9 The Reeve's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  With talk of there being something more than work between him and Gilbey’s wife, Frevisse recalled but only said, “Now he wants to better himself by taking over the Woderove holding?”

  ‘Just so.“

  ‘Would he do well by it?“

  ‘He might. Aye. Maybe.“ Perryn’s uncertainty was plain before he settled for saying, ”He’s not steady about doing what he says he’ll do, is the trouble. He’s not always someone who takes the orders he’s given. The thing is, his offer betters Gilbey’s because he’s offered to marry the widow…“

  ‘Your sister.“

  ‘Aye. He says he’ll marry her to have the holding.“

  There was nothing uncommon in that. When a woman could not run a holding by herself and there was a man willing to take both it and her, it settled two problems at once. At its best, neither woman nor man lost, the woman keeping her place instead of losing it, the man gaining what he would not have been able to have any other way. It worked more often than not, and Frevisse asked, “What does your sister say to it?”

  ‘She says she’s willing.“

  ‘But you’re not.“

  Perryn frowned at his feet, thinking before he said slowly, “The thing is, Hulcote is the priory’s villein, so it’s not my choice only. I’d hoped to speak with Master Naylor on it, but they’re not letting anyone near him, seems.”

  ‘That will be Master Spencer’s doing.“ In return for leaving Master Naylor at the priory, Lord Lovell’s steward had left orders with his guards to keep him strictly confined and let nearly no one in to see him. ”I meant to go to him today,“ Frevisse said. ”I’ll go now.“

  ‘There’s one thing more,“ Perryn said. ”It’s in manor court the final word on this will have to be and there’s not one due until Michaelmas, but if we’re agreed, we can call it sooner and it’d likely be best to have this settled soon, what with harvest so near to hand and all. Ask Master Naylor what he says to that, too, would you?“

  ‘Assuredly. How soon would it suit you to have answer?“

  They were going toward the gateway to the outer yard now, Perryn walking respectfully well aside but not behind her as if he were a servant, while he consideringly answered, “Notice has to be given and all, so not sooner than two days but as little longer than that as may be. Mary is going on…” He broke off, probably because it was a family thing, with no need Frevisse know of it; said instead, “Is there any new word about Master Naylor, one way or other?”

  ‘Nothing yet. We hope to have some word from Abbot Gilberd no later than tomorrow of what he’ll do to help. Has Master Naylor ever said anything to you about where he’s from, his family?“ There had been a nephew at the priory for a while, a few years back, but he was gone, and Lord Lovell could claim family testimony to Master Naylor’s birth was useless anyway because their own free birth might be called into question if his was proved false.

  ‘He’s never talked much about himself,“ Perryn said, ”and never about where he came from to me.“

  They were nearing the outer gateway where their ways would part. With what she trusted was reasonably good hope, Frevisse said, “Abbot Gilberd will find those enough who can swear Master Naylor is freeborn.”

  ‘And before too long,“ Perryn said, matching her hope.

  They made their farewells and he went his way, out the gateway to the road, while she turned aside. There were three houses built side to each here, close inside the priory’s main gateway, their front doors opening directly into the priory’s outer yard, their backs to the inside of the priory wall but set forward from it with space enough for gardens at their rear. The porter, with keeping of the gateway, lived in the one nearest the gate. Beside his was Master Naylor’s while he was steward of St. Frideswide’s, and the third would have been for the priory’s bailiff if ever St. Frideswide’s had grown enough to need another man to oversee its properties and lands, but the widow who had founded it near to a hundred years ago had died before endowing it as fully as she had meant to, and there had never been a flourish of prosperity afterwards to bring it much more than she had left it, so the third house served for keeping such of the priory’s records as did not need to be directly in Domina Elisabeth’s hands or in Frevisse’s as cellarer.

  The two guards presently on duty at Master Naylor’s door stood up from their bench when she came their way. She spoke to the priory man, nodded with distant politeness at Lord Lovell’s, and said to him mildly, “It would make matters easier if the reeve were allowed to talk with Master Naylor directly.”

  ‘It would, wouldn’t it, my lady?“ the priory man said, his glance at the man beside him thick with disgust.

  The other man came not quite to shuffling with unease as he said more to the dusty ground than Frevisse, “It’s orders, my lady.”

  She knew the orders Master Spencer had left: she could see Master Naylor and talk with him as much as she wanted; anyone else, in need of his immediate answer about some minor thing here inside the priory, could pass in a question by way of the priory guard and have the answer back the same way but never talk to him directly. It was cumbersome and annoying, and she hoped whoever Abbot Gilberd sent would have authority to do something about it, but she could not and settled now for knocking at the house door standing open in the day’s warmth.

  Mistress Naylor came shortly from somewhere inside with floured hands and apron, unwimpled because of the heat, only a veil pinned over her dark hair. She was a small-boned woman from whom Frevisse had never had more than ten words together, with “my lady” invariably two of them. Now, to Frevisse’s greeting and request to see Master Naylor, she made a low curtsy and said, “Through here, my lady, if you please,” and led back the way she had come.

  The house was much as Frevisse supposed its two neighbors must be, with two narrow ground-story rooms, the front one facing the yard, the other opening into the garden at the back, with between them a staircase hardly wider than a man’s shoulders going steeply up to whatever narrow rooms there were above. The front room served for general living, the back one as the kitchen, with today as small a fire as possible burning on the hearth under a trivet-set pot, with a griddle heating beside it for whatever Mistress Naylor was making toward dinner. Even so small a fire made the room too hot and Frevisse was glad go on, out the rear door into the garden where Master Naylor was sitting with his children in the shade of a young peach tree. The girls had been sewing what looked might be a red dress when they were done but rose to their feet as their mother and Frevisse came into the garden. They were younger than their brother Dickon and small-boned like their mother, but the boy standing beside their father was younger still, past toddling stage but not by much, and when Master Naylor stood up to bow to Frevisse, he wrapped both arms around his father’s leg and slid around behind him, to peek at Frevisse from that sure safety as Master Naylor said, “My lady,” and the girls curtsyed.

  ‘Master Naylor,“ Frevisse returned, bending her head to him and them in return. ”Are you free to talk?“

  ‘As you will, my lady,“ he answered. He was never a man much given to words or any outward warmth that Frevisse had ever seen, but when he stooped to draw his son around to in front of him and pry him loose from his leg, he did it gently enough and lifted him up to tell him, ”You go to your mother for a time.“

  ‘No,“ the child said positively.

  ‘If you stay out here,“ Master Naylor said seriously, ”you’ll try to help your sisters with their sewing. Then they’ll end up sticking needles into you. I don’t want all that yelling, so you have to go with your mother.“

  ‘We’ll make patty-cakes,“ Mistress Naylor promised, sufficient compensation, it seemed, because when Master Naylor handed him away, he wrapped his arms around her neck in place of his father’s leg and let himself be carried off without complaint.

  The girls were beginning to gather their sewing to go, too, but Master Naylor said, “Stay. No need,” took up the joint stool where he had been s
itting and with, “By your leave, my lady,” led Frevisse away to the garden’s far end.

  It was a larger garden than it might have been. A high wicker fence stood between it and the porter’s yard, but because the third house was unused, the fence there had been taken down and its garden added to the steward’s; and while the beds along the narrow paths near to his rear door were filled with herbs and some flowers, the rest was table vegetables much like at the Perryns‘, with the addition of a well-strawed strawberry bed and, at the far end, green beans trellised up and over a rough-built arbor to make a shaded place to sit. That was where Master Naylor led her, setting down the joint stool and waiting until she was seated and had nodded her permission to him before he sat on the one already there.

  There being no particular point, beyond mere manners’ sake, in asking how he did since he seemed to be doing as well as might be—and there being nothing she could change even if he were not—Frevisse told him directly all that Perryn had told her concerning Matthew Woderove’s death and the two bids already made to have his holding. Master Naylor listened without sign or comment and sat silent for a while when she had finished, apparently absorbed in watching a bean tendril, before finally looking at her to say, “I agree about the court. It should be as soon as might be. Friday, if it can be managed. Else on Saturday. About the Woderove holding, it’s Perryn’s final say, the holding being Lord Lovell’s.”

  ‘He wants your thought on it, Hulcote being the priory’s villein.“

  Master Naylor held silent again, not so much as if considering his answer as not wanting to give it, before he finally said, “I’d favor Tom Hulcote’s bid.”

  His hesitation over it made Frevisse ask, “Why?”

  ‘Because I’ve found him a good worker when he works for himself. He deserves the chance if that’s what he wants.“

  That was not all. Something hung unsaid. “And?” Frevisse pressed.

  Distaste twinged at Master Naylor’s mouth and he breathed down heavily through his nose before he brought himself to say, “It would also serve to settle what’s between him and Mary Woderove.”

  ‘And that is?“ Frevisse asked although fairly certain, from his disapproval, what he meant.

  Curtly, not liking to say it, Master Naylor answered, “He’s been giving her a green gown and everyone in the village knows it.”

  Meaning that Tom Hulcote and Mary Woderove had been together in ways they should not have been.

  ‘Did her husband know?“ Frevisse asked.

  ‘There’s no saying. Since he wasn’t the sort who could have stopped her even if he did, my thought is he didn’t let himself know.“

  ‘But from something someone said in the village,“ Frevisse said, slowly and not for the sake of tale-telling but because there could be trouble coming another way if it were true, ”this Tom Hulcote is suspected with Gilbey Dunn’s wife.“

  ‘Gilbey’s wife is forever being suspected with one man or another, ever since she came to the village,“ Master Naylor said, ”but so far as I know it’s never been more than other people’s talk. It only happens to be Tom Hulcote this time. Next week it will be someone else.“

  It would not be the first time Frevisse knew of someone’s reputation being made for them out of what other people thought they might do rather than what they actually did. She could likewise see how Elena, simply being as she was and Gilbey Dunn’s wife, would draw suspicion.

  ‘Nor is Gilbey Dunn so pure of soul,“ Master Naylor added, ”as not to watch out for his wife better than to be made cuckold.“

  ‘But this between Hulcote and Mary Woderove is sure?“

  ‘There’s nothing ’suspected‘ there,“ Master Naylor said baldly. ”It’s sure, and now Matthew isn’t there for folk to be sorry for, Simon will probably have leyrwite from her.“ The fine put on a woman for unlawful coupling. ”It’s to the best that Hulcote have the holding and marry her and make an end of it.“

  ‘But?“ Frevisse asked, again to something unsaid behind the words.

  ‘The other side has to be looked at. That Gilbey will do well by the holding if he’s given it. He does well by everything that’s his. With Tom, I think he will but can’t be certain, and what I have to ask is whether I’m favoring him because I think he ought to have the chance at it or because I don’t like Gilbey Dunn.“

  Unhappily Frevisse did not like Gilbey Dunn either. But then neither had she heard much to Tom Hulcote’s good, so that hardly helped, except Master Naylor knew more of him than she did and, carefully thinking her way to it while she spoke, she said, “Leaving liking and un-liking out of it, and granting you think Tom Hulcote would do well by the holding, maybe it comes down to asking why should Gilbey Dunn have more of what he already has in plenty, when Tom Hulcote has so next to nothing. Would that make the answering easier?”

  ‘Put that way, it somewhat does.“ Master Naylor made the small twist of his mouth that served him for a smile. ”Tell Perryn, if you like, that on my side there’s no objection to Tom having the holding at the price he’s offered. Perryn will have to decide from there, and that’s probably to the good, since he knows the village and his sister best.“

  Chapter 6

  Two days later there was a soft rain falling from a low gray sky as Frevisse came with Sister Thomasine and Father Henry, the nunnery’s priest, by the road from the priory into the village. Simon Perryn had sent word the manor court would be held in the church, rather than on the green, but they would have been able to tell it anyway by the scattered drift of villagers into the churchyard.

  ‘Too wet to work in the fields,“ Father Henry said; and therefore most of the village would be free to come to the court and probably would, since Perryn’s hope to forestall trouble by having it soon had been vain. He had likewise sent word there had been a shouting match between Gilbey Dunn and Tom Hulcote at the alehouse last night that had not come to blows only because various neighbors had stopped them, but then others, including Perryn, had had to stop the fight that had threatened to flare up then and there between the few who backed Gilbey— more out of dislike for Tom Hulcote than liking for Gilbey, Frevisse gathered—and those who favored Tom, probably for the reverse reason. Therefore Frevisse had asked Father Henry’s company, because when the village had sometimes been without a priest in the past years, Father Henry had seen to the villagers’ needs as well as to the nunnery’s and knew the folk maybe better than Father Edmund yet could, being there less than a year. Her hope was that between them the two priests would force order if tempers flared but, all else failing, Father Henry’s size would be of use because except for his tonsure, almost hidden by unruly yellow curls, and his plain dark priest’s gown, he had more the burly look of someone ready to swing a scythe to good purpose than use chalice and paten in the Mass, especially set beside Father Edmund who, with his dark hair smoothly combed to his well-shaped head around a neatly kept tonsure and his priest’s gown of finer cloth than any Father Henry had ever worn, ever looked better suited to a bishop’s household than a village church.

  But he reportedly did his duties well and just now he was waiting under the pentice that roofed the churchyard gateway, greeting everyone with a smile and quiet words, doing what he could to forestall trouble, Frevisse judged. He welcomed the three of them with open relief, and when Frevisse thanked him for having agreed court could be held in the church, he smilingly said, “With the rain, the choice lay between here and the alehouse, and here seemed better.”

  ‘You think it’s likely, then, that there’ll be trouble?“ Father Henry asked.

  ‘If there is, it will be more Tom Hulcote’s fault than Gilbey Dunn’s, I fear,“ Father Edmund said. ”Tom has been talking too big at the alehouse and around the green about how if he doesn’t have Mary Woderove and the holding, it’s because Gilbey Dunn is willing to beggar everyone else to make himself more wealthy than he already is.“

  ‘And those who like trouble for trouble’s sake are listening to him?“ Fat
her Henry said.

  ‘Even so.“

  Four women were approaching in haste and probably fear of having missed their chance at a good place in the church. Frevisse left Father Edmund to them, leaving the gateway’s shelter with Father Henry and Sister Thomasine to cross the churchyard through the warm rain to the church porch and into the church where, as she had expected, there was a full crowding of folk, even given that St. Chad’s was small, its nave hardly larger than a good-sized byre, its chancel even less. It was a plain space, unaisled, with a simple timber roof and everything open to the wooden shingles, but over the years its people and priests had done well by it. Father Clement in his day had paid for the chancel window to be glassed, and though the glass was unpainted, greened and slightly bubbled, it was the only glass in the village and so the light that fell through it onto the altar was strange, adding to the mysteries made there by the priest at Mass. It also meant that with the nave’s few, small windows kept closed except when there were services, there was no longer a constant fight with the sparrows to keep them from nesting in the rafters and atop the rood screen.

  The rood screen itself, between nave and chancel, had been carved in an open fretwork of black walnut maybe fifty years ago and its red paint and yellow stars had been kept fresh, redone whenever need be by whoever in the village had the best hand for it at the time. The other paintings in the church went untouched because no one dared say they had the skill. So far back that no one had any notion of when, the nave walls had been painted with Bible scenes in strong reds, greens, and blue-greens, with here and there a touch of yellow to be the gold of a king’s crown or an angel’s halo. Flanking the chancel arch were St. Chad himself and St. Peter, their robes falling in rigid, beautiful folds about their lean, long, tall-beyond-mortal-men’s bodies as they stared solemnly with wide ovaled eyes into an eternity somewhere above and far beyond the worshipers’ heads, while beyond them in the chancel Christ sat enthroned in majesty, as oval-eyed and formal as his saints, one hand raised in benediction, the other resting on the book of God’s word that all men should heed, with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John arrayed around him in their aspects of Lion, Man, Ox, and Eagle borne on clouds to show they were in heaven with him.