The Apostate's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  “Pease pottage with ham, and in a while there’ll be a bit of onion in it, too,” Ela said. “Master Rowcliffe talked with me, thank you much for that. He’s already sent a man off to Banbury, so we don’t need to eye everything we put into the pot with a question as to whether there’ll be anything left for tomorrow and who knows how many days. Besides that, Father Henry brought in two conies, and Luce is going to make a cony pie for tomorrow.”

  All of that made for one less trouble off Frevisse’s mind, leaving only the greater ones, and she asked first, “How does Mistress Lawsell?”

  “Last heard, she was demanding that Abbot Gilberd talk to her. He’s promised he’ll do so after Vespers. That didn’t make her happy. Doubt he’s looking forward to it. What’s toward with Domina Elisabeth? Is she so taken up with the whore’s trouble, she’s no heed to give to the Lawsells and be done with them? She’s ill, is she?”

  Frevisse found answer to that came more slowly than she liked. Only after a pause did she say, “She’s not had Dame Claire to see her. That’s all I know of it.”

  “Hm,” said Ela.

  Before Ela could ask more, Frevisse went quickly to the question that had brought her here, saying, “I need you to tell me who from the cloister has been in here since Easter.”

  “Here? In the kitchen? Malde has come twice or so to help since the abbot came with all his folk.”

  “I mean in the hall itself, too. Anyone anywhere around here.”

  Ela gave her a narrow look but did not ask any of the questions probably crossing her mind, just answered after a moment’s thought, “You. Dame Claire. Dame Johane.” Ela paused in more thought. “That’s all.” Then she added, “Tom’s sister. Not in the hall. Here. Didn’t come in, though. Was just there at the door.” Ela nodded toward the kitchen’s door to the yard.

  “Tom’s sister?” Frevisse echoed blankly.

  “From the cloister. Rabbity. Might find herself cooked into a pie one of these days, she’s so rabbity.”

  “Alson,” said Frevisse.

  “That’s her name. Tom’s sister.”

  “But she didn’t come in.”

  “Nay. Some evenings, when work’s done, they go out for a time together. Then there’s been those that came with Master Breredon and the Rowcliffes and the abbot, too. They’ve, one and another, been in and out of here to fetch this and that.”

  “Thank you,” Frevisse said. She could see Ela readying to ask her own questions now but gave her no time for them, simply stood up and left, taking unhappy thoughts with her.

  Returning to the cloister, she went again to the church for somewhere to think. Dame Thomasine was kneeling in front of the altar, undisturbed by Frevisse’s coming, nor did her presence trouble Frevisse as she settled into her choir stall and to her thoughts.

  It was nine years since Cecely had fled from St. Frideswide’s. There had been the alarm of her disappearance and the search for her, then the report to the abbot and the following descent on the nunnery of officers from Abbot Gilberd and the bishop asking questions of the nuns and everyone else, and prying into every part of the nunnery’s life for sign of other trouble either present or possibly to come. Even after all of that was over, the nuns were left with penances and an enforced heart-searching among themselves for what had or had not been done to keep Sister Cecely safe. The problems brought on by her flight had seemed as if they would go on forever, but they had finally ended, were long past and gone.

  The memories of them were not.

  Neglected until brought back by Cecely’s return, but not gone.

  Alson.

  Alson then. Alson now.

  Poor, foolish Alson.

  Nine years ago she had admitted, with frightened weeping, her part in Cecely’s flight, had admitted she took Cecely’s place in the kitchen so Cecely could meet a man but sworn, still weeping, that she had not known Cecely meant to run away. She had wept and denied and sworn, and been believed. She had been told she was a fool but been forgiven and, out of pity, not been dismissed when well she might have been.

  Surely, with that behind her, she was not fool enough to have been drawn into some new trouble at Cecely’s asking.

  Surely she was not.

  But—Alson then and Alson now.

  Alson a link between the guesthall kitchen and the cloister, with a brother who could come at food and drink with no one thinking twice about it.

  Frevisse was thankful when the bell rang for Nones.

  Domina Elisabeth came again, which was surely a good sign; but Mistress Lawsell did, too, and stood close beyond the rood screen, glaring, impossible to ignore. The sooner the problem of her and her daughter was settled, the better, Frevisse thought, then tried to turn her mind away to the Office, only to find, as she had feared, no respite in it, and at its end she finally, fully faced that time for thinking was ended.

  Given what she suspected, time was come for something to be done.

  After all, if she suspected correctly, she might herself be the next one poisoned.

  Chapter 27

  The day that in the morning had been half clouds, half fair, was now, in the late afternoon, gone all to clouds. A glooming gray twilight filled the church, deepening to thick shadows in the far corners of nave and choir. Only the altar existed in light, haloed by a dozen bright-burning candles on tall stands behind and beside it, with four candles in their gleaming brass-gold holders standing on the altar itself, sheening the gold and scarlet of the letter filling half the page of the missal standing open there and flickering gold from Abbot Gilberd’s long-cuffed, gold-embroidered glove as he moved his free hand in benediction over the nuns gathered before him in this hour before Vespers. In his other hand he held his abbatial crozier, the foot of the staff set firm against the stone step of the altar, the carved, curved top rising above his head.

  All of the nuns but not their prioress were there, a cluster to either side of him, hands folded into their opposite sleeves, heads bowed, seeming in their black gowns a deepening of the church’s shadows save for the white of their faces and wimples.

  Abbot Gilberd ended his deep intoning of the Latin words and lowered his hand. The nuns did not stir, but now Domina Elisabeth and Father Henry, equally dressed in black, came forward from the far end of the choir stalls into the light, a frightened-eyed Alson between them.

  She had been given chance to take off her kitchen-apron and wash her hands and face, but that was all. Nor, if Domina Elisabeth and Father Henry had done as Frevisse suggested, had she been told why she had been taken from the kitchen and brought here. She had to know she was in some manner of trouble. How much she guessed was impossible to tell, but by the way she sank to her knees when Domina Elisabeth and Father Henry stopped in front of Abbot Gilberd at the foot of the altar steps and let her go, her legs must have only barely been holding her up until then; and when Abbot Gilberd said grimly, “Alson Pye,” she made a soft moan and crouched lower on the stone step.

  “Alson Pye, look at me.”

  Alson whimpered and lifted her head, her shoulders still huddled, her fear naked on her face.

  Standing with the other nuns, Frevisse felt pity for her and, unreasonably, regret for having brought her to this. Or maybe it was simply regret that the whole miserable matter was come to this—to terrifying a poor woman who had not had sense enough to keep out of it.

  But this had seemed the most direct way to an end of it all.

  Cecely had not known Symond Hewet knew her secret when she came back here. If she had, she would never have come, no matter what she lied about it now. So she had learned it after she came here. How? Not from Abbot Gilberd. To be certain of that, Frevisse had asked Domina Elisabeth, who had said the matter had not come up in his questioning of her.

  Then it had to have come from someone else, and the only time that Frevisse knew for a certainty Symond’s part in it all had been said aloud for anyone to hear had been in the guesthall after the Rowcliffes came. And when she set to
remembering who had been there to hear it besides the Rowcliffes and herself, there had been Tom Pye. Tom who talked sometimes with his sister Alson. Alson who sometimes sat for guard outside Cecely’s door with no one to know what was said between them then. Alson who had had part in Cecely’s flight nine years ago.

  Frevisse had been stopped by the gap between those pieces and how Cecely could have persuaded Alson to set Tom on to poisoning two men. She had already settled in her own mind why Cecely would want them poisoned. Master Breredon was so the Rowcliffes would be accused and, at the least, be sent away. Symond Hewet was for plain revenge. What had slowed her in untangling it all was that she had kept looking for the sense behind it all, when there was no sense. Or not sufficient sense. And that was Cecely, who seemed to have so little common sense behind almost everything she did. How else could she have come to the thought that poisoning two men was a reasonable thing to do?

  Yet poisoning them had made sense enough to Alson and her brother, too, because it had to have been Alson who took something from the infirmary, and Tom who put whatever it was into the two men’s food or drink. Frevisse could see no other way of it.

  Why Alson and Tom should be such fools still escaped her. That could only be found out by bringing them to confess.

  The trouble there was that, when accused, they would both, surely, deny it all, and there was no proof to hold up in front of them, to force them to the truth.

  Besides that, nine years ago Alson had convinced them all, with her weeping and denials, that she was innocent of knowing Cecely meant to escape. Frevisse now very much doubted her innocence, and if Alson had lied so well then, she might lie equally well now. And so there was this gathering in the church, and Abbot Gilberd in Father Henry’s white and gold Paschal cope standing on the altar step, towering over Alson as he demanded at her, deep-voiced with authority, “Alson Pye, do you believe in the salvation of your soul?”

  Alson’s head trembled in a desperate nod.

  “Alson Pye, do you believe in the damnation of your soul?”

  Alson froze, then trembled another nod.

  “Then rise, Alson Pye,” Abbot Gilberd ordered. “Come forward, up these steps, and lay your hand on God’s consecrated altar.”

  When Alson did not immediately rise—maybe gone too weak with fear to do it—Father Henry took her by one arm and gently raised her to her feet, and when even then she stayed rooted where she was, he urged her forward, lifting as much as guiding her up the two steps to the altar. There she slid from Father Henry’s hold onto her knees again and huddled forward, her head deeply bowed, her arms clutched against herself, her clenched hands pressed between her breasts.

  “Woman,” Abbot Gilberd ordered, “lay your hand on the altar.”

  Alson gave a shuddering sob and huddled lower.

  “Father Henry,” Abbot Gilberd ordered, and Father Henry bent over her, pried her right arm away from her, and stretched it out to the altar. Her arm was rigid and resisting, and her hand stayed clenched. Father Henry bent close and whispered something to her until, still unwilling but finally obedient, she opened her hand and laid it, trembling, against the front of the altar cloth, another sob shuddering through her.

  Above her Abbot Gilberd said, “Now I will ask you certain questions, woman, and as you hope for your soul’s salvation rather than the flames of eternal Hell, you will answer me truly. Do you understand?”

  With a whimpering sob, Alson nodded that she did.

  “First, have you, in these last few days past, talked with the woman called Sister Cecely?”

  Alson managed, faintly, “Yes.”

  “Has she asked you to do things, and have you done those things she asked of you?”

  Alson began to whimper.

  “Have you?” Abbot Gilbert demanded.

  Alson whispered, “Yes.”

  “What were those things she asked of you, that you then did?”

  Alson’s whimpers turned to outright sobs. Through them, she cried, “To take medicines from Dame Claire!” The last of her will crumbled. Still sobbing, she wailed, “She wanted me to steal one of the strong potions. But they’re in little bottles and little boxes. Dame Claire would know if I took any of those. So I took other things, bits of this and that. Just a little, little bit of some of the herbs she keeps on the highest shelf. Strong ones but not the worst ones. Not the worst ones like she wanted me to! I’m sorry!” Overwhelmed by her sobs, she grabbed her hand away from the altar and covered her face with both.

  With no sign of pity, Abbot Gilbert ordered at Father Henry, “Her hand.”

  Father Henry took Alson’s right hand again, dragged it back, and pressed it to the altar again, and held it there. Sternly, Abbot Gilberd demanded down at her, “What did you do with what you took?”

  “Nothing!” But even Alson knew the foolishness of saying that, and before Abbot Gilberd could challenge her, she gulped and gasped, “I put some in that man’s…those men’s food. I did that.”

  “We know for a truth you were never near those men’s food,” Abbot Gilberd said. “This is your soul we’re trying to save, woman. Who helped you?”

  Alson broke into full sobs again and tried to twist her hand free of Father Henry. Abbot Gilberd bent, placed his own right hand over both of theirs, and pushed them hard against the altar. Very near her ear now, he demanded again, “Who, woman?”

  Alson froze, staring fixedly at the back of the abbot’s glove, its gold embroidery glinting in the candlelight.

  “Who, Alson?” Father Henry said gently. “You have to tell. For his sake as well as yours.”

  Alson moaned, then gasped out, “Tom. My brother. I talked him into doing it. God forgive me. God forgive us.”

  Abbot Gilberd freed her and straightened. “We pray he may.”

  Father Henry freed her, too, and she covered her face again and huddled completely down into a bow-backed heap on the altar step, brokenly sobbing.

  Frevisse looked at Domina Elisabeth. Now was time for the question to which Frevisse had prompted her. If she did not ask it, then Frevisse would, because it had to be asked; but Domina Elisabeth took a step toward the altar and said in a voice that matched the abbot’s in stern demand, “Alson, nine years ago, after Sister Cecely fled, you told us that she asked you to take her turn at kitchen duty that day without she told you anything else. You said you knew nothing of what she planned. Was that the truth?”

  Alson shook her head.

  “Speak out, woman,” Abbot Gilberd said. “Are you saying you lied then, too?”

  Alson straightened and swung around, still on her knees and fumbling for balance on the altar steps, trying to answer him and tell Domina Elisabeth at the same time, suddenly fierce the way a cornered animal was fierce when all hope was gone. “She said she was going to meet this man of hers in the orchard. She said he was leaving and this would be their only, last chance to be together. Just a little while, she said. Just a little while and nobody would know. That’s what she told me! Only then she never came back. And I thought how happy she was going to be and how much trouble I’d be in if I told I knew about the man. So I said I didn’t, and everyone was angry at me anyway, but not like you would have been if you’d known! Then she came back, and she said if I didn’t do what she asked of me, she’d tell how I’d known everything about her leaving, even though I didn’t. I swear I didn’t! Then you’d throw me out. So I did what she said to do. Only everything’s gone wrong!” she wailed with a freshened flow of tears.

  No one showed sign of being moved by her misery. Abbot Gilberd gestured toward one of his men waiting at the far end of the darkened nave. A moment later the west door opened, and a few moments after that two more of his men brought in Tom Pye.

  Alson, seeing her brother, gave a gulping sob, crouched lower on the altar step, and went very still, as if that might make her invisible. Tom, brought there under guard, had to know he was in some kind of trouble, and by his defiantly lifted chin and stiff face Frevi
sse guessed he had been maybe ready to out-face whatever it was; but when his guards brought him to a stop at the rood screen and he found himself confronted by abbot, priest, nuns, the candle-lighted altar, and—his eyes fell on her last—his sister kneeling there in abject, open misery, Frevisse saw all the defiance go out of him.

  “Oh, Alson,” he said.

  Briefly, sparing nothing, Abbot Gilberd told him everything to which his sister had confessed. Visibly wilting between his guards, Tom did not try to bold it out. Instead, he pointed at Alson and cried, “It was her doing! She said it would be a good thing. She said that if I didn’t do it, that woman would tell how Alson helped her run off. She said she’d lie about it, and then Alson would be in trouble again. I only did it because she told me to!”

  Adam, disgraced in the Garden of Eden, had made the same defense, Frevisse thought.

  It was not an excuse that had improved with age.

  Abbot Gilberd’s men took Alson and Tom away. Father Henry went with them while at Domina Elisabeth’s bidding the nuns moved to take their seats in the choir.

  Frevisse, for one, was more than willing to sit there in silent thought for the while until Vespers. What they had just done—what she had done—to Alson had left her shaken. Needed though it had been to have the truth, to have so deliberately torn a woman open, to have ruined her life and her brother’s…

  Domina Elisabeth, instead of stepping up into her own stall at the choir’s end, was stopped beside it, her head bowed, her brother beside her, his tall abbatial crozier still in one gloved hand, his other hand resting on her shoulder. One by one, all her nuns, not yet all into their places, stopped where they were, staring, until Abbot Gilberd said, “Be seated, dames.”