The Reeve's Tale

Chapter 3

Simon’s thought when word came from the priory was that it was bad news all the way around-first of what was toward with Master Naylor and then that a nun was taking his place. Simon’s grandam had always said-far more often than anyone wanted to hear it-that you could always judge someone by how they took news of another’s troubles, and the news of Master Naylor’s troubles had proved her right again, as she would have declared to any who’d listen if she hadn’t been dead these fifteen years.

Some had been simply glad to have something different to talk about. It hardly mattered who was in trouble so long as they could run off their tongues about it, shake their heads, and tut-tut over how the world went, you never knew, did you?

Then there were those-and not just those who might have had quarrel with Master Naylor one time or another but even some with reason to be grateful to him for justice or mercy given-who made glee he was come to grief and might come to worse before it was done. They were the sort who always felt that another man’s going down somehow meant they were going up, as if everything were a seesaw, when to Simon’s mind Fortune’s wheel was still showed best the way the world went, taking you around and up and around and down and around and up again, and the best you could hope was that the being down went faster, ended sooner, than the being up, but the only thing certain was that Fortune was always turning that wheel. As his grandam, God keep her soul, had likewise been wont to say, Fortune’s wheel and a fool’s tongue were the two things never still.

For himself, Simon was sorry to hear of Master Naylor’s trouble, whatever the rights or wrongs of it, and wished him well. It was when he found he had to deal with a nun in Master Naylor’s place that he had turned sorry for himself, too.

‘How’m I to deal with a nun?“ he’d complained to Anne. ”What’s she to know of aught? Likely she can’t even tell handle from prongs on a hayfork, let be what field should be grazed and which one plowed and what to do when Ralph Denton’s hell-bound cow has been impounded again.“

‘So long as she knows she doesn’t know and follows where you lead, it’ll be well enough,“ Anne had answered and thumped the bread dough over on its board and gone on kneading it. ”It’s if she thinks she knows and doesn’t that you’ll have trouble right enough.“

Simon had been wanting pity, not reason, and tried again. “With having to go back and forth to the nunnery whenever there’s need to talk to her, there’s good hours wasted every day.”

‘You can be to the nunnery by the field path in less time than it takes you to down a bowl of ale on a hot day,“ Anne had answered, ”and you’ll save the cost of the ale in the bargain.“

Simon had given up. She’d find out soon enough what he was trying to make her understand, that this dealing with a nun was going to be trouble and more trouble, nothing but trouble.

So he was surprised to be sitting here on the bench by his own front door in the pear tree’s shade, talking with this Dame Frevisse about what fieldwork needed to be done before Lammastide and starting to be at ease with her. Partly that was because she listened more than she talked, though he was finding there was a sharpness to the way she listened, as if she were hearing more than he said, that kept him careful of his words, but it boded well she’d come to the village, had sought him out instead of sending for him, and it boded better she’d brought a short, penned message from Master Naylor that she had his trust in taking his place this while. With that to start from, Simon had settled down to make the best of it, and they had agreed, right off, that neither of them was happy with Master Naylor’s trouble and never thought, either of them, that he was villein-born and had run from it and lied about it. “I think his tongue would turn to wood if ever he tried to lie, he’s that stiff-necked a man over truth,” Simon had said, and Dame Frevisse had laughed, agreeing. Then he had set to telling her what things she’d need to know in Master Naylor’s place: how far along the crops were, which fields were still in need of weeding before second haying came next week, who was caught up on their workdays, who was behind and why, and that he didn’t know yet if there’d be need to hire out of the village for the harvest or not.

‘It looks we’ll likely need more men if we’re to have it done as fast as I’d like,“ Simon said, ”but money is short to hand after these past bad years and if we can do without hiring it’d be to the good.“

‘But if we put off hiring for too long,“ Dame Frevisse said, ”there might be no one left to hire if after all there’s need.“

‘Aye, because likely everyone else is in the same case as we are, and we’re short a man already as it is, with Matthew Woderove gone.“

‘Gone?“ Dame Frevisse asked. ”Dead?“

‘Nay. Run off and stolen a horse into the bargain, too, the fool.“

‘One of ours or one of Lord Lovell’s?“

‘Gilbey Dunn’s, and he’s not happy about it, right enough.“

‘Not the horse. This Matthew Woderove. Is he the priory’s or Lord Lovell’s villein?“

‘Oh. Lord Lovell’s.“ And so Simon’s problem and not hers, worse luck.

‘Warrant has been put out for him?“

‘I sent word to Master Spencer. That’s all I know about it but I suppose so.“ His lordship was tight that way, he didn’t add aloud.

‘Was this just lately?“

‘Just past Midsummer.“

‘Odd he’d leave before harvest could give him money to run on.“

‘He’d had bad luck of late,“ Simon said, easy enough with her now to tell her the thing at length. ”He lost his bid on some leased land last manor court to Gilbey Dunn, then quarreled with his wife over it and next thing anyone knew, he was gone and so was Gilbey’s horse.“

And hadn’t Mary been furious over it? She’d screamed and thrown things, and what Matthew hadn’t taken with him in the way of clothing she’d dumped into the pigsty and told the pigs they were welcome to it. Anne said it was because it was one thing not to be able to bear a man, the way Mary had long been swearing she couldn’t bear Matthew, but another to find out he couldn’t bear you. Simon had said it was past his understanding how anybody could bear Mary, and Anne had looked at him with pitying patience and said that was because he was Mary’s brother; there were others saw her differently. Tom Hulcote for one. Knowing more than he wanted to about Mary and Tom Hulcote and the less said the better, Simon had dropped the matter, and Anne had let him.

‘What’s to be done about his land if he doesn’t come back?“ Dame Frevisse asked, bypassing the idle side of talk in favor of the heart of the problem of Matthew’s going.

‘His wife will run it for a time, until it’s sure he’s not coming back. Then it will come to manor court at Michaelmas to be decided who’ll have it in his place.“

‘Will it go to her?“

‘Nay, she’d not be able to manage it on her own. The land and messuage will go forfeit back to Lord Lovell, and likely whatever else there is that isn’t all hers will be sold to pay Gilbey for the horse.“

‘A bad business all around. But nothing I need deal with?“

‘It will be all mine when the time comes,“ Simon said regretfully. But it was not so bad as it might be. Mary had land of her own from their father and she’d be able to make do with that. But not happily, and Simon was already hearing about it from her, though what he was supposed to do, he didn’t know.

Pushing that aside, he went on to matters at hand. “There’s Alson Bonde, though. She and her son are priory villeins and there’s something come up between them you maybe should know.”

Dame Frevisse bent her head in the way that Simon was coming to recognize meant she was ready to listen. A woman more keeping of her words he’d never met; it threw him off pace but he gathered himself and said, “Old Alson, after her husband died, was given half the holding for life, and that was well enough with young William, her son, but now she’s wanting to let her land to Martin Fisher for ten years and young William is flat against it.”

‘Why? Why does she want to lease it and why is he against it?“

‘She wants to lease it because it’s too much for him to work alone. It was well enough when it was him and old William, but it’s too much for just him, and his three boys are too small yet to be of much use. Alson wants to lease her share to Martin Fisher, who could use more land than he has, and give the money to young William, except for what she needs to live on, so he can hire help and save him working himself to death before his boys are grown.“

‘That seems well thought on. Why is young William against it?“

‘He just keeps saying his father wouldn’t have done it. He’s not quick of his wits, is young William. A good man but not quick. Lease or no lease, I think to him it’s like the land will be out of the family and he knows his father would never have wanted that and so he can’t want it either.“

Simon hesitated over saying more but, “Yes?” Dame Frevisse asked.

Close-mouthed and sharp-eyed. Someone was blessed she’d become a nun instead of a wife, Simon thought, but only said, “The thing is, Gilbey Dunn’s been nosing in about it. Just a little, his mind not made up to offer for it, but if he does…” Simon paused; but if Master Naylor’s trouble went on for long, these were all things she’d learn anyway, and he said, “Gilbey has a strong eye and a sure hand to his own ends, and since he married a few years ago and has sons now, he seems more set than ever on being even better off than he is. Some say as how it’s his wife that’s pushing him, she being out of Banbury and freeborn and on the young side for old Gilbey…” That was astray from what needed saying and Simon shifted ground to, “The thing is, if he decides to offer for the Bonde lease, he’ll likely offer more than Alson can bear to let pass by and then there’ll be a falling out indeed between her and young William like I don’t want to see.”

‘But there’ll be a falling out if she settles with Martin Fisher, too, won’t there?“

‘Not so bad, likely. Martin’s a good man.“

‘And Gilbey isn’t?“

‘It’s not that Gilbey’s bad,“ Simon allowed slowly. ”Naught the priest should see to.“

‘But?“

‘He’s not much liked in the village,“ Simon said, then added, to be as fair as might be, ”It’s not so much what he does.“ Though that wasn’t strictly to the truth. What Gilbey did was be richer than anyone else and not mind who knew it or care what anyone thought of it. ”He just doesn’t set well with folks. It’s how he is.“

‘So, all around, it would be better something was decided and settled with Martin Fisher and soon, rather than have Gilbey Dunn come in on it, and you’ve some thought on how to do that.“

Simon had, and said more readily than he would have to her an hour ago, “Martin has a half-grown girl and young William has sons. I’ve thought that if, along with the lease, there was agreement made for Martin’s daughter to marry young William’s oldest boy when they’re old enough, then young William wouldn’t mind the lease, the land still being in the family, like. Only I didn’t want to say aught to them about it until I knew the priory would favor the lease to start with.”

Dame Frevisse thought on that in silence for a moment, then said, “I don’t see there’d be objection to it from the priory’s side.”

‘Gilbey Dunn would offer better money, if he comes to it.“

‘It’s better to have peace in a family than money.“

Dame Frevisse said, then added after a small pause, “so long as there’s enough to eat.”

Simon, bypassing whether she’d meant that as a jest or no, went on to, “There’s only the bylaws, then. Seems we might want a new one, saying no one is to take hire outside the village if he can find work here for… well, we’re trying to decide how many pence a day to allow, times and need being what they are. And the rest of the bylaws need to be read out in church next Sunday or so, for those as like to forget them from one year to the next.”

Dame Frevisse nodded her understanding of that. “There are always those will tether their horses in the wheat stubble before Michaelmas no matter what, unless they’re told straight to their face and in front of everyone that they’re not to.”

Simon was about to agree to that with a laugh when his man Watt came at a hurry into sight along the street and by the plank bridge over the ditch into the yard. He stopped short as he caught sight of Simon and Dame Frevisse, then came on, to bow to her without quite taking his eyes from her, because although the priory was just across East Field from Prior Byfield, the nuns were nonetheless an uncommon sight, and said to Simon, “There’s some men ridden in. They’re at the alehouse and want to talk to the reeve.”

Forebearing to ask what Watt had been doing at the alehouse, Simon stood up and made bow to Dame Frevisse, asking, “By your leave?”