7 The Prioress' Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  Frevisse, abruptly stopped at the edge of the cloister walk, hardly heard the question. Her hand shaking from more than the ice-edged morning air, she pointed aside to the passageway to the outer door.

  “What?” Domina Alys demanded and turned to look.

  The passage’s length was in deeper darkness than the cloister walk where the gray dawnlight was winning against the night. What lay there was as yet only a shape stretched out and lost in shadows except for one booted foot thrust a little into the walk and the beginning daylight. That would have been what Katerin saw when she came down the stairs—a booted foot and then a shape lying in the darkness where no one ought to be. And terrified of something unfamiliar, she had done the one thing already in her mind to do—she had rung the bell for people to come.

  Now she was edging around Frevisse, whimpering; and when Domina Alys put out an arm toward her without looking away from the foot, Katerin went to crowd against her like a frightened child to its mother, pleading, “Don’t be angry. Don’t be dead. Angry. Dead.” Beginning to wail.

  Not heeding her, Domina Alys whispered hoarsely at Frevisse, “Who?”

  Frevisse went a step nearer, forcing herself. The light was steadily growing. She could see him now, enough to know him and what had been done to him. Enough that she shifted to block him from Domina Alys’ view before she answered. “Sir Reynold.”

  Domina Alys started forward, shoving Katerin aside, but Sister Amicia, Sister Cecely, and Sister Emma came rushing across the garth, dressed but bareheaded, their veils and wimples in their hands, exclaiming over each other as they came, “Why was Katerin…”

  “The madman, has he…”

  “Fire? Are we on fire?” Domina Alys swung around on them in fury, yelling “Cover your heads! Are you gone wanton? Cover yourselves!”

  Their tumble of words cut off, they crowded backward into each other, snatching their wimples over their heads, and Domina Alys, her fury as suddenly gone as it had come, swung back on Frevisse, demanding, wanting to be told no, “Sir Reynold?”

  Frevisse could only stand, looking at her, not able to give her the answer that she wanted. But when Domina Alys moved toward him, Frevisse held out a hand, saying warningly, “Best not.”

  More of the nuns were coming, and servants from where they slept in the kitchen, and Margrete down the stairs from Lady Eleanor’s room. For all Domina Alys heeded them, there might have been no one there but herself and Frevisse as she kept on, ordering harshly, “Let me see him.”

  Frevisse moved aside.

  Between them, she and Domina Alys had blocked anyone else from seeing what was there but someone caught glimpse enough now, gasped, and a hurried whispering spread from nuns to servants, with more exclaims and hurried crossings of breasts and murmured bits of prayers.

  Domina Alys stood with her back to it all, staring down at Sir Reynold’s body, at first not seeming to understand what she was seeing. Then a soft moaning began far down in her throat and she drew back a slow, uneven step, her head beginning to twist from side to side in refusal of what was there. Frevisse tried and could not put out a hand to her or find anything to say. It was Dame Claire who came, took light hold of her arm, said, “My lady, come away. Don’t see…”

  Domina Alys flung her hand harshly aside, roughly pushed her into Frevisse and both of them out of her way, and still with that low and terrible moaning in her throat, lurched past them toward the stairs.

  No one followed her but Katerin, huddled in misery and maybe fear.

  Her going left a silent gap, but only for a moment. Then servants and nuns together crowded forward, some still not sure what they were trying to see but not willing to miss whatever it was. Dame Claire and Frevisse swung around to face them, keeping Sir Reynold’s body from their view as Sister Johane demanded, “Who is it? Is he dead?”

  “It’s Sir Reynold,” Dame Claire answered tersely. “Yes, he’s dead.”

  Sister Johane stared at her, and belatedly, as Sister Cecely began a soft wailing that promised to grow louder, and Sister Johane’s face crumpled to tears, Frevisse realized that Sir Reynold was as much kin to the two of them as to Domina Alys. Dame Juliana and Dame Perpetua set to trying to comfort them and Sister Emma, who had joined in the wailing, while Sir Reynold’s name ran among the rest of the nuns and servants in exclaims and agitation. Some of them tried to pull back. Others tried to crowd closer. Frevisse held where she was and Dame Claire went forward, trying to persuade everyone away, nuns toward the church, the servants toward the kitchen, but no one was heeding her.

  Frevisse had not seen Margrete leave, but she was coming back now, following Lady Eleanor down her stairs, Lady Adela and Joice behind them, all of them wrapped in cloaks, the girls with their hair loose over their shoulders, but Lady Eleanor’s and Margrete’s fastened back and veils pinned quickly on for decency’s sake. The crocus flame of the lamp Lady Eleanor carried was bright in the soft-edged dawn light as with a quick word to the girls, she left them on the stairs and advanced with Margrete on the coil of nuns and servants, adding her orders to Dame Perpetua’s and Dame Juliana’s with the calm expectation of being obeyed, telling the servants, “That’s enough. You don’t need to see more. Go back to the kitchen. We’ll all be wanting breakfast. Go on. You’ve seen enough for now. Move out of my way.”

  Under her assurance and orders the servants sorted themselves out from among the nuns and drew back, almost convinced they wanted to go, while Dame Juliana and Dame Perpetua drove the nuns the other way, toward the church, Dame Juliana saying, “There now, we’re late for Prime as it is. That isn’t right. Come, we’ll pray for him. He needs that more than your staring at him and wailing. Go on now.”

  Only Sister Thomasine went readily. The others followed less willingly, still weeping and exclaiming, so that when the church door finally shut behind them, with the servants already herded to the kitchen by Margrete, there was a sudden silence, even from Lady Adela and Joice still on the stairs, holding on to each other. Only Lady Eleanor was left, now facing Frevisse who still stood with Sir Reynold’s body mostly hidden behind her skirts; and very quietly she asked, “It’s indeed Reynold?”

  Frevisse nodded.

  Lady Eleanor briefly closed her eyes, drew in and let out a shaken breath, and ordered, much as Domina Alys had, “Let me see him.”

  Chapter 19

  Sir Reynold was sprawled forward, his head canted carelessly, gape-mouthed, staring, his body slightly twisted to one side, arms and legs loosely out as if he had made no attempt to stop what must have been an utterly graceless fall. If there had been spasming once he was down, it had been slight. Lady Eleanor’s small lamplight cast the shadows back to the passage’s far end but made no change to the darkness of the wide wound, the black, dried blood across his back.

  “From behind,” Lady Eleanor said and drew back the lamp, letting the shadows take him again, for which Frevisse was grateful. The blood and the mingled smells of death, even subdued by hours and the night’s cold, were as much and more of mortality as she wanted just now.

  “Margrete.” Lady Eleanor spoke without looking around, knowing she would be there. “Bring Father Henry and Sir Hugh.”

  Come silently back, the servants dealt with, Margrete asked, speaking as evenly as her lady, “Tell them what’s happened or just tell them to come?”

  “Tell them what’s happened, and tell Hugh to bring some men. We’ll need to move him.”

  Lady Eleanor drew back as she spoke, away from Sir Reynold and the passage. Frevisse and Dame Claire moved with her, making room, and Margrete edged past them and past the body with her skirt and cloak carefully gathered in to keep from touching it. Once clear, she hurried on to the outer door, opened it, and went out—not needing to unlock or unbar it, Frevisse noticed. That meant that all night there had been nothing to keep anyone from entering that way.

  “Lady Eleanor, you had best come sit,” Dame Claire said, and Frevisse turned from the passageway to realize tha
t the day had gone on growing, that sunrise was swelling up the sky above the eastern roofline and the cloister shadows had thinned to blue, the lamp flame faded to pale primrose. Their breath showed in the cold dawn air now, and so did Lady Eleanor’s face, sagged into lines of grief, betraying how much her level voice and outward calm were an act of will and how much the effort was costing her in strength. She made no protest to Dame Claire taking her by the arm, a little supporting her, or Frevisse taking her by her other and the lamp out of her hand. Together, they helped her the little way across the cloister walk, to sit on the low wall between it and the garth, enough aside from the passageway so she would not see Sir Reynold’s body unless she chose to turn that way.

  She kept turned away from it, and as Lady Adela and Joice came down the stairs and toward her in worried haste, she looked at Frevisse and said, “Don’t let them see,” then while Frevisse moved so that her skirts again hid Sir Reynold’s body, raised her voice to say firmly to the girls, “I’m not ill. It’s only that this is overmuch to face so early in the day and unexpected. No,” she added to Lady Adela who was sidling aside to see past Frevisse. “Stay there. You don’t need to see.”

  Lady Adela stopped but could not hold back from asking, “Is it Sir Reynold? And he’s dead?”

  “He’s dead,” Lady Eleanor said quellingly.

  “And I can’t see?”

  “No!” Dame Claire and Frevisse said together.

  But Lady Adela had already known; and it passed through Frevisse’s mind that Lady Adela’s life was overly full of things she could not do.

  Joice, with no wish to see Sir Reynold, dead or otherwise, had gone directly to Lady Eleanor and said now, anxiously, “Should you come back to bed awhile? It’s been too sudden for you.”

  Lady Eleanor straightened, willing herself past her weakness. “I can’t. Not yet. There’s too much to be seen to.”

  “We can see to it,” Dame Claire said.

  Lady Eleanor refused the possibility. “Hugh will take orders best from me.”

  “He can take them from someone else if this is going to be too much for you,” Dame Claire insisted.

  “I’m well enough.” She looked to Joice. “Take Lady Adela back to my room and have wine ready, warm and well spiced, for Margrete and me. I won’t be long at this.” And when Joice hesitated, said to her, “I’ve seen to worse than this in my time. I’ll be well enough.”

  “And we’ll keep with her,” Dame Claire put in. “Dame Frevisse and I both.”

  “Nor should you be here when the men come for him,” Lady Eleanor added, and Joice’s hesitation gave way. She held out her hand to Lady Adela, who took it reluctantly and dragged a full step behind her all the way to the stairs; but they were well up them when Father Henry, his robe unbelted, his curls uncombed, his brass-bound box clutched in his arms, hastened to the passageway from the yard, hurrying in the obvious hope that despite what Margrete must have told him, there was still a chance to protect Sir Reynold’s soul before it was gone.

  His first clear look at Sir Reynold told him the hope was useless. There had been no life in Sir Reynold longer than a single breath after the blow was struck. For a silent moment Father Henry stood staring down at him, slack-shouldered with misery, then straightened, knelt down, and began to do what could be done now in the way of prayers.

  Across the cloister the nuns’ chanting of one of the morning’s psalms, distant through stone wall and heavy door, seemed to have nothing to do with the morning Frevisse was in. There was where she wanted to be—in the church, in her choir stall, deep in prayer. Not here and facing this.

  Loud, hurrying, angry, Sir Hugh and his men burst in at the outer door. Lady Eleanor stood up from the wall and took a few steps back toward Sir Reynold’s body, and Frevisse and Dame Claire, without need of word between them, moved to either side of and behind her, hands tucked into sleeves and heads bowed, leaving it to her because it was what she wanted, but there if they were needed.

  Sir Hugh was first in. She had sent him word to bring only a few men but seemingly all Sir Reynold’s men were there behind him, crowding, most only in their shirts and quickly flung-on cloaks, still rumpled from sleep but every one with their weapon-hung sword belts in their hands. Frevisse saw Benet, close behind Sir Hugh, give a swift look around to be sure Joice was not there and trying, too, to Frevisse’s eye, not to see Sir Reynold’s body before he moved well aside from the others, past Father Henry who had shifted himself and his prayers into the cloister walk as the shove of men came in on him.

  Sir Hugh, the only one among them unarmed, gave Sir Reynold’s body a single swift look but was more intent on Lady Eleanor, crossing to her to take her by the arms and stare worriedly down into her face, asking, “How is it with you? Should you be here?”

  Lady Eleanor laid a hand over one of his hands and said gently, “I’ve seen dead men enough in my days. I’m well enough.”

  Sir Hugh studied her a moment longer, then let her go and turned back to his men and the body.

  “Send the men away,” Lady Eleanor said. “They don’t all need to be here.”

  “They had to see him,” Sir Hugh said grimly. “We all had to see him.”

  The men were crowded and jostled around the body, some grimly silent as they looked, most loud with exclaims and swearing. Hands moved in the sign of the cross and among the oaths were mutterings of “Lord have mercy,” but they all cleared out of Sir Hugh’s way as he came back to them, subsiding to silence around him as he stood for a moment, looking down at his cousin’s body before saying bitterly, “It was ill done.”

  Someone among the men, down the passage and out of Frevisse’s view, snarled, “It was done from behind and in the dark. It was foully done!”

  “It had to be one of those damned masons,” a man said, at Sir Hugh’s shoulder. Another Godfrey, by the look of him, “It had to have been one of them.”

  “That’s talk we don’t need,” Sir Hugh said coldly. “We’ll find out who did it in good time, and when we do, we’ll deal with him, but we won’t start trouble until we’re sure.”

  “We’re not the ones who started trouble,” the man beside him said. “I say we wring some necks until we have the truth out of someone.”

  “I’d wring your neck, Hal, until I’d put some sense in your head,” Sir Hugh snapped back, “but likely all I’d be left with is a wrung-necked goose. I’ll say what’s done here and what isn’t.” He swung his gaze around to include them all in that and added, “Take yourselves back to the hall and stay there until I come.”

  Hal pointed at Sir Reynold. “What about him?”

  “Lady Eleanor and the nuns will see to him.”

  From where she stood apart from them, Lady Eleanor said calmly, grief and authority both in her voice, “We’ll see him cleansed, shrouded, coffined. Everything that’s right. Then you can take him to keep vigil over. Until then there’s no use in your being here.”

  “So go,” Sir Hugh said in clear expectation of being obeyed. They were used to obeying him and Frevisse saw with relief that they would now, too, beginning to shift toward the outer door.

  “Except you, Benet,” Sir Hugh said. “You stay to help with him. And Lewis, you,” he added to the white-faced boy, younger than Benet, kneeling at Sir Reynold’s head. He was Sir Reynold’s squire and looked up, taut-faced with holding back tears, to nod to Sir Hugh’s orders.

  As the last of the men jostled out the door into the yard, Margrete pushed in past them. Again avoiding Sir Reynold’s body with both skirts and gaze, she hastened through to Lady Eleanor, ignoring everyone else, complaining and explaining, “They clotted up the way, so I couldn’t pass. I tried to go through the church, but the west door is barred and I had to come back.” And then anxiously: “How is with you, my lady?”

  “Well enough,” Lady Eleanor assured her crisply. “This won’t be the end of me.” She looked to Dame Claire. “Where would be best to take him?”

  “The lower par
lor here.” A room immediately to hand here along the cloister walk, meant for the nuns to receive such friends and relatives as did not need the prioress’ attention. It might have been better to have taken the body on to the infirmary, but to Frevisse’s mind and apparently Dame Claire’s, too, that was too far into the priory for the coming and going of so many men as there would be in this. Better that everything be kept here, as near the outer door as might be.

  “Dame Frevisse, can you bring sheets?” Dame Claire asked. “And Margrete, the other things?”

  Shears to cut the ruined clothing off. Basins of water. Soap. Cloths. Margrete would know as well as Frevisse what was needed. They had all of them seen to other dead in their years of life, had readied for their graves people they knew, just as, God willing, they would all be readied for their own graves by those who knew them when their own times came. It did not matter that this time their work was for Sir Reynold. What mattered was that it was for the dead, as someday they would be.

  But Frevisse noticed that in all of this there was no word said of sending for the crowner, the King’s officer who was supposed to be called in whenever there was any violent death, to determine where the wrong lay and collect the fines due to the King in the matter. Another thing that would be laid against the priory, to keep company with all the rest, when this was over.

  Chapter 20

  It took surprisingly little time to sort matters into order. When Frevisse came back from the infirmary with sheets, Benet was standing outside the parlor door, waiting to take them from her, but though she gave them to him, she followed him in anyway, to find the scant furnishings of a bench, small table, a few stools, a chair had all been moved back to the walls now and Sir Reynold’s body laid out in the middle of the floor with Lewis waiting beside it, stiff-faced and pale.

  Lady Eleanor was sitting, composed but equally pallid, on the bench, hands folded in her lap, her eyes closed as if she prayed. Dame Claire stood near her and answered Frevisse’s questioning look with a shake of her head that said Lady Eleanor was as well as might be and there was nothing more to do for her just now.