The Squire’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  All in all, both she and her wealth were well-displayed, to be admired and desired, and the only flaw was that her face was as bleak as a winter’s day, her eyes flat with pain, so that without thinking Frevisse said, “Is it as bad as that, Katherine?”

  Tears that seemed to take her by surprise brimmed in Katherine’s eyes and her voice caught as she said, “You’re the first person this morning who hasn’t told me how beautiful I look. Thank you.”

  ‘They say it because it’s what they think you want to hear. Besides that, it’s true.“

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s true.“ Katherine’s voice tried to rise toward breaking; she forced it down. ”What matters is that they’ve all stopped seeing me. Everyone. I’m 0nly something to be dressed and disposed of to everyone else’s best advantage. They don’t see me at all in this anymore.“

  That was hurting her to the heart, and with an answering pang Frevisse remembered her mother saying once, long ago, about her marriage, “Everyone knew how I was supposed to marry. They had it all planned, down to the last pence they would make from it, but I listened to no one but myself and married your father.” And went off with him into a life they had both loved as much as they loved each other and because of it had been exiled from everyone else who had ever been dear to them.

  Frevisse had never needed to ask if it had been worth the cost. Even if she had not known before, the remembered joy in her mother’s face even then, when she had lain widowed and dying, had been all the answer there need be.

  Which was no use to Katherine who had no such other choice, it seemed—no lover to whom she could turn, her only choices acceptance of what was intended for her or flat refusal of it, with whatever troubles and outrage that would bring down on her.

  Katherine tried another smile, saying contritely, “I’ll be all right. It’s only that I’m frightened a little. I’m sorry I broke into your prayers.”

  ‘You didn’t,“ Frevisse repeated, and because she had no help to offer, added, ”Am I wanted somewhere?“

  ‘No. I only came here to hide awhile. Until my courage came back. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.“

  Where was Mistress Dionisia? Frevisse wondered. She surely knew Katherine best, was best suited to comforting her. Lacking her and not knowing Katherine well enough to guess what comfort to offer, Frevisse settled for asking, “Has it come back? Your courage?”

  Katherine’s smile was bleak. “Enough.”

  Knowing she should leave it at that but not able to, Frevisse said, “You think it will happen, then? Master Fenner will make an agreement with the Allesleys and your marriage will be part of it?”

  ‘Sir Lewis wants compensation for the years he’s been deprived of his land. Master Fenner has no other way to pay it except with me.“

  ‘Is he maybe fond enough of you not to force you to it if you refuse?“

  ‘I won’t refuse. He has to have this peace with Sir Lewis. The cost and loss if he doesn’t will happen to too many people who don’t deserve to suffer for wrongs they didn’t do. If I’m what has to be paid to keep that from happening, then I will be.“

  ‘And Lady Blaunche?“ Frevisse asked. ”She’ll come to accept it, you think?“ and was startled by how swiftly Katherine’s resignation turned to blazing bitterness as she snapped, rawly angry, ”She’ll have to, once it’s done, but she’ll make Master Fenner’s life hell for it from now until she can’t anymore.“

  ‘She’s not well…“ Frevisse began.

  ‘She’s as well as she wants to be,“ Katherine said, then quickly returned to contrite with, ”I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I…“ She shook her head, changed what she had been going to say to repeating, ”I shouldn’t have said that.“

  ‘Dame Claire has draughts that will maybe serve to soothe her.“

  Katherine refused that with another shake of her head. “When she’s wrought herself this high, there’s little chance of soothing her.”

  ‘Is she often like this?“

  ‘Often enough.“ Bitterness surfaced again. ”It’s what she does best. Ah!“ Angrily, but at herself this time, Katherine covered her mouth with both hands, then clutched them to each other and dropped them to her waist. ”I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, either. It was unkind.“

  But true, Frevisse said to herself, and was saved from struggling with how much more she should ask about what was none of her business by the gateward’s ringing cry, “They’re coming!”

  Katherine gasped, “Blessed Virgin, no,” and spun toward the window with fear so plain in her that Frevisse crossed the chamber to her side, and Katherine, one hand pressed to her belt over her heart, reached with the other to take hold of Frevisse’s near one, whispering, “I’m not ready.”

  Ready or unready made no difference and Frevisse held back from any of the useless things she might have said, leaving them to wait in a silence taut with Katherine’s fear while below them in the courtyard manor men went and came, some of a purpose, some seemingly not, before Katherine said, “There’s Master Fenner,” come out of the hall door to the head of the steps.

  He was more finely dressed than Frevisse had ever seen him, in a calf-length azure houppelande over dark hosen, the gown cut full and belted into his waist, the wide sleeves hanging long but gathered to his wrists, the collar high around his throat, with a slender chain glinting gold in the morning sunlight over his shoulders and across his chest. From above the yard he called out orders to men below him and they responded with bows and a swift sorting out that cleared most of them to the edges of the yard or away altogether, leaving a half-dozen men grouped near the foot of the stairs, all dressed in the brown surcoats that told they were household officers, high in their lord’s service. They would likely have no direct part in what was to come but nothing was ever lost by playing up dignity in a matter like this, Frevisse supposed.

  There was hardly time for the grouped men and onlookers to begin to fidget before there was a shouted order from the gateward and men were swinging the gates wide, back against the gatehouse walls, but rather than toward the gate, Frevisse—and Katherine, too, she noted—looked toward Robert in time to see him, still alone at the stairhead, straighten his back and lift his head, one hand coming to rest on the hilt of the sword on his left hip. There was small likelihood any weapon would be drawn today but neither would Sir Lewis nor Robert choose to face each other without his and so lessen his place against the other. It was a man thing that Frevisse had seen often enough not even to shake her head over anymore and in the next instant altogether forgot about it as riders cantered into the yard, too many and too quick to count, a burst of maybe a score of men and horses and the clatter of shod hoofs on stone and the chink and ring of harness before most of them drew rein in the midst of the yard, leaving three others to ride forward at footpace to the stairs as Robert came down to meet them.

  ‘The man in gray is Ned Verney,“ Katherine said. ”He’s Master Fenner’s friend who helped set this all toward.“

  ‘Then the older man“—with a long, well-fleshed face, dressed in scarlet houppelande slit up the side for riding, with tall leather riding boots and brimless, high-crowned hat—”will be Sir Lewis,“ Frevisse said.

  ‘I’d guess so,“ Katherine agreed, tight-voiced, because that meant the third man was most likely his son and heir, Drew Allesley, angled from them so they could not see his face, only tell that he was fair-haired, his short-cut green houppelande showing a well-shaped leg above his low riding boot, before he, his father, and Ned Verney were swinging down from their saddles and going forward to meet Robert, with everything after that lost in a scurry of servants come to take the horses and the six arbiters dismounting in their turn, coming forward, more servants going for their horses and those of the other men now dismounting, too, while at the stairs Robert had turned to lead everyone up and into the hall where, if all went as planned, they would shortly set down to dinner.

  When Robert and the Allesle
ys were gone inside, out of sight, Katherine let go of Frevisse’s hand, turning from the window and saying with credible steadiness, “There. That much is done at least. Now for…” Her control faltered. “… the next…” Turned farther away, she pressed her hands over her mouth as if to hold in the anger and pain her unfinished words had betrayed.

  To her back, gently, Frevisse said, “There’s no wrong in being angry at what’s being done to you, or in being afraid. You’ve reason to be.”

  ‘But it isn’t my place to be, is it?“ Katherine swung to face her, bitter. ”I’m not supposed to be angry or anything else except obedient. That’s all that’s wanted from me. To be obedient and a profit to whoever can sell me or buy me or carry me off by force!“

  Frevisse, with no answer to change the grief and truth of that, held silent and Katherine, with unabated bitterness, demanded, “Aren’t you going to at least tell me how obedience is my duty and I should be glad of doing my duty?”

  At least to that Frevisse had answer, saying dryly, “I haven’t found doing my duty and being glad of it the same thing often enough to tell you so. And obedience aside, I surely don’t see why it should be your duty to be glad over being grabbed at by greedy men, especially when it’s for the sake of righting a wrong that isn’t even yours.”

  Katherine gazed at her fixedly, balanced between tears and anger before willing herself away from both toward a smile that, once begun, was more real than any she had yet had this morning. She even managed, on a half laugh, to say, “And once I’m married, if he’s not to my liking, I can always begin to hope for an early widowhood.”

  It was a bitter thought, better than despair but not by much, and before Frevisse had to answer it there was a hurried knock at the tower door and Mistress Dionisia came in without waiting to be bid, her somewhat frantic look changing to open relief as she saw Katherine and then to hen-clucking annoyance as she hurried forward saying, “There, child, you gave us a turn. Gil came looking for you…” She began to twitch and straighten at Katherine’s skirts. “… thinking you’d be in the parlor or with Lady Blaunche and you weren’t and I’ve had to come find you. You’re wanted in the hall, as well you knew you’d be.”

  Katherine backed away from her a step. “I have to go in now?”

  Mistress Dionisia followed her, busily smoothing her sleeves. “Of course now. Don’t be a silly.”

  Katherine backed another step. “I’m not ready.”

  Mistress Dionisia stopped, drew herself straightly up, and said firmly, “Mistress Katherine, you were told this would be the way of it. Don’t play Lady Blaunche with me.”

  Katherine flushed. “That isn’t a fair thing to say!”

  ‘Nor is it fair what you’re doing, making trouble where trouble isn’t going to do you any good.“ But she softened even as she said it, reached out to smooth Katherine’s hair back from one cheek, and said more gently, ”Sweetheart, I know, but it can’t be helped and Gil says he’s a comely young man. You’ll take a liking to him, certain as daylight, and he can’t help but like you as soon as he sets eyes on you, you’re that lovely. Now come. They’re waiting.“

  For all her gentleness, she was unshiftingly certain that there was no gainsaying necessity, but Frevisse thought it was more Katherine’s own courage than Mistress Dionisia’s urging that brought her, after standing frozen-still a moment, to bow her head and move toward the tower door in at least outward seeming of submission.

  Chapter 10

  “You, too, my lady, please you,” Mistress Dionisia said at Frevisse.

  ‘What?“ Frevisse asked, alarmed. ”Lady Blaunche refuses to have any part in this, she says, and won’t come down to dine but she wants Dame Claire and you should be there.“ Mistress Dionisia was as firm with her about it as she had been with Katherine. ”Otherwise there’ll be no women at table but Mistress Katherine and that wouldn’t be right. All those men and only her.“

  No, it wouldn’t be right, but that did not make Frevisse like it any the better. But, as with Katherine, liking or not liking had nothing to do with duty and, like Katherine, she bowed her head and went, to wait in the solar, joined by Dame Claire, while Robert’s man, Gil, went to tell Robert they were ready; and when he returned, there was nothing for it but to make small procession with Dame Claire and behind Katherine, Mistress Dionisia following after them, into the hall where everyone was already standing to their places at the high table and along the two tables down both sides of the hall. Robert came forward to take Katherine by the hand and lead her forward, her eyes lowered, as was proper for a maiden among so many men, to her place on his left at the middle of the high table, with Frevisse able to see no more, her own eyes toward the floor as was equally proper for her, a nun, as Gil led her and Dame Claire aside, down from the dais and along the nearest table to their places just below three men she guessed were half of the arbiters because, once she was seated, she could see three other men who matched them for sober dress and solemn faces at the facing table. Everyone else looked to be men of Robert’s household or else come with the Allesleys and the arbiters, and indeed she and Dame Claire were the only women seated there. Master Verney could at least have brought his wife, she thought. But maybe his wife did not get on with Lady Blaunche. That was a likelihood Frevisse had no trouble believing. Or maybe, to be slightly more charitable, it had been guessed Lady Blaunche would prove difficult and Mistress Verney’s being here would serve no purpose.

  It hardly mattered, Frevisse supposed. Whichever way it had been, things were as they were, and once the meal had started, it was none so bad as it might have been for her at least. The man on her left and the one on Dame Claire’s right spoke with them each briefly, enough to satisfy manners, and then turned to talk with the men on their other sides, leaving her and Dame Claire to their meal and each other’s company. Keeping in mind their Lenten fasting, she and Dame Claire took only small portions of all the dishes set out with the first remove, and though they ate slowly, they finished before anyone else could and were left, not feeling free to talk here among so many men, with nothing to do except exchange a glance at each other past the edges of their veils and then, on Frevisse’s part, with everyone else busy at their food and talk, to look to the high table to see how things went there.

  Mistress Dionisia had withdrawn, she saw, to the corner near the solar door, quietly out of the way, keeping discreet ward on her young mistress. From nunnery talk, Frevisse knew she had been Katherine’s nurse in the girl’s babyhood and her waiting-woman ever since. She had come into the Fenner household with her and therefore it was likely that when Katherine married she would go with her again and so must be almost as desperately interested as Katherine in what these Allesleys were like; but from the utter quietness of her standing there, with hands folded at her waist and eyes downcast, she might have been feeling nothing, thinking nothing, noticing nothing beyond the floor at her feet, and despite that was probably seeing as well as Frevisse could that between Katherine and Drew Allesley, seated on her other side from Robert, all seemed to be going amiably just now.

  Certainly to the eye there was no more amiss with the young man from the front than there had been from the back. He and Katherine made a couple good to look on as they sat there, his fair head and her dark one close together in what looked like lively talk, broken off only sometimes while he served her from whatever dish was set between them or he made brief talk to Master Verney on his left and Katherine turned, equally briefly, to Robert on her right.

  The second remove was brought, occupying Frevisse a while, but when she had done, she turned her heed to Robert and Sir Lewis who looked to be, surprisingly enough, almost as easily in talk together as the others. If nothing else, that meant they were both able to put manners before angers, and in such dealing as they were to have after this, that could only be to the good, Frevisse thought. Only Benedict, seated on Sir Lewis’ other side, was making a poor show, unable to summon up good manners enough to hide how displeased he
was to be there, leaving him on what looked like the constant edge of being openly rude. He made sorry contrary to young Allesley but Frevisse was less sorry for him than for Robert, forced into pretending he did not see his stepson’s ill manner while probably hoping it would go no worse, and mercifully it did not as they passed on to the third remove, but Frevisse, for one, was relieved when the meal was done, thanks given, and everyone was drawing back from the tables.

  Her own hope, said quickly to Dame Claire under the scrape of benches being shoved back and voices shifting to louder around them, was that they could go to the chapel to say at least something of the day’s Offices, and Dame Claire gave a quick nod of agreement but they had only begun to wend their way around benches and men toward the outer door when Gil slid around a clot of arbiters and to them so purposefully that Frevisse’s heart sank even before he bowed and said, “They’re going to start their talking now and Mistress Katherine and Master Drew are going out to walk in the garden awhile, or maybe the orchard, and Master Fenner asks if you two would keep them company.”