The Servant's Tale

18

MIDDAY AND NONES passed. Frevisse, coming and going about her tasks, kept watch for Father Henry’s return from the village and left word with the gateward and servants to find her when he came back, if they saw him before she did. But he did not come, nor was there any word of the crowner’s arrival, and the clear winter’s day drew in toward its early sunset, the cold starting to deepen with the twilight.

In the long slant of shadows and thickening light, the bell began to ring for Vespers, and from all around the nunnery, in a flurry of hurried footsteps, coughing, and one loud sneeze, the nuns gathered toward the church.

Frevisse was among the first, glad of the chance to sink into the service’s peace, away from her circling thoughts. There would be no time now today to talk to Father Henry. But after the long, frustrating wait, she was ready to put him and her questions from her mind.

Her sickness was like a weight dragging her body and her thoughts to a slow trudge. She was hoping prayers, supper in a warm room, and then the play before Compline would be distraction enough to ease her way into sleep later.

It was cold in the cloister, with just enough of a breeze to lift her veil. Frevisse pulled at the heavy door to the church, and went into dimness, two nuns close behind her. They would wait just inside for the others. At first the black shape stretched on the altar steps made only a vague impression, a thicker darkness among the gathering shadows. It took a few moments for them to realize it was a wrongness that needed closer investigation.

Sister Thomasine went forward first, always bolder when it was a matter of the altar or of her prayers than any other time. But it was Frevisse who suddenly realized what she was seeing and moved sharply forward as Thomasine knelt, one hand outstretched toward the shape.

“Thomasine!” she said sharply, stopping the young woman’s hesitant hand, making her look around. More quietly, almost coaxingly, she added, “Come away, Thomasine. Don’t touch her.”

Sister Thomasine’s veiled head came around, her eyes blurred shapes in her white face and white wimple, wide with bewilderment.

“But I think she’s dead,” she said.

“Don’t touch her yet,” Frevisse repeated, coming to lift her up and away from the body. “Just stand here.”

“Who is it?” asked one of the other nuns, a question repeated in fragments as they looked among themselves to see who was missing. Others had been coming in, and now two more entered, to be told in frightened whispers what was happening.

“Is Dame Claire here?” asked Frevisse.

Even as she said it, her eyes were searching among their faces.

“Here I am,” said Dame Claire, breaking free of the whispering throng. She went to kneel beside the prone figure. For a moment her hand hesitated before, very gently, she touched the back of the fallen nun’s head, then put a hand under the nearer shoulder and rolled the body sideways enough to see her face. In the poor light, it appeared almost as white as the surrounding wimple, which was itself touched with darkness. Dame Claire returned the body to its original pose, crossing herself before rising to turn to the others.

“It’s Sister Fiacre,” she said, keeping her deep voice level with an effort.

Sister Thomasine sank to her knees, crying in a loud voice, “Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine; quis sustinebit?” If you shall observe wickedness, O Lord; who shall endure it?

That sent the others to their knees. Someone began to sob.

Frevisse saw beyond their bowed heads Domina Edith just come through the door on Sister Juliana’s arm. Threading her way among the kneeling figures, Frevisse went to her and said quietly, “Sister Fiacre is dead. She is over there, on the altar steps.”

Deep among wrinkles, Domina Edith’s eyes went swiftly to Sister Fiacre’s still form and Dame Claire on her knees beside it, then back to Frevisse’s face. She said, “Take me to her.” And to Sister Juliana, “Stay here,” as she transferred her unsteadiness to Frevisse’s arm. Carefully they circled the kneeling nuns.

Dame Claire rose to her feet at their approach, moving to put herself between Domina Edith and the body, but Domina Edith said, “She is one of mine. Can I refuse to look on her?”

Dame Claire hesitated, then said, too low for anyone except themselves to hear, “It wasn’t her illness that killed her.”

Equally low, not hesitating, Domina Edith repeated, “I’ll see her.”

Frevisse went to the altar, genuflected, then pulled one of the candles from its holder. She went to the altar lamp and lit the candle, then brought it down the three steps.

Dame Claire again turned the body so its face was exposed, and in silence Domina Edith stood looking down at her dead nun. The wimple and veil around Sister Fiacre’s head had concealed the flatness of the back of her head, and the sideways distortion the broken skull bones gave to her face, both now revealed in the golden candlelight. The eyes bulged as if startled to be overtaken by death, and a little blood had seeped brightly through the white, close-bound wimple along her face, but there was no distortion of terror. What had come had come unwarned and on the instant. The veil had soaked up most of the blood, leaving only a thin gleaming line on the stone floor as the candlelight caught it.

Behind them came the sound of someone rising, and Dame Alys’s hoarse voice. “It’s a shame, but not unexpected, her being so ill. Who will help move her? I’ll light some of these candles and lanterns. We’ll need more light, and there’s all these waiting for the play tonight. Though now there won’t be any play.”

Domina Edith, her hand heavy on Frevisse’s arm to steady herself, said without turning around, her tone giving nothing away, “Leave the lights alone, there is no need for them yet. Dame Alys, take everyone to the warming room for Vespers. Except Dame Frevisse, Dame Claire, and Sister Thomasine. The rest of you, go. Remember to take the psalter. Pray the harder in our absence. I will come to you as soon as may be to tell you the schedule of vigil for Sister Fiacre.”

Grateful and calmed by guidance, the other nuns rose in a hush and rustle of skirts and soft soles. Some two or three relaxed enough to cough. They left the church in Dame Alys’s wake, the door thumping solidly behind the last one out.

“Who?” Domina Edith asked. “Why?”

There was no answer yet to that. Or there were several answers, but no way of telling yet which was the right one. Frevisse, her mind beginning to move past the reality of Sister Fiacre’s death to what it meant and what was going to happen from it, was already seeing possibilities and not liking them.

“Roger Naylor must be told,” she said.

“And Sister Fiacre seen to,” Domina Edith said, “before the others see her. They will have to be told, but they need only see her in her coffin. They need not see what we have seen. Thomasine, you are not to talk of what you saw here.”

“Yes, Domina.”

“I need to see the wound uncovered,” said Frevisse.

“Why?” asked Dame Claire.

“Perhaps the wound will tell what manner of weapon struck her. At the least, was it sharp or blunt.”

“I am afraid her head may fall apart if the wimple is removed,” said Dame Claire, her voice reflecting her deep distress. Thomasine began to pray louder.

“Could you, er, restore her, Dame Claire?” Domina Edith said.

The infirmarian set her small hands to either side of the dead nun’s skull and gently pressed. The bones shifted to a more natural shape with a soft grating sound. Dame Claire swallowed thickly and said, “It appears her skin is mostly whole, but I would prefer that we not take off her wimple. Yet I understand Dame Frevisse’s request. We will need a clean wimple. And we’d best replace the veil.”

“Dame Frevisse, take Sister Thomasine to help you bring what is needed. We’ll prepare her body here. That would be best, don’t you agree, Dame Claire?”

Dame Claire nodded. “The less she’s moved the better. We can clean and coffin her here. Maybe before Vespers ends.”

“Thank you. I will tell them then what has happened.”

Sister Thomasine had risen and come to join them while they talked. Now, standing at Frevisse’s side, as sickly looking as Frevisse felt, her eyes on Sister Fiacre, she whispered, “Some wicked person denied her the Last Sacrament.”

“She has known she was dying for a long time,” Domina Edith said, “and was as prepared for it as anyone can be. And when the blow was struck, she was at prayer at the foot of the altar. She died by violence but in the midst of holiness. We can only add our prayers to her own.” The prioress’s weight had become increasingly heavy on Frevisse’s arm. In the same quiet, even tone she said, “I wish to sit now.”

Frevisse shifted to put an arm around her waist, guided her to her choir stall, and eased her down into it. In all the priory, each nun’s seat in the choir was her own, the one thing that was hers alone for all of her life as a professed nun-unless, like Domina Edith, she rose to be prioress and took the more elaborately carved and prominent one that belonged to that office. But the prioress’s choir stall had been Domina Edith’s for over thirty years now, and was probably as familiar to her as her own bed. She sank back on it and bent her head in prayer, for no one in this sinful world dies without needing prayers to speed her soul, no matter how forewarned.

Frevisse went back to Dame Claire, and the two of them performed the grisly task of removing Sister Fiacre’s veil and wimple. Frevisse was surprised to note how gray Fiacre’s short hair was; she was not yet forty. But at the back, it was dark, thick with blood already almost dry.

“This is strange,” said Dame Claire after a few minutes.

“I agree,” said Frevisse. “Here, and here, the skull is cut, but here it looks smashed, as if by a club.”

“Two murderers?” Dame Claire’s deep voice was sick with dismay.

“Two weapons, anyway. It’s hard to think two people came together to murder Sister Fiacre. I pray we find out the truth of this, for I doubt Master Montfort is able.” Frevisse stood. “I’ll go collect what is needed. Domina, do you wish to join the others at Vespers?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Go on, and you also, Sister Thomasine.”

“Yes, Domina.” Thomasine crossed herself and stood.

What they needed to ready the body was in the infirmary. But once out into the cloister walk, Frevisse said, “You go ahead to fetch the wimple and veil. I’ll tell Master Naylor we need a coffin.”

Somewhere in the priory’s storerooms there was at least one coffin, kept against the likelihood of winter death at the priory. Two weeks ago there had been fear that Domina Edith was marked for it, before she began to better from her cough. Now it would be used after all for the one thought most likely to be next to die, though not like this.

At this time of day Roger Naylor should still be somewhere around the priory, seeing that all was in order for the night. Frevisse went into the courtyard, looking for a servant to send for him. Instead she saw the man himself, crossing toward her in his firm, stolid walk, casting a long shadow to one side in the failing light.

He called to her, “What’s amiss in there? I hear nothing from the church when there should be singing.” Seeing her face he lengthened his stride. “What is it?”

“Sister Fiacre is dead. Can you bring a coffin to the church? That’s where we found her, and Domina Edith wants her taken care of there.”

Naylor crossed himself. “God take her soul into His hands. I didn’t know she was that close to dying.”

“She wasn’t,” Frevisse said. “Can the coffin be brought? And someone sent for Father Henry, wherever he is?”

Naylor’s look was sharp on her face, but he only nodded and went away.

Frevisse returned to the cloister. Sister Thomasine was just ahead of her with a clumsy burden: a basin of water with two cloths floating in it, a wimple, veil, and towels over one arm. Frevisse hurried to catch up and took all but the basin, then went ahead to hold the door open ahead of her.

Sister Fiacre’s body was cleaned, dressed again, and ready for her coffin when Naylor led in two of the abbey servants carrying it and a third man bearing the trestles it would rest on in front of the altar. Without seeming to do so, Dame Claire and Frevisse moved to block Sister Fiacre’s body from view while the men put the coffin down and set up the trestles. Naylor dismissed them, and when they were gone, asked, “Shall I help put her into this, or do I go away, also?”

At this strong hint, Dame Claire said, “She was killed. Someone struck her from behind as she knelt on these steps.”

“You’re sure she was struck down? That she didn’t fall?”

“We’re sure,” said Dame Frevisse. “Have you seen any strangers within our walls today?”

“Nay, Dame. Except the players, of course. I hear they had words with Sister Fiacre here in the church earlier today.”

He produced this bit of gossip without rancor or arrogance, but Frevisse felt herself bristle. Before she could say anything, Domina Edith said, “If you will kindly assist in our sad task of coffining Sister Fiacre, Master Naylor. We would have it done before the end of Vespers.”

“As you wish, Domina.”

They stepped aside and let him go to the body. It was lying on its back now, the blood-stained bands covered with fresh ones, the blood-soaked veil replaced. Eyes closed, no trace of blood or agony, Sister Fiacre was simply lying there. Only the slightly unnatural angle of the head because there was no longer a curved back to the skull to hold it up betrayed how grievously wrong things were.

“The crowner is coming anyway, for the village death,” he said toward Domina Edith. “It won’t be possible to keep it secret after his arrival that this death was murder.”

Domina Edith shook her head slowly. “To keep it secret she was murdered-no. That would be neither honest nor safe. Yet we hope to keep the full ugliness of how she died from the others. That she was killed will come hard enough.”

Frevisse raised her hand a little, asking for attention. “There’s something else.” Sister Thomasine, Domina Edith, and Naylor all turned to her; Dame Claire looked away. Frevisse tucked her hands into her sleeves and straightened her spine, taking the formal pose to steady her voice. “The death of Sym was murder, too.”

Naylor was the first to speak. “How can you be sure?”

Dame Claire replied. “Because there are two wounds on the boy’s body. One of them is nothing much. He took it at the alehouse and walked home afterwards. The other one was struck while he was lying down.”

Domina Edith suggested mildly, “But suppose the second, too, came at the alehouse, while he was brawling?”

Frevisse said, “It was to the heart and would have killed him almost on the instant. He went walking nowhere after it was struck.”

Naylor brooded silently a moment, then said to her, “I’ll want to look at him. I know something of knife wounds. In the meanwhile”-he turned back to Domina Edith-“best you see that no one is anywhere alone if they can help it until I’ve seen to having those players locked away for Montfort’s coming.”

Again Frevisse had to bite down on an angry response. Naturally the players were an obvious choice for both murders, and she had yet to find a way to clear them. But it hurt to see Domina Edith accept his statement without question, inclining her head forward in agreement.

“But now the coffin,” she said.

Dame Claire stepped aside so that Frevisse and Naylor could raise it to the trestles.

As they finished and stepped back, one of the servants who had brought in the coffin returned at a scurry up the nave. Red-nosed and short of breath, he pulled a swift bow to all of them in general and said, “It’s the crowner! He’s riding into the yard, he and his men.”

“Sooner than expected,” Dame Claire remarked.

Frevisse went taut but only said, “By your leave, Domina, I will go see that he is properly settled in our guesthall. Doubtless he will want his supper, and I will have to explain that his untimely arrival caught us unprepared.”

The church’s side door opened, and Sister Juliana came in. Her eyes widened at the sight of the coffin, and again at seeing Master Naylor, but she curtsied to Domina Edith in her stall and said, “Dame Alys sent me to say that we have finished Vespers and want to know should we come back here or go to supper.”

Domina Edith’s reply was soft, but prompt. “Do neither. Dame Claire, go to the warming room and with my authority set the watch beginning with Sister Lucy and Sister Emma, who must come immediately, and may go from here to a late supper in the kitchen when they are replaced. The rest as you all agree among yourselves, except Dame Frevisse, who will take the first watch after Matins and Lauds, as she has guests to see to now. Once you have decided how you will divide the night and tomorrow until chapter, then you may go to supper.”

Dame Claire, with a nod of appreciation for the prompt solution to one part of the problem, curtsied deeply. “As you wish, Domina,” she murmured, and went, taking Sister Juliana with her.

“Now,” said Domina Edith, “you, Master Naylor, had better go see to it that the players are in the lesser guesthall and stay there, then that Master Montfort’s horses are properly stabled.” To the servant she said, “Go, give Master Montfort my greetings and tell him I will see him in my parlor so soon as he is able to come. Sister Thomasine will accompany me there now. Dame Frevisse, you stay here until Sisters Juliana and Emma come, then haste to your duties in the guesthall. See if there is something warm that can be had from our kitchen.”

She paused, considering if that covered all that needed doing on the moment, then nodded and held out her hand to take Sister Thomasine’s.

She had hardly departed when the two nuns who would begin the watch over Sister Fiacre’s body came in. Frevisse brought two candles and two gilt candle holders from the sacristy for the head and foot of the coffin, and lit them from the altar candle, which she then blew out and replaced.

It was nearly dark out, and the courtyard was lit by flaring torches. Frevisse, standing outside the church’s western door, made a quick count of the men Montfort had brought with him, and saw the crowner himself among them, his bulk muffled in a heavy hooded cloak, standing by his tall yellow gelding, giving curt instructions to a priory servant before handing over the reins. The torchlight made his face more florid than it already was, and judging by his expression, his temper matched its color.

Frevisse pretended not to see him as she went quickly by, bound for the greater guesthall. The last time he had had to come to St. Frideswide’s, she had interfered with his investigation in what he considered a wholly improper manner for a woman and a nun. That she proved herself right and him wrong did not change his opinion of her. She did not want to set him off again, nor allow him to make his usual facile, incorrect deductions. She would have to work around him, and send her ideas to him by way of Father Henry or Master Naylor, in the form of suggestions or questions that would cause no offense. Master Naylor did not favor cleverness in women but at least knew how to work around stupidity in men.

In the guesthall the servants were already gathered, waiting for instructions. She ordered first that Sym’s body be moved to an empty shed in the outer yard-Montfort would not approve of sharing his quarters with a dead villein-then that the fireplaces in the best chamber and the guesthall kitchen be lit. She set the servants to their other duties, and with everything in motion and certain her people knew how to carry through, Frevisse left them to it.

In the yard, she looked toward the lesser guesthall. A servant she recognized as Naylor’s assistant was standing guard at the door. She ought to go back to the cloister, to confer with Dame Alys in her kitchen about heating cider. But she turned away from the cloister for the other guesthall. She would make sure the players knew there would be no play tonight.