The Bishop's Tale

Chapter Seventeen

Overnight, hoarfrost had whitened the world -grass and trees and roofs prickled with it. Ice rimmed theblack moat waters. A haze blurred the nearer trees; therewere no distances. The cold that had crept around the windowedges yesterday now thrust deeply into the parlor, so that thecomfort of the fire was barely felt beyond an arm’s length from theflames.

Warm in his ample robes of fine wool, theoutermost one magnificently fur-lined, Beaufort had chosen to sitat the room’s far end, where he could watch everyone as theyentered, and when they had greeted him and respectfully kissed hisepiscopal ring and moved away, observe them while they moved andtalked among themselves.

Dame Frevisse had come to him last night, hadasked him to arrange this gathering under the guise that CountessAlice wished to ease the enforced stay of both Sir Clement’s familyand the three other guests waiting to testify to the crowner. Beaufort had suggested to Dame Frevisse then that she might preferto leave it now to the crowner’s hand. “Master Geoffrey iscompetent. He’ll make the best use of whatever you have, andthank you for it. You’ve done sufficiently, and I thank youfor it,” he had told her.

But she had bent her head respectfully butanswered, “By your leave, this is a thing I’d like to finish if Imay.”

“And you think you can by bringing them alltogether?”

“All together and unsuspecting. Yes, Ithink so.”

There had been various arguments he couldhave raised, or he could simply have refused, but her firmness ofpurpose and cleverness in the matter so far had both amused andinterested him. He wanted to know how much more she could do,and had seen to Countess Alice’s agreement without explaining toher why he asked the favor.

So they were all here now, with Dame Frevissesitting quietly to one side with the other nun, both of them drawninto the anonymity of their habits and veils. Beaufortcarefully cast them no more than a rare glance, but he judged thatDame Frevisse was watching the others around the room as carefullyas he was – and with more knowledge of them than he had, for shehad not fully explained either what she had learned with herquestioning or what she intended to do this morning. He hadbegun to find her intelligence and her strong, carefully controlledwill disconcerting, as he had always found Thomas’.

The two knights and lady, who were simplythere because they had sat too near Sir Clement at the feast, werein talk with Suffolk. Beaufort gave them scant attention; hehad gathered that neither they nor Suffolk had any part in DameFrevisse’s suspicions.

Countess Alice, her mourning black becomingto her fairness, was standing with Lady Anne, their two headsleaned close together, the girl listening and nodding wide-eyed towhat Countess Alice was saying. She was a pretty child, butBeaufort was not much moved by prettiness. It was a fleetingthing; hers would probably not outlast her youth, a fact that hadundoubtedly escaped the young fool who intended to marry her. He was standing beside her now, clearly proud that she was his.

The nephew who would have nothing out of SirClement’s death stood apart from everyone else, Beaufortnoted. He held a goblet of the warmed, spiced wine theservants were passing around and was watching one person and thenanother in the talk around him. It was a pity that he lookedso like his uncle. That alone would be enough to set peopleagainst him. Though he looked like his mother, too, come tothat. Beaufort had known her slightly. How a long-jawed womanwith the temper that matched her brother’s had ever managed tomarry for love was beyond Beaufort’s understanding, but shehad. And, in the long run, fairly well ruined her son’s lifeby doing so. The only thing young Dey had brought out of thewreck others had made of his life so far was his apparentdispassion.

Which was more than that usher fellow had,standing there by the door, bustling servants in and out. Beaufort wished it was possible to put something heavy on his headto hold him flat on his feet for a while. Why had Matildachosen such a creature?

At least she was not here. She showedno sign yet of rising from her bed, and no one had suggested thatshe should.

Sire Philip came in behind another servantbringing a tray of small tarts – if nothing else, they’d bewell-fed when this was done. Yesterday Dame Frevisse hadseemed sure Sire Philip was clear of the murder. She hadseemed less sure last evening, to Beaufort’s concealedannoyance. Sire Philip was too clever and too potentiallyuseful a man to lose if it could be helped.

Beaufort watched as he paused to speak toyoung Dey, too low to be heard, and then came on to make hisobeisance. Beaufort received it absently, noting over hisshoulder that whatever he had said to young Dey, it brought nochange to Dey’s face. The young man had not even nodded oranswered, only taken a tart from the servant waiting beside himwith the absent gesture of someone hoping to be left alone.

With Sire Philip’s coming, everyone expectedwas here. Beaufort looked toward Dame Frevisse. Sheraised her head to meet his gaze and with the slightest downwardtwitch of it told him she was ready for him to begin. Hopingshe indeed knew what she was about, Beaufort stood up.

Everyone’s attention came around to him,their conversations falling away to silence. He waited untilthe quiet was complete and even a little drawn-out, then said, “Youhave not wondered why you were all asked here, thinking it was onlyfor courtesy’s sake. But there was other purpose in it. I pray you, give heed to Dame Frevisse.”

He sat down again, and every head turnedtoward her. Rising in her turn, hands folded into hersleeves, her expression mild, she said in her clear, carrying voiceto all of them together, “His grace the cardinal bishop ofWinchester has believed from the very first that Sir Clement didnot die by God’s hand but was murdered.”

Various degrees of consternation and surpriseshowed on every face, but Dame Frevisse went steadily on and no onespoke out.

“He asked me to learn what I could of how hewas killed and by whom. In some ways, I’ve learned a greatdeal. In others, not enough. There were very manypeople who disliked Sir Clement, and some who hated him, whoprobably hate him even now. But of those, only a few hadchance to strike at him during the feast, and all of those who hadthat chance are here now.”

While the others mostly glanced around ateach other with rousing alarm, Suffolk took a step toward her andsaid with authority suitably edged with indignation, “You’re sayingthat you accuse one of us of killing him?”

“Yes.”

Suffolk opened his mouth to respond, butBeaufort quietly raised the fingers of his right hand from thecurve of the chair arm, and Suffolk subsided. Dame Frevissecontinued, “It had to be someone well aware of Sir Clement’spenchant for asking God to strike him down. That could beanyone who had ever been around him any length of time. Butit also had to have been someone able to poison him at thefeast.”

The word “poison” whispered around the roomfrom one to another. Dame Frevisse’s gaze traveledimpartially over everyone there, taking in their variedexpressions. Beaufort could not tell if she lingered on onelonger than the others. “I considered that he might have beenactually ill or even touched by God at the feast, and only poisonedlater in the room where he was taken to recover. But fromwhat I’ve learned, he was surely poisoned at the feast, in front ofall of us, by someone able to take advantage of the moment when hewould almost certainly demand God’s judgment. Someone whoknew about a poison so specific to Sir Clement that no one elsewould be harmed by it, whoever ate with him.”

Suffolk exclaimed, “That’s nonsense! There’s no poison that specific!”

“There is,” interposed Beaufort. “Wehave authority for it. And she has my authority tocontinue.”

They exchanged glances, and Dame Frevissesaid, “For a great many people, Sir Clement was only an annoyance,to be tolerated when he couldn’t be avoided. For others, hewas a very real danger. Sire Philip-” Startled gazesturned on the priest where he stood to one side of the room. He met them with a slight bow of his head and a calmexpression. “-was threatened by Sir Clement’s assertion thathe was born unfree. And so was his brother, Master Gallard,and while Sire Philip seems to have had no way to come at SirClement’s food during the feast, Master Gallard very definitelydid.”

Master Gallard gaped at her from the doorway,switched his shocked look to his brother, and returned his stare toDame Frevisse, his mouth working at unvoiced protests.

“And there is Jevan Dey, who served SirClement all through the feast, handled every dish that went to him,and hated him perhaps more fully than anyone.”

Jevan met the looks turned his way with thesame dispassion he had shown before.

“Lady Anne who sat next to Sir Clement at thefeast had every dish within her reach once it was served. Andthe goblet they both drank from. She loathed SirClement-”

“And still do,” Lady Anne saidfiercely. Guy took hold of her hand, warning her to silence,but she went on, “I hope he’s burning deep in Hell!”

Beaufort said, “That’s as may be, but not thequestion here.”

Dame Frevisse continued relentlessly. “If she went against Sir Clement’s will in her choice of marriagewhile still in his wardship, he could have ruined her with all thefines the law allows in such a matter. Worse, if he forcedher to marry him, she could never marry Guy, her own choice. She had compelling reason to want Sir Clement dead as soon as mightbe.”

“Then so did I!” Guy put his armpossessively, protectively, around Lady Anne’s waist.

“Yes,” Dame Frevisse agreed. “Andseated as you both were, on either side of him, you could haveworked together, one of you distracting him while the other put thewalnuts in – what? The meat pie? Finely ground, theywould have gone unnoticed-”

Sire Philip’s sharp movement broke across herwords. He closed the distance between himself and Jevan in asingle stride, seized Jevan’s wrist and jerked it down, away fromhis mouth. In rigid, silent struggle, Jevan pulled againsthis hold. But Dame Frevisse must have seen him move nearly assoon as Sire Philip had; she was there, taking the unbitten tartout of Jevan’s hand.

“No,” she said gently. “No moreJevan. Not sin added to sin.”

With a deep, shuddering breath, Jevan wentslack in Sire Philip’s hold. His eyes were no longerexpressionless but bitter and exhausted and hopeless all togetheras he looked at her and said, “Don’t you suppose it might be amercy? To die as he did could be expiation of a kind.”

“To die by your own hand is damnation,” SirePhilip returned, still holding on to him.

Jevan threw back his head, like a runner atrace’s end trying to draw breath enough to steady himself. His chest heaved with his effort, and then he said in a voicecruelly edged with pain, “I was born in the wane of the moon, wheneverything goes assward!”

He looked across the little distance to LadyAnne, and the cruelty was gone into great gentleness. “I’vebought your happiness for you. May you live gladly init.”

“Oh, Jevan!” Lady Anne cried out. “Youkilled him!” as if only then did she truly understand. Buther words broke the blank incomprehension on Guy’s face. Hestarted for Jevan with clenched fists rising. “You killed himand meant to make it seem I did it! You bellycrawling cur, I…”

Master Gallard came in front of him, stoppinghim with a hold on his arm that Guy, with his first angry tugagainst it, discovered he could not break.

“No.” Dame Frevisse cut her voiceacross Guy’s. “That’s exactly what he never meant tohappen.” She was still looking only at Jevan, with a sadnessBeaufort did not understand. And Jevan was looking back ather, the two of them alone with what she had to say, despite thepeople all around them. “You took great trouble and waited along while, I’d guess, for the chance to kill Sir Clement in a waythat would keep suspicion away from everyone. A great feastwith many people present, where Sir Clement would inevitably findoccasion to stand up and demand God’s judgment on himself, and noone suspected of his death when it came because how likely was itany of us had seen a man die the way Sir Clement did? Isn’tthat how you meant it to be? And when you realized here thatyou’d failed, that we knew it was murder after all, you meant toeat that tart full of walnuts, and die the way he did.”

To her and no one else, Jevan said, “When Iwas small, he ate some once by accident. I saw what they didto him. It made him angry, both that it happened and that Isaw him that way. So he made me eat some, forced them downme, and laughed when I broke out in the rash and itching. Hiswas worse, but he said it was like that, that it had happened tohim before and each time it was worse. It happened one othertime, later. He nearly died of it then, so I hoped that if ithappened again, it would kill him.”

“And when you decided you couldn’t bear himalive anymore, for your own sake and for Lady Anne, youremembered,” Dame Frevisse said.

“I remembered. And waited, as you said,a long while, with the packet of ground nuts in my belt pouch,until I saw what I thought was my chance.” He spoke almost asif by rote; as if the thing had grown dull with repeating tohimself too many times. “I saw the meat pies being made whenI talked to the cook that morning. Their crusts wereblind-baked, the top crust separate from the bottom, the fillingput in later. The top crust was only set on, notsealed. In the crowding and hurry of serving, it was easy tobump the top of Sir Clement’s pie awry and step aside as if to setit right. What I did instead-” His control wavered; hepaused to draw a steadying breath. “What I did instead, withmy back to everyone, was scatter the walnuts – I had them ready inmy hand – over the meat filling and put the crust back on. Noone was likely to notice me enough to remember I’d even done it, orthink it mattered, if they did.”

“But in the room, when he began to be better,how did you poison him again?” Dame Frevisse asked.

“I didn’t. It’s taken him that waybefore, seeming to ease and then coming on again. And thistime it came on strongly enough to kill him.”

“You meant for us to believe it was God whokilled him!” said Suffolk indignantly.

Murmurs and exclaims angry or shocked beganto run among everyone in the room, but Beaufort bore over themwith, “Why did you do it? No matter how much you hated him,you had so little to gain from his death. Certainly notenough to so imperil your soul. Why did you do it?”

In a proud, dead voice, Jevan said, “I had nohope anymore for myself, whether he was dead or living.” Helooked toward Lady Anne. “But I could set her free to gowhere her heart wants to.”

“But Jevan-” Lady Anne, in the circleof Guy’s arm, reached uncertainly for words. “-you know Ilove Guy. That I’ve always loved him. That I don’t loveyou.”

With a brilliance of pain in his eyes searedby cold hopelessness, Jevan answered, “I know,” and lookedaway.

Darkness drew in early under the close sky,and the freezing cold crept with it. There was no fire inChaucer’s library now, and Frevisse and Dame Perpetua sat closetogether, saying Compline by a single candle’s light among theshadows. They had come here because Frevisse needed time awayfrom all the day’s demands. Jevan’s confession had only beenthe beginning. At Suffolk’s orders, he had been taken underguard to be kept for the crowner’s coming, but Frevisse had had tostay and deal with everyone else’s questions and exclaims, untilword came that rumor of what had passed had reached Aunt Matildaand she wished her niece’s presence.

Then everything had had to be repeated andexplained again, but at the end of it, Aunt Matilda had beensitting up in bed, eating broth and bread with more vigor than shehad shown in days while exclaiming over the rudeness of committingmurder at a funeral. “Though if someone was going to bemurdered, Sir Clement was the best choice. I never likedhim.”

The crowner’s arrival had been announcedthen, and Frevisse had been summoned to his presence and BishopBeaufort’s. He had proved to be a quiet, listening man, andshe had detailed everything for him more deeply than she had toanyone else, down to why she had set the trap as she had.

“Among the three best able to poison SirClement, there was no way to prove who did it, no way to disproveany denial they might make. Jevan told me himself thatwalnuts made his uncle ill. That made me think he might beinnocent. But then again, he could simply not have beencareful to conceal it because he didn’t know there was anysuspicion of murder and so a need for silence. On the otherhand, Guy’s and Lady Anne’s silence about the nuts could have beeninnocence – they didn’t know it was important and so said nothing -or guilt – a concealing of a dangerous fact. There was no wayto tell. What I did know was that according to Galen eventouching a food that ill affects a person the way these nuts didSir Clement can bring on a rash and itching. I rememberedthat at Sir Clement’s death, while we stood nervously around,someone was rubbing his hand against his thigh. Rubbing andrubbing as if with nerves. Or with a terrible itching. I could remember that but not who it had been. Guy or Jevan,I thought, but it made me think the murderer might, like SirClement, be made ill by the nuts, that he had handled them at leastbriefly and been affected. So I asked for everyone to bebrought together, and had the cook make tarts with walnuts in them,not plainly but so that someone would have to be holding one beforehe noticed. Then I watched to see who would take one and noteat it.”

“And Jevan Dey did not,” the crownersaid.

“Jevan Dey did not.” And so she hadfound her murderer. And nearly lost him when he realized thathis attempt to keep everyone from suspicion had failed and tried todie the death he had given his uncle.

What she did not know yet was how Sire Philiphad known to stop him in time.

But meanwhile, she had given a murderer overto justice, and in some part of her that was the beginning ofreparation for her choices of last spring. But in her mindshe still saw Jevan as he was led from the parlor by Suffolk’s men- an alone young man who would hang before spring came.

She and Dame Perpetua finished Compline’sprayers. Quiet closed around them, but neither of themmoved. Quiet, even among the cold and shadows, was a blessingjust then.

A soft footfall outside the door told themwhen their respite was past. Frevisse braced herself forwhatever demand was coming now, and at the small knock said,“Benedicite,” in what she hoped was a welcoming voice. From the glance Dame Perpetua gave her, it was not.

Sire Philip entered, carrying anothercandle. Despite his shielding hand as he crossed the room,its light jumped and fluttered, dancing the shadows around eachother until he set it down on the table beside the nuns’ smalllight. He looked around. “No Master Lionel?”

“Gone to his bed, I hope,” Frevissesaid. “Even he has to give way to the necessities ofnight.”

“As you gave way to Bishop Beaufort’snecessity.”

So he had not come by chance, but with a need- like her own – to talk about what had happened. ButFrevisse could not read his tone to understand his feeling in thematter. She looked at him questioningly. “You’d ratherI hadn’t done this?”

“I’d rather Jevan had had longer to workthrough the torments in himself to some sort of better peace. He came to me here yesterday to make confession.”

“That’s how you knew to stop him from eatingthe tart.” And why he had not said he had been in talk withJevan afterward.

Sire Philip nodded. He looked as tiredas she felt, but like her, he could not let the day go yet. “He confessed the murder and his abiding hatred for Sir Clementeven after his death, and his hopeless disbelief in God’smercy. Given more time – time he may not now be given – hemight win free of them and go to his death with a clearersoul.”

“Or there might not be enough time from hereto the world’s end.” Frevisse did not try to conceal her painat that. “His wounds were as long as his life.”

“And as deep.”

“At least you stopped him from killinghimself. For murder there can be repentance and a chance forHeaven. For suicide, he would have been damned withouthope.”

“It was his living without hope that drovehim to do what he did,” Sire Philip said gravely.

Frevisse thrust her hands further up hersleeves, huddling in on herself for warmth against the cold thatwas more than outward. “I could easily find myself in thatsin.”

Sire Philip’s smile was so slight as to bealmost unseen in the candled darkness. “But his grace thebishop will remember you as a good and useful servant for yourservice to him.”

“I’d rather he didn’t,” Frevisse saidcurtly. “I’ll stay the while that Aunt Matilda needsme. Then Dame Perpetua and I will go back to St. Frideswide’sand that, please God, will be the end of it.”

“Nothing is so simple as it ought to be,”Dame Perpetua pointed out firmly.

“Especially justice,” Sire Philip added.

“Especially justice,” Frevisse echoed. But justice did not seem enough. It answered too few things,and most particularly Jevan’s despair that, at the last, hadbetrayed him more than her attempts to reach the truth. Shestood up. “There must be somewhere in this house warmer thanhere. Let’s go there.”