The Squire’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  They gave their leave with assurances that they regretted doing so, she curtsied to them, they bowed to her, and with a warm smile particularly to Drew, she left, taking Frevisse and Emelye with her, Mistress Dionisia and Mistress Avys following after, out of the solar and up the stairs. Only when they were in the parlor, with Mistress Dionisia closing the stairway door behind them, did Katherine give way, flinging her hands out violently to either side as if to shove unseen things away from her, before grabbing up her too-full skirts and fleeing across the room to the far side of the settle, to turn at bay and declare, pointing a fierce finger at the bedchamber door, “I won’t go in there. Not tonight. I won’t!”

  Mistress Avys hurried toward her, making hushing gestures and saying, “No need. She hasn’t asked for you. She didn’t even have the children brought to her tonight. It was Dame Claire said you might want rescuing. She said to use Lady Blaunche for an excuse.”

  Katherine’s defiance dropped away into an open, aching wish to believe her. “Truly?” she asked. And began to cry.

  What sleep Frevisse managed that night was broken sometime by another storm, lightning-driven and thunderous, rolling over the rooftops in the darkness and, later, near to dawn, by another one that was still rumbling away into the distance when she arose and went to set back one of the shutters to the coming day.

  Dawn was barely at its gray beginning but the morning air to her deep-drawn breath smelled wonderfully of wet earth and young growing things and she leaned on the windowsill, beginning Prime silently without thought of waking Dame Claire to join her. They had not gone to pray in the chapel last night before bed and had agreed then they would not go this morning, either, the manor being so crowded full °f men. It was Sunday and there would surely be Mass said in the chapel by the village priest that they could go to with the family and meanwhile Frevisse’s private thought was that a little more sleep would do Dame Claire no harm. The brunt of Lady Blaunche’s misery had fallen on her yesterday and last night and there would have been worse if Lady Blaunche had come to hear of what had passed between Robert and Benedict but Dame Claire had forestalled that— for everyone’s sake as well as Lady Blaunche’s—by mixing a three-times-potent dose of valerian and borage into undiluted wine and insisting that she drink it all swiftly, at almost a single draught.

  Even with that, Lady Blaunche had staved off sleep awhile, but when it finally came Dame Claire had assured Mistress Avys that she would sleep the night through. “And I wish half the morning, too,” she had added to Frevisse later, on their own way to bed, passing through the solar again where the men were still in talk. “But that’s too much to hope for.”

  Frevisse’s own thought had been that at least Lady Blaunche’s drugged sleep would give Robert chance of a good sleep, too. For herself, she surely felt the better for her own rest, disturbed though it had been by the storms; but she was not ready—never ready—for another day of Lady Blaunche’s miseries and tried for now to hold her mind only to the simplicity of the spring dawn and Prime’s early prayers until behind her the rustle of mattresses told her Dame Claire and Nurse were waking, with the murmur of a prayer from Dame Claire and then Nurse saying with impatient surprise, “Here. What are you doing there?”

  Frevisse swung around, with light enough now from the growing day to see Anabilla, the nurserymaid, sitting up from a huddle of blankets on the floor beside Nurse’s bed, rubbing her eyes and answering Nurse’s question sleepily with, “Master Fenner told me to.”

  ‘Master Fenner?“ Nurse threw back her covers and rose, reaching for her shift hung from the wall rail above her bed. ”What do you mean Master Fenner told you to?“ She dropped her shift swiftly over her head and reached for her gown on the same rail. ”He’d not want the children left alone all night. Get up.“

  She prodded Anabilla with her foot and the girl shifted out of her blankets and to her feet in one deft movement, away from the foot, protesting the while, “He did!” She was fully dressed except for her apron folded neatly on top of a nearby stool and her shoes set under it. “After you’d gone to bed and the children were asleep but I wasn’t yet, he came in and said he’d…”

  Outside, in the yard, a man yelled, harsh with alarm, whirling Frevisse back to the window. Dawn was swelling over the clear sky but much of the yard was still in shadow and in the time it took her to find the man in the darkness at the foot of the stairs down from the hall, Nurse and Anabilla with Dame Claire only a little behind them joined her in looking out. Even then she could not tell what the fellow was yelling for. There was nothing and no one else in sight…

  Other men came spilling out the hall door above him, most less than half dressed, their shirttails loose, some without their hosen up, but all of them with some weapon in hand, mostly daggers…

  Unless that was a shape at his feet that, yes, he was pointing at while he yelled too garbled and away from her for her to make out much of what he was saying but…

  Frevisse pushed away from the window, past the other women and toward and out the door to their own stairs to the yard, meeting Robert coming from the children’s room, his hair disheveled, shrugging into his doublet as he came, his belt with its sheathed dagger in his hand. “What is it?” he demanded of her, starting down the stairs without waiting *°r answer. “All I could see was someone yelling.”

  ‘I don’t know,“ she answered, following. Her unthinking Pattern of dressing as soon as she rose from bed had her already gowned and veiled, able to go out, and she did, catching up her skirts and running well enough she was able to keep close at Robert’s back as he shoved in among the men crowded around whatever was the matter and therefore saw almost as soon as he did that it was someone lying sprawled on the cobbles. Saw, in the next moment, that it was Benedict. And that he was dead.

  No one lived with their neck that twisted, their head bent that way.

  With a moan Robert went down on his knees, belt and dagger dropped, and reached out toward him but stopped because there was so obviously no use. Instead, his hands fell helplessly back into his lap and, his head moving from side to side, trying to refuse belief, he said, low and in pain, “No. Blessed Jesus, no. Not this.”

  Frevisse looked around for someone who would go to him, take him away from here and begin to give the needed orders, but everyone she could see seemed to be servants or Sir Lewis’ men for all she could tell of them. That was to be expected; they were who would have been sleeping in the hall, first to hear the outcry, nearest to come. Some were already going back inside to spread word but others were coming out, both from the hall and from around the yard, and she saw first Sir Lewis and Drew at the hall door and then, to her relief, Master Verney crossing the yard, somewhat more dressed than most, with doublet unfastened but strapping on belt and dagger as he came, shoving in among the men until his first sight of Benedict’s body brought him to a halt, pain sharp in his face. But he equally saw Benedict was past any help but prayers and went to take Robert by the shoulders, drawing him to his feet and a few steps backward, saying, “Come away. You don’t need to see more here. I’ll do what needs doing.”

  Dumbly, Robert shook his head, not letting himself be drawn farther off, not looking away from Benedict’s body.

  ‘Come away,“ Master Verney insisted and looked around, asking, ”Has anyone gone for the priest?“

  From the crowd’s back someone answered, “No need for haste there. That’s a dead ‘un.”

  Master Verney cast a sharp look toward the voice. “You can take your mouth somewhere else.” He picked a man among the others. “Raulyn. See to Benedict being taken to his room…”

  From where she stood close aside from Robert, Frevisse said quietly, “The body should be looked at before it’s moved.”

  Without pause Master Verney included her in things with which he needed to deal. “Dame Frevisse, this is no place for you. Lady Blaunche will need…”

  Robert straightened out of his friend’s hold, drew a ragged breath, said
, “Do as she says, Ned. Look to see if there are any wounds on him.”

  ‘His neck is broken…“ Master Verney started.

  ‘And we want to be sure that’s all that happened to him,“ said Frevisse.

  Master Verney looked to her, back to Robert, opened his mouth, shut it, rethought whatever else he had been going to say and said instead, “Yes. You’re right,” and, forestalling Robert, added, “No, not you. I’ll do it.”

  Clearly not liking what he did any more than Frevisse would have if she had had to do it, he knelt and turned Benedict’s body over onto its back, careful of head and arm to keep them from flopping, as if that somehow mitigated the ruin there was of what had been a life.

  But there was no more wound or blood or torn clothing to the front than on the back. Nor was there any way to tell how long he might have been lying there by how soaking wet his clothing was all around. With the night’s rains and the cobbles runneling water, he could have been lying there a half-hour or eight.

  ‘He’s only a little stiffened,“ Master Verney said, the words thick with the effort to speak evenly. ”He’s been dead a few hours maybe.“

  Or he might have been unstiffening, for all they could presently tell, Frevisse did not say. There was such variance in how long it took a body to stiffen and unstiffen, depending on so many things difficult to gauge, that it was only sometimes a useful thing.

  ‘He fell,“ someone among the men said. ”Fell and broke his neck in the dark and rain. What else?“

  ‘How long was he in the hall last night after you and he left the solar?“ Frevisse asked Master Verney.

  ‘We only passed through. I saw him to his room, talked him a little further down, told him he was best to stay there, and went back to the solar.“

  ‘Did he come back to the hall later?“ she asked around at the gathered men. There was a general shaking of heads that he had not. ”Or did anyone see him anywhere else he could have been coming from and out the hall door here?“ she persisted.

  Men looked around at one another but no one answered, except someone offered, “He could have been seen by someone not here yet.”

  ‘Or he might have fallen going up the stairs,“ another voice put in.

  Frevisse did not bother with trying to find who was saying what, just asked of all in general, “You mean he tripped while going up the stairs, managed to fall all the way down, and landed facing away from them, breaking his neck on the way?”

  Hesitancy spread out around her, someone finally saying. uncertainly, “That’s not likely, is it?”

  She did not answer that. She was too aware that Master Verney was staring up at her from where he still knelt beside Benedict’s body, that Robert had not looked away from her since she had asked her first question, and that she had more to ask. But before she could, Lady Blaunche demanded shrilly from the stairs’ head, “What’s happened?”

  When whatever half-word of something wrong reached her, she must have been dressing to go to Mass because although her hair was still unbound, she was in a bright azure gown rather than her bedrobe; she had to gather her skirts up in both hands as she started down the stairs, demanding, “Who is it?”

  If she noted Sir Lewis and Drew were there, almost at the stairfoot, turned to look up at her like everyone else— if she even knew what they looked like to know them at all—she gave them no heed as they stepped back out of her way along with the men at the stairfoot, the ones who had been blocking her from view of Benedict’s body.

  By now there was dawnlight enough she knew immediately what she was seeing and it brought her to a sharp halt on the last step, frozen, disbelieving, until all at the same moment Robert began to move toward her and she began to scream and, screaming, let go her skirts and hurled herself forward. Only Sir Lewis’ quick grasp of her arm saved her from falling headlong, gave her balance long enough to fling off his hold and stumble off the last step and time for Robert to be in her way, between her and Benedict’s body.

  She would have shoved blindly past him but he took hold of her by both arms and said at her past her screaming, “Blaunche, no! You don’t want to see!”

  She stopped both her screaming and trying to push past him, stood white and rigid in his hold staring at him, just staring, as if she neither knew nor wanted to know who he was, only wanted him out of her way; and Robert abruptly let her go and stepped aside, leaving her to go forward the few paces more and sink, slowly now, onto her knees beside Benedict’s body. There was no sound, from her or anyone, save for the whisper of her skirts as they spread out around her as she knelt and in that silence she reached out first to touch her son’s hand lying outstretched on the cobbles near her, as if she would not believe he could be anything other than asleep. Then, slowly, she touched his cheek, first with only her fingertips, then her whole hand cupped against it, her warm flesh to his cold. And then, with a moan beginning somewhere deep inside her, she bent and gathered him into her arms as much as she could, holding him to her breast, his head cradled against her neck, her face pressed to his fair, wet hair as she began to rock him… rock him… moan… and rock him…

  Chapter 15

  Mistress Avys came then in a rush down the stairs with Katherine and Mistress Dionisia behind her, closing in around Lady Blaunche in a mingling of tears and outcry as they realized what they were seeing. Dame Claire came next, from the other way, the men parting from in front of her at her crisp words until she was at Robert’s side, could see, too, and looked from Benedict’s body, still in his mother’s arms, to Frevisse who, feeling as white and rigid as Robert looked, moved her head stiffly from side to side, telling her there was no more hope than there looked to be.

  But Lady Blaunche at sight of Dame Claire cried out in wordless plea and Dame Claire went forward, knelt, laid hand on Benedict’s chest and touched the side of his throat as if looking for heartbeat that too plainly would never be there again, before she said gently to Lady Blaunche, “He’s gone, my lady. Best let them take him now.”

  Clutching Benedict’s body closer, Lady Blaunche shrank back from her, looked around desperately for help there could not be and, not finding it, turned her face, her eyes shut, to the sky and the rain-washed dawn and cried out with a high-wrought despair, a cry of the death of all the world’s hope, of heart breaking and nothing left but pain and pain and more pain after that.

  Someone among the onlookers groaned, “Oh, God,” and it might have been Robert, but he was the only one who dared finally move toward her, a single step, enough that Lady Blaunche’s eyes flew open and fixed on him as if on an enemy, as she screamed at him, “Stay back from us! He’s none of yours! Stay back!” Screamed around her at everyone, “All of you! Stay back! You can’t have him!”

  Mistress Avys, weeping openly, laid a hand on her arm, trying, “My lady…”

  Lady Blaunche twisted away from her touch, making to shield Benedict’s body from her as well as from everyone else, crying, “He’s mine! Leave him alone! Leave him alone!” before she collapsed into weeping and bent over him, her hair sliding forward to make a curtain hiding both his face and hers.

  Master Verney and Sir Lewis began motioning and quietly ordering the lookers-on to leave and mostly they went willingly, carrying the drift of manor servants come out from kitchen and stable away with them. It was through the outspread of them drawing off that Master Geoffrey came half-running, his clerk’s gown unbelted and lifted out of his way to show bare legs and feet as if he had thrown it on after a hasty rousing from bed. Frevisse saw him catch a man’s arm and ask something, then freeze in a long look toward the clot of them still at the stairfoot before gathering himself and coming on with less haste but more purpose, ready by the time he reached Lady Blaunche to kneel down on one knee in front of her and say gently to the top of her head, “My lady, you have to let him go. He died unshriven…”

  Meaning Benedict’s soul had gone out of him unprotected from all the dangers that came after death.

  Robert mad
e a protesting move but Frevisse put out a hand to hold him quiet. Whatever was done now would have to come from somewhere other than him as Lady Blaunche jerked upright at Master Geoffrey’s words and turned wild eyes on him while he went on steadily, meeting her gaze, “… and he should be in the chapel. We can best make prayers over him there, my lady. He’ll be safest there.”

  He left off then, giving her time to take it in, waiting while first her sobbing lessened, then stopped, and finally, straightening a little, she looked up through her hair to ask, faint-voiced, “You’ll go with him?”

  ‘I’ll go with him,“ Master Geoffrey assured her. ”I’ll take him there and see everything done that needs to be and then you can come to him.“ He went so far as to lay a hand over one of hers and say, gently still, ”Please, my lady.“