8 The Maiden's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  Alice laughed aloud, pleased. “You won’t shiver even at midwinter Matins in that. I want an occasional prayer in return!”

  The gown was too fine. Aside from the trouble it would make among the other nuns, it was totally against her vow of poverty. But at the same time she knew how poorly what she otherwise had compared to everyone around her. Neither of the habits she had brought had been new for years; Coldharbour’s kitchen scullions probably wore better. For herself it did not matter but it would reflect poorly on Alice to have so poorly dressed a cousin, here, where poverty was only in theory a virtue. And it would serve St. Frideswide’s ill to have its poverty—a thing apart from Holy Poverty—so openly known. The priory was in need, but the wealthy preferred to give where they were comfortable and poverty made them uncomfortable, so that oddly enough, she might do the priory more good in Alice’s gown than in her own. And Abbot Gilberd would have no objection. More likely he would be pleased beyond measure her cousin showed her so much courtesy.

  But more than all of that was Alice’s delight in the giving of it, and more for that than any other reason, Frevisse said, smiling back at her, “My thanks and more of my prayers than you already have. It’s wonderful.”

  “Hardly that!” Alice laughed. “I tried to keep it plain enough you’d take it.”

  The woman who had been setting Alice’s headdress shifted around her to be sure how the veil looked from the front as well as from back and sides, then said, “It’s done, my lady.”

  Alice moved her head to make certain all was secure, thanked her, and stood up. Another of the women quickly moved the chair back and another woman stepped close to arrange the train of Alice’s gown. Standing poised under the weight of gown and headdress as if they were as light as her floating silken veil, Alice met Frevisse’s eyes with a light mockery remindful of her father and said, “Men wear armor into their battles. Women wear their velvet, silk, and jewels.”

  “Are you going into battle?”

  “Only a minor skirmish tonight.” Around them her ladies were helping each other finish readying for going down. They were all wives or else unmarried daughters of knights, esquires, gentlemen in Suffolk’s service. Some of the girls were combing out each other’s already shining hair that fell loose down their backs to their waists at worst and to their knees for the luckiest, while the women took turns at straightening one another’s headdresses and making certain the gold- and silverwork buckles of their ornately woven belts were centered in their backs and the belts’ long trailing ends not tangled. Alice, sure of her own readiness, went on, “Now, you’ll stay at least tonight. That was why I asked your abbot to come to supper. One of the reasons. So he could give his agreement.”

  Neither she nor Frevisse doubted that he would and Frevisse was glad. Besides avoiding a late ride back through cold streets her staying would give them more chance to talk together.

  “I have to go down now, to keep company before supper.” Alice made a small face to show she expected that to be of doubtful pleasure. “But I’m going to leave you to Jane. She’ll see to everything for you, and when you choose, you can join us.” She slapped her fingers lightly together, and her ladies ceased the varied things they had been doing, to flow in a whisper of skirts across the carpeting to gather beside the door. Alice embraced Frevisse who, still holding the fur-lined gown, leaned into the gesture with her head bent well aside to avoid Alice’s veils or cauls before stepping back, leaving Alice clear to catch her skirts and swing them aside with practiced skill, out of her way as she turned toward the door that one of her women opened for her to sweep through, going to “battle,” as she said. And expecting to enjoy it, Frevisse thought.

  Chapter 6

  As the last lady leaving behind Alice closed the door, Frevisse momentarily wondered if she was left alone after all despite what Alice had said, but someone moved in the shadows beyond the bed, and a girl, unnoticed until now, came forward, her dark green gown too richly made for her to be a servant; nor did she curtsy as a servant would have but said simply, “I’m Lady Jane,” and despite her hair loose down her back like an unmarried girl’s, her light and pleasant voice was a woman’s. And then she came fully into the light. Came deliberately, Frevisse realized and wondered how often in her life had she done that, deliberately shown the great disfiguring of her face to someone who had never seen it to be done with the first shocked stare, the revulsion, undoubtedly even sometimes a sign against the devil who must have marred her?

  Frevisse, her own stare gone inevitably to it, shifted her gaze away from it to Lady Jane’s and said quietly, “That’s a great misfortune to you, my lady.”

  Evenly, as if by rote, Lady Jane said, “There are worse afflictions others have to bear.”

  “True,” Frevisse agreed dryly. “Unfortunately, I’ve never found that makes our own any the lighter to carry.”

  Unexpected laughter lightened in Lady Jane’s face. “It doesn’t, does it?” Only the right side of her mouth could smile but the merriment in her eyes made up the lack. “Lady Alice ordered a bath be readied for you, on chance you might want it after your travelling and the cold.”

  Frevisse realized that she would. Once winter set in, neither rooms nor bath water could be kept warm enough in St. Frideswide’s for baths to be safe. They became an invitation to heavy rheums at best, lung sicknesses at worst, and everyone had to make do with simple ablutions, the body washed bit by bit and in shivering haste. The thought of a bath to soak away the troubles of travel appealed more to Frevisse than she would have imagined before this one was offered and she said more readily than mere manners needed, “Yes! Thank you.”

  The elaborate dealings of servants bearing the large bath tub, the kettles and ewers of hot water, the towels and soap took time. When they withdrew, Lady Jane left her to bathe, busying herself across the room with laying out the black gown and the rest of Alice’s gift: a new linen chemise, a black-dyed light wool undergown, new white wimple and black veil, and black leather wool-lined slippers. Washed and warmed, Frevisse felt almost a stranger to herself in so much new clothing as she finally went down to the hall and supper, wishing she could stay upstairs like Lady Jane who said smilingly, seeing her on her way, “I avoid it when I can.”

  Now the evening was over and they were all come upstairs again, a crowding and laughing of women and girls. Frevisse, weary among them after far too much food and wine and company, hours past when she was usually in bed, was thinking of not much but falling into whatever bed she would be given and still grateful that except for a slight conversation on the condition of roads from Oxfordshire to London, Bishop Beaufort had ignored her all evening, and Abbot Gilberd had been too busy renewing or making acquaintance among the other guests to say anything to her beyond congratulation on her cousin’s attention and gift.

  Alice, too, had been too busy as lady and hostess to spend much time with her, giving her over to the company of various of her ladies through the evening; but now, in the bedchamber doorway she turned to say to them in light dismissal, “I won’t need you more tonight. My cousin and I want chance to talk together and we’ll be late at it. Go to your beds.”

  “But, my lady,” one of the women protested, gesturing toward Alice’s headdress, not something easily dealt with alone.

  “Lady Jane will see to Dame Frevisse and me,” Alice said, and they went, while beside Alice, Frevisse hoped she hid her dismay. She had no desire for anything more tonight than the chance to say her prayers in quiet and then lie down and sleep for as many hours as possible.

  But the women left and Lady Jane came to close the door after them while Alice led Frevisse across to the chair and cushioned bench beside the fire, Frevisse taking it as a poor sign that the fire instead of being allowed to burn down for the night was dancing high along freshly laid wood. How long a talk did Alice think to have? Because with all the best will in the world, Frevisse doubted she could keep awake for very long. But they sat, and Lady Jane came to remove her h
eaddress, deftly finding and plucking out its pins despite that she had only wavering firelight to work by, none of the lamps around the room lighted, until she was able to lift free the headdress and all its veils. Alice sighed with relief and leaned her head against the high back of the chair, eyes closed. “That’s so much better.” Lady Jane returned, unpinned and took her wimple, waited while Alice loosed her hair from its careful coil, and took those pins away, too.

  Alice, looking at Frevisse now all that was over, said with sympathy, “You must be more tired than I am. I’m sorry to keep you up longer but I need to talk with you. I don’t know how much you gleaned among the talk tonight of how things stand just now. With England. With this parliament we’re about to have.”

  With effort Frevisse called up wit enough to answer, “I gather feelings are running high.” Something too usual to mean much. Parliament was called when there was need to deal with some great matter concerning the realm or else when the king required money, and besides that, every man came to every parliament with concerns of his own, so that feelings always ran high and Frevisse had taken small notice of what tonight’s were. But Alice said, as if surely she must want to know, “Here’s how matters stand. Parliament will be opened three days from now by our reverend bishop of Bath and Wells, presently chancellor of England for reasons past understanding. His speech will be, as usual, on a biblical verse, this time ‘Adaperiat Dominus cor nostrum in lege sua et in praeceptis suis et faciat pacem.”’

  Lady Jane returned with a silver dish with dried apricots, dates, raisins, and strips of sugared lemon laid in careful, curving patterns around a small silver bowl of almonds. Frevisse refused with a slight shake of her head. Alice chose some of the dates, an apricot slice, a few of the almonds while going on, “The good bishop will stress at length that the important points are Dominus and faciat pacem. God and making peace. With those two things rooted in their minds, the Commons will elect a speaker, the king will accept him, and Parliament will set to granting various subsidies and enacting on a few matters of no pressing importance, with no word spoken at all in Parliament about the making of any peace, either godly or otherwise.”

  “ ‘In Parliament’ being the point to take?” Frevisse asked.

  Alice smiled her approval. “Precisely.”

  Frevisse covered a yawn that, once started, seemed unwilling to stop, and said, when finally it was done, “I really…”

  “I know,” Alice said quickly. “You’re tired and so am I, but there’s a point to this. Bishop Beaufort…”

  Frevisse lifted a hand in refusal of the wine Lady Jane had just brought in silver goblets, and so did Alice, saying, “We’ll need nothing else, Jane. Go to bed.”

  Lady Jane made her a slight curtsy and withdrew, and Alice leaned toward Frevisse to continue, “No, I’ll come to Bishop Beaufort in his place. It’s the chance for peace you have to understand first. We’re this near to it.” She held up a hand with thumb and forefinger a scant inch apart. “This near.”

  Carefully Frevisse said, “From the little I’ve heard, peace has been ‘this near’ more than a few times over the years.”

  “How well I know that! The hours of talk and talk and talk I’ve listened to whenever there’s an embassy! And then it all comes to nothing for one politic reason or another. You’d think the cost of the embassies alone would put a stop to it, but they do it all again and again nothing comes of it but talk and talk.”

  “But this time it’s different,” Frevisse suggested.

  Alice clasped her hands. “This time it’s very different. The duke of Burgundy is taking interest again in making peace.”

  “So I understand,” Frevisse said.

  “And that means everyone has to take the matter more seriously than they otherwise might,” Alice said. Frevisse refrained from asking just how “unseriously” they had been taking it, while Alice went on, “The profit has gone out of the war, you see. It costs and costs and returns little. Nothing we’ve tried toward peace has worked. Now there’s this new possibility.”

  Cautiously, remembering Bishop Beaufort was in it somewhere, Frevisse asked, “And this something new is?”

  “The duke of Orleans.”

  “I’ve heard the French want him freed as part of the peace?”

  “As part of the peace and to help make the peace.” Alice rose and moved nearer the fire, her back to Frevisse. “You know we had the keeping of him for a few years, Suffolk and I?”

  “No.” Frevisse in fact knew very little of her cousin’s life and just now mostly wondered at what hour she went to bed.

  “As the king’s prisoner he was at first kept in the Tower but over the years various lords have had the keeping of him. He was with us for some several years, time enough for us to come to know him well enough to believe with the French that a better peace can be made with him than without him.”

  “Yes. I see. So the French want him freed and we want him freed. But somewhere there’s trouble?”

  Alice swung around to her. “The duke of Gloucester.”

  “The duke of Gloucester,” Frevisse repeated. The king’s uncle, heir to the throne if King Henry died without issue and therefore a man who could not be ignored but a trouble in the government ever since his royal brother had died and left the realm in charge of a council of lords while King Henry was a child, rather than giving the government into Gloucester’s hands, where Gloucester had very loudly said it ought to be.

  Alice sat down again. “It’s because our late king, God keep his soul, gave order on his deathbed that Orleans was never to be set free until we held all of France. For Gloucester, his brother’s word is the last word there can be on it. No matter it’s become clear that we’re never going to take all of France and that peace is the only way to ensure we keep what we do hold. No matter that the French have made it clear that the duke of Orleans has to be part of the negotiations and his freedom part of the price for peace or they won’t deal in it. Gloucester holds that his long-dead brother said Orleans wasn’t to go free until we held all of France and so he’ll have nothing to do with any peace that requires Orleans go free.”

  Across the room Jane had rolled a truckle bed from under the far side of Alice’s great bed, undressed, prayed, and now slipped into the bed with a whispering of sheets that made Frevisse painfully wish she were that close to sleep, too. “Alice…”

  Alice raised a hand to forestall her plea. “I know. But there’s a point to telling you all this. Bishop Beaufort says you’ll more likely help if you understand why we’re asking.”

  Frevisse tried to cover her alarm. “Bishop Beaufort?”

  “He and Gloucester hate each other,” Alice said. That was no secret. They were uncle and nephew and enemies, both wanting the same power around the king, both so set against each other that their followers had once made open war in London’s streets. The royal council had forced peace on them then but had never been able to end the loathing between them. “That Bishop Beaufort favors peace is one more reason Gloucester is against it.”

  “Does the king want peace?” Frevisse asked. He was seventeen years old and surely had both opinion and influence.

  “Yes, but because of Gloucester he’s held back from coming out for it openly and that hinders everything.”

  “Therefore,” Frevisse summed up, “Bishop Beaufort is looking for a way around Gloucester and the king’s hesitance through to freeing Orleans and having the peace.” She paused, then asked, afraid of the answer, “So how are you part of all this and what does Bishop Beaufort want from me?”

  “Gloucester blocks every move toward peace as best he can, and King Henry still hesitates to offend him by supporting any moves toward it openly.”

  “Openly.”

  “He’s nonetheless sometimes met with the duke of Orleans quietly, likes him, trusts him, believes, along with Bishop Beaufort and others of us, that Orleans is the key to a French peace. You know of the talks there were at Calais this autumn?”
<
br />   “Only that they happened.”

  “Bishop Beaufort headed them, but Orleans was there and was allowed to talk with the Burgundian ambassadors. Because of it, we’re nearer now than we’ve ever been to peace. A little more and it can probably be made despite Gloucester.”

  “But?”

  “But for right now it all has to be done as secretly as possible.”

  Frevisse sat still, thoroughly awake now and wishing she were not.

  Alice, uncharacteristically, hesitated, then went on, “To keep it moving forward without Gloucester knowing about it, Bishop Beaufort has set up a way for Orleans to keep in contact with the duke of Burgundy.”

  “A secret way. And you have part in it.”

  “Frevisse, understand this could bring on peace despite Gloucester. The king wants this peace, and whoever helps him to it will gain such influence with him as no one else has.”

  “And you want that.”

  “Suffolk and I want that, yes,” Alice said quietly. “It’s how things are. If we want more than we have, we have to risk something to gain it. Not that it’s a great risk. The danger lies in Gloucester finding out. He still has power enough to make trouble. But if we can go on with what we’re doing, keeping Burgundy convinced of how much he’ll gain by this, keeping him interested in the peace while bringing King Henry so far toward it, even Gloucester won’t be able to stop it. Toward that, Orleans and Burgundy write to one another. The messages go secretly by several ways, not always the same one, from Orleans by way of someone to Bishop Beaufort and from him by way of one of several persons to either my lord husband or to me. We each have several separate ways to see them on to Burgundy and his messages come back by like ways. Never the same way twice in a row, to keep it difficult to suspect or detect.”