The Squire’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Dame Frevisse paused, searching his face before saying, even more quietly, “I meant that Lady Blaunche fears Katherine and I doubt it will take much to turn her to hating her, with all that’s happened.”

  ‘She wouldn’t hurt…“ Katherine, he had been going to say; but until now he would have said Blaunche would not hurt Robin, either—frighten him maybe with her wildness but not hurt him—and about that he had been direfully wrong. And neither, he found, was he fool enough to ask from where Blaunche’s fear of Katherine might come. His own guilt told him that, and if Dame Frevisse had guessed too much about his feelings there, as it seemed she had, then it was that much more likely Blaunche knew too much, too, whether or not she yet admitted anything to herself. When she did admit… ”Yes,“ he said. ”I’ll give order that Katherine should keep away from her.“

  And the best way to make surety of Katherine’s safety— from him and Blaunche both—was to push through her marriage to Drew Allesley as quickly as might be.

  From the bedchamber Blaunche screamed, something crashed and shattered against a wall, and the door was wrenched open for Mistress Avys and Mistress Dionisia to flee out, Dame Claire following with more dignity but no less speed at their skirt-tails, slamming the door closed behind herself and saying at Robert across the room while Mistress Dionisia led Mistress Avys, collapsing with tears, toward the settle, “Have you sent for the poppy syrup?”

  While Robert groped for some memory of whether he had or not, Dame Frevisse said, “Gil was to bid Master Skipton send a man. He should be on his way by now.”

  ‘He’d better be. There’s no more help she’ll take from me, and if she goes any worse than she already is, there’ll be nothing for it but to tie her down before she does damage to herself or someone else.“

  Mistress Avys let out a wail at that, quickly hushed by Mistress Dionisia, and everything was suddenly more than Robert could go on bearing. He had to be away before anyone suggested he should go in to her because ever seeing Blaunche again was something he never wanted to do and he muttered something to Dame Frevisse and left her so rapidly he was to the stairway door before she overtook him, said at his back as she had said before, “Robert, I need to ask you something,” so that he had to stop, face her and say stiffly in return, “My lady?”

  ‘Were you with the children all of last night?“ He paused in his answer, held for a moment by the ugliness behind what she was asking, horribly foreseeing how it would be if others came to think he could possibly have killed Benedict, before he answered, meeting her look for look, ”Yes, I was with them all night. But there’s no way to prove it, is there?“

  ‘No,“ she agreed and, surprisingly, half-smiled. ”But I believe you anyway.“ Giving him the gift of her trust. The best of all things she could possibly have given him just then. Except for maybe a wife he could love. And Benedict’s murderer.

  Chapter 19

  When Robert had gone and Dame Claire with a shake of her head from where she sat aside on a chair had shown she did not want to talk and Mistress Dionisia was still quieting Mistress Avys with pats on the arm and soothing sounds, Frevisse found herself left with nothing but her thoughts and they, she found, were like Mistress Avys—they wanted patting and soothing and were no comfort to her. All she had learned from all her questioning so far was that no one with any likely interest in having Benedict dead seemed either to have been with him, with chance to kill him, or if they had been with him, had not had chance to move his body when it had to have been moved. Except for Robert, she firmly amended, refusing to avoid it; but everything she knew of him from the past and all she had seen of him since Benedict’s death told her he would not have done it.

  But if not Robert, then who?

  What wasn’t she seeing among everything she had found out so far? Or, if she was missing nothing among what she had so far learned, what other questions should she ask? She did not know and that left her with only the hope that either Gil or Master Skipton would bring her something she could use.

  Her restless waiting for them would not have let her sit; only her body’s prompting that she had been too many hours on her feet brought her to the window seat, where she tried for prayer and quieting of her mind, but neither came before Katherine did, bringing two servants bearing trays with what would pass for today’s dinner, the kitchen as upset as everything else, it seemed, able to rise to no better than a fish and vegetable pottage, day-old bread, and dried apple-raisin compote, but Frevisse was glad there would be no need to go down to the hall and eat in company.

  ‘Should I take her something?“ Mistress Avys asked with a sniff and a doubtful nod toward the bedchamber door as they gathered to the parlor’s small table. ”She’s had almost nothing today.“

  ‘If she’s quiet,“ Dame Claire said, ”best we leave her so.“

  Frevisse gave silent agreement to that, nor did anyone else protest. That Lady Blaunche was quiet mattered more to everyone than whether she ate or that she was alone with a man not her husband. She would eat in good time and no wrong was likely to come out of her being with Master Geoffrey, being as she was now. Satisfied of her duty, Mistress Avys went to her own eating with a will. Frevisse on her part took only little and withdrew to the window seat again, noticing that Katherine, too, after dismissing the servants and serving everyone herself, had drawn aside to sit on a floor cushion against a wall with her own food and drink and steadily downcast eyes that invited no one to speak to her. Whatever had passed between her and Drew had not done anything toward gladdening her, it seemed. Nor did she ask after Lady Blaunche or, so far as Frevisse saw, even look toward the shut bedchamber door. But she knew when everyone had finished eating and had risen and was gathering the bowls and cups back to the trays when footsteps on the stairs brought Frevisse to her own feet with a hope that was immediately answered by Master Skipton and Gil entering, one behind the other; but it was Katherine who asked sharply, “What is it?”

  ‘Nothing, my lady,“ Master Skipton hurriedly assured her. ”We’ve only come to tell Dame Frevisse what she asked about.“

  Katherine’s look flickered away to Frevisse crossing the room toward them and back to their faces as Mistress Dionisia said, “Come sit, child. You’ve been on the move all day,” patting the settle on her other side from where Mistress Avys was now occupying herself with untangling embroidery threads from the ruined sewing basket. Ignoring her and leaving off interest in Master Skipton and Gil, Katherine went wordlessly aside to the floor cushion again, sat, and leaned back to the wall with shut eyes.

  Mistress Dionisia watched her worriedly but said nothing, Frevisse noted before giving all her own attention to the steward and Gil, neither of whom looked as if they thought they brought good news, but she asked anyway, “Anything?”

  ‘Nothing,“ Master Skipton said and Gil’s grim nod agreed with him.

  ‘Nothing?“ Frevisse repeated.

  ‘No one heard any outcry nor saw anybody moving around last night where or when they shouldn’t have been,“ Gil said. Clearly he and Master Skipton had shared with each other what they had been doing. ”Nor we’ve not found out when Benedict might have happened at the foot of the stairs.“

  ‘There was one of the Allesley men went to the stables sometime in the night after everyone was settled, belatedly worried over his horse, but he isn’t sure of the hour, didn’t see anybody, just knows there was no body at the stairfoot then,“ Master Skipton said.

  ‘Was there anyone noticed with wet clothing this morning who shouldn’t have had?“ Frevisse asked with small hope.

  ‘None,“ Master Skipton answered. ”And no one took any message anywhere last night, either to Benedict or from him.“

  The bedchamber door being silently opened brought everyone’s look that way and Katherine straight up, but only Master Geoffrey came out, easing himself backward, watching Lady Blaunche to the last moment where she knelt in prayer at the prie-dieu across the room below the crucifix hung on the wall, her back t
o them, her head bowed, Frevisse saw past the clerk as he looked around to nod encouragingly at everyone before gentling the door closed.

  Mistress Avys, on her feet but held back by Mistress Dionisia’s firm grip on her skirts, asked in a carrying whisper, “How is she? Should I go to her?”

  ‘She’s quiet,“ Master Geoffrey said low-voiced back. He was pale and his voice dry and strained. ”I’d let her be. She’ll call if she needs us.“ He sank down on the room’s only remaining joint stool. ”Is there anything to drink?“

  Katherine made to rise but Gil, already standing, went to the ale pitcher still on the table and poured a cupful and brought it to Master Geoffrey who took it with thanks and drank deeply. A little revived, he noticed how he was being watched by everyone and managed a wearied smile, answering their silent asking, “There’s nothing else to say.

  She’s quiet and, I think, beginning to accept what’s happened.“

  ‘Thanks be to the Blessed Virgin,“ Mistress Avys murmured and crossed herself as she sank down onto the settle again.

  Everyone else echoed her words and gesture, including Master Geoffrey who then looked around, clearly trying to bring himself back from whatever strained places he had had to go with Lady Blaunche, and asked, “What’s toward? Is there anything more about Benedict? Are the Allesleys still here?”

  ‘It’s purposed they’ll stay until the crowner is done with them,“ Master Skipton said. ”Hopefully he’ll be here by tonight or early tomorrow.“

  ‘There’s no thought of breaking off on agreement with the Allesleys, is there?“

  ‘Not that I’ve heard.“

  Frevisse felt cold run down her spine. Her thought had been that someone had wanted Benedict dead because he was making too much trouble over the agreement with the Allesleys and he was wanted out of the way. What if, instead, his death was meant to delay any signing of any such agreement? What if it was hoped his death would even make such a rift in matters that no agreement would ever be signed at all?

  Taken up with that thought, she missed what Master Geoffrey said next but heard Gil say glumly to it, “Not a thing. Nobody seems to have seen him at all after he left with Master Verney. They went to his room and Master Verney left him there and that’s all we have.”

  Master Geoffrey went oddly still, staring at Gil but not as if he saw him. Then he blinked, licked his lips and said slowly, the words seeming dragged from him, “I saw him after that.”

  He instantly had Frevisse’s and both men’s heed, Gil demanding, “Where?” as she demanded, “When?”

  The force of the questions seemed to unsettle him. He answered unevenly, “I went… I saw him in his room. I went to see him.”

  ‘When?“ Frevisse insisted.

  ‘At evening’s end, when everyone was settling to bed. I was going to my own but there was light under his chamber door and I knocked and he let me in. We talked.“

  ‘About what? About anyone?“ she persisted.

  ‘About how badly he felt for what had happened. He was sorry and uncertain what to do… I said maybe if he prayed, if we prayed, in the chapel together…“

  ‘You went to the chapel?“ Frevisse asked, at the same time berating herself in the back of her mind that she had not somehow found a way to question Master Geoffrey before now. But he had been so taken up, first with Benedict, then with Lady Blaunche’s needs, and she hadn’t thought…

  ‘We did. It wasn’t raining then. We went and knelt and prayed together and after a while he said I could go if I wanted, he was better. I left him there.“ Master Geoffrey looked around at all their faces—both men and all the women now intent on him. ”I shouldn’t have, should I? Someone came and killed him there, didn’t they?“

  ‘We don’t know,“ Frevisse said quickly, not wanting him to go upset past answering her more. ”You didn’t hear him come back to his room?“

  ‘No. I went to bed and sleep. The storms woke me but I slept again each time. If he came back, I didn’t hear him.“

  ‘Or anyone else on the stairs, maybe looking for him?“

  ‘I didn’t hear anything but the storm all night.“ On that Master Geoffrey was certain.

  But someone could have gone to the chapel for their own praying, found Benedict there, come up behind him and killed him, and no one would have heard or known. Then all the murderer would have needed do was wait until the yard was at its darkest and emptiest and move the body to the stairfoot and hope no more would be suspected than a fall. That he’d laid the body wrong was simply his mischance, probably made because he was hurried.

  But last night here people had slept crowded. Anyone coming and going from wherever he had slept should have been noticed.

  Except Robert.

  The thought sickened her with a pain that both told her how much she did not want him to be the murderer and warned her she must be careful of that want, so it did not blind her.

  And then she thought of the other possibility there was, one she had altogether missed until now. Master Geoffrey.

  With his room there at the head of the stairs with Benedict’s, who besides the clerk had been better able to come to Benedict unseen, better able to have killed him safely, better able to have waited with no danger to himself until the safest time to move Benedict’s body with no one to ask him afterwards where he had been or why? And if his clothing was wet, well, there was nothing suspicious there, he’d had to cross the yard to reach his room, hadn’t he?

  But all that was almost equally true of Robert if he had happened on Benedict in the chapel. And he might well have. He could have gone there to pray himself before ever he went to the nursery but found Benedict alone and… killed him.

  Why? Out of a sudden giving way to his anger at all the trouble Benedict had been? Or out of fear that Benedict would make more? Or as a way both to be rid of Benedict and to delay the agreement without it seeming to be his fault, thereby delaying Katherine’s marriage, having found at this late hour he could not after all bring himself to part with her? How strong his feeling for Katherine was and how deep it ran were things she could only guess but she was afraid of it, because what if it was strong enough, deep enough, for Benedict’s life to have been forfeit to it?

  Though Master Geoffrey had had chance to kill Benedict, he had had no reason to, while Robert had had both.

  The men were meanwhile wondering to each other where Lady Blaunche might decide Benedict should be buried, whether here, which would make the least trouble, or in the Fenner chapel at St. Andrew’s, Northampton, but their talk and Frevisse’s thoughts were broken off by Mistress Avys rising to her feet and crying out, “Stop it! He’s barely shrouded. How can you set to thinking about thrusting him into the ground so soon? What if she hears you?”

  They had been speaking too low for that to be even a likelihood and Gil started, “She can’t…”

  Mistress Avys grabbed up a small cushion and threw it at him, so misaimed it came nowhere near. “You men! What do you know? She hasn’t eaten. She barely slept. She’s been crying since yesterday.” Sniffing angrily, she started for the bedchamber door. “I’m not leaving her alone anymore. I want to see her. I’m going in.”

  ‘Let me go first!“ Dame Claire said, rising behind her.

  Master Geoffrey, nearer to the door, put himself directly into her way, saying, “Or better yet, just look quietly. If she’s still at prayer, we can leave her awhile longer, surely.”

  Mistress Avys paused, caught on trying to make up her mind between them, giving Dame Claire time to reach her and say soothingly, “He’s right. Let’s see how she does before anyone goes in.”

  Mistress Avys made a doubting sound that Master Geoffrey chose to take for agreement and turned from her to the bedchamber door, edging it slowly open the smallest fingerwidth through which he could peer. And froze, so suddenly and sharply still that Frevisse was already rising to her feet even before he gave a wordless cry, shoved wide the door, and broke across the room toward Lady Blaunche
crumpled to the floor beside the prie-dieu.

  Chapter 20

  Mistress Avys screamed, shrill above anyone else’s outcry, but Gil, Master Skipton and Frevisse all moved more swiftly, reached Lady Blaunche barely after Master Geoffrey, Gil going down on his knees beside the clerk to help turn her carefully over, then crying out himself, his hand coming away bloody in the same moment Master Geoffrey sobbed, “Merciful God!” and held up a bloodied dagger.

  Mistress Avys, clinging to the doorframe, began to scream in earnest but Dame Claire grabbed her and shoved her hard toward Mistress Dionisia, ordering, “Have her out and keep her out!”, before coming to push Frevisse, Master Skipton, and Master Geoffrey aside and kneel beside Gil who was gasping, “She’s stabbed herself. Dear God, look. She’s stabbed herself…”

  ‘She’s alive,“ Dame Claire said. ”Lift her to the bed,“ standing up and out of the way, gesturing to him and Master Skipton to do it because Master Geoffrey, still on his knees, had raised clasped hands and desperate eyes to the crucifix on the wall above the prie-dieu and was crying out prayers that were as surely needed as anything Dame Claire might do because Lady Blaunche might still be alive but there was dreadfully much blood soaked into the rush matting where she had lain, and as the men raised her, Frevisse went around the bed to its far side, jerked the covers away into a heap on the floor against the wall out of the way, leaving only the bottom sheet over the mattress, and was wrapping the bedcurtains out of the way around the bedposts as the men laid Lady Blaunche onto the bed in haste.