The Squire’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  So helplessness and hidden anger had curdled in Robert’s guts these two days past while he had gone on with everything needed to make the arbitration work, able to tell no one, not even Ned, only knowing that if he was right and Blaunche had done this thing…

  With his back to the wooden screens that hid the hall’s door toward the yard and his attention trying to be on the talk going on around him, he did not see Gil had come in until from just behind his shoulder Gil said low-voiced, “They’re back, sir. Lady Blaunche and the rest. Eudo’s just called out he’s seen them.”

  Eudo had been set to keep the watch on the gatehouse roof for these few days when there would be so much come and go, and holding in his mingled rush of relief and fear, Robert said with outward ease to the two attorneys, “By your leave, my lady wife is returned,” bowed to them, received their bows in return and assurances they would do well while he was gone, and left them, saying to Gil as they headed together for the door, “Everything looks well? No sign of trouble?”

  ‘Not that Eudo said. That it was Lady Blaunche coming and it looks to be two nuns with her is all he yelled down.“

  Robert’s stride shortened with surprise. “Two nuns? And Katherine, too, yes?”

  ‘Lady Blaunche and two nuns, that’s all Eudo yelled. I didn’t wait for more.“

  Robert could have cursed both him and Eudo but he would know for himself in bare moments and bit back the words. The screens passage shielded the hall from draughts when the outer door to the yard was opened in ill weather but today the door stood wide to the afternoon’s soft air and Robert came out of the passage’s shadows onto the top of the stone stairs down to the cobbled yard without need to break stride. From there he had clear view over the yard and crowding of people there. Some were his own men, some were Ned’s, others were Masters Durant’s and Hotoft’s and would have nothing much to do these days but be there. He remembered too well that idle hanging about from his own days as Sir Walter’s squire, and because he had never had great inclination to drinking, games of chance, or wenching, the tediousness between the times he had been needed for something had sometimes been nigh to unbearable. Remembering all of that, he had already given the maidservants word they were to keep clear of the yard this while and warned his men they could game with the newcomers but anyone who either got into a fight because of it or drunk enough to make trouble of any kind would be in need of a new master come quarter day.

  As it was, Eudo must have been dozing at his watch because as Robert paused at the top of the stairs, Jack and Matthew rode through the gateway arch, followed by Blaunche, with Katherine beside her and no sign there had been any trouble.

  Fear drained from Robert, leaving him half-sick and with nothing between him and the anger that had been building these two days under the fear. More quickly than was wise on the stairs’ stone steepness he went down to the yard, was waiting at their foot for Jack and Matthew to draw rein, bowing to him from their saddles as he demanded, “All went well?”

  ‘There was a bridge washed away north of Banbury,“ Jack said. ”It was going around to another set us back. Otherwise, no trouble.“

  ‘Well done. My thanks,“ Robert said, dismissing them, leaving them to bow to his back and turn their horses aside, out of his way to Blaunche through the momentary crowding and sorting out of men and horses as other household men hurried forward to take hold of the women’s bridles and help them dismount. Courtesy would have taken him to his wife first anyway, in the usual way of things, but this time it was his anger that needed to see her, even if he could not give way to it here or yet. Nor did sight of her white face lined with tiredness touch him in the least. He knew too well how willfully she pushed herself against her strength; if she was overtired, it was by her own choice and he was in no humour to pity her for it.

  Maybe she read that in his look before ever he spoke because she gave him no more greeting than he gave her, only leaned over into his hands to let him lift her from the saddle and down. It was something she had begun with their marriage, a little feigned helplessness she saw as womanly, but today Robert was in no humour for it either and clamped hold of her waist and lifted her down with more force than grace, setting her on her feet so ungently that she tightened hold of his arms to keep her balance and said at him, “I’m not a grain bag, thank you.”

  Brittle with his anger, Robert snapped back, “No. A grain bag doesn’t have sons. Where’s Benedict?”

  He had not loosed her, felt her stiffen between his hands and saw thoughts shift rapidly behind her eyes before she returned curtly after too long a pause, “He’s here for all I know,” and pulled roughly free from him.

  Robert caught her by the arm, determined to have more out of her, but a short, brisk nun ducked around the man beginning to lead Blaunche’s horse away and took hold of Blaunche’s other arm with, “Master Fenner? I’m Dame Claire from St. Frideswide’s. Your lady wife needs her bed now. By your leave,” but already drawing Blaunche away from him toward the stairs, Mistress Avys hurrying after them from among the horses.

  Balked of his anger, Robert turned sharply away, almost into Katherine brushing past him after Blaunche. Without thinking he caught her by the arm almost as roughly as he had Blaunche and turned her toward him, saying, “Katherine.”

  Only that; and she said nothing at all; but her other hand came up to cling to his and in her eyes as she looked up at him was such desperate relief and closeness to tears that he understood, hard as a blow, certain as words, that she had been very afraid, and he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close and tell her she was safe, that he’d never let her be afraid again.

  He crushed the urge as it rose because in bitter truth there was next to nothing he could do to protect her and instead loosed her and demanded as she stepped away from him, “What happened?”

  ‘Nothing.“ And then, ”Is Benedict here?“

  ‘He left the day after Lady Blaunche did,“ Robert said, and added deliberately, ”with no word of where he was going or when he’d be back.“ Watching her face, he saw that Benedict’s sudden going meant the same thing to her that it had to him, which meant that some way Blaunche must have betrayed her plan or at least given enough suspicion of it that Katherine had been riding in fear. For how long? All the hours from St. Frideswide’s?

  The thought made him want to shake Blaunche and strike Benedict, but Katherine was drawing another step away, making him a quick, slight curtsy before turning to follow Blaunche as behind him an unexpected voice said, “Master Fenner,” and he swung around to find Dame Frevisse there. Past the brief wondering at what she had understood of what she might have overheard, he was only happy to see her and said gladly, “Welcome, my lady. I hadn’t thought we’d meet again so soon.”

  Chapter 7

  Because the business he had in hand was more his duty at the moment than she was, Frevisse took no offense when Robert, barely after greeting her, gave her over to Mistress Dionisia. The waiting-woman took her on with the same evenhandedness she was giving to overseeing their baggage being unstrapped from behind saddles.

  ‘You go ahead with those,“ she told one of the two men doing as she bid. ”They go to Lady Blaunche’s chamber. That one there,“ she told the other man now carrying Frevisse’s and Dame Claire’s, ”you follow me with it.“ She looked suddenly to Frevisse. ”Where will Dame Claire want her medicines, do you think?“

  ‘With her,“ Frevisse said. She was finding, now that they were done with riding, that she was as tired as she had feared she would be and more than willing to leave thinking to anyone else so long as there was shortly somewhere she could sit quietly a time or, better, lie down until tomorrow. Not that she really thought she would have the chance, but as she followed Mistress Dionisia up the stairs and into the hall and past the clusters of men in busy talk there, she gratefully refuged in her nunhood, keeping her head bowed, her hands tucked into her sleeves, removing herself from need to see or be seen until at the hall’s far e
nd Mistress Dionisia led her through a doorway into a large room where no one was, with a fireplace with carved stone mantle at its far end, a mullioned window looking out toward trees, a scattering of chairs and a large table, and on the near wall to the right of the door a large painted hanging bright with armored, smiling men attacking an unlikely small tower from which equally smiling ladies in blue- and carnation-and primrose-colored gowns were pelting them with flowers. Crossing toward a door standing open to a tight spiral of stone stairs, Frevisse and the baggage-burdened man following faithfully, Mistress Dionisia said without any particular look at the room, ”This is the solar where they’ll do their talking once they set to business. Above is the parlor and my lord and lady’s bedchamber. I’m not certain where you and Dame Claire are to stay, so by your leave we’ll just go up…“

  She was stopped by Katherine sweeping down the stairs and into the room. The girl had put off the veil she had worn for travelling, her hair was untidily pulling free from its braid, and she had not yet changed from her riding gown with its mud drying around the hem just as Frevisse’s was. She was flushed and a little flustered and while making quick curtsy to Frevisse said to Mistress Dionisia, “Lady Blaunche says they’re to share Nurse’s chamber. I’ll take her there and see her settled. You go see what you can do to help Mistress Avys.”

  ‘She’s being troublesome, is she?“ Mistress Dionisia said, not meaning Mistress Avys, Frevisse thought.

  ‘She is,“ Katherine agreed tersely.

  Mistress Dionisia gave a crisp nod. “You keep clear, then. I’ll see to her.”

  ‘Dame Claire wants her medicines.“

  Mistress Dionisia nodded again, went to unstrap Dame Claire’s bag the man was carrying, and took out the needed box. “You go on then and don’t hurry to come back,” she said to Katherine. “You go with them,” she added at the man and went away up the stairs alone.

  ‘This way, if you will, my lady,“ Katherine said and turned toward the painted tapestry, saying to Frevisse following her, ”It seems best to put you and Dame Claire in with the children’s nurse and maid. But not with the children,“ she added.

  Frevisse was relieved to hear that. Thus far she had worked out that they must be in the tower whose top she had glimpsed at the hall’s end from the road as they came toward Brinskep. Now, close to the door back into the hall, Katherine lifted the corner of the hanging to reveal another door, set deep into the six-foot thickness of the tower’s wall and while the manservant came forward to hold the hanging aside she knocked firmly, then opened it and went through before anyone would have had time to answer, Frevisse following her, too travel-tired to care so long as there was shortly some place she could stop moving for a while.

  The room they came into was plain and not overlarge but with freshly white-plastered walls and a large, unglazed window, its shutters open to the day’s mild light and air, looking out across the manor yard toward the hall stairs. It was furnished for several people’s daily living with two beds against one wall, a small wooden chest beside each, a table in the room’s middle with a pair of joint stools at it, and rush matting on the well-scrubbed wooden floor. There were also two other doors across the room, toward which Katherine pointed and said, “One of them leads to the necessity and the other to the children’s room and the stairs to the yard. On this side of the yard the rooms are made in pairs, a shared door between the two rooms below and shared stairs from the yard to the rooms above.”

  She was talking while pointing the manservant to set the bags on the table, nodding her thanks to him when he had and saying while he bowed to her and left, “The children’s nurse and their maid share this room. The children have the next. The rooms beyond there—they aren’t reached from here but only from the yard—are Benedict’s and Master Geoffrey’s. Benedict is Lady Blaunche’s son, and Master Geoffrey the household clerk and anything else he’s needed for. He’s with Lady Blaunche now…”

  She trailed off that line of talk, her eyes busy about the room. “I’ll give order to have a towel and basin brought for your and Dame Claire’s own use, and Nurse and the maid take turns sleeping the night in the children’s room so there’s a bed for you and Dame Claire to share. I don’t even know why there are two beds in here…” She broke off again, saying with sudden worry, “Or would you rather I had a mattress brought and one of you sleep on the floor?”

  ‘I don’t mind the floor,“ Frevisse said. ”That might be best.“ After last night with Mistress Avys’ and Mistress Dionisia’s snoring, she was longing for the solitude of her bed at St. Frideswide’s; anywhere to lie down would, at this moment, be acceptable, she was so tired.

  Katherine gave a crisp nod much like Mistress Dionisia’s. “I’ll see to that, too, and—”

  ‘Katherine,“ Frevisse said quietly, stopping her in mid-sentence and would have added there was no need to worry, she and Dame Claire would do well enough, but before she could, Katherine caught a quick breath and said on a short laugh and a smile, ”I’m galloping my tongue to market, aren’t I? I’m sorry.“

  ‘No need for sorry. Everything has been of a sudden these three days. Will the arbiters and the Allesleys and their people all be staying here, too?“

  ‘I don’t know.“ Katherine sounded surprised at herself. ”No one has said.“

  ‘There’s hardly been time.“

  ‘There hasn’t, has there?“ Katherine sat suddenly down on a joint stool. ”Oh, my, I’m tired. And so must you be.“

  Frevisse was about to take the chance to say that, yes, she was and would not mind being left on her own for a while if Katherine had other things she should be away to see to, when a sudden rise of voices from the yard brought Katherine to her feet and both Frevisse and her to the window side by side in time to see three horsemen draw rein at the foot of the hall steps. Not strangers, Frevisse guessed. For one thing, there had been no warning shout from the gateward, and for another, aside from shifting out of their way and shouted greetings, no one seemed much stirred to see them.

  Two of the riders, by their plain doublets and plain horses, were attendant on the third, a young man in dark riding doublet and tall leather boots, his horse a long-legged, well-bred bay. Horse and boots were well-muddied, as if from hard, fast riding, and so were the other men and horses; but while they looked merely tired, the young man was plainly something much more like angry if his tense seat in his saddle and the abrupt jerk of his head sideways as he answered a question from someone in the yard was anything to judge by.

  ‘Who…“ Frevisse began to ask.

  ‘Benedict,“ Katherine said curtly. ”Lady Blaunche’s son by her second husband.“

  Katherine said the words so near to spitting that Frevisse looked at her, startled. Hands clutched together and between her breasts, the girl was standing tautly, her eyes rigid on the man as he jerked his horse to a stop at the foot of the hall stairs. Frevisse looked back to him in time to see him fling himself from his saddle and his reins at one of the men standing there. Young, fair-haired, a little long of leg perhaps, like a colt still growing, he was not, except for the anger, uncomely. Nor was he much older than Katherine. With a sideways look toward her, Frevisse said carefully, “I wonder what he’s angry at.”

  Staring at him as he went up the hall stairs, Katherine said sharply back, “He’s angry at having failed to cut off my coming home. At having failed to seize me and make me marry him.”

  Openly startled, Frevisse turned toward her. “What?”

  Katherine faced her in return, now as openly angry as Benedict. “Do you really think Lady Blaunche had forgotten her cousin had a manor along that road we were forced to take yesterday because of the gone bridge?”

  ‘She might have…“ Frevisse began, ignoring her own doubt about it.

  ‘There was never Fenner yet forgot where any Fenner land is. What she was protesting was having to go a different way than she had purposed. She—“ Katherine stopped her words short, said instead with a quick cur
tsy and only a little strangled on the effort to shove her anger down, ”Pray, pardon me. I must needs tell Nurse that you’re here and Lady Blaunche will want to know how the children are. By your leave.“

  She was backing away even as she said it, turned without waiting for Frevisse’s answer and left, going by way of the door toward the nursery.

  Frevisse let her, not having right to bid her stop and in doubt that Katherine would have anyway, angry as she was; but unless Katherine chose to go down the stairs and across the yard, she would have to come back through here and Frevisse spent the while until she did by unpacking her bag and Dame Claire’s, shaking out their spare habits and laying them flat across the foot of one of the beds for the travel’s wrinkles to fall out as best they might. The clean wimples and veils, tightly rolled, had not much rumpled, would do, she thought and laid them beside the habits. Then, with nothing else she could do, she sat herself down on one of the joint stools.