The Outlaw's Tale Read online

  Frevisse looked around the glade. “You and your men seem to be living well enough, Nicholas. Free and well-fed and reasonably prosperous by the look of it. I've seen honest peasants living worse."

  She was not purposely goading him, only talking while she tried to understand the possibilities and probabilities of what he was asking. But he let go her hands abruptly and stood up, saying sharply, “Not so prosperous. Tired old clothes and chance-got food and never any certainty whether we can sleep in the same place two nights running or if this is the day we meet someone willing to shoot us dead."

  Frevisse was aware that every other movement and voice in the glade had stopped. Despite his passion Nicholas had kept his voice low; no one but herself had heard him. But his sudden movement, his intensity, told enough. Everyone was looking. And for just a moment, as Nicholas realized that he had made his best argument and she was not readily agreeing to it, Frevisse saw his uncertainty.

  Then from across the glade the lute player struck a long chord, breaking the moment with cheerful ease, and stood up. “If that venison isn't done by now," he said loudly, “I vote we eat it raw. Who's with me?"

  Chapter Three

  They did not feast in the great glade but were led a little ways away to a smaller clearing set up for cooking and sleeping. Logs, some of them crudely smoothed for easier sitting, had been put around a firepit where the venison – cut into chunks and spitted on skewers over the flames – was roasting. With ceremony more grand than the setting, Nicholas seated Frevisse, Sister Emma and Master Naylor on logs comfortably away from the fire's heat.

  “And I shall serve you myself, on bended knee," he laughed. “Evan, a livelier air to suit this glad occasion."

  The lute player, somewhere behind them, obliged. He was not particularly good but at least did not stop after every wrong note.

  True to his word, Nicholas waited on them, with all the manners he had ever learned in his father's and Thomas Chaucer's households, even down to the towel laid over his arm as he brought them their meal. His elegance contrasted with his rough forester's clothing, the somewhat grubby towel, and the meal of fire-blackened venison served in wooden bowls with a chunk of day-old bread on the side and ale drawn from a barrel set up and bunged on a stump across the clearing. But the meat was succulent, and Nicholas – as aware of the contrast as Frevisse was – made his serving into an amusement of manners, so that Sister Emma, at first sitting very straight with determined indignation and her eyes still pink from weeping, forgot herself and laughed at something he whispered in her ear as he bent to pour more ale in her wooden mug. By the time the dishes were gathered up and carried away for cleaning, she had forgotten herself so far as to beckon him down so she could whisper something in his ear that made them both laugh.

  Frevisse, meeting Master Naylor's silent look over Sister Emma's shoulder, knew he was neither charmed nor off his guard, any more than she was. There was a bramble scrape along his chin and the red welt left by a tree branch on his cheek, and Frevisse thought he moved as if his right side pained him, perhaps from the fall from his horse.

  When the meal was done, Nicholas led her away from the others again to sit beside him on a log on the other side of the firepit.

  Evening was drawing in by then. At St. Frideswide's the nuns would be gathering for Compline prayers on their way to bed. Here, someone added wood to the fire now that the cooking was done. The flames lapped up jewel-bright in the deepening twilight. Some fat caught in the new heat sizzled and a green log cracked loudly open, sending sparks upward with the smoke..

  “I trust," said Frevisse, “that was red deer we were eating."

  Under forest law, the red deer was the only kind that could be freely hunted. Too protective of its territory, the red bucks drove roe and all other kinds of deer away, reducing the sport for the nobility.

  Hand on his heart to prove his sincerity, Nicholas replied, “Would I presume to give you anything else?"

  “Yes."

  He grinned at her the way he always had when his teasing made her curt. It was surprising how many memories she had of him from that brief time they had been acquainted in Chaucer's household. He had been intelligent, charming – especially when in another scrape – and all around a slippery-tongued boy, as now he was a slippery-tongued man. “I remember that smile boded no good," she said.

  He laughed outright. “I remember, too. It barely worked better on you than on Uncle Thomas. He'd fix on me with those eyes of his and I'd know he was judging how many layers of flesh he'd have to flay away before he reached the bone."

  Frevisse opened her mouth to answer but Nicholas forestalled her, leaning toward her and taking earnestly hold of her hands, beseeching “Cousin, cousin, I'm sorry for who I was and who I am. Believe that."

  He was watching her face and must have read her doubt more plainly than she wished. He tightened his hold on her hands and said more desperately. “A man can change. Truly he can. Remember..." He cast around for an example. “...St. Anthony. After a misspent youth, his heart changed and he became a saint."

  “You're planning to become a saint, Nicholas?"

  His laugh was rueful. “No hope for that, cousin. I simply want to be a man with a home, a settled place where I don't have to be forever on my guard." His grin faded. Quietly he said, “It was a cruel winter, cousin, and my bones are none so young anymore."

  There was a depth of feeling and pain behind his words that Frevisse, with memories of the past winter and pains of her own and knowledge of time slipping away around them every moment of their living, responded to.

  But even as she thought it, Nicholas leaned toward her, lowering his voice to show this was between only the two of them.

  “Truly, cousin, I've kept within the law these three years." Frevisse raised her eyebrows at him. He looked away, shaking his head. “No, you can't believe that, but it's true."

  “Until today," she said.

  “Until today, yes. But that was only because there was no other way. I couldn't come into your priory, could I? Couldn't ask for what the law forbids anyone to give me - shelter, food, even so much as a cup of water on a hot day – and ask you to talk with me there where I was any man's prey."

  “You're very unlikely to be recognized."

  Nicholas shook his head again, a little more desperately. “I haven't stayed alive this long by letting myself be seen. I couldn't think of any other way to safely talk with you. Listen, I know I can't keep you here long. I don't mean to, believe me. So have you thought about what I asked? Will you do it?"

  Frevisse wanted to know more than what she did, and said instead of answering him directly, “You want me to ask Thomas Chaucer for a royal pardon for you."

  “And for my men."

  “I don't know about the other outlaws, but a pardon will do you little good. When you were put outside the law, you lost claim to everything you would have inherited. It all went to Edward as surely and irrevocably as if you had died. That will not change. You'll be a landless freeman, nothing more."

  “But Edward had a soft heart," Nicholas said. “And Father's holdings were ample enough. There's surely some corner for me."

  “You're willing to live on Edward's charity? “

  “On my brother's love and forgiveness."

  “If he gives you anything at all. He does not have to. And he has four children now to provide for. I doubt his heart is more soft to you than to them."

  “That I'll worry over when the time comes. It's my freedom from outlawry I want, and let God see to the rest. Isn't the grace to be merciful among the things you pray for in your nunnery?"

  To that Frevisse had no answer except, after a moment's silence, “I'll write as you ask."

  Relief surged over his face. He exuberantly squeezed her hands with fierce gladness, kissed her soundly on the cheek, and exclaimed for everyone to hear, “You are a pearl among women and a joy to my heart. We'll settle all tomorrow. Now let me see to my other guests because I
've been a most neglectful host this while and while!"

  Before she could stop him, he kissed her other cheek and strode gaily off toward where Sister Emma and Master Naylor still sat among his men.

  Frevisse stayed where she was. She had things she wanted to ask him, especially about when and how he meant to free them now that he had her word. But she judged she should best wait for a less obvious time. Nicholas was rarely biddable when pushed, she recalled.

  Frevisse rose from her log. She wanted to speak to Master Naylor and now was the most likely time for it. But before she reached him, threading her way among the outlaws, Cullum shifted from among them and, maybe to be more near the fire, went to sit on Naylor's other side where she had meant to. Trying to look as if it did not matter, Frevisse sat somewhere else and waited for another chance.

  In the last of the daylight one of the outlaws was juggling three stones and making a joke of dropping one now and again on his toes. Sister Emma giggled every time he did, and so, for the climax of his act, he dropped one on his head, to the general merriment of his fellows. Frevisse, clapping with the rest as he took his bow, thought with a corner of her mind that he rubbed his head with more than pretended pain, and wondered why hurt was supposed to be funny.

  Chapter Four

  When Frevisse awoke, her first thought, even before she opened her eyes, was that it was raining.

  Her second thought was that she was getting wet.

  Not very wet yet, but the casual cover of leafy branches tied over the rough lean-to frame was not holding back all the steady patter of rain, and would probably hold back less as it went on.

  Frevisse opened her eyes and sighed, resigned. She knew the open life of forest and road was not spent all in shady glades under warm skies. This morning what there should have been of dawn was gray half-light and, besides the gentle rattling of rain among the trees, there was a dripping near her ankle from a gap in the leafy roof. She sat up and reached for her carefully folded veil under the wad of sacking that had been her pillow. For decency's sake she had worn her wimple through the night as well as the rest of her clothing. Now she straightened it and by touch – familiar from years of rising in the night to prayers at Matins and Lauds – pinned the veil in place over it.

  Sister Emma still slept in a scrunched huddle at the back of their small shelter. After she had stopped exclaiming happily about how really this was such an adventure and so exciting and weren't these folk surprisingly nice – considering they were outlaws, and was Nicholas truly her cousin? Amazing! - she had fallen to soft, irregular snoring, with her knees in the small of Frevisse's back for most of the night. For that, and for her unconsidering delight in Nicholas' company, Frevisse was in no charitable mood toward her now. But she was careful not to wake her. Frevisse harbored no doubts about Sister Emma’s reaction to spending the day in rainy woods.

  Others were stirring among the rough shelters of the outlaws' camp. Taking her blanket with her, Frevisse crawled out of her own inadequate shelter. Someone had stretched a canvas on poles over the firepit; a tendril of dispirited smoke was rising under it, nursed by the lute player.

  Frevisse picked her way over the mud toward the fire, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The lute player had kindling-cut a log and was feeding the dry splinters from its heart into a tiny nest of coals among the damp logs. The splinters were beginning to flare in tiny flames and the logs to steam in the growing heat. In a while, with patience, he would have a decent fire despite the weather.

  As she sat down on her heels, her skirts bundled under her, the man glanced at her and said, “Good morrow, my lady. Though it isn't very good, is it?"

  “At least you've saved the fire."

  “Small pleasures can be life's greatest, I was told as a lad. I think the ordinary pleasure of fire will be very great this dour morning."

  As faces went, his was not a handsome one. Something seemed to have gone moderately wrong in its making: cheek, forehead, chin seemed not quite meant for the same person. But his eyes were deeply brown, and smiled when his mouth smiled, with a warmth and intelligence that made handsome or unhandsome rather unimportant.

  And now Frevisse recalled him.

  A week ago, when he had stayed overnight at the priory guesthouse, he had been a peddler; had chatted and jested with the priory servants and done a satisfactory bit of selling among them. As St. Frideswide's hosteler, Frevisse had noticed him. “You seem to have lost your pack somewhere."

  He smiled at her over the fire. “I was afraid you'd remember me."

  “But hoped I wouldn't?"

  “Hoped, but expected you would."

  “You could have stayed away while I was here."

  He shook his head. “The plan is as much mine as Nicholas's. I had to be here."

  “You told Nicholas I'd be coming this way."

  “I went to St. Frideswide's to find if there were a way he could safely contact you. When I heard you were going to be outside the nunnery, this seemed our best chance, yes."

  The fire had strengthened enough now that he laid on the rest of his kindling and began to make a tent of larger sticks over and around it. One of the men whose name Frevisse had not yet heard came over with an iron tripod and stewpot. “You watch this, Evan?" he asked. The lute player nodded. The man stuck the tripod legs into the soft earth around the firepit and hung the pot over the growing blaze, then walked off.

  “Stew," Evan said. “From last night's venison. Warm food will help this day. The rain looks like going on."

  Frevisse was less interested in the stew than in him. “So you're more outlaw than peddler?"

  Evan shrugged. “I'm this and that. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Though I can't recall any particular law I've broken of late."

  “But you're in need of pardon with the rest?"

  “Aren't we all in need of pardon, my lady? For some us, God's forgiveness will be sufficient. For others – “ He gestured around the clearing. “ - more earthly ones are necessary."

  “Especially if you go about kidnapping nuns," she said tartly. The way his words slipped out from under what she wanted to know reminded her of Nicholas.

  “Especially then," he agreed. “But there's no harm meant to you or your companions. And we are in need."

  He had been plausible as a peddler, clever at his patter and flattering to the servant women. He was plausible now, without the patter or the flattering, and less like an outlaw than the others here.

  She said, “You'd better find a way to stir that stew if you don't want the venison more burned than it was last night."

  He stood up and went away. Frevisse, holding out her hands to the fire's growing warmth, became aware of whimpering from the lean-to behind her and sighed. Sister Emma was awake. The whimpering coalesced into definite complaining, and Sister Emma with her veil askew, her blanket huddled around her shoulders and clutched over her chest, came scurrying through the increasing rain to the fire.

  “Oh, Dame Frevisse, what's happened to the day? This isn't what I expected at all." Huddling and shivering, she crowded to the flames near enough to scorch her skirts. “What are we going to do?"

  Frevisse rose and drew her a pace back from the fire. “Our morning prayers, I think. We rather shorted Compline last night." In fact they had whispered hurriedly through a brief version of the service as they settled to sleep; and Frevisse had not awakened in the night for Matins and Lauds at all.

  “Oh, yes. Of course. But it's so strange to be saying Prime here, isn't it? And everything is so wet. Not right at all. A place for everything, and everything in its place, and this just doesn't seem the place."

  “Everywhere is the place for prayers," Frevisse said.

  “I know that," Sister Emma said with a trace of peevishness, and sneezed. She bowed her head.

  While they went through as much of Prime as was required of them while on a journey, Evan returned with a wooden spoon to stir the stew. Its savoury odor troubled Frevisse
's concentration, and apparently Sister Emma's, too, because directly on the end of the last amen, she exclaimed, “That smells so good!"

  “Last night's venison with wild onions and some few other herbs to hand in forest and field," Evan said. “But somewhat short on salt, I fear." He called across the clearing to someone, “Ned, bowls and spoons. This is ready, I think."

  “How far did you have to go for that deer?" Frevisse asked. “Even if it is red deer, which I doubt, you surely didn't kill it near here."

  “And why not?" asked Evan with a glint of amusement.

  “Because let any forester find evidence a deer has been taken and he and his men will scour for miles to find the man who took it."

  “You're very knowledgeable for someone who lives behind nunnery walls."

  “I didn't always live behind nunnery walls. How far did you have to go?"

  “Far enough no one will think to look here for their carcass."

  And now Ned came with bowls and spoons for them, and the other outlaws were gathering into the scant shelter of the canvas with oddments of bowls and spoons of their own. Nicholas appeared. He had taken time to smooth his clothing, but his jaw was shadowed by beard and his hair only roughly combed; warm food came before most other things on a day like this. To Frevisse's relief, Master Naylor was behind him. Still guarded by Cullum, he was rubbing his right wrist as if it hurt. Frevisse saw red marks around both it and his left one, showing he had been tied through the night.

  Foregoing any greeting, she said sharply to Nicholas, “You tied him like a dog! There was no need for that!"

  “Lacking your kinship to me and Sister Emma's kind heart, Master Naylor is not fond of me or the matter between us at all," Nicholas said calmly. “He might balk at killing me in my sleep but not at escaping if he had the chance."