The Squire’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Frevisse tried to read, too, Psalter in hand, but found it difficult to hold to the words while Robert and the children played a loud game requiring much climbing on, over and under the settle and on, over and under Robert as well, bringing them all to hot, red faces and laughter until Master Geoffrey brought word from Lady Blaunche they had to stop, she couldn’t bear the noise. Silence fell with a rock’s grace, along with the children’s faces, but when Master Geoffrey was gone back into the bedchamber, Robert leaned toward them and said in a mock whisper, “Ah, well, small bits, we can always go clean the nursery.”

  Against expectation, the children brightened back into laughter, immediately ready to go, and Katherine set her book aside and started to rise, but Robert said, “No. Stay. Dame Frevisse, will you help me see them to their room?”

  ‘Assuredly,“ she said, and though she found it was no easy matter to manage eager children down the steep curve of the stairs, even with Robert carrying Tacine, they made it safely enough and she was spared her next fear—that she would be expected to help with them in the nursery—by Robert bidding them tell her good night in her bedchamber and going on with them himself into the nursery where Nurse and Anabilla were presumably waiting to even the odds.

  On her own part, Frevisse stayed where she was, thinking she would prefer the bedchamber’s quiet to going back to the parlor; but the quiet was a long while coming because whatever “clean the nursery” meant, it entailed much shouting, laughter and thumping that must have had very little to do with settling down to sleep. When quiet finally did come, she thought Robert would be back but instead heard him leave by the stairs to the yard, not much before Dame Claire joined her.

  Together, talking about nothing else, they went to say Compline in the chapel and the rest of the evening went much like the evening before and the next morning began the same as yesterday’s, though it was the nursery maid Anabilla who was just out of bed and readying for the day when Frevisse and Dame Claire returned after saying Prime in the gray light of the overcast almost-dawn. She was a shy, freckled girl who ducked her head and whispered when spoken to, murmured them good day, and slipped quickly away to the nursery where sounds of merriment said the children were up, as early a-stir as the rest of the manor, it seemed, because a servant shortly came to the other door with Frevisse and Dame Claire’s breakfast.

  Despite how Lenten-spare it was—yesterday’s bread and some warmed, lightly spiced wine—it was welcome. Fasting at its best brought not greed for more food but grateful pleasure in what there was, and they made no haste with it, were soaking the last of their crusts in the wine when Emelye scratched at the tower door, entered at Dame Claire’s bidding, made quick, low curtsy to them, and said, “Please you, my ladies, where’s Nurse?”

  ‘With the children,“ Dame Claire said with a nod toward the nursery. Emelye curtsied her thanks and hurried out by the room’s other door, only to hurry back soon, curtsy to them again, and say to Dame Claire. ”Can I tell Lady Blaunche you’ll be there soon? She’s asking for you.“

  Dame Claire held up a curve of bread crust and her cup. Tell her I’ll be there directly I’ve finished this.“

  Emelye bit her lip and Frevisse realized that her haste Was from more than duty; her eyes were large with fright’s she said, “Yes, my lady. But soon, please,” curtsied again and more fled than merely left.

  ‘Oh my,“ Dame Claire said but made no greater haste toward finishing her bread or wine.

  If anything, she moved the more slowly at it, bringing Frevisse to ask, on the chance she wanted to talk of it, “Nothing is the better with her?”

  ‘Nor will be, no matter what I do, I’m afraid, until she decides herself to make it better. I think someone told her sometime that women feel rather than think, and she’s been intent on feeling as much as ’womanly‘ possible ever since.“ That was an unusual amount of bitterness to come from Dame Claire, and Frevisse had no answer to it, could only sit watching her stare at her bread crust still soaking in the wine without noticing it was falling into soaked bits as she said on, ”Her humours are badly awry. There’s no doubting that. But she makes it the worse by giving in to it so completely. I wonder if Master Fenner would send for a potion of poppy if I asked? Some could surely be had from Coventry in no more than a day or two.“

  Frevisse suspected Robert would send for essence of the sultan’s beard if it held out promise of quieting his wife the while he was dealing with the Allesleys but before she could say so, Dame Claire sighed, “Ah well. In the meanwhile there’s today to be dealt with.” She noticed her crust, ate what she could of it and drank the rest with her wine, finishing as Frevisse did, just as there was a rap at the stairway door followed immediately by Robert’s two small sons pushing each other into the room.

  Out of sight behind them, Nurse said crisply, “Master Robin, John, you know better than that. Come out and go in properly.”

  They promptly pushed each other out of the room, pulled the door closed and knocked at it again. With great seriousness, in honor of their effort, Frevisse said, “Come in, and with equal seriousness Robin did, John solemnly at his heels. They both bowed to her and Frevisse bent her head to them in return, saying, ”Sirs.“

  Grinning at their success, they came farther in, clearing way for Tacine who tried a curtsy, spreading her baby skirts as if they were a lady’s gown, wobbly on her short legs but with Nurse’s hand to the small of her back to steady her, followed by an approving, “That’s well done, all of you. Now all of you say, ‘Good day, my ladies.’ ”

  They did and Frevisse and Dame Claire gravely returned the greeting before Nurse, seemingly taking them in charge along with the children, said, “Would you be good enough to see us all up the stairs to the parlor, please? If you’ll do the boys, I’ll come with Tacine, please you.”

  It made no difference to Dame Claire who had been going up anyway but Frevisse only reluctantly held out her hand to Robin and together, Dame Claire with John and Nurse following with Tacine, they went into the solar where two servants were busy polishing and shifting furniture. The children would have stopped to watch but Nurse said, “Your lady mother is waiting,” and the boys pulled loose from holding hands to take the stairs at a scurry and scramble ahead of everyone.

  Dame Claire and Frevisse and Nurse with Tacine followed at a more reasonable pace, Frevisse first, pausing in the parlor doorway to set John firmly back on his feet after a stumble over the sill, only seeing after she had straightened and followed him into the room that Katherine, Master Geoffrey and Mistress Dionisia were there, standing oddly rigid and scattered around the room, a warning to her that something was badly awry. And the next moment she knew what it was, as Lady Blaunche’s voice rose, shrill with anger, beyond the bedchamber door, “And today? What are you meaning to do today? Yesterday you humiliated Benedict in front of everyone. Today—”

  ‘No one humiliated Benedict but himself.“ Except it could only be Robert lashing back at her, Frevisse would not have known his voice, it was so raw with anger, the last dregs of his patience all too obviously gone. ”And no one could have done it as thoroughly as he did, save for maybe you, sending him out there to it.“

  He should be stopped, Frevisse thought. They both should be, before they did worse to each other than they probably already had. But there was no one to do it and Lady Blaunche was flailing on, “I sent him out there to watch out for Katherine which was more than you were doing!”

  ‘Watch out for Katherine? What did you think was going to happen to her in our own garden with two nuns, her woman and Gil to keep watch?“

  ‘That Allesley—“

  ‘Is someone who’ll be far the better for her than what you would have wished on her!“

  ‘Benedict—“

  ‘Would still be thinking of her more as a sister than a wife if you’d not put other into his head.“

  ‘And why not? Is it any the worse than what you’re doing? Selling her—“

  ‘Using he
r to pay off the wrongs you’ve done,“ Robert snarled back. ”That’s what I’m doing. Unlike you who only want to use her to make another wrong. Look to yourself for the wrong of it, not to me.“

  ‘Not to you? Not to you? You’re the one too coward to face down Sir Lewis! You’re the one…“

  The bedchamber door flung open and Robert came out, furious-faced, as Lady Blaunche shrilled after him, “… too coward to keep what’s rightly mine! I’ve held that manor for a score of years and now you…”

  Midway between bedchamber and stairs Robert spun around and shouted back at her, “That’s a score of years longer than ever you should have. Why can’t you understand that?”

  Lady Blaunche in an amber-colored dressing gown flung into the bedchamber doorway, bracing herself against the frame as she cried, “What I understand is that you’re helping the Allesleys to rob me! Why don’t you just give them everything we have at once and leave us all to starve and be done with it?”

  ‘Because when I let myself be driven into marrying you, my lady wife“—he made the name ugly—”our marriage vows bound me to care for you while we both lived, whether I liked it or not. And just now I don’t like it at all.“

  ‘You wanted to marry me! You know you did!“

  ‘What I wanted,“ Robert said coldly, ”was not to spend the rest of my life cleaning pigsties. That was the only other choice Sir Walter offered me.“ He paused, then added deliberately, viciously, ”I should have chosen the pigsties.“

  He might as well have struck her with his fist, for the cruelty of it. Frozen, Lady Blaunche stood staring at him openmouthed, then tried to breathe and could not, gasped for air, gasped again on a sob, and turned away, back into her bedchamber, one hand pressed to her throat, the other blindly groping for something, anyone to hold to, and Mistress Avys was there, come hurriedly to put an arm around her waist and catch her outstretched hand, leading her away toward the bed as Dame Claire passed Robert to follow them into the bedchamber, slamming the door behind her.

  Robert, for his part, turned his back on the slammed door, his face cold, blank of even anger, his stare past everyone to the far wall that he did not look like he was seeing, and no one else moved or made sound before, after a moment, his gaze dropped and he took in that his children were there, staring at him, stricken, and his coldness cracked and was gone and he went down on one knee, holding his arms out to them, saying, “Come here, my hearts.”

  Robin and John hung back, uncertain, but Tacine squirmed free of Nurse to the floor and came at him in a toddling rush that carried her full into his arms and the instant after that her brothers came, too, and Robert crushed them all to him, his face buried against Tacine’s warm, small neck, his hands curved to the back of Robin and John’s smooth heads as they burrowed against him.

  Only finally did he gently untangle from them, setting first John and then Robin back from him, then working loose Tacine’s throttling hold from around his neck, saying while he did, “There. That sets the day off to a better start.” He kissed Tacine’s cheek and, standing up, ruffled the boys’ hair. “You be good to your mother this morning when you see her. I wasn’t and she’s feeling badly. Yes?”

  Three heads made solemn nods.

  ‘Good, then.“ He touched each of them on a cheek, smiling. ”I’ll see you tonight.“

  Nurse came forward to take them back into her keeping, and Robert turned to Frevisse with the smile drained from him. “I’m most sorry,” he said, “for all of this.”

  He was come back from the far, cold, hating place he had been and in pain, and Frevisse answered, letting him see how much she meant it, “I’m sorry she’s so aggrieved by what you have to do.”

  Robert nodded wordlessly, made to leave, then turned back, to Katherine this time, and said, his voice tight to strangling on the words, “You know that if you mislike anything about this marriage we’re making for you, you need only to say and it will never happen.”

  Gowned and groomed as she had been yesterday, ready to be displayed again, Katherine went on standing rigidly straight, the way she had been ever since Frevisse had come into the room, her hands clutched together below her breasts, staring at Robert a long moment before she said, no life to the words, “You need this marriage. I’ll make it.”

  ‘Katherine,“ Robert began but stopped, stood staring back at her with a look no more readable than hers, tried again, ”Katherine…“ gave it up, turned away, and disappeared down the stairs.

  The difficulty there might have been after that of sorting the morning into some semblance of the ordinary was passed over by Nurse saying briskly to Frevisse, “You were going to tell the children a story, I think?”

  More readily than she would have thought possible a half-hour ago, Frevisse agreed, “A story. Yes.”

  Mistress Dionisia had closed on Katherine, was leading her away to the settle at the far end of the room, talking to her in a soothing rush too low to be heard. Katherine, no longer rigid, was clinging to her hand and shaking her head against whatever was being said to her. Frevisse, distracted by that and stalling while trying to think of a story she could tell, said, “Where shall we sit?”

  ‘Here,“ said John, pulling away from Nurse to run for the window seat and scramble up with clear intent to unlatch and open the shutter. Master Geoffrey said, ”John, no,“ and went to stop him, overtaking him as he reached up for the latch and taking firm grip on the back of his loose tunic with one hand while unfastening and folding the shutter open with the other, saying over his shoulder to Frevisse at the same time, ”He loves to lean out of windows,“ and to John, ”Stop squirming, child. Do you want Dame Frevisse to tell you a story or not?“

  ‘Story,“ said Tacine and, deftly freeing herself from Nurse’s hand, she bustled forward to demand of Master Geoffrey, just turned from setting her brother down on the window seat’s cushions, ”Up.“

  With a smile over her head at Frevisse, he lifted Tacine and put her beside her brother, and when Nurse patted Robin °n the back and said, “You, too,” he shot forward to scram-“le up on Frevisse’s other side as she sat down beside Tacine who promptly crawled into her lap, squirmed around to make herself comfortable in the curve of her arm, and said again contentedly, ”Story,“ as John scooted to take her place at Frevisse’s side.

  Still with no story in mind, Frevisse looked somewhat desperately to Nurse but she was gone to join Katherine and Mistress Dionisia on the settle, the girl sitting between the two women with head bowed and hands clasped tightly together in her lap, Mistress Dionisia still talking low-voiced to her and Nurse resting a hand on her arm.

  ‘Story,“ John said, pushing his hard little head against Frevisse’s shoulder, bringing her back to her more immediate problem, but Master Geoffrey must have rightly read her look because he said helpfully, ”St. Frideswide’s tale?“

  With relief, Frevisse said, “Yes. Thank you,” and in the certainty that sooner begun was sooner done, started, in the time-honored way, “That other year, when things weren’t as they are now,” and went on with the story of the Saxon princess who wanted only to serve God, and when a prince tried to carry her off for himself, she fled and hid, “in the marshes near where Oxford is today but all was wild then,” for three years, while he went on searching for her until God struck him blind. Only when he swore to trouble her no more was he cured, “given back his sight to see how beautiful the world was to those not blinded by their own wishes,” and St. Frideswide lived on to found a nunnery where she had hidden so long, “and there she lived out her days in prayers and happiness,” Frevisse finished and waited while the children seemingly thought on that for a moment, before Robin looked up with a frown and said, “She wanted to? Close herself up in a nunnery?”

  ‘Yes.“

  ‘Instead of marrying a prince?“

  ‘She’d rather marry the prince of Heaven,“ Frevisse said.

  That gave them another momentary pause for thought, until Robin gave a firm nod, satisfie
d, and said, “Good.”

  Frevisse’s fear now was that they would want another story from her, but they proved to be ungreedy. While Robin added, “Thank you,” John squirmed around to slide from the seat to the floor and ordered at his brother and sister, “Come play,” and, obedient or willing, they went with him away to their toys in the far corner of the room.

  Frevisse was willing for Master Geoffrey to betake himself away, too, but he set to talk about the weather that left her small choice but to agree it did indeed look lowering this morning. In truth, after the past few days of clear skies, today had the feel of rain-to-come in the air and they had worked up to sharing their belief that the weather could well be shaping to a storm before the day was out and were beginning to speculate on whether it would wait until afternoon or come this morning, when Tacine across the room pulled back from Robin and John, a rag doll clutched to her breast, and cried out angrily, “No!”

  ‘Children, hush. Your mother,“ Nurse said from where she still sat with Katherine and Mistress Dionisia.

  Hushed but unswerving, Tacine repeated, “No. You can’t,” at her brothers and scrambled to her feet.