The Apostate's Tale

Chapter 18

He looks like to die,” Luce cried. “I swear he does! He won’t stop heaving up, but there’s nothing left in him to heave. Or go the other way either. He’s been doing it for hours. It’s terrible!”

Breaking away toward the infirmary, Dame Claire demanded, “Why didn’t you come for me before this?” Adding, “Sister Johane, come with me.”

“Ela didn’t think it would last so long. He’d be sick and then he’d be done. That’s what she thought. But he isn’t.” Luce scuttled a few steps after Dame Claire, then back to Frevisse, wringing her hands. “Ela says you have to come!”

“Of course,” Frevisse said with far more outward calm than she felt inwardly. If this was some contagion broken out in the guesthall…

She looked to Domina Elisabeth for permission to forego Mass and, “Yes,” Domina Elisabeth said. “Go. Go, of course.” She pressed both her hands distractedly to her forehead below the edge of her wimple. “Why now? Why must this happen now?”

Having no answer to that and supposing none was expected, Frevisse made barely a curtsy and went around the cloister walk the other way from Dame Claire’s, toward the outer door, Luce following her.

Outside the cloister, the morning was cool and fresh, with dawn colors still soft in the clear sky, though there was suggestion in the light wind of rain maybe not too far away. Inside the guesthall there was neither cool nor calm. The hall was shadowed, its air close, with a whiff of stinking sickness to it that told Frevisse more than she wanted to know of how bad Breredon’s night had been. As she headed toward the chamber he had been given yesterday, she ordered at the nearest man-one of Rowcliffe’s, as it happened-“It’s morning outside. Open the shutters,” but kept going without seeing if he obeyed.

Even if she had not known which of the lesser rooms opening off the hall Breredon had been given, she would have guessed it from Ela shuffling unhappily from foot to foot in its doorway. The night had not been good to Ela. She was more than ever bent and huddled in on her old body, her head cricked hard to one side so she could look up to Frevisse instead of only at her feet. More than that, she was the sickly pale of someone underslept and over-worked, and guilt panged in Frevisse, because she had done this to Ela, had willingly let Ela take the guesthall in charge again because it was so familiar and easy to work with her. But Ela was old, and while her mind was willing to much, her body was not; Breredon’s illness looked to have served her almost as badly as it served him, and Frevisse said quickly, “How is it with him? Tell me, and then do you go to bed.”

Time was that Ela would have scorned the latter part of that order; but then time was that it would not have been needed. Here and now she only ducked her head in an accepting nod to it while answering, “It was about halfway from Matins to dawn it took him. Maybe somewhat before. His man Coll came for me, said his master was taken with cramps in the belly, was in a cold sweat and likely to vomit. So up I got and came, and that’s what he’s been doing ever since. Only he’s not thrown up for a time. He’s maybe past the worst, but it’s left him poorly and weak.”

To Frevisse’s eye it had left Ela poorly and weak, too, and she said, “Dame Claire will see to him from now, and I’ll see to everything else here. Luce.” She turned to the hovering woman. “See Ela to her bed and tend on her. Food. Drink. Another blanket or pillow if she wants. See she stays there until Dame Claire or I say otherwise.”

It was sign of Ela’s weariness that she made no complaint at that nor protested at all when Luce stooped to put a hand under her elbow and an arm around her to help her away. Only belatedly Frevisse asked, “Where’s Tom?”

“Here, my lady,” he said from Breredon’s doorway.

In his own way, by rumpled hair, untucked shirt, and eyes red-rimmed with sleeplessness and worry, he showed as plainly as Ela did what a bad night it had been, but he was young and upright and hearty enough that he would take no lasting harm from it. What worried Frevisse was what he and the rest of them might take from Breredon, because if this was not something simply in the man’s own belly, if it was something that could spread, the priory was in for a worse time than they presently had.

And Abbot Gilberd, almost here, would have to be warned away.

She wanted to join Domina Elisabeth in clutching her head and moaning, Why now? But she settled for asking Tom as she went forward, “How does he?” Then could see for herself as soon as she was in the room, with no need for Tom saying, “Not good, I’d guess.”

The room stank of sickness, and Breredon lay curled on his side on the very edge of the bed, probably to be in ready reach of the basin on the floor near his head should the need come on him again. Just now he was lying quietly, eyes closed, but with a tautness to his stillness that said he was neither asleep nor at ease. He was pale-faced, too, his hair lank with old sweat while new sweat was beaded on his forehead. The only bold thing left of the confident and prospering man of yesterday was the black stubble of his beard against his pale flesh, and from where she stood near the bed his servant Ida pleaded, “Are you going to do something for him, my lady?”

Frevisse said, going no nearer, “Our infirmarian will soon be here,” knowing there was nothing she could do for Breredon except help Dame Claire. “Where’s Coll?”

“Gone to wash out the other basin,” Ida said.

“I just brought this one back,” Tom offered, pointing to the one on the floor, to show he was not idle.

“He’s still being sick, then?” Frevisse asked Ida.

The woman looked the least marked by the night, was neither strained with exhaustion like Ela nor disheveled like Tom nor gone dithering like Luce. She was openly worried, her apron was stained, and she had foregone her veil, her head covered by a simple cap tied under her up-bound hair, but she answered steadily enough, “It’s not so often now. He was again a few minutes ago, but there was nothing come up. Only bile. I’ve asked some water be warmed so he can rinse his mouth.”

“Anything you think he needs, ask for,” Frevisse said, grateful for the woman’s steadiness and even more grateful to hear Dame Claire in the hall behind her asking where the sick man was. Leaving the room, though, she saw Dame Claire had come alone, carrying the box of medicines kept ready for need outside the cloister but without Dame Johane.

Before Frevisse could ask, Dame Claire said, “I thought better of her coming. On the chance it’s contagious.”

Frevisse accepted that with a nod and a deliberately calm face and left Dame Claire to her work. She was not free to leave the guesthall though. Far from it. The Rowcliffe father and son and their cousin Symond were standing on the other side of the hall, plainly waiting for her and surely with questions about just how ill Breredon was and with what, but they had to go on waiting because Mistress Lawsell was nearer and demanding as she closed on Frevisse, “What is it? What does he have? Is it plague? I want to leave. Elianor and I are leaving today, even if we have to walk to do it!”

Firmly Frevisse answered, “It doesn’t have the look of any kind of plague. It’s more likely an ague.” And even if that was not the truth, even if Dame Claire determined it was one sort of plague or another, she would do all she could to keep the Lawsells here rather than let them take whatever it was with them to infect others. But that grievous need was not yet to hand, and still firmly calm, she went on, “We’ve had no sickness here for him to have caught, and his servants are untouched by whatever it is.” So far, she silently added, while in the back of her mind she wondered sharply whether Peter could have brought something back with him from Northampton. But when would he ever have been near Breredon? And how could Breredon have sickened from it so quickly and no one else? No. This had to be something other than plague, surely, and she said with forced confidence, “Whatever it is, I think we’re all safe from it. What we need to do is pray for him.”

Fortunately, Mistress Lawsell preferred to be comforted. Mollified, she unflustered enough to say, “Well, we’ll keep well away from him. Elianor and I. Well away.”

“That would probably be for the best,” Frevisse agreed. For Breredon as well as the Lawsells, she added silently.

John Rowcliffe’s theme was different from Mistress Lawsell’s. When Frevisse went to him, he said bluntly, angrily, “Breredon’s feigning it. He’s made himself sick, thinking we’ll lower our guard against him.”

“I doubt that,” Frevisse returned, words clipped short with impatience.

“What you can doubt is that we’ll lower our guard. You can tell him that. When is your abbot going to be here?”

“Sometime today is all I know. Now if you’ll pardon me,” she said, not caring whether she had his pardon or not, and left him with the barest jerk of her head in a nod of parting toward his son and cousin.

Jack, she noted, looked correctly worried, but what might have been the corner of a wry smile pulled at one corner of Symond’s mouth as they copied Rowcliffe in slightly bowing their heads to her in return. What he might be smiling at she did not know and did not think about.

Father Henry must have made short work of the Mass and his opening blessing on the chapter meeting today. As she left the guesthall, he was coming from the cloister, and as they met in the yard’s middle, he asked, “Am I needed?”

Understanding he meant for the last rites for a dying man, Frevisse said, “I don’t know. Dame Claire is with him now. She’ll say better than I can. Certainly he needs your prayers.”

“He has them,” Father Henry said and they went their separate ways, he to the guesthall, she into the cloister to the chapter meeting.

Whatever had been happening there, Domina Elisabeth broke it off to demand as she came into the room, “What does he have? Do we send to turn Abbot Gilberd back?”

“I don’t know what it is,” Frevisse said quietly. “Dame Claire will surely say.”

Domina Elisabeth momentarily looked ready to protest that but then, with an open effort, steadied and returned to the day’s business.

Frevisse, taking her place among the other nuns, found her worry about Breredon matched by worry about Domina Elisabeth. It had never been her way to be so easily, so openly unsettled by anything. She surely could not be worried her brother would blame her for either Sister Cecely’s return or Breredon’s illness. Abbot Gilberd had never been unreasonable or unfair. Even making his sister prioress here had not been unreasonable, and his choice had proved to the priory’s good in the years since then.

No, Frevisse thought: Domina Elisabeth’s worry had to be for her brother, for everyone here, should Breredon’s illness be more than it seemed. St. Frideswide’s had been fortunate in going untouched by plague and rarely troubled by any disease of any consequence in Frevisse’s time.

They could only pray that was not about to change.

Fortunately for everyone’s peace of mind, Dame Claire came just at the end of the chapter meeting with the welcome news that, “I judge something he ate or drank disagreed with him. It’s not a fever or anything like.”

“Poison!” Dame Amicia exclaimed with the delight of someone ready to be horrified.

“Not poison, I think,” Dame Claire said quellingly.

“No reason then to forestall Abbot Gilberd,” said Domina Elisabeth, openly relieved.

“None,” Dame Claire said.

“Very good.” Plainly freed by her relief, Domina Elisabeth made short end to the meeting, freeing them to their morning duties with her closing blessing, then saying to Dame Claire, “You and Dame Frevisse will want to talk over what it could have been that sickened him. We must needs be sure no one else falls ill of it.”

That matched what Frevisse had intended, and she and Dame Claire lingered while everyone else left except for Dame Johane who paused to ask hopefully, “Will you need me to help with tending him?”

“His two servants will see to him between whiles I go to him. No, I think you’ll not be needed,” Dame Claire said.

“Oh,” said Dame Johane, not troubling to hide her disappointment. “I’d hoped to escape sitting watch on Sister Cecely.”

“It would come tomorrow if you escaped it today,” Dame Claire pointed out. “I’ll bring you the herbal to study. You can look for Master Breredon’s symptoms in it.”

Dame Johane went, not looking much brightened by that, and Frevisse asked Dame Claire, “You think, then, it was indeed something he ate?”

“It’s something that badly disagreed with him, that’s all. I’m nearly certain of it. He’s past the worst of it, but the worst was very bad, as you surely saw.”

“Could he have been poisoned?”

Dame Claire looked at her with surprise. “Well, whatever he ate or drank was certainly poisonous to him, yes, but I’d doubt it was done of a purpose. Despite of Dame Amicia. Besides, what would he have had to eat or drink that was different from what anyone else in the guesthall had?”

“That’s what I shall have to learn,” Frevisse said.

As it happened, she learned it easily after she returned to the guesthall. Breredon was able to make weak answer for himself that he had had nothing to eat or drink aside from what was offered him, and everyone else-his own servants and the guesthall’s-who had had anything to do with his food and drink assured her that he had had only what every other guest had had.

“There was nothing different for him,” Tom said, looking scared while she questioned him and Luce in the guesthall kitchen.

“He didn’t even come out of his room,” Luce added. “He had his supper taken in to him. He didn’t come out all the evening.”

“And no one went in?” Frevisse asked.

“Just his own folk,” Luce said. “At least so far as I know. Tom?”

“I wasn’t up there,” Tom said. “It’s old Ela you’d have to ask.”

But Ela was sleeping, making hardly a heap under her blanket on her pallet in a corner of the kitchen, and Frevisse, not minded to wake her, said, “That I’ll do later. Luce, come with me. I need to see the chamber is ready for Abbot Gilberd.”

It was, and Frevisse commended Luce for it, then faced the necessity of questioning the Rowcliffes, no matter how little she wanted to.

This time it was Jack and his father who were playing chess, with Symond leaning on the table, looking on. As Frevisse approached them, Symond was shaking his head and clicking his tongue at the move Rowcliffe was in the midst of making, and Rowcliffe snapped, “Will you stop doing that?” but there was laughter under his protest and Symond was grinning.

Only young Jack, protesting on his side, “Don’t help him! I’m winning,” sounded halfway to serious, and while he stood up with his father and cousin to give Frevisse a slight bow, he did it without taking his eyes from the chessboard and sat down again while Rowcliffe and Symond stayed standing and Rowcliffe said, “We saw your infirmarian leave, and your priest come and go. Breredon was feigning it, then?”

“He was not and is not,” Frevisse said. “He was very ill, apparently with something he ate or drank. Did any of you go into his room last night?”

“We haven’t bothered with him,” said Rowcliffe, sounding surprised. “There’s nothing more to say between us until your abbot comes, so we’ve kept away from him and he’s kept away from us.”

“I don’t think it’s what we might have said to him that she’s wondering about,” said Symond. “It’s what we might have done she’s asking about.”

“What?” said Rowcliffe, not seeming to follow his cousin’s thought.

“She’s wondering,” said Jack without looking up from the chessboard, his hand poised over a bishop, “if one of us poisoned him.”

“What?” Rowcliffe repeated, now more indignantly than questioningly, then added with pure indignation, “Hai!” as his son slid the bishop along the board to take the knight that Rowcliffe had just moved.

“I warned you,” Symond said.

“I had plans for that knight,” Rowcliffe grumbled.

“What you failed to think of was that Jack might have plans of his own,” Symond said. “He’ll have your queen in three more moves.”

This time both Jack and Rowcliffe protested, “Hai!” albeit for different reasons.

Rowcliffe glared at the board for a moment more, gave a shrug as if giving the whole business up, and looked back to Frevisse. “No,” he said. “None of us poisoned Breredon. Right is on our side. We’ve no need to poison him or anyone. Except Cecely maybe. Have you done anything about getting those deeds back from her?”

“We’re leaving everything until Abbot Gilberd arrives.”

“She’s still closely kept though, isn’t she?”

“She’s still closely kept and under guard,” Frevisse assured him. “Now if you’ll pardon me, I’ve other things to see to.”

“Besides accusing us of poisoning people, you mean,” Rowcliffe grumbled, low enough she chose to pretend she did not hear as she went away, while behind her Symond cheerfully pointed out, “She didn’t accuse us. She only asked.”

She had already decided against asking any questions of Mistress Lawsell, partly because there seemed little point-the Lawsells had nothing to do with Breredon, no reason to want him ill or dead-but also because she did not want to chance stirring up Mistress Lawsell to no purpose. With no other questions to ask of anyone in the guesthall and expecting the bell to Tierce at any moment, she returned to the cloister, a little unsatisfied that she knew no more about what had made Breredon ill than she had when she started her questions but satisfied his illness was by chance, not of someone’s doing. Jack Rowcliffe had been right: she had kept a thought of poison to the side of her mind, but the only people with possibly an interest in harming Breredon were the Rowcliffes-counting Symond Hewet as one with his kin-and as Rowcliffe had said, right was on their side. Unless Sister Cecely escaped with Edward and their deeds, they had little to worry about, and there was no one else here with any quarrel at all against Breredon. So he had not been purposely poisoned, and Dame Claire was certain it was not disease, and therefore so long as no one else fell ill of whatever had sickened him, there was nothing more that needed to be asked or done.

There was relief in that certainty, and it was with lighter mind that she went to ask Dame Johane sitting beside the guest parlor door with the promised herbal open on her lap, “Have you found anything useful?”

Dame Johane looked up from a page that was half words, half a picture of some plant, its stem and leaves drawn in plain ink but the flower of it painted red. Frowning a little with thought, she said, “The trouble is there seem to be any number of things that will bring on such vomiting and purging. I’d want to ask what color was…”

Sister Cecely came out of the parlor’s shadows, almost into the doorway but not quite, surely remembering Domina Elisabeth’s warning even while she pleaded at Frevisse, “It was the Rowcliffes. Can’t you see that? They poisoned him. You have to make them leave here before they do more, before they do worse!”

Frevisse looked at Dame Johane and said dryly, “She’s heard, then.”

“She’s heard,” Dame Johane agreed grimly. “While we were in chapter.”

“Listen to me!” Sister Cecely cried. “You have to send them away! You can’t let the Rowcliffes stay here and poison the rest of us!”

Frevisse looked at her coldly and said in a voice to match, “Abbot Gilberd will be here soon. The matter will be his to determine.”

“We could be dead by then, Neddie and I!”

From the far side of the cloister walk, Dame Amicia was going toward the bell in its pentice in the middle of the cloister garth. In the moment before the call to Tierce would enjoin silence on her, Frevisse returned, “I truly doubt that,” and turned away toward the church.

Behind her, Sister Cecely gave a smothered cry that might have been of despair or fear but to Frevisse sounded only angry.