The Hunter's Tale

Chapter 11

Through the next few days Frevisse found herself oddly more alone in the midst of Woodrim’s household bustle than ever she was able to be in St. Frideswide’s cloister. At St. Frideswide’s she had place and duties. Here she had neither, except to keep Lady Anneys company, and even that seemed purposeless because Lady Anneys, with a household to bring back into balance and order, hardly seemed in need of company besides her own people here and her children. She had no idle time to fill nor did she seem in want of comforting talk. If she had, Father Leonel could probably have given it as well as anyone. He made daily visits to the hall, and from what she saw of him, Frevisse judged that, elderly and slow a-foot though he certainly was, he was not feeble of mind. But Lady Anneys never made more than ordinary talk with him. The while he was there each evening was spent with Hugh, showing him how the manor’s accounts were ordered.

It was hard going for both of them. Frevisse gathered from what she heard around her that the dead Sir Ralph had given all his time and heed to hunting, while his elder son had had the running of the manor and his younger son had seen to the hounds and huntsman’s duties. Now Father Leonel was trying to show Hugh in short order all that his brother had learned and known over years, and Hugh did not seem happy at it.

Things were easier, Frevisse supposed, for Miles. As woodward, overseeing the forest both for the hunting there and for what profits could be had from it, his duties were not changed at all and he and his hound were away into the forest early and for most of every day, so that Frevisse had seen very little of him since the inquest. He sometimes returned to the hall for midday dinner but usually was only there in time for supper and afterward stayed near Hugh and Father Leonel while they worked in a corner of the parlor and Lady Anneys made Lucy leave them alone.

“Master Woderove really doesn’t want to be lord here, does he?” Sister Johane said as she and Frevisse walked back from Mass in the village church their fourth morning at the manor. “Lucy says Lady Anneys says he’s well-witted and that Father Leonel worked the accounts for years with Tom and will show him all he needs to know. But he doesn’t even like to be called Master Woderove. Have you noted that?”

Frevisse had. In truth, Hugh all but flinched when called Master Woderove, and Father Leonel, from forgetfulness or kindness, mostly said “Master Hugh” when they worked together.

But Sister Johane, pleased to have so much new to talk about after the small, same things of the nunnery, was going on, “Lucy hopes her mother will make a marriage for her soon. She says it’s impossible having Lady Elyn for a sister now Lady Elyn is married and all. She has all the power to settle her children’s marriages. Lady Anneys, I mean. Her husband gave it to her in his will. Even her sons’ marriages. Well, just Master Woderove’s now, of course.”

“Not Miles’?” Frevisse asked, no more than mildly curious.

“Not Miles’. Lucy says she thinks Sir Ralph just hoped Miles would rot. She says…”

Lucy seemed to say a great deal, but despite the haste of Sister Johane’s tongue, Frevisse did not hurry their walk. At least the weather, after the funeral day’s rain, was turned dry and late-summer warm, as perfect as could be wished for the harvest, now moved on to the wheatfield, Frevisse understood. They were nearly to the foreyard and she was wondering rather longingly how the harvest was going at St. Frideswide’s when Sister Johane chatted brightly, “Everything is much better here since Sir Ralph died, you know. Everyone is sorry about Tom being dead but everybody’s glad about Sir Ralph, even if he was murdered.”

Frevisse stopped short and faced her. “Did Lucy say that about her father? That plainly?”

Sister Johane had the grace to turn pink within the white circle of her wimple around her face and she dropped her gaze to the dusty road at her feet. “One of the maidservants did,” she murmured; then added with unwilling honesty, “Two of the maidservants.”

“When were you talking with the servants?”

Still toward the road, Sister Johane said, “When I was in the kitchen yesterday, making the eyebright and clary poultice for Lucy’s eyes. There’s a lovely lot of clary in Lady Anneys’ garden.”

There were so many objections to falling into light talk with servants that Frevisse did not know where to start, nor did she mean to be turned from her disapproval by a surfeit of herbs; but a second’s more thought told her there was small point to saying any of the objections since Sister Johane surely knew them already. Instead, surprising herself, Frevisse said, “Dame Claire would be pleased at how much you’ve helped Lucy with her sore eyes. Whatever you’ve given Lady Anneys to help her sleep has surely helped her, too, these past two nights.”

Sister Johane looked up, openly startled at praise when she had expected rebuke. “It’s only… it’s all very simple,” she fumbled.

“When something makes the difference between suffering and not-suffering, it’s more than ‘only.’”

Sister Johane brightened with pleasure and said, “Thank you,” in a way that made Frevisse think that maybe she should find more things for which to praise Sister Johane, both because she deserved it and in the hope that encouraging her skills might serve to draw her away from talk with servants and a silly girl.

The morning passed in what were become usual ways, spent in the garden when Lady Anneys had finished giving to the servants what orders were needed for the day. Sometimes she worked among her flowers and herbs, teaching Lucy and Ursula and asking Sister Johane for all she knew about such medicinal things as she had growing here. Other times, like today, they sat in the arbor, Lady Anneys spinning thread from this season’s flax, her spindle’s whorl twisting as she worked the thin strands into fine thread, while the girls and Sister Johane sewed at the white linen shirts they had begun yesterday for Miles and Hugh, and Frevisse-because her sewing skill reached no further than hemming-read aloud to them of John Mandeville’s travels to the far reaches of the world. It was the only book on the manor besides Lady Anneys’ prayer book, unless Father Leonel had some others and Frevisse had not yet asked him, putting off her disappointment if he did not.

When the times came for each of the Offices, she and Sister Johane went inside and up to Lady Anneys’ bedchamber to say them. At first Frevisse had half-expected Lady Anneys would ask them to stay in the garden for the Offices and join in with her daughters, the way she and Ursula had done at St. Frideswide’s, but Lady Anneys never did. Her interest in prayers-even in going to morning Mass-had gone, nor did anyone else in her family show inclination that way. Frevisse had considered speaking with Father Leonel, to find if there were anything she might do to help, but so far had put it off. There were too many hurts here, both old and new, for her to begin carelessly probing at them, she thought.

Because most of the house servants were gone to the fields to help with the harvest instead of here for the cooking, the midday meal was no more than herb fritters, a cold cheese and onion tart, and fruit. Miles did not appear, but Hugh was there, sitting in the lord’s chair where he looked so ill at ease. Lady Anneys was on his left, with Lucy and Ursula beyond her, while Frevisse and Sister Johane were on his right and the hound bitch Baude, round-bellied in whelp, lay on the floor behind the chair.

Talk was small, merely about Hugh’s morning spent seeing how the harvest work was going. “Gefori says the weather will hold a few more days for sure before there’s chance of rain again,” he said, wiping the rim of the goblet he shared with his mother and passing it to her.

“Then it will,” Lady Anneys said. “He always knows.”

“How?” Ursula asked.

“Reads the signs, he says,” answered Hugh.

“What signs?” Ursula persisted.

“I’ve never asked him.”

Ursula gave her brother a disgusted look. He made a face back at her and said, “Ask him yourself if you’re so interested.”

“I will.”

“After harvest,” Lady Anneys said. “He doesn’t need distracting now.”

As they finished the pears baked with spices, Hugh said, “I’m away to Charlbrook Chase this afternoon. We’re closing fast on Holy Rood Day.” When the mercy-time on game ended. “I want to see how the hunting looks likely to be that way.”

“You’re not taking Baude, are you?” Lady Anneys asked.

Hearing her name, the bitch raised her head. Hugh reached back and scratched between her ears, saying, “She’s too close to whelping. That’s another reason to go today rather than some other. I want to be here when she does.” He stood up to leave.

“You’re going alone?” Lady Anneys asked, her worry ill-concealed.

Hugh bent and kissed her cheek. “I’m not going alone. I’m taking Bane and Brigand. I might meet up with Miles, too.”

He bade them all good afternoon; and Frevisse, watching Lady Anneys watch him stride away toward the hall door, Baude following him, saw her lips move, silently bidding him, “Be careful.” At the door he stopped to pet the hound, ordered her to stay, then left. Baude lingered in the doorway, still hoping, before giving in to disappointment and going to lie beside the cold hearth.

Lady Anneys rose and led her daughters, Frevisse, and Sister Johane out to the garden again and the tasks they had left in the arbor’s shade when called to dinner. One shirt was ready for hemming, and Frevisse worked at that rather than any more reading aloud because Lady Anneys had brought out one of the household accounts scrolls to lesson Lucy on how the accounts could be used to plan the autumn buying of what would be needed to see the manor through the winter.

“You set how much salt we have on hand now against how much we bought a year ago, on the chance we overbought last year and can do with buying less this year,” Lady Anneys was saying. “But against that you must needs allow for how well the calving went this spring, and the summer’s haying, to judge whether there will be less or more beef to salt down at this autumn’s slaughtering. If it’s been a poor year for cattle, you’ll need less salt because there’ll be less meat to cure. Or if it was a good year for cattle but a poor one for hay and there’ll have to be a greater slaughtering of cattle we can’t over winter, you’ll need much more salt for the curing. You see?”

Lucy nodded but looked closer to napping than thinking in the afternoon’s drowsy warmth until Ursula raised her head from her sewing and said, “Someone’s coming.” Her younger ears must have heard footfall or something because the arbor was set so that, from inside of it, the house was out of sight. Lucy instantly said, “I’ll see who!” and sprang up to lean out of the arbor.

Probably no one but Frevisse saw Lady Anneys’ hands clutch the account roll on her lap and her eyes widen with the unthinking fear of someone always afraid that anything sudden meant news of trouble; or saw her relief when Lucy said, “It’s Elyn!,” so that she was smiling when her daughter came into the arbor, dressed in a plain blue gown for riding and smiling, too. She exchanged quick kisses with her sisters and mother, bent her head with a respectful, “Good day, my ladies,” to Frevisse and Sister Johane, and sat down beside Lady Anneys where Lucy had been, saying as she pulled off her riding gloves, “My, isn’t it hot today?”

They all agreed on that before Lady Anneys asked, “Isn’t Philippa with you?”

“I left her home. She’s my stepdaughter, not my dog. She doesn’t have to go everywhere with me,” Lady Elyn laughed.

“You didn’t ride alone?”

“Sawnder came with me. I left him in the yard with the horses. I can’t stay long.”

“What’s the matter?” Lady Anneys asked.

It was a reasonable question. Lady Elyn was sitting on the edge of the seat, looking ready to spring up again, holding her riding gloves in one hand and drawing them again and again through the other. But she was discomposed to be so readily found out, looked quickly around at everyone, and said as if she could not hold it in a moment longer, “Mother, can I talk with you alone a little?”

Lady Anneys stiffened but said with seeming ease, “Of course. Sister Johane, would you be so good as to take Lucy and Ursula for a walk? Perhaps along the stream toward the village.” Well away from hearing anything that might be said in the arbor.

Sister Johane stood up readily, Lucy and Ursula less readily and looking the protest they did not make, but when Frevisse stood up, too, Lady Anneys said, “I’d have you stay, please, Dame Frevisse.”

Frevisse sat down again, as unwilling to stay as Lucy and Ursula were to go, and Lady Elyn started to protest, “Oh, Mother…” but Lady Anneys silenced her with a look, but waiting until Sister Johane had led the others away toward the garden’s back gate before she said, “Dame Frevisse is here to advise and help me. You needn’t worry about what you say for her to hear.” While Frevisse kept her surprise at that to herself, Lady Anneys laid a quieting hand on her daughter’s restless ones and said, “Now, what is it? Do you think you’re with child?”

“Oh, Mother. No.” Lady Elyn shook her head impatiently. “That isn’t it. It’s Hugh. No. It’s Sir William. It’s what Sir William is saying about Hugh.”

Lady Anneys’ hand tightened on her daughter’s and her voice was strained, for all that she kept it low as she asked, “What’s Sir William saying?”

“And to whom,” Frevisse said.

Lady Anneys cast her a sharp, agreeing glance and added, “And to whom?”

“To Master Wyck today. I don’t know if he’s ever said it to anyone else.”

“To Master Wyck?” Lady Anneys repeated. “Today? Why was he at Denhill?”

“I don’t know. Sir William doesn’t tell me things. About his will maybe, or some property. I don’t know. They were in the parlor. I was going to go in to see if they needed more wine or wanted aught to eat. I supposed they were talking business and it would be better if I went in than a servant. The way you taught me, Mother.”

“And Sir William said something while you were there.”

“Not while I was really there. It was just as I was about to knock. I heard Tom’s name and tears came up in my eyes and I stopped to dry them. Sir William doesn’t like tears.” New tears welled in her eyes as she said it, but with more indignation than grief she said, “He doesn’t care how I feel. I swear it. All he wants is not to be bothered.”

“Men are cowards that way,” Lady Anneys said evenly. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in pain, whether of mind or body. What matters is that you don’t trouble them with it. I warned you of that when you married.”

Frevisse had now and again known men with courage enough to care and to show their care, but she could easily guess Sir Ralph had not been one and Sir William must be no better; but Lady Anneys was taking Lady Elyn back to the point, saying, “It was while you were drying your eyes that you heard something.”

“I heard Sir William say…” Lady Elyn wiped more tears away, drew a deep breath, and said it all at a rush. “He said it was as well Hugh didn’t try to make trouble at the inquest, because if Hugh had, he would have pointed out that when Tom left Denhill, he was alive and that when he was next seen by anyone besides Hugh, he was dead and maybe someone should take closer look at that.”

Lady Anneys drew in a sharp breath. “He said that?”

Lady Elyn now could not tumble the words out fast enough. “He said he’d point out that maybe Hugh took advantage of the quarrel to make it seem Tom’s death was Sir William’s fault but wasn’t it more likely Hugh killed him for the sake of having everything for himself?”

Angrily, Lady Anneys said, “There was nothing that showed anything like that. There was no sign Tom’s death was anything but accident and ill chance. How could he even think to blame Hugh?”

“Master Wyck said that, too. That there was no proof that way at all. But Sir William said proof didn’t matter and he didn’t want to have Hugh into true trouble. He would have said it just to draw trouble off from himself if Hugh had tried to make it. I was so angry I didn’t even dare go in. I just went away and… and came here because I had to tell someone!” Lady Elyn sniffed on her dried tears. Having shifted some of her upset’s burden onto someone else, she was beginning to calm. “At least it never came to him really saying it to anyone, so I suppose it’s all right. But I thought it was a vile thing for him to think of.”

“It was,” Lady Anneys said, the words flat and hard.

“Do you think Hugh should know?”

“He should not.” Lady Anneys was sharply certain of that. “No one should know it. And you must never, ever, speak of it again to anyone. Even me. Ever, Elyn. Do you understand?”

Startled by her mother’s vehemence, Lady Elyn fumbled, “Well… yes.” She looked aside at Frevisse. “But…”

“Dame Frevisse will never speak of it either. None of us will. Even the slightest whisper of something as ugly as that can fly into full-blown rumor clear across the county before you can turn around. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Lady Elyn was impatient at having to say it again. “But what am I going to do? How am I even going to look at Sir William, knowing he thought such a thing about Hugh?”

Lady Anneys’ fierceness was suddenly gone. Or… not gone, Frevisse thought, but drawn back out of sight, into wherever she kept it. Her face was returned to its usual smooth quietness as she let go Lady Elyn’s hands, patted them gently, and said, “You’ll find a way. We all have to find our ways.” She took her hands back into her own lap, looking at them rather than Lady Elyn as she added, sounding just as she had when lessoning Lucy over the account roll, “Accept him as he is. Submit to what he asks of you. Be dutiful. Demand nothing.”

Lady Elyn gave an impatient sigh. “But it makes me so angry he even thought of it.”

“Feel whatever you need to feel,” Lady Anneys said, “but never let Sir William know it.”

Lady Elyn gave another sigh, heavy this time, and stood up. “I have to go back.”

Lady Anneys stood up, too, embraced her gently and, as they drew apart touched her cheek lovingly and said, “St. Anne be with you.”

“And with you, Mother,” Lady Elyn said.

Frevisse watched Lady Anneys watch her daughter leave and did not try to hide what she was thinking when Lady Anneys turned around and looked at her.

“You don’t agree with what I told her,” Lady Anneys said.

“You know her husband better than I do. You know whether your advice was good.”

Lady Anneys sat down, took up the account roll, put it down again, took up Ursula’s sewing, searched out the needle thrust into the cloth, and began to stitch the gathering of a sleeve into a cuff, before she said, wearily defiant, “It was at least necessary advice, if she’s to live in anything like peace. Sir William won’t be changed.” She laid the sewing on her lap and met Frevisse’s gaze. “You understand that it was a lie? What Elyn said Sir William threatened to say about Hugh? Hugh never harmed his brother.”

Slowly, measuring her thoughts and words, Frevisse said, “I think, from what I heard at the crowner’s inquest, that the right verdict was given. Your son’s death was by mischance.” She paused, thinking to leave it there, but after all went on. “What I don’t see is why Sir William would think Hugh might try to use his brother’s death against him.”

She made that a statement, not a question, and waited. Lady Anneys took up the sewing again, stitched a single, jerky stitch, put the shirt down, and said to her lap, “In his will, my late husband made me his chief executor and left me considerable property beyond simply my dower lands. Enough that I could live very well rather than merely in bare comfort. He also gave me control of all our children’s marriages and of our daughters until they marry, with disinheritance for any of them who refuses my choice.”

“He must have thought well of you to trust you that far,” said Frevisse carefully.

“It wasn’t trust. It was bribe.” Anger and bitterness sharpened Lady Anneys’ voice. “In order to have that property and to keep control of my children’s marriages, I have to live chastely and unmarried. If I’m unchaste or if I marry again, I lose it all, save for my dower land. The property is no matter. If that were all that stood between me and being finally, fully free of Sir Ralph, I’d spit on his will and let it go. But if I forfeit my say in my children’s lives, Sir William takes my place. If I fail Sir Ralph’s strictures against me, the girls’ marriages and Hugh’s all become Sir William’s to control and profit from as he pleases.”

“And you don’t trust him?” Frevisse asked, still very carefully choosing her words.

“I trust him no more,” Lady Anneys said coldly and precisely, “than I would have trusted my cur of a husband.”

She held Frevisse’s eyes in a long look that Frevisse met, letting Lady Anneys see that she understood. And Lady Anneys drew a shaken breath and said, “It helps to say it.” She looked at her hands lying on the shirt across her lap and went on, “And while I’m saying so much, I have to warn you that any day now Master Selenger will begin to visit me here.”

“The man who came to see you at the nunnery.”

“Him. Yes.”

“He was at your son’s inquest and funeral but kept his distance. He was with Sir William, I thought.”

“He’s Sir William’s steward and Philippa’s uncle.” Lady Anneys lowered her gaze and began to smooth the shirt across her lap. “He began coming to see me after my husband’s death. He says… he said once, when he had the chance to do out of anyone else’s hearing, that he’s long loved and wanted me.”

“Wanted you,” Frevisse repeated, keeping the words as empty of meaning as she could.

“For his wife. He claims.”

“You don’t believe him?”

“He’s Sir William’s brother-in-law and his steward. How likely do you think it is that he doesn’t know about the will and how much power would come into Sir William’s hands if I marry again or am unchaste?”

“It isn’t open knowledge?”

“We agreed among ourselves-Tom, Hugh, Miles, Sir William, and I-that no one else needed to know.”

“Your daughters don’t know?”

“Not even Lady Elyn. Of that I’m sure because if she knew she’d talk of it. Discretion is not her better part, unless she’s frightened. The way she was frightened by what she overheard today because she has wit enough to know what trouble that kind of talk could make.”

“But you think Sir William has told Master Selenger?”

“I don’t know. But if Master Selenger does know and hasn’t said, then I have to fear he’s working to Sir William’s purpose, to bring me to forfeit my place in the will, giving everything over to Sir William.”

“Is it the kind of thing Sir William would undertake? Is Master Selenger the kind of man who would do it?”

“I haven’t enough trust left toward men to say Master Selenger wouldn’t do it. As for Sir William, look what he would have done to Hugh if he’d felt threatened at the inquest. With rumor creeping about that Hugh might have killed his brother, who would be eager to marry their daughter to him? Only Sir William. He and Sir Ralph were set on Philippa marrying Tom…”

“Were Tom and Philippa set on it?”

“There was no reason for them not to be. They knew each other and there was nothing against either one.”

“But she’ll marry Hugh instead?”

“The marriage is a good one for all the reasons there were before and no reasons against it. It’s what Sir William would do with the girls’ marriages that I worry over.”

Frevisse sat silent, considering, and finally asked, “What if Master Selenger isn’t working to Sir William’s purpose?”

“You mean what if he does truly desire me?” Lady Anneys shoved the shirt aside, onto Lucy’s sewing basket again. “Then I have only myself to fear. No.” She made a sharp dismissing movement of one hand. “That’s wrong. I doubt there’s enough womanhood left in me to rouse to any desire. What I’m afraid is that somehow some seeming might happen that could be used against me.” She dropped her voice to a strained whisper, sounding almost ashamed to say it. “What I fear is that if he can’t seduce me to marriage, Master Selenger may simply claim we’ve done… wrong together. That would be enough to serve Sir William’s purpose.”

Frevisse briefly wondered whether Lady Anneys were grown so cold as she said. At a guess, she was hardly to forty years and the body’s fires were rarely burned out by then, however weary the heart and mind might be.

But that same weariness could lessen the guard against the body’s lusts and maybe, whether she admitted it to herself or not, Lady Anneys did well to fear, if only her own body’s possible treachery. But if she were right in her suspicions against Sir William and Master Selenger… if she were right… then she had much more than that to fear, and slowly Frevisse said, “So you wanted me here to stand guard of you against Master Selenger, the way I did at St. Frideswide’s. But you have family and servants here who could do that.”

“I don’t dare let Hugh or Miles know of this! If ever they suspected such a thing…” She made a taut gesture of helpless fear of their anger and what might come of it. “And the girls are too young and any servant’s word not enough. Your oath that I’d done nothing wrong would have weight, if it comes to that, but yes, I want you to stand guard between me and Master Selenger.”

Rather than immediately answering, Frevisse looked away from her, stared out of the arbor to the bright sunlight on the garden path while inwardly seeing the layers of Lady Anneys’ fears-of Sir William and Master Selenger, who possibly intended ill against her; for what Hugh and Miles might do in anger; for her daughters if she lost the care of them. If Master Selenger and Sir William were indeed sporting with Lady Anneys’ life the way she feared, then she needed whatever help Frevisse could give. But…

Frevisse returned her gaze to Lady Anneys and said, “We can’t stay here forever, Sister Johane and I.”

“I know. I just need…” Lady Anneys shook her head, impatient at being unable to find the words. “When Hugh came for me, to tell me Tom was dead, I didn’t have time to think anything through. Tom…” Tears flooded her eyes. She fought them, steadied her voice, and said, “I couldn’t think of anything but that he was dead and I had to be back here and I was afraid. I needed… needed…”

“Someone to somewhat guard you until you’re certain of things again. Until you have chance to find your balance,” Frevisse offered.

“Yes.” Lady Anneys put a world of heartsick weariness into the word. “Yes. That.” Relieved to have someone say it for her.

Voices warned that Sister Johane, Lucy, and Ursula were returning, and Lady Anneys straightened her back, wiped her eyes free of tears, and smoothed her face to calm again, so that to outward seeming there might have been nothing but the day’s quietness in her. But her gaze sought Frevisse’s, asking, and quietly to her quietness Frevisse said, “I’ll do all that I can.”