3 The Outlaw's Tale
Page 20
Mistress Payne seized the belt out of her hands. In rapid, jerking movements, she coiled it up buckle inward, covering the mark, leaving the bloodied end to hang free. “It was my husband’s belt,” she repeated.
“That’s what you must keep saying.” Frevisse assured her. “But I want to know how Edward came to fight with Colfoot. He’s told you about it?”
Mistress Payne held silent a moment longer, but perhaps it was a relief to say what would never be said to anyone else. A relief to say what she had thought would have to stay sealed in her forever. Or perhaps she simply bent to what she could not avoid. “He heard the quarrel between his father and Colfoot, and Colfoot’s threats against both us and Magdalen. When Colfoot left here, Edward went after him, not even taking a horse. He just cut through the woods and intercepted him along the road. Edward didn’t mean anything, only to talk with him, to try to talk him out of it. But Colfoot was still in a fury. He saw Edward as no more than an intruding child and cursed at him and brought out his sword and struck him over the shoulders with the flat of it. Edward lost his temper. He had only his dagger but they were so close together and Colfoot wasn’t expecting it that I think Edward killed him before either of them knew what they were doing. He didn’t believe he’d done it, that somehow he’d only pulled Colfoot from his horse. But when he knelt by him, Colfoot was almost dead and died while Edward was looking at him. Then Edward was frightened. He cleaned the dagger in the woods and came home. He was so frightened. He didn’t know he had bloodied his belt. I saw it when he came in. It had to be by God’s mercy I was the first to see him when he came home. He looked so torn and in pain. We didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let anyone else see him. And I had to do something about the belt, but I didn’t know what. So we went to his father, in the parlor where no one would come if Oliver didn’t let them. It seemed the only safe place. We were all so frightened.”
Her voice trailed away, remembering not only her fear for Edward but her husband’s.
Gently, Frevisse said, “Then your husband hid the belt until he could have a chance to be safely rid of it?” Mistress Payne nodded dumbly. “And Edward put on different clothes so its lack would not be so apparent. And at supper that night Master Payne had the idea of making the stranger in the orchard out to be the murderer.”
Mistress Payne sighed. “It seemed the safest, the simplest thing to do. We didn’t know he was Magdalen’s lover.”
“And when you did, it didn’t matter, because he was still no more than a peddler and no one but Magdalen would care if he died.”
“It was… necessary,” Mistress Payne agreed softly. She moved past remembering to what was necessary now. “Are you going to let us keep our secret?”
Lying. Deception. Abuse of trust. Here they all were, joined together in a single act. For this, more than all the rest, there would be penance so deep in her own heart that she might never be free of it. But the choice had been made already.
Quietly Frevisse said, “I’ve helped you make it. I’ll help you keep it. Tell Edward that he’ll have my daily prayers through all his life to come.”
THE END
Author’s Note
Given the strict cloistering to which nuns were supposed to submit, Frevisse and Dame Emma’s venturing out to a family christening may seem surprising. Indeed, nuns in medieval England were officially cloistered and supposed to stay shut from the world behind nunnery walls, but in fact leave could be granted for them to visit outside the cloister for any “manifest necessity” – and as Eileen Power observes in Medieval English Nunneries, “they could with a little skill, stretch the ‘manifest necessity’ clause to cover almost all their wanderings,” whether on pilgrimage, for pleasure, or on family matters. To judge by the centuries-long efforts of bishops and other churchmen to regulate and curb these jaunts, nuns seem rarely to have faltered in treating cloistering as far more open to choice than their bishops liked.
For those accustomed to view medieval society as a straightforward matter of Nobles vs. Peasants, Master Payne’s household may seen fanciful, but in truth there was a rapidly growing free middle class in England through all the later Middle Ages – prospering merchants in cities and towns; the gentry in the countryside – who owned their own property, ran their own lives, and served lords only insofar as they chose, even, as in Master Payne’s case, making a business of doing so.
As may be readily expected, Robin Hood was a popular figure in medieval England, though not always in the guise more modern tellings give him. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, provides both a study and a number of stories of Robin Hood and other medieval outlaws that Nicholas and his men could readily have known.
Margaret Frazer
Margaret Frazer is the award-winning author of more than twenty historical murder mysteries and novels. She makes her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, surrounded by her books, but she lives her life in the 1400s. In writing her Edgar-nominated Sister Frevisse (The Novice’s Tale) and Player Joliffe (A Play of Isaac) novels she delves far inside medieval perceptions, seeking to look at medieval England more from its point of view than ours. “Because the pleasure of going thoroughly into otherwhen as well as otherwhere is one of the great pleasures in reading.”
She can be visited online at http://www.margaretfrazer.com.
Sister Frevisse Mysteries
Beginning in the year of Our Lord’s grace 1431, the Sister Frevisse mysteries are an epic journey of murder and mayhem in 15th century England.
The Novice’s Tale
The Servant’s Tale (Edgar-Award Nominee)
The Outlaw’s Tale
The Bishop’s Tale (Minnesota Book Award Nominee)
The Boy’s Tale
The Murderer’s Tale
The Prioress’ Tale (Edgar-Award Nominee)
The Maiden’s Tale
The Reeve’s Tale (Minnesota Book Award Nominee)
The Squire’s Tale
The Clerk’s Tale
The Bastard’s Tale
The Hunter’s Tale
The Widow’s Tale
The Sempster’s Tale
The Traitor’s Tale
The Apostate’s Tale
* * * * *
Player Joliffe Mysteries
In the pages of Margaret Frazer’s national bestselling Dame Frevisse Mysteries the player Joliffe has assumed many roles on the stage to the delight of those he entertains. Now, in the company of a troupe of traveling performers, he finds himself double cast in the roles of sleuth and spy…
A Play of Isaac
A Play of Dux Moraud
A Play of Knaves
A Play of Lords
A Play of Treachery
A Play of Piety
* * * * *
Margaret Frazer Tales
Available Now as Kindle E-Books
Neither Pity, Love, Nor Fear (Herodotus Award Winner)
Strange Gods, Strange Men
The Simple Logic of It
The Witch’s Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)
The Midwife’s Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)
Volo te Habere…
This World’s Eternity