2 The Servant's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  Montfort waved dismissively. “Ah, yes, Tibby. She’d lie in God’s face for the sake of the player’s pretty face, I’ve no doubt, so her word is no use at all.”

  Frevisse wanted information and forebore to argue with him, asking instead, “He was seen going into the church? By whom?”

  “The dead boy’s mother. That stringy bit of a woman—” Montfort waved his hand vaguely, unable to remember her name. “So scared of talking to me, I thought she’d puddle in front of my eyes, but she spoke her piece. Came, in fact, of her own will to tell me. That was enough to settle it.”

  “I heard him say he wasn’t in the priory the afternoon Sister Fiacre died,” Frevisse dared to point out.

  “He’s said the same to me, but he’s a liar, all players are. That’s their trade. He was seen going toward the church, and probably hid in there, waiting his chance. When he saw her there alone, he took it.”

  “Why?”

  “For vengeance on her brother!” Master Montfort let his impatience show.

  “And his reason for following Sym home and killing him?”

  “They’d been in a fight, and by all accounts Sym was a bad-tempered brute. The player was afraid Sym would come after him later, bringing half the village louts with him. Look what happened, in fact—they did come seeking him. They knew him for what he was. The matter is clear and simple. They’re a debased lot, these lordless player folk, worse than the worst of the villeins. Facts are facts and I think we’ve found our murderer.”

  “So except that you’re missing Gilbey Dunn, the matter is settled?”

  Montfort frowned. “Except that,” he agreed shortly. He glared at her, suddenly suspicious. “Did you have some purpose in coming here to see me, Dame?”

  “To ask if everything is satisfactory to your comfort here”—which was true, it was one of her tasks as hosteler— “and to ask if it would be possible for Joliffe to perform this evening with his company. They’re to do a play in the old guesthall.”

  “A play? Here?” Montfort was surprised.

  “We do our poor best to honor the season,” murmured Frevisse, surprised by his interest.

  “Well, I never expected such a thing in a place such as this!” Montfort’s enthusiasm lightened his face. He rubbed his hands with satisfaction. “A play, you say? Which one?”

  “I don’t know its name, but it’s about the Magi, the Three Kings.”

  “And, of course, you need three men for that. Well, there’s guards enough, I suppose. We could bar the gates to the courtyard, he could be escorted there, and then all the ways out guarded. It should be possible.” His expression sank back to its usual displeasure. “Let’s hope these players are better than they look to be. I know a good play when I see one.”

  Frevisse was nonplussed at this unexpected aspect of the crowner. Before she could collect her thoughts for a reply, a modest tapping came at the door.

  “Yes?” Montfort barked. Father Henry came in.

  Before he completed his bow to Master Montfort, she was standing in front of him. “Where have you been? I’ve needed to see you!”

  Her suddenness took both the priest and Montfort unprepared. Father Henry looked uncertainly toward Montfort, whose face was reddening, but Frevisse pressed on before he could interrupt, “Were you out rabbiting yesterday? After you’d been to the village, did you go out rabbiting?”

  Father Henry flushed his hearty pink of embarrassment and fumbled, “Yes. A little while. I wasn’t gone long.”

  “Did you see anyone while you were out? Did anyone see you? Or your dog? Where is your dog? What does he look like?”

  Father Henry gaped, mentally stumbling over so many questions, then caught up the last one and said, “He’s not very tall.” The priest dropped the flat of his palm a little below knee level. “Rough coated, white with tan spots. Not a blood dog,” he hastened to assure Montfort. “Naught like that. Just a mixed breed, with enough hound in him that he’ll course small game. Hal the miller keeps him for me and since I was already out there yesterday…”

  “And a fine rabbit you brought home for Domina Edith’s New Year’s treat and no harm done,” Frevisse said encouragingly. “But did you see anyone while you were out? Anyone in the fields?”

  “Oh, aye. One of the player folk. The fair-haired one. I didn’t hail him. I don’t have much time for players, and this one, well, he’s a bit… more like a girl than a man.” Father Henry shrugged his own manly shoulders and flushed a little more. “And maybe a bit soft?” He tapped his forehead. “Walking alone, he was, talking to himself, gesturing like a friar preaching a sermon, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying.”

  “But he didn’t see you?” Montfort was interested despite himself.

  The priest’s blush deepened. “I was lying low in a thicket just then, not wanting to be seen. He saw Trey, though. My dog. Is that what this is about? My hunting? Is Domina Edith unhappy with me?”

  “You are in no trouble,” Frevisse assured him. “When was it you saw him, and where?”

  “Over by Long Hill, near the ford at the end of the meadow.”

  “How far from here is that, walking time?”

  He thought on it hard before answering, “A full half hour at the fastest walk if you come through the village. Longer if you come around.”

  Joliffe, who was seeking solitude, did not come through the village or someone would have seen him.

  “And how long before Vespers was that?”

  Father Henry rolled his eyes to die ceiling, considering. “An hour maybe? By the sun it was maybe an hour.”

  “And you’re sure it was that particular player?” Montfort demanded.

  Father Henry nodded solidly, pleased to be sure of something. “There’s no doubting him. The one who dresses like a woman in his acting.”

  Frevisse turned to Montfort. “But Meg said she saw Joliffe going toward the church three-quarters of an hour before Vespers, by the sun. Even if Joliffe came through the village he couldn’t have reached here by then.”

  “So she was mistaken. He did the murder before he went out wandering the fields,” Montfort said. “Yes, and that’s why he went out alone. To say prayers, to think on penitence, to—”

  “She was not mistaken in her time of seeing him, she showed me with her fingers how low the sun was. And it isn’t possible Sister Fiacre was murdered earlier. She would have been discovered—by Meg herself, if not one of us.”

  “So the woman was mistaken? Whom did she see instead?”

  “I don’t think there’s anyone else here at the priory who looks very much like that fellow,” offered Father Henry.

  “By any reckoning, Joliffe is cleared of Sister Fiacre’s death.” Frevisse pressed her point.

  Montfort, frowning at the floor, said sullenly, “Seemingly. But that doesn’t mean he and his fellows are not guilty of some lawbreaking. They are not ill-thought-of for nothing, you know.”

  Frevisse let that pass and said instead, “Meanwhile there’s still Gilbey Dunn to consider.”

  “Ah, him. The trouble is, what reason would he be having for killing a nun?”‘

  Nearly Frevisse brought out Domina Edith’s thought that maybe there were two murderers, or a single madman, but Montfort suddenly smacked his hands together with great satisfaction. “Unless of course there was something between this Gilbey Dunn and Sister Fiacre that we don’t know of yet!”

  Father Henry’s blankly astonished face was doubtless the mirror of Frevisse’s own at the wholly improbable thought of Sister Fiacre and Gilbey Dunn finding common ground.

  But Montfort, too pleased with his idea to bother noticing their reactions, went on, “Yes! There’s the path I have to take! That’s the man I need to talk to!” He almost smiled at Frevisse. “Doubtless you’re right, Gilbey Dunn is guilty of doing away with an obstacle to his gain, to wit, Sym. And now, it appears, he’s taken his murderous ways into this holy place.” His pleasure turned sour. “But this is no busines
s of yours. You stay out of my way, or I shall complain of you to your mistress.”

  This encouraged Frevisse not to mention Annie Lauder’s story of Gilbey’s whereabouts that night. She bowed her head humbly and eased toward the door. “As you will. But at least there’ll be no need to guard the player tonight. He can be set free now, can’t he?”

  Despite her seeming humility, Montfort read something that made him send a glare that should have blistered her. But then he shook it off and over his shoulder he snapped at his clerk, “See to his release. Now if you’ll be good enough, Father, to take this interfering woman away so I may get on with my work?”

  With Father Henry panting behind her she hurried from the chamber and out of the guesthall. In the yard she paused, meaning to thank the priest for his timely appearance.

  But he was still full of their recent experience. Grinning with embarrassment and hilarity, he said, “Sister Fiacre and Gilbey Dunn? How can he think that?”

  Frevisse shook her head. “I don’t know how he thinks anything.”

  “And if it wasn’t the player Meg saw going to the church, who was it?”

  Frevisse thought, pressing her fingers to her eyelids. In the cold of the courtyard, her head had begun to ache. “One of the other players in a wig perhaps? But why? Unless a conspiracy—no, then Joliffe would surely have made a point of being seen wandering so far from the church at the time.”

  “The only other person as fair as Joliffe is Hewe.”

  “But Hewe’s a child, nowhere near as tall as Joliffe. Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Meg saw Hewe, perhaps. And knew that if she saw him, another might. Better to say she saw a tall, fair-haired man like Joliffe going to the church than say she saw her son. So that another witness, saying he saw Hewe, or at least a fair-haired boy, could be contradicted by Meg. Because a mother should know her own son, and saying it was a man she saw might confuse things enough to protect her son.”

  Father Henry looked confused already.

  She would talk to Hewe. Had he in fact gone into the church?

  Father Henry said, “Meg was angry with Joliffe, for hurting Sym in the alehouse.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” That, too, may have entered into this lying business. A great many facts perhaps did or did not enter into this business. Too many. She wanted the truth. “Did you talk to Gilbey Dunn and learn what he was doing when Sym was killed?”

  Looking, as always, a little surprised at any sudden change of conversational direction, Father Henry shook his head. “I couldn’t find him at his croft this morning, nor anywhere. He’s not been seen around the village since yesterday early.”

  So it was true, Gilbey Dunn had disappeared. Unease stirred in Frevisse’s mind, but Father Henry went on, “But about that night, some of the men say he was at the alehouse for a while but went out sometime, they couldn’t say when. I know he wasn’t there when I came in but that’s all anyone knows. And I couldn’t find him to ask. Should I tell Master Montfort all of that?”

  “If he sends for you. If you go to him from me, he may say I am interfering again.” She walked away and did not see the appreciative grin Father Henry aimed at her back.

  Her turn to keep watch by Sister Fiacre’s body with Sister Emma came soon after that. She was not sorry for an excuse to stay away from the guesthalls and everyone else for die rest of the afternoon, and made a fairly competent job of losing herself in praying for Sister Fiacre’s soul and that of her murderer, who was surely in greater need of prayers than his victim.

  She was somewhat quieter in her mind when time came for Vespers and she was released.

  She asked and was given permission to leave supper early, to go be sure that all was ready for the play before Domina Edith and the others came. The day’s early dark was gathering in as she crossed the yard, and the cold deepening with it. Frevisse hurried past two menservants struggling to carry Domina Edith’s second-best chair toward the guesthall. She must see to a chair for Montfort’s comfort, too. It would be better to keep him as unoffended as possible just now.

  Inside the guesthall everything was ready. A few of the priory’s servants had slipped away early from their tasks and were standing along one wall, eyeing the players’ curtains and talking cheerfully among themselves. They fell silent when she came in but she merely nodded to them and surveyed the hall, ignoring them, and they went back to their talking. The lanterns were waiting to be lighted on either side of the playing area. In the shadowy hall all sign of the players’ belongings were gone except for their curtained poles. The players themselves were nowhere to be seen, but sounds of them came from behind the curtain and, satisfied that everything was ready, Frevisse turned to direct the men where to set Domina Edith’s chair, sent them to the new guesthall to fetch one for the crowner, told another servant to light the candles, and decided to go herself to tell Montfort in courtesy that Domina Edith would be coming soon.

  He received the message with satisfaction. “Good. Good. A fit diversion for the holidays and certainly not expected here. I’ll come directly.”

  The nuns were just coming out the cloister door as she returned to the yard. Domina Edith, deeply wrapped in furred cloaks and supported on either side by Sister Lucy and Dame Claire, walked at their head, her slow pace setting their own. As inconspicuously as possible, Frevisse slipped into her place in the double line and entered with the rest.

  The priory servants were all gathered there now, drawn back along the walls to leave the nearest places for the nuns. While Sister Lucy and Dame Claire settled Domina Edith into her chair at the edge of the playing area, Frevisse had time to notice Roger Naylor standing to one side. Beside him was a small, dark-haired woman. Her hands and his were resting on the shoulders of two small girls and a slightly older sturdy young boy standing in front of them. His family, Frevisse thought, and realized that while she had seen the children around the priory, she had never connected them with Naylor before.

  Then Montfort and his men arrived, the crowner striding forward to make a perfunctory bow to Domina Edith and take his place in his chair to her right. While his men faded to one side, apart from the priory people, he leaned over to make some sort of comment to Domina Edith, who nodded and murmured something back before they both straightened in their chairs and were still.

  The pause then was disturbed only by a few whispers from along the walls and the rustle of reeds under shifting feet, before a small flute began to play behind the curtain, so softly it was at first barely heard. But the listeners gradually hushed, and its music strengthened into a soft weave of melody sweet and clear in the hall’s quiet. Except for the music’s movement everything was still and waiting in the candles’ gold light until from behind the curtain a silver-shining star rose with slow majesty into view, held in Piers’s small hand, followed by Piers himself. But he was no longer Piers. In place of the small, grinning boy was a serene, winged, shining Angel who gazed out at the gathered folk, the star lifted above him with one hand, his other hand—Frevisse suspected—holding to the cross pole of the stage for his balance atop the stacked packing baskets that had let him mount to Heaven. But the practicalities left her as Piers began to sing, “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus… .”his voice so clear and piercingly sweet it might indeed have been coming from somewhere above the world.

  The hall was utterly hushed now, everyone rapt beyond movement, held by the angelic vision. For just the length of a short-drawn breath when the song had ended, the Angel gazed out upon his audience in the shimmering silence, and then said in a clear, carrying voice, “Wise Magi, know that He is born. God is made Man on this holy morn. He wills that at Bethlehem you go see the holy Child that sets Man free. Come this way, go see Him now. It is God’s will you should to Him bow.”

  Around one end of the curtain Thomas Bassett appeared in his guise as the First King, looking as splendid as if his gown were truly blue silk embroidered in every color and lined with
ermine instead of painted linen lined with rabbit, and the gems in his painted crown were not glass. He carried a golden box in his hands, and in his rich, rolling voice declared to the audience, “Now blessed be God of His sweet Son! For yonder a fair, bright star I see. Now is He come to us among, as the prophet said that it should be. He said there should a Babe be born to save mankind that was forlorn. He grant me grace, by yonder star, that I may come unto that place, to worship before His holy face.”

  He struck a pose as if searching for something in the far distance, and Ellis strode from around the curtain, gowned in somber gray, black, and silver, bearing a box painted blood red and penitential purple. He looked around, unhappy and nervous, and declared, “Out of my way I fear I am, for signs of my country can I none see. Now, God, that on earth made Man, send me some knowledge of where I be!” He turned and saw the star still held aloft in Piers’s steady hand and exclaimed happily, “There it shines! A fair, bright star above I see, sure sign God’s Son shall set Man free. To worship that Child is my intent. Surely for such was God’s sign sent.” Turning to go, he saw the First King and added, “What is this I see this blessed day? Another King upon his way. Hark, comely King! I you pray, whither do you journey this fair day?”

  “To seek a Child is my intent. The time is come, now is He sent, by yonder star here may you see.”

  “Then, pray you, let us ride together through this fair and frosty weather.”

  As Ellis went to stand by Bassett, Joliffe as the Third King came from behind the curtain. He wore a short cotehardie of a rich purple that showed off his fair coloring to perfection, and hose of deep green close fitted to his long legs. He carried a purse that clinked suggestively and his head seemed to carry the crown on it as naturally as if he had been born to it. His voice, higher and clearer than either Bassett’s or Ellis’s, seemed as golden as the candlelight. “I ride wandering in ways wide. Now, King of all Kings, send me such guide that I may go where I would be, to kneel at Your throne and Your glory see.”

  In his turn he saw the star, exclaimed at it and, turning to go, saw the other Kings and joined them. In unison, to the audience, they then said, “To almighty God now pray we that His precious person we may see.”