The Bishop’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  “Meaning?” Beaufort asked. He edged the word with sufficient impatience to goad Master Broun to the point.

  But Master Broun was bolstered by his expertise now and answered with deliberate consideration, “Meaning that those symptoms evidenced by Sir Clement previous to his death—the stifled breathing, the welts over his face and neck and arms, the great itching—do indeed occur, under certain circumstances from the poison inherent in certain foods.”

  Impatiently, and more so because Dame Frevisse already knew the answer and was forcing both him and Master Broun through these steps, Beaufort said, “But everything Sir Clement ate and drank at the feast, he shared with others. Didn’t he?” he demanded of Dame Frevisse. “Or have you learned otherwise?”

  “Everything he ate or drank, others did, too,” she agreed.

  Master Broun raised an authoritative hand to forestall any other comments. “There are foods, you see—this is very rare, but I remember a fellow student during my time at Oxford would never eat cheese; he said it made him ill and indeed cited Galen on it. I do remember now”—he tapped the book he still held—“that there are foods that in themselves are wholesome in all respects except that in certain people they cause distress precisely such as Sir Clement suffered.” He was warming to the subject and went on with enthusiasm. “Even if only touched, they can cause itching and extreme discomfort. And though initial ingestion of whatever particular food afflicts a person may cause only a mild reaction, the effect can be cumulative so that experiencing the food one time too many will bring on symptoms so severe that death will result, though earlier attacks were not fatal.”

  “And that was why Sir Clement was not terrified when I saw him partly recovered in Sir Philip’s room,” Frevisse put in. “He had experienced this before and thought he knew what to expect.”

  “So, in brief,” Beaufort said, “there was something at the feast poisonous to Sir Clement but to no one else. He ate of it unknowingly and died.”

  “I believe that would cover all the facts, yes,” Master Broun agreed.

  Dame Frevisse said tartly, “So you no longer think it was God who struck him down?”

  Master Broun flushed and drew himself up to glare at her as he snapped, “That no longer seems the obvious answer, no.”

  “Thank you both,” Beaufort said crisply, cutting off whatever response Dame Frevisse was opening her mouth to make. “You have been most helpful, Master Broun. Invaluable. You’ll receive witness of our pleasure. But pray you both, hold silent on this matter for this while at least.”

  He made it a request, knowing it would be taken as a command. Master Broun, mollified by the praise and promise of reward, bowed his acceptance. “As your worship wishes.”

  “Then you have our leave to go. Dame Frevisse, we would have you stay,” he added more sternly.

  Master Broun cast her a sideways look, satisfied she was in trouble of some sort, and bowed himself from the room. When the door had shut behind the doctor, Beaufort gestured her to sit opposite him, and resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, his hands clasped judiciously in front of him, he regarded her for a while in silence. She sat unruffled under his gaze, more self-contained than some great lords of the realm on whom he had used the same look. He said, “That was well done.”

  In acknowledgment of his praise, she bent her head and responded, “I doubt he would have been so cooperative except that you were here.”

  “Which is why you requested my presence. My congratulations. You seem to have mastered many of the frailties of your sex, overcoming even the pride that might have refused to make use of my authority over him. You’ve dealt with the matter both logically and with some degree of boldness.”

  He was interested in seeing her reaction, but for a prolonged moment she held silent, and he found that, like Thomas, her expression was not always easy to read. Then she said evenly, “I’ve never noticed that pride is particular to either sex, and, by your worship’s leave, I’ve known as many illogical men as I have women, if not more. Nor have I ever thought—despite what the stories say and men seem to admire—that boldness was a virtue if not wisely used.”

  She said it so politely, with no change of expression or tone, that it was a moment before Beaufort realized she had completely refused his compliment to her on the terms he had given it. Drily, he asked, “You don’t care for Aquinas’s opinion on the essential frailty of woman’s nature?”

  “The blessed St. Thomas Aquinas refers to the frailty of her soul’s vigor and body’s strength, which do not match man’s. But we were referring to my mind, and of that St. Thomas says, if I remember correctly, ”The image of God in its principal manifestation—namely, the intellect—is found both in man and woman.“”

  “And you see yourself man’s equal therefore.”

  “In worth before the eyes of God, yes. And in our abilities to serve Him, without doubt. But we were made, at the time of creation itself, to be man’s handmaid. That at least I will agree to.” Unexpectedly she smiled, looking much younger, though her age was impossible to guess in the anonymity of her black habit, close-fitting wimple, and heavy drape of veil. “But in return I think you might be willing to grant the old adage that woman was the last thing God made, and therefore the best.”

  Beaufort laughed aloud. “That’s Thomas’s trick, to cut short an argument with a jest completely to the point.”

  Like Beaufort’s, Dame Frevisse’s voice was warm with the shared memory of a man they both loved. “He taught me well.”

  “And yet, with your learning and wit beyond the ordinary, you were willing to give over to Master Broun your solution to Sir Clement’s death.”

  “There are realities that have to be accepted. I’ve learned to live within such and yet do as well as God has made me able.”

  “With your God-given intellect that is the equal of a man’s.”

  She acknowledged his teasing by saying with mock solemnity, “Or the better. But no matter how clever we may think I am, the crowner will take the learned evidence of how Sir Clement died far better from Master Broun than he would from me.”

  Beaufort nodded agreement. “So Sir Clement’s death was an accident after all.”

  “No. I think it was surely murder.”

  “What?” They had kept their voices pitched low; his immoderate exclamation made several of his clerks look up from their work, and he immediately dropped his voice to order, with no attempt to conceal that he was disconcerted, “Explain that.”

  “Sir Clement may have known of his affliction. I’ve heard from several people that there were foods—or a food, I need to ask more specific questions to know exactly—that he wouldn’t eat. He sent one of his people to the kitchen here to be sure of what was being served at the feast. He may have known there was something that made him ill and would not have knowingly eaten it. Whatever it was, it had to have been secretly and deliberately put in his food during the feast.”

  “So Sir Philip may be guilty after all.”

  “I’m assured that someone is guilty. I doubt it is Sir Philip.”

  Beaufort raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

  “Because he didn’t have the opportunity. With this poisoning something would have had to be placed in Sir Clement’s food after it left the kitchen. I don’t remember that Sir Philip had the chance. And he’s told me he has documents that negate any claim Sir Clement might have made against him, so he had no reason, either.”

  “You believed him when he told you of these documents?”

  “It’s possible he’s lied about them, but it would be a lie too easily discovered for what it was.”

  “And Sir Philip is not a stupid man. But he could be a desperate one if the documents do not indeed exist, in which case he might have conspired with someone else better able to poison Sir Clement at the feast.”

  “The three most likely and most able to have done it are Sir Clement’s ward, his cousin, and his nephew. They all had opportunity and ample rea
sons of their own, conspiracy with Sir Philip or not. And there is Sir Philip’s brother, who was usher at the feast, if we care to consider Sir Philip did lie about the documents.”

  “And how do you plan to determine which one of them it may have been, whether alone or with Sir Philip? Or would you rather leave it now to the crowner? He’ll be here tomorrow, will take what you’ve learned and make good use of it, I’m sure.”

  She hesitated, then answered, “I have some of the pieces needed for an answer, and I think I know how to learn the rest. By your leave, I’d like to go on.”

  He inclined his head to her gravely. “By my leave you may. And if you need my help in anything with this, ask for it freely.”

  Chapter 16

  The afternoon was wearing away, and Frevisse meant to talk to Guy and Lady Anne again, and to Jevan, too. Of everyone around Sir Clement he had gained the most— freedom from his uncle after a lifetime of his cruelties— and lost the most—his livelihood and his hope of Lady Anne; Guy would be taking both from him. Frevisse wanted to know how he was and what he was thinking, not simply because he was part of the question of Sir Clement’s death, but because he was a friend of Robert’s, and she was fond of Robert, no matter how rarely they saw each other.

  But duty and affection took her back to her aunt’s bedchamber first. The room was shadowed, the shutters closed, the bed curtains drawn. The women silently at various tasks around the room made shushing gestures at her as she entered. Alice, seated on the window seat with one shutter set a little back so light fell on the book on her lap, beckoned Frevisse to come sit beside her. The gentle puff and pause of Aunt Matilda’s breathing came from inside the bed curtains, in token that she was deeply asleep.

  “She woke a while ago,” Alice whispered, “and ate some broth and milk-soaked bread.”

  “And you were able to persuade her to sleep again?”

  Alice smiled. “Not so much persuaded as gave her no choice. There was a sleeping draught in the wine she drank afterwards. Master Broun says the more she sleeps just now, the better she’ll be.”

  On that at least Frevisse agreed with him. “What of you? If you want to go out for a while, I can watch by her.”

  Alice shook her head. “This is where I want to be, with Mother and my praying. I’m well enough.”

  Aware that she had scanted her own prayers all day today, Frevisse glanced down and saw the book her cousin held was indeed a prayer book, opened to the psalms in Latin. That reminded her of the Wycliffe book in its bundle somewhere among her things across the room. Taking her mind quickly away from the mingled guilt and pleasure of that thought, she asked, “Is there anything you need done that I can do for you?”

  “Mother was worrying over Sir Clement’s family, anxious that someone express our formal sympathy for their loss. Would you go to them, to give them our sympathy, and explain why neither Mother nor I came instead? I’d ask William to go but he won’t. He simply wants anything to do with Sir Clement out from under his way.”

  “I’ll do it gladly.” Frevisse forbore to add that she had been going to them anyway. “Though I fear that neither they nor anyone else are overwhelmed by grief. Sir Clement wasn’t loved.”

  “God keep us from a like end,” said Alice. “It was a fearful thing to see, and to know he’d called it down upon himself.”

  They both crossed themselves. But Frevisse added, to lighten Alice’s mood, “Still, he’d worked long and hard for it, setting everyone else against him along the way.”

  “That’s true,” Alice agreed with a trace of amusement. “He even managed between Father’s death and his own to set my lord husband against him with no great difficulty.”

  “How?” Frevisse asked, surprised.

  “By bringing up that property dispute he had with Father. He wouldn’t let it rest even this little while of the funeral. William was furious over the rudeness, and because even though there’s no matter in it, the lawyers’ fees would mount nonetheless, if it went that far.”

  “I doubt there’s anyone who’s sorry he’s dead.”

  “Certainly not William. Well, the crowner will be here tomorrow, I hear, and that will be the end of it. I trust Sir Clement’s family will leave with his body immediately once they’re allowed to?”

  “I understand so.”

  “I’ve told Master Gallard to tell them we’ll give any help we can.”

  “And please ask me for anything I can do, at any time.”

  “Your prayers,” Alice said, smiling. “Surely your prayers are what I want most. And your friendship,” she added to her own evident surprise as much as Frevisse’s.

  Frevisse smiled back at her, aware of growing affection for this cousin she hardly knew. “You’ll have both, without fail. I think I should like to have your friendship, now that I’m not forever being annoyed by you,” she added teasingly.

  “Annoyed by me? How?” Alice demanded, amused as Frevisse had meant for her to be.

  “Because you could sit for hours at your sewing or whatever other task your mother gave you and never make the least bother about it. You always seemed very content with yourself, while I was ever wishing I was being or doing something else.”

  “Except when you were reading,” Alice said shrewdly.

  “Except when I was reading,” Frevisse agreed, and they both laughed. They were quickly shushed by Aunt Matilda’s women and ducked their heads to hide more laughter behind their hands.

  Then Alice confessed in a whisper, “I was always annoyed by you, too. You’d been everywhere and seen everything, it seemed, and Father never seemed to mind how much time you spent among his books. It wasn’t until after you were gone that I dared begin to press him as you did for books.”

  “I never knew you were interested.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be. I was my mother’s daughter and there was the end of it.”

  “But you didn’t let it be the end of it.”

  “No,” Alice said firmly. “I did not.”

  Frevisse’s smile widened. “Oh, yes, I think we can be very good friends indeed.”

  Frevisse found Lady Anne alone in her room, except for her two maids, and like Alice, she was seated at the window, a book open on her lap, while her maids sorted through belongings in her traveling chest. The cold gray daylight gave her usual blond loveliness an ashen appearance, but even allowing for that, she looked pale, delicately shadowed under her eyes as if she had not slept so well as could be wished.

  Frevisse, as she approached her, was surprised to see the book was another prayer book, and opened to the Office of the Dead. Lady Anne, catching her glance and the surprise in it, said, “I found myself wondering if there might be hope of Sir Clement’s salvation after all. I thought how unpleasant it would be to eventually arrive in purgatory and find him waiting for us.”

  “I suspect that if Sir Clement manages to go so far as purgatory, he’ll be far too busy with his own redemption to trouble yours.”

  Frevisse’s irony was lost on Lady Anne. She merely considered the thought for a moment, then answered, “I suppose you’re right.” She closed the book and tossed it toward one of her maidservants. “Sit down, if you please.”

  Frevisse suspected that Lady Anne’s manners depended on her mood and possibly on the importance of whom she was talking to, because no matter how young and vulnerable she looked, seated there pale in the winter light with the tender shadows under her eyes, she clearly had a strong core of self-will and self-interest that had small consideration for others beyond how they affected her directly.

  Frevisse sat, folded her hands into her sleeves, and said mildly, “I trust there is always hope of heaven for all of us, even someone so outwardly without grace as Sir Clement.”

  “It wasn’t merely outwardly. He delighted in the sorrows of others. Besides, God wouldn’t have struck him down like that if he weren’t deserving of it.” Lady Anne said it flatly, with no particular venom. Sir Clement was no longer a problem to h
er; she would shortly have dismissed him completely from her life. But in consideration of Frevisse, she added, “Though, of course, we should hope the best for him. You’ve probably been praying for him. You’ve given your life over to such charity of spirit.”

  “To the will of God, rather,” Frevisse said.

  Lady Anne drew her delicate brows together in a pretty frown. “It must be very strange to give yourself up so completely. To the will of your prioress, the will of your abbott, the will of your bishop. I suppose you even have to listen to the pope. You have no life of your own at all!”