The Bastard's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  A monastery bell was just striking the hour, telling they were on time, not late, and Master Wilde waved away whatever they started to say, saying, “Get on with things, then. Go. Go.”

  Mistress Wilde snipped her thread, said, “There. Done. Lord John, Giles, come. I’ll help you dress,” and went calmly away, a boy on either side of her.

  Frevisse, left to herself, stayed where she was, thoughts racing. No matter how out of favor and out of power Gloucester had been these past years, he was still heir to the throne. Could he even be brought to trial? Whether he was or not, every political balance must already be shifting. Remove him as someone to be considered in the pattern of things and what happened? She didn’t know. And perhaps more to the immediate point was the question, Who was removing him? Who had laid this charge of treason against him?

  She realized she was thinking about it as if the charge was false. What if it was not? But why, after almost twenty-five years of loyalty, would Gloucester try treason now? And if it wasn’t treason, who had prompted King Henry to such a dark move?

  Unwillingly she remembered the clerks scribbling away in Suffolk’s outer room where there had never been scribes before and John saying his mother was angry…

  The players were nearly done dressing, save for Lady Soul being helped by Giles to find her hands’ way through her gown’s elaborate, floor-trailing sleeves, but of a sudden Master Wilde, long-bearded and wigged in gold now, holding a scepter and standing at the foot of Heaven in Wisdom’s spreading robes, bellowed, “Where in all Hell’s rings is Joliffe?”

  Frevisse was just wondering that, looking around for him while the questions rushed through her mind. Despite his well-kept air of fecklessness, feckless was probably the last thing Joliffe was—at least with his work, she amended. Why wasn’t he here?

  ‘And my crown,“ Master Wilde said angrily. ”Someone has stolen my crown.“ Mistress Wilde went calmly to open a basket sitting along the wall, lifted out the tall, tiered hat with its rising series of brass crowns circling the cloth-of-gold covering the buckrammed form made to fit firmly to Wisdom’s head, and carried it to her husband. Grumbling that if people would just put things where they belonged, he wouldn’t have to worry about it, Master Wilde let her put it on him, and by the time she stepped back, the change that usually came over the best players when the time came was coming over him. From being a hard-driven master of players, he lifted his head, set back his shoulders, and seemed to grow taller with taking on the massive dignity and certainty of Creation’s Wisdom. Even Joliffe finally entering the hall did not stir him. He only pointed the scepter at him and demanded in Wisdom’s deep voice, ”You. Where have you been?“

  A little breathlessly, throwing off his cloak while he answered, Joliffe said, “The streets are madness. Everyone is thronging and talking. You’ve heard?”

  ‘About the duke? Yes.“ But the duke of Gloucester was clearly irrelevant to Master Wilde at the moment. ”Get clothed. We’re going to start. Everyone, take your places. Let’s get on with it.“

  Joliffe disappeared behind the frame-hung blue curtains with their spangling of stars now flanking the heavenly stairs, the musicians signaled the play’s beginning, Wisdom and Lady Soul set to their talk together in Heaven, and from the very first something was wrong. Even Wisdom’s speeches lacked their usual force, and Lady Soul stumbled twice on her words and once on her skirts and, further on, the Mights and Devils were not vigorously, only flatly, sinful, and their dance a shambling disaster. Even Joliffe drove forward at his lines as if to have them done as soon as might be. Only John and Giles played their parts well, without stumble or shambling, but the play was nearly done by then and, somehow never having to stop but never rising above painful to watch, it limped and bobbled through to its end.

  When at last it was over and the actors came straggling from behind the curtains to stand before Heaven with shamed, discouraged faces, Master Wilde, taking off Wisdom’s crown and wig and beard, simply gazed down at them with a sorrow too deep for any trace of anger before he pointed at John and Giles and said, “You. You two were good. The rest of you…” He shook his head. “The rest of you were unspeakably bad. Go away. All of you. Be back here when the bell calls to Vespers. By then we’ll know if we’re—St. Genesius, take pity on us—to perform tonight. In the mean time, do not get drunk. Do not fall to brawling. Eat something. Pray St. Genesius gives us better wits than we showed this afternoon. Now go away. I want to weep.”

  Subdued and mostly silent, the players set about getting out of their garments. Frevisse in equal silence helped John back into his own clothing, wrapped him well into his cloak and herself into hers, and left before anyone else was ready to go, since there was no chance she could talk to Joliffe here.

  The walkway was more crowded than before, men and some women standing in clusters talking intensely, shifting from one group to another to talk more and sometimes one or another of them going off across the yard to other clustered, talking groups. Frevisse skirted as close as she could to them along her way but overheard nothing of any use or interest. What was known—and apparently all that was known for certain—was that the duke of Gloucester was accused of treason, arrested, and under guard at St. Saviour’s. But not any of his men, despite many of them were said to be Welsh.

  Unsurprisingly, Alice was not returned. Frevisse gave John back into his nurse’s keeping and immediately left, could have gone to the church to pray, she supposed, but equally supposed she would not pray well, her mind twisting around the question of Gloucester and wanting to talk to Joliffe. Instead, she went to the library, with the hope she might distract herself by being of some use to Dame Perpetua until supper and time to face the play again.

  The abbey library was a long room with all along one side high-set windows above shelves, closed aumbries, and chests of books. Facing them across the room were taller windows spaced so that daylight fell on the desks set endwise to the wall between each one, with each desk almost a small room in itself, enclosed on three sides, open to the room only on the fourth and raised on a dais half a step up from the floor to protect against feet-chilling draughts. In front of each desk was a slanted shelf for resting books at an angle best for reading and copying, with another slant-backed shelf above that upon which to lean other open or closed books and along the wall and below the desk flat shelves for piling more. For good measure, each desk had a smaller slanted desktop mounted on a swivel arm that the scholar could position to the light as best suited him and a cushion on each chair for better sitting through hours of work. Because of each study stall’s head-high walls, Frevisse standing in the doorway could not tell if Dame Perpetua was at her desk or not—or for that matter, whether anyone else was in the library save for the elderly monk bent over an open book at the table beside the door, his cowl pulled up against draughts and his hands tucked into his sleeves. Resigned to nuns in his library and too deaf to bother with idle talk, he hardly looked up and said nothing as she passed him.

  As she had expected, Dame Perpetua was at her desk, writing briskly. She paused when Frevisse softly said her name, her pen ready over her work, and said, “I’ve started the Boethius. You haven’t come to say all’s done and we’re to go home soon?”

  ‘No,“ Frevisse said, much though she wished that were true and despite it would hardly have suited Bishop Beaufort’s purpose to have her lose her excuse and leave.

  ‘I’ll work on, then. Unless you need me for something?“

  ‘No. I don’t. I just thought…“

  Frevisse momentarily forgot what she thought because at the far end of the line of study stalls Bishop Pecock had leaned into sight and was beckoning to her. She blinked, as if seeing him were a mistake and he might go away, but he did not and she regathered her thoughts enough to say, a little faintly, to Dame Perpetua, “I thought I’d read awhile here. Where it’s quiet.”

  Dame Perpetua, dipping pen into inkpot and bending to her work again, nodded and probably within three
words forgot she had been there at all.

  Quiet-footed past empty desks, Frevisse went toward where Bishop Pecock had now retreated from sight. Save for the faint scritch of Dame Perpetua’s pen and the faint crackle of a parchment page being turned by the monk, the library was deep in book-kept silence, no sign that anyone else was there until she came level with the last desk and saw not only Bishop Pecock but, standing behind him, Arteys.

  Chapter 12

  Forgetful of any respectful greeting or curtsy, Frevisse joined them out of sight in the stall, saying in a forceful whisper, “Arteys. What are you doing here?”

  ‘You know who he is?“ Bishop Pecock asked back in lowered voice before Arteys could answer.

  Keeping her guess at who Arteys was, she said, “I know he’s one of the duke of Gloucester’s men. The word running is that Gloucester is arrested but none of his men. That’s true then?”

  ‘He’s arrested. I don’t know the rest,“ Arteys whispered. He had the look of someone who, having taken a hard blow, was trying to hide the afterpain. ”I ran.“

  “One of the knights told him to take the chance to leave while it was happening,” Bishop Pecock said. “Arteys, having common sense, did, since there was no knowing what else was going to be done or to whom.”

  ‘I ran,“ Arteys said bitterly.

  ‘You left where you could do Gloucester no good, on the hope you could do him good elsewhere,“ Bishop Pecock answered.

  ‘I left him. I…“

  Bishop Pecock raised an admonitory hand. “You were ordered to it by one of your father’s knights, a man with the right to give you orders, yes? By obeying, you did your duty as it was at that moment. To twist and turn about it afterwards is a waste of wit and time, neither of which you—or in truth anyone else but you most especially just now—should waste, however plentiful both or either may be.”

  Arteys shook his head, probably as lost as Frevisse was among so many words, but she had managed to hold to one thing and asked, “One of your father’s knights?”

  ‘Sir Roger. He…“ Arteys started to answer, then saw the real point of her question and froze for a moment before lifting his head and saying, in defiance or pride or maybe only with the tired relief of admitting it, ”My father’s knight. I’m the duke of Gloucester’s bastard son.“

  Frevisse would have asked more, beginning with why he had gone to Bishop Pecock for help and why Bishop Pecock had brought her into it when he could have left her out, but there was a soft footfall behind her, both Bishop Pecock’s and Arteys’ heed went past her, and she turned as Joliffe sighed and said, in the same low voice they had been using, “So much for my plan of where to hide you, Arteys.”

  ‘It was a quite reasonable plan,“ Bishop Pecock re-Plied, ”made as it must have been with hardly time to think about it and not intending it to be for long.“ He moved aside and backward to make room for Joliffe to join them in the now crowded shelter the stall’s high walls still gave. ”I came here myself for respite from all the talk and goings-on and happened on him, that’s all. Joliffe, the chair is going to waste, all of us standing here. Make use of it. You look as if you need it.“

  Joliffe did not argue the point but edged past Frevisse, turned the chair from the desk, and sat with a wry, “My thanks, my lord.”

  Since there was nothing she could do for his tiredness, Frevisse asked, still trying to put together what had happened, “Arteys came to you for help?”

  ‘It was more that we happened on each other while he was trying to get out of St. Saviour’s after Gloucester’s arrest.“

  ‘You were in St. Saviour’s when Gloucester was arrested?“

  ‘As it happens, yes.“

  ‘Why?“

  Joliffe pulled a slight face at her. “Does it matter?”

  ‘You’ve made me part of this whether I wanted it or no. If I’ve no way out of it, I at least want to know more than I do.“

  ‘I didn’t make you part of this.“

  ‘Your good Cardinal Bishop Beaufort of Winchester did, then,“ she snapped, ”but he’s not here and you are.“

  Arteys, who had been leaning back against the bookshelf at the desk’s end, straightened. “Bishop Beaufort?” he repeated in a strained voice.

  ‘That tears it,“ Joliffe said to no one in particular.

  ‘You’re here for Bishop Beaufort?“ Arteys demanded at them both.

  Frevisse made a sharp nod at Joliffe. “He’s here for Bishop Beaufort. I’m here because my prioress was bribed to ‘give me leave’ to serve the bishop’s ‘request’ for my help.”

  ‘Bribed?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘With promise of a gift of property our nunnery sorely needs, if I’d come to Bury St. Edmunds and see whatever might be happening. I was to watch and listen and give the use of my wits, if asked, to someone else the bishop would have here.“ She turned an unfriendly look on Joliffe. ”Him.“

  Arteys’ look at him was as unfriendly as hers. “She was forced to it, but you weren’t, were you? You’ve been looking how to make use of me against my father, haven’t you?” His eyes widened with a sudden thought. “That day in the tavern you knew how many men he was bringing with him. When all the rumors said thousands, you knew it was only eighty. I’ve been a fool!”

  At least briefly his fury was greater than his fear or shame and he jerked forward as if to shove past Bishop Pecock and leave, but Bishop Pecock put out a hand to stop him while asking Joliffe, “Well?”

  Joliffe hesitated, for once without even a glint of mockery, before he said, “Bishop Beaufort is dying. He likely won’t live to see the summer and he knows it.”

  Bishop Pecock and Frevisse made the sign of the cross. Unwillingly, belatedly, Arteys followed them.

  ‘You’re certain?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘Certain enough. He says it and he had death’s look on him when I last saw him, a month ago.“

  Bishop Pecock shook his head. “I hadn’t heard. I didn’t know.”

  ‘No one is supposed to know except the few in his household who have to. He’s given out he took a chill before Christmas and is having trouble being rid of it, nothing more.“

  ‘Believable enough at his age,“ Bishop Pecock granted. ”Not that there won’t be guessing going on by some. He’s had lessening power in England’s governance these few years past, but still…“ He shook his head again with the worried wonder of someone watching the world change shape. ”There’ll be a different balance to things when he’s gone, that’s sure.“

  Bitterly Arteys thrust in, “If he’s going to die, he wants my father dead with him. That’s what’s brought this on, isn’t it?”

  ‘Go at it the other way,“ Joliffe said. ”He doesn’t want Gloucester dead.“

  ‘They’ve been enemies for thirty years and more and suddenly, dying, he has a care for my father?“ Arteys mocked savagely.

  ‘I doubt he cares for Gloucester any better than he ever did,“ Joliffe said back. ”But he cares even less for what he’s seen of Suffolk and his little pack of lords.“

  ‘Disliking Suffolk and wanting to help Gloucester are two different things.“

  ‘Except where they meet in Bishop Beaufort’s worry over what’s going to happen when he’s gone and there’s no one left around the king of royal blood save Gloucester and the duke of York to be any check on Suffolk.“

  ‘The more so,“ Bishop Pecock put in, ”when neither Gloucester nor York are in any kind of favor or have much influence with King Henry and against Suffolk.“

  ‘They both have their royal blood, though, which counts for something, however far out of power they are,“ Joliffe returned. ”And two of them alive and well are a better guard against Suffolk having all his own way than if there’s only one of them.“

  ‘You’re watching York, too, then?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘I’m here because Bishop Beaufort told me to find out what I could about everything. If Gloucester was at peril, as Bishop Beaufort had half-
heard he was, he wanted to have some thought of what was going to happen, on the hope he could do something against it.“

  ‘Only they moved too fast or sooner than he expected,“ Bishop Pecock said. ”Not that there’s likely much could have been done to stop them, even if he’d known.“

  ‘None of you seem to suppose Gloucester might be actually guilty of treason,“ Frevisse said.

  ‘He isn’t,“ Arteys said fiercely. ”The one thing, the only thing he had in mind, coming here, was hope he could plead pardon for Lady Eleanor.“

  ‘Did he think he had any better hope of it than he’s had these past five years?“ Bishop Pecock asked.