The Bastard's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Frevisse was immediately somewhere she did not want to be—in the middle of too many people wanting to know what she knew, without being certain what she should tell any of them. For gaining time she tried, “Shouldn’t they believe it?”

  Alice was her father’s daughter, not to be turned aside that easily. “Frevisse, don’t. Please. I… we need to know. Do people believe those some thousands of men on Henow Heath are called up because Gloucester is bringing an army against the king? What were the players saying?”

  ‘The players are too bound up in their play to pay much heed, one way or the other.“ Frevisse hesitated, then asked anyway, ”Is Gloucester bringing an army?“

  ‘He may be. Everything is uncertain.“ Including Alice’s voice as she said it.

  Joliffe had it right, then, Frevisse thought. Gloucester was bringing no army. Alice’s half-lie had been given unwillingly but was still a lie and Frevisse ventured, “But Suffolk has gathered those men. He must be expecting Gloucester will make trouble of some kind.”

  ‘Gloucester always makes trouble of some kind,“ Alice returned quickly. She stopped, turned her look to Mistress Tresham, then back to Frevisse and added, ”But Suffolk has promised there won’t be a battle. Otherwise we’d send John away.“

  ‘What will there be instead?“ Frevisse pressed.

  Alice shared a look with Mistress Tresham, asking her something. Mistress Tresham made a slight, refusing movement of her head, leaving whatever it was to Alice, who looked down at her lap a moment before raising her gaze to Frevisse and saying, “We don’t know what there will be. That’s what has us…” The word she wanted was afraid, Frevisse thought; but Alice finished, “… uneasy.”

  They were that and more, but all Frevisse could do was slightly lift her hands to show she had nothing to give.

  Alice sighed and Mistress Tresham stood up. “It was worth asking, anyway,” she said. “I’d best leave now. By your leave, my ladies. There’s this evening to ready for.”

  Alice and Frevisse likewise rose, but Frevisse stayed where she was while Alice saw Mistress Tresham to the door. Low words passed between them and Mistress Tresham briefly touched Alice’s arm before Alice called one of her ladies to see her out, then returned to Frevisse at the window. Frevisse sat again but Alice stayed standing, silently looking out, until after a few moments she turned and sat down, her face quiet with what looked to be worry to which she saw no end. “The pity is that Isabella and I like one another,” she said, “but must needs watch everything we say together, unless it’s about our children or our gowns, because…” She broke off and made a helpless gesture.

  ‘Because of who your husbands are,“ Frevisse said. The king’s chief lord in the royal government and the Speaker for the Commons of England. Two men whose interests might sometimes run together and much of the time would not.

  Alice nodded weary agreement.

  Sorry for her, Frevisse asked gently, “What is it, Alice? You must have some thought of what’s making you… uneasy.”

  ‘Of what’s frightening me, you mean. All I know is that something is deeply wrong and I don’t know what it is, nor will Suffolk tell me.“

  ‘You’ve asked him?“

  ‘I’ve asked him.“ Alice’s rare anger burned suddenly on her delicately boned cheeks. ”He patted my shoulder and said I wasn’t to worry. He said he has it all in hand, but he wouldn’t say what it is.“ The bitter edge to Alice’s voice shifted to barely in-held desperation. ”All that we’ve done this far we’ve done together. Why isn’t he telling me this?“

  ‘Because he knows it’s something you’ll try to turn him from,“ Frevisse said. When Alice did not refuse that, she tried, carefully, ”The talk has been that Gloucester has hope of winning a pardon for his wife. Could it be he’s bringing men enough to force the matter?“

  ‘I can’t see him thinking he could force a pardon from the king. No one would let him.“

  ‘Is he likely to get it without force?“

  ‘No.“ Alice was flatly certain of that. ”If he won mercy for Lady Eleanor, it would mean he was returned to the king’s favor. Everyone who’s against Suffolk would join Gloucester and we’d be back to arguing endlessly over peace with France.“

  That was probably too true. Gloucester had opposed ending the French war. Only after he was out of the way had Suffolk been able to bargain a French marriage for the king and make a truce. If Gloucester came from disgrace into any kind of favor, he would attack that truce and maybe that marriage, and all those among the lords and commons opposed to Suffolk would willingly join him. Factions were inevitable around the king but each needed a leader to be effective. Because no one had moved into Gloucester’s place with those against peace with France, Suffolk had held almost unchallenged power these past few years, and one of the things he must want least in the world was Gloucester rising up to challenge him again.

  Alice seemed about to say something more, but the slightest of taps at the door interrupted her. The daylight had been falling away rapidly while they talked. Here at the window they could still see each other’s faces but the lady-in-waiting who came in at Alice’s bidding was in shadows as she asked, “Would my lady like a lamp brought now?”

  ‘What?“ Alice answered distractedly. ”Yes. Thank you.“

  The woman withdrew and the bells to Vespers began their calling from the abbey’s tower, bold down the wind. Alice flinched her head up and toward the sound as if startled by an unexpected thing, although it sometimes seemed to Frevisse, used to St. Frideswide’s lone, untuneful bell in the cloister garth, that church bells were as common here as air. That Alice flinched at them told her more of how far astray things must be for her, but she only said, “By your leave, Alice, I’m minded to go to Vespers.”

  Alice immediately stood up. “Yes. Of course I won’t keep you from prayers.”

  Frevisse rose more slowly, wondering if she did right to leave Alice but not seeing what she could do for her by staying. The lady-in-waiting returned with a three-cupped oil lamp, its light sudden against the shadows, set it on the room’s small table, curtsied, and went out. Frevisse made a slight curtsy of her own to Alice and started to draw back, but of a sudden Alice asked, “But come back here after supper. Please. We’re having guests. Some men” she paused to choose her words— “allied with my lord husband and some others he hopes to at least work better with hereafter. It’s only for talk. Wives will be here, too. If you could be here, listen to what’s being said, tell me how things seem to you…” She stopped, her eyes rapidly searching Frevisse’s face before she asked, “Will you?”

  It was the kind of thing both Bishop Beaufort and Joliffe wanted her to do, but it was for Alice, not them, Frevisse said, “If you want me to, yes, I’ll come. I should bring Dame Perpetua with me.”

  ‘Of course. Yes. Certainly. Thank you.“ Frevisse briefly laid a hand over Alice’s on her arm and they parted, Frevisse gathering up her cloak as she left. Alice would be readied now by her women and go to dine at the high table in the King’s Hall with king and queen and whoever of the lords and Commons from Parliament were being favored tonight. For Frevisse there was the return into the cold and wind, and she hurried across the Great Court through the late afternoon’s gathering shadows, wanting to reach the church before the bells had ceased to summon.

  Because St. Edmund’s Abbey was large, with its monks scattered to tasks all over it and needing time to reach the church, the bells were only beginning to ring down as she entered the vast nave with its twelve-bayed double line of stone columns rising far above a man’s height into arches and more arches above those into finally gray-shadowed darkness under the almost impossibly distant roof. Stained glass windows, presently deserted by light and color though they were, and the glow of altar lamps and flicker of prayer candles in the many chapels aside in the transepts and around the curved far end of the church added to the certainty of St. Edmund’s holiness as she made her way past other people toward the tall c
arven rood screen that separated the nave—open to everyone—from the monks’ choir meant for those whose lives were sworn to God’s service. The screen, with the cross atop it outlined from below by the golden glow of the candles along the monks’ polished wooden seats in the choir behind it, served to divide the world of prayer, turned toward eternity, from the mortal world where all things changed and perished. How little at bay the mortal world was actually kept by even the grandest of rood screens Frevisse knew more than well enough, but it was not the failure that counted with her, it was the attempt, because without a reaching toward a greatness beyond the self, that self would stay too small, never grow enough to be able to look on the face of God in joy and freedom.

  Unfortunately, here in St. Edmund’s her place was not there beyond the rood screen. While a last few black-gowned, black-cowled monks passed through to their places, she turned aside among the lay people standing in the nave, some speaking hastily to each other before the Office began, others with bowed heads beginning their prayers, and went rightward along the choir and into the south transept, to the farther, smaller of the two chapels there, St. Nicholas’ set in a curve of wall bright-painted with pictures of his miracles, the saint himself tall behind the altar, eyes kindly and hand raised in benediction on those who came to him in prayer.

  Dame Perpetua was already there. She and Frevisse had just time to trade nods before the last bell ceased and the monks’ deep voices began. After the opening prayer came the Office’s psalms, with today one that Frevisse always especially pleasured in and took comfort from. Laudate Dominum, quoniam bonus, quoniam in aeternum misericordia eius… Praise the Lord, since he is good, since forever is his mercy…

  But today, less comforting, came the thought that before this matter of the duke of Gloucester was done, there might be much need of mercy.

  Chapter 8

  As Frevisse had hoped, Vespers’ prayers and psalms gave her respite from the day’s tangle of thoughts. That was, after all, Vespers’ purpose—to turn the mind toward God as the body turned toward its night’s rest; to move the self out of a day’s passing cares into remembrance of the All that lay beyond the World’s brief importances.

  Unhappily her day’s end was farther off than she would have liked it to be. If she had been in St. Frideswide’s, after Vespers would have come dinner, an hour’s recreation with idle talk and small pastimes, and then Compline’s prayers and bed. Here, there would not have been even a bed to which to go if Alice had not forethought to bespeak one for them and even then, with the overflow of ladies-in-waiting and waiting women from other households, one bed had been all even Alice could manage for Dame Perpetua and her. It made for narrow sleeping and little ease but Frevisse was grateful for it, and grateful, too, that Dame Perpetua was happy in her purpose here, now that the monk in charge of the library had grudgingly given her leave to work there.

  It seemed that despite the library was open to citizens of Bury as well as monks, he did not hold with women reading. Only because another scholar working there had spoken on her behalf had Brother Adam given way and now Dame Perpetua was so settled in that she rarely left. After every morning’s Mass, Frevisse saw her only at the Offices in St. Nicholas’ chapel and sometimes at midday dinner. Their only time for much talk was between Vespers’ end and Compline and today as they went from the church to the guesthall refectory for their supper, Frevisse said under the general talk of the crowd around them, “I pray your pardon but we’ve been asked to spend the evening at a gathering in my lord of Suffolk’s chambers.”

  Dame Perpetua smiled mildly. “You mean you’ve been asked and I’m needed for seemliness’ sake.” Frevisse granted that, smiling, too, and Dame Perpetua asked, “How does our business go? No trouble, I hope?”

  ‘Lady Alice only needs to find when best to ask the queen’s help and that’s difficult, with everything presently so over-busy.“

  ‘Besides, she probably enjoys your company, and isn’t eager to lose you.“

  In the refectory they gave over talking, crowded elbow to elbow on the benches with other people all talk-mg to be heard over one another and the clatter of dishes, the din rising to the raftered roof and only falling away as servants passed along the tables, ladling goodly portions of thick-gravied stew onto the thick bread trenchers set at each place. With the stew there was fresh-baked bread, heavy cheese, new-brewed ale and, as hungers eased and talk began to take up again, a dried-apple pudding at the end, leaving everyone filled and, unless they were greedy, satisfied. It being far more food than they would have at St. Frideswide’s and taking longer to eat, Frevisse and Dame Perpetua went directly from it to Compline and afterward out into the cold twilight where sunset was a fading pale orange in the west and overhead stars were showing sharply bright between more clouds than had been there earlier. Dame Perpetua shuddered and huddled her cloak high toward her ears as they made haste across the Great Court toward the torch-lighted walk along the eastward buildings but asked as they went, “Do you think the king and queen may be there tonight?”

  ‘I fear not,“ Frevisse had to answer. ”I’m sorry.“ Though she was not. Thus far they had had no sight of either the king or queen. They went to Mass in the abbot’s chapel, Frevisse understood, and had not been out and about to be seen. She knew Dame Perpetua was thinking how pleased everyone at St. Frideswide’s would be to have report of what they looked like and she offered, ”There’s the play. We’ll see them at that, surely.“

  ‘Are we going to that? I thought it was for… well, not for us.“

  ‘We’re going,“ Frevisse said firmly. She had not sat through all those rehearsals not to see how it played at the end.

  That left Dame Perpetua content until, as they neared the penticed walkway, she said hopefully, “Anyway, there’ll be good wine tonight.”

  Frevisse felt an unseemly rise in her spirits at having one thing to which she could look forward. For the rest, she meant to listen long enough to feel she had done her duty to Alice and Bishop Beaufort then, as soon as might be, leave. Good wine along the way would be some compensation for being here doing what she did not want to do.

  She and Dame Perpetua reached the lighted doorway at the foot of Suffolk’s stairs almost together with three cloak-wrapped men likewise hurrying to be out of the cold, who nonetheless paused and bowed for them to go ahead. Frevisse and Dame Perpetua acknowledged their courtesy by a simple bending of their heads, went in and up the stairs, and only at the top, when a servant had taken their cloaks and they had gone into the first warm, brightly lighted, already crowded room, turned back to give the men better thanks, finding that uncumbered of their own cloaks, the men were all too clearly someone to whom she and Dame Perpetua should have given way. Their clothing, if nothing else, showed their nobility, their full-sleeved, thickly pleated doublets of wool so fine it had a sheen almost to satin, two of them darkly blue, the third man’s a deep-dyed murrey—a costly red-purple—that set off the wide chain of gold and enameled white roses he wore around his shoulders.

  Frevisse, taking in all that and the heraldic badge of a falcon displayed in the arch of a fetterlock hanging from the middle of the chain, realized whom she was thanking just as Alice swept up to them, a froth of transparent veils floating from her high-cauled headdress and an emerald necklace at her throat that matched her velvet gown, holding her hand out to the dark-haired, quiet-faced man with all the smiling pleasure of a hostess greeting a treasured guest, saying, “My lord of York. You’ve been missed.”

  He said, “My lady,” took her hand, bowed, and kissed it as she curtsied to him.

  She made a graceful sideways gesture, saying, “Dame Frevisse, my cousin, and Dame Perpetua of St. Frideswide’s Priory. My ladies, please you to meet my lord Richard, duke of York. And Lord Bourchier and Sir William Oldhall.”

  Frevisse and Dame Perpetua made deep courtesies to York’s slight bow and the somewhat deeper bows of Lord Bourchier and Sir William, all carefully matched to their difference
s in place, with York’s royal blood and dukedom putting him well beyond any of them, even Alice, who was already moving him away, his two companions with him, toward the next room.

  Frevisse did not mind being left behind. If she was to hear anything Alice did not, she should be where Alice wasn’t, and was satisfied to look around the room, taking in the perhaps dozen finely dressed men and half as many women standing about in mannered talk, wine goblets in hand, voices rising over one another. She did not know any of them. Even if she heard something of use, she’d not be able to say who said it.

  Beside her, with no such concerns, Dame Perpetua breathed in wonder, “The duke of York. The king’s own cousin.” She turned to Frevisse. “He’s fought in France. He was governor there. His wife is a Neville. Her brother is the earl of Salisbury. They have five children now, I think. Or did one of them die? Anyway, there’s almost no one nearer in blood to the king than he is. After the duke of Gloucester, he’s—”

  ‘Dame,“ Frevisse said quietly but enough to stop her. That York was next heir to the crown after Gloucester was probably a thing best unsaid in this place and company.

  Dame Perpetua stopped and after a moment said quietly, “Oh. Yes. What with one thing and another. Yes.” She leaned closer and asked in a much-lowered voice, “What’s he doing here at all?” Because it was no secret anywhere, even in so removed a place as St. Frideswide’s, that those closest around the king, including Suffolk, were at odds with York and he with them.