Novice’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  He was stirring himself to fury again. Frevisse felt her own temper rising in answer to it, and saw that Father Henry was reddening, tensing to say something or, worse, do something. Quickly she said, “Then you’ll have to tell us why one of us would do it, Sir Walter. Why would we want Lady Ermentrude dead when she’s given so much to St. Frideswide’s?”

  Triumphantly Sir Walter sprang at the point. “Because she was meaning to take your novice out of here! She was going to take the girl away—and with her would go her dowry. Surely something you’re not wanting to lose. A poor little place like this is always wanting money. You couldn’t afford to lose the only dowry likely to come your way for a while, so my mother had to die. But you’re going to lose more than the dowry now. There’s not a Fenner will give a penny to this place when the truth’s found out!”

  Domina Edith flung up one hand to silence Dame Claire and Frevisse together. “Stay!” she snapped at Father Henry, already moving toward Sir Walter, his hands flexing at his sides. The priest stopped, but Frevisse heard his teeth grinding together. Domina Edith, her eyes fixed on Sir Walter with a chill and withering look, pressed her hands down on the arms of her chair and raised herself slowly, remorselessly, to her feet. She was not tall, but her force of will reached out and held them all until she had drawn herself up straight. In a tone to match her look, but not raising her voice, she said, “If it were any business of yours to discover, you’d find St. Frideswide’s has no need to go begging to anyone, or be bankrupt by a lost dowry. Our house may be small but we are not poor nor beholden to anyone, and you may take your Fenner pennies and your temper with them, for you’ll not insult me and mine in my own nunnery. You are in sorrow and, by the Holy Rule, our guest for this time being, and will be treated so, no matter how we feel about it. But mind your tongue. Not even your mother in all her tempers ever presumed to speak to us as you have done. You have what answers we can give you here. Go back to the guest hall and leave us before even guest right and a knowledge of your grief aren’t enough to make me stomach you. And don’t come in my presence again unless you are on bended knee in sign of a contrite heart, asking my forgiveness. Go.”

  Sir Walter drew himself up, breathing heavily through his nose, his mouth working around things he wanted to say while his mind visibly canceled them short of words. At the last it was probably the fact he had had to face his mother all his life that kept him silent against Domina Edith, and furious but unable to do else, he jerked his shoulders in a travesty of a bow and flung himself out of the door. Less headlong, Robert followed him, with a roll of his“ eyes and a raising of his eyebrows at Frevisse as he passed her. Frevisse looked at his bruised cheek and twitched her head at Sir Walter’s back. Robert nodded, and was gone. She pushed the door shut after him and moved quickly to help Dame Claire ease Domina Edith back into her chair.

  The prioress seemed none the worse for her effort, only a little breathless, and still annoyed. “Worse manners than any Fenner, ever. And less sense. Half a mind would at least make up for lacking manners. A little.” Her hand closed on Frevisse’s wrist. “There’s going to be more trouble coming. We didn’t satisfy him and he won’t be stopped by what we’ve said. You’re hosteler and must go out of the cloister yet again. Can you face him?”

  “Yes, of course.” She had spent all her childhood managing other people being difficult; she had small qualms about facing either Sir Walter or Master Montfort.

  “That’s good. That’s very good. You can go then where you need to go, and ask what needs to be asked. Master Montfort will never find out everything, not now that Sir Walter has an answer that satisfies him. We can’t depend on either of them for the answers.”

  “Yes, Domina.”

  “And Dame Claire,” Domina Edith said.

  “Whatever you need, Domina.”

  “Think harder on the poison and who could have given it. Was there a particular reason for it to be nightshade? Who, having chosen it, would have it to hand? Did they choose it suddenly because it was there? Or did they plan aforetimes to have it? Think of all of it, both of you. Father Henry.”

  The priest came eagerly to stand in front of her.

  “Your prayers,” she said. His face showed his disappointment at so inactive a task, but Domina Edith said firmly, “Your prayers. As many of them as you can manage, that we be allowed to find out whatever truth there is in this. Because,” she added with a waspishness that must have been strong in her in her youth, however mellowed it had grown with age, “truth would have to stand up and bite Master Montfort before he’d recognize it. Go on now, all of you. I have a shameful need to sleep.” Her attention sharpened again. “Where’s Thomasine?”

  “I sent her to the church when I realized Sir Walter was with you,” Frevisse said.

  Domina Edith nodded, satisfied. “Let her stay there. She’ll do well not to be with you when you cross paths with Montfort or Sir Walter. Go on now.”

  They left her. At the foot of the stairs Father Henry went away toward the church, Dame Claire and Frevisse, of one accord, to the narrow slipe, where they could talk. But once there, they seemed out of things to say, and Frevisse wondered if the strain of the past two days showed as clearly on her as it did in the gray shadowing around Dame Claire’s eyes.

  Finally Dame Claire asked, “So what are we to do?”

  At least to that Frevisse had an answer. “We do again what we’ve been doing, asking again where everyone was and what everyone did. And we seek to speak to those we’ve missed, to learn what they remember about everything that’s happened. Someone had an urgent reason to have Lady Ermentrude dead, or they’d not have been so headlong about it, not after Martha’s death. It would be among those who wanted her dead to begin with.” Frevisse began to count off on her fingers. “Her son, Sir Walter, to inherit the money he feared she would spend before he got hold of it. Sir John and Isobel, with whom she rode off to quarrel and who came riding so fast after her when she left them. There’s the servants she keeps close about her, Maudelyn and Maryon.”

  “Why them?” interrupted Dame Claire.

  “I don’t know. But every time something happens Maryon is there, peering and- questioning. Except when I want to talk to her. Then she is not to be found.” She switched hands to tap her other thumb. “Robert Fenner.”

  “That nice young man?”

  “That nice young man began in Sir Walter’s household, moved suddenly to Lady Ermentrude’s, and now will go back. And it was after Sir Walter talked to him that Sir Walter began to suspect Thomasine.”

  “What about Thomasine?” Dame Claire’s tone was reluctant, sober. “We even have to consider it might have been her, if only to prove it was not.”

  Frevisse nodded, but said, “She might kill in fear, or panic, and surely she felt both when Lady Ermentrude seemed grimly determined to take her away, but her conscience would drive her into agonies afterwards. She’s the sort who does penance for spilling a bowl of soup.”

  Dame Claire smiled despite herself at the thought of Thomasine’s excesses. Then she sobered. “There’s Martha Hayward’s death to be remembered, too.”

  Frevisse shook her head. “It was most likely not meant at all. If by some terrible mistake Thomasine killed Martha, then that death would have shocked her back to her senses. She’d never have tried again.” She frowned. “Where did the poison come from? Is there any missing from your stock?”

  “No. That is, I don’t think so. I haven’t used any nightshade in some while, so I am not sure whether my supply of it is a little diminished or not. The jar does not appear disturbed.”

  “Which it probably would if Thomasine, who would have been in a great hurry, rushed in to steal some of it. What about some other poison? Was there anything in the stomach-ache potion for the monkey that could have killed a person?”

  “Nothing sufficient even to kill the monkey, let be a person. And nothing to bring on those agonies.”

  “So Lady Ermentrude came here drun
k and we fed her milksops that Thomasine fetched from the kitchen.” She tapped her right forefinger.

  “Yes,” nodded Dame Claire. “The feud between Dame Alys’s family and the Fenners. She has often said she’d like to take a hand in that quarrel.”

  “But we’re fairly certain it was the wine that had the poison, since the monkey is dead of it.”

  “Fairly certain, but not perfectly. Is it possible that the creature stopped to dip into the bowl of sops before rushing off with the bottle?”

  “I suppose. We had best learn who could have handled the food at any time, as well as the wine. How long does nightshade take to kill?”

  “Different times with different people and depending on how much and how fast they have it. Martha would have gulped most of the first goblet down at once, before Father Henry warned her it was medicine.”

  “And Lady Ermentrude only sipped at the other one again and again the morning that she died,” said Frevisse, remembering. Her face stiffened with another thought. “The first one—the one that Martha drank from— Thomasine dropped it. Lady Isobel tried to give it to her but she dropped it. She is not usually so clumsy.”

  The two women regarded each other soberly.

  “Presuming Lady Isobel would not deliberately try to poison her own sister…” Frevisse said after a moment.

  “Frevisse!” Dame Claire exclaimed. “That’s not even to be thought on!”

  “Everything has to be thought on. So let’s suppose Lady Isobel did mean to poison Thomasine.”

  “That would mean she poisoned Lady Ermentrude too. And for what reason? Why would she want them both dead?”

  “The wine was brought by her and her husband. And Lady Ermentrude was in a tearing rage at them, so bad they followed her here to try to settle it.”

  “They were worried she would come to harm on the road.”

  “I could be tempted to think they were more worried that she might say something about the quarrel,” Frevisse said grimly. “We don’t know why she was so angry. All they have said is that she wanted their marriage ended. I wonder why.”

  “They brought servants with them, and there were others with Lady Ermentrude. We’ll ask them what they know and heard. But there were others in reach of the wine after it was set out.”

  Frevisse closed her eyes, trying to remember who had been in Lady Ermentrude’s chamber anytime she knew of. “You and I were there. And Thomasine. And Father Henry.”

  “Now there’s nonsense,” Dame Claire protested. “He has no reason at all to want to kill anyone.”

  “We don’t know why Lady Ermentrude was killed. Not knowing, we can’t be sure he doesn’t have a reason from before he came here.” She smiled. “But it would be a passing strange reason, I should think. Now, Lady Isobel sat with her in the night. And the servants Maryon and Maudelyn. Sir John came at least once, I think. They all say no one else was there, but Lady Isobel and the two servants slept, and though Thomasine insists she was awake and praying the whole time, she might have dozed unknowingly.”

  “Or been so far into her prayers she was unaware of anything else.”

  Frevisse nodded agreement. “So there might have been others in and out and no way for us to learn of them except to go on asking. Will you come with me? Something that’s said may mean more to you than it does to me, or more to both of us if we’re both there to hear it.”

  “Assuredly. Where first?”

  Frevisse smiled wryly. “To Dame Alys, since we’re so near the kitchen.”

  The kitchen still seethed with purposeful movement. The ox was browning on its spit, and the baked cakes were cooling on a side table; the smell of baking bread was rich in the air. Dame Alys was in heavy talk with one of Lady Ermentrude’s servants near the door. Frevisse> pausing to draw her attention, was aware that the low-voiced running talk all through the kitchen had stopped on their entry, and that faces turning toward them were bright with nervous excitement. Somehow word must have come to them that Dame Frevisse and Dame Claire were looking into this matter on orders, from the prioress. Frevisse said nothing, but simply gestured a summons at Dame Alys, who for a change came without complaint or her spoon.

  They returned to the slipe, and before Frevisse could say anything, Dame Alys burst out, “So is it true? Someone finally did what the old…” she reconsidered her word and said, “… lady has been begging to have done these fifty years or more?”

  With a quelling lack of excitement, Frevisse said, “She was assuredly poisoned. Someone has killed her and Dom-ina Edith has set Dame Claire and me to asking questions.”

  “And there were truly demons come to grab her Hell-bound soul? You saw them?”

  “No one saw them,” Dame Claire said wearily. “Lady Ermentrude was jibbering in some sort of brain fever and Thomasine said she must be seeing demons. That was all it was, just her brain fever and too much wine. It was before she was poisoned anyway.”

  “Oh. Thomasine.” Dame Alys dismissed the matter with regret but firmly. “As holy a child as I ever hope to meet, but she’s not got the sense God gives a Michaelmas goose. So what about Martha then? She was poisoned, too, they’re saying.”

  Frevisse said, “It appears she took what was meant for Lady Ermentrude.”

  Dame Alys crossed herself, shaking her head. “Greed and temper were always her failings. God’s will be done,” she added piously.

  “But,” Frevisse asked, “who made the first milksop for Lady Ermentrude?”

  “First one? She had more? The greedy—” Dame Alys stopped herself and said, “I did. Bad enough I had to take the time, and for such as she, but Thomasine is a perfect simpleton at any task not based on prayer.”

  “What bread did you use?”

  “None of my fine new loaves, I assure you! No, since it was to be soaked in milk anyway, I gave her an old loaf I’d meant to use as crumbs for thickening.”

  “And what milk and honey?”

  Dame Alys’s thin eyebrows climbed up her broad forehead. “Whatever was sitting on the hob and in the cupboard. It’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for the likes of Lady Errnentrude.”

  “And did Thomasine go straight back to the guest house?”

  “Now, did I go along and show her the way? I’ve better things…” Dame Alys’s expression changed. “Ah, no, that’s when the shrieking started and Martha took off to see how close she could get to it, and I sent Thomasine packing after her.”

  And Thomasine had arrived at Lady Errnentrude’s room in Martha’s wake; she had not had time to go anywhere else. Unless she had gone to the infirmary on her way to the kitchen. But Frevisse thought she had not had much time for that, not if the milksop was all made in the little while before Lady Errnentrude began to scream.

  Dame Alys, unhobbled by doubts, thrust onward. “That old harridan, thinking Thomasine belonged anywhere but in St. Frideswide’s! It’s God’s blessing I don’t have to cook another meal for her, but how long is it until that son of hers takes himself off?”

  “Tomorrow or the next day, we hope,” Frevisse said. “But meanwhile he’s set men to mend the chimney and once they do, you won’t be bothered anymore.”

  “It can’t happen soon enough. There, I’ve told you all I know. Can I go back to making sure those numb-wits don’t decide to use the rice for flour or some other foolishness?”

  Frevisse excused her and drew a deep, steadying breath when she was gone. Dame Claire, with her blessed ability to keep silent, waited while she thought, until finally Frevisse said, “What I’m beginning to want more than anything else is the reason why someone wanted Lady Errnentrude dead right at this moment. Sir Walter is right, this was an awkward time and place to do a murder, and on holy ground beside.”

  “Is there anything we can do besides asking questions?” Dame Claire asked.

  “Not that I know of. And I can’t even be sure they’re the right ones.”

  “You can only ask the questions you have. After all, they may lead
on to others.”

  Frevisse half-smiled. “True enough. Let’s see what more we can be learning.”

  Not very much, it transpired.

  “I haven’t noticed anyone much moved to grief for the lady,” Frevisse said, an hour later. “Not even her own son. He seems much hotter for revenge than burdened with grief.”

  They had managed not to meet Sir Walter face-to-face, but Frevisse noticed, as they crossed the hall again in search of the servant Maudelyn, that more than a few people pointedly shifted out of their way and no one seemed inclined to meet their eyes.

  “I think,” she said quietly, “that Sir Walter has made his displeasure with us known.”

  “How long before he demands again we give him Thomasine?”‘