flowers—in blissful ignorance of their own and all the world's mortality— were bright with summer in this year of Our Lord's grace 1436. The daisies starred white in the thick grass, the columbine and flax and maiden pinks in their small plots, and soon the foxglove and valerian and lady's mantle.

  Frevisse's long mouth curved slightly with amusement at herself. When had she learned to know them so well? So far as flowers went, she could appreciate them without a need to be bothered with their names. They were Sister Juliana's especial darlings; it had to be from so often hearing her go on about them during the brief hour of talk and recreation the Rule allowed each day that she had learned this much, whether she would or not.

  What do we still find to say at recreation? Frevisse wondered. What is there to say we haven't said already? Do we even listen to each other anymore? St. Frideswide's was small; there were but ten nuns, and their last novice had taken her vows five years ago, with no expectation of another to take her place, unless little Lady Adela Warenne's father decided to give her up to the Church. Which was likely. The child was pretty, with pale skin and large blue eyes under dark, level brows, but with her malformed hip, she limped badly and always would; and with older brothers and another sister to inherit and carry on the blood, Adela's marrying, that might be difficult to accomplish, was not so necessary as it would have been if she had been Lord Warenne's only child.

  He had probably given her into St. Frideswide's care with that in mind, and assuredly the nunnery could use the dowry that would come with her if he decided to benefit his soul that way. Not that Lady Adela had shown any inclination toward the religious life, but she was only seven, and a quiet, biddable child. Dame Perpetua, who had the teaching of her letters and numbers and beginnings of French was pleased with her and said she would do.

  As if in answer to Frevisse's thought about her, Lady Adela came limping from the shadows along the far side of the cloister walk out into the sunlight of the garth with the servant woman whose duty it was this week to ring the bell for the seven daily offices. It was said that a misshapen child might be a sign of a parent's sinfulness—and Frevisse knew something of Lord Warenne that would warrant that—or a token of the child's own inclination of wickedness. There had been no sign of wickedness in Lady Adela that anyone at St. Frideswide's had ever seen, but despite her prettiness, the child walked with her head down, her shoulders slightly gathered in, perhaps because she knew what could be said of her. Or had been said of her, ofttimes in her little life. To Frevisse's mind, she was too quiet, too willing to go unnoticed, her one desire seeming to be to follow Dame Perpetua whenever she was allowed to, or to be with whatever servant she was told to, or else to sit mildly sewing in the garden or indoors.

  But Frevisse had never been so willing to be quiet in her own childhood and maybe her doubts were simply from that. Assuredly Dame Perpetua was happy with the girl's demeanor, and Frevisse was willing to leave it at that, surely. She turned away from the pleasant picture of Lady Adela lifting a columbine's flower to look inside and the servant reaching for the bell rope. The nuns would come at the bell's summons; it was time she lighted the altar candles.

  At the far end of the cloister the door into the courtyard slammed open, letting in an exclamation of shouts and the untoward clattering of horses in the cobbled yard along with one of the guesthall servant women clinging to the door as she cried, "Help, oh, help! Robbers! Murderers! At our gates! Help!"

  With the immediate thought that opening the door to let them in was not the wisest of actions, Frevisse went quickly along the cloister, put aside the servant woman wailing and flustering in her way, and went out into the courtyard where there were neither robbers nor murderers, only a confusion of horses and riders and more priory servants than were likely to be of use.

  In her first swift look around the chaos, Frevisse sorted out that there were five sweat-lathered, wild-eyed horses, two of them riderless, on the others only two women, a plump one clutching a child in front of her, the other holding the reins of a second child on his own horse. No armed men, no weapons. The worst danger was from the riderless horses; they were shoving and shying among the confusion, refusing to be caught. The plump woman holding the child on the saddle in front of her was crying and gabbling nonsense at the men who had caught her reins. Instead of listening to her they were giving each other orders and not listening to themselves either. Only the slender woman on the gray horse seemed certain what she was doing, forcing her horse and leading the other boy's among the servants toward the great door into the church to Frevisse's right along the cloister wall. Her wimple and veil were in disarray, her dark hair escaping in a tangle around her face. She was hampered by needing to manage two sets of reins, and when she saw Frevisse and the open door behind her, she brought her gray around to that nearer refuge, calling out, "You must help us!"

  Frevisse jerked her head in a single sharp, agreeing nod. Whatever was happening, the woman's desperation was real. Whatever was happening, better she and the children and the other woman be brought out of the courtyard's chaos into die cloister's safety, where coherent questions and answers could be made.

  Casting an anxious look over her shoulder toward the gateway behind her, the woman edged her frightened mare out from among the servants to a sidling halt beside the door. "The children," she said. "Take them inside. Jenet, here! Bring Jasper here!"

  Frevisse sidestepped as the gray's haunches swung toward her and caught the reins of the boy's horse out of the woman's hand. Holding them near the bit, she soothed the horse with hand and voice, while the woman dismounted, jerking her skirts impatiently clear of the saddle and moving to lift the boy down. "Jenet!" she ordered again.

  Frevisse, seeing Jenet still entangled with reins and child, other people's confusion, and her own crying, said, "I'll bring her. Go on in." She also saw, with relief, that Roger Naylor, the priory's steward, was coming through the gateway from the outer yard, with a look on his face that said he would put an end to whatever was happening. Knowing she could leave the handling of horses and settling of servants to him, she pushed her way to Jenet and
curtly ordered the men clinging to her reins and bridle, "Hold the brute still." She had been hosteler a few years ago, charged with care of the priory's guests and visitors; the men had obeyed her then and did now as she pointed at one of them with her order and said to the other, "You help him down. No, not her, the child first. Give him to me. Jenet, let him go. It's all right."

  Like the men, Jenet responded to the straightforward commands, surrendering the little boy to the man who easily lifted him down and handed him to Frevisse. The child squirmed in her hold, tearless and fierce despite everything around him, and demanded, "Put me down! I can walk!"

  "Not here." Frevisse matched his preemptory tone. "At the door." She set him firmly on her hip—he was small but nonetheless a solid weight resisting her hold—and turned to take him into safety, only to find that Dame Alys had come from somewhere and was blocking the doorway with both her bulk and considerable temper. Dame Alys was hosteler now, and clearly resentful at having no part in what was happening.

  She had once been cellarer of the priory, second in authority only to the prioress herself, and at her best in the work of kitchener that had come with the office. She had been skillful at seeing the cooking was done well, and in the priory's kitchen there had been only servants to terrorize and unfeeling pots and utensils to batter, but when offices were changed, as changed they had to be, according to the Rule, she had done less well as sacrist. She had no delicacy of touch for. the embroidered altar cloths; candles broke when she merely picked them up; goblet and paten and candlesticks had suffered from her harsh scrubbings. In a new shift of offices last winter she had been made hosteler, a duty she performed much as she did any duty she was given, with much vigor and no tact. As hosteler, she was in charge of the two guesthalls that flanked the gateway across the courtyard and—by her own officiousness if not according to the Rule—responsible for anything and everyone in the guesthalls' vicinity, which just now she apparently considered to include the courtyard and cloister door. A large, well-fleshed woman with far more vigor than sense, she was declaring over the heads of everyone in front of her, "What's all this about then? Just someone tell me that! What's this about?"

  The first woman, the boy's hand firmly in hers, thrust a servant out of her way to come at the door and Dame Alys and said into her face, "Let us by at once. We're in danger!"

  "Danger? The only danger here is from your mad horses!

  There's no one coming in here until I know what's toward."

  "We were attacked by men who may be just behind us. We want sanctuary! In God's name, you have to give it!"

  "Just like that then?" Dame Alys scoffed. "This isn't a wayside tavern you can come tumbling into without a by-your-leave, no, it isn't."

  Frevisse pushed between the desperate woman and Dame Alys and said, "She's asked for sanctuary. That puts them under my care, I'm sacrist." She was not sure how accurate that claim was, but she doubted Dame Alys knew any better; no one had ever claimed sanctuary at St. Frideswide's before. "Let them in."

  "With who knows what at their heels? Without even knowing what they are?"

  Behind Frevisse, Roger Naylor said, "I've had the outer gate shut and ordered men to guard it. No one else is coming in without we will it. What is all this?"

  His question was to the woman but before she could answer, Dame Alys declared, "It's trouble, that's what it is. Bursting in here without so much as a crave-your-pardon or—"

  "I think we had best have them inside, Master Naylor," Frevisse said firmly across Dame Alys's rising voice. "They've asked for sanctuary and I've given it. Anything they need to tell us is better heard with fewer ears about."

  Master Naylor nodded brisk agreement. "Dame Alys understands that well enough, I'm sure," he said, his expectation that she would agree implicit in his voice. He was the priory's steward and no one had authority over him outside the cloister except Domina Edith herself. Besides that, he was a man, with a man's natural command. Dame Alys glared but with a stiff, grudging nod, she stood aside.

  The slender, intense woman went first, leading the boy by his hand, saying over her shoulder, "Hurry, Jenet."

  The other woman, still sniffling, obeyed, reaching to take the boy from Frevisse's arms with, "It's all right, M-Master Jasper. It's all right now. No need to be afraid anymore."

  The boy cast her an indignant look and squirmed away from her hands. "I'm not afraid! I would have fought if you'd let me! I wouldn't have run! I would have stabbed them with my dagger!"

  Frevisse set him down, said, "In! At once!" Jenet snatched his hand and dragged him into hoped-for safety; and indeed it would be a godless pursuer who would follow them in there intending harm.

  But Frevisse turned on the threshold to say, "Master Naylor, you'll tell us what is toward? If anyone—comes?"

  "I've set men at the gates and sent warning to the village. I'll see to it none comes in but who belongs in here, and bring word when there's any to tell."

  Frevisse nodded, satisfied he would do whatever needed to be done, and followed the others into the cloister as someone finally began to ring the bell for Vespers now that the trouble in the courtyard had quieted. The world's troubles, even when they came into the cloister itself, should not distract from the priory's purpose of prayer. Dame Alys slammed the door shut with thunderous force behind Frevisse and stalked away along the cloister walk toward the church. Frevisse called after her, despite the rule of silence that was supposed to prevail inside the cloister, "Will you light the altar candles, please you, Dame Alys?"

  Dame Alys gave a curt nod without looking back. Frevisse turned toward the women and children who had, for at least the time being, somehow become her responsibility. She realized, finally having a clear look, that she knew the dark-haired woman who was in charge of them. Five years ago she had come to St. Frideswide's in service to—and a spy on—a lady who had then been murdered here.

  Maryon. That was her name.

  The woman met her look at that moment, saw the recognition in it, and slightly shook her head, a warning in her eyes. She did not want to be known. Before Frevisse could decide whether to heed the warning or not, the older of the two boys grabbed at Maryon's arm as if he had been trying less overtly to capture her attention for a long time and said in loud accusation, "You made me leave Sir Gawyn! You wouldn't let me help him!"

  "You're not old enough to fight yet, Master Edmund, nor nearly big enough," Jenet interposed earnestly. "That's why the men were there. To protect you. So we could escape to here, away from the bad men. Mistress Maryon did what she was supposed to."

  Edmund and Jasper gave her mutual, scornful glances. But Maryon said, "It was our duty. We had no choice. It's what we had to do. You understand?" Her tone indicated they had better, and like her look at Frevisse, it contained a hidden warning, too, one that both boys caught. They closed their mouths abruptly over something else they had been going to say, except the next moment Jasper burst out, aggrieved past silence, "Hery took my dagger!"

  "Then he'll bring it back to you, surely," Maryon said. Before they could say more, she laid a hand on a shoulder of each of them in a firm grip and said to Frevisse, "My sons, Edmund and Jasper."

  Edmund barely hesitated before bowing his head to her; the smaller boy, Jasper, sent a quick startled look at Maryon, then caught himself and echoed his brother's bow. Both straightened, their gazes on Frevisse as if expecting something from her, and she gave them a slight dip of her own veiled head. That seemed to surprise them, too.

  They were so nearly alike except in height, with their dark red hair and gray eyes, that their identical stare could easily be disconcerting; but Frevisse was not easily disconcerted. She said briskly, "I'm Dame Frevisse, sacrist of St. Frideswide's. You're welcome to whatever shelter and comfort we can give," she added to the two women.

  Jenet was mopping her face dry with the hem of her dress, still not recovered but better contained. Maryon, composed and steady-eyed, said, "We thank you."

  Whil
e they had talked, the nuns had been gathering from whatever afternoon tasks they had been about, moving along the other sides of the cloister walk toward the church. There had been glances but no one had stopped, and now a few of the more devout layservants were hasting belatedly in their wake. "Maud," Frevisse called, and one of the women' paused, questioning, then came eagerly, glad of a chance to see the strangers more closely, here where strangers so rarely came.

  "Take our guests where they may wash and rest, and find them something to eat and drink perhaps," Frevisse ordered. "The warming room for now, I think. After Vespers we will consult Dame Claire about what might be best."

  "I could take them to Domina Edith's parlor," Maud offered.