12 The Bastard's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  And when he did, he was going to be sorry, Frevisse thought, but she only asked, “Did he say why he’d kept the man unknown?”

  Alice’s voice and face closed over some hurt so inward that it was past anger. “He didn’t. Even when I asked. He didn’t say anything at all. He just walked away.”

  ‘You know Gloucester’s men are all being arrested?“

  ‘Yes. Has Arteys been taken, do you know?“

  ‘He was among the first, I think,“ Frevisse said quietly. ”Can you find out what’s to be done with him, with them?“

  ‘From what I hear, they’re being sent to a number of places, to be held until matters are ’sorted out.‘ I think Suffolk and the others are using them to show there was reason for Gloucester’s arrest. They’ll be held a time, then they’ll be freed. There won’t be a trial or even investigation worth the name.“

  ‘There won’t be?“

  ‘How could they risk something that might show there was no treason? There wasn’t, was there? So they won’t dare bring any of them to trial.“

  That made good sense. Frevisse wished she believed that Suffolk had good sense, but there was no point in saying so and Alice, drawing a sharp, deep breath, was shifted to brisk business, saying, “You’ll want to be away to St. Frideswide’s as soon as may be, now you have your grants safe. If you can be ready by midday, I’ve given order for some of our men to go with you then. You can be a goodly number of miles on your way before dark.” Tears were suddenly in the way of her smile as she held out a hand to Frevisse. “I shall miss you.”

  Her own smile as unsuccessful, Frevisse took her hand and said all the things that should be said for courtesy’s sake and not the thing they both knew—that she was being sent away as deliberately as young John had been, for her own good and to have her out of the way. There being no point to objecting, she did not but asked, because she had to, “Alice, do you want to know why it mattered for Arteys see the body?”

  Alice’s hold on her hand tightened. “No. I know I said I wanted the truth but now I don’t. I can’t. Not if I’m to go on.” A moment longer she stood looking into Frevisse’s face before, with her tears beginning to slide free, she let go and turned away, with nothing Frevisse could do but let her go.

  Chapter 24

  When she and Dame Perpetua rode into St. Frideswide’s yard at the end of a few days’ easy journey, there were glad cries and then much talk. Even removed as the nunnery was into northern Oxfordshire, they had had some tangled word of the duke of Gloucester’s arrest but nothing after that and there had to be much telling of things seen and heard, with Dame Perpetua all too often saying, “But Dame Frevisse saw more than I did,” and questions turned her way. That meant several drawn-out days of balancing along a line of what she could truthfully tell among all the things she must not say, until finally the questions and talk wore out and the nunnery’s familiar quiet and familiar days closed around her.

  They should have been like balm to a hurt and, a little, they were, but the hurt did not heal. She had her duties again, and the welcome hours of prayer and all the usual small troubles and small pleasures of ten women sharing cloistered life, but behind it all, under it all, around it all, there was the waiting, just as she had known and dreaded there would be.

  She had thought it would be as much as a few weeks of waiting, but the weeks went on through all of Lent, past Easter, past the end of spring, into summer. From such travelers as came their way and servants’ talk brought back from Banbury, there was word of Gloucester’s body carried in barren procession to St. Alban’s abbey in Hertfordshire for its burial, of Parliament’s uneventful end, of Bishop Beaufort of Winchester’s death in April, with of course talk of how he and his life-long rival Gloucester had come at the end to die so nearly together. A packman on his way from London told there was a general rumbling there against the marquis of Suffolk, both over Gloucester’s death and the way the French truce was going, but everything that came as far as St. Frideswide’s was thinned and made uncertain by distance, with nothing about Gloucester’s arrested men beyond a passing mention that some had been freed, uncharged and untried.

  Waiting became a hollowness in Frevisse, so familiar after a time that she hardly knew how she had felt before it. Midsummer came with its hot days and the haying was done and sheep shearing finished before finally word came and even then it told her nothing, was not even directly to her. In a letter to Domina Elisabeth, Alice asked that Frevisse be allowed to come to her in London, not bothering with a reason, simply asking it, knowing Domina Elisabeth would not refuse. She had even sent two men with the messenger for escort, and the next morning Frevisse rode out with them and Sister Amicia, who could barely believe her good fortune at Domina Elisabeth having chosen her to go not only out into the world but to London.

  Sister Amicia would not have been Frevisse’s first choice but her talk and exclaims and—after their first two days of riding—complaints at being stiff and sore kept a little at bay Frevisse’s worries and wondering about why Alice had summoned her; and at night when her thoughts might have closed in on her, the weariness of having ridden from first light until long into dusk drew her quickly down into almost dreamless sleep. That the men were pressing hard to be back to London was clear but no questions Frevisse asked brought answer why, nor did they talk much among themselves for her to overhear, until finally—not understanding but accepting it—she stopped asking anything of them.

  They came in sight of London in the fourth day’s midafternoon. Frevisse made them draw rein on Hampstead hill and wait while Sister Amicia, silenced at last, stared her fill across the fields at the city stretched along the broad Thames, its several scores of church spires needled toward the clear sky above the dark crowd of roofs, with the great spire of St. Paul’s thrusting highest of all, gold glinting at its point, while ship masts forested the river and away to the right Westminster Abbey rose like a cream-pale cliff against the distant Surrey hills.

  Even for those used to seeing it, it was a sight worth looking at, and only when Sister Amicia caught up to her wonder and began to exclaim again did Frevisse nod at the men to ride on. They did, down from the hills into the valley, with Frevisse obliged to tell Sister Amicia that they would not be going into London yet. Sister Amicia protested that and Frevisse left it to one of the men to explain, “We’re for Holborn, my lady. Or nigh St. Giles-in-the-Fields out Holborn way. That’s where my lord of Suffolk has his place.”

  ‘But London!“ Sister Amicia wailed.

  ‘We’ll likely have chance to see it before we leave,“ Frevisse said, careful to make that a hope, not a promise, then padded it with telling what little she knew about lately built Suffolk Place.

  Like everywhere near London, the village around St. Giles-in-the-Fields church had grown since Frevisse had last been there. Suffolk was not the only lord to have come to where St. Martin’s Lane on its way north crossed the ways to Reading and Uxbridge out of London, near both to the city and the king’s court at Westminster but without the crowded streets and overbuilt Strand along the Thames. Their halls and houses gleamed with newness among the fields, their gardens spread around and behind them. Frevisse knew Suffolk Place by the blue banner with its gold leopard heads lifting on the afternoon’s slight breeze above the gateway even before they turned from the road to ride into the broad, cobbled yard enclosed on two sides by walls, on a third by a low run of buildings, on the fourth by the great hall with a roof-tall, stone-traceried oriel window thrust out from its side into the yard.

  While Sister Amicia exclaimed at the sight of it all, the ungracious thought crossed Frevisse’s mind that Suffolk had clearly built to match his own opinion of his importance.

  At the foot of the broad, roofed stairway up to the hall’s stone-arched doorway their escort gave her and Sister Amicia over to the liveried servant who descended to meet them. The man even took their two small bags to carry and said when he had led them up the stairs and into the wide scree
ns passage, “I’d see you to your room first and send to tell my lady you’re here, but she’s given order…”

  ‘… that she would see her cousin as soon as she arrives,“ said Joliffe, coming out of the great hall into their way. Frevisse’s eyes were still half-blinded in the shadowed passage after the bright out-of-doors but she knew his voice as he went lightly, easily on, ”If you want to see this other good lady to their room, I’ll see Dame Frevisse to Lady Alice, if you like.“

  Despite Sister Amicia dithered a little at parting from her, Frevisse sent her on her way without pity or compunction; but as the servant led Sister Amicia off, Joliffe gave no chance for questions, only bowed briefly and started away, leaving Frevisse to follow him into the great hall where servants were setting up the tables for supper. In the better light there she saw, though hardly believed, that he was in the Suffolk livery of buff and blue, which gave her to hard, silent wondering as they left the hall, passed through several rooms, down other stairs, and through another door to outside again, onto a graveled walkway bordered by a low green hedge with gardens lying beyond it. They looked to be as perfect and new as the house, laid out with patterned beds and paths, trellised and arbored and with a fountain’s soft sound from somewhere. Ignoring all that, Frevisse demanded at Joliffe’s back, “What are you doing here? Who are you now?”

  Joliffe turned around, wholly feigned innocence on his face. “My lady? I’m Master Noreys, of course, here because I’m master of pastimes to my lord and lady of Suffolk.”

  ‘Bishop Beaufort is dead.“

  ‘He is indeed, leaving me in need of honest work. Hence, here I am.“

  ‘Why haven’t you sent me some word of what’s happened?“

  Joliffe’s lightness instantly disappeared. “Because there hasn’t been word to send until now, and now it’s bad enough that Lady Alice needed you to be here and quickly.”

  He turned and started away again into the gardens. Frevisse followed, asking, “Does she know about you?”

  Joliffe looked back. “She knows enough. Bishop Beaufort recommended me to her.”

  ‘And Suffolk? Does he know?“

  ‘No.“

  She was not used to so little laughter in him and asked, more sharply than she meant, “And now? What’s happened that Alice wants me here?”

  ‘Better that she tell you.“

  He turned through a gap in a high, square-clipped yew hedge into the small garden it enclosed, a square of greensward dotted with tiny white daisies in the grass around the double-tiered, stone-built fountain Frevisse had been hearing. Three ladies were seated with their sewing there on a turf-topped brick bench while a fourth, on a cushion on the grass, played lightly on a lute. They all paused to greet Master Noreys by name, smiling, and he bowed to them with a polite, “My fair ladies,” that for some reason set them giggling as he led Frevisse across the garden to the head-high brick wall that made its far side and through the gateway there into a yet smaller garden, enclosed all around by the wall, its grass likewise starred with daisies, with a turf-topped brick bench along one side. But here there was trellis-work lightly covered by young vines on three sides and a climbing pink rose on the fourth and Alice was seated on the bench, gowned in green as summer-rich as the close-trimmed grass, with only the lightest of white veils over a small, jeweled, padded roll to cover her hair.

  With a book open on her lap, she looked perfectly the gracious, wealthy lady at repose, but by the spasmed way she shut and laid the book aside, Frevisse doubted she had been anything like at repose or even reading, and while Joliffe closed the gate, she came to take Frevisse tightly by both hands, saying, “You’ve come. Thank St. Anne,” and drew to the bench to sit down without letting go of her. “It was a good ride? Everything went well? You’re well? Did Dame Perpetua come with you again?”

  The questions were all what the moment called for but they came in a rush, driven rather than given, and Frevisse, taking back her hands, answered steadily that the ride had gone well, that she was well, that Sister Amicia—“whom I think you’ve never met”—had come with her, not Dame Perpetua.

  Joliffe had followed them across the grass. Not invited to sit, he stood beside them and Frevisse could feel his waiting, as taut as Alice’s graciousness, and she asked, going to the point, “What’s the matter? Why have you sent for me?”

  Alice looked up at Joliffe. “You didn’t say anything?”

  He made her a slight bow. “I thought it was for you to do, my lady.”

  Alice looked back to her. “You’ve heard nothing? Not anything?”

  ‘Nothing about anything,“ Frevisse said. ”Not from“— she cast a glance at Joliffe—”Master Noreys. Not from your men while we rode together.“

  Alice looked down at her hands gripping each other in her lap. “I told them they weren’t to say anything. I never thought they’d hold so well to it.” She lifted her eyes to Frevisse, took a deep, unsteady breath, and said, “I sent for you because I was afraid of what Suffolk was going to do. Now he’s done it. He’s going to murder five men tomorrow, including Gloucester’s son.”

  For a long moment Frevisse sat utterly still, until with rigid effort she could hold her voice level before she asked, “Where? How?”

  ‘At Tyburn. They’re to be executed. As traitors.“

  Meaning they would be hung by the neck until insensible but not dead, then be taken down, brought conscious, and gutted—sliced open by the executioner’s knife and their entrails lifted out—alive long enough to know what was being done to them before they died in pain, ugliness, stench, and blood.

  Sickened, Frevisse was barely able to breathe to ask, “How… did this happen?”

  Alice turned her gaze helplessly to Joliffe who said, “Yesterday Suffolk, in the king’s name, sat in judgment on them as traitors complicit in Gloucester’s alleged plot against the king. The lawyers pretended to trade arguments. The accused were found guilty and sentenced to death.”

  ‘On what proof?“

  ‘Proof?“ Joliffe returned, as if dismayed at the thought of it. ”Suffolk named the charge against them, was their judge, and gave the sentence. What did proof have to do with it?“

  Alice softly moaned. Frevisse pressed a hand over hers without looking away from Joliffe and asked, “Who besides Arteys is to die?”

  ‘Two of Gloucester’s knights and two of his squires, all arrested at Bury.“

  ‘The others that were arrested there?“

  ‘Quietly let go.“

  ‘Then might there be mercy for Arteys and the others?“ she asked and followed Joliffe’s gaze as he shifted it to Alice, who whispered, ”No.“

  ‘Suffolk needs them guilty,“ Joliffe said. ”There’s been constant outcry and talk against him ever since Gloucester’s death, especially here in London. People refuse to believe Gloucester was a traitor. They say he was murdered and that it was Suffolk’s doing. Suffolk means to show he’s in the right by claiming that Gloucester was treasonous because, look, five of his men are going to die for it.“

  Frevisse turned her look to Alice, wanting her denial.

  ‘Yes,“ said Alice. ”I think that’s what he’s thinking.“

  ‘But I think he also wants, more particularly, to be rid of Arteys, who—besides being of royal blood and don’t think that doesn’t enter into Suffolk’s consideration—knows too much,“ Joliffe said. At Frevisse’s glance at Alice, he added, ”She knows. Bishop Peacock told her.“

  That was who was missing in this. “Where is he? Hasn’t he been able to do anything?” Though what, she did not know.

  As if it were a particularly bitter jest, Joliffe answered, “Our good bishop is in disgrace for a sermon he shouldn’t have preached at St. Paul’s Cross”—London’s most public place for sermons and other speaking out— “and has been sent to his bishopric in Wales to think things over. Or at least wait out the outrage.”

  ‘What did he preach that could bring on all that?“

  ‘About ot
her bishops and some points of theology he wanted to make clear. Unfortunately, he made them clear enough for people to be angry about it and the archbishop suggested he should leave for a time. Hence, he’s not here.“

  ‘Even if he was, he couldn’t help,“ Alice said. ”Suffolk means for Arteys to be dead to keep him from ever telling about the murder attempt.“

  “Why didn’t Arteys tell it at the trial?” Frevisse asked. “What was there to lose then?”

  ‘Tell what?“ Joliffe asked back. ”That he’d killed a man who was trying to kill Gloucester? There’s the dead man to prove Arteys killed him, but where’s proof the man tried to kill Gloucester? We believe Arteys because we tracked down some proofs to what he said, but do you think Suffolk would ever allow those proofs? He’d deny everything and Arteys would be left with a confession of murder and die for that if not the other.“

  ‘But—“

  ‘Personally,“ Joliffe went on, ”rather than be dishonestly killed for something I’d done, I’d rather go to the gallows honestly declaring I was innocent of what I was being executed for.“ In the same level voice he added, ”We’ve been trading letters with Bishop Pecock, though. It’s useful to be the lady of Suffolk with messengers to send to bishops and for nuns.“

  ‘And because Bishop Pecock can’t come, you’ve brought me instead?“ Frevisse asked sharply. ”For what? To be here when Arteys is killed?“

  ‘No.“ Joliffe met her anger quietly. ”To stop him being killed. Him and the others.“

  ‘How?“ She turned on Alice. ”Just how am I supposed to do that? If anyone can change Suffolk’s mind, it would be you.“

  Alice moved her head stiffly from side to side, denying that. “He won’t hear me. He won’t heed me. There’s been far more trouble than he thought there’d be for Gloucester’s death. Far more anger than he expected and all of it at him. He’s…” She paused over the word, then said it. “… frightened.”