The Apostate's Tale

Chapter 22

Whatever Frevisse’s fears, they did not release her from her duty, and she went next to Breredon’s chamber, to be met at the doorway by his man Coll, who bowed and said before she asked, “He’s fit to talk, if that’s what you want.”

It was, but more than that, Frevisse was pleased to find Breredon somewhat sitting up, leaned back on a pillow against the head of the bed. Color and strength were still gone from his face, but there was more life in his eyes than there had been yesterday, and before she could speak, he said, “They tell me Symond Hewet has sickened, too. Has anyone else?”

“Only the two of you thus far.”

“I pray to God there are no more. This has been dire. How does he?”

“Badly. Worse than you, but better than he was.”

“God keep him. Coll says you don’t know what it is we have.”

“We don’t.” Which was true enough: Dame Claire did not yet know what poison had been used.

“Just so it goes no further. That’s what I pray.”

“So do we all. Master Breredon, there’s something I would ask you.”

“Ask.” He made an effort at smiling. “If I fall to sleep in the middle of your question, I’ll answer later.”

“It’s about the Rowcliffes, about this property that Sister Cecely claims should be her son’s. Not his own manor from his father but some of the other Rowcliffe manors. Which side has the truth? Do you know?”

Breredon considered before answering. Or maybe he was gathering his strength before he finally said, “My family knew John Rowcliffe’s mother’s family before ever Rowcliffe’s father married into it. As I’ve always heard, the Rowcliffe manors come by way of her. The manor I want is one that Guy bought and willed to the boy, nothing to do with John, except it sits so well with one of his own.”

“And besides that, you have a daughter to marry to Edward.”

“I do.”

“But you say you want nothing to do with the other Rowcliffe lands.”

“Blessed Mary, no. Whoever Mistress Rowcliffe-your Sister Cecely-might have befooled into taking those deeds would have been pouring gold into lawyers’ laps for years to come, fighting over it with the Rowcliffes.” Breredon sighed. His eyes closed again. “Fool of a woman,” he said on a fading breath and was asleep with the ease of a man still far from well.

Ida, as if she would warn Frevisse away from disturbing him, rose from the stool where she had been sitting beyond the foot of the bed. Frevisse drew back a step to show she meant to leave him sleeping, gave the woman a slight nod to which Ida was returning a curtsy as Frevisse left.

So now she had not only the two sides of the quarrel over the deeds but a very certain thought on who was in the right, and it was not Sister Cecely.

There was no surprise for her in that.

She likewise believed Breredon’s insistence that he had wanted nothing to do with any stolen deeds. John Rowcliffe, being no fool and probably knowing Breredon for no fool either, surely did not think Breredon was after them, which meant Rowcliffe had no reason to poison Breredon, let alone his own cousin.

So surely there was something else to be learned about Symond Hewet and Breredon. There might be reason to poison one man or the other, but why both of them, as much on different sides as they were?

Different sides of what?

Of Sister Cecely’s lies and ambitions.

There was surely, somewhere, a straight answer through the tangle, but all that Frevisse could yet see was the tangle, and she suspected that her sight of even that was blurred by her having had too little sleep since yesterday.

She found that she had come to a stop outside the chamber, was standing there with her thoughts, and realized that Breredon’s man Coll beside the doorway had stood up from where he had been sitting on his heels, back against the wall, and was waiting to see if she wanted anything. She turned to him. “Coll, two evenings ago, before Master Breredon fell ill, was it you or Ida or someone else who fetched his supper from the kitchen?”

Coll gave her a startled stare while he put his mind around the question, then said, “I did, my lady. No. I didn’t. The nunnery’s man did. He brought it up from the kitchen, and I took it from him and took it in to Master Breredon.”

“Where did you take it from him?”

“Where? Um, here.” He made a small gesture at where they were standing, just outside Breredon’s door. “Or…I came out the door and saw him coming, and I went a few steps and took it from him. But here, near enough.”

Her questions had openly confused him. “Thank you,” she said. “Tell no one I asked.”

That confused him more, but he said obediently, “Yes, my lady.”

She walked away, going toward the stairs down to the kitchen, trying to guess how long she had before the cloister bell would call to Nones. Still somewhat muddled by lack of sleep, she found she had no good guess and hurried a little, not having much in the way of questions to ask and wanting to have them done before she had to turn away from them.

In the kitchen Tom and Luce were as confused as Coll at being questioned, but their replies were straight enough. Luce had readied Master Breredon’s tray. Tom had taken it up the stairs and given it to Master Breredon’s man.

“Just like that?” Frevisse asked, not wanting to ask outright if there had been chance of anyone else coming close to it. She did not need more thoughts of poison starting around.

“Just like that, aye,” said Tom, and Luce nodded agreement. With the unease of a servant afraid he was going to be accused of something, Tom added earnestly, “We didn’t do anything wrong with it.”

“I don’t think you did,” Frevisse assured him firmly. Ela would take it much amiss if she upset either Tom or Luce too much to work well.

But somehow, some place, something had happened to whatever Breredon had eaten or drunk two days ago. Maybe she needed to ask more questions about whatever food or drink of his own he had, that supposedly only his servants would have handled but might have been reached by someone else.

But that would not explain how Symond came to be poisoned.

Or, come to it, why either man had been.

She left the guesthall, hardly noticing the rain still softly falling as she crossed the yard, not going directly back to the cloister but to the church, entering by its west door and going up the nave, reaching the choir just as the cloister bell began to ring, so that she was first in her place for Nones, already kneeling, forehead resting on her folded hands when the others came in. She slid backward onto her seat only as Dame Juliana began the Office and saw then that everyone was present except Domina Elisabeth yet again. Frevisse supposed that meant either Abbot Gilberd had left the cloister, and Domina Elisabeth for reasons of her own had chosen not to come to the Office, or else that one of the servants was with them. Whichever it was, it was Domina Elisabeth’s concern, not hers, she thought and from there set herself to go as deeply into the Office as she was able, into the greater realms of soul and mind and heart there were beyond the shallow troubles mankind made for itself. Her voice joined with the others in these prayers and psalms and was joined with the voices of all the women who had ever prayed them, women she would never see and never know, uncounted other women not only now but all the ones who had prayed them through centuries before and all the ones who would pray them through centuries to come. “Etsi moveatur terra cum omnibus incolis suis: ego firmavi columnas eius… Hunc deprimit, et illum extollit… Ego autem exsultabo in aeternum…”-Even if the earth with all dwelling there shift, I have made firm its pillars… This one hehumbles, and that one he lifts up… But I will exult intoeternity.

At Nones’ end, she only regretfully came back to the day and its questions and the nuns’ midday meal. Time had been when Nones had come well after midday, halfway to Vespers, but for the sake of giving the day just one longer while of uninterrupted work, the Office had slipped backward to vaguely the day’s middle, with what had been the late-morning’s meal now coming after it, leaving all the after-Nones of the day for work. It was in Frevisse’s mind that today she might well spend some of that time at the copying work she had set aside through Holy Week, her hope being that if the work did not help to clear her mind, it would at least give her brief relief from her thoughts. But at dinner’s end, when the final blessing had been said and the nuns were readying to go their separate ways until Vespers, Dame Claire slipped to her side and said, “Mistress Petham has asked to see you.”

Despite herself, Frevisse took and let go a deep, impatient breath, but there was no help for it. She was hosteler. More than that, Mistress Petham was a better guest than most and did not deserve her impatience, let alone the neglect Frevisse had had toward her these past few days. So she made herself say mildly, “I’ll go now,” before asking, “Have you any better thought on what was used against Breredon and Symond Hewet?”

“I mean to have Dame Johane go through our stores this afternoon, to see if there’s less of something than she thinks there should be.”

That would have to do, being the best that could be done about it, and Frevisse nodded and went her way up to Mistress Petham’s room. She knew that Dame Margrett would have been seeing to her mother’s good care by the servants and that Dame Claire had not neglected her health, but Frevisse had her duty, too, had not been doing it as well as she might have, and had her apology ready as she knocked quietly at Mistress Petham’s closed door.

There was a quick patter of soft footfalls, and Edward opened the door enough to look out the gap and see her. His eyes grew large and frightened and he backed away. That surprised her. She could think of nothing she had done to make him afraid of her.

From across the room, Mistress Petham called, “Come in,” and Frevisse did, to find her sitting on the floor near the hearth beside a scatter of small, bright-glazed clay boules. She was just flicking one with her thumb, setting it rolling along the hearth stone. It clicked against another one, and Mistress Petham laughed and said, “There, Edward! I’ve not forgotten the trick of it after all!” She looked up and laughed again, this time at Frevisse’s open surprise, and said, making to stand up, “They’re Edward’s. We’re finding out just how badly he can beat me at every game.”

Edward, who had retreated to her side, took hold on her near elbow, helping her to her feet while mumbling something toward his own.

“Yes,” Mistress Petham agreed. “I am getting better. If we go at this for six more months, I might actually win.” She wiggled the fingers of her free hand at Frevisse. “Stiff with age and use, I fear me.” Edward, now that she was standing safely up, was clinging to her other hand with both of his own, his head still bowed. She looked down at him, reached across herself with her free hand to stroke his hair, and said gently, “Edward, she’s here now. We need to tell her why.” Still stroking his hair, she said, to Frevisse now, “I asked to see Domina Elisabeth but she’s in talk with Abbot Gilbert and not to be disturbed, Dame Margrett said. She said I should speak to you instead. Thank you for coming.”

Frevisse bent her head, acknowledging the thanks, still ready to make her apology for not having come more often, but Mistress Petham was going on, freeing her hand from Edward so she could put both her hands on his shoulders and steer him from her toward her bed. “It’s time, Edward,” she said, still gently. “We have to show Dame Frevisse what you have.”

Edward stayed where he was for a long moment, then suddenly broke away from her, ran forward to the bed, reached under a pillow, grabbed something, and turned around, clutching a folded paper or parchment to his chest. He looked confused and frightened as he raised his head to look at Frevisse again, and she went down on one knee, to stop towering over him, and said, matching Mistress Petham’s gentleness, “What do you have, Edward?”

He went on staring at her. It was Mistress Petham who said quietly, “The stitching on the inside of his tunic’s collar was coming loose. I made to mend it this morning. These were in it for stiffening, along with the buckram. Edward.”

Biting his lower lip, his eyes still frightened with what might have been fear or confusion or guilt or all of them together, Edward came to Frevisse and held out the folded something to her. Still kneeling, she thanked him and took it from him, a little smiling to reassure him that it was all right, whatever it was. Apparently not reassured, he broke away from her and ran to hide his face against Mistress Petham’s skirts as Frevisse stood up.

“I didn’t look at them when I first found them,” Mistress Petham said, patting his shoulder. “I gave them to him, saying they were his. He says that, no, they’re not, and that he wants Symond Hewet to have them.”

Frevisse was unfolding what were proving to be several pieces of parchment folded together into a narrow strip to fit inside a small boy’s collar, but at Symond Hewet’s name she raised her gaze sharply to Mistress Petham. “He’s…” she started and broke off, not certain how much to say.

“Not dying, we hope,” Mistress Petham said quickly. “We’d heard he was sick but…”

“No, not dying,” Frevisse answered as quickly. “He was very sick, but he’s bettering now.” Then, gently, “Edward, what is this? Why do you have it?”

“He isn’t sure what it is,” Mistress Petham answered for him again. “His mother sewed it into his collar and told him to keep it secret. Edward, you have to tell Dame Frevisse what you told me. What did your mother tell you?”

Edward reluctantly drew back from her and slowly turned around, one hand still clutching to her skirts, the other fisted at his side. Frevisse had half expected him to be crying, but he was not, and now that he was brought to it, he said with surprising steadiness, no matter that his eyes were still large and frightened, “She said I was not to tell anyone I had them in my collar. That they’re ours and nobody else’s. But that’s not true, and I don’t want to go with Master Breredon, and my father told me that if ever I was in trouble or needed help I should go to Symond, but I can’t, and now he’s sick, and I wanted to ask Jack but I didn’t, and…” He paused for his breath to catch up to him, then burst out, “And my father said people should be good, but I don’t think it’s good for me to have-” He pointed at the parchments in Frevisse’s hands. “I shouldn’t have them, should I?”

“No, I don’t think you should,” Frevisse agreed gently. “You’ve done right to give them to me. It was a good thing to do and it will maybe make things well for everyone. You are very brave and very good, Edward. Just as your father would want you to be.”

Edward kept his eyes fixed on her, as if looking to see how much truth she was telling him, until beside him, Mistress Petham said quietly, “Why don’t you set up another game of boules for us, Edward, while I see Dame Frevisse to the door?”

Probably glad to be released, Edward immediately turned away and went to his knees beside the scatter of bright-glazed boules, beginning to gather them together as Frevisse stood up and moved with Mistress Petham toward the door. There, with one hand on the handle to let Frevisse out, Mistress Petham said, too low for Edward to hear, “He kept pulling at his collar. I think he meant for the threads to give way, so someone would find what was there.” She hesitated, then added, “I looked at them. I think you-or Domina Elisabeth or my lord abbot-should read them before they’re given to anyone else.”

Frevisse nodded silent agreement to that and left, slipping the folded parchments into her undergown’s close-fitted sleeve, having them against her wrist and out of sight by the time she reached the stairfoot. There she paused to decide what she would do next.

Surely best would be to go to Domina Elisabeth with what she had.

But that did not seem best when Frevisse thought on it. Domina Elisabeth was presently so removed from everything, so deep in dealing about Sister Cecely and only with Abbot Gilberd, that to take anything else to her felt nigh to impossible.

And then there was the blunt fact that Frevisse wanted to know for herself what was on these carefully secreted parchments, and she turned not toward the stairs to Domina Elisabeth’s rooms but the other way, to the infirmary that was close at hand and almost a private place.

Thinking that, she was discomfited to find Dame Johane in the outer room, frowning in either thought or displeasure while putting small linen bags back into the chest of medicines sitting on the table. Not to waste the chance, Frevisse paused to ask, “Have you found anything missing?”

Dame Johane, still frowning as she took up one of the small bottles, made no other answer than a shake of her head. Frevisse took advantage of her silence to say nothing else, left her to her plainly heavy thoughts and went past her into the next room. Standing where the best light fell through the window, she unfolded the parchments.

There were three of them, each wider than it was long. Because there was no point in wasting parchment, a document was often cut off below the names signed at its end if there were any, as there were here, so that the unused portion could be used for something else. Of the three parchment pieces she held, one was far shorter than the others, hardly an inch and a half of parchment used. The other two were longer but short enough that they had been easily twice-folded, the shorter one inside them, to the width of a child’s collar, making it simple to lay them along the stiffening already there, to be then stitched out of sight. There were signs that wax seals had been hung from the two longer ones, but the seals were gone, cut away probably because thick as such seals were, they could not have been hidden.

The longer writings were, as Frevisse expected, two deeds to carefully described properties. She judged that with a little forging of other documents and names, they could very well be used to make as much trouble for the Rowcliffes as both Rowcliffe and Breredon had claimed. She took up the third parchment piece and read it.

It was not a deed.

She lifted her head and stood staring at the near wall.

Not a deed. Instead, a bill of obligation between Guy Rowcliffe, Symond Hewet, and young Jack Rowcliffe, acknowledging that Jack had been loaned a large sum of money by his two cousins, with promise that he would pay them back in full before…Frevisse took up the parchment and read the date on it again. Before this coming first of May. Three weeks away.

Why had Jack bargained for money from his cousins rather than asking it from his father? Because he needed money for something he would rather his father knew nothing about. That was the most likely answer.

With Guy dead, Symond was his only debtor. Had Jack found he was not going to be able to repay the debt-or did not choose to-and been desperate enough to want Symond dead?

If that was the way of it, then Breredon’s sickening could have been done to confuse the attempt on Symond when Jack made it.

She had already thought of that as a possibility, without having any name or reason to put to it. This bill of obligation maybe gave her someone with a reason. Or, come to it, if Jack feared Breredon was lying about what he wanted from Cecely, feared Breredon wanted these deeds after all, and knew the bill of obligation was with them, could he have been willing to kill him to block him having it?

And finding that whatever poison he gave Breredon was insufficient, had he given Symond a larger dose of it, whatever it was, when attempting his death?

But how had Jack known Sister Cecely had the bill?

Well, it could well have been among Guy Rowcliffe’s papers. Symond would have known it was there, and if he and Jack had looked for it after Sister Cecely fled and not found it, they could well suppose she had it.

For the first time Frevisse wondered how Sister Cecely had come by the deeds. Those had assuredly not been in Guy Rowcliffe’s keeping.

Never mind that for now.

She refolded the parchments and slipped them into her undergown’s sleeve again, stood up, and tucked her hands into the opposite, fuller sleeves of her overgown in the ordinary way. With her hands folded in front of her that way, there was no way to tell she carried anything hidden, and that was surely safest, since it might be that two men had come near death because of these deeds and bill. Sister Cecely could not have known it would come to that danger, or she would not have used her son for hiding the things. Nor had Edward been thinking of his own safety when he gave the secret away. He simply had wanted to do right instead of wrong, had wanted truth instead of lying.

Frevisse thought, with a touch of bitterness, that if people simply told the truth, the way Edward had, and were good and brave to one another, there would be far less sadness and hurt in the world. Far less.

Among other things, there would not be two men in the guesthall who had come near to dying because someone was lying and hoping to hide it.

As Frevisse passed through the infirmary’s outer room, leaving, Dame Johane was frowning at small glass vials and Frevisse did not trouble her with any question. Once in the cloister walk, though, she stopped, pausing while trying to choose between the several things she could do next. She was yet again considering going to Domina Elisabeth when Alson came from the stairs to the prioress’ rooms and along the walk, head down, carrying a pottery pitcher and hurrying, passing Dame Margrett sitting outside Sister Cecely’s door without a word, probably returning to the kitchen, not seeing Frevisse at the corner of the walk until Frevisse said her name.

Alson stopped, her head jerking up. She made a short, bobbed curtsy, saying, “My lady,” and looking unsettled, even frightened.

“What is it?” Frevisse asked, with a glance past her, back toward the prioress’ stairs. “How is it with Domina Elisabeth? Is she still in talk with Abbot Gilberd?”

At just above a whisper, Alson said, sounding as frightened as she looked, “She’s crying.”

“Crying? Domina Elisabeth?” Of any of the things Frevisse had thought to hear, that was not one of them. “Is the abbot angry at her and she’s crying for it?”

“No,” Alson whispered, almost as if giving away a secret. “It’s more like he’s trying to comfort her.”

That explained nothing, but it decided Frevisse on what to do next. She nodded at the pitcher and asked, “Is that for the kitchen?”

“Aye, and I’m to say they won’t be wanting more before Vespers. It’s a good thing the abbot brought wine or we’d be near to out now.”

“I’ll take the pitcher and your message,” Frevisse said, reaching for it. “I want you to go to the guesthall and tell Mistress Lawsell’s daughter I’d to speak to her in the church. Just the daughter, not the mother. Make that plain.”

“Yes, my lady.” Alson gave over the pitcher, bobbed another curtsy, and hurried back the way she had come.

Frevisse went on to the kitchen, delivered the pitcher and the message, then went on around the cloister walk and into the church. The rain had sometime stopped but the sky was still low and gray, and the church, too, was gray with shadows. Even the light above the altar seemed dull and small as Frevisse curtsied toward it before passing through the rood screen, to wait for Elianor in the nave. While she waited, she slipped the parchments from her sleeve again, separated the bill of obligation from the deeds, slid the deeds back into her undergown’s sleeve but kept the bill in her hand, hidden in her overgown’s looser sleeve.

The girl came soon, alone and eagerly, saying as she rose from her curtsy to Frevisse, “You wanted to see me?”

“In truth,” Frevisse said, “I want to see Jack Rowcliff without his father, and by you seemed the best way to do it.”

While Elianor was still looking surprised at that, the west door, that she had shut behind her, opened again and Jack came in. Seeing Frevisse and Elianor together, he hesitated, but at Frevisse’s sharp beckon, he shut the door and came toward them. While he did, Frevisse said to Elianor, “If you would like to go beyond the rood screen and kneel in prayer at the altar, you have my leave to do it.”

Delight bloomed in Elianor’s face. She made a short curtsy and swiftly, happily, left Frevisse as Jack neared them. While he looked, confused, back and forth between Frevisse and Elianor’s departing back, Frevisse held up the bill of obligation in front of him. Pulling his heed away from Elianor, and thrusting his head close to the bill, he was probably just able to read it in the gray light, so that it was a moment before he realized what he was seeing. His eyes widened. He straightened sharply and asked in open surprise, “How did you come by that?”

Frevisse saw no alarm, no sudden wariness, no quick calculation going on across his face or behind his eyes, only the surprise. Not until she said, “Sister Cecely had it,” did his face tighten with alarm and anger.

“Hell’s fires,” he said. “We feared as much.” Sudden alarm took over from the anger. “Who else knows about it, knows it’s here?”

“Not your father,” Frevisse said dryly and watched him ease a little. So she had guessed rightly there. She slid the bill into her sleeve again. “Nor your cousin Symond yet, if that’s who you meant with saying ‘we.’ I mean to ask him about it, though.”

“But not my father!” That was clearly first in the youth’s concern.

“Symond first, and maybe not your father after that. It will depend on what Symond has to say.”

“He’s still too ill to talk.”

“I’ll wait until morning. He should be better by then. In the meanwhile, we shall hope no one else falls ill.” She very deliberately added, heavy with meaning, “And that Symond does not worsen.”

Jack frowned at her, seeming perplexed. Then he startled into understanding and burst out in confused protest, “You think he’s been…You don’t think I…You don’t mean you…” He could not seem to get the words out.

“Don’t I?” she challenged.

“That I…that Symond was…that I…” He still could not find the words and finally settled for, “No!”

“There’s good chance someone sickened him of a purpose, yes,” Frevisse said steadily. “And Master Breredon before him.”

“No!”

Believing him more with every protest he made, she relented enough to point out, “Better than that there be disease spreading among you all.”

“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “Maybe.”

“But better yet that no one knows the truth while we’re still trying to learn who did it.”

“Yes,” he agreed again, still doubtful.

“So you won’t say anything about it, even to your father,” she ordered. “Not before I’ve talked with Symond.”

Jack nodded slow agreement to that, too, before asking, “But if it’s tried again?”

“After two failures? I think they’ll be careful for a time.”

She prayed so, anyway-there being nothing else she could do about it for now.

Jack looked past her, toward Elianor, she supposed. Firmly gentle, she said, “She means to become a nun.”

Jack’s gaze snapped back to her. “Oh. But…her mother…”

“Is on the hunt for a husband for her. To her mother, you are no more than prey.”

That way of looking at it had plainly never crossed his mind before. At the change in his face as the thought took hold on him, Frevisse had to hold back a smile while ordering quietly, “Go back to the guesthall now.”

He bowed and went. She waited until he would have reached there and been there for a few minutes before she went herself for her end-of-day visit, to be sure all was as well there as it might be.

Thankfully, it was. At Mistress Lawsell’s inquiry after Elianor, she murmured that she had left her in prayer in the church; and when Mistress Lawsell showed sign of alarm and intent to go there to fetch her out, Frevisse said that the church was chill and damp and Elianor surely uncomfortable by now and she meant to go herself to send Elianor back to the guesthall.

That Elianor would be uncomfortable in the church satisfied Mistress Lawsell into leaving her daughter to Frevisse, and finished in the guesthall, Frevisse did return to the church, into the choir to Elianor kneeling at the foot of the two steps up to the altar. The girl’s hands were clasped, her eyes lifted to the cross, and she did not stir until Frevisse laid a hand on her shoulder and said, “Best you go now.”

Elianor looked up at her, blinking somewhat dazedly. Frevisse knew the feeling of coming back from some far place. It came from being deep into prayer, well beyond the bonds and boundaries of the world, and she waited patiently while the girl gathered herself back to here, to now, and stood up shakily, to make a deep curtsy to the altar and a lesser one to Frevisse before going slowly, silently away.

Frevisse herself went to her seat in the choir and sat gratefully down, there being small point in going elsewhere; the bell would surely soon ring for Vespers. She thought briefly of how Elianor’s deep quiet after prayer was a better sign toward nunhood than her high excitement had been. Then she let go of that thought and all others, not even trying to pray but simply sitting in stillness, giving both her mind and body respite from the need to think and the need to do, if only for this little, little while.