The Traitor's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  "As done as can be," Frevisse answered and wished she felt the lighter for it.

  They dined in Kenilworth's great hall at supper. Seated at one of the tables stretching the hall's length, they were a long way from the dais at the hall's upper end where the queen sat behind the high table that was covered by a shiningly white cloth down to the floor and set with gold and silver dishes that caught and glowed with the evening light through the hall's tall, glassed windows. Queen Margaret was differently gowned from this afternoon, in summer-blue velvet edged with dark fur around the low curve of the neck that showed a gold-brocaded undergown. A close-fitted necklace of gold and pearls circled her throat, and there were pearls and blue jewels in her crown, too—a different crown from the plain one of this afternoon.

  She shared the high table with the duke of Buckingham on her one side and a churchman on the other, then two other women and finally at one end of the table Sir Thomas Stanley and at the other another churchman, all of them as finely arrayed as the queen and looking to be in high good humour among themselves, giving as much heed to their own talk as to the several singers, jugglers, and tumblers that performed at intervals in the center of the hall during the meal.

  Was their high-heartedness real, Frevisse wondered? Did they really feel so little the harsh certainty of the lost French war and the revolts and rebellions tearing at England? All of that was out of their sight, certainly, but was it likewise out of mind? Or were they feigning, for the sake of those who watched them?

  It was not a life she had ever wanted—to be the center of other people's need, having to match her outward seeming, despite whatever she inwardly felt or thought, to what her place demanded of her. Even when something other than a nun's life had been within her reach, she had known it was not what she wanted—to be divided between outward seeming and inward heart for duty's sake to others. In that way, her choice to be a nun had been utterly for herself, she supposed. She had once said as much to Domina Edith, her prioress at St. Frideswide's through her early years there; and Domina Edith, old and grown wise with time, had smiled on her and said, "At the best, yes, your choice was utterly for yourself."

  She had left Frevisse standing startled for a moment before she went gently on, "Most people lack the good sense to do something so utterly for themselves. They accept being broken into pieces by life's and other people's needs. By becoming a nun, you are hoping for a wholeness of mind and body and spirit that will let you grow outside the bonds of body, the bonds of even this time and this place." Domina Edith's smile had deepened. "You are unlikely to attain that prize in full, unless you achieve sainthood, but it is surely a prize worth the striving for. Surely better than the death-limited, world-battered prizes for which most people settle, usually without much thought about their choice. It may be said, yes, you were self-willed, choosing yourself over others, but should you begin to feel that as too great a burden on your soul, you need only consider what your self-will has gained you—utter obedience, by oath, to the Rule and whatever orders your superiors may give you under it. You may have come by stubborn self-will to be a nun, but one of the great goals of your nunhood is to learn to give up that self that willed you here. Remember that and you'll have no worry about the self-will that brought you here." And when next Frevisse had had to work in patient silence under Dame Alys' ill-humoured, angry orders in the nunnery kitchen, that lesson had come all too heavily home.

  It was toward the middle of the last remove that the expected way of the meal was broken when Frevisse happened to see a servant lean over at Sir Thomas Stanley's shoulder and say something in his ear. Even from as far down the hall as she was, Frevisse saw Sir Thomas jerk and stiffen. He rose, moved along the table to put his head between the queen and Buckingham, said something, and apparently received her leave to go, because he bowed and went away, out by way of a door at one end of the dais. A ripple of head-turning along the hall followed him but that was all.

  He had not returned when the meal ended and the lords and ladies withdrew the same way he had gone, leaving the hall to whatever pastimes the lesser folk might find for the evening. Rather than linger there, Frevisse and Sister Margrett sought out the castle's chapel for evening prayers and went from there to bed, and only in the morning, as they readied to leave, learned what news had taken Sir Thomas from the table.

  "Likely spoiled his digestion, too," said Vaughn as he made a final tightening of saddle girths in the outer yard. "What I’ve heard is one of Stanley's men rode in from Chester with word the duke of York has had warning there's plotting against him around the king and he's set on coming back from Ireland. Nobody around the king wants that. Sir Thomas sent a messenger on his way last night to the king and rode out himself with his men at first light this morning."

  Since the first full rays of sun had yet to strike over the castle walls, "first light" must have been when the dark had thinned enough to see the road.

  "He's going to the king, too?" Frevisse asked. Vaughn was standing aside from her horse now, holding the reins so she could mount.

  "No. Toward Wales, I gather."

  Frevisse swung up to the saddle. While settling her skirts, she looked down at him, somewhat frowning, and asked, "Why to Wales?"

  "He's chamberlain there and York's coming seemingly means he's needed there."

  "Why?"

  Vaughn shrugged. Beyond them, his man was helping Sister Margrett onto her horse.

  "Why?" Frevisse asked again, reading more into his shrug than maybe Vaughn had meant to tell.

  But he only asked as he handed the reins to her, "Sir Thomas maybe expects the king will take exception to York's return?" before he turned away to his own horse and mounted, giving her no chance to ask more.

  They made a very long day's ride of it, coming in sight of St. Frideswide's when the evening light was lying long across the golden stubble of the harvested fields beyond its walls. Vespers was done, but the priory's outer gates still stood open and they rode straight in. The inner gates, to the guesthall courtyard outside the cloister door, were shut but would have been opened readily enough at any traveler's need because the Benedictine Rule required it, but the guesthall servingman who came at the ringing of the bell opened the more quickly when he saw them. Because both Frevisse and Sister Margrett had sometimes been the priory's hosteler overseeing the guesthall, he knew them and said, openly pleased as he pulled the gates wide, "You're late-come, my ladies, but right welcome. There's been wondering how you were and where."

  "We're here now, St. Frideswide be thanked," Frevisse said. "And well enough, Tom." Supposing she was not too stiff to swing down from the saddle. "Has all been well?"

  "Well as might be. No great troubles," Tom said, walking beside her horse as they rode into the yard. "There was some yelling when someone lost a pottery bowl down the kitchen-yard well a few days gone. That's been the most lately."

  Frevisse nearly gave a laugh of relief. To have a broken pottery bowl the worst thing to be upset over seemed wonderful. But her laugh faded unmade as she saw Joliffe standing up from where he had been sitting on the guesthall steps.

  Partly, she was relieved to see him. She had been refusing to be worried for him, but had been anyway because men had been murdered in this matter and there was no reason he could not be, too. Now, seeing him safely here, she simply, suddenly, gave herself up to her deep weariness. All was as well as it might be, and all that was left to do was give over to both him and Vaughn what she had learned from Burgate and be done with it.

  She had had all day to think of how she would discretely do that, and as Tom held her horse for her to dismount, she turned to Sister Margrett and said in a somewhat fainting voice, "I don't feel well."

  Vaughn, already dismounted and taking Sister Margrett's horse by the bridle, gave her a sharp look. So did Sister Margrett, and Frevisse had the feeling that whoever else believed her, neither of them did, so she made a clumsy effort of climbing down from her saddle and stood holding to it as i
f too weak or unwell to dare letting go. Aware of Sister Margrett's and Vaughn's questioning frowns and Tom's worried look, she faltered, "I wonder if, visiting that prisoner, I may have caught a fever?"

  "Oh, my lady!" Tom said, alarmed.

  "I pray not," Sister Margrett said with matching worry.

  "Should I . . . would it be better," Frevisse said as if uncertain, "if we spent the night in the guesthall, rather than . . ."

  Sister Margrett quickly took up her faltering words. "Rather than take infection into the cloister, you mean. Yes. Surely." Dismounted now, she hurried to Frevisse's side and put an arm around her waist to help her toward the guesthall steps. "Tom, fetch Dame Claire. Maybe there's some supper left, some broth maybe, Tom? Master Vaughn, your man can see the horses to the stable, can't he? And if you'd bring our saddlebags ..."

  Kindly, capably, Sister Margrett set everyone around them to doing one thing or another, and in the general shifting of horses and men and helping Frevisse up the steps she took the chance to whisper worriedly in Frevisse's ear, "You're not really ill, are you?"

  "No," Frevisse whispered back. "But I have to talk to . . ."

  ". . . the man who was waiting here," Sister Margrett finished for her, and said loudly, for others to hear, "There now, lean on me, dame. Just a little farther." And to Joliffe, now holding open the guesthall door for them, "Thank you, sir."

  It ended with Frevisse put to bed in the chamber saved for the nunnery's better guests and feeling very foolish at the bustle Sister Margrett made of it. Dame Claire, the priory's infirmarian, soon came from the cloister, but she and Frevisse had known each other for all the years Frevisse had been in the nunnery, and Frevisse knew there was small likelihood of deceiving her. So she whispered as Dame Claire bent over her, feeling her forehead and for her pulse, "I need to stay the night here."

  Dame Claire gave her a sharp look, continued to examine her, and finally turned away to tell Sister Margrett clearly enough for the servants hovering outside the chamber door to hear, "I find nothing greatly wrong with her. It may be only she's over-wearied, not being so young as she once was."

  Frevisse's glare was wasted at her back, and she went on, "But best we be safe about it. You'll both stay here tonight. See she drinks the potion I'll leave for her, and we'll see how all does in the morning." She turned back to Frevisse in the bed and said, "Mind you behave," with a look that said she was agreeing to help but did not like it.

  Her disapproval was evidenced more plainly by the potion. Made of sharp herbs, it did no favors to the ale into which it was mixed. As a kind of penance for her lies, Frevisse drank it all and then pretended she wanted only a little of the supper brought to her, hungry though she was. Beyond that, she decided she must leave Joliffe and Vaughn to find a way to talk with her that would raise no suspicions or curiosity among the guesthall servants. Happily, there were no other guests tonight to make that more difficult, and soon after her tray of barely eaten supper had been taken away, Vaughn scratched at the room's doorframe. Sister Margrett went, and just loudly enough to be overheard by anyone in the hall behind him, he asked, "How does she? Happens the fellow here is a minstrel. Might she care for some quiet lute-playing?"

  "That might be good," said Sister Margrett with the same carrying quiet. "She's querulous and a little restless. The music might soothe her."

  Frevisse had to feel advantage was being taken of her in her "illness". First, it had been "not so young" from Dame Claire. Now it was "querulous" from Sister Margrett. But she remained leaning back against the pillows, trying to look wan. Which well she might, after Dame Claire's potion, she thought, the after-taste of it still unpleasantly with her.

  Sister Margrett had helped her off with her outer gown and veil before she took to bed, but for seemliness' sake she had kept on her heavy undergown and her wimple was still around her face and over her throat, pinned to the close-fitted cap that covered what there was of her short-cropped hair, so that she was decent enough to be seen by Vaughn and Joliffe. She nonetheless felt the lack of her habit's familiar safety—somewhat how a fighter must feel without his shield, she imagined. Nor did Joliffe help. He came into the room carrying a lute in one hand and a joint stool from the hall in the other, bowed to her, then set the stool not far aside from the foot of her bed and said with respectful concern, "If I sit here, my lady, you need not tire yourself with speaking but can sign to me with a small movement of one hand if I play too loudly, too softly, or too badly. Will that do? You need only nod," he added, the laughter in his eyes belying his "kindness." He was enjoying himself.

  Frevisse narrowed her eyes at him to show what she thought of his "kindness," while accepting it with a small nod. When he was seated, though, and began to finger a quiet melody from the lute, she had to grant he had skill at the playing—and was displeased at herself to find she a little grudged him that, as if in return for making such a jest of things, he should at least play badly.

  Vaughn had followed Joliffe into the room, had kept back from the bed what seemed a respectful distance while positioning himself to block Frevisse from anyone's view beyond the doorway. With Sister Margrett withdrawn to the chamber's far end to sit with her breviary in apparent prayer, this was as private as they could, within reason, be, and Frevisse asked, low-voiced, of Joliffe, "What's Vaughn told you?"

  "That you found this secretary," Joliffe sang in a soft murmur matched to the tune he was playing, watching his fingers rather than her. "That's all. There have been people around."

  "Not about the duke of York?"

  Joliffe's fingers did not fumble the strings but his gaze flashed up to her face, demanding to be told more; and he went on watching her while she said, "Word came to Kenilworth at suppertime yesterday. He's said to be coming back from Ireland. The news took Sir Thomas Stanley right away from the high table."

  "Ah." Joliffe dropped his gaze. "The good Sir Thomas."

  Behind him, Vaughn said, "He's gone to Wales. He rode out with his men this morning."

  "Wales," Joliffe said. A Welsh melody ran from under his fingers.

  With a small backward glance to be sure no one was near behind him in the hall, Vaughn said, "If York is coming back from Ireland and without royal leave, they'll catch him on that hook if none other."

  "My lord of York . . ." Joliffe slid the hint of a marching song into his playing. "... had it put in his indenture with the king, before ever he went, that he has the right to come back to England whenever he wants, without need of royal leave."

  "Well fore-thought," Vaughn said.

  "But Sir Thomas has hied himself away to Wales. I wonder why," Joliffe said, more as if thinking aloud than expecting any answer, and neither Vaughn nor Frevisse gave him one. Joliffe slipped into a lullaby of many rippling notes and said as gently as his playing, "This secretary, my lady. What did you learn from him once you found him?"

  Behind him, Vaughn took a half-step forward, this being what he wanted to hear, too, and they all three of them glanced toward Sister Margrett across the chamber, sitting with her head bowed over her breviary open on her lap, reading from it in a low murmur that likely masked from her whatever they were saying. Glad to be done with and rid of Burgate's secret, Frevisse told all that he had told her. Though Joliffe continued to play quietly, she watched his face and Vaughn's go grim while she did; and when she finished, Joliffe turned his head enough to say over his right shoulder at Vaughn, "You've sent word to her grace he's there?"

  "Yesterday. As soon as I knew."

  Joliffe made a small nod, as if satisfied by that, and said now looking down at his fingers drifting at the lute strings "You're probably going to sleep now, my lady. We'll leave you to it and be about our business, by your leave."

  That "by your leave" was pointless courtesy. She had given them what they wanted and they were done with her and her "leave" had nothing to do with what they would do now. But despite she had wanted to be done with it all, she suddenly wanted to know what they intended to do
next, and was angry at herself for wanting that and closed her eyes and evened her breathing, willing herself to lie as if gone to sleep while Joliffe lessened his playing away to silence. With her eyes kept firmly shut, she listened to him rise and pick up the stool, and only at the very edge of hearing heard him say then, for no one else to hear, "Well done, my lady."

  Chapter 16

  There being too much chance of being overheard in the guesthall's main room among the servants bringing out the night's bedding, Joliffe and Vaughn strolled in seeming idleness outside to the cobbled yard between the hall and the cloister and church. The warm last of daylight was just gilding the cross atop the point of roof above the church's west front. All else was in soft-shadowed twilight. They had the yard to themselves and went to sit on the step around the well there, to look at ease in their talk, should someone take especial note of them.

  There was need both to talk over what Dame Frevisse had said and what they would do now, but while Joliffe turned over his thoughts, considering where to start, Vaughn said, "I heard someone besides the duke of York being talked of among Sir Thomas' men in the hurry at Kenilworth. Sir William Oldhall."