The Hunter's Tale

Chapter 10

The crowd thinned as the manor folk shifted out the door. The rain was still lightly falling, barely enough to dampen anyone or harm the harvest-ready crops, but there would have been no work in the fields today even without the inquest and the manor folk were not heading out to work again, merely removing themselves now that they were satisfied about their lord’s death. Some of the neighbors and others who had come were in talk with Sir William; others were going to Hugh; the five men who had offered to stand bond for Sir William were with the crowner’s clerk at the high table; most of the women were gathering toward Lady Anneys.

Beside Frevisse, Sister Johane said, “At least it’s over.”

The inquest was, Frevisse thought; but nothing else. “When will the funeral be?” she asked.

“I think we’re meant to go from here to the church for it.” Sister Johane lowered her voice and leaned close to say, “It’s been four days.” As if it were a secret that burial now would be best since no body would keep for long in this warm weather.

Frevisse made no answer. She was watching Sir William excuse himself from the men with whom he had been in talk and went toward Lady Anneys. Miles, seeing him, too, moved to Lady Anneys’ side. Frevisse, finding herself very interested in what would be said among the three of them, went, with Sister Johane following her, to join the cluster of people drawing away to either side to let Sir William reach Lady Anneys, who stood stiffly looking at him, saying nothing when he stopped in front of her.

“Lady Anneys,” he said, holding out his hand as he had before, “let it end here?”

“Let what end here?” she said back at him. “My son’s death?”

Sir William did not withdraw his hand. “I’m acquitted of guilt in that.”

“You’re acquitted of willful guilt,” Lady Anneys said quietly. “You never purposed Tom’s death. I accept and believe that. I hope in return you’ll accept that my pain is still too new for me to be willing toward peace with you.” She looked down at his out-held hand. “And that is still the hand that killed my son.”

Sir William had begun to redden above his collar. He drew his hand back. “We can’t ignore each other. By Sir Ralph’s will you and I must-”

“Work together. I know. But not for this while. Not soon.”

Sir William’s color deepened. Frevisse suspected he was not used to being interrupted or refused, and Lady Anneys had just done both.

At Lady Anneys’ side, Miles said-as quietly as Lady Anneys but with warning below the words, “Leave it, Sir William.”

Sir William’s eyes narrowed with the anger he had been holding back from Lady Anneys, but Hugh slipped between people to his side and said calmly, respectfully, “Master Hampden asks leave to speak with you, if you please, Sir William.”

Sir William turned his head, looking as ready to snap at Hugh as at Miles, except that Hugh added, “And Philippa would like to speak with my mother, if she may.”

As Lady Anneys said with warm affection, “Of course she may speak with me,” Sir William’s angry look went to Philippa standing just behind Hugh, then shifted quickly back and forth between them, his anger giving way to some other thought, and with a curt bow of his head to Lady Anneys, he stepped from Philippa’s way and went toward the crowner at the high table. A look passed between Hugh and Miles, agreeing on something before Hugh followed Sir William and Miles turned to talk with several men nearby. Lady Anneys, keeping one arm around Ursula, took Philippa by the hand with her other hand and drew her close so they could talk with their heads close together, leaving Lady Elyn and Lucy to the other women come to offer their comfort and regrets. Sister Johane shifted to join them, but Frevisse drifted away in Sir William and Hugh’s wake with some vague purpose of speaking at least briefly to the crowner.

That proved easier than she had supposed it might. Whatever Master Hampden had to say to Sir William was short. Well before Frevisse was near, Sir William had gone on along the table to where the five men who were to stand his bond were signing papers for the clerk and pressing their seals to wax. Hugh in his turn said something to Master Hampden, who answered him and then Hugh went away, too, toward the hall’s outer door where Father Leonel was waiting for him.

Taking her chance, Frevisse stepped onto the dais across the table from Master Hampden, who was now gathering together his papers. He looked up, gave a slight bow in answer to the respectful bending of her head to him, and asked, “May I help you, my lady?”

“I’m Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide’s priory.”

“I know of it. A worthy house. You’re here as comforter to Lady Anneys, I believe.”

She slightly bent her head to him again, admitting that but saying, “I met one of your fellow crowners a few years ago. Master Christopher Montfort. I wondered if you could tell me how he does?”

Master Hampden smiled. “Young Christopher. Yes. I saw him two weeks or so ago. He was in fine health and doing well. He’s to be married close on to St. Edward’s Day, I hear.”

Frevisse expressed her pleasure at that and said, before Master Hampden could excuse himself or else his clerk come to rescue him, “I’m here because Lady Anneys was visiting her youngest daughter at the priory when word came of her son’s death. As you said, Sister Johane and I hope to give what help and comfort we can. Our trouble is that we hardly know the family and fear we’re as likely to say the wrong thing as the right in trying to comfort her. We don’t want to pry among the servants to learn more and know no one else to ask. Could you, as someone outside it all, tell me something about Lady Anneys’ husband’s death and how things seem to you here, so we’d have a better chance of giving help instead of hurt?”

Master Hampden considered that with a slight, not unfriendly frown. Farther along the table Sir William and the other men had finished their business with the clerk and were going away. The clerk, gathering up his papers, pens, and ink, was watching with a careful eye to see if Master Hampden wanted rescuing or not, and with a small lift of one hand, Master Hampden let him know no rescue was needed yet before saying to Frevisse, “I can willingly tell you everything that’s generally known. Come aside and we’ll talk.”

They went along their opposite sides of the table, Master Hampden pausing to say a few words to his clerk before meeting Frevisse at the window, much where she had stood in talk with Miles. By then Master Hampden had a question of his own and asked, “How much do you know, or understand, about the Woderove family?”

“I’ve gathered that Sir Ralph was its head. Miles is his grandson and heir by a first son long dead, by a first wife also long dead. Lady Anneys is Sir Ralph’s second wife and by her he had two sons and three daughters that I know of. The eldest daughter is married to Sir William. Sir Ralph was murdered earlier this summer, no one knows by whom. All I’ve heard is that he was killed while hunting. What I know about Tom Woderove’s death I heard here, just now, but he seems mourned by everyone while no one seems grieved for Sir Ralph at all.”

She stopped and waited and Master Hampden said, “You have all of that right, especially about Sir Ralph. The inquest on his death was very different from this one. You can see the grief there is for Master Woderove. I don’t think anyone at all minded Sir Ralph was dead. The suddenness of his death had them thrown off balance but there was no grief.”

“Why?” Although, after talk with Miles, she had some thought about that.

“He seems to have been a brutal man. As part of finding out who might have wanted him dead I asked about him elsewhere as well as here. There was no good report to be had of him anywhere except somewhat from Sir William, who was as near to a friend as he had, I gather. They had both been lawyers and shared a love for hunting. Aside from that, the only other person Sir Ralph even somewhat got on with was his son Hugh-Master Woderove as he is now that his brother is dead. He served as his father’s huntsman and saw to his hounds. He inherited them at his father’s death, I believe. For the most part, though, Sir Ralph was careless about people. Or maybe he was deliberately cruel. I think ‘cruel’ is the correct word in his case. I only ever met him in passing and have had mostly to go by what I gather from other people. Either way, there was no mourning for him here. In helping Lady Anneys, it’s only her son’s death you need worry for and about that you know as much as everyone.”

Her son’s death, yes, Frevisse silently agreed; but there were surely also years-old wounds left by a man careless of everybody but himself. Lady Anneys had hardly had chance to begin to heal from those before this new wound came. And not only Lady Anneys. From even the little Frevisse had so far seen and heard here, she could guess that still-raw hurts ran deep in probably everyone ever in Sir Ralph’s reach. It wasn’t only her own pain with which Lady Anneys had to deal, but her broken family’s, worse broken now with Tom Woderove’s death just when there had been hope of healing.

Quickly, because Master Hampden was readying to make his excuse to be done with her, Frevisse asked, “Sir Ralph, then, was well disliked outside his family as well as in?”

“He was disliked by almost anyone who ever had to deal with him, yes.”

“And outright hated by some?”

Master Hampden hesitated before answering carefully, “I’d say so, yes.”

“But you’ve no one to suspect more than another for his death?”

“Not yet, no. There was a man driven off the manor by Sir Ralph a year ago. I was told he was in no danger of Sir Ralph bothering to find him and force him back, but we found him out anyway, on the chance he’d come back for revenge.”

“Had he?”

“He’s found work in an inn’s stable off Kettering way, looks likely to marry the owner’s daughter, and blesses the day he left here. Nor could my man find that he’d been away for even a day this summer, let be the time he’d need to come back here and lie in wait on the chance of finding Sir Ralph alone. Now, if you’ll pardon me, my clerk wants me for something.”

He parted from her graciously but firmly nor did she try to keep him. She gave him thanks and let him go and stood alone, looking out the window and thinking. Lady Anneys’ husband had been disliked to the point of hatred. By his grandson certainly and by others undoubtedly, so many that the crowner had no one in particular to suspect of his death. What did she remember hearing about how he had died? That he had been found dead in the woods, his head smashed in? Was that what someone had said at the nunnery? If that was all, it told her almost nothing. He had been hunting, been separated from others who had been hunting with him, and found dead. Had he happened to be alone or had he been on purpose, maybe secretly to meet someone who had then killed him? Or had someone been lurking in the woods, hoping for the chance to kill him and taking the chance when it came their way? Or had it been pure happenstance-someone had happened on him when he was alone and killed him because the chance was suddenly there? Surely the crowner had tried to learn of any recent quarrel that could have brought someone to murder. Or did Sir Ralph have so many quarrels there was no way to point at one before another as possibly the cause?

And what business was it of hers?

It wasn’t. Except that she was here and she doubted, knowing herself, that she would let go of it so long as there was chance of having an answer.

She looked down the hall at the gathering of family, manor folk, and neighbors and knew it was not simply curiosity in her. Very probably a wound or wounds given by Sir Ralph had festered in someone’s mind into murder and as with any wound that festered and went bad there would be no healing until the wound was cleansed, which in this would be by finding out the murderer.

Even if, as was all too likely, the murderer was someone here.

The rain fell lightly, steadily, all through the funeral and the afternoon, and Hugh felt much like the weather-gray and weeping, despite he had no outward tears. Partly his lack of outward grieving was simply that he was tired almost past thinking. Tom’s death, followed by two days of hard riding to bring Mother and Ursula back from the priory, then keeping the vigil beside Tom’s body all last night because Miles had kept it the night before and one of them at least should sleep… With all of that, the best he could do with his howling grief was keep it buried until there was time and place to give way to it. But time and place wouldn’t come today, and all through today, from somewhere aside from it all, he had watched himself doing what needed to be done, heard himself being a comfort to his mother and sisters and grateful to everyone who offered their consolations; had listened to himself making needed decisions and saw himself move with apparent purpose through the hours of a day five times longer than any day he could remember.

But finally it was done. Everyone who was not staying was gone and he was standing alone at the hall’s tall window, watching a watery yellow sun slide below thinning gray clouds toward a damp sunset. It was all over.

Except it would never be over.

Tom was never coming back.

By the soft footfall he knew it was Ursula behind him and he did not turn around but waited until she slipped her small hand into his before he looked down at her and tried a smile. It was a smile as thin and damp as the sunset, but so was hers and neither of them said anything as she leaned against him, clinging to his hand with both of hers and rubbing her face on his sleeve, the silence maybe as comforting to her as it was to him.

It could not last. Comforts so rarely did, and much too soon Ursula said, “Mother wants to see you, Hugh. She’s in her garden.”

“Now?” With evening coming on at the end of a wet day, a dripping garden was hardly the best of places, surely. But even as he questioned it, Hugh knew why she was there. Her garden was her place of comforting. He could not remember his father going into it even once, just as she had never, in Hugh’s memory, ever gone on any hunt.

But it was still no place to be when night vapors would soon be rising and he kissed the top of Ursula’s head and said, “I’ll bring her in. Where are you going to be? Where’s Lucy?”

“In the parlor with the nuns. We’re going to have a cold supper there.”

“That’s good. I’ll bring Mother.”

He found Lady Anneys standing at the garden’s rear gate, looking out across the cart-track and the stubbled hayfield where the cattle would be turned to graze come frost time. He joined her without a word, and much the way Ursula had done, she took his hand. She was not crying nor did she lean against him like Ursula but stayed standing straight and gazing outward. Dark was coming quickly on, bringing chill with it, but despite what he had told Ursula, Hugh did not try to draw her inside. He guessed that, like his little while in the hall, this was her pause before taking up life again in its new, unwanted shape, and he was willing to wait as long as she needed until she was ready-or able-to say why she had sent for him.

But what she said when finally she spoke was, quietly, “At this hour three days ago I had just lately finished praying at Vespers for my children’s safety and good health. That day and all the next I was thinking of Tom as alive and he was already dead.”

Not knowing what to say, not trusting his voice, Hugh held silent.

His mother looked at him with a smile both tender and bleak. “I haven’t been able to pray. Nothing beyond ‘God keep his soul’ and a rather desperate thanks that I still have you and Miles.”

“And the girls.”

“And the girls. But I’m thinking of sons just now.”

Her eyes were fixed on his face, as if to be certain of it past ever forgetting. He looked away, out into the gray-blue mist and evening shadows now hiding the far end of the hayfield. “I can’t pray at all,” he said. “Not even as much as you’ve done.”

She squeezed his hand. “It will come back. Even feeling will come back, though I think I’d rather it didn’t. I don’t think I want to feel again.”

Hugh made a small, assenting sound. The fierceness of his first grief had torn him into shreds with pain. After that, dealing with necessities had brought on a numbness he feared to lose despite he knew it would not last.

Lady Anneys was still looking at him. He went on gazing into the gathering darkness, willing her to say nothing else, to leave them where they were for just a little longer.

“You’re Master Woderove now,” she said.

Hugh hoped his shudder-as if someone had walked on his grave-did not show. “People kept calling me that all day. I kept thinking they were somehow talking to Tom.”

“Tom’s place is yours now.”

“I know.” Hugh kept the words muted but not the anguish in them. He snatched his hand from hers, put both his hands to his face, and rubbed at the pain behind his eyes. “I know, and I would to God it wasn’t.”

His mother’s only reply was to lay a hand on his shoulder. For a time they stood in silence, his face hidden behind his hands. Only finally did he drop one to his side and put the other on his mother’s still resting on his shoulder. Keeping his voice even but fooling neither of them, he said, “The rain today wasn’t enough to hurt the fields. Tomorrow looks to be fair. Maybe we can get on with the harvest by afternoon.”