Novice’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  “Because she’s not guilty,” Frevisse replied.

  “Ha!” Montfort exclaimed, and stalked away after Sir Walter.

  Frevisse thought of the things her Uncle Chaucer might say when baffled, and they were far more expressive than that. But facing Montfort and Sir Walter had been the most unpleasant thing she anticipated, and now it was done. With relief, she turned to what came next.

  The answers came slowly but steadily. By early afternoon she had talked to everyone who had gone with Lady Ermentrude to Sir John’s, and learned that the men had had nothing to do with their lady once she arrived there nor been close to her on the ride back or at St. Frideswide’s. Maryon and the other lady-in-waiting had been close to her now and again all of those times, and Lady Isobel and her servants had come and gone from her chamber at the manor. All of that Frevisse learned partly from the men, mostly from the other lady-in-waiting, Anne, who was more than ready to leave off her inventorying of Lady Ermentrude’s belongings for Sir Walter and gossip with a friendly nun.

  “Oh yes,” she assured Frevisse gladly. “I remember all of those dreadful two days. No, she didn’t stop to drink anywhere at all along the way from here to Sir John’s. She rode fast, and my small mare was hard put to hold the pace. And then we had to turn around and ride back the next day. It’s a wonder she isn’t broken in the wind, poor thing.”

  “What happened after she arrived at the manor house?”

  “Oh, shouting. Not right when she rode in, mind you. They were surprised but they greeted her well. Only she was having none of it, just swept them into the solar and slammed the door to and then started. The shouting, I mean.”

  “So it was a quarrel? Between Lady Ermentrude and Sir John?”

  “Yes, but mostly between her and Lady Isobel. Sir John said little and that almost too quiet to be heard, except once in a while he’d raise his voice to warn theirs down. All that we could hear through the door but not much else.” Anne smirked knowingly and leaned closer to Frevisse. “Though Maryon, mind you, could say more. She was that determined to know she slipped right up to the door and put her ear to its crack.”

  Frevisse nodded. Cat-sly Maryon would be just the sort to do that, she thought. But she kept her face merely gossiping-interested and asked, “What did she hear?”

  “A great deal, may be, but she wouldn’t say, though I did ask her. But whatever it was, it wasn’t what she was thinking to hear. I could tell that by her face at the time.”

  Puzzled, Frevisse asked, “What was she thinking it would be?”

  The woman shrugged carelessly. “Well, I don’t know. I was sort of behind her shoulder there at the door—” She caught herself and looked carefully at Frevisse to be sure she was not taking it wrong.

  Frevisse smiled and said, “Oh, I know how it must be with you. You had to take an interest in the doings of your mistress. With her uncertain temper, you had to be forewarned, on chance it was something you could help, or at least not make your lady angrier about.”

  Anne nodded in complete agreement. “You understand it right enough! I thought Maryon was going to grow donkey’s ears, she was listening so hard. But all I could hear was ‘marriage,” and then she gave me an elbow in the brisket and backed me off. Then in a little while—just a word or two longer, no more—she eased away and said it was no concern of ours, we’d best let them be and that’s all I know of it.“

  “And in the morning? Did they fight again?”

  “Oh, they fought nearly until morning, I promise you! And we thought there’d be more of it when they were rested, but Lady Ermentrude had us all up with daybreak and ready to ride. Not a word of thanks or farewell to our hosts, and only time for me to grab a cup of flat ale and a knob of bread before I had to climb into the saddle and be off. It’s good luck my mare stood it as well as she did.”

  “Did Lady Ermentrude drink or eat on her ride back? She came in here rollicking enough.”

  “She did that.” The woman giggled to remember it, then stopped her mouth with her hand as she realized to whom she was speaking. “She had a bottle slung at her saddle bow and she drank now and again, especially toward the end of the journey, and no wonder; she rode like the devil was at her heels in all that heat.”

  Frevisse nodded knowledgeably, but she felt very far from knowledgeable as she excused herself from the conversation and went in determined search of Maryon.

  She found her in the ladies’ chamber, sitting on a clothes chest with an embroidery frame on her lap. It held a pretty pattern of flowers and leaves, but Maryon’s hands and needle were idle. She looked up as Frevisse approached and laid her work aside. “I heard you were still questioning,” she said. “Is Master Montfort going to be pleased with you?”

  “As much as he is already.” Frevisse did not sit; nor did Maryon rise. They looked at each other with mutual assessment before Frevisse said, “You’ve been in Lady Ermentrude’s service only a little while?”

  For so young and seemingly open a face, Maryon’s showed surprisingly little of any thoughts behind it. She said, “This week and a little more is all. Ever since she left Queen Catherine.”

  “You were in the Queen’s service before that?”

  “And lucky to be so, surely,” Maryon said readily. “As sweet a lady as ever tread earth. But she’s not much given to leaving Hertford and I’d a mind to see something of the world so I took service with Lady Ermentrude. Only that’s not come out so well, but I’m thinking her grace will have me back if I ask.”

  “How did you come to be in her service at all? Wales is a ways and a ways from here.”

  Maryon’s slender, dark eyebrows lifted in what was surely a deliberate show of surprise. Then she smiled appreciatively, and dimples showed in her round cheeks. “Now that’s clever of you, to know that’s where I’m from. Yes, I’m Welsh. My brother’s wife is cousin to one of Her Grace’s household officers and that’s how I came by my place.”

  “And you left it to see the world.”

  Maryon nodded but turned her head away so that she was looking slantwise at Frevisse, like a cat. There was too much satisfied knowing in that look and Frevisse asked quickly, wanting to encourage the woman’s cleverness while she was so proud of it, “So what did you hear at the solar door when Lady Ermentrude was quarreling with her niece?”

  Maryon smiled archly. “You are a knowing one! I listened, indeed, but there wasn’t much I heard. Something about a marriage in France, or France and a marriage, or something like that. It was a very stout door and Sir John kept quieting them down to where I couldn’t hear what was being said.”

  “They didn’t quarrel outside the solar?”

  “No, indeed they seemed very careful about that, even Lady Ermentrude, who was never so very careful about most things. Why are you suddenly wanting to know about what happened before she came back here?”

  “Oh, for the sake of a riddle,” said Frevisse, to show she could be clever, too, and left her.

  Chapter 12

  The woman servant who had come with Lady Isobel was seated on the bench outside their chamber. She made no move to stop Frevisse, but Frevisse paused, turned from her intent to talk with Sir John and Lady Isobel because so casual a chance to talk to the woman might not come again.

  “God’s greeting to you,” she said lightly, and nodded her head toward the door. “Your lord is still hurting?”

  The woman, obviously bored at sitting attendance here, brightened, glad to talk about troubles. “Indeed he is. Wearying my poor lady with his needs and her so good to him she’ll not deny him anything.” She lowered her voice and said, leaning forward as if to give a great confidence, “Fancy, a big, strong‘ man like him letting some passing peddler muck with his tooth because he’s afraid to have it drawn!”

  Frevisse was not interested in Sir John’s toothache, but asked without a qualm at her own duplicity, “Do you suppose it was all the quarreling brought it on this time?”

  The woman shrugged. “It
comes on anytime it feels like, but I’d not be surprised. All that shouting would make anyone’s jaw ache.”

  “They argued all the night, I’ve heard. And Sir John told Lady Ermentrude to leave.”

  “Now that’s not quite right but close enough. Sir John was the one who tried to quiet it between them, but hardly a word in edgewise they let him have. We could hear them right through the door of the solar most of that evening. But the next morning when Lady Ermentrude came to leave, hardly a word was passed among them, except Lady Isobel sent my lord out to say, nice as you please, that he hoped, it would all come right after she’d thought on it and wouldn’t she break her fast before she left.”

  “And did she?”

  “Not her! She’d hardly open her mouth to him, and rude wen she did, she was still that angry. Said she had wine to steady her after so harsh a welcome and that would suit her til she chose to dine, thank you. Then off she rode, and Lady Isobel was all white and near to tears and decided she and Sir John had best go after her.”‘

  “So she accepted a gift of wine from them? Or had she brought it with her?”

  The woman shrugged. “Not her! No, she sent for wine, she knew they kept malmsey particular for her. Sent that mincing dark-haired cat to fetch it. But that was Lady Ermentrude for you. Bring the house down with her temper and then demand the best it has to give. I don’t hesitate to say it, though she’s dead and coffined.”

  “It sounds as if it was a huge quarrel, and no forgiveness anywhere,” Frevisse said.

  “No, not like that at all. A huge quarrel, right enough, but it was Lady Ermentrude would have none of making peace. And they came riding after her, didn’t they, with more of her favorite wine for a gift. And Lady Isobel sitting up with her that last night. No, it wasn’t my lord and lady who didn’t want peace.”

  “But what was it all for? No one has ever said.”

  Disappointment shaded the woman’s face. “Now there’s the pity. All that shouting and none of us could make out the sense of it. The solar door’s that thick, it muffled all but the noise.”

  “And no one happened to walk outside the window?” Frevisse smiled to make a conspiratorial joke of it, as if it were the thing she would have thought to do.

  The woman smothered appreciative laughter, but her eyes gleamed, showing she was glad to find a nun so ready to forget her dignity and have a friendly gossip. “Well, I won’t say it might not have crossed someone’s mind mayhap, but outside the solar is Lady Isobel’s own private walled garden, and no one quite dared to be going in there like that, over the wall. It would be worth your life to cross her like that. She’s a fine lady but she can be sharp when she’s been crossed, you know.”

  Frevisse said with real regret, “And so all that disturbance keeping everyone awake, and no idea at all what they were on about?”

  The woman shrugged. “Something about a marriage. That word was said loud enough a few times. And something about it being none of Lady Ermentrude’s business. But nothing else clear enough to make any sense. It made all of us in the household nervous, I promise you.”

  And moreover what a waste, her expression said: a splendid subject for gossip spoiled by an honest carpenter’s thick doors.

  Frevisse shared her disappointment, for other reasons, and went to knock on Sir John and Lady Isobel’s door.

  Lady Isobel’s voice bade her enter. Except for the very best one, which Sir Walter had now, the guest-hall bedchambers were small and sparely furnished, but Lady Isobel had made this one into her own. A dress lay in careful folds over a stool; a small prayer book was open on the plain table; Sir John’s cloak hung evenly from a wall hook, its folds arranged by a loving female hand. Even the air was faintly scented with her perfume.

  Sir John lay dozing on the bed, propped up on pillows, one hand still cupped to his swollen jaw, his face pale with pain. Lady Isobel rose with a quick and graceful movement to come between him and Frevisse, saying in her light voice, “Forgive me. I thought you were the girl come back with the medicine I’ve begged of your infirmarian.”

  Frevisse, remaining by the door, said, “I won’t stay long. I have only a question or two I need to ask.”

  “Questions?” Lady Isobel’s slight frown hardly marred her smooth loveliness. Frevisse had the sudden—and ungracious—thought that Lady Isobel probably went to a great deal of trouble to keep from marring her loveliness.

  “About the quarrel Lady Ermentrude had with you before she returned here.”

  Sir John stirred and groaned. Lady Isobel looked around at him with concern and a quieting lift of her hand. “It’s not the servant with the medicine yet, my heart. It’s Dame Frevisse. Just a little longer.” Then to Frevisse, with a tiny show of exasperation, “We’ve told you of that already. We’ve told everyone. She came on us unwarned and ranting. Her wits were unhinged, by drink or a brain fever maybe, I don’t know.”

  “But what was she ranting about?”

  Lady Isobel drew a deep sigh. “She was demanding that our marriage be ended. She kept demanding it over and over and never listened to anything we tried to say. She frightened me and made no sense at all.”

  “What was her thought behind the demand? Did she ever say?”

  Lady Isobel firmly shook her head. “No more than her mad thought that Thomasine was brought here by coercion. If there was more to it, she was so incoherent I never discerned it.”

  “You know that Master Montfort wants to arrest Thomasine for Lady Ermentrude’s death?”

  Lady Isobel put her fingers to her lips. Her face was grieved. “I can’t believe she would do something like that. How could she have been so desperate? She’s meant to enter St. Frideswide’s since she was old enough to say so. I suppose Montfort thinks it was our lady aunt insisting she should not that frightened her more than she could bear. But how someone set on being a holy nun could bring herself to do it—it passes thought.”

  “You think she might have done it?”

  Lady Isobel looked at her with wide and bewildered eyes. “You think perhaps she didn’t? Sir Walter and Master Montfort seem so sure. And Master Montfort is a very knowing man in matters such as this.”

  Frevisse managed to keep her voice untouched by her incredulity. “Master Montfort—”

  Sir John moved on the bed, making a small, painful sound, then mumbling, “Who…”

  Lady Isobel went to him quickly. “Hush now, my dear, hush. I know it hurts but more medicine will be here soon. Dame Claire promised. Then you’ll have ease and can truly sleep. I know you need your silence. The lady is going now.”

  That was more than a mere hint, but Frevisse asked, “Have you ever been to France, you or your husband?”

  Lady Isobel, still bent over Sir John, her hand on his forehead, did not even look around. “France?” she said distractedly. “No. Why should we ever want to go to France? Lie easy, my love. She’s going now so you can rest.”

  Frevisse went with outward grace, a brief farewell, and the unsettling realization that Lady Isobel was willing to believe that Thomasine had killed their aunt.

  She was at the guest hall’s outer door, at the head of the steps to the yard and intent on taking what she had so far learned to Domina Edith, when Master Montfort said officiously from behind her, “Dame, we wish to speak to you.”

  She stopped and turned. Her single long look at his nervous, determined face and Sir Walter’s angry one behind him told her enough, but very politely, controlling her own voice and face, she said, “Yes, my lord?”

  “We must needs talk with you, Dame,” Master Montfort said.

  “At your service, my lord.” Deliberately, calmly, she met his eyes, looked past him to Sir Walter and added, “But in God’s first. It is coming on the hour of Sext and I must go to the church.”

  Sir Walter’s lips clamped angrily tight. “To give comfort to your little sanctuary nun? I’ve posted my guards. There’ll be no stealing her away from the nunnery without I know about it. And word
has gone to the sheriff, so when her sanctuary time is up, he’ll have the girl anyway. Why draw this out for everyone? It’s your doing that put her there—”

  Lifting her voice to be heard across the yard and into the hall, Frevisse said, “And let you be grateful for it since it kept you from breaking both England’s law and the law of God’s Holy Church.”

  Sir Walter began to color again. Frevisse reflected that a man so easily angered to red would never make old age. She knew that nothing would satisfy him except having his own way, so that she might as well not even waste more time quarreling with him. Making sure her voice still carried to everyone, she said, “I have duties now. I pray you excuse me to them.”

  She made to turn away from both of them. “God’s teeth!” Sir Walter swore. “Take her, Montfort, you fool!”

  Frevisse grabbed up her skirts and bolted down the stairs toward the cloister door.