The Squire’s Tale Page 3

  ‘Well done, Master Geoffrey,“ Blaunche said. ”Thank you.“

  She held out her hand to him and the clerk rose to his feet to take it, bow over it and kiss it with the courtly grace she particularly enjoyed and Robert had never been able to manage. Vaguely, Robert wished he could raise even a small stir of jealousy but could not. Blaunche encouraged men to notice her but it was only a game she played. Nothing more than smiling and the kissing of her hands ever came of it, and Robert wished that what he felt for Katherine was as simple, instead of simply sin.

  But with the story’s end the evening was ended, too, and Katherine quickly tidied bandages and splints away until tomorrow while Ned who would sleep in the solar tonight instead of riding home in the dark and Benedict and Master Geoffrey who had their own rooms across the yard made their good nights, leaving as Mistress Dionisia came in and went with Gil into the bedchamber off the parlor to bring out from under Robert and Blaunche’s bed the mattresses she and Katherine and Emelye would sleep on in the parlor, while they fetched their bedding from a chest along one wall.

  Robert, tired into his bones and his hand aching from being handled, only waited until they were out of the bedchamber before withdrawing with only the briefest of good nights into there himself, where Mistress Avys was now pulling out from under the great bed the truckle beds she and Gil would sleep on, to be at hand if their lord or lady needed anything in the night. With Gil to help him, he readied for bed, too tired to make much of it and hoping that somehow Blaunche, too, would be too tired for even talk tonight.

  She was not. Undressed, her face, hands and feet washed and rubbed with lotion, her hair unpinned and combed out by Mistress Avys, she came finally to bed ready to say what she had held back from saying all afternoon and evening. Robert, lying with his hand as comfortable as might be on a pillow between them and halfway to sleep on the quieting tide of the medicined drink, tried to feign deeper sleep than he was in as Gil drew the curtains closed around the bed but that was an outworn ploy or else Blaunche simply did not care because, not even bothering with lying down, she leaned over him and whispered, not softly enough to keep anyone beyond the bed-curtains from hearing, “It’s going to go on happening, Robert. You know it is. Today you were hurt because of it. Who knows what will happen next time? It’s only going to be worse from now on.”

  ‘We’ll keep closer watch on her after this,“ Robert answered, not bothering with opening his eyes or whispering. ”It’s all we can do.“

  ‘It’s not all we can do,“ Blaunche said forcefully. ”What we can do is have her married and the sooner the better. Benedict…“

  Robert jerked over onto his side, away from her, jarring his hand into pain that would keep him awake for a long while more, and on the pain he snapped, “Before we deal with anyone’s marriage, we’re going to have to deal with the Allesleys.”

  He no more wanted to talk about the Allesleys than he did about Katherine’s marriage but it was the only sure diversion of which he could think and Blaunche took it, sitting rod-upright and exclaiming at him, “Don’t talk to me about the Allesleys! The Allesleys can rot!”

  ‘Northend is theirs.“ Robert started along the well-trod track again with no hope she would heed him any more than she had the other times he had said it to her, but if it kept her off Katherine’s marriage and Benedict…

  ‘The manor of Northend is mine and mine it stays!“

  ‘It wasn’t your husband’s to give you for dower. They’re not going to let the matter go. The manor is theirs…“

  ‘And they want it back and recompense into the bargain, yes, I know,“ Blaunche snapped, ”but they’re not getting either. Not from me and not from you. I’d go to my grave first.“ She abruptly fell back onto her pillow, jarring the bed and his hand again but her voice turning suddenly to reasonable. ”And don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing, Robert. You’re trying not to talk about Katherine’s marriage but no matter how much we make off her lands by the year, you have to see she’s not a child anymore and won’t we look the fools if we lose her marriage the way we almost lost it today? Especially when all we have to do to make an end of it is marry her to Benedict. Listen to me on this…“

  Chapter 2

  With every passing day of spring the sun was a little higher, at midday the cloister walk and garth a little less shadow-filled, making them today a warm, still haven from the bluster of the young wind wuthering along the roof ridges under the blue, scoured sky that was all that could be seen of the world from here. Only sometimes a gust swept down to catch and push at the three nuns’ black veils and skirts where they worked among the garth’s brown-soiled garden beds in the afternoon’s sunlight, and only a tease of wind more astray than most found its way into the roofed north walk to catch and lift the edge of the parchment sheet on Dame Frevisse’s writing desk. Just done with carefully penning “holy fathers,” she raised the quill clear of the words and shifted the inkpot—of too heavy a pottery to be bothered by the wind—to where it would better hold the parchment down without losing her place in the book propped up before her. Or, more precisely, the portion of a book.

  The latest work asked of St. Frideswide nunnery’s small scrivening business was a fair-made copy, to be bound in white calf’s hide, of John Mirk’s Festial that a Banbury councilman’s wife was giving to herself as an Easter gift. She also wanted it done by Passiontide, and because Lent was already nigh to its second Sunday and none of St. Frideswide’s nuns were free of other duties but had to fit in scribing when they could, Dame Perpetua had carefully unbound the copy asked as a loan from their prioress’s brother, said patiently to Dame Juliana’s worry, “Yes, I can rebind it when we’re done so no one will know the difference,” and separated it into five parts, one for each of the nuns who, when they had chance, worked at their share at the writing desks set against the church wall along the cloister’s north walk where the sun fell warmest. By rights, Dame Juliana should have been with the four of them presently at work there—Domina Elisabeth, Dame Perpetua, Sister Johane and Frevisse—but Dame Juliana’s first love after Christ was not words but gardening and the past few forward days of spring had aroused all her gardener’s urges so that Domina Elisabeth, knowing full well what the worth of Dame Juliana’s scribing was likely to be if her mind was more to her gardening than her pen, had smilingly given leave at chapter meeting this morning for her to work in the cloister garth and except that Lenten silence held in the nunnery at present Dame Juliana would probably have gone singing—or at least humming—through the day. As it was, happy little exclamations kept rising over the low wall between the garth and cloister walk as she found—or her helpers Dame Emma and Sister Amicia showed her—one green thing or another thrusting back to life under last year’s leaves.

  St. Benedict’s Rule against idle talk in the cloister, though mostly let lapse anymore, was kept through Lent to help the nuns hold their minds to readying for the coming grief and glory of Easter through penance and purification. Frevisse, for one, was always glad for the silence’s return but was smiling at Dame Juliana’s open happiness while carefully, carefully penning, “of the old law they fasted four times in the year against four high feasts that they had” because in her own way she was as much enjoying her work and the warm, fair day as Dame Juliana was. St. Frideswide’s priory had been through narrow times, troubled by an ill-managing prioress and closer to utter poverty than St. Benedict’s Rule required, but through these past two years of their new prioress Domina Elisabeth ruling them with a firm grasp of necessities, the nunnery had gained back its peace and something of its prosperity. Not all the hurt done by their last prioress was mended yet but the copying of books was making a needed addition to their income and last autumn Domina Elisabeth had persuaded two Banbury families to put their daughters to school at St. Frideswide’s, with hope there would be others. Moreover, Abbot Gilberd, her brother, had found them a wealthy Northampton merchant’s daughter to be a novice, a large and very welc
ome dowry coming with her.

  Happily, Sister Margrett had proved to be as welcome as her dowry, a bright-faced, even-humored girl who had taken readily to nunnery life and would take her final vows come Whitsuntide, bringing the nunnery’s count of nuns again up to ten after Sister Cecely’s flight back into the world last year. It was a pity the girl was not fair-handed with a pen yet, Frevisse thought while pausing to straighten and stretch her back, because someone else at the scrivening would be useful. With so few nuns in St. Frideswide’s, all had more than merely one set of duties, even Domina Elisabeth. Besides scrivening, Frevisse in the last change of offices had been made precentress, in charge of seeing that all the nuns were ready for such differences in the daily seven Offices of prayer as came with the changing holy days and turnings of the year. Along with that, she had to see to Sister Margrett being fully taught all she needed to know about the Offices before she took her final vows and, besides that, to overseeing the educating of Helen and Lucy, the little girls from Banbury. Being biddable children, they were no great trouble and Frevisse had found she minded the task less than she had thought to, but she had also become skilled at finding things that other nuns could teach them; this afternoon she had given them over to Dame Claire and Sister Thomasine for instruction in medicinal herbs until Vespers and was not missing them, instead was welcoming the chance to gain on the needed copying work.

  In the while of wind-hush then, with only the small sounds of gardening and the scritch of quill tips across parchment to touch the quiet, she went on, “Fasting it cleanses a man’s flesh of evil stirring and inclination to the sin of gluttony and of lechery; for these be sins of the flesh…” losing track of time until a sudden loud knocking at the cloister’s outer door startled heads up both at desks and in the garth. St. Frideswide’s was remote enough in the country for visitors to be uncommon and so small that someone—servant or nun—was almost always in hearing if someone knocked to come in; no one was needed to constantly keep the door into the guesthall yard and now, with a surfeit of nuns to hand, Domina Elisabeth said “Dame Emma,” probably because she was presently the only one among them on her feet, taking up a basket of dead leaves cleared from a garden bed. Dame Emma, short and round and happiest when being noticed, smiled and nodded, set the basket down, made to wipe her garden-dirty hands on her skirts, thought better of it, remembered the rag Dame Juliana had left on the low wall for just that use, snatched it up, and bustled away, cleaning her hands as she went.

  From her desk Domina Elisabeth said quietly, “Continue,” and heads ducked to their work again though perhaps not so deeply as before, and certainly in the garth Dame Juliana and Sister Amicia shifted to be facing doorward, the better to see who entered. Frevisse, realizing that if she could notice that, she was giving way to unnecessary curiosity, too, bowed her head more deeply to her work, eyes firmly down, because in Lent more especially than any other time, the mind should be turned from the world to the spirit. Curiosity about whomever was at the door was surely worldly and she curbed it, fixing instead on the words in front of her—“Then in your fast think on your death, and share your food with such that have not what you have, and then God will feed you at his table in Heaven”—even when Dame Emma came bustling back to whisper something eagerly to Domina Elisabeth who, after pause presumably to stopper inkpot and wipe pen, rose and followed her away.

  Unfortunately, despite all her good intent, Frevisse could not close her ears as readily as she kept her eyes down and knew by the footfalls that it was a man and a woman—no, two women—who entered and went away with Domina Elisabeth up the stairs to her parlor with Dame Emma making a little bustle after them.

  Beyond the low cloister wall, Sister Amicia whispered, “Who do you think…” But, “Hush,” Dame Perpetua whispered back at her and with a sigh that loudly mixed regret and resignation Sister Amicia hushed. Frevisse, resolutely holding her own curiosity in check, kept on with the copying, trying to pray the words as she wrote them to make her work and worship into one thing and was succeeding when Dame Emma came back into the cloister walk and along it to her, to lean over and whisper, “Domina Elisabeth bids you come to her.”

  Holding back from unseemly haste, Frevisse wiped her quill-point clean, stoppered her inkpot, made certain the parchment was well-weighted in place, and rose to her feet, paused then as all the nuns were used to doing of late whenever they stood up, waiting for the light-headedness of Lent’s fasting to pass—as the body grew lighter, so did its burden on the soul, leaving the mind more free to reach toward heaven—then nodded to Dame Emma and followed her away along the walk toward the stairs, Dame Emma happily trotting ahead as if Frevisse, after more than twenty years in St. Frideswide’s, would not be able to find her own way.

  • The prioress’ parlor was the most furnished room in the nunnery, with two chairs, a table covered by a woven Spanish carpet, embroidered cushions on the window seat, even a fireplace, because the prioress must needs deal more often than anyone else with guests important enough to need impressing or deserving of more comfort than otherwise there was to be had in St. Frideswide’s. Frevisse was too used to it to notice more than that while Domina Elisabeth was seated in the better of the two chairs, the man was on his feet beside the other one and the two women were standing across the room at the window as if too uncertain to sit.

  That much Frevisse took in before she sank in a low curtsy to Domina Elisabeth but as she straightened, Domina Elisabeth said, “Master Fenner thinks you may remember him,” and Frevisse looked at him, confused for a moment by the name, before she exclaimed, “Robert!” and went toward him with an outheld hand and unfeigned delight.

  His smile matching her own, he stepped forward to meet her, to take her hand and bow over it. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me, my lady. It’s been a time since we last met.”

  ‘Six years? Seven?“ Not since her uncle’s funeral and then only very briefly, with only one other time together before that, when there had been two murders in the priory and Robert had not only helped but once protected her. He had been barely into his young manhood then, a very minor squire to his cousin Sir Walter Fenner, but by the look of him the years since then had been better to him than he had had hope of when she last saw him. His hair might be somewhat farther back from his forehead than it had been, but to judge by his well-made doublet of crimson wool, high leather riding boots, and fine dark-blue cloak laid on the empty chair beside him, he had prospered. But he was also wearing a quilted leathern jack over the fine doublet, as if there might have been fear of trouble on his way here, and that and something in his face brought her to ask, ”You’re well?“ with an edge of deeper question to it than she might have otherwise had.

  ‘Very well,“ he said almost convincingly enough, and gave her no chance for asking more but turned toward the women across the room, saying, ”And here, please you, is my ward, Katherine Stretton.“

  The younger of the women—hardly more than a girl; as young as Robert had been when Frevisse first met him— curtsied gravely, her eyes respectfully lowered, making it difficult to tell anything about her except that, like him, she was well-dressed, her kendal-green gown high-waisted, simple-collared, full-skirted, and that she was unmarried, her dark hair worn braided back, the veil and wimple she must have worn while riding here laid aside with her cloak on the window seat behind her.

  ‘And her gentlewoman Mistress Dionisia,“ Robert said.

  Mistress Dionisia was perhaps Frevisse’s own age, plainly dressed in a gray gown with crisply coifed white linen wimple and veil, the perfect outward image of a servant, but as she deeply curtsied, the sharp assessing look from under her brows that she gave Frevisse suggested she would willingly be Katherine’s protector if need be. Frevisse, with a first twinge of alarm, wondered from what Katherine needed to be protected but merely bowed her head to both women and looked to Domina Elisabeth who said easily, “There’s been a little trouble and Master Fenner has asked that Katherine and her w
oman be allowed to stay with us a time.”

  With a second twinge, this time more definite, Frevisse repeated, outwardly matching her prioress’ calm, “Trouble?”

  Domina Elisabeth looked to Robert to answer that, and with a quietness that Frevisse found she did not quite believe in, he said, “There’s been an attempt to force Katherine into an unwanted marriage by carrying her off against her will. Besides that, there’s presently a dispute over my wife’s dower lands. If we fail in our hope to bring it to arbitration and it comes to…” he paused over what word he wanted, settling again for the usefully vague, “… trouble, it would be better that Katherine was out of its midst, not in danger of being seized simply because she was readily to hand. For the same reason, I’ve brought deeds and charters concerning my wife’s lands here for safekeeping.” He pointed to a small chest on the floor beside him. “The ones that, if we lost them, would make proof of my lady’s rights difficult. Your prioress has kindly given leave for Katherine to stay and promised keeping of them, too.” He bowed his head slightly to Domina Elisabeth. “For which she has my thanks and more.”

  With a smile, the prioress bent hers in return, then said to Frevisse, “I think the documents will do best in the sacristy.” Where the priory’s more costly worldly goods—the church plate, the priest’s embroidered vestments, the deeds and charters of the priory’s own lands—were kept. “And Katherine will be in your charge.”