The Hunter's Tale

Chapter 14

Hugh let his mother and Dame Frevisse leave him standing there beside the bench in the gathering darkness. He was not needed by them nor did he know where to go or what to do, and when they were gone, he sat down on the bench again, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and waited to feel something else besides sick with the weariness of worry. Too many things were too wrong in too many ways, with no way he saw to make anything better.

When Degory had said Master Selenger was here again, he had been angry-and been angrier when he saw how badly troubled by him Lady Anneys was. Did she guess the same thing Miles guessed about Selenger’s attention to her? Or should she be warned? He didn’t know. There were so many things he didn’t know-didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to do, was beginning not to know even what to feel.

And now there was what his mother had just said.

That she could have kept him, Tom, the girls from ever being at all.

He had never even thought much about being or not being until lately, and that was strange, because death was such a close part of life. There were always, in the usual way of things, the deaths of manor folk or neighbors and every autumn the slaughter of whatever cattle and pigs could not be kept through the winter and sometimes the need to put down hounds that were too hurt or sick to live, let be that he had hunted enough animals to the death for sport and food.

But Sir Ralph’s death…

That had been different.

… his head all splintered bone and blood and gray brain matter…

And then Tom’s death.

Tom lying there so… empty.

Gone past ever having back.

And now their mother said she could have made it so they never were at all…

Hugh gripped his head more tightly, wishing he could stop his thoughts. Any and all of his thoughts. Everything was become so tangled out of sense and shape, the whole world unraveling around him, with nothing left to his life but rough, torn, unmendable edges…

“Hugh?” Ursula asked softly.

He lifted his head. He had not realized it was grown so late; she was only a shadow-shape among the other garden shadows, and he said, “Come looking for me? I’m sorry,” and made to rise.

But she asked, “Could we just stay awhile? It’s quiet here,” sat down beside him when he nodded, took his hand between her own small ones, and leaned against him. Her head came just to his shoulder.

Content to stay if she was, Hugh asked with feigned lightness, “Is someone fighting again? Is that why you came for me?”

“They’re just talking. Lucy is. She always does and then everybody else has to talk, too.”

“Words get to be heavy after a while, don’t they? They wear you down.”

She nodded against his shoulder but did not say anything and neither did he, only slipped his near hand free of hers and put his arm around her waist, cuddling her to him the way he might have a lonely hound. He guessed they were both in need, himself and her, of someone to hold to and be held by; so he held to her and she held to him and they sat there in the garden quiet, neither of them saying anything while the last afterglow of the sunset faded behind the hall’s roof and the stars thickened across the sky.

The green-gold morning was already warm when Frevisse and Sister Johane came out of the church after Mass next day. Such manor servants as had been there headed back to their morning duties at the hall and the villager folk went away to whatever work they could do about their own places while they waited for the dew to dry so harvest could go on. Lady Anneys, as was usual, had not come, nor Miles, but Frevisse had seen him at Mass only the one Sunday since she had come to Woodrim, and Hugh had been no better until this morning. Today he had accompanied his sisters, which made it easier at the Mass’ end, when Frevisse said that she and Sister Johane were going to stay at the church awhile, for them to go happily away with him, back to the hall.

She had told Sister Johane on their way to church that she wanted to stay “… to talk a little with Father Leonel. He knows everyone here far better than we yet can. If he can help us understand more, perhaps we can help more.”

Sister Johane had readily accepted that. Only while they waited in the churchyard for him to come out did Frevisse suggest she should talk with him alone. “He might be easier with only one of us, rather than two,” she said.

“He might be, yes,” Sister Johane agreed, possibly a little doubtfully, but she sat down, seemingly content to wait as long as need be, on the mounting block at the churchyard gate while Frevisse went back to the church door. Until last night she had not considered consulting the priest; he had seemed only an old man enduring a thankless place by being and seeing as little as he could. The exchange at supper last night had changed her mind about that and now she wanted to know not only what he knew but what he thought, and that, indeed, he would probably better say to one person than to two.

Father Leonel seemed surprised but not unwelcoming to find her there when he came out, but when she asked if she might speak with him, he only asked, “Inside or out here, my lady?”

“Out here, if it please you. The day is so fair.”

“It is indeed. But I pray you pardon my aged body and let us sit.”

There was a bench made of a roughly flattened log pegged a-top two sawn-off stumps of wood beside the low churchyard wall well away from the gateway. Father Leonel led her there across the sheep-cropped grass of the churchyard’s grave mounds and hollows, sat down with stiff carefulness, and said, “Oddly enough, hot, damp days bother my aches more than cold ones do. It’s a sorry thing when one has to be grateful for winter.” He settled himself, rested his gnarl-knuckled hands on his knees, and asked as Frevisse sat down beside him, “Is it spiritual counsel you want or help to deal with the Woderoves?”

Frevisse gave a small, surprised laugh. “The Woderoves,” she said, returning the favor of his directness. “Sister Johane and I want to give comfort and be a help but there’s so much pain here that we don’t understand.”

“I can give so little of the so much comfort that’s needed that any comfort you can give will be most welcome. But where to start.” Father Leonel drew and released a deep breath. “To begin, let it be said straight out that we’re all the better for being rid of Sir Ralph.”

“I’ve gathered that,” Frevisse agreed. Though she had hardly expected him to say it out so bluntly.

“You’ve probably gathered enough that I need say nothing else about him?” He looked at her questioningly and she nodded that that was true. “What have you determined about Lady Anneys in the while you’ve known her?” he asked.

“That she’s endured by burying herself so deeply it will be a wonder if she ever finds herself again.”

Father Leonel’s gaze at her became considering. “That’s well seen,” he said slowly. “Very well seen.” He thought about something for a moment, then said, “My hope is that enough of the strength she used to bury herself remains for her to bring herself back to life. Her children are going to need her.”

“And Miles.”

“Miles is a son to her in all but blood, but yes, perhaps Miles most especially. And Ursula.”

“Ursula? Was Sir Ralph particularly cruel to her?”

“It was Miles he was particularly cruel to, having come to hate the boy’s father so greatly and despising his mother.”

“Why?”

“Sir Ralph hated Miles’ father, his son, because the young man went against his wishes in everything. He hated Miles’ mother because, as Sir Ralph often said-often enough that I remember the words-‘The woman is French. What in the devil’s name is there to like about her?’ Besides, like his son, she fought Sir Ralph almost every day she knew him. Then, like his son, she died, and that left only their son for Sir Ralph to pay back for the both of them.”

Frevisse considered the ugliness of soul a man had to have to keep up that cruelty for year after year against a boy who had done nothing but be born.

“As for Ursula,” Father Leonel sighed, “her trouble has been that she was her father’s favorite. Can you imagine being the favored, petted, well-beloved child of a man who was a monster to everyone else around you?”

Barely, Frevisse could and said with muted horror, “Blessed St. Nicholas.” The patron saint of children.

Father Leonel nodded in dark agreement. “Yes. A person might well turn either into a monster or, if their heart is good enough to resist that, live constantly trying not to cringe from him. Happily, Ursula’s heart is good.”

“But if she was his favorite, how did he come to send her away to the nunnery?”

Father Leonel rubbed at one hand with the other. “I think he saw it as a way to keep her for himself forever. Rather than give her up to a worldly husband, he intended she should become a nun and spend her life in prayer for him.”

“And Lady Elyn’s marriage was because Sir William was his friend?”

“Partly, but mostly as a way to keep up hope of his properties and Sir William’s being someday joined, if not in this generation, then perhaps a later. Sir William’s only child, Philippa, had always been intended to marry Tom as Sir Ralph’s heir. When Sir William began to think of marrying again, meaning he might have a son to replace Philippa as his heir, Sir Ralph reckoned to bring Sir Ralph’s lands his way by marrying Elyn to Sir William. That way any more children Sir William had would be his grandchildren.”

“But now that Tom is dead?”

“I expect the expectation is for Master Hugh to marry her.”

It very surely was, but, “Will he?”

“Very probably. He favors no one else so far as I know. They get on well enough together and all the reasons for marriage between Sir William’s and Sir Ralph’s heirs remain.”

“I gather Hugh got on better with his father than anyone else did?”

“He got on best with Sir Ralph, yes. Hugh is quiet-spirited enough he would rather oblige than quarrel, and their shared love of hounds and hunting meant he had some use and value to his father.”

“And Tom?”

“Tom,” Father Leonel said with a smile and softened voice that showed who had been his favorite. “Tom had something of his father’s quick angers but a better heart. A far better heart.” The old man’s voice twisted with grief. “He’s a loss beyond measure.”

Frevisse paused for his grief, then said gently, “It must have been more than only hard for you to see all this and be able to do so little. At least I suppose, from what I hear of Sir Ralph, there was little to be done with him?”

Father Leonel’s aged face and voice hardened. “There was nothing anybody could do with Sir Ralph except endure him, and yes, it was very bitter being priest to a man whom nothing could touch. Not guilt or pity. And never love.”

“But you stayed. Was there never chance to go? Plead your age and be given an easier parish?”

“I was needed here,” Father Leonel said simply. “By everyone else if not by Sir Ralph. At least I could give comfort to some, shelter to others, and keep from quarreling with the man. Another priest might have given way to quarreling and, believe me, that would have done far more harm than good. To cross Sir Ralph in anything was merely to make the matter worse.”

“How did he come to die? I know he was killed in the forest but nothing else.”

Father Leonel sighed from far down inside himself and turned his head away to stare toward the forest’s edge dark along the rising ground beyond the manor; stared for a long while before he said at last, his gaze still away, “There had been a hunt that day. Only hare-coursing since it was nigh to high summer. There’s a place not far inside the wood where they often gather before or during or after a day’s hunting to rest and eat. A clearing with a spring and a small stream. They were there that day for the midday meal and resting afterwards, meaning to hunt again in the afternoon. I understand what happened was that one of the young hounds ran off into the woods and Sir Ralph and some of the others went after it. A while later, still searching for the dog, Hugh found Sir Ralph instead. Very dead. He had been savagely attacked, struck on the head with a rock. Struck many times. No one let Lady Anneys see the body. Nor his daughters. All was bad enough as it was. By the time I was brought, Lady Elyn was screaming and crying so that her mother had to be comforting her when it should have been the other way around.”

“Lady Elyn was there?”

“What? Oh, yes. They all were. Sir William, Lady Elyn, Philippa, Master Selenger. Lucy, too.”

“Sir William’s steward was there?”

“He’s Philippa’s uncle, too. Brother to Sir William’s first wife. As much family as steward, you see.”

“Was that usual, for them all to be here?”

“Oh, yes. Sir Ralph and Sir William shared a passion for hunting. They often hunted together.”

Frevisse hesitated over what she wanted most to ask: Did he have any thought of who might have killed Sir Ralph? She had claimed her questions were for the sake of understanding more so she could comfort better, and she had already ranged somewhat far from that-far enough that another straying question would make small difference, she decided and asked, “There’s no talk about who might have killed Sir Ralph?”

“Talk?” Father Leonel pulled himself straight as if his back ached. “Alas, there’s always talk.” He braced his hands on the bench to either side of himself and began the slow work of pushing himself to his feet. Frevisse quickly helped with a careful hold on his arm. On his feet at last, Father Leonel thanked her and began a stiff shuffle back toward the gate. She matched her steps to his but asked nothing more. They went in silence until, almost to the gate, he added, “The only surety is that whoever did it must be far away by now, escaped from the law’s judgment maybe, if not from God’s.”

There was a second surety, too, Frevisse thought suddenly-that everyone wanted Sir Ralph’s murderer to be someone long gone.

And that, unwillingly, made her wonder if he was.

At the gate she thanked Father Leonel for his time and help. He blessed both her and Sister Johane and was shuffling back toward his church as they went their way away toward the hall. Taken up with her own thoughts, Frevisse did not notice Sister Johane’s silence until, almost to the manor yard, she asked, “Was he able to help?”

Nearly, Frevisse said, “Very little,” before she remembered the reason she had given for wanting to talk with him and said instead, “Lady Anneys’ husband was something of a monster. You’ve spent most time with the girls. Have they talked about him?”

“So very little that I’ve been wondering about him. They talk about their brother Tom but almost never about their father.”

“He seems to have cared for nothing much beyond himself and his dogs. Everyone lived afraid of his anger. Even Father Leonel, I think.”

“Nobody seems to mind he’s dead, that’s certain,” Sister Johane said. “It’s their brother that Lucy and Ursula are mourning, not him at all.”

“Everyone seems to mourn Tom. Everyone seems to have liked him and thought things would go well with him as lord of the manor.”

“Well, Master Hugh seems a good young man, too. He’s kind to his sisters and his mother, certainly.”

“What do you think of Miles?”

Sister Johane was silent a time before she answered, “He makes the girls laugh and I think he’s Master Hugh’s good friend, but he always seems like he’s about to be angry at something.”

“By what Father Leonel says, Sir Ralph was worse to him than to anybody else.”

“Well, I’m just glad he can make Lucy laugh. He was the first one to give her something else to do besides cry.” Sister Johane wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully. “Though she would have stopped sooner or later. You can only cry so long before you begin to bore even yourself.”

Surprised, because she had not thought Sister Johane saw things that sharply, Frevisse said, “True,” so warmly that Sister Johane looked at her with answering surprise, making Frevisse wonder why. But something more had come into her mind while she and Sister Johane talked: they had both said “seems” again and again. Now that she thought of it, it was a word she had been using often, if only to herself, since coming to Woodrim, and she thought on it harder as she and Sister Johane went on across the foreyard. So many things “seemed” here at Woodrim. Why? And if so much “seemed,” what truly was?

If so much was seeming here-if so many were holding up a mask of themselves between their truth and what they wanted others to see of them-then what were they hiding? Or hiding from? Not from Sir Ralph anymore. That only left that they were hiding from each other.

Or hiding something they didn’t want known.

Or else hiding from each other what they knew and did not want to know.

Or else were hiding to keep from knowing something more than they did. Because if you buried yourself deeply enough, you could keep from knowing almost anything.

Let them alone, she told herself. Leave things as they are. Let these people piece their lives back together and heal as best they could. It was no business of hers nor did she want to make it her business.

But buried things had a tendency to rot.

And what else had her questions to Father Leonel been except the beginning of making it her business? Something was deeply wrong here. She knew it, and she knew herself well enough to know that, once begun, she would not stop her seeking to know what.

They were nearly to the hall door but she said, “Shall we go see the kennel and dogs we keep hearing about?”

“Yes!” Sister Johane said instantly, then added more hesitantly, “Well, yes, but wouldn’t it be better to ask Master Hugh to go with us?”

Because it was not to Hugh she wanted to talk, Frevisse said, “Do we really want to hear that much about dogs?”

Sister Johane smiled at that, then a little frowned and looked vaguely around. “Do we know where the kennel is?”

Frevisse pointed vaguely away to their left. “I’ve seen Master Hugh go that way sometimes,” she said.

They found their way well enough, past a large elm tree beyond the hall and by way of the stableyard to finally the kennels, where the dog-boy was leaning at ease on the kennel-yard’s gate, scratching under the chin of a young wolfhound standing on its hind legs, its forepaws on the gate top, its head towering above him. About a dozen other hounds of various sizes and kinds-rough-coated, smooth-coated, brindled, plain, and spotted brown and black-lay in the early morning sunlight or paced around the yard, and if the dog-boy was idle now, it was because he had already done his morning work; the kennel-yard was clean and the water in the well-scrubbed wooden trough unslobbered yet. He straightened from the fence and bowed low as Frevisse and Sister Johane approached, and Frevisse saw his eyes shift past them, expecting Hugh to be there.

“We thought we’d like to see the dogs without troubling Master Woderove,” she said before he could say anything. “We thought surely you could tell us enough about them.”

The boy showed doubtful but willing. “That I can, probably.” He looked past them again, maybe still hoping Hugh would somehow be there after all. “You don’t know where Master Hugh is, do you? He usually comes of a morning to see things.”

“He walked his sisters home from Mass,” Frevisse said. “I don’t know where he is now.”

The boy grimaced. “Likely he’s shut up with papers and ink again. There’s too much of that when you’re lord, looks to me.”

“I doubt he likes it any better,” Sister Johane said, kindly. “What’s your name?”

“Nay, I don’t suppose he does,” the boy sadly agreed. “Degory, my lady.”

“You keep a fine kennel, Degory. It reminds me of my father’s. He keeps about thirty hounds. Or did when I was last at home.”

“Does he?” Degory’s deference slid into eagerness. “We’ve but fifteen. But they’re good ones.”

“And beautifully kept. You do all the work yourself?” Sister Johane asked.

“Master Hugh and me, we did it between us. It’s mostly me now, he’s so taken up with other things. But I don’t mind,” he added hurriedly. “He comes when he can.”

“You’re breeding here, too, aren’t you? How many lines do you have?” Sister Johane asked.

Frevisse had been wondering how to set about putting the boy at ease enough to answer the questions she wanted to ask him. Sister Johane with her unexpected interest was solving that and Frevisse left her to it until in a while, when Sister Johane and Degory were talking of the training of hounds, Sister Johane said, “My father won’t have whip or stick used on his hounds. How is it with Master Woderove?”

“He’s the same. He never hits at all. It was Sir Ralph used to hit all the time.”

“The dogs?” Frevisse put quickly in.

“Me mostly. He liked the hounds best, see, and Master Hugh and I, we train’em well. There’s never cause for hitting them.”

“With dogs this big, you want them well-trained, I suppose,” Frevisse said.

“Aye, well, they’re quiet-minded anyway, by nature,” Degory said. “You wouldn’t want hounds that big wanting to fight you all the time on everything. They’re quiet-natured but then we train them, too.”

“But one of them ran off the day Sir Ralph was killed,” Frevisse said, with a carefully concerned frown. “That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”

“Oh, aye. That was Skyre, the silly bitch. She’s young and hadn’t learned better. That’s her there.” Degory pointed to a smooth-coated, yellow hound lying alone in a corner of the yard, muzzle on paws but round, dark eyes fixed on the unknown women at the fence as if worried they were dangerous. “She was shaping to be a good lymer but likely she’s ruined, Master Woderove says. Whatever happened with Sir Ralph there in the woods, by the time I found her she was frighted silly out of her wits and doesn’t look to be getting over it. Twitchy all the time, see. So maybe we’ll keep her for a litter or two, if she breeds well, and then see what can be done with her.”

“What did happen in the woods with Sir Ralph?” Frevisse said, meaning to sound no more curious than anyone might be who lacked the courtesy not to ask at all. “No one ever quite says and we don’t like to ask Master Hugh. He found his father, didn’t he?”

Degory’s shudder looked a little practiced, as if maybe he had done it too often and hardly meant it anymore; and he answered readily enough, “It was terrible. There’s none of us will forget it.”

“Skyre had run off and Sir Ralph had gone after her?” Frevisse prompted.

“Aye. Silly bitch,” Degory said again, looking at the disgraced dog with pity and disgust. “Saw a squirrel on the ground or something and took off after it. Sir Ralph yelled and that didn’t help. Then he hit me and he hit Master Hugh and said to get after her and took off himself after her, too. That was the last we saw him. Until he was dead.”

“But you and Master Hugh went after her, too.”

“Oh, aye. Wouldn’t dare otherwise once Sir Ralph said to.”

“Together?”

“No. Could cover more going separate, see.”

“And everyone else stayed where they were.”

“Master Tom wasn’t there anymore. He’d fought with Sir Ralph already and gone home. I guess Sir William after a while tired of waiting and told Master Selenger they could look, too. Master Selenger was there at Sir Ralph’s body even afore me when Master Hugh started yelling for help after he’d found Sir Ralph. Daft that was-all of us out looking for her. More likely to scare her off than not.” Degory lowered his voice but did not keep his satisfaction out of it. “Sir William isn’t so good with hounds as he likes to think he is. They’re just things to hunt with, that’s all, to him.”

“I’ve known dogs with finer feelings than any person,” said Sister Johane. “There was one my father had…”

Frevisse let her and the boy talk on awhile longer before drawing Sister Johane off by suggesting they would be missed by now. Sister Johane gave way unwillingly, told Degory again that he kept a fine kennel, and talked happily all the way back to the hall about dogs she had known. Grateful for the unwitting help she had been, Frevisse let her.