The Apostate's Tale

Chapter 12

Domina Elisabeth had sent the nuns back to their tasks, true enough, but following her and Master Rowcliffe into the church, Frevisse saw that somehow those tasks all seemed to be there. Sister Margrett and Sister Helen were sweeping the nave’s stone paving. Dame Juliana and Dame Perpetua were working dust cloths through the fretted wood of the rood screen despite it had just been dusted for Easter. Even Dame Claire had forsaken her usual work among her herbs in the infirmary and was with Dame Amicia along the choir stalls, polishing the brass candleholders as if they, too, had not been well-seen to last week. Other than Dame Johane who was likely still with the injured village man, only Dame Thomasine was where she might best be expected to be-just standing up from where she had been kneeling on the lower of the two steps up to the altar.

Sister Cecily was at the altar, too, but had not been kneeling, instead was standing with her back to it, stiffly straight, head up, hands clenched together at her breast.

Master Rowcliffe started toward her with a triumphant, “Hah!” but Domina Elisabeth put out an arm, barring his way, then pointed into the nave beyond the rood screen and said, “There. You can talk to her from there.”

“From there?” he protested. “But she’s…”

“She will come forward. You will stand on that side of the rood screen. She will stand on this. We will all talk,” Domina Elisabeth said.

“I won’t!” Sister Cecely cried.

“You will,” Domina Elisabeth corrected coldly. She gave a nod to Dame Claire and Dame Amicia. Needing no better order, they instantly dropped their polishing cloths and went to Sister Cecely. Each taking her by an arm, they shoved her forward. Master Rowcliffe, apparently satisfied, went around the rood screen into the nave and turned, hands on hips, to confront Sister Cecely as they brought her to the end of the choir stalls, still several yards from him and still firmly held by them both.

None of the nuns were pretending to any work now, were all openly staring, save for Dame Thomasine who had turned away to kneel again.

If Sister Cecely was frightened, her defiance and anger were hiding it as she twisted her arms free from Dame Claire and Dame Amicia and challenged at Domina Elisabeth as much as at Master Rowcliffe, “You can’t force me out of here! I claim sanctuary! For Neddie, too!” She pointed at Master Rowcliffe. “You want Neddie dead. I claim sanctuary for us both!”

Before Domina Elisabeth could answer that, Master Rowcliffe said impatiently, “Oh, give over, you dawe-brained woman. I don’t want you out of here, and he’s safer with me than with you any day of the year. These women and your abbot and all are welcome to you. What I want are Edward and the deeds you stole.” He looked around. “Are you sure you haven’t lost him? You’re that careless it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Of course I haven’t lost him!”

Domina Elisabeth said quietly. “He’s safely here. You can see him later, if you like.”

“So long as he’s well,” Master Rowcliffe answered.

“You can’t have him!” Sister Cecely exclaimed. “I claim sanctuary for him, too!”

“You give me those deeds and we’ll talk about Edward.”

“I don’t have them. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You have them. I want them. They’re not yours.”

“I don’t have them!”

“What deeds?” Domina Elisabeth asked.

“To two of our best manors,” Master Rowcliffe answered. “I knew as soon as I knew she’d gone that she would have taken more than just the boy. That’s how she’s paid back Guy’s putting up with her all these years. By stealing from us.”

“They’re Neddie’s manors!” Sister Cecely exclaimed hotly. “They should have come to Guy when George died, so they’re Neddie’s now!”

Master Rowcliffe heaved a huge sigh of impatient anger and said aside to Domina Elisabeth standing like a judge between them, “George was my elder brother’s son. Guy was my younger brother’s boy. They were both of them my nephews, and they drowned in the same shipwreck, both without heirs of the body, and so all the family lands they held come back to me. That’s how the inheritance was set up two generations back.”

“Guy has an heir!” Sister Cecely said furiously. “He has Neddie!”

“Your Neddie is a bastard. You and Guy were never married. Couldn’t be, could you? Not when here is where you belonged all along. Neddie has no claim on anything except the manor Guy bought and willed to him.”

“You’d take even that from him if I didn’t protect him!”

“I would not. What’s his is his,” Master Rowcliffe replied with the harsh patience of someone who has had to say that several times too often. “What I want-what we all want-is to protect him from you.”

“I’m his mother!”

“You’re a whore and a fool,” Master Rowcliffe threw back at her.

Someone among the nuns gasped at that bluntness. Sister Cecely was already too colored with anger to color further with shame-supposing she felt any-and before she could make any answer, Master Rowcliffe added, “Nor it’s not as if you were left with nothing, woman. All you had to do was bide where you were and behave yourself.”

“And wear black all my days and live on whatever nothing I was allowed and do as I was told and be expected to be grateful for it,” Sister Cecely scorned.

Master Rowcliffe raked her with his gaze. “You’re wearing black now, seems to me. And what’s this ‘nothing’ you’re on about? Guy left you a good widow’s dower out of Edward’s manor. You’d not have lived poor.”

“Until Neddie came of age!”

“That’s ten years and more away!”

“And then what happens to me?”

“You could always have come back to your nunnery,” Master Rowcliffe said with hot mockery.

“God damn you!” Sister Cecely screamed.

Domina Elisabeth stepped forward, saying in a voice flat with authority and the intention of being obeyed, “Enough. Enough from both of you.”

“I haven’t…” Master Rowcliffe began as Sister Cecely started, “I won’t…”

Openly not caring what they did not have or would not do, Domina Elisabeth said, “Dame Frevisse, please see Master Rowcliffe to the guesthall since it seems he’ll be here at least the night.”

“I’ll be here a good while longer than that if I don’t get those deeds. I’m going nowhere until I have them. And Edward,” Master Rowcliffe said.

“I don’t have the deeds!” Sister Cecely cried at him.

“While I see to Sister Cecely,” Domina Elisabeth went on, cutting ruthlessly across their quarrel. “I promise you, Master Rowcliffe, she’ll be here for you to talk with further. Dame Claire. Dame Amicia. Bring her, please.”

They unhesitatingly took hold on Sister Cecely’s arms again, tightly enough that she winced, and not gently forced her, writhing against their hold, after Domina Elisabeth. Frevisse caught glimpse of several servants scattering from where they had been listening outside the open door to the cloister, but her own charge was Master Rowcliffe who had been left flat-footed and a little gaping by Domina Elisabeth’s suddenness, and she said, matching her prioress’ authority, “If you’d come this way, please you, sir,” going not toward the cloister but into the nave and toward the church’s west door. She moved and spoke as if there were no question of him coming with her, and he did, at first slowly and then more quickly. He even passed her as they reached the door, so that he was able to open it for her, standing aside for her to go ahead of him into the sunlight.

The other men were still there, some of them still mounted, but the man called Symond was at the well at the near end of the yard. He had drawn up a bucket, was drinking from the cup that came with it, but seeing Master Rowcliffe, he set down the cup and called, “We heard the shouting. How went it?”

Closing the church’s door, Master Rowcliffe answered, “She’s denying everything about the deeds. We’re staying here until it’s settled.”

“What of Edward?” asked young Jack from where he stood beside his horse, still with one of the cups of guesthall ale in his hand.

“I didn’t see him,” his father said and looked at Frevisse to ask with what sounded like true concern, “How is he? He was still hurting badly with his father’s death when I last saw him.”

“He’s surely still grieving,” Frevisse said with careful mildness. “But he’s well and being kept in the care of someone other than his mother.”

“Good!” Master Rowcliffe was fierce about that. “No one should be in her care. She’s a dire fool.”

“We were feared for him and for how badly she might try to taint him against us,” said Symond, leaving the well.

Both seemed reasonable worries, but Frevisse had no answer to either and merely said, starting toward the guesthall, “If your men will take your horses to the outer yard and stable, I’ll see you settled here.”

Master Rowcliffe gave order for that to his men, adding, “Bring our saddlebags when you come back,” while his son swung from his saddle and handed his reins to one of the men. As their servants rode off, Master Rowcliffe and his son and Symond-whoever he was in this mess of things-followed Frevisse the rest of the way across the yard, up the short stairs, and into the open-raftered guesthall where Ela was overseeing Tom and Luce setting up the long trestle tables for supper. Later, with the tables taken down and set against the wall, there would be bedding laid out on the floor for such of the guests as did not have their own bedchamber. Those chambers were few and mostly small, giving privacy but not much else. Only the one the widows had shared was larger and with some comforts, and Frevisse might have offered it to the Rowcliffes if it had not already been given to Master Breredon. As it was, she was starting to say something about which small chambers they might share but broke off as a whole new anger darkened Master Rowcliffe’s face. Not at her, because he was looking past her. In the next moment he burst out, “Breredon! What are you doing here, damn you?” and Frevisse whipped her gaze to where Master Breredon was standing in the doorway to his room, his manservant not far behind him.

To Frevisse they looked to have been purposefully waiting to be seen, and that was possible because surely the Rowcliffes’ arrival had been no secret and there were windows enough in the guesthall for Master Breredon to have seen them in the yard. Nor did Master Rowcliffe’s instant anger at him seem any surprise to him. Instead, he held where he was as Master Rowcliffe started toward him. Neither man had drawn their actual daggers, but in every other sense it was daggers-out between them, and Symond said quellingly, “John,” while Frevisse made a sharp gesture at both him and young Jack to stay where they were as she went after Master Rowcliffe.

Ela, Tom, and Luce were standing frozen in surprise and probably alarm at the sudden angers in their midst. On the far side of the hall so were Mistress Lawsell and Elianor. Frevisse, with anger for that added to her other angers, said at Rowcliffe and Breredon both, “Gentlemen!” as sharply as if calling dogs to heel, sufficiently startling them that their heed broke from each other to her long enough she was able to come between them the way Domina Elisabeth had come between Master Rowcliffe and Sister Cecely in the church. Keeping more curb on her anger than she wanted to, she demanded, “What is this you’re at? And stop it, whatever it is!”

Master Breredon bowed his head as if in obedience to that demand, a little smiling, but Master Rowcliffe said with unabated anger, pointing at him, “Our first thought was that she might have run to him, but all his folk swore they’d none of them seen her.”

“Nor had they,” Master Breredon said.

“And when you didn’t leave your place until days after she’d run, we had to think there was nothing in it. But there was, wasn’t there?” Master Rowcliffe demanded. “Because here she is and here you are!”

Master Breredon shrugged easily, said lightly, “She swore no one would think to look for her here.”

“She’s a fool,” Master Rowcliffe snapped.

That was plainly his refrain where Sister Cecely was concerned, but despite how much Frevisse agreed with it, it solved nothing, and she said impatiently, “You’re frighting the other guests in a place that’s supposed to be at peace. What is this all about?”

“Your damned nun,” Master Rowcliffe snarled.

Symond and young Jack had come forward to join him, one on either side. They were neither of them so rawly angry as he was, and it was Symond who answered her evenly and without heat, “She’s run off with some deeds to lands that aren’t hers. We want them back rather than waiting to find out what trouble she means to make with them.”

Missing deeds had been some of Master Rowcliffe’s theme in the church but, “What’s Master Breredon’s part in it?” Frevisse asked, trying for calm despite her angers.

“He wants the lands those deeds give,” Rowcliffe snapped. “By foul means, since fair haven’t served him.”

“I know nothing about stolen deeds,” Breredon said calmly. “I’m here for Edward and nothing else. She’s offered me him and his manor in ward and the right to his marriage.”

“In return for helping her escape,” Frevisse said.

Breredon favored her with an approving smile. “You have it. I was to pay her well for Edward and help her away from here. With money in hand, she could do whatever she chose to do next.”

“Leaving you with control of his manor until he comes of age!” Rowcliffe accused, “And likely marry him to one of your daughters.”

“You know how well that manor of his suits with my other property there,” Breredon answered. “I’d have bought it outright three years ago except Guy was ahead of me.”

“So having failed to have it by fair means, you meant to have it by foul,” Rowcliffe snarled.

“Someone will have it until Edward comes of age. Why not me?” Breredon asked.

“Because Edward is ours!” Rowcliffe exclaimed.

Still keeping in check her own anger at both of them, Frevisse said, “Didn’t Edward’s father give keeping of him and this manor to someone in his will?”

“To his ‘dear wife’ the will says,” Rowcliffe said sullenly. “Since they weren’t truly married, that means nothing. Guy could be an idiot sometimes.”

“And the land isn’t held of some lord or else of the king?” Frevisse persisted. “Someone with some say over it?”

“Guy bought it from some guild in Norwich that didn’t want the bother of out-lying land anymore,” Symond said. “It’s clear of any overlord. There’s no one.”

That was a pity, because Frevise would have been more than glad to tell them to ease back their angers until someone with better authority could rule on the matter. If there was not anyone, then it would come to lawyers, she supposed. In the meantime, though, the quarrel was here, where it had no business being, and she said, “Then there’s nothing to be done but clear yourselves back to your homes and sort it out as best you may there.”

“If I can take Edward with me,” Breredon said.

“Edward comes with us!” Rowcliffe snarled.

“Edward goes nowhere,” Frevisse said sharply. “His mother and he are both staying here until…”

“You’re welcome to her,” Rowcliffe said. “She’s yours. But the boy isn’t. He’s ours!”

Frevisse turned to fully face him, near to matching him in height and even nearer to matching him in anger. It was an anger coldly in her control, though, and coldly she said, each word distinct, “Edward is under this priory’s protection. Our protection and the protection of the Church. No one lays hand on him without our prioress’ leave or that of Abbot Gilberd of Northampton. Our abbot has been sent word of Sister Cecely’s return. Whoever he sends in answer to that can deal in your matter, too. But until he comes and as things are now, Edward is going nowhere.”

She put all the force of Domina Elisabeth’s authority behind that final word, everything about her daring Rowcliffe or anyone else to say otherwise.

No one did. She could see Rowcliffe struggling not to burst out at her and could guess what he was probably thinking: that she was a woman and therefore-to his mind, he being that sort of man, she suspected-to be overborne. But she had invoked both the power of the Church and of an abbot against him, and while the Church might be distant and sometimes slow in its workings, an abbot could be very near and his hand immediately very heavy. Still, abbots could be brought around if need be…

“Abbot Gilberd,” she said, “is our prioress’ brother.”

Like a final weight added to a scale, the shift that gave to Rowcliffe’s decision showed so plainly on his face that Frevisse almost could have laughed. She certainly hoped he did not hear Breredon’s muffled snort behind her, and she said, turning to include Breredon, “This leaves you both with the choice of leaving here, to have news sometime of how things are decided…”

“We’re staying right here,” Rowcliffe snapped.

The other men nodded sharp agreement with that, and Breredon, too. It was very probably the only willing agreement they would ever have, and Frevisse said, still coldly, “Then you’ll do it peaceably. You’re here as the guests of God and you’ll do well to remember it at every moment. Remember, too, that there are others here, come for better reasons than either of you. If they are troubled by your troubles for even one moment beyond this present one, the priory will no longer be bound to honor your guest-right. Do you understand that?”

The men all nodded again, grudgingly this time and eyeing each other as if to see who would break the peace first.

“Unfortunately,” Frevisse went grimly on, “we have but the one best guestroom and Master Breredon is already there. Therefore, Master Rowcliffe, you and your people will have to do with either the hall itself or one of our lesser chambers, as you choose.” She did not wait for his answer to that. She did not care what his response was. Instead she pointed at Ela and went on, “There is Ela who is my voice here in the guesthall in my absence, which must be now because Vespers will be soon. You might all do well to attend the Office. I shall see you again in the morning.”

Without waiting for any response from them and somewhat more vehemently than was maybe proper, she turned from them and crossed the hall, going first to the Lawsells, to reassure them that there would be no more trouble now, silently praying she was right. Leaving them, she went to Ela, Tom, and Luce to say for only them to hear, “The ale was well-thought, Ela. And thank you, Tom, thank you, Luce, for bringing it. It came timely.”

Ela sniffed. “Seemed a good thing. I’ll see to them having plenty tonight, too.”

“Not so much as makes them quarrelsome,” Frevisse cautioned.

“Enough to make them sleep both soon and late, the lot of them,” Ela said. “If they take it otherwise, there’s Tom to see to them.”

“And you’re welcome to,” Frevisse told him. Tom’s weak chest was one reason he was a guesthall servant, rather than at fieldwork, but he both looked and was strong-armed enough to give someone pause if he stepped forward and told them to stop whatever they were doing. Frevisse glanced back and saw that Breredon had withdrawn into his room and shut the door, while the three Rowcliffes-whoever Symond was, he was plainly some manner of family with them-were gathered head to head in talk.

“Serving Master Breredon and his people their supper in their room tonight might be best,” Frevisse said. “I doubt he’ll object, and the Rowcliffes will likely stay more quiet if he isn’t in sight.”

“They’ll stay quiet,” Ela promised.

Frevisse had a sudden vision of the little, bent-backed woman standing toe-to-toe with Rowcliffe, shaking a finger at his nose and telling him to behave himself.

“Invoke Abbot Gilberd if you have to,” Frevisse said and left. She was almost to the outer door when a question she wanted to ask Breredon came to her and she almost turned back, but the bell began to ring for Vespers, enjoining silence and obedience on her, and she went on, more than ready for the peace of her choir stall and prayers.