The Clerk’s Tale Read online

  ‘And be damned to you,“ Lady Agnes said under her breath. Nichola twitched with a suppressed laugh.

  Master Christopher’s questioning of him was brief and to the point, neither man seeming to expect much of it. He affirmed that he was indeed Master James Champyon, esquire of Henley-on-Thames, and that he was presently husband of Cecily Bower, widow of Rowland Englefield and sister of the late Rose, who had been wife of the late Sir Henry Lengley, knight. No, he and his wife did not live in Goring but were come, with her grown children by her first husband—here he somewhat turned and made a small nod at the younger man and woman beside his wife—in the matter of his wife’s manor of Reckling…

  ‘His wife’s manor?“ Lady Agnes hissed under her breath. ”I think not.“

  ‘… presently in dispute,“ Master Champyon rolled on, ”after the death of my wife’s sister’s son, Sir Henry Lengley’s heir, Henry Lengley the younger.“

  ‘Tedious bastard,“ Lady Agnes muttered.

  Stephen leaned behind Nichola to whisper with smothered laughter, “Grandmother, no. It’s me, not him, who’s supposed to be the bastard.”

  Lady Agnes made an angry noise at him, while below them Master Christopher asked, “This is the matter that the escheator Master Montfort was here to deal with?”

  ‘It is,“ Master Champyon agreed.

  ‘But no decision had yet been reached?“

  ‘No. He had only come to town the day before his death.“

  ‘Did you see him the day of his death?“

  ‘I saw him in the morning, at the inn where my wife and I are presently staying. The Swan in High Street.“

  ‘Did you see him in the afternoon of that day?“

  ‘No, sir. I spent the day at the inn with my wife and never went out.“

  ‘And were seen there by various servants and other folk, I suppose?“

  ‘Yes.“

  ‘Thank you. Pray, be seated. Clerk.“

  Frevisse saw Master Gruesby’s head twitch to attention before he must have realized he was not being summoned. It was Master Christopher’s clerk, as Master Champyon took his seat again, who declared, “Master Stephen Lengley is called before the court,” and looked around and up.

  So did everyone else in the hall, and Stephen calmly moved to the head of the stairs, made a slight bow toward the clerk or maybe the onlookers in general, then leaned forward, grasped the rope railings on either side of the steps, and in a single, long movement, swung himself out and down, to land gracefully and a small flourish at the stairfoot. A ripple just short of open clapping ran through the onlookers while Stephen, seeming to notice nothing, strolled around to the front of the table, bowed deeply to Master Christopher, and said, “Here, sir.”

  ‘Yes,“ Master Christopher observed flatly. ”Thank you,“ and set to questioning him much as he had done Master Champyon, with Stephen’s answers coming as readily as Master Champyon’s had. He affirmed he was indeed Stephen Lengley, younger son of Sir Henry Lengley, knight, resident here in Goring, and, yes, he was on the opposite side from Master Champyon in the dispute over this manor of Reckling but, no, he had not seen Master Montfort the day of his death. ”He questioned both Master Champyon and me the day before and told us he would summon us again when he’d found out more. That was the last I saw or knew of him until after he was dead.“

  ‘Where were you the afternoon that he was killed?“

  ‘Here, visiting my grandmother, from dinnertime until the servants came exclaiming there was a man killed at the nunnery.“

  ‘And you were seen here during that time?“

  ‘Neither my grandmother nor her servants being blind, I was certainly seen here, yes.“

  There was laughter at that. Ignoring it, Master Christopher said, “Thank you,” and dismissed him.

  The questioning of both Master Champyon and Stephen had been a makeweight, Frevisse decided, watching Stephen bow and return up the stairs two at a time. She could see the outward purpose of it—they were the foremost concerned in the matter that had brought Montfort to Goring—but their testimony had done little more than add bulk to the inquest. Why? she wondered. Unless Master Christopher wanted, for some reason, to have on record where they claimed to have been when Montfort was killed.

  With a wink for Nichola and a grin at his grandmother, Stephen took his place again, Master Haselden whispering something from his other side that made Stephen force down a smile and Nichola giggle, while below them Master Christopher was asking the jury if they could come to a conclusion based on what they knew by their own seeing and what they had heard here. Obediently, the men twisted around and toward each other on their benches, bringing their heads together. Around the hall a buzz of talk started up, only to fall away a few moments later when the jurors straightened themselves around into their places again and Master Wilton rose from among them to say into the waiting hush, “My lord crowner, from what we know and have here heard, we conclude that Master Morys Montfort, esquire and of this shire, was murdered by someone unknown and at present unknowable.”

  It was as safe and unfortunately as fair a conclusion as could be made from what had been presented to them here, unless they wanted to bring accusation against Master Gruesby, the only person known to have been in the garden with Montfort that afternoon and apparently they did not. Master Christopher accepted their conclusion as if he had expected nothing else, thanked the jurors for their service, and formally closed the inquest.

  What Frevisse expected then was a great deal of standing about and talking, but several of the crowner’s men moved from their places near the door, one of them going to open it wide, the others beginning to shift the onlookers toward it, skillful as sheepdogs working a herd of sheep. Even Master Champyon and his wife had just time to speak briefly to Mistress Montfort before one of them was beside them, courteously urging them away and Mistress Champyon’s son and daughter with them. They went, Master Champyon and his stepson in immediate talk together and no backward look from either of them or the daughter. Only Mistress Champyon paused to cast a long glare upward to the gallery, at Lady Agnes and Stephen, Frevisse thought, returned in kind by Lady Agnes though Stephen met it with a slight bow from the waist that probably accounted for the increased anger with which Mistress Champyon turned and swept after her family.

  ‘Ill-bred b—“ Lady Agnes began but broke off with a glance at Frevisse and said instead at Stephen, ”Help me down the stairs, boy. I want to have a word with Mistress Montfort if I may.“

  ‘My lady,“ Letice put in. ”You’ve been on your feet a long while. Should you maybe lie down before dinner?“

  ‘I’ve never needed to rest before I ate in my whole life and I’m not starting now,“ Lady Agnes snapped. ”Stephen.“

  Her tone left the choice between quarreling or agreeing. Frevisse saw Stephen exchange a look with Master Haselden, who shrugged, holding in a smile, and Stephen said cheerfully, “As you wish, dear Grandmadam.”

  He went down the stairs as he had before and turned around to wait while Lady Agnes turned around, too, to make her way down backward, saying aside to Frevisse as she went, “Slow but certain. That’s how I am these days.”

  Beyond them the hall was almost emptied and Master Christopher had given over being crowner and gone to his mother, had taken her by the hands and was speaking to her as he led her toward the door, Domina Elisabeth left behind. Over Lady Agnes’s slowly descending head, Master Haselden said, “I’m afraid her son is seeing Mistress Montfort out. The nun is coming this way, though, if that helps.”

  ‘Fie.“ Lady Agnes looked over her shoulder ”She won’t have visitors and she won’t stay to talk. What ails the fool woman?“

  ‘She’s in mourning?“ Nichola ventured.

  ‘For the likes of Montfort? Then she’s a fool indeed,“ Lady Agnes said. ”No, Letice,“ she added to something her woman hadn’t said yet. ”I’m not coming back up. They’ll be setting tables for dinner soon. I might as well be down and be done w
ith it. Stephen.“

  Obediently, now that she was in his reach, Stephen held her by the waist, steadying her down the last few steps to the floor, where she turned and batted his hands away, saying, “Leave off, youngling. I’m not a two-year-old,” and demanded up at Master Haselden, “Hand me my staff, Philip, and get out of Dame Frevisse’s way, you silly man.”

  ‘My lady,“ Master Haselden said, obeying with a deep bow and a smile.

  They were all enjoying themselves, Frevisse realized as she made her own careful way down. That the inquest had dealt with a man’s death seemed of no matter to anyone; it might have been no more than a show put on as a pastime for them. Of course, that Montfort was the dead man probably had much to do with that. Was anyone at all sorry for his death? Even his widow? Or his son?

  Master Christopher and his mother were both gone now, last from the hall except for his young, sandy-haired and freckled clerk still at the table gathering up papers, pens, and ink bottle, unheeded by Lady Agnes’s servants come to ready the hall for her dinner. Lady Agnes was gone aside to question Domina Elisabeth, and Nichola was paused at the head of the stairs to gather her skirts with one hand before starting down, gripping the rope railing tightly with the other while Stephen urged her, “Just jump. I’ll catch you.” And added when she started carefully down anyway, “I’ve never dropped Grandma-dam and you weigh far less than she does.”

  ‘I heard that, boy,“ Lady Agnes called, ”and when you’re in reach I’m going to give you a good thump to show you I did.“

  Laughing, Stephen caught Nichola by the waist, swept her off the stairs, her squeal of surprise changing to laughter, too, as he swung her around in a swirl of skirts, gave her a swift kiss on the cheek, and set her down. In return and as swiftly, she caught his face between her hands and rose on tiptoe to kiss him firmly on the mouth.

  ‘Here, here, here!“ Lady Agnes declared in feigned indignation, rapping her staff on the floor. ”What kind of wanton carrying-on is that for servants and nuns to see? Enough!“

  Frevisse, drawn well aside from all of them but watching with pleasure, found suddenly the sandy-haired young clerk at her side, carrying papers, pens, and inkpot and saying in a low, hurried voice as he passed by her, for no one but her to hear, “Master Montfort hopes you’ll meet him in the church after Nones, please you, my lady,” and before she could answer had moved on to Lady Agnes, to give her the crowner’s thanks for the use of her hall this while.

  Chapter 5

  Even in the startled moment before she realized that the Master Montfort the man meant was Christopher, not his dead father, Frevisse noted that no one seemed to have seen his brief word to her. Stephen was saying something to Master Haselden intent on coming down the stairs and Nichola had moved away to join Lady Agnes and Domina Elisabeth, neither of them looking Frevisse’s way as Christopher’s clerk finished with his thanks to Lady Agnes, bowed, and withdrew. Only Nichola looked around at her and shyly smiled while Domina Elisabeth said, seemingly continuing from something said before, “She’d surely be pleased for the courtesy of your asking her but I doubt she’ll come, things being as they are.”

  Lady Agnes tapped her staff on the floor. “She can’t really be cast down by being rid of him, can she? Is she that great an idiot?”

  ‘I’ve only talked with her hardly enough to know what she feels or how she is, only that she’s behaving seemly,“ Domina Elisabeth answered moderately. ”Was he truly as ill-mannered as everyone says he was?“

  ‘That and more,“ Lady Agnes said without hesitation.

  Domina Elisabeth had never had the mischance to encounter Montfort, probably did not even remember he was the crowner who had dealt with a death near the nunnery a few years ago, nor did Frevisse intend to be drawn into talk about him. Instead, she merely stood, head a little down, listening with Nichola while Lady Agnes detailed a few of Montfort’s rudenesses and, a few paces away, Master Haselden and Stephen discussed the likelihood that last year’s increase in wool sold abroad was going, to hold for this year, too. The servants had quickly finished setting the trestle and tabletop in the hall’s center and a maidservant was going along it laying out bread trenchers, the man Lucas following after her with a pitcher in one hand and a stack of wooden cups in the other to set a cup and fill it between every two trenchers. Emme was smoothing a white linen cloth over the high table, finishing as the maid who had laid the bread trenchers brought pewter plates from the sideboard set along one wall of the hall and laid six places along the upper side of the high table, followed again by Lucas bringing three pewter cups, one to set between each two places, with Emme in her turn coming back from the sideboard with white linen napkins and pewter spoons to set beside each plate. That done, Letice, who had been overseeing it all, came to tell Lady Agnes, “All’s ready, my lady.”

  ‘Then shall we sit?“ Lady Agnes said graciously to her guests, took her own place at the center of the long, high-backed bench that was the high table’s seat, and pointed everyone to their places, Domina Elisabeth and then Stephen on her right, Master Haselden on her left, and Frevisse and Nichola beyond him.

  ‘And no throwing of bread pellets at one another,“ Lady Agnes added with a warning look first at Stephen, then at Nichola, who smothered laughter while Stephen said, all injury, ”It’s hardly kind to mention our youngling indiscretions in front of guests, Grandmadam.“

  ‘Nor would I if I thought you’d outgrown them,“ Lady Agnes returned. ”Pray, be seated, all of you.“

  That was sign for Letice to sit at the near end of the lower table and beckon a rough-dressed man who probably saw to whatever outside work there was to come forward to a place at the lower table’s end and the first remove to be brought to the high table by Lucas, Emme, and the other woman servant—roasted quails, onions fried in egg and butter and seasonings, custard tarts with raisins, and bread still warm from the oven—while for the lower table there was a thick pottage and more bread. That much of their duty done, the three of them sat with Letice and the other man and fell to their meal along with them.

  Since supper had been a private thing in Lady Agnes’s solar and breakfast the same, this was Frevisse’s first chance to see Lady Agnes’s household at the full, though there was surely a cook in the kitchen. A very good cook, Frevisse amended as she tasted the quail set before her. Because conversation was expected, Master Haselden and she agreed between them that the weather was mild for this time of year and were moving on to discussing the condition of the road between Wallingford and Goring before Lady Agnes claimed his attention with a question about whether it was wool sales abroad or to clothmakers hereabout they should be looking to sell to this year, but that merely meant, equally for politeness’ sake, that Frevisse should take up talk with Nichola on her other side, and forgoing the overtried weather, she asked the only other bland thing that came readily to mind, “Have you been married long?”

  With a shy smile and happy eyes, Nichola said, “Six months the morrow of Epiphany just past.” And blushed a little and added, “I’m older than I look, truly. I’ll be sixteen come St. Mark’s.”

  Frevisse agreed graciously that she did look younger than that but kept to herself the thought that even so she was young to be a wife and, if things went as usual, probably soon a mother. It also meant she had almost certainly been married to Stephen by others’ decision rather than her own.

  Nichola, concentrating on neatly removing bones from her quail, said lightly, as if in answer to Frevisse’s unspoken thought, “It was because of the inheritance, you see. Lady Agnes held Stephen’s wardship but Father had his marriage.” And therefore the right to choose whom Stephen married and to make what profit he could from it. “With Stephen coming of age, we had to be married lest the chance be lost for it.” The chance that Stephen, left to his own choice, might have chosen to marry elsewhere when he was of age and his marriage out of Master Haselden’s keeping. It was common enough for orphans not yet come of age to be given in wardship to a
kinsman by whoever was immediate overlord of whatever lands were their inheritance, as Stephen had been given to his grandmother; and it was at least as common for their marriage right to be sold or given to someone else for separate profit; nor was it any surprise that Master Haselden had chosen to marry Stephen and his inheritance to his daughter, seemingly with Lady Agnes’s good will, to judge by the friendship between them.

  ‘How long has Stephen’s brother been dead?“

  ‘Harry? A little over a year.“

  ‘Was he of age or did his grandmother have his wardship, too?“

  ‘She had both boys’ wardships, and Harry’s marriage, too. She had him betrothed and he would have been married just before he came of age but he died. Everybody was terribly unhappy about it. Especially Anne, the girl he was going to marry. Everyone liked her. But she’s married to an esquire over Reading way now, so that’s all right.“

  ‘But Lady Agnes didn’t have keeping of Stephen’s marriage,“ Frevisse said, almost too lightly for it to be a question, as if she were not much interested.