The Prioress' Tale

Chapter 3

As they came out of the passageway into the cloister walk, Frevisse overtook the girl, laying a hand on her shoulder again to turn her around, wanting to ask the questions for which there had been no time in the yard, but the questions fled as she saw Joice had gone ash white and was beginning to shudder the whole length of her body, her eyes dark and large with all the fear she must have been hiding behind her fury until now it was safe to give way to it; and instead of questions, Frevisse took the cloak from her and swung it around her shoulders without a word. Joice garnered it close to her, huddling into it with an unsteady attempt at a grateful smile. Cut in a full circle, made of close-woven, Kendal-green wool and lined with lambs’ fleece, it reached from her chin almost to her feet. Her gown was equally fine, Frevisse had noted-of light wool dyed darkly red and falling in deep folds from the close-fitted, high-waisted bodice to the floor, its high-standing collar shaped to her delicate throat and the wide sleeves gathered to cuffs at her wrists. Such quantity and quality of cloth in cloak and gown meant wealth went with her, bearing out Sir Reynold’s contention that she was worth the risk of carrying her off.

But none of that was any ward against the fear-cold shaking her now, and Lady Eleanor said, “My room, I think. And warmed wine. Spiced wanned wine. For all of us. You, too, Dame Frevisse.”

She said it briskly, but Frevisse saw with an edge of alarm that the soft rose of her cheeks was paled to white and she was trembling a little herself. Her show of determination against Sir Hugh and the rest must have cost her more than Frevisse had realized, and quickly Frevisse agreed, “Yes, that would do well,” and took Joice by one elbow to lead and support her toward Lady Eleanor’s room. Neither Lady Eleanor nor the girl was overly tall and both were delicately boned; for Frevisse, fine-boned but tall for a woman, Joice was an easy matter, and she would have reached to help Lady Eleanor, too, except the older woman had gathered herself and was firmly leading the way for them, showing no apparent need nor desire for anyone’s help.

Her room, like Domina Alys‘, was on the first floor in the cloister’s west range but there was no connecting way between them, so although the stairs up to Domina Alys’ rooms were close at hand, they had to go further along the cloister walk to the other stairs. Dame Juliana, going toward the infirmary with an armload of clean, folded linens, stopped, staring at Joice, a stranger where so few strangers came. Her curiosity would have gone to outright questions, but reading Frevisse’s look aright, she held her tongue and hurried on, intent now on being rid of linens so she could go to someone to tell what she had seen.

More usefully, Margrete appeared at the head of the stairs as they started up and, having taken them all in with a single quick look, was already turning back as Lady Eleanor ordered, “Warmed wine with spices, please, Margrete. Quickly,” so that by the time they reached the room, she was busy at the aumbry along the near wall, pouring wine into a brass pan, the cinnamon and other spices ready to hand.

Like most of the nunnery’s rooms, Lady Eleanor’s had no fireplace, but the coal glowing in a brazier in one corner gave heat enough for warming it. Her own wine and her own coal were among the few luxuries Lady Eleanor had brought with her when she came, but a room to herself was by itself more luxury than any of the nuns except their prioress had. Even the small cell each of them slept in, partitioned off from each other in the dormitory by thin wooden walls, was not supposed to be thought of as a nun’s own. Lady Eleanor’s room, shared only with Margrete, took up the full width of the range and was long enough that her wide bed with its canopy and curtains set at one end of it left ample room at the other for the aumbry, two chests with her clothing and other belongings, two chairs, a low stool, and the square, tall-legged table with shelf underneath where Lady Eleanor kept her few books. A painted tapestry brightened one of the white-plastered walls, and at this hour of the autumn afternoon the westering sunlight through the window spread across the dark polished wooden floor and golden matting of woven rushes.

Lady Eleanor’s two dogs, ankle-high pieces of white fluff, hurtled out from under the foot of the bed in a scrabble of nails and eagerness to see who had come, but Lady Eleanor countered them with a sharp word, stopping them where they were. “Not now,” she added, and disconsolately they removed themselves back under the bed. To Frevisse and Joice she said, “The chair by the brazier would do best, I think. Let me move it nearer.”

She did, and Frevisse sat Joice down in it while Lady Eleanor tucked the cloak more closely around her, murmuring, “You’ll be fine now, dear. Just sit and be still until the wine is ready.”

“And you should sit, too,” Frevisse said, drawing the other chair close to the first. “Here.”

Lady Eleanor looked momentarily surprised, then smiled and did as Frevisse bid, before leaning toward Joice to ask, “Is it better with you now?”

Stiffly upright in her chair, her hands gripping its curved arms, the girl shook her head. “No, it isn’t better and it’s not likely to ever be ‘better’ again, is it? Not after this!” She let loose of the chair to make fists and pound them on the arms. “I could kill them for doing this to me! Benet and all the rest! I could kill them!”

Margrete coming to set the pan to heat over the coals cast her a look of question more than alarm, and Lady Eleanor took Joice’s nearest fist, gentling it between her hands as she asked, “You haven’t been… harmed, have you?”

Joice snatched her hand away, striking the chair arm again. “Not that way. They grabbed me and flung me onto Benet’s saddle, that’s all they did, but do you think Sir Lewis will marry me after this? Do you think anyone will marry me after this?” Her face and voice and body were all rigid with rage. “Not without my father having to pay twice the dowry he meant to and my taking less marriage settlement than I should have had! That’s what they’ve done to me!” Her voice dropped to brooding bitterness. “And likely anyone who has me will make me listen every day of my life afterward to how good he was to take me even at that.”

Not if he knew what was good for him, Frevisse thought. Slight of build and delicate of face though Joice was, there was nothing slight or delicate about her temper.

With the fury that seemed to have driven out her brief facing of fear, Joice sprang to her feet, throwing the cloak back onto the chair behind her. “And all that supposes I’m ever able to leave here to make any kind of marriage at all! I heard what Sir Reynold said. He won’t let me leave. I’m worth too much. He’ll try to take me himself if he has to, I’ll warrant!”

Lady Eleanor began a soft denial of that. Ignoring it, Joice spun around, pointing at Frevisse. “And don’t think I’ll ever become a nun, because I won’t!”

Frevisse held back from saying aloud her sharp-edged thought that a less likely possibility for a novice she had rarely seen.

Lady Eleanor, as if oblivious to the girl’s fury, said thoughtfully, “You could possibly change your mind and marry Benet, you know. He’s an uncomplicated boy and there’s property to be had with him when he inherits.”

“All I want from Benet is his death!”

“Ah,” Lady Eleanor said. “But if you married him first, my dear, you could then be a widow, and that’s frequently a very pleasant thing to be.”

Joice stared at her, shocked to silence by outrage, until, like Frevisse, she must have seen the small smile crooking at the corners of Lady Eleanor’s mouth and-apparently as much to Joice’s own surprise as Frevisse’s-the girl began to laugh. “I hadn’t thought of that!” she said around the laughter, and then broke down in tears that seemed to take her as much by surprise as the laughter had done so that, hiding her face in her hands, she sank back down into the chair, sobbing helplessly.

Lady Eleanor exchanged a look with Frevisse who nodded in return, agreeing with her that the crying was for the best. This girl had been through fear and courage and cold shock and rage, almost all together and far too rapidly; her tears would exhaust her and then the wine would quiet her and she would be able to rest, even sleep, and after that be better able to deal with whatever came next.

Margrete had taken the pan from the brazier back to the aumbry and was pouring the wine into goblets. Frevisse crossed to the window that overlooked the yard. Whatever came next would have much to do with how things had gone-or were going-between Domina Alys and Sir Reynold, and from here she could see them, Sir Reynold dismounted now, standing on the guest-hall steps in gesturing talk with Domina Alys who looked to be returning as good as whatever he was giving her, with Sir Hugh and Benet, both dismounted now, standing close below them. The rest of the men had all dismounted, too, and were drifted away or standing about at discreet distances from the steps in talk of their own but undoubtedly listening, while servants led off the last of the horses to the stable. There was nothing to be told from all that except that neither Domina Alys nor Sir Reynold seemed in a rage at each other now, and Frevisse found herself wary at the thought that they must be coming to some manner of agreement. Given Domina Alys’ willingness to indulge her relatives, she might even be coming around to Sir Reynold’s view of matters, ready to take his side against the girl. But then again, she rarely changed her mind on any matter, so mayhap she had brought him around to her way of seeing it and so to peace between them.

Margrete served the wine. The rich savor of mixed spices wafting from it was warming in itself as Lady Eleanor laid a kind hand on Joice’s shoulder and urged, “Drink now. While it’s warm. You’ll be the better for it.”

Drawing a deep, shaken breath, Joice raised her head. The worst of the crying had passed and she wiped her eyes with the edge of one sleeve, took the goblet Margrete held out to her with an unsteady smile, and said, “Thank you.”

She drank a little while Margrete brought Lady Eleanor and Frevisse their goblets, and then leaned back in her chair, nursing the goblet’s warmth between her hands and against her breast. Even with her face marred by the crying, she had a simple loveliness that made clear how easily young Benet could have been drawn to her, low birth or not; and because of its simplicity, it was a loveliness likely to last through the years, not fade with youth, although just now, with her hair still fallen loose and the tears and anger at least momentarily gone from her face, she looked even younger than she was, as if she were a small, exhausted child in need of her supper and bed. And with a child’s simplicity she said, “I’m sorry for the crying. I won’t do it again.”

“Unless you need to,” Lady Eleanor answered. “Tears are as good for easing the heart as warmed, spiced wine is for easing the mind, and you may want the comfort these next few days. Cry if you need it.”

Joice smiled a little unsteadily and looked down into her goblet as if the remaining wine might have answers for her. “It would help,” she said, “if I at least knew that my people knew where I was, that they knew what had happened to me.

“What did happen?” Frevisse asked.

Joice looked briefly bewildered at the question. Exhaustion was beginning to overtake her, making her thoughts hard to draw together, but she said, when she had had chance to think about how to say it, “I was coming home from the market. It’s market day in Banbury and I’d gone to the market, of course, and was coming home.”

“You live in Banbury, then.”

“No. In Northampton. My father is Nicholas Southgate, a draper there. I’m in Banbury these few months because my aunt is ill and her children small and I’m seeing to her household.”

“How did Benet know to find you in Banbury?” Frevisse said.

“He saw me there a week ago, at last market. We were both surprised. I didn’t even remember him until he spoke to me and then like a fool I told him why I was there and for how long.”

“But how does he know you at all?” Frevisse asked.

“My father has partners in London and goes there a few times a year. Last spring Sir Lewis Fenner was going to be in London with his cousin Lord Fenner, so Father took me with him so Sir Lewis could have chance to see what he was bargaining for.”

Lady Eleanor and Frevisse exchanged looks. Between the Fenners and the Godfreys there was a long-ongoing quarrel, entangled for years now in legalities and angers, over some piece of land. So Joice Southgate was more than simply someone young Benet wanted-she was a prize snatched from a Fenner. For Frevisse, that explained Sir Reynold’s interest in the matter, let be that the girl was wealthy in the bargain; and unfortunately for both reasons he would be loath to give her up, easily or otherwise.

“We went other places, too, my father and I. He had some very fine brocades and Italian silks to show around to ladies he thought best likely to be interested-and he took me with him so I could see what sort of life he’s going to marry me into. One of the places was a Lady Joanne Godfrey-”

“Sir Reynold’s mother,” Lady Eleanor said, and added with a careful eye on Joice, “My sister.”

Joice snapped her head around to face her. “You’re one of them?” Accusation, wariness, and regret were all in the question together.

Lady Eleanor smiled at her.“It’s why Sir Reynold listened to me in the yard. It’s why he may listen to me better than he does anyone else as this goes on.”

Impulsively, Joice reached out to clasp her wrist. “Thank you.”

Lady Eleanor patted her hand. “It’s only right. Simply because he’s of my family doesn’t mean I have to back him in his greater stupidities. So young Benet saw you in London last spring. And any other time?”

“No, and it was only for a little while then. He came and talked to me while Father was showing the cloth to Lady Joanne. I hardly noticed him. It was already expected I’d be betrothed to Sir Lewis, so what would be the point in my noticing anyone? I never thought of him again until we met in Banbury market last week.”

“But he thought of you,” Lady Eleanor said. “Thought very well of you, apparently.”

“To my grief,” Joice said bitterly. “He had them grab me up from the street as I was going home! I didn’t even know they were there until suddenly there were horsemen all around me and one of them flung me onto Benet’s saddle, and when I tried to fight him, he wrapped me into my cloak so I couldn’t even move and-and-” She gestured helplessly. “I’m here and nobody knows what happened to me or where I am.”

“But people saw what happened to you in Banbury,” Frevisse said. A town was always full with people on a market day; mounted men snatching a resisting girl would not have gone unnoticed. “And it won’t be secret long where you are. Even if Sir Reynold and his men went unrecognized in Banbury, word will be out that there’s been a girl stolen and people will have seen them riding this way with you. Nor there’s no way to stop our own servants here that go back to the village every night from talking about you. By suppertime the whole village will know you’re here and the rest of the countryside will have it tomorrow this time.”

“Then my father will come for me!” Joice said gladly. “He’ll ransom me if he has to. Or Sir Lewis, for honor’s sake, will force them to give me up. He has men enough to make them do it!”

“Has your betrothal been made?” Lady Eleanor asked quickly.

Betrothal vows were as binding as those of marriage. If Joice were actually betrothed to Sir Lewis, any marriage forced on her otherwise, to Benet or anyone else, would be worthless.

Knowing that as well as Frevisse and Lady Eleanor did, Joice was abruptly close to tears again. “No. They’re still drawing up the agreement. It isn’t signed yet. He won’t come. What he wants is my dowry. If I look like being too much trouble-and this is very much trouble-he’ll simply drop it altogether. And it would have been a good marriage for me! He’s cousin to Lord Fenner and has lands in three counties!”

“But if your dowry is very great,” Lady Eleanor said gently, “you may still be worth the trouble to him.”

“So what it comes down to,” Joice said bitterly, “is whether my dowry makes me worth fighting over or not. Whether I’m worth what it might cost to have me out of here.”

“Yes,” Lady Eleanor said simply.

Joice’s eyes widened with another thought. “It might even come to Father agreeing I marry this Benet if everything else is too costly and the marriage is good enough. You said he had lands to inherit. If Sir Lewis fails me, this is something Father could agree to.”

“Yes,” Lady Eleanor said again and left it at that, for Joice to think on. Joice did, staring at the wall in front of her in full-eyed shock.

Frevisse finished her wine and handed the goblet aside to Margrete. Very regrettably, this was not a matter that would be sorted out in a day. For now it would have to be enough that Joice was under the nunnery’s protection-and perhaps more importantly, in Lady Eleanor’s. “I have to go,” she said. “It’s nearly time for Vespers.”

Lady Eleanor nodded, understanding, and began a polite reply, but Joice rose quickly to her feet, recovered enough to hold out a hand that Frevisse, in surprise, took as the girl said in a rush, “Thank you for helping me there in the yard. I’m sorry for what I said about my never being a nun. It was rude of me. But,” she added firmly, “I never will be, come what may.”

For which they could all very likely be much grateful, Frevisse did not say, and left.