Novice’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  “Was she still sleeping?”

  “Yes. But she awoke a short while later.”

  “How was she then?”

  “Quiet. A little confused but in her right wits and apparently recovering.”

  “But she did not recover, did she?”

  Frevisse had the double urge to smack the self-pleased condescension off his face and to verbally rip his illogic to shreds. She smothered the first desire but said astringently, not tempering her contempt, “She was better. Weak still, but coherent and recovering, I was several minutes out of the room, hearing nothing from her, before she began the screaming again with no warning at all. We found her thrashing and incoherent, in pain and struggling to breathe. It was poison, not her heart or temper that killed her and you will never bring Dame Claire or me to say otherwise.”

  Montfort’s florid face turned more red as she talked, and darker red before she had finished. The suffusing color seemed to stop his words, even when she had sharply ended. The clerk’s scratching pen trailed off to silence for lack of anything to write; then Montfort shifted his feet on the floor and said, but this time with almost no conviction, “You are not fit to judge.”

  “Perhaps not,” she replied. “But you cannot make a lie of what I know to be true.”

  Montfort glared at her but said nothing. Unable to hold a stare without words to back it, he whirled toward his clerk. “From here on, be sure to take down everything these women say. They want the truth, they’ll have it, and convict themselves with their own words.”

  He swung on Thomasine. “So what were you doing all night in your aunt’s room? Just answer what I ask you. Don’t go adding matters. What did you do?”

  Thomasine did not lift her head. Toward the floor she said, “I prayed.”

  “That’s all you did?”

  “My lady aunt was sleeping. My great-aunt. By marriage. She was sleeping and so I prayed.”

  “And when she awoke?”

  “I told her I had prayed for her.” Thomasine looked up. On this at least she was confident. “I wanted her to know my prayers were worth more to her than any worldly marriage could be.”

  “And what did she say?”

  Thomasine looked down again. Her voice was barely audible. “She insisted she would have me out of here.”

  “And you were angry with her. And afraid. Your sister said so.”

  “No. Not then. She couldn’t take me anywhere, weak as she was. I didn’t have to be afraid of her. I fed her and helped her drink her wine and hoped she would sleep again.”

  “But when Dame Frevisse left you alone with her, she worked herself into a temper nonetheless.”

  He said it with flat determination, meaning her to accept

  it-

  Thomasine shook her head. “No. She was in no more temper than was usual to her. Not even really angry. Only determined she was going to leave. She sent me out to fetch her women.”

  “Out? You left her?”

  “For only a moment. I looked back—”

  “It doesn’t matter for how long,” he interrupted impatiently. “What you’re saying is that when you left your aunt, she was in no fit.”

  Thomasine nodded her head wordlessly, her eyes fixed on his face.

  “You’re saying she was fine when you left the room. And that then, when you weren’t there, she began the screaming and all the rest.”

  Thomasine nodded again.

  Montfort stared at her discontentedly, then turned his attention to Frevisse. “Is that what you say, too?”

  “I heard nothing from Lady Ermentrude after I left the room until Thomasine was standing beside me. She started to say something but Lady Ermentrude began to scream and we all went in to her.”

  “Who do you mean by ‘all’? Be precise.”

  Frevisse answered levelly, “Dame Claire, Thomasine, myself. One of Lady Ermentrude’s women named Maryon. Have you spoken to her?”

  “Of course I have. Go on. Anyone else?”

  “Robert Fenner was with us. Father Henry came a few minutes later, in time to give her last rites.”

  “But Sir John and his lady were not there.”

  “I thought it better they not be, since seeing them had so angered her before.”

  “So you told them to stay out. You take a great deal on yourself, Dame.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Perhaps I do.”

  She left it there for him to make of her reply what he • would. But there came a hard rap on the door, and his attention immediately shifted.

  “Come,” he barked.

  The lean man who entered was beyond doubting a Fenner, with Lady Ermentrude’s height and arrogant nose. He was wide across the shoulders and his fair hair was cropped close. He was richly dressed in a buff linen houppelande, with a jeweled belt low on his hips. The garment’s yard-wide sleeves were gathered at his wrists and slit from below the elbow nearly to the shoulder, to show the sky-bright cotehardie underneath. The cotehardie’s blue matched his hose and shoes and the long liripipe of his hat. It was an easy guess, from his looks, his manner, and Montfort’s sudden, deflated, respectful bow, that he was Sir Walter, Lady Ermentrude’s older son.

  Frevisse, sinking quickly in a deep curtsey, could not read in his face what he was actually feeling, even when she straightened to look fully at him. Not looking at them at all, he briskly acknowledged her curtsey, and Thomasine’s, as well as the clerk’s quick rising and bow at the table. His attention was all for Montfort, and he cut over the crowner’s fumbled greeting with “We must needs talk. Are you nearly finished with these?”

  “Quite finished, my lord. Done just as you were entering, Sir Walter.” Montfort flicked his hand dismissively at Frevisse and Thomasine. “You may go. You were satisfactory. You may go.”

  More than merely willing, Frevisse collected Thomasine by the arm and hasted her out of the room, leaving the door for someone else to close.

  Chapter 9

  Outside the doorway, they nearly collided with young Robert Fenner, who fell back, his eyes going to Thomasine. “I pray you pardon me, my ladies,” he said.

  Apparently Thomasine was no longer afraid of this particular male. She murmured it was no matter and shifted a little, as if she would continue going toward the outer door. But Frevisse held her where she was and said to Robert, “Do you know if word is out about Lady Ermentrude’s death?”

  “There’s talk beginning. Montfort is known for quick decisions, but hasn’t made one yet for this. People are starting to wonder, and once that starts it will spread like mold in damp bread.” He nodded at the door behind her. “Sir Walter has only just come but he’s even quicker to move than Montfort. If he believes the rumors about poison, he’ll press Montfort into doing something as fast as may be. If Montfort resists, there will be as fine a display of temper as this place has ever seen. He has that other matter to hand, so he will be doubly anxious not to linger over this one.”

  “Other—You mean his uncle’s dying? But surely…”

  “A cousin. Lord Fenner. He’s rich three times over, and Sir Walter is his heir. The title is Sir Walter’s for certain but he wants to be sure there’s no ill-written will sharing the wealth with others. He’s been at Lord Fenner’s sickbed this month past, and the talk has been that nothing short of Judgment Day could pull him away. But now his mother’s dead of a sudden, so here he is. Not that Lord Fenner will be making any wills in his absence; he’s taking his time about dying and won’t make a will until the bishop himself has assured him there is absolutely no way he can carry any of it away with him beyond the grave. Still, Sir Walter will be eager to get back. He’s a careful man and doesn’t like leaving things to chance.”

  “Or being kept from what he wants.”

  “No. Best warn your prioress there is going to be hell to pay until his mother’s death is settled.” He looked at Thomasine and paused. This time Frevisse noted that Thomasine did not flinch from his look. More gently than he had been speaking to Fr
evisse, he said, “We are kin of sorts, my lady. Did you know that?”

  “No,” she said softly. Her gaze dropped, but then returned to his face. “How?”

  “I’m one of Lady Ermentrude’s rather too many great-nephews. So by marriage at least we’re cousins.”

  Thomasine hesitated, then yielded to a worldly impulse and asked, “What will you do now that Lady Ermentrude is dead? Will you go into Sir Walter’s household?”

  Robert made a small shrug. “Most likely, since I have to go somewhere.”

  “And after all, it will be familiar,” Frevisse said. “He’s very like his mother, I suspect.”

  Robert’s dryness matched her own. “You suspect rightly, my lady.” He turned serious again. “I would suggest your lady abbess see to keeping everyone as close in as may be. The fewer people Sir Walter has to strike at when he knows the truth, the better. Pray pardon me, I have tasks to finish.”

  He moved away as Sir John and Lady Isobel approached. They seemed not to notice him at all as Lady Isobel closed on Thomasine and folded her in her arms, exclaiming, “Poor girl! How tired you look! All this has been too much for you. Haven’t they left you alone today? That dreadful crowner, with his stupid questions, has he been frightening you? Can’t they see how weary you are?”

  Thomasine began removing herself gently from her sister’s hold. “I’m well enough. It will pass,” she murmured.

  “You look none so well yourself, Sir John,” Frevisse said. To her eye he looked gray and a little drawn.

  “The toothache,” he said. He nursed his jaw a little with one hand. “It comes and goes. That wretched mountebank said he had cured it, and he was gone with our good silver pence before we discovered he hadn’t. All that smoke and seethe and froth, and now the pain’s come back again.” He glanced uneasily around to see that no one was near them, and said, low-voiced, “You know what’s being said about her death?”

  Frevisse indicated with a small movement of her head that she thought it best they move away from the door behind her. Its thickness was sufficient to mute but not muffle Sir Walter’s voice.

  Sir John flinched slightly, and moved away toward the hall’s outer door, the other three following.

  “Is it true, what’s being said?” Lady Isobel asked. “That she was… was… poisoned?” Her cheeks’ soft cream reddened at the word.

  “Yes. Beyond all doubting,” Frevisse said.

  “But why? By whom?” . “That’s what Master Montfort is trying to determine. Will determine very shortly, I trust.”

  “But how can he be so very certain it was… poison?”

  “Because of all the signs of it on her. And because Martha Hayward died the same. There’s no doubting there was something in her food or wine that killed her, and Martha, too.”

  “Not in the wine, surely,” Lady Isobel protested. “We brought it. There was nothing wrong with it. We brought two bottles, and the twin of the one I gave to Dame Claire I poured out for John myself. And you drank it, didn’t you, my heart, trying to ease your tooth?”

  Sir John blinked, then said, “Yes, and there’s naught wrong with me.” But he looked alarmed and seemed to take a swift internal inventory. Not yet were the next words off his tongue, Frevisse thought, but he curbed them as Lady Isobel said, “So it must have been in her food. Who prepared it?”

  “Thomasine,” Frevisse said. “The poison may have been added to one or the other after both the wine and food were in her room.”

  They had reached the end of the hall now. For a moment there were no servants or anyone else near them and Frevisse asked, “How long were you with your aunt last night?”

  “All the first watch,” Lady Isobel answered readily. “Then one of her women came in, Maryon, I believe, and I went to bed. It had been a wearying day.”

  “Sir John, were you there at all, after Martha Hay ward’s death?”

  “Only to ask if more wine was needed. Dame Claire said there was some left and it would do.” His jaw was obviously aching and the words came stiffly.

  “So the bottle was there then. Did you take it away, then or later?”

  “No. But does it matter? Obviously it was emptied and taken away.”

  “I don’t know what matters at present. But it is odd that it has disappeared and no one seems to know who took it or to where.”

  “I remember seeing it,” Lady Isobel said. “It was there on the table, and I could see there was perhaps a third of the wine still left.” She gave her husband a tender look. “I thought to take it for John. His tooth is like to trouble him after such a day as we had had and I thought he might need its comfort.” Her hand reached sideways, feeling for his.

  Their fingers intertwined affectionately. “But instead I opened the second bottle.”

  “And it worked. After Isobel came with it, I slept far better.” He seemed to imply that it was as much her tender concern as the wine that helped.

  Frevisse smiled despite herself. They looked hardly older than Thomasine, standing there hand in hand like young lovers instead of a long-married couple. The bell for Compline began to ring. “My thanks,” Frevisse said. “I ask your pardon for troubling you. Now, pray, excuse us both. We’re needed elsewhere, by your leave.” At their mutual nods, she began to leave, drawing Thomasine with her, then on a thought turned back to say, “You should ask Dame Claire for something to ease your tooth. She surely has something better than your peddler’s frothing potion.”

  And Lady Isobel replied, “That’s a kindly given thought. I’ll do so.”

  The next day was overcast at sunrise, still dry to please the harvesters but heavy with a warmth that promised to be rain later. Frevisse, moving among the necessities of nearly four score people, with their food and comfort and tempers all needing seeing to, and Thomasine silent behind her, felt a building tension as palpable as the day’s heavy warmth. No open talk that the deaths had been murders had reached her yet, but an unease was there, and an awareness that Master Montfort was going on asking questions past when he should have stopped.

  Near mid-moming she managed a quiet word with Robert, wondering how far rumor might have grown. He shook his head and said, “Sir Walter is in a temper. That bodes ill.” His gaze, as usual, went past her to Thomasine. He seemed about to say something else, then thought better of it, bowed, and went about his business.

  A little after that Frevisse overtook the woman Maryon. Seeing her go down the passage to the garderobe at the rear of the guest hall, she waited at its end, knowing there was no other way to leave. She was aware of Thomasine curious beside her but said nothing.

  Maryon, returning, drew to a sharp stop as she saw Frevisse. Wariness froze her pretty face for an instant, before she smiled and came forward. “You startled me, standing there so still and waiting. You have need of me?”

  “Only to ask you about Lady Ermentrude’s last day and night.”

  Maryon made a graceful gesture. “As you wish.” Her smooth, dark hair was swept neatly back from her high, white forehead. Her large gray eyes and small, red, shapely mouth were solemn but not taut with any grieving Frevisse could see.

  “How long were you with her that night?”

  “All the second watch. Lady Isobel was with her the first watch and Maudelyn with her after me. Lady Thomasine was with her all night, I think.”

  Thomasine nodded. Frevisse, already knowing that, paid no attention.

  “Did you leave her at all? Or did anyone else come in?”

  “No one came. That’s the black depths of the night then. Everyone was decently sleeping, I think. And I never left the room. I slept awhile. Much of the while, most likely. But I would have roused if she had had need of me.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  “She slept soundly, she did, poor lady.”

  Frevisse turned the possibilities around in her mind, forgetting she was staring at Thomasine until the girl shifted uneasily. More than once Thomasine had seemed so deep in prayer that she was
unaware of anything around her. Frevisse faced Maryon again. “You’ve been helpful. Thank you.”

  Maryon nodded, began to leave, then paused. “You know Master Montfort is asking the same questions, my lady? He’s asking everyone, to be sure who was there, and when.”

  “I know,” said Frevisse. “And it might be well if he doesn’t know that I’m doing it, too.”

  Maryon regarded her with bright, considering eyes. “Yes, my lady,” she agreed.

  Only as she started away did Frevisse think of something else. “What have you done with the monkey, Maryon? I don’t know when I last saw it.”

  “It’s been gone since Lady Ermentrude died. Or maybe before. So much was happening, I wasn’t paying heed who had it instead of me.”