The Reeve's Tale

Chapter 5

When, next day, the nuns came out of the church into the cloister walk after the midmorning Office of Terce, the day was already far warmer than other days had been of late, and Sister Amicia, slipping a finger inside her wimple to loosen it and let in a little air, murmured, “It’s going to be hot before it’s done,” while Dame Juliana looked up from the cloister garth’s garden of herbs and flowers to the narrowness of blue sky, naked of clouds, that was all that could be seen of the world from there and said, “We need rain.” Domina Elisabeth, having led the way out of the church, was already well away, headed back toward her rooms and whatever work awaited her there. Dame Perpetua and Sister Johane were returning to their scribe’s desks, set against the church wall here along the walk for best light on their copying. There were no commissions in hand just now, but Domina Elisabeth had set them to the Revelations of St. Birgitta on the expectation that something so popular could be sold to someone when it was finished. The other nuns, and now Sister Amicia and Dame Juliana, were straying their various ways away along the cloister walk, in no haste to be back to what they had been doing before the bell called them to Terce, while Frevisse stood undecided between going to her own scribal work, as she would have to do sometime today, or else to talk with Master Naylor since she had not yesterday.

The question was resolved by a guesthall servant coming into the cloister walk from the passage to the outer door and guesthall yard. Frevisse, having been hosteler, in charge of St. Frideswide’s guesthalls more than once through the years, knew her and started toward her, saying, “Ela,” and the woman turned her way with a relieved smile, making a quick curtsy as they met at the corner of the cloister walk and saying, “There’s someone come as wants to see you, my lady. Can you come out to him?”

‘Who?“

‘Simon Perryn, the reeve.“

‘Where is he?“ Frevisse asked, already on her way to the outer door.

‘By the well in the yard,“ Ela answered, following her, but in the yard veered away, back toward the guesthall, as Perryn rose from where he had sat down on one of the well’s steps, hood in hand and looking uncertain whether he should be here, but he bowed and said, ”Good day, my lady. I hope it’s no trouble I’ve come without asking leave but I didn’t know when you’d be back and there’s something happened I thought you ought to know as soon as might be.“

‘When there’s need, better you come than not. What’s happened?“

‘That body up Wroxton way that those men came about yesterday, you remember?“

She nodded that she did, though after saying a prayer for the fellow’s soul on her way back to St. Frideswide’s, she had not thought of him again until now.

‘Seems, by what the crowner’s man brought, it’s Matthew Woderove.“

‘The man who ran off a few weeks ago?“

‘Aye. His wife knew his shirt and says the bit of hair they’d brought along matches his. I’d say the same,“ Perryn added unhappily. ”She’s my sister, see, and taking it hard.“

‘Do they know how he died?“

‘There wasn’t much left to tell by from the body, what there was of it. By the look of it, he’s been dead most of the time he’s been gone and was lying out in a ditch the while.“

And the weather had been warm, and birds and other things would have been at him.

‘But it’s sure his skull was broken,“ Perryn went on, ”and it looks like he was stabbed twice at least. There were knife-scrapes on his ribs.“

Probably killed for the horse he’d stolen, then robbed of whatever little else he’d had and left to rot, Frevisse supposed and shook her head against the waste and ugliness of it.

‘It’s Wroxton folk are in trouble,“ Perryn said. ”They knew the body was there but said naught about it to anyone since he wasn’t one of their own.“

By law, any untimely deaths had to be reported to crowner or sheriff, but those who reported such a death were then burdened with legal duties because of it, whether they had aught to do with the death or not, and sometimes, especially when the death had nothing to do with anyone they knew, folk would ignore the law, in hope the trouble would pass unnoticed. That would have been Wroxton’s hope and they would be paying in fines and penalties for it.

‘How did it come to be known?“ Frevisse asked.

‘Someone who’d seen talked of it in Banbury, and the crowner heard about it.“

‘You’ll have the body brought back here for burying?“

‘Oh, aye. Among his own folk and all. But it’s other than that I’ve come about. Now it’s sure he’s dead, his holding is open, no mistake, and there’s a quarrel already shaping over it.“

‘Over who’s to have it? There’re no children to inherit? Doesn’t his wife have right in it?“

‘When he and Mary married, our father settled a toft and some land on her for a marriage portion, the thought being that instead of some of Matthew’s land being given over for her widow’s dower, it would all go to their children. Only they never had children, and there’s no one going to make the mistake of thinking Mary can manage the holding on her own. She’s clever enough, all in all, but not that way, if you see what I mean.“

Frevisse saw and acknowledged Perryn’s careful way of saying his sister was no fool but not given to what was needed for the running of a holding. “So, now it’s known that Woderove is dead and won’t ever be back,” Frevisse said, “she’s lost all rights to the holding and there are others interested.”

Perryn gave a glooming nod. “Gilbey Dunn, for one. Last night, almost as soon as it was known Matthew was dead, he told me he’d take it over and see to the harvest and Mary having a fair share of it this year for compensation, though what Gilbey thinks is a fair share is anyone’s guess.”

‘If the ’fair share‘ is settled on and agreed to beforehand, it sounds a reasonable offer,“ Frevisse said slowly, looking for reasons it was not but finding none except that Gilbey Dunn maybe had enough already and didn’t need more.

‘Gilbey’d do better by the holding than ever Matthew did, that’s sure,“ Perryn said, ”so there’s no problem with that. The trouble lies in that Tom Hulcote’s offered for it, too, and almost as fast as Gilbey did.“

Frevisse searched and found she knew Hulcote’s name from Anne Perryn’s talk yesterday and said, “He works for Gilbey Dunn.”

‘He did but quit of late, just ere Gilbey would have turned him off anyway. He holds a toft and not much else and works for other men to make his way. Lately mostly for Gilbey.“

With talk of there being something more than work between him and Gilbey’s wife, Frevisse recalled but only said, “Now he wants to better himself by taking over the Woderove holding?”

‘Just so.“

‘Would he do well by it?“

‘He might. Aye. Maybe.“ Perryn’s uncertainty was plain before he settled for saying, ”He’s not steady about doing what he says he’ll do, is the trouble. He’s not always someone who takes the orders he’s given. The thing is, his offer betters Gilbey’s because he’s offered to marry the widow…“

‘Your sister.“

‘Aye. He says he’ll marry her to have the holding.“

There was nothing uncommon in that. When a woman could not run a holding by herself and there was a man willing to take both it and her, it settled two problems at once. At its best, neither woman nor man lost, the woman keeping her place instead of losing it, the man gaining what he would not have been able to have any other way. It worked more often than not, and Frevisse asked, “What does your sister say to it?”

‘She says she’s willing.“

‘But you’re not.“

Perryn frowned at his feet, thinking before he said slowly, “The thing is, Hulcote is the priory’s villein, so it’s not my choice only. I’d hoped to speak with Master Naylor on it, but they’re not letting anyone near him, seems.”

‘That will be Master Spencer’s doing.“ In return for leaving Master Naylor at the priory, Lord Lovell’s steward had left orders with his guards to keep him strictly confined and let nearly no one in to see him. ”I meant to go to him today,“ Frevisse said. ”I’ll go now.“

‘There’s one thing more,“ Perryn said. ”It’s in manor court the final word on this will have to be and there’s not one due until Michaelmas, but if we’re agreed, we can call it sooner and it’d likely be best to have this settled soon, what with harvest so near to hand and all. Ask Master Naylor what he says to that, too, would you?“

‘Assuredly. How soon would it suit you to have answer?“

They were going toward the gateway to the outer yard now, Perryn walking respectfully well aside but not behind her as if he were a servant, while he consideringly answered, “Notice has to be given and all, so not sooner than two days but as little longer than that as may be. Mary is going on…” He broke off, probably because it was a family thing, with no need Frevisse know of it; said instead, “Is there any new word about Master Naylor, one way or other?”

‘Nothing yet. We hope to have some word from Abbot Gilberd no later than tomorrow of what he’ll do to help. Has Master Naylor ever said anything to you about where he’s from, his family?“ There had been a nephew at the priory for a while, a few years back, but he was gone, and Lord Lovell could claim family testimony to Master Naylor’s birth was useless anyway because their own free birth might be called into question if his was proved false.

‘He’s never talked much about himself,“ Perryn said, ”and never about where he came from to me.“

They were nearing the outer gateway where their ways would part. With what she trusted was reasonably good hope, Frevisse said, “Abbot Gilberd will find those enough who can swear Master Naylor is freeborn.”

‘And before too long,“ Perryn said, matching her hope.

They made their farewells and he went his way, out the gateway to the road, while she turned aside. There were three houses built side to each here, close inside the priory’s main gateway, their front doors opening directly into the priory’s outer yard, their backs to the inside of the priory wall but set forward from it with space enough for gardens at their rear. The porter, with keeping of the gateway, lived in the one nearest the gate. Beside his was Master Naylor’s while he was steward of St. Frideswide’s, and the third would have been for the priory’s bailiff if ever St. Frideswide’s had grown enough to need another man to oversee its properties and lands, but the widow who had founded it near to a hundred years ago had died before endowing it as fully as she had meant to, and there had never been a flourish of prosperity afterwards to bring it much more than she had left it, so the third house served for keeping such of the priory’s records as did not need to be directly in Domina Elisabeth’s hands or in Frevisse’s as cellarer.

The two guards presently on duty at Master Naylor’s door stood up from their bench when she came their way. She spoke to the priory man, nodded with distant politeness at Lord Lovell’s, and said to him mildly, “It would make matters easier if the reeve were allowed to talk with Master Naylor directly.”

‘It would, wouldn’t it, my lady?“ the priory man said, his glance at the man beside him thick with disgust.

The other man came not quite to shuffling with unease as he said more to the dusty ground than Frevisse, “It’s orders, my lady.”

She knew the orders Master Spencer had left: she could see Master Naylor and talk with him as much as she wanted; anyone else, in need of his immediate answer about some minor thing here inside the priory, could pass in a question by way of the priory guard and have the answer back the same way but never talk to him directly. It was cumbersome and annoying, and she hoped whoever Abbot Gilberd sent would have authority to do something about it, but she could not and settled now for knocking at the house door standing open in the day’s warmth.

Mistress Naylor came shortly from somewhere inside with floured hands and apron, unwimpled because of the heat, only a veil pinned over her dark hair. She was a small-boned woman from whom Frevisse had never had more than ten words together, with “my lady” invariably two of them. Now, to Frevisse’s greeting and request to see Master Naylor, she made a low curtsy and said, “Through here, my lady, if you please,” and led back the way she had come.

The house was much as Frevisse supposed its two neighbors must be, with two narrow ground-story rooms, the front one facing the yard, the other opening into the garden at the back, with between them a staircase hardly wider than a man’s shoulders going steeply up to whatever narrow rooms there were above. The front room served for general living, the back one as the kitchen, with today as small a fire as possible burning on the hearth under a trivet-set pot, with a griddle heating beside it for whatever Mistress Naylor was making toward dinner. Even so small a fire made the room too hot and Frevisse was glad go on, out the rear door into the garden where Master Naylor was sitting with his children in the shade of a young peach tree. The girls had been sewing what looked might be a red dress when they were done but rose to their feet as their mother and Frevisse came into the garden. They were younger than their brother Dickon and small-boned like their mother, but the boy standing beside their father was younger still, past toddling stage but not by much, and when Master Naylor stood up to bow to Frevisse, he wrapped both arms around his father’s leg and slid around behind him, to peek at Frevisse from that sure safety as Master Naylor said, “My lady,” and the girls curtsyed.

‘Master Naylor,“ Frevisse returned, bending her head to him and them in return. ”Are you free to talk?“

‘As you will, my lady,“ he answered. He was never a man much given to words or any outward warmth that Frevisse had ever seen, but when he stooped to draw his son around to in front of him and pry him loose from his leg, he did it gently enough and lifted him up to tell him, ”You go to your mother for a time.“

‘No,“ the child said positively.

‘If you stay out here,“ Master Naylor said seriously, ”you’ll try to help your sisters with their sewing. Then they’ll end up sticking needles into you. I don’t want all that yelling, so you have to go with your mother.“

‘We’ll make patty-cakes,“ Mistress Naylor promised, sufficient compensation, it seemed, because when Master Naylor handed him away, he wrapped his arms around her neck in place of his father’s leg and let himself be carried off without complaint.

The girls were beginning to gather their sewing to go, too, but Master Naylor said, “Stay. No need,” took up the joint stool where he had been sitting and with, “By your leave, my lady,” led Frevisse away to the garden’s far end.

It was a larger garden than it might have been. A high wicker fence stood between it and the porter’s yard, but because the third house was unused, the fence there had been taken down and its garden added to the steward’s; and while the beds along the narrow paths near to his rear door were filled with herbs and some flowers, the rest was table vegetables much like at the Perryns‘, with the addition of a well-strawed strawberry bed and, at the far end, green beans trellised up and over a rough-built arbor to make a shaded place to sit. That was where Master Naylor led her, setting down the joint stool and waiting until she was seated and had nodded her permission to him before he sat on the one already there.

There being no particular point, beyond mere manners’ sake, in asking how he did since he seemed to be doing as well as might be-and there being nothing she could change even if he were not-Frevisse told him directly all that Perryn had told her concerning Matthew Woderove’s death and the two bids already made to have his holding. Master Naylor listened without sign or comment and sat silent for a while when she had finished, apparently absorbed in watching a bean tendril, before finally looking at her to say, “I agree about the court. It should be as soon as might be. Friday, if it can be managed. Else on Saturday. About the Woderove holding, it’s Perryn’s final say, the holding being Lord Lovell’s.”

‘He wants your thought on it, Hulcote being the priory’s villein.“

Master Naylor held silent again, not so much as if considering his answer as not wanting to give it, before he finally said, “I’d favor Tom Hulcote’s bid.”

His hesitation over it made Frevisse ask, “Why?”

‘Because I’ve found him a good worker when he works for himself. He deserves the chance if that’s what he wants.“

That was not all. Something hung unsaid. “And?” Frevisse pressed.

Distaste twinged at Master Naylor’s mouth and he breathed down heavily through his nose before he brought himself to say, “It would also serve to settle what’s between him and Mary Woderove.”

‘And that is?“ Frevisse asked although fairly certain, from his disapproval, what he meant.

Curtly, not liking to say it, Master Naylor answered, “He’s been giving her a green gown and everyone in the village knows it.”

Meaning that Tom Hulcote and Mary Woderove had been together in ways they should not have been.

‘Did her husband know?“ Frevisse asked.

‘There’s no saying. Since he wasn’t the sort who could have stopped her even if he did, my thought is he didn’t let himself know.“

‘But from something someone said in the village,“ Frevisse said, slowly and not for the sake of tale-telling but because there could be trouble coming another way if it were true, ”this Tom Hulcote is suspected with Gilbey Dunn’s wife.“

‘Gilbey’s wife is forever being suspected with one man or another, ever since she came to the village,“ Master Naylor said, ”but so far as I know it’s never been more than other people’s talk. It only happens to be Tom Hulcote this time. Next week it will be someone else.“

It would not be the first time Frevisse knew of someone’s reputation being made for them out of what other people thought they might do rather than what they actually did. She could likewise see how Elena, simply being as she was and Gilbey Dunn’s wife, would draw suspicion.

‘Nor is Gilbey Dunn so pure of soul,“ Master Naylor added, ”as not to watch out for his wife better than to be made cuckold.“

‘But this between Hulcote and Mary Woderove is sure?“

‘There’s nothing ’suspected‘ there,“ Master Naylor said baldly. ”It’s sure, and now Matthew isn’t there for folk to be sorry for, Simon will probably have leyrwite from her.“ The fine put on a woman for unlawful coupling. ”It’s to the best that Hulcote have the holding and marry her and make an end of it.“

‘But?“ Frevisse asked, again to something unsaid behind the words.

‘The other side has to be looked at. That Gilbey will do well by the holding if he’s given it. He does well by everything that’s his. With Tom, I think he will but can’t be certain, and what I have to ask is whether I’m favoring him because I think he ought to have the chance at it or because I don’t like Gilbey Dunn.“

Unhappily Frevisse did not like Gilbey Dunn either. But then neither had she heard much to Tom Hulcote’s good, so that hardly helped, except Master Naylor knew more of him than she did and, carefully thinking her way to it while she spoke, she said, “Leaving liking and un-liking out of it, and granting you think Tom Hulcote would do well by the holding, maybe it comes down to asking why should Gilbey Dunn have more of what he already has in plenty, when Tom Hulcote has so next to nothing. Would that make the answering easier?”

‘Put that way, it somewhat does.“ Master Naylor made the small twist of his mouth that served him for a smile. ”Tell Perryn, if you like, that on my side there’s no objection to Tom having the holding at the price he’s offered. Perryn will have to decide from there, and that’s probably to the good, since he knows the village and his sister best.“