The Prioress' Tale

Chapter 17

Alys paced her parlor lengthwise, door to far wall to door to far wall. Katerin had lighted the fire because it was time to light the fire and now was standing beside it, shifting uneasily from foot to foot because it was time for Alys to sit and Alys was not and Katerin did not know what to do about it.

In a corner of her thoughts, Alys was sorry for that. Katerin’s expectations were so few, it went hard with her when one of them failed. But she could not sit. She had to move, to force some kind of sense into her mind by making her body go somewhere, if only from door to far wall to door to…

What had Reynold been thinking of? He had to know he couldn’t go thieving through the countryside and not be called to account for it. And killing a man. That was not something that would go by. He had been angry over Godard when he did it and she understood anger, but Reynold’s had been wrong. When she was angry over a thing, then she was sure she was right, and her anger made others sure with her and saved her the need to argue a matter out with folks too slow to see it the way she did. But killing a man…

Reynold was supposed to help her. He had promised. She had believed him. Now she could not even use what he had brought, knowing it was stolen. Why had Godard been fool enough to be killed? Except for that, she would have gone on knowing nothing and everything would still be well.

No. Everything would still be ill, but she would be ignorant of it while it went on to worse before she learned of it too late. If it was not too late already. No. She refused that possibility. It was not too late. She would not let it be too late. There were still ways to make it right.

To begin with, Reynold had to go and take his men with him. Now. Tonight. As soon as Godard was dead. That’s what she had to tell him when he came.

But that was not what she wanted him to do. She wanted him to stay. She wanted him to undo what he had done, explain it to her and make it right.

And she doubted that he could.

She swung aside from her pacing to slam her open hands down on the tabletop. She rarely had trouble with uncertainty. She despised it as a weakness, a thing only weaklings had, but she had it now, like a heavy headache, thickening her thoughts, so they would not go the way she wanted them to go. She slammed her hands down on the table again and shoved away from it to pace to the window back to the table back to the window and finally stand staring out.

Below her the yard was lost in darkness. At this hour folk were expected to be settled for the night, no need for light where no one was supposed to be. The thin trace of light along the guest-hall shutters, and under the guest-hall door, showed nothing except their shapes. Was Godard dead yet?

The guest-hall door jerked open and broom-yellow light spilled out, down the steps and into the darkness of the yard. Alys stiffened as Reynold came out, no more than a dark shape against the light, but she knew him. Knew him by the way he held himself, by the turn of his head as he looked behind him. Knew him as surely as he would know her if he looked up and saw her there, another dark shape, against the low glow of her firelight.

They had always been that near in knowing, in understanding each other. From the time they had been children, they had been that near. He had to make this thing right before it went worse between them.

He did not look up to see her but back over his shoulder. Hugh joined him and they started down the steps together, into the darkness.

So Godard was dead and Reynold was coming but bringing Hugh with him rather than face her alone.

More wearied than she could remember ever being, Alys turned from the window and the dark toward her firelight, crossed heavy-footed to her chair, and sat. Beside the fire, Katerin sighed and was content.

“Sir Reynold and Sir Hugh are coming to the cloister door,” Alys told her, saying the words slowly to be sure she understood. “Go and let them in and bring them here.”

Katerin watched her speak, then gave an eager head bob to show she understood, bobbed a curtsy, and scurried away.

Alys shoved up out of her chair, about to pace again, then dropped back into it. Better to face him with all her dignity. But she could not. Sitting still was beyond her and she stood up again, facing the door as Katerin opened it and stood aside for Reynold and Hugh to enter.

“Godard is dead,” Reynold said without other greeting.

“You’re still armed,” Alys said back to him. All the men always wore their daggers but not their swords and particularly not in the nunnery, most particularly not in the cloister. Hugh was without his; Alys had a vague thought of him unbuckling it, handing it off to a squire to make it easier to kneel with Godard. Why did Reynold have to do yet another thing wrongly?

Reynold looked down at his hand, resting on his sword hilt against his hip as if surprised it was there, but kept on toward her, saying, “Given one thing and another, it’s probably best for now.” He held out his hands to take hers.

She turned away from him and circled her chair, putting it between them. “It’s not best here,” she said. “Katerin, light the lamps. All of them.” She suddenly wanted more light, much more light. There were too many shadows. She wanted to see Reynold’s face.

Katerin scurried to light a taper at the fire. While she carried it, carefully shielded in her hand, from lamp to lamp around the room, Reynold watched Alys a little, then sat down in her other chair and said, “It’s been a hell of a day. Godard was a good man.”

“So maybe was the man you killed,” Alys said back. But that was not to the point in this, and because there was no easy way to come to it, she went on bluntly, “You and your men have to be out of St. Frideswide’s before Tierce tomorrow unless you can find me a good reason why you shouldn’t be.”

Reynold looked at Hugh, who had gone aside to sit on a corner of the table, one leg swinging, his expression as grim as Alys felt. To Reynold’s look he only shrugged, as if he did not have an answer. Reynold shrugged back, looked back at Alys, and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of his knees, to say earnestly, “If I go, Master Porter will have your masons out of here within the hour. I’m all that’s keeping them here.”

“You said you’d worked the matter out with him, that you’d persuaded him it was best he stay.”

“And when I’m not here to go on ‘persuading’ him”- Reynold gave the word a different twist, broad with threat behind it-“he won’t stay, let me promise you.”

“You’ve promised me much, including help in paying him!”

“If I go, you still won’t have the money for it and he’ll be gone and you won’t persuade him back or any other masons to come instead and where’s your tower then?”

“Where is it now?”

Reynold spread his hands. “Say the word and you’ll have stone here in a day or so.”

“Stolen!” Alys accused. “You’d steal it in Banbury!”

“And why not?” Hugh asked. “He’s stolen everything else he’s brought you.”

Reynold slid him a hard sideways look. “Be quiet.”

Alys found her chest too tight for breath, had to fight for it before she could force out, “What?”

Reynold spread his hands, grinning wryly, asking her to share the jest. “How else could I come by it?”

“Pay for it, like everyone else!”

“The way you’ve paid your masons?”

“I’ll pay them! I’ve never meant to steal from them. There’ll be money for it and soon enough, too!”

“From where?” Reynold mocked.

He always turned to mocking when he thought he was going to win an argument without needing to lose his temper, but this time Alys had an answer and said triumphantly, “We had a miracle in the church this afternoon. Sister Thomasine cured a madman.”

“So?” Reynold asked.

She knew he was being deliberately thick and said, wanting to make him admit to what she had, “He was mute and witless and now he’s on his knees in front of the altar, praying.” Or he had better be. She had given orders for it to be seen to.

“And?” Reynold asked.

“Don’t be stupid, Reynold! Before Sister Thomasine touched him, he couldn’t speak, didn’t know where he was or what was happening to him. Now he’s cured! When word goes out there’s been a healing here and people start to come, there’ll be money enough for the tower and whatever else I want.”

“If they come.”

“They’ll come.” Of that Alys was positive. To doubt it after she had seen the miracle with her own eyes would be the same as doubting God.

“They very well might,” Hugh agreed.

“Be quiet!” Reynold snapped at him again.

“Reynold,” Alys said, “the point is, the straightest way out is for you to go before you drag the priory into more trouble than you have.”

“Than we have, Alys my girl,” Reynold said. “You’ve had most of the profit from my thieving, when all’s said and done and totaled up.”

“But I didn’t know until now that that was what was happening!”

“And so you’ll say, but will you be believed?”

“I’m more likely to be believed if you’re not still here when sheriff and crowner come!”

“And when the Fenners come?”

The constriction in her chest came back, worse than before. She could not always tell when Reynold was jesting, but she knew when he was utterly serious. “Fenners,” she said.

Reynold shrugged. “At least a few.”

That was a jest. There was no such thing as “a few” Fenners. They were like crows-seen solitary sometimes and even sometimes quarreling among themselves but flocking loud and fierce together at any outward threat to one or any of them. There were no “few” Fenners. She looked desperately at Hugh. “It isn’t Fenners you’ve been raiding.” Silently she pleaded for him to tell her that, to tell her that Reynold had not been raiding Fenners and bringing what he stole back here and that he had not killed on Fenner property today.

Hugh made no answer except a level stare directly back at her that was answer enough and too much.

She slammed her hands down on her chair, facing Reynold in a rage. “You fool! What were you thinking of?”

Reynold swung his scabbarded sword up to rest across his knees and leaned forward over it, not touched by her anger, saying earnestly, “Alys, Alys, think about it. It’s a quarrel that’s been shaping a long while. It was time to bring it to a head and be done with it.”

What was he talking about? The quarrel they had with the Fenners had been in abeyance for years, with Godfrey properties finally left in Fenner hands when the legal fees looked to rise higher than the properties were worth.

“That was over years ago,” she protested.

“Not over,” Reynold said. “Only waiting to come to life again. It’s been long enough. It’s time they paid us back for all they cost us.”

“I don’t recall they ever cost you a penny,” Hugh said.

“Neither you nor your father were ever the ones who took it to court.” No, it had been Hugh’s father had done that, Alys remembered.

Reynold ignored him, concentrating on her. “Alys, I’ve raided the Fenners and they haven’t been able to do anything about it. I’ve shown what can be done against them, that they’re vulnerable, and I’ve sent out word I’ve done it. In a few days more there’ll be at least a score more Godfreys here, satisfied I can do what I said I’d do, and then we’ll set a raid against the Fenners-one great raid that will pay back for everything and have back our lands for good measure at the end of it.”

Alys shook her head, wanting to refuse what he was saying. “Why use me for that? Why use St. Frideswide’s?”

“You’re not a place anyone would come looking first when trying to find out who was doing this to Fenner lands. That was a way to buy us more time. And you’re better walled than any of my properties, so a better defense when we’re found out. And even when we are, whoever finds us will think twice about attacking a nunnery and that buys us more time, for more men to join the game. And they will. There’ll be men in plenty and not just Godfreys who’ll come for this sport.”

Alys came around her chair and sank slowly into it, her legs not able to hold up the weight of pain in her head, the weight of pain in her heart. That was why he was here? Because he needed her nunnery. And he expected her to let it go on happening?

“Alys, listen.” He leaned farther forward, reached out to lay his hand on hers. She drew it away from him, refusing to look at him, staring past him into a shadowed corner of the room. He rested his hand on the arm of her chair and went on, “You see how you’ve made it possible to come this near to having at the Fenners? I can’t leave here now. It’s too late to break this off.”

“Of course the dead Fenner villein ups the stakes,” Hugh said. “Thieving is one thing. Killing is another.”

Reynold made an exasperated sound. “Forget the villein. If it ever comes to having to explain it, it was Godard killed him after he struck Godard, and now Godard is dead and there’s an end to it.”

“Our men will go along with that, but I doubt the villagers will,” Sir Hugh said.

“They will if they’re told what will happen to them if they don’t,” Sir Reynold snapped. “Don’t make trouble where there doesn’t have to be.”

“You can’t stay here,” Alys said. She looked at Hugh. “Make him understand he has to leave.”

“He won’t listen to me either.”

“Don’t give me this!” Reynold said angrily. “You’ve been part of this every step of the way, Hugh. Don’t try slipping out of it now.”

“You’ve pushed the thing too far, too fast. I’ve been telling you that,” Hugh answered.

“And if we pull back now, what happens?” Reynold demanded.

“If we don’t pull back now, what’s going to happen?” Hugh returned.

“What happens to me, whatever you do?” Alys cried.

“Nothing happens to you,” Reynold said impatiently. “When it comes to it, just keep insisting you didn’t know until it was too late and what could you have done then to be rid of us anyway? Have your nuns drive out my men? Set your nunnery folk to fight us?”

“They’ll say I should have sent word the moment I knew what you were about.”

“You didn’t know until now.”

Hugh made a rude sound and said, “Try making anyone believe that.”

Alys glanced at him, a little wild with knowing he was right, no one would believe her, but Reynold said, ignoring Hugh, “You couldn’t send word anyway. I’ve set guards. No one goes out or in from here without I know it from here on.”

Alys started to rise, too caught between half-disbelieving outrage and outright rage to find words. Reynold, seeming not to notice except he put a hand on her knee to keep her down, went on easily. “No, you should be able to clear you and your nunnery readily enough.”

“So long as it’s only words, she maybe can,” said Hugh, “but if it comes to us being attacked here…”

“If you’ve lost your stomach for it,” Reynold said angrily, “leave.”

“If I leave, my men go with me.”

“All three of them,” Reynold scorned. “You’re a ways yet from being some great lord.”

Hugh stood up from the table. “And so are you, cousin!”

“I’m nearer to it than you are and at least I’ve the guts to try for it!”

Beside the door Katerin whimpered, understanding the anger if nothing else of what was happening, and Alys could almost have whimpered with her, for once not seeing how she ought to go, afraid-unbelieving, she found she was afraid, a thing that, like uncertainty, she had no use for-afraid of what would happen if Reynold and Hugh broke and openly went for one another.

Then Hugh gave way, drew back from both Reynold and his anger, and said, “Play it your way, Reynold,” sounding as if they had come to this end between them before and he no longer much cared. “I’m going to bed. You have this out with her on your own.” He started toward the door, then paused, looked back and said, “But, Alys, don’t let him talk you into this. From here on out, the way things are, you’re better off without him.”