The Reeve's Tale

Chapter 15

The last of the day’s clouds were gone, save for a few wisps strayed across the west, gold and cream and touched with scarlet, above the setting sun. The day’s warmth had thickened through the afternoon, and walking slowly away from Gilbey’s messuage, Frevisse found herself wishing for the cool shadows and deep quiet of St. Frideswide’s church and cloister walk, wanting to be enclosed and silent with nothing needed from her but prayers, even if only for a little while. Her thoughts were tired and twisted into pieces with all the different ways the day had gone-from the dark, wearing hours with the ill children to facing down Mont-fort to questioning how Tom Hulcote had come to his death. She was used to days that held together, flowing in a steady pattern from their beginnings to their ends, not sharded into pieces that jarred and grated against one another and against her peace of mind.

She did not want to be part of Prior Byfield and its troubles.

But she was, and Deus adjuvat me; et Dominus susceptor est animae meae. God helps me; and the Lord is the protector of my soul.

And if God was her help and protector, she was likewise bound to help and protect where she could, giving to others what God gave to her, and just now her help was needed here, partly because Montfort would do his worst to believe what he wanted to believe-that Perryn and Gilbey Dunn were guilty-and partly because she could not rid herself of the fear that had come to her in the churchyard-that Tom Hulcote’s death was not the first there had been in this and might not be the last.

His death and Matthew Woderove’s had been so alike.

She paused in the midst of the street, caught between returning to the church and turning toward Simon Perryn’s with the questions she wanted to ask there, now being maybe better for them than later. But she had already been gone from the church far longer than she had meant to be and the questions could wait until morning; the children’s needs could not. And nonetheless, after a moment more of hesitation, she turned toward Simon Perryn’s.

There were others seeing to the children but no one else would ask the questions that needed asking.

Perryn, his two servants, and Dickon were still at their supper when she paused on his threshold, her shadow thrown ahead of her through the open doorway telling she was there before she need knock, and in the moment until her sun-brightened eyes were used to the house’s shadows, Perryn said, “Dame Frevisse,” in surprise and then in welcome, “Come in, please you, my lady.”

By then she could see him rising from his place on a joint stool at the table’s head and Cisily and Dickon and a man who must be Watt on benches down its sides all turning to look at her, and she had a sudden sense of how comfortably crowded it would be at the table when Anne, Adam, Colyn, and Lucy were all there, too, and how empty it must be to Perryn without them, how hard the days of not knowing who would come home again and who would not must have been.

And even now they were not sure that Adam would.

She put the thought away from her. They had finished eating, she saw. The meal’s end looked to have been applemose and some sort of wafers that were probably supposed to be thin and crisp and golden but were thick and brown and somewhat blackened around the edges and Dickon had been scraping the burned part of one away with his knife, into the remains of what looked to be overcooked pease pottage in the bowl in front of him. If this was Cisily’s usual cooking, no wonder he had been eager for Elena Dunn’s, Frevisse thought. But Cisily, Watt, and Dickon were rising to their feet with Perryn, and she said quickly, “I pray you, sit, please,” as she entered at Perryn’s invitation. Watt and Dickon did but Cisily began to bustle from the table, saying, “Let me fetch you some supper, my lady, if you’d eat with us, if it please you.”

‘I thank you but no,“ Frevisse said. Besides that she was satisfied already, the smell from whatever Cisily had cooked suggested there had been scorching at the bottom of the pot.

‘Ale then?“ Cisily said.

‘Thank you, yes,“ Frevisse said though she did not much want that either.

‘Is there aught wrong, my lady?“ Perryn asked, still on his feet and worried. ”The children?“

Sorry she had not realized that would be his first thought, she said hurriedly, “Not that I know. I’ve only come with some of the questions I asked at Gilbey’s. About Monday.”

Cisily, fetching another cup to the table, grumbled, “None of us know aught about naught at Gilbey Dunn’s. They keep themselves to themselves there, they do.”

Frevisse was a little used to Cisily from her helping Anne in the church: an older woman with a sprout of gray hairs on her upper lip and grumbling ways but part of the Perryns’ household for a long while past and a good worker and good with the children, who, like their mother, never seemed to heed her grumbling. Nor did Perryn now, asking, “Will you sit, my lady?” gesturing to the joint stool at the end of the table from where he stood. To put everyone at better ease, Frevisse sat while Cisily poured ale from a pitcher already on the table and Perryn named Watt to her. Watt stood again, made an awkward bow, and sat. Frevisse thanked Cisily for the ale and said, because she could think of no subtle way around to it, “In truth it’s you I want to talk to, Cisily.”

Pleased, Cisily sat down on a bench and smoothed her apron over her lap. “Yes, my lady.”

‘But if the rest of you will listen and put in anything that comes to you, that would be to the good, too,“ Frevisse said. The men and Dickon nodded and she turned to Cisily. ”I need to know about this Monday, the day before Tom Hulcote was found dead.“

‘Aye, I mind Monday,“ Cisily said.

‘Perryn went to the church early that morning. In the rain.“

‘And came home to breakfast and complained the oatmeal was over-done. I told him I’d been seeing to the hens, that was why, there being only me to see to everything about the house and that’s what happens when there’s only one and too much to do. Then he said there shouldn’t be that much doing, with only him and Watt and the boy to see to, and that made me want to cry, thinking of the poor babies all sick and gone, and…“

Cisily remembered Monday well enough, it seemed. More of it than Frevisse wanted to hear about, assuredly, and she slipped in hurriedly, “And we pray they’ll be home soon and everything back to the way it was. Who else was here on Monday?”

It took Cisily a moment to change course, then she said, “Watt and Dickon.”

‘No one else?“ Frevisse prompted. ”No one else came here all day?“

‘Oh, aye. You want that, too?“

‘Please,“ Frevisse said, afraid it might be all or next to nothing from Cisily.

‘Esota Emmet,“ Cisily said promptly. ”I remember her. The old cat. Come snooping, that’s all she was up to. Bess Underbush, too, to bring that ale you asked her to, Simon, because we were almost out.“ She thought a bit, her lower lip twitching with the effort. ”Was it that day Walter Hopper was here, wanting something?“

‘Aye, Monday,“ Watt said. ”You sent him on to me. Like I’d know what work Simon’d want from him this week.“

‘How was I to know you wouldn’t? If naught else, you’d maybe know where Simon was, for Walter to go ask him.“

‘Were you here in the house all day?“ Frevisse asked.

‘I mind I took some of the new ale to Anne at midday, and I was in and out and about in yard and garden now and again.“ She suddenly brightened, remembering more. ”Mary was here. I told you, Simon. Came to the door bold as you please, demanding to see you. That was Monday, sure as anything, because Tuesday we found Tom and she’s been shut up in her house ever since, carrying on like nobody in the world ever felt a loss but her, so it had to be Monday she was here because it wasn’t Sunday. And Ienet Comber, she came by about cheese. Anyone else?“ Cisily thought on that a moment, then decided, ”Nay. That was all.“

Except for whoever might have come while Cisily was out. “Watt,” Frevisse said, “can you mind anyone else here that day?”

Watt shook his large, grizzled head. “I was out at hoeing from morning until almost time for evening work.”

‘Where did Walter Hopper find you?“

‘Here. ’Twas early he came by. I was just done morning milking.“

Frevisse turned back to Cisily. “Do you remember anything about Perryn’s green hood that day?”

Cisily shifted to indignation. “You mean that hood that crowner fellow has? Do you know how we go about getting that back from him? It’s too good a hood to be lost to such as him.”

‘We’ll have to see,“ Frevisse said. ”Perryn, when you came in that morning, what did you do with your hood?“

‘Hung it there by the door.“ He pointed to a pegged rack on the wall.

‘Nay, that you didn’t,“ Cisily shot back. ”You left it lying like usual on the bench here, wet though it was. I hung it up, or it’d not be dry yet.“

‘Hung it there?“ Frevisse asked, nodding to the pegs.

‘Aye. There.“

‘What do you remember of it after that?“

‘Remember of it?“ Cisily frowned, thinking about it. ”Nothing, I don’t think. Nay. Nothing.“

‘Not whether it was there or not there after that?“

‘If t’wasn’t there, Simon had it. That’s all I’d think about it. It was there or else he had it, no great matter. As long as’t’wasn’t lying about for me to pick up, I’d give it no thought and wouldn’t now, except Esota Emmet came to tell me about it, right enough, while I cooking supper just now. About master’s hood and Gilbey’s belt. Somebody’s been up to no good with those,“ she added darkly. ”That’s what Esota says, and so do I and anybody else around here with sense.“

But until Montfort said the same, Perryn and Gilbey Dunn weren’t safe, Frevisse thought, and took the thought with her as she took her leave, declining with thanks Perryn’s offer to see her to the church, wanting the chance to be alone.

The west still glowed yellow above the lately set sun, the long summer twilight had hardly begun to fade, and from other times in other villages, Frevisse knew that on such an evening people should be out and about, work done for the day but with light enough left for visiting among neighbors, and surely there should be a scatter of children at play on the green, their laughter and shouting bright through the darkening hour or so until they were called in to bed. But this evening there was no one in sight except for a pair of the crowner’s men on the bench under the oak tree, a stoup of probably ale between them since one of their fellows was coming out the alehouse doorway bearing another. Save for them, Prior Byfield was outwardly empty of all the life there should have been, because somewhere among them was a murderer and they did not know who. While Tom Hulcote’s body rotted in its grave, the rot of his death was spreading here, and not helped in the least by Montfort corrupting where he should have cured.

Was it greed that made a person so stupid? Or was it that stupidity led to greed?

Frevisse turned toward St. Chad’s, tired with this gathering of pieces. And now, whether she wanted to or not, she would be sifting and shifting them around, trying to make sense from them without knowing if she even had the pieces needed to make sense.

And meanwhile there were her slacked duties waiting to be answered for. For that, she would not only to ask Sister Thomasine’s pardon but offer to take both their duties through the night in reparation. Unhappily, no matter how little she minded asking pardon, the rest of her resolve brought her to falter in the nave doorway. These past days’ duties had not grown easier with doing. If anything, they had grown harder for her. But that gave her no right to scant them, especially when she knew Mistress Margery purposed to spend tonight at her own cottage, tending a needed herbal brew through its simmering and sieving and more simmering, and with firm hold against what she would have preferred to do, she went on in.

The little family clusters of straw-stuffed mattresses laid on the floor down both sides of the nave were as they had been, the low, shielded lamplight showing here and there the restless shifting of a child, pale faces and glint of eyes as women looked up to see who had come and then, Frevisse being of no great interest to them, turned back to what they had been doing, which looked for a merciful number of them to be settling to sleep beside their sleeping children. Only Anne Perryn stood up and moved away from her children, bedded near the rood screen, to meet Frevisse and ask, low-voiced, “Have you seen Simon? Do you know how is it with him? Is he going to be arrested?”

‘He’s at home and well. As things are now, he’s not to be arrested, no.“

‘As things…“ Anne began worriedly but behind her Lucy whimpered, ”Mama,“ and Anne turned back to her, whispering, ”I’m here, lamb. Don’t wake your brothers, there’s a good girl.“

This afternoon Lucy had been sitting up on her bed, blinking owlishly into the church’s twilight and declaring she wanted to go home. Tonight she was more querelous, whimpering for a drink, but beside her Colyn lay curled into a quiet, sleeping bundle. It was Adam’s restlessness on the mattress beside theirs that was troubling. Even in the low light Frevisse could see his fever-flush and that he was awake but not much conscious, she feared, and silently praying for God’s mercy on him, she passed through the rood screen into the chancel, where Sister Thomasine was kneeling with bowed head in front of the altar.

With a spasm of distress, Frevisse realized she had let the hour for Vespers pass and Compline come without a thought. Contrite and dismayed, she went to kneel beside Sister Thomasine, able to catch enough of her low murmur to join in, head bowed low over her clasped hands, “… peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”… I have sinned greatly in thought, in word, in deed: by my fault, by my fault, by my most great fault. And on through Compline’s heart-comforting web of prayers and psalms to the familiar end. “Divinum auxilium maneat semper nobiscum. Amen.” May divine aid remain always with us. Amen.

In the right way of things, after Compline there should have been only a silent going to bed and sleep, and at St. Frideswide’s the nuns were probably doing exactly that, but here as she sat back on her heels, waiting penitently, patiently, while Sister Thomasine prayed alone a little longer, Frevisse worked to hold to Compline’s peace while she could, knowing that the night was only beginning and sleep would be brief if at all.

Sister Thomasine finished, made the sign of the cross over her breast, and they rose together, bowed to the altar and moved aside to the sacristy doorway, where Frevisse said, her voice kept low, “My apology for being gone so long. By your leave, I’ll take the whole night watch in recompense.”

Sister Thomasine looked at her, seeming still half-lost in her prayers, but after a moment said softly, “You were about God’s work as surely as I was. There’s no need of recompense.”

One of the graces-and, occasionally, annoyances-of Sister Thomasine was that she never feigned what she did not mean, but Frevisse searched her face anyway. Bodily there was little of her to begin with, and Dame Claire forever worried that, left to herself, she paid insufficient need to whether she was well or ill, other things mattering to her more. Tonight she looked well enough, but Frevisse asked, “You’re not over-tired? You’re not going to bring yourself to sickness with this?”

Sister Thomasine’s eyes widened with surprise. “Tired? Not beyond anyone else, surely. I’m…” She seemed to look inward a moment before saying, simply, “I’m happy.”

‘Happy?“ Frevisse echoed and was discomfited by her voice betraying her own unhappiness.

Seeming not to hear it, Sister Thomasine answered, “How could I not be? All these days and nights I’ve been living inside of prayer instead of only praying, been nowhere but here, in prayer and at God’s work with never need to do anything else.”

To live inside of prayer instead of merely praying. It was something Frevisse was sometimes able to do but not often, only sometimes and never for very long but enough that she understood what it meant to Sister Thomasine who had never wanted anything, since she was a half-grown girl except to live in prayer, as near to God as she could come; and she said, admitting her own weariness, “Then thank you, yes. I’d like to take my turn at bed now.”

‘Your supper is here. Father Henry brought it.“

‘Gilbey Dunn’s wife fed me well enough. You’re welcome to my share if you wish it.“

Sister Thomasine regarded her gravely. “May I?”

Frevisse covered her surprise. In the priory Sister Thomasine rarely ate even all of her own portion, let be want more, though now Frevisse thought on it, she had been eating well enough here, and quickly she said, “Yes, please, if you like.”

‘I think I’d better,“ Sister Thomasine said as it was something she had considered seriously. ”With all that needs doing for the children, I seem to need more food than otherwise.“

‘Then, please, eat it all. I’ve no need of it tonight.“

And would find some way to see Sister Thomasine had more after this.

Sister Thomasine bowed her head in thanks, and Frevisse bowed hers in return, with the doubt that Sister Thomasine would ever cease, in one way or another, to surprise her.