The Reeve's Tale

Chapter 14

“Who’s to say?” Gilbey said impatiently. “Nobody cared enough about Tom Hulcote to want him dead. I’d like to have taken a stick to him for laziness, but that’s not wanting him dead. As for Simon and me…” He made a wide two-handed gesture. “We’re disliked and by more than a few, that’s sure. Him for being reeve, me for having money.”

Frevisse looked to Perryn, who shrugged as if he neither liked nor could deny what Gilbey said. “But it was Tom who was making threats,” he said. “Nobody’d made any against him I’d heard of.”

‘Who had he been threatening besides the two of you?“

Perryn looked at Gilbey who said bluntly, “Just us. Me the most. What you heard at manor court and other times. Bess in the alehouse finally told him to shut his gob or get out that Saturday.”

‘Aye, but Tom was all talk and no doing,“ Perryn said. ”That was always his trouble and everybody knew it.“

‘You weren’t worried by his threats then?“

‘We’d be right fools to say we were, wouldn’t we be?“ Gilbey said back. ”That’d be reason we’d want him dead, wouldn’t it be?“

‘But not reason to leave your belt and Perryn’s hood with the body. Who is there lately might want to make trouble against you both?“

Perryn answered slowly, thinking on it, “There’s usually somebody not happy with how I’ve done things, but the only one I know who’s been full angry with me lately has been Tom and he’s out of it, isn’t he?”

‘And your sister,“ Elena said.

‘Oh, aye. Mary,“ Perryn agreed. ”But she’s always in a fret over one thing or another, and I don’t see her killing Tom of all people.“

‘Let be keeping his body hid a few days,“ Gilbey said, ”then hauling it out to Oxfall ditch and…“

‘Gilbey,“ Elena said.

Gilbey broke off and Perryn went on, “There’s those might have spite against me for things I’ve forgotten I ever did, but that’s no help, since I don’t remember them.”

‘Nor no way I see either,“ Gilbey said. He stood up. ”And no time for it either just now. Jack Fleccher’s been left to the work alone too long as it is today. By your leave, my lady, I’m off.“

Frevisse could not keep him if he chose to go but along with her dismissing nod she asked, “Did Tom Hulcote and Jack Fleccher do well together?”

‘Nay. Jack works and Tom didn’t. Even when he was here, Tom left too much to Jack, and half the time of late he wasn’t even here.“

‘It was only that last month before he quit he was so slack about being here,“ Elena said. ”Before then he was none so bad.“

‘When did he quit?“ Frevisse asked.

‘The next day after St. Swithin’s,“ Gilbey said, ”but he’d been worthless for more than a month before then. Here and gone and come back and gone again, I lost count how often.“

‘Gone off to where?“

‘Who knows?“ Gilbey asked back, leaving. ”Who cares?“ he added and was gone.

Perryn stood up as if against a weight of tiredness. “I’d best go, too, my lady. Dickon.”

The boy rose readily, but Elena said, “A moment, please you,” and crossed to the hearth where the smell of beans, onions, and herbs was bubbling up from an iron kettle set on a low tripod over the little fire there. “Take some of this with you.”

‘Likely Cisily has something ready to our supper,“ Perryn said. ”No need.“

‘There’s no harm in having a bit more,“ Elena said as she ladled thick brown pottage into a wooden bowl. With a smile, she held it out to Dickon. ”You could probably eat all Cisily has fixed and this too, I’d guess.“

Dickon nodded eagerly and reluctantly Perryn said, “Well, yes, thank you then. That’s kind.”

It would have been reasonable for Frevisse to take her leave with them, but she stayed where she was while Dickon collected the bowl from Elena with a wide grin and thanks; and while he and Perryn left, Elena filled another bowl, shifted the pot off the fire, lidded it, and brought the bowl and a wooden spoon across the room to Frevisse, saying, “If you’re hungry, my lady?”

The savory smell decided Frevisse against denying her hunger. Years ago, in her early months as a novice, she had tried to subdue her pleasure in food, eager to discipline herself to holiness by every means she could think of. Disappointed at her failure to cease noticing what she ate, she had gone to Domina Edith, the elderly prioress of St. Frideswide’s, confessed her failure, and asked help. Domina Edith had told her, gently, that there was no spiritual fault in taking pleasure in food. “There’s likely greater fault in scorning God’s good gifts, given to our bodies’ needs,” she had said.

‘But gluttony is a sin,“ Frevisse had protested.

‘Gluttony is the indulging in food and drink to excess, past need or common sense. Is that what you’ve been doing?“

A soft rowling of hunger in Frevisse’s stomach had served for answer and brought both her and Domina Edith to laughter, and she had given up guilt over food.

Nor was she over-indulging here, because although her meals and Sister Thomasine’s were being brought from the nunnery, what had sufficed her while she was in the cloister was not enough these days spent in nursing ill children, and she took spoon and bowl gladly, asking as she did, “You’ll join me?”

‘By your leave, no. I’ll wait for my husband.“

‘Sit with me then and talk, if you would.“

‘If you will.“ Elena sat again, wiped her hands on her apron, folded them into her lap, and with her gaze on Frevisse, openly waiting to be asked something.

She was too ready, and Frevisse took time to ease her hunger first, finding the pottage savory and saying so with unfeigned pleasure.

‘It’s been good growing weather for herbs as well as all else,“ Elena said, ”and it’s herbs that make the difference between plain beans and something worth the eating. Now, before someone comes or the boys waken again, what is it you want from me?“

Frevisse returned the favor of Elena’s forwardness. “Tom Hulcote. You would likely hear talk among the women that the men never would. Did you ever hear he was out of the ordinary disliked by someone? Or did he ever say anything to you about someone he was afraid of?”

‘He worked here, took his meals with us. That was all I ever had to do with him. The only times he talked with me much about anything, it was to spin tales about why he hadn’t done some piece of work, hoping I’d make it straight with my husband.“

‘Would you?“

‘No. It was my money he was being paid with, too. Why should I help him cheat me? He was a weak man. One of those who go on about how luck never goes their way and how they mean to change it but never seem to do much to make it happen.“

‘He was bidding to have the Woderove holding.“

‘He was bidding to have Mary Woderove.“

That was put curtly enough that Frevisse let go circumspection and asked plainly, “You didn’t like him?”

Just as plainly, Elena answered back, “No. Nor much disliked him either, come to that. He wasn’t worth the bother. To me or anyone else, that ever I heard or saw.”

Except to Mary Woderove.

It was constantly clearer that Tom Hulcote and Mary had had no one but each other, and now Mary had not even him.

Nor Tom even his life.

‘And if you’ve heard that there was anything between him and me there shouldn’t have been,“ Elena went on, calm about it and maybe a little bitter, ”there wasn’t. But then I’d say that, no matter what, wouldn’t I?“

‘No. You’d more likely hope the question didn’t arise at all.“

Elena gave a small, unwilling laugh. “True enough. But there’s no point denying I know what folk say about me, what they think.”

‘Do you wonder that they do?“ Frevisse asked, deciding boldness would serve her as well as it did Elena.

‘No, but I can wish they’d find something else to talk on.“

‘They won’t.“

Elena laughed openly this time. “No. They won’t. There’s too much sport for them in believing I must have married Gilbey for no more than his money and therefore surely serve him the way young wives always serve their older husbands in all the stories. I’m too young and he’s too old and I’m too lovely and therefore I must be adulterous. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”

‘Not,“ Frevisse said dryly, ”quite so bluntly.“

‘It’s what it comes to, though. I knew it would when I set out to marry him but didn’t think I’d care.“

‘And now you’ve found you do.“

‘More for Gilbey’s sake than mine.“ Elena smiled. ”But then he minds it more for my sake than for his, so all evens out, I suppose.“

‘It wasn’t for his money you married him, then?“ Frevisse asked.

‘Of course I did,“ Elena said, surprised. ”And he married me for mine. We’re neither of us fools. My brother will have the bakery for his inheritance, but my father has settled other Banbury properties on my sister and me. They give a goodly income from rents and all.“

Trying to balance between question and statement, Frevisse said, “You could have married well in Banbury.”

‘Oh, yes,“ Elena agreed. ”With this face and that property, I was offered for by everyone from the butcher down the street to the squire’s younger son from over the county border.“

‘But you took Gilbey in preference to them all.“

‘And a hard time I had bringing him to it, I promise you.“

Frevisse had no chance to hide her surprise at that, blurting without pretense, “What?”

Elena laughed with open pleasure. “Gilbey has a sister who bought her freedom years ago, married and lives in Banbury and is a friend of my mother. I heard of Gilbey long before I ever met him and liked what I heard. When the chance came, I tried to catch his interest in me but he wasn’t having it.”

Frevisse was still trying to accept that Elena had liked what she’d heard of Gilbey Dunn as Elena leaned toward her, surely able to read her face and said, seeming suddenly to want her to understand. “Every man who ever offered for me made it plain they thought I must have less wits than a cabbage because I have this face. They also made it plain that they didn’t care, that my pretty face and fat dowry were enough to satisfy them. None of them ever thought to ask what would satisfy me.”

‘Until Gilbey?“

‘Gilbey-he told me so later-never bothered to look at me above once and forgot about me afterwards because he wasn’t minded to go after trouble, what with him being villein and me being freeborn, and besides, he reckoned he needed a young wife like he needed plague.“

What that lacked in charm it had in truth, from what Frevisse knew of Gilbey.

‘I thought, even before he told me, his lack of interest in me was from something like that, and I liked him the better for it. It was more sense than some men had shown. But I also liked what I’d heard of him in his sister’s talk, about what he wanted and how he was going about to have it.“

‘What did he want?“

‘The same thing he still wants. More than what he has. Though that’s common enough,“ Elena added before Frevisse could. ”The difference is that he enjoys the doing what needs to be done to have the more. He enjoys finding out ways other men don’t see and turning them to his profit.“

Like taking pasture another man had let go to waste and turning it to milk and cheese and beef that he could sell in Banbury, Frevisse remembered from Anne Perryn’s talk.

‘And so do you,“ Frevisse guessed.

‘There’s hardly better pleasure to be had, than to take little and turn it into much.“ Elena said simply, ”unless it’s to be able to share the pleasure with someone else.“

The way she and Gilbey must share it with one another, Frevisse thought.

‘All I had to do was make Gilbey see past my face. I went deliberately with my mother to visit his sister when I knew he was there and made chance to say aside to him that there was a tenement and messuage the owner was looking to sell in Market Street. He wanted to know why I’d bother to tell him that, and I said, because the innkeeper next door to it had said he didn’t want it but was secretly waiting for the price to go down before he offered for it while spreading rumors to keep anyone else from it while he waited. The price was already gone somewhat down, and whoever bought it now could then drag a better price out of the innkeeper than had been asked to start with because he needed the property.“

Caught now into open curiosity, Frevisse asked, “How did you come to know all that?”

‘Gilbey asked that, too. It was simply that the innkeeper is my father’s friend. I’d bring their ale while they sat and talked and drank in our parlor, and they never cared what I heard because they never thought I’d understand it anyway. I told Gilbey that and he asked, sharplike because we didn’t have long to talk alone, what I hoped to gain by telling him any of this, and when I answered back, ’Your interest in me,‘ that was that.“ She fixed her coolly certain gaze on Frevisse. ”I’m telling you so you’ll know I wouldn’t bother looking half an instant with any interest at someone like Tom Hulcote. Despite whatever other folks might think we ought to be, Gilbey and I are glad of each other, and Gilbey knows me too well ever to think he might have reason to be jealous of me that way, if that’s what you’re looking at for a reason one or the other of us might have murdered Tom.“

Frevisse startled with the realization that Elena had not been talking idly this while, had understood the suspicion behind her questioning, and had set out against it. Giving answers she was willing to give so as to forestall questions more dangerous to her?

Hiding her anger at herself for being so easily led, Frevisse asked something that had only to do with her curiosity, not Tom Hulcote’s death. “Why, with all his ambition, hasn’t Gilbey bought his freedom?”

‘Because he’d lose too much by being free,“ Elena said bluntly. ”First, there’d be the cost of buying himself free, then the cost of buying land if he could but more probably leasing it, land not being that readily come by. So long as he stays Lord Lovell’s villein, he holds his land here by right. Though we’re thinking that it may be better now to give his right up and shift to copyhold, no more workdays or fees owed, just a flat yearly rent, everything to be held in survivorship between us, with the boys to inherit.“

‘Will Lord Lovell agree to that?“

‘It’s common enough anymore,“ Elena said as if she had no doubt about it. ”The lords prefer cash in hand to the bother of reckoning workdays owed and trying to collect past-due fees, and Gilbey is a good enough tenant that the steward won’t want to risk losing him. It will come to much the same as being free without the cost of buying his freedom.“

‘What about this house?“ Because whatever actual practice was, in legal fact what a villein owned belonged to his lord, and if it came to law the lord’s claim would very possibly be upheld.

‘The house and everything in it are my father’s. He leases it for a penny a year to Gilbey in return for use of the land it stands on, and it’s tied to pass to my children when he dies. That way it will never be Gilbey’s and at risk to the lord. Though if for some fool’s reason, Lord Lovell decided to make trouble over it, worse come to worse, it can be taken down and moved away if need be.“

Worse come to worse, it could be taken down and moved away, too, if-for some reason-Elena’s marriage to Gilbey failed.

Some reason such as Tom Hulcote.

How right was Elena in thinking Gilbey would never be jealous of her, when he had so much to lose if he lost her?

And how honest had she been in claiming she had no inclination to Tom Hulcote?

But those were hardly questions Frevisse could ask outright and, ready to be done with Elena for a time, she took her leave gracefully. Elena saw her to the door, making equally graceful farewell but saying in a worried voice as Frevisse started away, “My lady, is anything you’ve learned so far of any use?”

Frevisse turned back to her, paused, almost said, “I don’t know yet,” but said instead, matching Elena’s worry, “Only that there’s someone so hurting in himself with anger or unhappiness that it isn’t enough he killed a man. He wants to be sure someone else suffers for it in his place.”