The Hunter's Tale

Chapter 9

In the morning Frevisse remembered, as she awoke, where she was and wished herself asleep again. She and Sister Johane had shared a truckle bed rolled from under Lady Anneys’ own in an upper bedchamber, and although she had stayed awake and upright long enough to undress down to her undergown and fold her clothing onto a nearby stool, she had noticed nothing beyond that, simply lain down and fallen to sleep. She had awakened when Lady Anneys came in with her daughters but only enough to realize that beyond the bedchamber there was a room that must be theirs. Then she had slept again. Now it was morning, with nothing she looked forward to about the day.

Wary of her aches and stiffness, she sat up. Lady Anneys’ bed had been slept in but she was not there now, and to judge by the open door and the quiet from the farther room, the girls were gone, too. That she had not heard them at all, as well as slept through her usual hours of prayer, told Frevisse how tired and deeply sleeping she must have been. Beside her, Sister Johane was still deeply sleeping and Frevisse took the chance to see better where they were. Someone had unshuttered the bedchamber’s one, unglassed window before they left, letting in the gray light of an overcast day, letting her see not only the wide bed that nearly filled the room but its faded, plain green curtains and the two large, flat-topped chests set along one wall with a hunting dagger in its sheath lying on one of them. There was a small table beside the door with a pottery pitcher and basin and a white towel on it. A man’s brown doublet and white shirt hung somewhat carelessly over the single wall-pole. Her own and Sister Johane’s travel bags were leaning against the wall beside the truckle bed. That was all.

It was not so much a bare room, Frevisse thought, as a barren room. As if someone had been here but not lived in it. Except for the man’s clothing and the dagger-the dead son’s, she realized; he would have slept here as the manor’s new lord, when his mother was gone-it was a room curiously empty of anyone. Even empty, a room usually carried some sense of who lived in it. This room was no one’s. Admittedly the young man had maybe had too little time to make it fully his own, but even though Lady Anneys must have lived and slept here for years and very probably birthed her children here, there was nothing of her either and there should be. Embroidered cushions on the chests for softer sitting. A plant on the windowsill. Bright painted patterns on the plaster walls or on the roof beams. A woven mat on the floor. Something that said someone belonged here. But there was nothing. As if she had never been here at all.

Frevisse made to crawl out of the bed, deliberately clumsy at it so that Sister Johane awoke, mumbled, rolled over, awoke a little more, enough to open her eyes and say, pleased, “We slept in. Wonderful. If we haven’t missed breakfast.”

“We’re late for Prime,” Frevisse answered.

“This morning?” Sister Johane protested. “Now?”

“Now,” Frevisse said.

Sister Johane sighed heavily but made no other protest. They dressed and took their breviaries from their bags and, kneeling on either side of the truckle bed, set to the shortened Office that was allowed to nuns when traveling. Sister Johane, despite Frevisse’s attempt to hold to a reasonable pace, rushed at the prayers and psalms, shortening the Offices more, reached the end with, “Et fidelium animae per misericordiam Dei requiescant in pace. Amen”-And the souls of the faithful through the mercy of God rest in peace-in a burst of speed, slapped her breviary closed, and was climbing stiffly to her feet before Frevisse had finished saying that final Amen. Another time Frevisse would have been irked into snapping at her for her haste-or, better, gently rebuked her-but just now the effort was too much and Frevisse let it go. Working her way to her own feet was trouble enough; but when Sister Johane headed for the stairs down to the hall while Frevisse was still slipping on her shoes, Frevisse said, “Sister,” just quellingly enough that Sister Johane stopped, abashed, and waited, as was proper, for Frevisse to lead.

The overcast sky made judging the time difficult but there had been sounds enough, both from outside and downstairs, for Frevisse to think the morning was well begun. She found, upon opening the door at the stairfoot, that indeed breakfast had already happened for some, but a pitcher and the ample remains of a cold meat pie still waited at one end of the high table, and Lady Anneys, Ursula, and the two girls Frevisse presumed were her other daughters were standing nearby it. The gray day, the hall in its shadows, and their mourning dresses-that they had begun to wear for one death and now would wear for two-made for more gloom. But presently, mercifully, no one was crying.

Frevisse admitted the ungraciousness of that thought even as she had it. She was still weary from yesterday’s ride, did not want to be here, did not know what was expected of her, and was altogether far from happy about anything. Was she supposed to give comfort to Lady Anneys? The woman had a son and three daughters who were surely better suited to that than a nun she barely knew. On yesterday’s long ride, Frevisse had considered that she was maybe meant to be a guard for Lady Anneys against that man who had troubled her at the nunnery. But surely he wouldn’t be so much a fool as to plague her with his attentions for this while.

There were no servants in sight but Ursula moved immediately to pour ale from the pitcher into two waiting cups while Lady Anneys said, weary-voiced but with attempted graciousness, “My ladies, good morrow.” Though “good” was probably the last thing the day seemed to her. She was pale and holding herself in the way of someone determined to go on despite a wound whose pain was almost overwhelming them. “Would you please to meet my other daughters?” She gestured to the older of the girls. “Lady Elyn.” Who was not so young as Frevisse had thought her by torchlight last night. She was not a girl but a young woman, and as she briefly curtsied, her mother said, “She’s wed to our neighbor Sir William Trensal.”

At mention of her husband, Lady Elyn turned away, stifling a sob.

“And this is Lucy,” said Lady Anneys.

A round-faced, half-grown girl who might have dimples when she smiled, Lucy made a curtsy and sniffed on tears that were not far from being shed.

Ursula, bringing the ale to Frevisse and Sister Johane, asked, “Would you like some of the hare pie, my ladies?”

When they said they would, she returned to the table to cut it, and Frevisse asked Lady Anneys, “How does it go with you this morning, my lady?”

“Not very well,” Lady Anneys answered quietly. “And it will go worse. I have to warn you the crowner will be here shortly. He arrived late yesterday and stayed the night with our priest in the village. He’ll hold his inquest here this morning, when he’s viewed Tom’s…” Her steadiness faltered. She took hold on it again and went on, “… when he’s viewed Tom’s body and the jurors have come.”

It was something that could not be avoided. A crowner’s inquiry must always come after any unexpected or violent death, to determine where guilt lay or if there was guilt at all; and who, if anyone, should be arrested; and whether the sheriff must needs be called in; and what fines were due to the king. All that would be far too familiar here already this summer, Frevisse thought. To go through it again was surely nightmare added to nightmare for Lady Anneys. But she also thought, as she thanked Ursula for the thick wedge of pie the girl now handed to her, that by hearing the inquest she would learn everything about this Tom’s death without need to ask questions of her own and that would be to the good, both for her curiosity’s sake and as help in giving better comfort to Lady Anneys afterward.

Lucy was rubbing at her eyes, murmuring that they hurt. They were red and swollen and probably salt-scalded with tears and Lady Elyn pressed her fingers to the outer corners of her own eyes, which looked no better, and said, “So do mine. We’ll look dreadful for the inquest.” Trembling toward a new siege of weeping, Lucy nodded agreement with that.

The unkind thought crossed Frevisse’s mind that besides their very real grief, they both were feeling very sorry for themselves at being so unhappy.

She was instantly sorry for that thought. Each person had to grieve in their own way, as best or worst, greatest or least they could; and very possibly their way was better than Lady Anneys’ stiff, braced quiet, as if she hardly dared move for fear of the hurt in her despite it would come no matter what she did or did not do.

Sister Johane, putting down her emptied ale cup and her partly eaten piece of pie, said, “Yes, your poor eyes. I have something that might help. An ointment that I brought. It’s meant exactly for soothing sore eyes. I have it with my things. If you’ll come to the bedchamber?”

Lucy nodded readily and Lady Elyn said, “Oh, please, yes,” and Frevisse felt even more contrite. Sister Johane offered needed help, while all she had were unkind thoughts that were no use to anyone.

“Mother, you’ll come, too?” Lady Elyn said as she and Lucy started toward the stairs with Sister Johane.

“Miles is here,” Lady Anneys said. “He probably has something to tell me. You go on.”

They did; and with a word of apology to Frevisse, Lady Anneys went the other way, Ursula following her like a small shadow afraid of being lost, down the hall toward a man who had just come in, the one who looked so much like Hugh, with a tall, brindled wolfhound at his side. Frevisse, quite abruptly left to herself, took her first chance to look freely around her while finishing her breakfast. The hall was a plain one, bare-raftered and small, paved with plain stone and without even a screens passage at the far end, just the door to the yard at one side and another door opposite it, presumably to the kitchen and whatever rest of the house there might be. Just as in the bedchamber, everything was plain and well-worn, including the aged and ordinary high-backed chair meant for the lord of the manor here at the high table. The only thing beyond bare necessity was a rather poorly painted tapestry on the wall behind the table, with hunters and hounds striding stiff-legged across a green field strewn with flowers after an oddly proportioned deer leaping away from them toward a grove of scrawny trees.

Servants had come into the hall now. One of them was heading toward the high table, probably to clear the breakfast things away. The others were starting to shift benches from along the walls into rows across the middle of the hall, facing the table. Finished eating and not minded either to sit or return upstairs or join Lady Anneys still in talk at the hall’s far end, Frevisse set down her cup for the servant to take and moved away toward the tall window at one end of the dais, out of everyone’s way.

The shutters were open, letting in air soft with coming rain. It seemed they had been fortunate in fair weather for their traveling yesterday. She stood looking out at the manor’s foreyard, still wishing she were elsewhere, until behind her someone said, “My lady?”

She turned around to find it was the young man who had been in talk with Lady Anneys, his hound still with him. Seen close to and by daylight, he was leaner than Hugh and perhaps a little taller but with the same brown hair and eyes and general look about him, she thought, as he bowed and said, “I’m Miles Woderove, Lady Anneys’ stepgrandson. She’s gone to be sure all’s going well in the kitchen. She asked me to ask if there’s anything you need or I could do for you.”

She looked at him, trying to decide if she dared ask what she wanted to know. He seemed the most calm, least grieved, of any of the family she had so far met, but as he looked steadily back at her, she took in the tight-drawn lines around his eyes, the thin line of his mouth, and judged that his calm was a shield he was barely keeping between himself and the world. So he was someone both controlled and deeply caring, and she said, though she had not thought it out beforehand, “Tell me what you can of how things are here, if you please.”

His eyes flickered. Stiffly he asked, “About Tom’s death, you mean?”

“No. I’ll hear enough and more than enough about that at the inquest. What I need to know… If I’m to help Lady Anneys at all, I need to have some thought of how things are, how they’ve been for her here.”

Either puzzled over what she meant or considering whether he should answer, Miles looked down at the dog beside him. From what little Frevisse knew of dogs, this was a very fine wolfhound, lean and long-legged like his master, alertly looking at her with dark, intelligent eyes, and so tall that Miles’ hand rested on his head without effort.

“I’ve gathered,” Frevisse said carefully, feeling her way, “that Lady Anneys doesn’t much grieve for her husband’s death.”

Miles’ head snapped up. The calm was gone. “Nobody grieves for Sir Ralph’s death,” he said curtly. “Even his own dog doesn’t grieve for him. You want to help Lady Anneys? Help her forget my late, unlamented grandfather ever existed.”

Frevisse had not expected that much of an answer. Falling back on the obvious, she said, “He wasn’t a good man?”

Miles made a sound too harsh to be laughter. “He was the human equivalent of something you’d scrape off the bottom of your shoe.”

Frevisse was so startled that she said, “He’s dead, and you still hate him that badly?”

“That badly and three times worse, my lady.”

If he could be so open, so could she. “Why?”

“Why? Because he had pleasure in only two things. Hunting and being cruel to everyone around him. Now that he’s gone, I enjoy being cruel about him.”

Frevisse had recovered enough balance by now to ask without showing particular feeling about it, “You’ve come back here on visit, now that he’s dead?”

Bitter laughter bent the corners of Miles’ mouth upward into what could not be called a smile. “I’ve never left, my lady. I tried. Twice. Once, when I was ten or so, I took off into the woods. He tracked me with hounds and beat me and brought me back. I tried again when I was fifteen and made a better go of it. That time he took three days to find me but brought men with him to hold me while he beat me. He said I was his heir and, by God’s teeth, I was going to stay where he could see to me.” He shrugged, maybe to shrug off the memory and the anger, looked down at the hound, and said, his smile all bitterly twisted to one side, “You shouldn’t have set me on to this.”

She maybe should not have, but now that she had, she said, “I thought Hugh’s brother Tom was the heir.”

“To everything Sir Ralph had purchased with his ill-taken fortune from his lawyer days in London, yes. All of that except what Sir Ralph left to Hugh and the girls went to Tom. But there’s a Leicestershire manor entailed from eldest son to eldest son to eldest son. That’s me, the only son of Sir Ralph’s only son by his first wife. Sir Ralph hated him, too.”

“Your mother is dead?”

“Long ago. Lady Anneys raised me.” Miles’ voice and smile lost their bitterness when he named her.

It was good to know his hatred did not reach to everyone around him and Frevisse asked, “Was Sir Ralph cruel to her, too?”

Miles slightly frowned, almost as if considering a riddle. “Sir Ralph would hit anyone else in his reach, even the girls-though rarely them and not Tom or Hugh or I since we grew big enough to hit back hard enough to make it count. But none of us ever saw him raise a hand against her. No, he never struck her. He never had much to do with her at all. She left him alone and he left her.”

But there were other ways than blows to hurt and ways of “leaving alone” that could cut to the heart, Frevisse thought. Aloud, she only asked, “There’s been no word of who killed him?”

“None,” Miles said sharply. “Nor no more searching either, I think. I hope they never catch who did it.”

“What about Tom? Was he like his father?”

“No.” Miles harshly refused that. “Tom hated him, too. We all did. But Tom…” Miles broke off. There seemed easily enough hatred in him to include the man who had inherited so much that might have been his if Sir Ralph had been other than he was, but rather than anger, it was grief that twisted Mile’s voice as he recovered and said, “After Hugh, Tom was my best friend. I could strangle Sir William with my own hands for killing him.”

“Sir William?” She had just heard of a Sir William here, she thought.

Miles’ spasm of grief was gone, the bitterness and anger back. “Our near neighbor. Lady Elyn’s husband.”

Yesterday, on the long ride to here, there had been no talk about Tom’s death. Frevisse had supposed everything had been said the night before between Lady Anneys and Hugh and to Ursula, leaving them with only the grim need to reach home. Faced with that, neither she nor Sister Johane had asked anything. Now Frevisse wished they had, because there seemed to be far too many things she ought to know-and no chance to ask them because Miles was turning away from her to look out the window into the yard where harness-jangle and the thudding of hoofs warned riders had arrived. Three men and a girl, Frevisse saw when she looked out, too, as Miles drew in a hissing breath and stepped back, saying, “St. Anne help us. He’s brought Philippa. My lady, that is Sir William and I doubt he has the good grace to wait in the yard until the crowner comes. Pray, excuse me.”

With a curt bow and not waiting for Frevisse’s answer, he went away toward the outer door, the hound beside him. Left on her own, Frevisse watched the newcomers, more accepting of Lady Elyn’s tears if her husband was indeed her brother’s murderer but wondering why, if he was known to be Tom Woderove’s murderer, this Sir William was riding free.

At least she could easily tell which of the three men he was. If his richer clothing-a long, high-collared, black houppelande and dark blue, brimless hat with a glinting, silver-set jewel pinned to it-and better horse-a black palfrey-had not told her, the speed with which one of the men with him, servant-dressed in simple doublet and hosen, dismounted and went to hold his bridle would have. And the girl, who must be Philippa, would be his daughter, Frevisse guessed. Not someone’s wife, anyway, because her long, fair hair was bound back but covered by only a black veil pinned to a small hat’s padded roll. A married woman or a widow like Lady Anneys would have worn a wimple that circled her face and hid her hair and been finished with a starched veil.

But the next moment Frevisse’s heed went from the girl to the man now lifting her down from her side-saddle. The other man who had ridden in with Sir William.

Master Selenger.

What did Master Selenger have to do with Sir William? He looked to be in attendance on Philippa but was too well dressed to be only servant.

Frevisse was suddenly deeply annoyed to be so ignorant of everything and everyone here.

The newcomers’ horses were being led away toward the stables and Master Selenger had led Philippa to Sir William, who was saying something to her. Though Frevisse could not see the doorway from where she stood, she guessed Miles was standing there, in their way, instead of going out to them, but if he meant some challenge to Sir William, he was forestalled by a half dozen more horsemen riding into the yard. Frevisse immediately judged them likely to be the crowner with his clerk and men, all dressed in a plain business way with loose surcoats over doublets and hosen and riding boots, and was disappointed that none of them was the one Oxfordshire crowner she knew. It would have been good to have a friend here.

Sir William and Master Selenger moved to meet them as they dismounted; or rather, they moved to meet the man who dismounted and stepped forward from among them, leaving his horse for someone else to hold. He wore authority as openly as he wore his fullsomely cut surcoat of deep-dyed dark green and seemed to greet both Sir William and Master Selenger familiarly.

Philippa had stayed where she was, standing alone; but now Miles came into sight, likewise crossing the yard toward the crowner and his men, and he paused by her to say something. His anger toward Sir William seemed not to include her. Whatever he said, she answered with a nod, and when he reached to touch her shoulder briefly, she briefly raised her own hand to touch his before Miles went onward to the men and Philippa toward the hall.

Having seen how much anger was in Miles, his gentleness toward the girl surprised Frevisse, and surprised her the more because it was toward someone linked to the loathed Sir William. But Hugh had appeared from somewhere beyond the hall, crossing the yard to join the crowner and Sir William, reaching them at the same time as Miles and putting himself with what looked like purpose between Miles and Sir William as they all greeted the crowner. It might have been by chance but Frevisse thought it was deliberate. From where she stood she could not tell if Hugh had the same anger toward Sir William that Miles did, though Miles’ rigid back was clear enough even from here.

The men spoke together for a few moments, then walked on toward the hall. Frevisse moved away from the window. Sister Johane, Lady Elyn, and Lucy were just returning to the hall. At its far end Lady Anneys, with Ursula still beside her, was in talk with a maidservant but finished and dismissed her as her daughters and Sister Johane approached her, Frevisse following behind them. But it was to Frevisse and Sister Johane she said, “My ladies, you’d do well to take a place on one of the benches before more people come, I think. Besides our own folk there’ll be neighbors surely, and whoever Sir William has brought, and the crowner’s men and jurors. There are to be ten jurors, I’m told. Five men of ours and five from Sir William’s manor. But…” Her flood of words suddenly stopped. She paused, bewildered, seemingly trying to remember why she had been saying any of that and why it mattered.

Frevisse, understanding the need to flee from overwhelming grief by clinging to practical things and how easy it was to stumble in that flight and be overtaken, hoped there was a strong quieting draught included in whatever Dame Claire had provided Sister Johane and that Lady Anneys could be persuaded to take it when this day was done; but for now she only said, “There’s no need to think about us, my lady. We’ll do well,” and went away with Sister Johane to the last of the three bench-rows facing the dais. For the ease of whoever came later, she and Sister Johane sat in the middle of the bench they chose so it could fill in to either side of them. Two other long benches-for the jurors, Frevisse supposed-had been set at an angle between the dais with its high table and the bench-rows, and presently two manservants were wrestling a long settle through a door behind the dais that Frevisse presumed led to the parlor since the other door there led to the stairs to the bedchambers. Once through the door, the men brought the settle down from the dais, lurching a little with its weight, and set it behind the jurors’ benches, facing the high table where the crowner would sit. That would be for Lady Anneys and her daughters, Frevisse guessed.

Not interested in benches, Sister Johane had twisted around to watch the outer door and said excitedly, “Someone’s arrived.”

“Sir William and the crowner,” Frevisse said. “I saw them from the window.”

Sister Johane twisted back to say low-voiced and close to her, “He’s Lady Elyn’s husband, did you know? Sir William, I mean. They’ve been married about two years and his daughter Philippa was going to marry this Tom who’s dead. That’s why he was at Sir William’s. To talk about the marriage. Only they quarreled and Sir William killed him by mistake, Lady Elyn says.”

“Is that why Lady Elyn is here instead of with her husband? Because he killed her brother?”

“Oh, no, not at all. She says nobody blames Sir William. It was a mistake. She’s here because, well, she was needed here more than there, with her mother being gone and all.” Sister Johane broke off and twisted around again to see what was happening.

Frevisse somewhat turned, too. The crowner, companioned with Miles, was greeting Lady Anneys where she stood with her daughters beside her not far inside the hall door. She gave him her hand and he bowed over it and spoke briefly to her before going on toward the dais with Miles, followed by a man who was probably his clerk, carrying a leather bundle of probably papers.

Sir William had come in behind them and now stepped forward, his hands held out to Lady Anneys, his voice carrying as he said, “Lady Anneys, I’m sorry beyond words for this. It was all…”

Lady Anneys, rigid, snatched her hands away from him and pressed them together over her heart. Sir William, his own hands still out, pleaded, “Lady Anneys, please. For Elyn’s sake if nothing else, don’t turn this to a quarrel between us. I never meant-”

She interrupted, her voice carrying as clearly as his. “It isn’t a quarrel between us, Sir William. All the anger in this world won’t bring Tom back to me. But I can’t… I won’t take the hand that held the knife that killed my son.”

Sir William looked down at his out-held right hand with the surprise of a man seeing a thing in a way he never had until now. Then he withdrew it, took a step back from her, and stiffly bowed. Lady Anneys as stiffly bowed her head to him in return and stood staring over his shoulder at nothing, waiting for him to go away. He looked at Lady Elyn and held out his hand to her. After a bare moment of hesitation and a flicker of her eyes toward her mother, she took it and he led her up the hall to the front bench.

In Frevisse’s ear, Sister Johane whispered, “Lady Elyn said her mother told her she must go with Sir William when the time came. She said Lady Anneys said there wasn’t choice to make between her husband and family. That they were wed and that was what she had to do.”

To Frevisse that spoke well of Lady Anneys, but now she was faced by Master Selenger and the girl Philippa, come in together behind Sir William. Master Selenger looked ready to speak to Lady Anneys but Philippa was hesitating, uncertain whether to she should do that or go immediately after her father. Lady Anneys, paying Master Selenger no heed at all, held out both her hands to the girl and said tenderly and smiling, “Philippa,” and with a grateful gasp Philippa moved quickly to take her hands, holding tightly to them and saying something too low to be heard. Lady Anneys answered quietly, too, then let her go, with a crisp nod and nothing else at Master Selenger, letting him know to keep his distance. He bowed silently and moved off with Philippa, taking her to sit on her father’s other side from her stepmother before seating himself on the bench directly behind them.

Since Sister Johane seemed to have learned a great deal in the while she was tending to Lady Elyn and Lucy, Frevisse whispered to her, “Who is Master Selenger?”

“Who?”

“The man who came in with Philippa just now?”

“Oh. I don’t know.”

“What does Lady Elyn say about having a stepdaughter not much younger than she is?”

“Not anything to me. They all grew up together, I think. Philippa and Lady Elyn and the others. So they know each other and all.”

Frevisse wondered whether that would make it harder or easier among them. And how difficult was it for Philippa to sit there beside her father, who had killed the man she was supposed to marry?

“The two families were close until now?” she asked.

“I gather so. Sir William and Sir Ralph were friends, from what Lucy was saying. They both loved hunting. Sir William and Lady Anneys are both executors of her husband’s will and that makes all this even worse because how are they ever going to deal together now?” She broke off as Hugh entered beside a shuffling old man in a priest’s black gown, then said, “That will be Father Leonel. Lady Elyn says he’s useless as a priest but that was what her father wanted, not somebody who’d try to change him. Lucy said she shouldn’t talk like that about their father or priests but Elyn said it’s the truth and she’ll say it if she wants to.”

Miles returned to Lady Anneys from seeing the crowner to the dais just as Hugh and the priest joined her. They all spoke low-voiced together and seemed to agree on something before Hugh went back outside and Miles, with Lady Anneys, Lucy, and Ursula following, led Father Leonel to the end of a bench near the settle. While the priest seated himself with the carefulness of stiff joints, Lady Anneys took her place on the settle with Lucy on one side of her and Ursula on the other and Miles took his place standing at the settle’s end, looking ready to do whatever Lady Anneys might need but also able from there to see whatever else went on in the hall.

Hugh and one of the crowner’s men came in with ten men. The inquest’s jurors. Five men from each manor, Lady Anneys said. They were all solemn and well-scrubbed, well-combed, and wearing their best clothes-plain, belted tunics in dull reds, blues, greens, browns, and loose hosen. They bowed to the crowner seated behind the high table where his clerk was laying out papers in front of him, and took their places on the benches set for them. Watching them, Frevisse saw there was no mistaking which five went together against the other five. Cold shoulders and wary looks told more than enough and for the first time Frevisse thought beyond the grief of the young man’s family to the raw possibility of open enmity between one manor’s folk and the other’s because of it. It was not usual for lesser folk to serve on a jury against someone like Sir William but here it might well be best because a decision reached among them would more likely be accepted on both manors.

Once they were sitting, however grudgingly with each other, the crowner looked down the hall and nodded to someone and a moment later people in quantity began to enter. They must have been gathering in the yard ever since Frevisse left the window. Neighbors, she judged-other gentry like Sir William and the Woderoves; mostly men, a few women. They filled the benches quickly. Two men with polite bows took the place to Frevisse’s right; a husband and wife sat to Sister Johane’s left. Later comers were directed by some of the crowner’s men to places along the side of the hall across from Lady Anneys and her daughters, and then the common folk were let in. They crowded quietly in, filling the hall’s end behind the benches. Manor folk, Frevisse decided with a quick look back at them. There were both sorrow and in-held anger in their faces. They were here to know for certain what had happened to their young lord and ready to make trouble over his death if things came to that. And that told Frevisse much more about Tom Woderove than the little she knew, because while it was one thing for his family to grieve his death, it was something more for people whose lives had been under his rule for ill or good to grieve for him, too.

From what she had so far heard, she doubted they had grieved for his father.

The crowner’s clerk, a solid, middle-aged man, stood up at the end of the high table and announced the inquest would now begin, bowed to the crowner with “Master Hampden,” sat down, took up a quill pen, and waited with it poised over an inkpot, paper ready in front of him.

The inquest went the usual way, with statements as to where it was and why and whose death was in question. It was established that Sir William Trensal and Hugh Woderove-now Master Woderove since his brother’s death-were the only witnesses, besides the deceased, to the actual occasion of the death. Master Hampden averred that he had viewed the body and that the only wound on it was a small cut to the right side of the neck that had been sufficient to sever a blood vessel. The deceased had then bled to death.

Lady Anneys, her head already bowed, shuddered. Ursula buried her face against her mother’s shoulder and Lucy openly sobbed. Lady Anneys put her arms around them.

There were no other marks or wounds upon the body, Master Hampden said, and Hugh was called forward to describe what had happened.

Frevisse, listening while Hugh told what had passed between his brother and Sir William, watched Lady Anneys and her daughters listening, too, and ached with how pointless the death had been. Pointless and, it would seem, never intended.

“You believe, from what you saw,” Master Hampden asked when Hugh had told of seeing the blood on Sir William’s penknife, “that Sir William was surprised to see the blood? That he had had no knowledge until then that he had stabbed your brother?”

“I believe that, yes,” Hugh said. “He looked surprised to find he was still holding the knife. Nor did he stab Tom. He…” Hugh made a gesture. “He just swept a hand at him like that. To make him back off.”

“Which Master Woderove did.”

“Yes.”

“Did he show any sign of knowing he was hurt?”

“No.”

“You saw no blood on him at the time?”

“No. He was wearing a dark red doublet. It must have hid that he was bleeding, and I was standing on the other side of him anyway. And he wasn’t there long. He said an angry thing or two more at Sir William and stormed out.”

“What happened then?”

“Sir William and I said a few things at each other. Then he saw the blood on his penknife and I knew Tom was hurt and went after him.”

“You overtook him before he reached home?”

“I saw his horse grazing at the roadside maybe a quarter mile from the yard here.”

“And your brother? When did you see him?”

“Not until I was nearly to him. He was stretched out in the shade of a tree there. He was lying down, face down, his head resting on one crooked arm. I thought he was sleeping. I thought…” For the first time the young man’s stiff attempt to say what he knew but feel nothing while he said it broke down. “I don’t know… what I thought,” he fumbled. “Then I turned him over and saw he was… dead.”

Lady Elyn broke into open sobs. Lucy in the circle of her mother’s arm and Ursula huddled against Lady Anneys’ other side could cry no harder than they were, but Lady Anneys sat with lifted head, looking dry-eyed at her son. Only the pleading in her haunted eyes begged for it to be over soon. Frevisse saw Master Hampden glance toward her before going on to ask what Hugh had done next.

“I cried out. I stood up and I shouted for help.”

“Who were you shouting to?”

“No one. Anyone who could hear me.”

“There was no one there who might have seen your brother fall?”

“I didn’t see anybody.”

“But somebody came?”

“Finally. From one of the further fields where they were barley-harvesting. Somebody heard me and some of the men came and we carried Tom home.”

“But they hadn’t heard or seen anything before then?”

“No.”

“Are those men here?”

Hugh moved one hand toward the jurors. “There. In front.”

The five men on the nearest bench acknowledged that with nods.

“So you were first-finder of the body but they came immediately afterwards.”

“Yes.”

“What did you do then?”

The questions and answering went on, through sending one of the men running for Father Leonel while the others carried the body to the hall, to sending one of the manor men to Sir William to tell him Tom was dead and to bring Lucy and Lady Elyn back to Woodrim to sending another manor man away to find out and tell the crowner he was needed.

“You didn’t send or go yourself to seize Sir William,” Master Hampden said. “Why?”

Hugh had to have known that question would come. By law and under penalty of fine, the first-finder of a body, when the murderer was known, had to raise the hue and cry and, joined by everyone who heard him, pursue the murderer. If taken, the murderer was then to be held until the crowner came and claimed him into custody. But firmly Hugh said, “I saw no likelihood Sir William would seek escape. He knew and I knew that he never meant harm to Tom. It was chance and nothing else that Tom… died.” He choked on the word and for the first time bent his head, tears thick in his voice.

Master Hampden drew a penknife from under the papers in front of him, laid it on the open palm of his hand, and held it out for Hugh to see. “Is this the penknife you saw in Sir William’s hand when your brother was wounded?”

Hugh raised his head and looked. “Yes.”

Master Hampden asked the jurors if they had any questions of their own for him. They did not and Master Hampden thanked him and bade him sit down.

Sir William was next. He was solemn, as well he should be, but he carried himself assuredly. To the crowner’s questions he said much the same things as Hugh had. That he had asked Master Woderove to come to him in order to discuss the planned marriage. That they had somehow fallen into a quarrel, Sir William was not sure how. “One nothing thing leading to another. That was all. He had his father’s hot humour and Sir Ralph could go into a fury over things most men would not.”

There was general head-nodding agreement from the Woodrim manor men of the jury and among the onlookers. Master Hampden noted it. It was his task to learn as much as he could about what had happened and where blame should be laid, if blame there should be, and because he had the right of inquest, he had the power to ask all the questions he could think to ask and to expect answers for them under oath; but he was also expected to make use of anyone who best knew the accused and victim, to better understand what might lie behind and around the actual crime itself. So the jury was made of local men and a competent crowner gave them heed.

Frevisse had known a crowner who, unless forced to it, never bothered with more than his own opinion of who the guilty should be. He had been a dangerous man in his narrow way and she was thankful to find that Master Hampden was a different sort.

He was come now to the moment Sir William had struck at Tom. “He leaned toward you and you swept your hand with the penknife in it at him. Is that what you say?”

“And that I’d forgotten I was holding the knife, yes.”

“Were you frightened at that moment? Did you fear he was going to attack you?”

“No, sir, I was not frightened. He was angry, he was leaning too close, I wanted him to stand back. That was all. I never meant even to touch him. I didn’t know I had.”

“But you admit that you did?”

“I must have but I was unaware of it at the time.”

Outside the day had grown grayer and the rain begun to fall, soft as weary weeping. The questioning went on. Sir William readily admitted the penknife was his own, the one he had had that day, and agreed that, yes, it was very sharp; penknives had to be able to trim tough quills to usable points.

“What did you do after Master Woderove and then his brother left you?” Master Hampden asked.

“I called one of my servants to saddle my horse and set out after them both, to find out how badly Tom… Master Woderove was hurt. I meant to apologize, before the matter could fester into something worse.”

“You were not angry?”

“I was irked it had come to this. A petty quarreling for no good reason except he was young and hotheaded. But I was not angry. I simply wanted to end it before it worsened.”

“In regard to Master Woderove’s death, what would you say you’re guilty of?”

“Of misadventure,” Sir William replied firmly. “I didn’t strike at him with intent to hurt, much less to kill. I didn’t mean to strike him at all.”

Master Hampden gave the jurors their turn to ask whatever questions they might have, but they had few and Sir William was permitted to sit again. They asked to see and handle the penknife and then talked among themselves, twisted around on the benches, heads close together, and Frevisse noted the stiff wariness among them was gone. When they had finished and all faced forward again, Master Hampden asked if they had come to a conclusion and one of the Woodrim men stood up to say that to all their minds Master Woderove’s death had been by misadventure. The other jurors all nodded their agreement and after that everything was nearly done. Master Hampden asked if there were three men here who would stand bond for Sir William to appear at the next county court. Five men among the onlookers stood up. Master Hampden accepted all five, told them to speak to his clerk, and declared the court ended.

People who had been standing began shifting from where they stood. Those who had been sitting began to stand up, Sir William among them. He turned to say something to the men behind him. He would almost surely be found guilty of lesser manslaughter at the county court and somewhat fined for it, but from everything that had been said here, he had no great guilt in Master Woderove’s death. So far as the law was concerned, the matter was all but done. All that was left, Frevisse thought as she stood up along with everyone else, was for the two families to come somehow to peace with each other and to terms with their grief. If there had been outright murder done, there would have been a harsh sundering of one kind or another-outright rage at Sir William and maybe crude satisfaction for his punishment-but because it had been mischance, not murder, somehow, for the sake of everyone, there would be healing.

At least Frevisse, watching Lady Elyn rise and go to her mother, prayed there would be.