Servant’s Tale Read online

  He let loose of the horse as she came up to him, and made a bow that was as humble as Bassett’s had been theatrical. But when he straightened, his gaze was critical, and Frevisse felt again the uneasy awareness that he was far older than he looked.

  “My thanks along with Master Bassett’s for letting us stay, my lady,” he said. His gratitude seemed genuine, neither forced nor false. But his speech was bold for someone so dependent on the whims of the stranger.

  Frevisse kept her opinion to herself for now, and said, “It would have been poor courtesy to put you back on the road after the kindness you did. Stabling for your horse is back out through the gate to the outer yard and to your left. Someone there will show you where to put your cart.”

  Joliffe began to lead Tisbe forward and around, saying casually, “Kindness is a rare commodity, true enough. It would have been a shame to pass up so plain a chance to give it where it was so sorely needed. And here, you see, we’re receiving it back again.”

  “You’ve been on the road long?”

  Ensuring that the back of the cart would miss the wall as he turned, Joliffe answered, “Do you mean me, or all of us together?”

  “I mean, how long has it been since your group had a roof for the night?”

  “We’ve managed a roof all but the last two nights. We spent—hup, Tisbe, come around now—we spent Christmas Day at Fen Harcourt manor, and we’re meaning to be in Oxford for New Year’s and stay through Twelfth Night. Master Bassett knows an innkeeper there.”

  “So you’re not in need of anything but a night’s rest from us?”

  Joliffe brought Tisbe to a stop and turned his full attention to Frevisse. “Why such concern?” he demanded. “We’re none of your people, that you should be particularly caring. You’ve done your duty in giving us shelter and promise of fire and food.”

  Meeting his look, Frevisse answered as boldly as he asked, “I know how hard the road can be in winter, and you’ve a child and a woman with you.”

  He had the grace to look almost abashed, but before he could respond, the cloister bell began to ring, calling to Vespers. Frevisse inclined her head, turning away as she said, “Pray pardon me. I’ll come again before Compline to see how all is going.”

  The Vespers service went its strong, graceful way, declaring the day’s richness and hoping the blessings it had brought were unending. “Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo, salutari meo.”‘ My spirit has found joy in God, who is my Savior, because He has looked graciously upon the lowliness of His handmaid.

  But its flow and beauty were severely marred in St. Frideswide’s by a general croak-throated snuffling among the nuns.

  The illness had begun before Christmas among the servants, had spread to the nuns, and had not yet run its course, though Dame Claire—busy with poultices and herb brews— assured them it would. The worst of Frevisse’s own sore throat was gone, but she still made steady use of her handkerchief and lacked her usual energy. Like most of the others, she had to be careful of her singing, that it did not turn to sudden croaking; and like them, she often failed.

  And today, unfortunately, Dame Claire was still with the injured man so that her deep, rich voice, almost fully recovered from her own rheum, was not there to carry the others. Without it, the strongest singer was Sister Thomasine, whose thin, bright soprano rose now over everyone else’s broken efforts.

  Despite her apparent frailty, Sister Thomasine had flourished in the year and a little more since she had joyfully taken her final vows. Her holiness was as accepted a matter in the priory as the seven daily services, and Frevisse had heard it being whispered among the nuns that it was her holiness and the answering grace of God that kept her alone from succumbing to the present pest of sneezing and wheezing.

  About that, Frevisse worked very hard to have no opinion, for if she had allowed herself one, it might have been that Sister Thomasine was kept free of disease to test Frevisse’s patience.

  After Vespers most of the nuns had their period of rest and reflection before supper. But today Frevisse, feeling her duties to the priory’s guests were unfinished, returned to the guesthall. There she found the players had gathered around the farther hearth and were settled in with their belongings around them. The woman among them was stirring a pot set close to the flames, her thin features flattered almost into beauty by the shifting orange light. The boy Piers was curled up near her, asleep on someone’s cloak, even more sweet-faced asleep than when he was awake. The three men were sitting across from them in close talk that dissolved frequently into laughter. Ellis tossed the small pieces of the stick he had been breaking between his hands into the fire with a casual, relaxed gesture.

  There was no ease in the gathering beside the other hearth. Only Dame Claire, the hurt man, Meg and her son, and an older boy were left. Another son, Frevisse thought. That was good; even if her husband died, poor Meg would still have her sons, and the older boy looked old enough to inherit. Lord Lovel’s steward was a fair-minded man; if they could keep up their duties and rents they would keep the holding even if Barnaby died.

  She went to stand where she knew Dame Claire would be aware of her, not intruding, willing to wait until there was pause for the infirmarian to tell her if there was anything she could do. The man’s hurts had been cleaned and the worst of them bandaged, including the gash along his head. Closely covered in blankets, with his shoulder in place, he did not look so hopeless a matter as he had at first. He was still unconscious, or asleep, his head rolled to one side and his mouth slacked open, though he was breathing with such heavy effort through his nose that it was probably broken, too.

  Dame Claire, with great care, was picking up his injured hand. Barnaby moved his head toward her, but his eyes did not open until, tentatively, she moved his forefinger. Then he made a wordless cry and opened his eyes wide. They were glazed and bloodshot and seemed to see nothing. She let go of his finger and he subsided to silence, his eyes closing again.

  “Please don’t do that!” whispered Meg hoarsely. “It’s no good. His hand’s no good and never will be anymore.”

  The first horror was gone from her now, if not the shock. She was sunk down on the floor on her husband’s other side, one hand clenched into a fist and pressed between her meager breasts, her other hand holding tightly to her younger son’s arm as he sat leaning against her. Her strained, haunted eyes stared at the ruin of her husband’s hand as Dame Claire gently put it down, and she did not seem to notice her older son, hunched down on his heels behind her, reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder.

  As often is with brothers, the two boys were not much alike. The younger had his mother’s small bones, the fair skin and blond hair she might have had when she was young, though she was years past showing either of them now. The older boy was more like his father, tall and big in bone, with coarse dark hair, his boy’s face already beginning to flesh out in what would be heavy-jowled manhood. A manhood that was going to come on him sooner than it should have even if his father lived.

  “Now, Mam,” he said, “let her be. Maybe she can mend it.”

  “Nothing can mend him, Sym. Hush you,” Meg said without emotion, not looking around at him.

  Dame Claire touched the first two fingers of the swollen hand laid on Barnaby’s stomach. “By some wonder,” she said, “these bones right here seem to be the only ones broken, but they’re broken right back to his wrist, and they’re not bones I can set, being so small and many jointed. All I can do is wrap his hand close to its proper shape, and pray it mends so he can use it.”

  “He’s going to live?” asked the younger boy.

  “I don’t know. If he’s taken hurt inside, if there’s something broken where I can’t tell it, or he’s bleeding where it doesn’t show…” She drew a deep breath and said more firmly, looking at Meg, “We just won’t know for a while and a while yet. If he lasts the night and recovers his wits, then there’s hope. Do you mean to stay here or would you rather go home? Dame Frevisse
or I will watch by him all night if you would rather go home and rest.”

  “We’ll watch by him,” Meg said without hesitation. “He’s ours and we’ll keep the watch. Better there’s faces he knows when he awakes. Or when he goes,” she added in a lowered voice, her gaze returning to his face.

  “I’ll see to their bedding,” said Frevisse. “Tell me what I should watch for, then go to your supper and Compline. I’ll manage here.”

  “You haven’t eaten, either,” Dame Claire said. “I’ll bring your supper along with what he’s going to need to cover the pain when he wakens.”

  Meg stood up. “I can fetch the lady’s supper, by your leave,” she said. “I work in the kitchen and know my way.”

  “That’s where I know you from,” Dame Claire said. “You brought the posset I wanted for Domina Edith when her cold was so bad two days ago.”

  “And I fixed it myself,” Meg said a little eagerly.

  “It was excellent and served her well. Yes, bring Dame Frevisse’s supper. I’ll see to the medicine.”

  Chapter 4

  Meg made a low curtsey, glanced at the boys in silent warning to stay where they were and not make noise or mischief, then hurried away. She left the guesthall for the cold darkness of the courtyard, crossed it quickly, and let herself into the cloister by the nuns’ gate. It was not the way she usually came in but the corridor beyond it was familiar, and she turned toward the main kitchen and the need to brave Dame Alys’s temper.

  But Dame Alys was gone to dine with the other nuns in the refectory. There were only the lay workers in the kitchen, and in return for the chance to pour out their questions about what had happened and how her husband was, they filled a bowl with bread pudding and cheese, and pressed it and a mug and pitcher of hot spiced cider into her arms while they talked.

  The kitchen was warm and bright with fire and lamplight. They were among the things Meg treasured from her hours at the priory: fires in the kitchens and the warming room; and another in the prioress’s parlor and even in her bedroom, so she could be warm when she undressed for bed at night, a luxury Meg had never dreamed of before she saw it here in its reality. And lamps and candles lighted when the days were merely overcast so the gloom was pushed away into the corners instead of brooding down on everything. That and how clean all was kept, with stone floors that were scrubbed when the weather was warm, and swept every day no matter what; and nothing left to spoil the wholesomeness of the air, not rushes, nor food more than a few days old, nor animals. Why, the nuns would have been scandalized at the thought of sleeping in the same room with chickens and goats!

  It was like dragging herself away from some corner of Heaven to go out again, leaving the warmth and friendly gossip behind her, to the chill night of the courtyard and then the lesser comfort of the old guesthall. Dame Claire was gone but the other nun—Dame Frevisse, she was, a brusque person to be in charge of the priory’s main charity, the minding of its guests—had built up the fire. By its light she could see Hewe and Sym sitting beside their father, their two faces dissimilar even in expression, Sym brooding and Hewe looking lost in prayer. She smiled at them when they looked up at her coming but she went directly to Dame Frevisse and held out what she had brought.

  “This is more than I need, surely,” Dame Frevisse said.

  Meg flung desperately through her mind to find an apology, but the nun only continued, as if it hardly mattered, “So let me take a little of this and a little of the cider. The rest of it divide among you. You’ll need something if you mean to watch all night. I’ll set the pitcher by the fire to keep it warm.”

  Meg hardly knew what to say, but Dame Frevisse did not wait for a reply, only went to speak with the band of players.

  Meg took the food and drink to the fire. The bread pudding was full of raisins and sugar, treats she had not managed for years. Even the bread was mostly wheat, not bran, and the whitest she had ever eaten. The boys crowded eagerly, and she was glad to share, but she kept a close eye on them, and stopped them far short of it all being finished. “We’ll save some for later in the night. If your father wakes, the cider will help warm him,” she said, and for once even Sym did not protest.

  As she straightened from setting the pitcher back beside the fire, a cold draft swept the hall from the opening and shutting outer door, and Father Henry, the priory’s priest, hurried out of the shadows toward them. He was cloaked and ruddy faced as if he had been awhile in the cold, and the tumble of curls around his tonsure was in more disarray than ever. Meg and the boys made courtesies to him, though Meg had to nudge them as a reminder. Father Henry gave them all a nod but his worried gaze had already turned to Barnaby. “I was gone to Hamlin’s croft to baptize the baby before she died. I’ve only just come back and heard. Am I needed, Dame Frevisse?”‘

  Dame Frevisse came toward them. “According to Dame Claire, he’s badly hurt but seems holding steady. He’s not regained his wits, but if he does, and his wounds don’t fester, he may live. He surely needs your prayers, but as for last rites, I think his wife should say.”

  She and Father Henry both looked at Meg, distressing her with this unexpected responsibility, though the priest’s voice was kind as he asked, “What do you think? Should he have the sacrament now while we’re sure of him?”

  Meg pressed her lips together and stared at the floor, trying to think. It always disconcerted her when someone important noticed her; Father Henry’s attention was as bad as being asked questions by the steward. She would not have been so disconcerted had it been old Father Clement, the village priest, and a common person like herself. But he had died last year and no one had yet been put in his place—for shame! But that was not Father Henry’s fault. Now he was waiting for her answer and words did not come quickly to her.

  Dame Claire seemed to think Barnaby had a chance of living, but it might be better to be safe and let him have last rites. But there were always pence to be paid when the sacraments were needed. If Barnaby died unshriven, the cost might be his soul, as his sins were many and mortal. On the other hand, pennies were very few and likely to be fewer with Barnaby dead or even just unable to work.

  And if he died, there would be other costs, their best beast being claimed by the lord as heriot; and then the gersum, a fine Sym must pay to enter into his father’s holding, and the cost of a wake for Barnaby, and then the Mass penny for his funeral and the price of his shroud, and the opening of his grave. All that to come out of the little she had managed to save. Or none of it if Barnaby lived. But Father Henry had offered to pray for him anyway, and surely God would not ignore the prayers of a priory priest. So as he was maybe going to live—

  “Better he be awake for it,” she said. “Better he knows about it.”

  “My prayers for him then,” Father Henry said. “Send someone for me anytime in the night you want me. My house is between the inner courtyard wall and the church.”

  He moved to leave, but Meg said with a sudden thought and rare daring, “Father, could you take Hewe, my younger here—” She pushed him a little forward, her hand on his resisting back. “And show him somewhere good he could pray for his Da?”

  “Mam—” Hewe began.

  Meg cut off his protest. “Father Clement taught him his letters and said he might, with work, become a priest. That’s my fondest hope, to see my Hewe a priest someday. If you could talk to him, teach him some of your prayers?”

  She did not know where her daring came from, to ask so bold a favor. But if Hewe got a look inside a priory priest’s house, he’d see how different it could be from a villager’s daily grubbing. For his sake she could be bold. For his sake—and Sym’s—she had nerved herself to ask for work at the priory, so they would have a little more between them and the disaster Barnaby was making of their lives.

  She kept her hand hard against Hewe’s back, warning him not to speak against her request.

  And, thanks be, not seeming offended at all, Father Henry said, “Assuredly. And he’s nam
ed Hewe? After our own St. Hugh of Lincoln, surely.” Meg nodded eagerly, not sure at all; Hewe had been her father’s name. But Father Henry went on happily, “In his travels St. Hugh was forever seeking out boys with the hope of priesthood in them, and helping them. So should a priest say no to a boy named Hewe? The church is cold this time of year but there’s a prie-dieu in my chamber, and a fire. We can pray there for your father.”

  Hewe cast a look of resentment at Meg, as he had spent the past year since Father Clement died happily forgetting all the old priest had taught him. But then he looked at his unconscious father, kept his mouth shut and went, albeit scuff footed and head down, with Father Henry.

  Meg nodded after Hewe, not caring how he felt about it, knowing what was best for him. The need to do things, to manage somehow, was bringing her out of shock. Making the decision about the last rites had set her mind moving again, and now she said to Sym, “There’s still the horse and cart we don’t know about. You’d best ask those folk who brought him in where this happened and how bad the cart is. The horse must have broken loose or those folk would have brought it in when they brought Barnaby. It’s probably gone back to Gilbey Dunn but we’ll rest easier if we know it has. Take you back to the village and ask. If the horse at least, pray God, is in good case, that’s one thing less we have to worry on. If it isn’t, we’ll never have the end of it from Gilbey.”