The man’s voice came again, answering Dame Frevisse’s. Thomasine’s hand trembled. But obedience was still pressing at her back and the plate of cakes still cooling in her hands. She tapped again, more definitely than before.
Domina Edith’s faint blessing answered her. “Benedicte.”
Holding the plate in front of her as shield, Thomasine opened the door and entered.
St. Frideswide’s was not poor, but neither was it rich. The prioress’s parlor was only by contrast not so stark a room as the rest of the nunnery. Among her duties were the receiving of important visitors and the conducting of such nunnery business as needed more privity than the general gathering at daily chapter or required the regrettable presence of men within the cloister. For the dignity of St. Frideswide’s, the parlor had the luxury of a fireplace, and actual glass in the three tall, narrow windows overlooking the inner yard. Bright embroidered cushions lay scattered along the bench below them, and a fringed carpet woven in a Spanish pattern covered a table set with a silver ewer and bowl. Because Domina Edith had been prioress for thirty-two years – coming to the office the same year that the Duke of Lancaster had seized the throne from Richard II and made himself King Henry IV – other matters more privately hers had crept in, too, including her own embroidery frame and the tiny, elegant, elderly greyhound curled in its basket by the hearth.
As the priory’s only novice, Thomasine was often sent to fetch or carry this or that between places in the cloister; the prioress’s parlor was too familiar to her to need her attention, and she paused correctly just inside the door, head bowed, waiting to be acknowledged. Yet she could not resist, now that she was there, the urge to peep sideways around the swung-forward edge of her veil, at the man seated not five paces from her on the window bench.
In men as men of course she took no interest; no heed at all if possible. But today an important man was visiting. Word had run along with the order for the honey cakes that it was Thomas Chaucer who was come to Frideswide’s today, and even Thomasine in her determined unworldliness knew of Thomas Chaucer. Like the weather, he was a common topic of conversation in Oxfordshire, both because of who he was and how he had come to it. His father had been a poet and a customs officer, his mother the daughter of a very minor knight, but Thomas Chaucer, so the rumors insisted, was one of the richest and most powerful commoners in England. So powerful he could resign of his own will from the King’s Council though he had been asked to stay; rich enough, it was said, that his purse-proud, wool-merchanting cousin, the Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, was pleased to ask his advice.
So it was vaguely unsettling to see him sitting at ease in Domina Edith’s familiar parlor, looking hardly different from the way Thomasine remembered her father: A middle-aged gentleman with well-grayed hair and pleasant face, tanned with sun, moderately lined around the eyes and across the forehead; dressed in a green wool houpelande to his knees, split front and back for ease of riding, with lamb’s wool budge at its cuffs and collar, his hood with its trailing liripipe laid to one side out of respect for Domina Edith and the warmth of the day. He wore a large ring on either hand but no gold chains or other jewels, and his high riding boots were only boots so far as Thomasine could tell, knowing nothing of cordovan leather or how much effort it might have taken to fit them so skillfully to the curve of his leg.
She looked and was, without admitting it to herself, disappointed, while he did not look at her at all but went on listening with concentrated politeness to Domina Edith insisting in her old and worried voice, “I’ve always been afraid they would want silk for him when he’s still too young. Young bodies, even royal ones, need to be kept warm, you know. You’re certain that he has good woolen undershirts?”
“I’ve seen the royal inventory and joined in the discussion of His Grace’s clothing in Council myself,” Chaucer said, reassuringly and with good humor. “He has goodly store of woolen shirts and wears them. And he’s a strong young lad. At nine years old he can be taken for twelve easily. Nor has he ever sickened a single day I know of since he was a baby with colic.”
Domina Edith nodded. “Just so he doesn’t outgrow his strength, God save His Grace. That’s always a peril in the young, outgrowing their strength.”
She went on nodding as if agreeing with herself, but the focus of her eyes had begun to fade.
Thomasine with a flare of embarrassment realized that her prioress, here and now, in front of Master Thomas Chaucer, was falling asleep. Everyone in St. Frideswide’s knew that in her seventy-ninth year, a fabulous age, Domina Edith came to sleep easily at almost any time.
“Always a peril,” she murmured. “I remember my brother as a boy...”
But age was stronger than memory. Her eyelids fluttered briefly and then drifted down with her voice. Her slow nodding subsided; her chin sank into the folds of the wimple below her throat, and silence filled the room, until after a few moments she drew a deep breath, far back in her throat and very nearly a snore.
Thomasine dared not move. She could only stand, embarrassed, her anguished gaze fixed on her prioress, until Master Chaucer leaned back, stretched his legs out comfortably, and said, his voice warm with amusement, “It’s God’s blessing to come to sleep so easily.”
“She deserves God’s blessing. She’s a good, kind woman.” Standing behind Domina Edith’s chair, Dame Frevisse smiled at him, a smile so casual and familiar that Thomasine, shocked by it, let her dismay show on her face. Dame Frevisse, glancing her way, caught the look and said with a touch of asperity, “You may put the cakes on the table, Thomasine. And then surely you must stay, to keep matters proper between Master Chaucer and myself.”
Thomasine, dropping her gaze back to the floor, obeyed, setting the plate on the Spanish cloth and stepping back with her eyes still down, to fold her hands out of sight, into her sleeves in front of her, mortified to hear Dame Frevisse explaining to Master Chaucer, “Thomasine is a trifle scrupulous, as befits a novice. She is nearly ready to take her final vows.”
To Thomasine’s dismay Master Chaucer’s attention turned to her. In his steady, mild voice he asked, “Are you liking the life well, child?”
Thomasine was appalled to find her head lifting and her eyes coming around to meet his, drawn by his voice. Catching herself, she hastily returned her gaze to her toes and said, “Very well, if it please you, Master Chaucer.”
“And when do you take your vows?”
“At Michaelmas, if it please you.”
“If it pleases God,”‘ Chaucer corrected mildly.
Thomasine felt scarlet warmth flow over her cheeks and drew her head down, turtling back into her dress, not knowing how, or whether, to reply. He had to know that unnecessary conversation was forbidden to her. Or was it necessary now, to show him she knew perfectly well that everything was according to the will of God, that she had only been being polite? Or would that be a prideful display of knowledge? Tears of helpless confusion welled into her eyes, worsened by the fear he would speak to her again.
Casually rescuing her, Dame Frevisse said, “It should please God very well to take a bride like Thomasine. She’s shown a true vocation for our life. Only she finds it somewhat difficult to talk to men. Which is as it should be.”
Her tears stifled by surprise and gratitude, Thomasine looked up again, ready to face whatever came next. But their attention was gone away from her as simply as it had come, leaving her only an onlooker again.
“And you, Frevisse,” Master Chaucer asked. “How goes it with you? You weren’t hosteler when last I was here.”
Thomasine wondered at the familiarity of his tone, but Dame Frevisse answered back as casually, “I came to it last quarter-day when we changed offices all around. It means less time in cloister, more time busy with outside matters, but I like it well enough for the while. Otherwise everything is as always, including the fact that I’m very glad to see you again. Are you missing yet your place on the King’s Council?”
“Except
that Matilda reminds me daily how much the decision lowers me in important men’s esteem, I don’t seem to find myself grieving for it.”
“Poor Matilda.”
Thomasine had been scandalized at the obvious ease between them, and her spine stiffened further at the note of laughter in Dame Frevisse’s voice. Her eyes were still resolutely down and she did not think she had moved, but Dame Frevisse, with her discomfiting skill at knowing what someone else was thinking, said, still amused, “It’s all right, Thomasine. Master Chaucer’s lady wife is my aunt and I spent eight years of my growing up in her household. We’re kin and have known each other for as long as you’ve been alive. Our laughter is simply because we both of us know that ‘the esteem of noble men’ ranks almost as high with poor Aunt Matilda as her hope of salvation.”
“Poor Master Chaucer, rather,” Master Chaucer said dryly. “Your Aunt Matilda has a way of making an unhappy household when she’s unhappy.”
“But with Alice married now to Suffolk, she’s surely a little more content?”
“With an earl for a son-in-law and the hope of lordlings for grandchildren, she’s almost forgiven me my latest disappointing of her.”
“You’ve not bought your way out of knighthood again?”
Chaucer gave a mock-sly wink. “Maybe out of something even higher.”
Dame Frevisse shook her head. “Then even I must despair of you.”
But she failed to sound despairing, and Chaucer chuckled.
“My place in the world would hardly change by my gaining a title. I’d simply add more duties to my life and my taxes would go up and that’s an idiot’s price to pay for fancying my name. Besides, it might mean my having to go back to watching Winchester and Gloucester make fools of themselves on the Council. I’ve had my share of that, thank you. And at any rod, with Winchester set in Normandy for this while, Gloucester has settled down to governing with some degree of sense.”
“But not much?”
“He can’t use what he does not have and ‘sense’ is high on his list of inadequacies.”
Dame Frevisse stopped the soft beginning of a laugh with her hand and glanced toward the sleeping prioress before saying quietly, “It’s good to talk with you again, even for this little while. Thank you for stopping.”
“My pleasure more than my duty.” Master Chaucer made a courtly inclination of his head, then twitched it sideways toward Thomasine, adding, “I hope we’ve not offended someone again.”
Thomasine, drawn by their casual talk, found she had been listening avidly. Now, wincing at her conscience’s sharp rebuke as much as at Chaucer’s amusement, she jerked her gaze back down as Dame Frevisse said with some asperity, “I have Domina Edith’s permission to talk with Master Chaucer. She knows how it is between us and finds no harm. Don’t take it all so much to heart.”
Thomasine swallowed hard past the tightness in her throat and whispered, “Yes, Dame.”
With light amusement in his voice, Master Chaucer remarked, “Both heaven and earth rejoice when a saint escapes the earthly body: Heaven because a soul has triumphed over the devil. And earth because a saint is a prickly person to live with.”
Dame Frevisse looked over at Thomasine; her face echoed her voice’s concern as she said nearly gently, “Sit, Thomasine.”
Thomasine, who tired easily, sat gratefully on a stool beside the table, but her resentment lingered.
Dame Frevisse turned back to Master Chaucer. “We’re all going to be very grateful for your gift. Blue silk was exactly our need for Father Henry’s new chasuble.”
“I’m told there’ll be white of the same weight in a few months if you’d have a need for it.”
“Far be it from me to say we’ve never a need for white silk!” Dame Frevisse said. “Dame Perpetua has a new pattern of grape vines that we could embroider...” She paused, lifting her head to a bother of noise beginning to grow in the walled courtyard below the window. “Now what is that?”
The noise sharpened into a clatter of many hoofs on cobbles and rising voices. Thomasine jerked upright. One voice carried above the others and she was afraid she recognized it. Chaucer turned where he sat to look out, and Dame Frevisse crossed the room to join him. But Thomasine, sure now she knew who it was, huddled down onto her stool, as if hoping by some miracle a bush would grow out of the floor and hide her.
Dame Frevisse, peering out, said with a feeling plainly far from devout, “God have mercy on us.”
Chapter Two
Domina Edith, waking as easily as she had fallen asleep, lifted her head. “What is it?”
Dame Frevisse swung back in a gentle swirl of veil and curtsied, her face courteously bland. “Lady Ermentrude Fenner is just entering the yard.”
“And seemingly she’s bringing half of Oxfordshire with her,” Master Chaucer added, not helpfully.
Thomasine, her heart dropping toward her shoes at this confirmation of the visitor’s name, bit her lip against any sound. Domina Edith herself gave no sign beyond the merest fluttering of her eyelids before saying mildly, “I do not recall receiving any warning of our being honored with a visit from the lady.”
Which was usual for Lady Ermentrude. She seemed to feel that the honor of her coming more than outweighed the burden of surprise. It may even have been that she enjoyed the frantic readying of rooms, the culinary desperation in the kitchen, and the general scurrying that followed her unannounced arrivals.
Domina Edith brushed at her faultless lap. “She’ll wish, as always, to see me first. You must needs bring her, I suppose. But there’s no need to hurry her, mind you. Take time about it if you wish.”
If Lady Ermentrude so wished, was the more likely, thought Thomasine. But Dame Frevisse only said, “Yes, my lady,” then hesitated in her curtsey and asked, “The guest hall kitchen... ?”
The guest hall was new and barely tried, so there should be no surprise that things were still settling over there. Still, it seemed cruel that something should shift in the kitchen chimney just before the arrival of an important lady who inevitably traveled with a large retinue. There would be no stonemason to repair it for at least a week, and in the meanwhile nothing could be roasted in the guest kitchen fireplace.
Domina Edith gestured with true regret. “We needs must use the priory kitchen. You should advise the cooks on your way to greet Lady Ermentrude.”
Dame Frevisse nodded and went out. Thomasine, hoping to make Dame Frevisse’s departure her own, rose to follow her, but Domina Edith said, surprised at her, “Stay, child. Matters must be kept decent between Master Chaucer and myself. And Lady Ermentrude will be asking to see you, as always.”
Thomasine knew it. And dreaded it. Lady Ermentrude was her great-aunt only by marriage, but that was small comfort. Her first husband had been Thomasine’s grandfather’s brother. When he died young, she married back into her own Fenner family, but with the Fenners’ inbred devotion to keeping tight hold on anything and anyone who might be of use or profit to them, she had not let loose her interest in her first husband’s people. Thomasine’s father had been raised in her household – something she had never let him forget – and for one miserable season Thomasine and her sister Isobel had been there in their turn, too, to learn highborn manners and a lady’s duties. Properly, they both would have stayed until their marriages were made, but Thomasine’s frail health had failed her and she had been sent home, leaving only Isobel to Lady Ermentrude’s attentions. Now Isobel was six years a wife, and Thomasine nearly settled into nunhood, where she hoped to find herself beyond Lady Ermentrude’s interference.
But St. Frideswide’s was a particular charity of the Fenners and lately most particularly of Lady Ermentrude. Her gifts of food and money were always welcome, which gave her further excuse to drop in uninvited, and her visits always included a rude teasing of Thomasine, asking if she were ready yet to be taken away from this dull prison and given to a husband of good birth and manly vigor.
Now Domina Edith said, “Go to
the window, child, and tell me what’s come with her this time.” To Master Chaucer she added, “Pray excuse my unseemly curiosity, but Lady Ermentrude’s visits...” She hesitated, seeking an explanation that would be both polite and accurate, and finally said, “Her visits sometimes put a strain upon us.”
“She stayed a week with my lady wife and I one Christmastide,” Master Chaucer answered, his tone making very clear he understood all she had not said.
Thomasine, having gone carefully to the window farthest from where he sat, reported dutifully, “My lady, there are at least ten men-at-arms come with her. And fourteen or fifteen outriders. I see five sumpter horses and two carriages of servants. Here are more sumpter horses coming.”
“Is Lady Ermentrude on horseback or in a carriage?”
There was no difficulty finding Lady Ermentrude among the clutter of her baggage and people. “She’s dismounting now, my lady. She was riding.”
“Then she’s feeling well.” Domina Edith betrayed a faint regret at that. Lady Ermentrude enjoyed a touch of sickness as much as anyone could, keeping her servants and everyone else scurrying to fetch hot possets and cool drinks and an orange if they had to ride to Banbury for it, and cushions and blankets and her dogs to tumble and quarrel across her coverlet and someone to read her awake or sing her to sleep. But the only thing worse than Lady Ermentrude ill was Lady Ermentrude at her vigorous best, needing to be entertained late into the evening when all Christians should be in bed, and then betimes up and around, looking into every nook and cranny of nunnery affairs as if the bishop had sent her on a visitation in his place.
“And baggage wagons besides the sumpter horses?” Domina Edith asked. The length of a visit could sometimes be guessed by the number of the lady’s chests and boxes.
“Yes, my lady. They’re still coming through the gateway, but there are three so far.” Domina Edith could not hold back a faint sigh. “And two men with her dogs,” added Thomasine. “Hounds and lapdogs both.”
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