7 The Prioress' Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  But just now Sir Reynold was alight with laughter that took no heed of Domina Alys’ anger. He crowded his horse toward the foot of the stairs, asking, “What brings you out of your hole, Alys? Come to see the sun for a change?”

  “Come to see you,” she snapped. “Did you bring back something more than your appetites this time or have you slipped your word again?”

  Sir Reynold threw back his head, breaking into immense laughter. “No holding coy with you, my girl! Look you.” He pointed toward the yard’s gateway, crowded with a dozen mounted men with heavy bags slung either side, in back and front, of their saddles. “There’s enough of this and that to see us through a few days, surely, and something or two better than usual for you and yours, too, so don’t be looking to quarrel with me over it.”

  Domina Alys, swinging her gaze around the yard to see if there were still more, drew her breath in harshly. “And that? she demanded, finger out accusingly. ”What is that?“

  “What?” Sir Reynold looked around where she was pointing, his face too elaborately casual for true innocence. “Ah, that.” He grinned like a boy who did not care he had been caught out at mischief. “Benet!”

  Among the shift and clutter of men and horses, Frevisse had not particularly noticed anyone beyond Sir Reynold. Between them, he and Domina Alys took up most of any noticing wherever they were, and all Frevisse was truly interested in just now was returning to the cloister as simply as might be, but now she looked past him to the man whose head jerked around in answer to his call. A young man, not much beyond a boy but his face already strongly Godfrey in its bones and coloring and probably in pride and temper, too, to judge by the strong line of his dark brows, drawn together now as he turned toward his lord and Domina Alys. But Frevisse read alarm in his face, too, and well there might be, because in front of him on his saddle he was holding tight in the circle of his arm a girl who did not—to guess by the set of raw scratches scored down one side of Benet’s face from brow to chin and the closely wrapped cloak that pinioned her arms to helplessness—want to be there.

  Her dark hair had fallen loose from whatever had once held it; it was tumbled now around her shoulders and to her waist, obscuring her face as she twisted angrily in Benet’s hold despite that she had no chance of breaking free, trapped as she was in the cloak and his tight hold. Cheerfully Sir Reynold called, “Don’t let her slip! Some of the taming you’re going to have to do yourself from here on.”

  There was laughter among the men to that, though not from Benet, as the girl threw back her head, missing his chin with the back of her skull only because he ducked away from it. Domina Alys, finally finding words, demanded at Sir Reynold, “What have you done, you fool?”

  Sir Reynold answered, grinning, “There’s naught wrong. Benet means to marry her.”

  Her hair thrown back from her face at last, the girl cried out in open fury, “Not this side of hell he won’t! Help me!” She turned desperate eyes on Domina Alys and Frevisse.

  “You’re nuns! I won’t marry him! Don’t let them do this to me!”

  “No one is doing anything to anyone, marriage or otherwise, until I know more about what’s toward here,” Domina Alys said grimly. “Dame Frevisse, have her down from there. Take her into the cloister.”

  Frevisse started down the stairs to obey, for once as openly angry as Domina Alys; but Sir Reynold backed his horse across her way and said over her head to Domina Alys, now above her on the stairs, “Alys, Alys, come on, my girl. It’s not so bad as all that. Benet means to marry her. Your priest can do it ere supper, if you like. She’s only merchant-get, but there’s money enough in it to make it worth the while. And better that Benet have her than that fool of a Fenner her people were planning to betrothed her to.”

  “Fool or not,” the girl cried, still twisting in Benet’s hold, “he has friends at court and they’ll make you sorry for this!”

  Without looking around, Sir Reynold said, “Benet, muzzle her.”

  The girl instantly twisted her head around as far as it would go, to snap her teeth at Benet before he had made any move at all against her. Around him the other men were offering suggestions, none of them helpful, some of them lewd. Benet, tight-mouthed and intent, answered nothing, kept hold of her and clear of her head. Frevisse moved sideways to go around Sir Reynold, but again he backed his horse, still blocking her way, saying over her, “Call your nun off, Alys. The girl is Benet’s.”

  “I’m not anyone’s!” the girl cried back.

  “Dame,” Domina Alys snapped, “I said take her into the cloister.”

  “Alys, don’t push this,” Sir Reynold warned.

  “Don’t you push it, Reynold,” Domina Alys warned him back, fists on her hips, her face mottled red with temper in the white surround of her wimple. She had nothing to set against him but God’s displeasure and her own, and Frevisse doubted that either was likely to matter much to Sir Reynold. Worse, Father Henry had come out of his chamber door beside the gateway and was taking in what was happening. He was a burly man, almost a match in size for Sir Reynold, but with no complications in him. Direct to the point of simpleness in both his religion and his living, he would side without thought with Domina Alys once he understood what was happening here, even if it came to blows, as it all too readily could, given the tempers there were; and if it did, Frevisse doubted his priesthood would protect him from Sir Reynold or his men.

  As he stood trying to decide what was going on in front of him, before Domina Alys saw him and demanded his help, Frevisse threw up her hands and her full black sleeves at Sir Reynold’s horse’s face. The animal startled backward, tossing its head aside out of her way, and more quickly than Sir Reynold could recover control, Frevisse ducked not only past him but between the two riders beyond him, to Benet’s side. Grabbing hold of the girl’s skirts as if laying a claim of her own to her, she ordered, “Give her to me, Benet. Now.”

  Unhesitatingly, he did, shoving her from his saddle into Frevisse’s hands as if only too willing to be rid of her as Sir Reynold shouted, “You fool! Don’t let her go!” But Frevisse noticed that he did not fully loose her until he was sure that Frevisse safely had her. Only then did Benet let her go, but if the girl noticed, it made no difference to her. The moment she was on her own feet, she twisted free of Frevisse and the cloak, flinging the cloak from her as she spun around to snarl up at Benet, “You ever touch me again, I’ll kill you!”

  Raw color surged across Benet’s face and Frevisse urged the girl away from him toward the cloister door as behind them Sir Reynold ordered, “Someone stop them both!”

  Another rider swung his horse in front of them, and Frevisse jerked the girl to a stop and her own head back to look up at him, ready to demand he let them pass; but he was Sir Hugh, one of the few of Sir Reynold’s men she knew by name, another Godfrey, fair-haired where most Godfreys were dark but large-built like Sir Reynold and as close to being his next in command as anyone was in the rough order among the men. He sat looking down from his horse’s height at them with an easy smile that said any try they made to pass him would only pleasure him, and Frevisse, feeling the girl trembling with fury or fear under her hand, tightened hold on her, willing her to stand steady. Neither fear nor fury would serve any better now than Frevisse’s own desperation to reach the cloister’s safety before somebody’s rashness made more trouble than there already was.

  From the cloister doorway beyond Sir Hugh and out of Frevisse’s sight, Lady Eleanor’s clear voice inquired, raised to carry over man and horse and across the yard, “Pray, what’s toward here? Hugh? Reynold? What are you about?”

  Before they could answer, Domina Alys flung back angrily, “These fools have grabbed a girl to marry to Benet, but she doesn’t want him.”

  “A girl?” Lady Eleanor’s voice rose in sharper inquiry. “Hugh, move. I can’t see anything.”

  Sir Hugh’s head had turned from her to Domina Alys and now back again, but he did not shift his horse, and impatiently
Lady Eleanor slapped its flank, repeating, “Move, I said.”

  Grudgingly, Sir Hugh pulled back from her way.

  And Benet, before anyone else could do anything, dismounted and in a single swift movement caught up the fallen cloak and put himself between the girl and Sir Hugh, holding out the cloak to her with one hand, holding out his other toward the cloister door as a lord at the height of manners would do to make way for a lady.

  “Benet, you idiot,” Sir Hugh muttered. His leg tensed as if he would urge his horse forward, but Lady Eleanor, equally low, said quellingly, “Hugh,” and he held where he was, while Benet—as if he more than half expected to have his words shoved back down his throat—said stiffly, with a slight bow, his eyes on the girl’s face, “My lady, this way, if it please you.”

  The girl would have drawn back from him, but Frevisse wasted no time on hesitation or revulsion, simply pushed her toward Lady Eleanor and the cloister door. Sir Hugh spat out a word that she chose not to hear. Behind them Sir Reynold swore, “You’re a fool, Benet!” and louder with rising anger, “There’s no use to this, you women! She can go in, but she’s not coming out again except to marry him! Be sure of it!” while Benet said low and in a rush, as they passed him, “Joice, this isn’t what I meant to happen. This isn’t how I meant for it to be.”

  The girl turned a fierce and disbelieving stare on him. “But it is this way, isn’t it?” she hissed. “And you can’t unmake it, can you?” And as he recoiled from the force of her anger, she snatched the cloak from him and swept on past Lady Eleanor into the cloister, followed by Frevisse who gave a grateful look at Lady Eleanor, who nodded acknowledgment and followed them both, shutting the door behind them, against Benet and all the rest, with something more than necessary force, leaving Domina Alys to whatever else she might want to say to Sir Reynold.

  Chapter 3

  As they came out of the passageway into the cloister walk, Frevisse overtook the girl, laying a hand on her shoulder again to turn her around, wanting to ask the questions for which there had been no time in the yard, but the questions fled as she saw Joice had gone ash white and was beginning to shudder the whole length of her body, her eyes dark and large with all the fear she must have been hiding behind her fury until now it was safe to give way to it; and instead of questions, Frevisse took the cloak from her and swung it around her shoulders without a word. Joice garnered it close to her, huddling into it with an unsteady attempt at a grateful smile. Cut in a full circle, made of close-woven, Kendal-green wool and lined with lambs’ fleece, it reached from her chin almost to her feet. Her gown was equally fine, Frevisse had noted—of light wool dyed darkly red and falling in deep folds from the close-fitted, high-waisted bodice to the floor, its high-standing collar shaped to her delicate throat and the wide sleeves gathered to cuffs at her wrists. Such quantity and quality of cloth in cloak and gown meant wealth went with her, bearing out Sir Reynold’s contention that she was worth the risk of carrying her off.

  But none of that was any ward against the fear-cold shaking her now, and Lady Eleanor said, “My room, I think. And warmed wine. Spiced wanned wine. For all of us. You, too, Dame Frevisse.”

  She said it briskly, but Frevisse saw with an edge of alarm that the soft rose of her cheeks was paled to white and she was trembling a little herself. Her show of determination against Sir Hugh and the rest must have cost her more than Frevisse had realized, and quickly Frevisse agreed, “Yes, that would do well,” and took Joice by one elbow to lead and support her toward Lady Eleanor’s room. Neither Lady Eleanor nor the girl was overly tall and both were delicately boned; for Frevisse, fine-boned but tall for a woman, Joice was an easy matter, and she would have reached to help Lady Eleanor, too, except the older woman had gathered herself and was firmly leading the way for them, showing no apparent need nor desire for anyone’s help.

  Her room, like Domina Alys‘, was on the first floor in the cloister’s west range but there was no connecting way between them, so although the stairs up to Domina Alys’ rooms were close at hand, they had to go further along the cloister walk to the other stairs. Dame Juliana, going toward the infirmary with an armload of clean, folded linens, stopped, staring at Joice, a stranger where so few strangers came. Her curiosity would have gone to outright questions, but reading Frevisse’s look aright, she held her tongue and hurried on, intent now on being rid of linens so she could go to someone to tell what she had seen.

  More usefully, Margrete appeared at the head of the stairs as they started up and, having taken them all in with a single quick look, was already turning back as Lady Eleanor ordered, “Warmed wine with spices, please, Margrete. Quickly,” so that by the time they reached the room, she was busy at the aumbry along the near wall, pouring wine into a brass pan, the cinnamon and other spices ready to hand.

  Like most of the nunnery’s rooms, Lady Eleanor’s had no fireplace, but the coal glowing in a brazier in one corner gave heat enough for warming it. Her own wine and her own coal were among the few luxuries Lady Eleanor had brought with her when she came, but a room to herself was by itself more luxury than any of the nuns except their prioress had. Even the small cell each of them slept in, partitioned off from each other in the dormitory by thin wooden walls, was not supposed to be thought of as a nun’s own. Lady Eleanor’s room, shared only with Margrete, took up the full width of the range and was long enough that her wide bed with its canopy and curtains set at one end of it left ample room at the other for the aumbry, two chests with her clothing and other belongings, two chairs, a low stool, and the square, tall-legged table with shelf underneath where Lady Eleanor kept her few books. A painted tapestry brightened one of the white-plastered walls, and at this hour of the autumn afternoon the westering sunlight through the window spread across the dark polished wooden floor and golden matting of woven rushes.

  Lady Eleanor’s two dogs, ankle-high pieces of white fluff, hurtled out from under the foot of the bed in a scrabble of nails and eagerness to see who had come, but Lady Eleanor countered them with a sharp word, stopping them where they were. “Not now,” she added, and disconsolately they removed themselves back under the bed. To Frevisse and Joice she said, “The chair by the brazier would do best, I think. Let me move it nearer.”

  She did, and Frevisse sat Joice down in it while Lady Eleanor tucked the cloak more closely around her, murmuring, “You’ll be fine now, dear. Just sit and be still until the wine is ready.”

  “And you should sit, too,” Frevisse said, drawing the other chair close to the first. “Here.”

  Lady Eleanor looked momentarily surprised, then smiled and did as Frevisse bid, before leaning toward Joice to ask, “Is it better with you now?”

  Stiffly upright in her chair, her hands gripping its curved arms, the girl shook her head. “No, it isn’t better and it’s not likely to ever be ‘better’ again, is it? Not after this!” She let loose of the chair to make fists and pound them on the arms. “I could kill them for doing this to me! Benet and all the rest! I could kill them!”

  Margrete coming to set the pan to heat over the coals cast her a look of question more than alarm, and Lady Eleanor took Joice’s nearest fist, gentling it between her hands as she asked, “You haven’t been… harmed, have you?”

  Joice snatched her hand away, striking the chair arm again. “Not that way. They grabbed me and flung me onto Benet’s saddle, that’s all they did, but do you think Sir Lewis will marry me after this? Do you think anyone will marry me after this?” Her face and voice and body were all rigid with rage. “Not without my father having to pay twice the dowry he meant to and my taking less marriage settlement than I should have had! That’s what they’ve done to me!” Her voice dropped to brooding bitterness. “And likely anyone who has me will make me listen every day of my life afterward to how good he was to take me even at that.”

  Not if he knew what was good for him, Frevisse thought. Slight of build and delicate of face though Joice was, there was nothing slight or delicate a
bout her temper.

  With the fury that seemed to have driven out her brief facing of fear, Joice sprang to her feet, throwing the cloak back onto the chair behind her. “And all that supposes I’m ever able to leave here to make any kind of marriage at all! I heard what Sir Reynold said. He won’t let me leave. I’m worth too much. He’ll try to take me himself if he has to, I’ll warrant!”

  Lady Eleanor began a soft denial of that. Ignoring it, Joice spun around, pointing at Frevisse. “And don’t think I’ll ever become a nun, because I won’t!”

  Frevisse held back from saying aloud her sharp-edged thought that a less likely possibility for a novice she had rarely seen.

  Lady Eleanor, as if oblivious to the girl’s fury, said thoughtfully, “You could possibly change your mind and marry Benet, you know. He’s an uncomplicated boy and there’s property to be had with him when he inherits.”

  “All I want from Benet is his death!”

  “Ah,” Lady Eleanor said. “But if you married him first, my dear, you could then be a widow, and that’s frequently a very pleasant thing to be.”

  Joice stared at her, shocked to silence by outrage, until, like Frevisse, she must have seen the small smile crooking at the corners of Lady Eleanor’s mouth and—apparently as much to Joice’s own surprise as Frevisse’s—the girl began to laugh. “I hadn’t thought of that!” she said around the laughter, and then broke down in tears that seemed to take her as much by surprise as the laughter had done so that, hiding her face in her hands, she sank back down into the chair, sobbing helplessly.

  Lady Eleanor exchanged a look with Frevisse who nodded in return, agreeing with her that the crying was for the best. This girl had been through fear and courage and cold shock and rage, almost all together and far too rapidly; her tears would exhaust her and then the wine would quiet her and she would be able to rest, even sleep, and after that be better able to deal with whatever came next.