The Servant's Tale Read online

  He was a dour-faced man whom Frevisse had come to know a little since her hosteling had begun to take her out of the cloister more. She was not sure she liked him but knew that his long, lined, rarely smiling face fronted a mind not only keen to St. Frideswide’s best advantage but mostly fair in pursuing it.

  He came now the length of the room to kneel on one knee before Domina Edith, who left him there as she said in her soft voice, “There must be more than usually grievous trouble, Master Naylor, that you presume to come here. What is it?”

  “Not so much trouble yet, my lady, as trouble to come if it’s not dealt with now. Do you know who bides in your guesthall this while?”

  Domina Edith frowned, both at his words and the general stir among her nuns. “Yes, we know who bides in our guesthall. A man hurt maybe to his death though he yet lives, and his family tending to him, and five travelers who are staying on because of a sick child among them.”

  “It’s not plain travelers they are, though they’re surely minded to keep you thinking they are. But I heard two of the men talking in the stable. They’re players. For all they’d have us think they’re honest folk, that’s all they are and nothing better.”

  Domina Edith said, “You may rise, Master Naylor,” and looked with mild questioning at Frevisse. “Did you know this, Dame?”

  “That they were players? I knew. They never sought to hide it from me, Domina.”

  “But you never said so!” Sister Fiacre’s shocked voice broke in, as unexpected as it was seldom heard. She had always been given to nerves and flutterings, mostly expressed in hand wringings or, if very sorely distressed, in tears. These months past an illness had been draining her to the point where much was forgiven her. Now she so far forgot herself to exclaim, “If you knew what they were, you should have said, Dame Frevisse!”

  Frevisse retorted crisply, “I’ve not made it custom to tell more than how many guests we have and why they’re here. Chapter meetings aren’t for gossip.”

  “But traveling players!” Dame Alys croaked. “They’re not decent. Not fit to be inside our honest walls, for certain.”

  She glared at Roger Naylor for confirmation. Frevisse was amused to see him torn between agreeing with Dame Alys and disliking her support. As cellarer, Dame Alys had the right to interfere in his office, and often did.

  Gazing somewhere over Domina Edith’s left shoulder, he only said, “I’d like to know whether their boy is truly ailing, or shamming so they can linger long enough to choose what to steal.”

  “Dame Frevisse?” Domina Edith’s neutral tone gave Frevisse both permission to answer that and a warning to keep watch on her ready tongue.

  “The boy is truly ill, with a cough, inflamed throat, and fever. If he stays warm and quiet, he should better quickly, but the raw weather would be dangerous for him now.”

  “And you’re sure he’s not shamming?” Naylor insisted.

  Dame Claire stood up. At Domina Edith’s nod she said with the assurance of authority, “I saw him this morning. There is no doubt of his illness.”

  “And beyond that,” Frevisse said, unable to restrain herself, “you do wrong to suspect folk who’ve done a service to a hurt man and no harm that we know of.”

  “They’re lordless men,” Naylor replied. “Answerable to no one and belonging nowhere. Their sort are never to be trusted.”

  “Some players have a patron who answers for them,” Domina Edith said with a questioning look at Frevisse.

  Frevisse shook her head. “They’ve mentioned no one to me.”

  “And surely they would have if they belonged to someone,” Dame Alys put in.

  Sister Fiacre rose to her feet with unusual fierceness. “And even that’s no surety. My lord father was patron to some, but when my brother inherited the lordship he turned them off because he found they were misusing our name to base ends. All such are of a kind and none of them honest!”

  So long a speech left her breathless. As much in need as in embarrassment, she pressed her sleeve over her mouth and, coughing, sat down.

  “That’s no more fair a thing to say than that all stewards are thieves because some are,” Frevisse retorted, meaning it a jibe as much at Naylor as she did at Sister Fiacre. “All we know of these folk is that they did an honest service to a hurt man and have asked for the shelter the Rule binds us to give them and are kept here by a sick child. It’s unjust to assume they are other than they’ve shown themselves to be.”

  “By the time they show what they are, it will be too late,” Naylor responded. “Give them a medicine for the child and maybe an extra blanket and send them on their way.”

  They had both forgotten Domina Edith and were speaking directly at each other. Frevisse said, more sharply than she intended, “Better we be wronged by them than that we wrong them without cause.”

  “They’re gadelings.”

  “Lordless, yes, but not without a living. They were employed at Fen Harcourt over Christmas, and have work in Oxford when they reach there.”

  Domina Edith raised her hand. “Enough.”

  Naylor closed his mouth over what he was about to say. Frevisse, startled to realize how heated she had become, bowed her head, tucked her hands into her sleeves and subsided. Dame Alys trumpeted into her handkerchief, letting her red-faced glare take the place of words, while Sister Fiacre wrung her hands silently.

  “It is not our place to judge these people,” Domina Edith said. “There is no harm in keeping some small watch on them, which you may set if you so wish, Master Naylor, so long as it is done without offense to them. But we have offered them shelter and are bound by the Rule to give it so long as it is fit and they do us no wrong. Indeed, they may do us a good. This is a season when the Holy Church bids us make merry. Do you think it possible, Dame Frevisse, that they would perform for us? A play suitable to the place and season tomorrow or the next day maybe, if they stay so long?”

  “Oh, yes, please!” Sister Amicia exclaimed with a glad clap of her hands. Then she covered her mouth in shock at her breach of manners.

  “Three paternosters on your knees before the altar, Sister Amicia, before this evening’s Compline,” Domina Edith said without even looking at her. Sister Amicia’s flares of frivolous enthusiasm were familiar to all of them. “Dame Frevisse?”

  “Yes,” Frevisse said. “I think they would willingly do that. I’ll ask them and then tell you what they say.”

  “Do so. And that, I think, ends this morning’s business.” Domina Edith raised an unsteady hand in a gesture that included all of them. “Go with God’s blessing on you and your duties through the day.”

  Chapter

  6

  IN THE CLOISTER walk, Frevisse was overtaken by Naylor. He was not a tall man, hardly her own height, but he carried himself to the fullness of it, meeting her eyes as she turned in surprise to look at him. “Dame, you were eloquent on behalf of these players. Why are you so willing that they stay?”

  Frevisse arched her eyebrows in deliberate surprise. He knew as well as she did that the Rule forbade casual talk in the cloister. But as he had never been a casual man, if he was wanting to talk to her, he had a purpose, and she twitched her head toward the cloister door into the courtyard to show that she would speak with him outside. As they walked on, he persisted. “Men who roam the roads lordless and landless—players, beggars, jongleurs, any of that sort—are knaves at best, and more likely plain rogues. Why be so willing to risk this lot here for longer than it takes to turn them out of doors, Dame?”

  Frevisse walked faster, reaching her hand for the cloister door, but Naylor moved more quickly and was ahead of her in time to open it. Frevisse bowed her head partly in thanks, but more to hide her face from him for the moment it took to go past him. She had been half-ready for his question or something like it, but not for the surge of remembrance that came with it.

  But by the time he had shut the door and turned to her, she had both her expression and answer ready. “I wasn�
�t bred to the nunnery, Master Naylor. My parents were of the world. And very worldly. I’ve learned better than to believe something simply because it’s said. Nor am I so ignorant that I think a man can be condemned out of hand for being one thing instead of another. Not even for being lordless and landless. If I condemn a man because he’s a player, knowing no more of him than the tales told of players, then judging by the tales I’ve heard of stewards, I can as readily condemn a man for being one of those.”

  Roger Naylor’s eyes narrowed. Stewards were stock figures of corruption and mercilessness in too many stories for him to miss her point. He looked as if he would say something, but stopped himself and instead turned on his heel and strode silently away. Frevisse looked after his eloquently rigid back, her satisfaction at routing him stronger than any regret she should have had for her forward speaking. And she felt warmer than she had for hours.

  “That was a shrewd hit for so gentle a nun,” someone said mockingly.

  Startled, Frevisse turned to see Joliffe sitting on the step at the foot of the well on the courtyard’s near side. Wrapped in a cloak gray as the shadows, his hair pale as the well’s stone wall, he was easily unseen so long as he did not move or speak.

  “And that’s an odd place for someone to be resting,” Frevisse responded. At this hour of a winter’s morning, the well was still in shadow under its hawthorn tree; the rime of frost around its rim and step betrayed how cold a place it was to sit.

  Joliffe rose to his feet and came toward her. “Or it’s not. Depending on one thing and another. Did I hear the word ‘player’ in your talk? I take it your steward has been complaining of our existence.”

  “Of your existence here, assuredly. He’d probably not mind in the least if you existed somewhere else.”

  “So we’re to go?” He asked it lightly enough, as if it did not matter to him if they had to pack and leave within the hour. But Frevisse had long since learned the use of reading a person’s stance and face as much as their voice. And she saw that though Joliffe had learned to live with being forever sent on his way, he had not learned to like it. “No. You’re to stay as long as need be for Piers’s sake, and be welcome.”

  The almost imperceptible stiffness went out of him, and he asked, disconcertingly, “And I may take it that you championed us? That you persuaded your prioress to this over Master Naylor’s protests and were eloquent on our behalf?”

  With what she meant to be asperity, Frevisse said, “Eloquent enough, it seems.”

  Joliffe’s smile etched laughter lines into his face with all the roguery that Naylor suspected his kind of having. “Then St. Genesius’s blessing on you, lady, for your kindness and your golden tongue.”

  Despite herself, Frevisse warmed to his amusement. Matching his tone, she said, “I suspect St. Genesius has quite enough to do in tending to you without considering me. I’ll be satisfied with St. Frideswide’s blessings, thank you. But it will be Dame Claire you’ll be needing if you go on sitting out in the cold this way. Haven’t you better sense than that?”

  Joliffe gave her a small, respectful bow. “Alas, that’s a matter oft debated. But surely you must know quite well how tedious it is to live too closed in with people for hours into days into weeks on end? No matter one’s mutual interests, the tedium does grow.” Frevisse lifted her chin at his presumption. But Joliffe grinned at her, friendly and knowing together, and despite herself her mouth tweaked toward an answering smile. As often, truth lay in a jest; she understood exactly what he meant, especially being so newly come from chapter meeting. But Joliffe did not press the advantage of her tacit admission. Instead he said, no more seriously, “I should warn you, though, that Ellis is in a black mood. Piers being ill has waked the father in him and made him perilous to live with. Or at least direly unpleasant.”

  Suppressing an urge toward another smile, Frevisse said, “I doubt Piers’s peril is very great. Kept warm and quiet, he should mend. I didn’t realize he was Ellis’s son.” She glanced toward the courtyard gateway where a man dressed like a noble’s servant was riding in.

  Joliffe followed her look but went on with his banter. “He maybe is and maybe isn’t. Ellis is happy to think so. But he’s maybe Bassett’s. Or maybe mine. Rose won’t say, bless her for a clever wench.” He sighed and placed a dramatic hand more or less over his heart. “We’d have a happier time of it if Ellis were only like me, all dismal, my heart in tatters at a small boy’s peril, but my temper ever soft and flowing as a silken ribbon.”

  “But now and again Ellis takes his possibility of fatherhood too seriously?”

  “It comes from too much sobriety. If it goes on too long, he begins to have temper and fancies.”

  “He’s given to drink?” She hoped not. If he were, the players’ stay might be less easy than she had hoped.

  “Not of ale or wine. It’s emotions he craves. A few days without performing and his unused feelings build up in him, turning him tense and very…tedious.”

  Frevisse turned that thought over in her mind. Unused emotions, held in too long, were a common enough trouble in a nunnery. She might even admit that her own tolerance for tedium was thinner than it ought to be; and a volatile man could indeed be burdensome to those around him. “Then mayhap I’ve a solution for you. Our lady prioress is wondering if you would perform for us.” She caught a glint of impure mischief in Joliffe’s eyes and added, “Something suitable to the season and the place, you understand.”

  Joliffe’s expression changed to show surprise that she could imagine he would ever think anything else. “My lady, your prioress honors us by her request. Surely we have something proper to this time and place.”

  She glanced over to see that a servant was taking care of the new visitor. Frevisse judged that he was probably someone’s messenger seeking brief respite from the cold. Any of the guesthall servants could see to him; he did not need to concern her.

  Joliffe had begun to walk toward the guesthall. Frevisse fell into step beside him, her own long stride matching his as she said, with due consideration, “If there’s chance that Piers is yours, you set to the business very young.” She gave Joliffe a slantwise look to match his own at her and added, with an eyebrow raised in caustic questioning, “Or are you perhaps trying to shock me?”

  Joliffe laughed out loud delightedly, delightfully, and paused to flourish her a bow. “You are a very Solomon!” More soberly he added, “It’s Rose’s way of keeping us together. She shares his fatherhood among us, and because none of us wants to lose his claim on him, our band stays together. And has stayed together so long now that we’ve grown into something better than the usual ragtag miscellany of road folk banded together for a season or a year or two.”

  The servant who had been talking to the newcomer crossed the yard to intercept them. He bowed and said, “If it please you, my lady, there is a man with a letter for you.”

  Frevisse looked over to see that the messenger was waiting while another servant led his horse away toward the stable. Now that she looked closer, something about him was familiar. For a moment she hesitated, then went toward him, and he responded by eagerly coming to meet her. He bowed low to her and as he straightened, she exclaimed, “Hobden! It is you, then?”

  “Aye, lady. It’s me.” He grinned all across his broad face. “And I was thinking it was you. Even all dressed like that, you’re still you and no mistaking. When were you last on a horse, is my question?”

  “A good long while, I promise you. But I’ve not forgotten. I could still give you a race if we came to it.”

  “There’s no doubting that. You had a way in the saddle that lasts longer than lessons.”

  “Is May well? And your girls?”

  “May is well, thank you for asking. And the girls have made me a grandfather thrice over now.”

  “Have I been gone that long?” Hobden’s daughters had only begun to look at boys when she had left her uncle’s keeping to enter St. Frideswide’s. “Yes,” she added before he
could answer. “I suppose I have.”

  “Long and long, lady,” Hobden agreed.

  He was, indeed, now that she looked at him, far older in his face than he had been when he was one of her uncle’s main stable hands. And so must she be, too, she thought, though lack of mirrors in St. Frideswide’s spared her too detailed knowledge of the fact.

  “But that’s the way of things.” He was cheerful enough about it. “If you don’t grow older, it’s because you’re dead, and I’m not ready for that yet.”

  “And my uncle. How does he?” she asked eagerly, and then belatedly, “And my lady aunt?” Aunt Matilda was her mother’s sister, and Thomas Chaucer her uncle only by marriage, but it was with him she had been closest while growing up in their household. Their friendship, begun when she came at age eleven, had lasted the years despite how rarely they saw each other anymore.

  “Well, lady. Both of them very well. And here”—Hobden drew a packet from his belt pouch—“is a letter from him for you.”

  Frevisse took it with delight, recognizing both her uncle’s clear script and his seal. “Hobden, much thanks. Will you be here a while, that I’ll have time to write an answer?”

  “Surely. Master Chaucer gave me leave for that if you wished. And I’d rather sit by a good fire than travel the road this bitter day.”

  “Then let me see you to the guesthall and assure the servants you’re to have their special care.”

  She took him to the greater guesthall and gave him into the keeping of one of the kitchen servants there with orders that he was to be made comfortable and well fed. She looked at the letter, but thought she would like a leisurely time over it, and instead of opening it, tucked it up her sleeve.

  As she went down the steps and turned toward the lesser guesthall, she realized her pleasure in seeing old Hobden had been much like her pleasure in bantering with Joliffe; and that was odd, because she had known Hobden for years of her life, and Joliffe hardly a few hours, and yet felt the same fellowship with him.