They were words apt for Martyn, because in whatever way it had happened between him and Lionel, there must have been at least a moment between disbelief that it was happening at all and death itself for Martyn to be afraid— time for his body’s fear as the blow was struck and time for his soul’s fear when he realized he was dying. Not long, not with a wound like that across his throat, but time enough. Time for fear and hopefully time for what needed to pass through a man’s mind to help his soul toward salvation.
She was too deep into prayer to notice when others came into the chapel, until Master Holt said, “My lady.”
She looked up to find he had brought half a dozen men with him—a few squires and some of the household gentlemen—to see everything there was to see about the body and the place so they could be witnesses at the inquest the crowner would hold when he came. And Lionel’s cousin Giles was with them.
He had circled well aside from the others, to where he had a clearer view of the body and the blood. Frevisse took only a glimpse at him, but that was enough for her to want no more. If she had thought about it beforehand, she would not have expected any grief from him for Martyn’s death. His dislike of Martyn had been too marked. But that he should so clearly let his gloating show…
Avoiding looking at him again, she rose to her feet, for the first time thinking beyond the present fact of Martyn’s death to what it was going to mean to everyone of whose lives he had been part. Plainly Master Giles was ahead of her there, as well he might be, being Lionel’s heir, but she did not think she wanted to know his thoughts.
“Lady Lovell has asked you come to her, if it please you,” Master Holt said. “There’s nothing more for you to do here.”
He held out a hand to help her rise and Frevisse took it. There was nothing else to be done here that could not be done as well or better by others, nor had she any particular desire to stay. “Where is she?”
“In her parlor. The other nun is with her.”
“And Father Henry?”
“I think he’s still with Master Knyvet.”
“In Sire Benedict’s room?”
“He’s been moved to somewhere more secure. For now,” Master Holt said in a limiting voice, answering her and telling her she had asked enough.
She accepted that. He had more to deal with than a nun’s questions, and she could guess the rest without him saying it: Lionel was locked away and would be kept locked away until matters were a little more in hand and he could be turned over to the sheriff.
Frevisse slightly bowed her head to him in thanks and left.
The antechamber was empty except for two uneasy men there as some sort of guard against the idly curious coming back.
“Is it bad in there, my lady?” one of them asked her, with a jerk of his head toward the chapel door.
Frevisse nearly said tartly that that depended on how bad you found death and blood, but she caught the thought back before it became words. The man was no more than as curious as she would have been. “It’s bad,” she said quietly and went on, down the stairs to the parlor.
Chapter 12
At the foot of the stairs from the chapel, the door to the Knyvets’ chamber stood partly open. Frevisse had glimpse of a scattering of clothes over the open edge of a traveling trunk that showed there had been haste in dressing, and somewhere inside, out of sight, a woman was crying. While she tried to guess whether it was Edeyn or not, she turned aside to the parlor door where one of Lady Lovell’s women hurriedly opened it and made gesture for her to enter.
Her question about Edeyn was answered as she did, for Lady Lovell and Dame Claire were standing at the room’s center and Edeyn was with them, the white dog Fidelitas in her arms and her voice rising, “… couldn’t have, never would have! Not to Martyn. Not to anyone.”
“We know he didn’t,” Dame Claire said, meaning to soothe. “The demon when it took him—”
“It doesn’t take him that way! It never has!”
“This time it did,” Lady Lovell said, all the brightness that had seemed essentially part of her gone from face and voice. There was no place for brightness in what had happened; but the strength that had underlain it was to the fore now, and the kindness. But it was a kindness of the sort that would not yield the reality of fact, even to ease pain as great as Edeyn’s. “Look you, Edeyn, Dame Frevisse is come. Let her tell us what she saw.”
Edeyn’s expression as she swung around on Frevisse was a mixture of challenge and despair, and both were in her voice as she demanded, “What more is there beyond what Dame Claire already told us? What else is there to know if you don’t believe me?”
Calm with the assurance of authority, Lady Lovell answered evenly, “I prefer a belief built on facts, not feelings. We’ve heard Dame Claire. Now I want to hear Dame Frevisse. Later I’ll hear Sire Benedict and the other priest, and Master Holt when he’s seen to all that needs seeing to.”
“But you won’t hear me!” Edeyn cried.
“I’ve heard you. And I’ll hear more if you have more to tell, the way I’ll hear everyone who has anything to say to the purpose about it before I’m done.” Because in her husband’s absence the matter was hers to deal with until the crowner, the royal officer summoned in any matter of unnatural death, could come. She was bound by law to do it, and the more that she could tell him, the less trouble he would have in reaching a decision over the cause of death and what should be done because of it.
And the sooner that was done, Frevisse thought, and everything understood, the sooner Edeyn could begin to accept it. In the meanwhile facts faced now would be kinder to her than her raw emotions.
The same thought was maybe in Lady Lovell’s mind as she laid a hand on Edeyn’s arm and said in gentle command, “Edeyn, just listen.”
Edeyn held momentarily rigid in face and body, near to refusing anything asked of her with an anger and a grief and a strength of stubbornness Frevisse had not suspected in her.
But defiance was too unfamiliar to her, obedience too usual, and with an angry gasp that was halfway to tears, she gave way, sank down on the cushioned bench, and pressed her face against Fidelitas’ neck like a small child forced to endure something she would rather escape.
Lady Lovell turned her gaze to Frevisse and said with the simple expectation of being obeyed, “My lady, tell us what you saw.”
Frevisse bent her head in acceptance of the request and acknowledgment of Lady Lovell’s right to ask it, then steadily, with as little emotion as possible, told what she had seen in the chapel, from encountering Father Henry in the doorway and his first words through to leaving Martyn’s body to Master Holt. Though she kept her gaze on Lady Lovell while she talked, she was aware of Edeyn while she did, aware that she sat without movement or sound, her arms tight around Fidelitas, her face hidden. Nor did she look up when Frevisse had finished.
Lady Lovell said sadly, “That’s as Dame Claire told it, and I expect no different from Sire Benedict and your priest will say. The dagger beside Lionel’s hand, was it surely Martyn’s dagger?”
“I don’t know for certain, only that it was there and Martyn’s sheath was empty,” Frevisse answered.
“Someone will be able to identify it, surely and for certain, but there’s no great doubt, is there? Edeyn, do you see how it must have been?”
Her face still hidden against Fidelitas, Edeyn nodded.
“And I can tell you for certain it is Martyn’s dagger,” Giles said from the doorway. The door had not been quite closed, and he had stood there long enough to hear what the nun had had to say before he nudged it wider to see there were only women there. The woman who was probably supposed to have seen it shut and kept that way was turned away from it, listening as hard as the rest of them to every detail the nun had to tell.
So much for any claim that women were more tender than men.
He had chosen his moment to speak and enjoyed the startled turn of heads and even more the way Edeyn looked up, gasped with relief, and put
the bitch aside to rise and come to him, wanting his arms for comfort. He took her willingly, held her close, and said over her head to the others, “There’s no doubt it’s Martyn’s dagger. I saw it myself just now.”
“And Lionel’s dagger?” Lady Lovell asked. “It wasn’t drawn at all?”
“Lionel never went armed when he knew one of his attacks was coming,” Giles said. “He knew it wasn’t safe.”
Edeyn drew a little away from him. “But it wasn’t because anyone was afraid he’d use it, only that if he fell on it, he’d likely be hurt. He has to be kept from falling against things, on things, when the fit takes him. He never hurts anyone.”
“Edeyn,” Giles said, still holding her close, “this time he did. Martyn is dead.”
He felt her flinch from that and tightened his hold on her, saying with a tenderness he almost felt, “Gently, dear heart, gently. Remember the baby. That’s who you have to care about now. And yourself. Martyn is dead. Lionel killed him. That’s something we have to live with from now forward.”
Edeyn made a small twisting movement, as if to pull free, but he kept her close to him and whispered, “The baby, Edeyn. Think of our child.”
She subsided, leaning her head against his shoulder before asking in a hushed voice, “What will happen to him?”
Meaning it less for her than for Lady Lovell, Giles said, “You have to understand that it wasn’t simply murder. Lionel was out of his right wits when he killed Martyn, and so things are better than they might be.”
“Better!” Edeyn said resentfully, refusing the thought.
“If it had been plain murder, everything Lionel owns would be forfeit to the king. But he wasn’t sane and so everything will be kept in ward against the chance he comes into his right mind again.”
He glanced at Lady Lovell to see how much of that she had understood, but Edeyn cut off any answer the woman might have made with, “But he is in his right mind again! Always when the attack ends, he’s himself again!” She twisted around in his arms to make her plea to Lady Lovell. “Is that what the law says? That if he recovers from madness, then he’s free?”
“But he isn’t recovered!” Giles said sharply, jerking her back to face him. He had not expected her to understand it easily, but her blind focus on Lionel was beginning to anger him. “He’ll never be recovered. His demon can come on him again anytime. He’ll never be free of it, and so long as he isn’t, he’s dangerous!”
“He’s not!”
“Edeyn,” Lady Lovell said with something more than gentleness, demanding to be listened to, “your husband has the right of it.”
Giles kept the surge of triumph from his face. If the woman had that much of the law in her head, then he was well on toward the next step of what he meant to make out of Martyn’s death. Gentle again, he said, “Edeyn, love, you have to understand what’s possible and what isn’t.” He looked pleadingly toward Lady Lovell. “Help me make her see.”
As he had hoped, Lady Lovell came to take Edeyn from him, to lead her away to the cushioned bench and sit beside her while she explained, “Edeyn, we know it wasn’t Lionel who killed Martyn. Not in the strictest sense. No one believes Lionel had any will to Martyn’s death. His demon had him when it happened, surely. But he did strike the blow. It came from his hand.” Her hold on Edeyn’s hand tightened. “No, listen to me. He won’t be executed for it, but he can’t ever be free while the likelihood of it happening again is still with him.”
“And it’s going to be with him always,” Edeyn said. “So he’ll be locked away for always, for something he never did. That isn’t fair.”
“No more than Martyn’s death is fair,” Lady Lovell returned. “There’s no fairness in this anywhere. All we can do is keep the bad from being worse.”
Edeyn opened her mouth to make some other calf-brained protest, and Giles, needing nothing from her now except to listen to Lady Lovell, cut in with, “There’s more fairness than it maybe seems. Martyn Gravesend was a bad-mouthed oaf who didn’t know his place. Lionel has been too weak to be rid of him, so his demon did it for him. It’s something Martyn has had coming to him for a long while, one way or another, and I’m not the only one who knows it.”
Edeyn turned toward him with a disbelief that might almost be rousing to actual anger—stupid woman—but he met her gaze and she had wit enough to read his expression rightly because she subsided. Lady Lovell, unnoticing, went on, “We’ll make it as right as we can. In all likelihood Giles will be given ward of the Knyvet lands. That would be the straightest way, since Giles is heir in fact. My lord will have say when it comes to it and will surely go that way. So your child’s inheritance is safe. There’s that to hold to.”
Edeyn, her head now bowed, moved a hand uncertainly, then laid it over her belly tentatively, protectively. Giles, taking advantage of the moment, went to her, knelt down, and laid his hand over hers as he said, “Our son will make everything right. You see? In the long run of things it will all be well.”
Not lifting her head, Edeyn whispered, “But not now. And never for Lionel.”
“For Lionel, too,” Giles said, tenderly because this was going exactly as he wanted it to. “As well as we can make it. He’ll have to be kept somewhere, guarded, because he can’t be left loose anymore.”
Edeyn trembled, making a better fight against tears than he had thought was in her, but insisted, “It isn’t right. He isn’t dangerous.”
God, but she could be ignorant! Forcing himself to go on with the tenderness, Giles said, “But he is dangerous. Go see Martyn’s body if you can’t believe it otherwise.” She sobbed outright at that, her resistance finally breaking down, and he pressed on, “Dear heart, we protected him for as long as we could. Now the only thing left is to ask for me to be given keeping of him as well as of his lands. That will be best all around. He’ll still be confined, he has to be confined, but we’ll see to him better than anyone else would, more kindly than anyone else would.”
Edeyn raised her head, looking to Lady Lovell with the beginning of hope. “Would that be possible? Would that be allowed?”
“Very likely,” Lady Lovell said. “I’ll urge my lord to it, surely.”
Giles bowed his head to her in token of gratitude for the favor and kept a smile from his face while he did. They were making it all so beautifully easy for him, the fools. Even the few lies he had had to tell were so safe he hardly had to think twice about them. Martyn’s death was so obviously Lionel’s doing that even if Lord Lovell had been here, there would have been little trouble to it; and since as it stood he had only women to deal with, there was virtually no trouble at all except the necessity to bring the last pieces fully around his way. Let Edeyn finish with her stupid misery and weeping and there could be no more trouble in the matter except for what the law would make in the next few days, and then they could go home, with everything finally his, all his to manage as he wanted. Including Lionel.
Satisfied with Edeyn’s help, unwitting though it had been, he gave her hand and belly a brisk pat and rose to his feet, taking her hands to draw her up to him. His arm around her waist, he said, “You should come rest awhile, dear heart. Lie down a little. For your sake and the child’s.” He could leave her there to her maidservant and she could weep herself dry and be done with it.
But even as she gave way to him, leaned against him in that soft way he found best about her, she was protesting, “Someone should go see how Lionel does. He’s surely hurting. I could—”
“You could not!” Giles said, more harshly than he meant to but, God damn her, when was she going to grasp that Lionel was a murderer, unsafe, best left to rot wherever he had been put?
The tight circle of his arm kept Edeyn where she was as she stiffened in an attempt to pull away, and before he had to make his hold more tight than that, the taller of the two nuns said, “If you like, I can go to him, see how he does, and tell you of him.”
Edeyn gave way in Giles’ hold, saying gratefully, “Would
you? That would be so good of you. You’ll do it now?”
The nun bowed her head in an agreeing nod. Over Edeyn’s head Giles thanked her, too. Gore-driven curiosity and the chance to talk about it afterward were probably her real reasons for the offer, but she was welcome to indulge herself as far as he was concerned, so long as she served to keep Edeyn quiet. Gently again, because he had his way, he urged Edeyn toward the door, saying for everyone else’s benefit, “Now, come, love. It’s going to be well. I promise you. Come.”
Edeyn finally, even quietly, let him lead her out.
Chapter 13
Frevisse could not recall the last time she had strongly had urge to slap someone’s arrogant face, but Giles’ barely concealed, contemptuous belief that he had to make things simple and plain for the poor women to understand him made her arm ache to do it. Was Edeyn really so great a fool that she could tolerate him? Or did the unalterable fact of marriage force her to a self-preserving blindness?
Or was the fault in Frevisse herself, that she found Giles’ insolence so intolerable?
She had, she knew, a low tolerance of fools. “Judge not, that you be not judged” was a behest she had too often failed to follow. Through penance she had lessened the problem over the years but had lost much of her gain since Domina Alys had become prioress. And now she was falling into it yet again, judging Giles for his shallow sympathy at his cousin’s plight and his unfeeling for Martyn’s death which were simply a part of him, like the color of his hair or the set of his eyes, something he could not help and something on which she should not judge him.
But he nonetheless scraped on her like a nail across stone and it was relief to have him gone.
She curtsied to Lady Lovell and said, “By your leave, I’ll do as I promised Mistress Knyvet now.”
Lady Lovell nodded agreement with only partial attention. Worry was drawn in around her eyes, her face tightened with unhappy thought. “He’s right about Lionel,” she said. “He can never be free again. And yet most of the time he’ll be utterly sane and aware of what’s happened to him, of what he’s done.”
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