"It is," said Lady Alice grimly. "And, yes, it's treason to surrender a town without resistance. Although I believe he waited until the French had fired upon him once or twice before he surrendered." Lady Alice said that as dryly as Dame Frevisse might have done.
"That still leaves all the rest," Vaughn protested. "The king will surely arrest him, and that will be an end of anything he can do against you."
"I wish so. I hope so," Lady Alice said. "But our lord the king would rather be led than lead, be governed than govern. Suffolk and Somerset were both more than willing to oblige him. I strongly suppose Somerset means to take up where he left off, and I'm doubtful there's anyone who'll stop him."
"King Henry has a plenitude of other lords around him," Joliffe said. "Surely someone among them will oppose him, Persuade the king to his arrest."
"They've had the months since Suffolk's fall to sort it out among them who would take Suffolk's place that way," Lady Alice answered, cold and precise on the words. "I've had no report that any of them have. They've pushed and pulled King Henry hither and thither but none has come to the fore and taken the high hand over the others or him. Their failing may be that despite everything King Henry has failed at, they still have it in their minds that kings are to rule, not to be ruled. I promise you Somerset won't be held back by any such thought. If once he's received into King Henry's presence—mark me on this—it will be as if Normandy never happened."
Dame Frevisse protested, "But it did, and if nothing else, people's outrage will force the king to bring Somerset to some kind of trial."
"Will it?" Lady Alice said with scorning disbelief. "I doubt it."
"The Commons in Parliament forced Suffolk from power," Dame Frevisse persisted. "They'll do the same with Somerset."
"They may," Lady Alice granted. "But not while the country is caught up in these uprisings still happening everywhere. There's a new one in Kent, and small outbreaks all over Essex that could turn into something more, and Wiltshire is still seething from Bishop Ayscough's murder hardly a month ago. Besides all that, there is no Parliament just now, and by the time another one is called, Somerset will be so deeply set in power it will be a long haul of work to get him out. Believe me."
Slowly Dame Frevisse said, "All of that would explain why Somerset might order these men murdered, if alive they could be a threat to his hold on power through the king. None of it is proof that he did order any murders, though."
Joliffe had leaned one hip sidewise against the back of a chair beside him and been watching the two of them over the goblet's rim as he sipped more wine, learning much and more than willing to have them taken up with something other than questioning him.
It couldn't last, though. Vaughn said suddenly at him, "You said whoever killed Gough never saw the paper with their names on it. Yes?"
"Yes," Joliffe answered, more inwardly wary than he outwardly showed and carefully keeping his pose of ease against the chair.
"Then it wasn't from the paper that someone knew these men knew too much," Vaughn said.
Dame Frevisse quickly picked that up. "And if it wasn't from the paper, then the only way that someone would know these were men they wanted dead would be if that someone already knew . . .
Vaughn and Joliffe said it with her.
"... that these men knew too much."
In the immediate quiet among them all, Joliffe heard the mumble and movement being made by those of the household who slept in the great hall bringing out and laying down their bedding there. Beyond the open window some bird—a nightjar likely—was welcoming the darkness now fully come; and into their own quiet it was Dame Frevisse who finally said slowly, "That brings us again to Somerset. Because he's the only one besides Suffolk we can be certain knew what these men knew about Normandy's loss."
Lady Alice had been standing rigidly silent this while. Now she said sharply at Vaughn, "Nicholas, pour yourself some wine and sit down. Let's all of us sit down. And you," she said at Joliffe, "once and for all, tell us for whom you're working, since it may well be his purpose and ours is the same."
Joliffe shifted into the chair but sat staring into his gob-'et, slowly swirling the wine there, not answering, still not sure he should.
Quietly Dame Frevisse said, "Joliffe."
He looked up at her. She had sat down, too—on a long, low-backed settle mostly facing his own chair. Vaughn was a little ways away, in the room's other chair. Only Lady Alice was still standing, for all she had said they should sit. But for the moment only Dame Frevisse and Joliffe might have been there as she said to him, "On my word, you can trust her grace of Suffolk. She isn't trying to play you or anyone else false."
Holding her gaze, Joliffe considered that and everything else that had been said, added it to what had passed unsaid among them, then looked at Lady Alice. "I serve Richard, duke of York."
That was probably not the best of the very many answers he might have made her. It meant he was a far greater matter than he might have been, and after a moment's silence Lady Alice said, "Ah." A flat sound that told him nothing of what she was thinking.
It was Dame Frevisse who said, very quietly, "The duke of York. Is that wise?"
No, it probably was not. Joliffe knew too well that if Sir William was right and someone close to the king was trying to find a way to charge York with treason, that was a charge that could all too easily be stretched to include those who served him, and traitors came to ugly deaths. But to Dame Frevisse's question he merely lifted one shoulder and said wryly, "Isn't the saying 'Experience is the mother of wisdom'? How will I know if it's wise until it's too late to change my choice?" But having gone so far, he saw use in going further, and looking at Lady Alice, he said, "There's this. Two of your household men have been murdered and a third is missing. There looks to be some manner of danger stalking your household and maybe you. In that you have some common cause with my lord of York, because he's under threat, too. With those commissions of oyer and terminer being issued all over England for the finding out who's had part in this summer's rebellions and troubles, secret word has gone to at least some of the commissioners that they're to find York guilty in it."
"Is he guilty in it?" Lady Alice asked.
Sharp at the foolishness of that, Joliffe said, "Of course. From Ireland. To be sure he's too far away to take any advantage of anything that happens or to protect himself when the accusations surely come."
As sharply Dame Frevisse said at him, "Her question is reasonable."
"It is," Joliffe granted just as sharply. "But whichever way I answered it, she won't believe me, so why ask me at all?"
"You're fighting so hard against being alive, I swear you want to be dead!" Dame Frevisse snapped.
"And I swear I don't!" Joliffe said angrily back at her. "I also swear I'm tired and hungry and in pain and I only want to lie down and sleep until my mind is fit for these games you all want to play!"
That was an unmannered over-boldness at his betters and it came more from his tiredness than from good sense, but it was also true. He needed away from their questioning and his answering until he could better judge what was safe to say and bargain better than he had so far. He needed sleep and he did not flinch when Vaughn started to rise in angry response to his ill manners, because if Vaughn hit him, he meant to collapse as utterly as if he had been beaten.
But Lady Alice slightly raised a hand, Vaughn settled back into his chair, and she said to Joliffe, "That's fair enough, maybe. You've been hard used and we're all tired and will maybe deal together better after a night's rest. All I lack is for Dame Frevisse to vouch that you're as good as your word."
She looked toward her cousin as she finished. So did Joliffe and found Dame Frevisse looking at him, considering father than answering. Or else deliberately holding back her answer long enough for him to begin to feel a shadow of doubt before she finally said, "I've never known him to do a dishonorable thing. Things that were suspect, maybe. Things doubtful. But never dishonorab
le." She turned her gaze to Lady Alice. "And you know yourself what chance he ran three years ago with no likelihood of gain for himself. I think he's likely to deal fairly with you."
Lady Alice returned her gaze to Joliffe. "You'll not object, though, Master Noreys, when you've been fed and your hurts seen to, to being locked into a room for the night?"
Joliffe rose and bowed to her. "So long as there's somewhere to lie down and maybe a pillow for my head, I'll be content and wish blessings upon you, my lady."
"I think we can allow you a mattress as well," she said, and added to Dame Frevisse, "Will you see to his hurts if I send ointment and herbs for them?"
"I will."
She stood up and respectfully so did Dame Frevisse and Vaughn as she said, moving toward the door, "Then I'll go give orders for it all now. Nicholas, if you'll stay here?"
He bowed. "I will, my lady."
Joliffe bowed, too, and Dame Frevisse slightly curtsied. All our manners fine and right, Joliffe thought, and stayed on his feet until Dame Frevisse had sat again before he slumped down into his chair with a suddenness that he knew—and did not care—betrayed how hard he had been holding himself together. For good measure he shut his eyes, hoping no one would want anything of him, but Dame Frevisse demanded at him, "Why are you still doing this? With . . ." She paused over what she had been going to say. "... that man you served dead and that other matter done, why didn't you go back to being simply a player and out of all this?"
Joliffe neither opened his eyes nor bothered to keep the bitterness from his voice as he said, "I haven't been simply a player for a long time, my lady."
"How long? Since before we first met?"
"No. No, then I was everything I seemed to be. A traveling player hoping for better days." He smiled without opening his eyes. "Surprisingly enough, the better days came. Then other things came. Now, being a player is no longer something I can simply 'go back to'."
"But wish you could?"
"There are days, my lady. Believe me, there are days." Days when he would rather have been other than he was, days when he searched back to find a time when he could have chosen differently. But mostly there were days when he knew himself well enough not to waste time in thinking too long on what was not and never could have been.
Of course there were likewise times when he did not even want to think about the here-and-now. This was one of them, and given this respite, he took it, slacking his body and sinking into a silence in which the three of them waited until a servant came with warmed water, a jar of ointment, and some narrow-folded bands of clean cloth bandages, and said to Vaughn, "My lady said to tell you the rear storeroom would do, that you'd know the one she meant. She's having bedding taken there."
Bedding. A divine thought. Bedding and no need to struggle to keep his mind clear.
In a mercy of silence, Dame Frevisse tended to his wrists. She had kinder hands than, for some reason, he had thought she would, but she was thorough at the work and did not apologize when the cleaning of a deeper rope-cut made him wince. Thorough in her mind and in her ways, and practical beyond the point of pointless apologies. The several times they had met she had been a good ally. He did not want her for an enemy now.
She finished bandaging his wrists, wrung out the wasting cloth in the cooling water, gave it to him, and still without looking at him, said, "You'll want to clean the cut at the corner of your mouth, too," before she turned away, bade both him and Vaughn good night without quite looking at either one of them, and left the room.
She would not be his enemy in this, Joliffe thought as he began to clean the cut Vaughn's fist had given him yesterday. But she might choose not to be his ally either. If he read her aright, she was very angry and not just at him. At her cousin, too? It had to be at Lady Alice's doing that she was here at all, and it was little likely Dame Frevisse liked that, given to her nunnery life as she was. She might even choose to hold neutral in this whole business after tonight, helping neither him nor her cousin, and that could well be a bad thing for him. But worse would be if she set herself against him.
Chapter 10
Frevisse had not looked at Joliffe while she tended to his hurt wrists, and certainly had asked him nothing. Besides that Alice's man was there to hear anything else he said, too much had been said already for her mind's peace; she had kept the darkness of her thoughts to herself and took them with her when she left, going upstairs with slow feet and heavy mind. Alice was being settled into her bed by her women when Frevisse passed through her bedchamber on way to her own. She gave Alice, lying against the pillows, a light curtsy but Alice did not acknowledge her and she went on, to find Sister Margrett readied for their own bed but still up and a candle still burning.
"I waited to say Compline with you," Sister Margrett said. "And to hear what passed after you left?" Frevisse asked.
That came out more tartly than she had meant it to. Sister Margrett looked startled, then said tartly back, "Only if you want to tell it and it's something I should hear. Which I doubt it is. So, no, I wasn't waiting to hear what passed after you left."
Immediately contrite, both for her own sharpness and for having unjustly goaded Sister Margrett to anger, Frevisse said, "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair. I'm tired." She raised her hands to begin unpinning her veil. "I am very . . . very tired. And no, what passed is not something you would want to hear."
As quickly out of her anger as into it and Frevisse's apology apparently accepted, Sister Margrett said quietly, "There's blood on your right hand."
Frevisse turned her hand over to find a red smear of Joliffe's blood along the outer side of her palm.
"There was a man a little hurt. I saw to bandaging him," she said in the same weary way she had admitted she was tired, and went to the waiting basin of water on a table beside one wall to wash it off, then took off her veil and wimple, leaving on only her cap for the night, and washed her face, both soothed and revived enough by that to be glad that Sister Margrett had waited Compline for her.
There was peace in that final Office of every day—Visita, quaesumus, Domine, habitationem istam, et omnes insidias inimici ab ea longe repelle. Angeli tui. . . nos in pace custodiant; et bene-dictio tua sit super nos semper. Visit, we beg you, Lord, this house, and all the snares of the enemy from here drive back. Let your holy angels . . . keep us in peace, and your blessing be over us always.
Frevisse gave herself up to it, sinking her mind into the comfort of the words, and afterward went to bed with quieted mind, able to leave until tomorrow what could not be helped tonight.
* * *
For all of that, though, morning came sooner than she wanted to face it, and despite she was ready for Alice's summons after Prime and Mass and breaking the night's fast were done, she did not go eagerly. Against good sense, she had liked Joliffe from the time they had first met. Against good sense, she still liked him. And beyond all her present angers, she still cared for Alice as kin and sometime friend. What hurt and frightened her was the doubt that either her liking or her care would be of any use at all against the dark tangles into which they were come, and she silently prayed from among last night's prayers—Custodi nos, Domine. Sub umbra alarum tuarum protege nos. Guard us, Lord. Under the shadow of your wings protect us—before going into the small room beyond Alice's bedchamber where she and Alice had talked together on their first coming to Wingfield.
Cushions had been found and put upon the window seats but otherwise it was the same. Alice, though, had nothing sad or pleading about her this time. Straight-backed in her black mourning gown, her face encircled by the stiffly pleated folds of her white widow's wimple and framed by the long blackness of heavy veil spread over her shoulders, she was the great lady in whose hands power lay with the familiarity of years, and neither she nor Frevisse spoke, only slightly bent their heads to each other, then stood waiting in silence the little while until Joliffe and Vaughn came in by the room's other door.
Both men looked better than they had last
night. Rested, shaved, washed, combed, and presumably fed, Joliffe even had on a clean shirt under his doublet, to judge by the clean cuffs showing at his bandaged wrists; and when he had bowed to her and Lady Alice, he stood quietly facing Alice, leaving it to her to begin whatever their business would be this morning and giving no sign of his own thoughts.
Vaughn, like Joliffe, had cleaned and straightened him-Self from last night, but he looked no happier about matters than he had then, and after his own bow to Lady Alice, he stood between the room's two doors with one hand resting on the hilt of his belt-hung dagger as if on guard. Whether against Joliffe or against someone coming in was unclear.
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