The Servant's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Sister Fiacre cut him off with a small shriek. She stepped back, clutching her hands to her breast as if he had threatened her. “You! You dare!” She fluttered a hand out at him. “You were Lord Warenne’s man! You were all Lord Warenne’s men! I remember you, Thomas Bassett! I know all about you and why he turned you away! How can you dare profane this place?”

  Frevisse, drawn from the cloister walk by Sister Fiacre’s raised voice, heard that much as she came in by the side door, and saw the momentary bewilderment on Bassett’s face begin to change toward alarm even as he said with a steady voice, “I fear you have the advantage of me, good lady.”

  Under the strength of her indignation Sister Fiacre left off handwringing to point a shaking finger at him. “My brother told me! After he came in to his lordship, he said what you offered to do. You and those…those…others.” She flapped a hand at Ellis and Joliffe standing farther away with Sister Amicia all agog between them. “Sister Amicia, you come away from those two!” Sister Fiacre added with shrill fierceness. “Right away! You don’t know the wickedness about them that I know.”

  Angry color was rising in both Ellis’s and Joliffe’s faces as she spoke, but it was Joliffe who said, “It’s your brother you don’t know about. That sanctimonious, prig-faced…”

  “Joiiffe!”

  Frevisse had never heard Bassett’s voice fully raised before. It surged to the wide roof beams of the nave and between the stone walls and stopped everyone, movement and voice, Joliffe as well as Sister Fiacre. Even Frevisse, startled, held her peace and place. It was Joliffe who recovered first and said, still angrily, to Bassett now, “There’s no reason we have to—”

  Again Bassett interrupted. “There’s reasons. You think and you’ll remember them.” He rounded on Ellis, cutting him off, too. “You remember?” he demanded sharply.

  “I remember,” Ellis said angrily. His anger was a darker kind than Joliffe’s. “We all remember them.”

  “And well you should!” Sister Fiacre cried out. “Very well you should! My brother told me all of it! What you offered to do! What you said!”

  Whatever else she was about to say, Frevisse cut off by coming forward. She knew too well the uselessness of trying to reason with Sister Fiacre when she was in this state and said in a deliberately quiet voice, “Whatever you know, I’m sure it’s not worth shouting in the church about, Sister Fiacre.”

  “But these people offered to bring—”

  “We? You have it the wrong way—” began Joliffe.

  “Silence!” said Bassett. “This is not the time or place—”

  “I agree,” said Frevisse in her most authoritative voice. She was perfectly aware of the edge she could give to words when she chose. She gave it now, and Sister Fiacre, her lower lip beginning to waver and tears filling her eyes, subsided.

  Frevisse continued, “I’ll see to everything from here, Sister Fiacre. Sister Amicia will take you to Dame Claire, who will give you something to calm you. Sister Lucy will stay, and I will assist her with this.”

  Protest trembled all over Sister Fiacre’s face but she was no match for any well-asserted authority and finally, with a little strangled cry and her hands clutched again to her breast, she bowed her head and let Sister Amicia lead her away. Meg left the shadows and hurried after her, her sudden appearance startling everyone but Sister Fiacre.

  When they were gone and the side door shut behind them, Frevisse looked at Sister Lucy, who looked back with neutral quietness. Sister Lucy was well into her forties and had achieved Domina Edith’s serene detachment from emotional scenes. Now she seemed to feel that since Frevisse had taken on the problem, the problem was Frevisse’s; she offered no suggestions, and Frevisse turned to the players and said equably. “Now, Bassett, would you care to finish looking around and tell us what you will need for your performance?”

  “Yes, thank you, my lady, we would.”

  Joliffe and Ellis were still smoldering, but Bassett seemed calm. Or maybe he handled his anger better than the younger men did. As if the interlude with Sister Fiacre had not happened, Bassett began to inspect the nave to see where they could best perform, using questions and suggestions to draw Ellis and Joliffe after him and soothe their resentment away.

  It was decided that, all in all, little was needed beyond what their own stock of properties could provide. Sister Lucy would see to lanterns being set around the church, the nuns could gather at the altar end, and the players would perform in the nave, just inside the western door.

  “That’s all easily done.” Sister Lucy said. “I’ll be sure someone sees to it. Is there anything else?”

  “You’ve been most gracious,” Bassett said. “I think there’s nothing else but to let us make glad your evening.”

  “I look forward to your performance,” Sister Lucy replied, so formally it was impossible to tell if she were telling the truth or only being polite.

  All three of the men then bowed both to her and Frevisse and left. Frevisse meant to go after them, but paused to ask Sister Lucy, “How does Domina Edith? Is she ill again?”

  Sister Lucy smiled slightly. “Not truly. She resents her body being weak, but Dame Claire has said she should stay quiet today and rest, lest her sickness come back on her. She’s presently more impatient than anything.”

  “Can she be visited?”

  Sister Lucy hesitated, then said, “It would depend. It wouldn’t be well for her to be truly disturbed….” She paused, looking at the floor.

  “As Sister Fiacre might do,” Frevisse finished for her. “But would it be possible for me to call on her sometime today?”

  “With God all things are possible. With Domina Edith things are a little less certain. I will inquire.”

  They smiled at each other and went their separate ways, Sister Lucy returning to Domina Edith, Frevisse to the old guesthall.

  As she went she told herself that simply because the priory had so few guests this holiday time, and those guests not of the most important, her duty still required that she see to their needs. That was why she was going to them now, no other reason, except of course that Joliffe’s dagger needed returning.

  He was leaning against the wide stone frame of the guesthall doorway as she crossed the yard. He seemed unaware of her coming. Staring down in front of him at nothing in particular, he looked gone away somewhere far in his thoughts. Frevisse knew the moment he became aware of her, not by any movement that he made but simply because his awareness turned outward some several heartbeats before he raised his eyes and met hers.

  She drew the dagger from her sleeve and held it out to him. “Thank you. It was useful.”

  “On whom?” he asked, taking it from her.

  Deliberately Frevisse said, “On Sym,” and watched Joliffe’s face.

  Only slightly disconcerted he said, “He must have made an easy target. He was already dead.”

  “Yes,” Frevisse agreed. She would have asked him about the trouble between Sister Fiacre’s family and the players, but was interrupted by an angry voice beyond the door behind him. She listened and then asked, surprised, “Rose?”

  Joliffe, with a grin, nodded. “Bassett was telling her what happened in the church. It’s why I came out here. If you’ve any pity, you might want to go in and rescue him.”

  “But what—”

  Frevisse paused, distracted by Rose’s rising voice. The words were indistinct but the anger clear.

  “She’s afraid we’ll be put back on the road before the day is out,” Joliffe explained. “And that Piers will sicken again if we are. Few things rouse Rose to temper, but danger to Piers is very definitely one of them.” He stepped aside, opening the door for her. “So go rescue Bassett, if it please you.”

  Frevisse entered the hall. Joliffe did not follow her.

  Bassett and Ellis were seated by the fire with the hunch-shouldered look of men who would have left if they could. Rose stood across from them, silent just then, her hands on her hips, glaring at
them. At Frevisse’s coming they all looked her way, and Bassett rose quickly to his feet with plain relief.

  “If I’ve come at a bad time,” she started.

  “No,” Bassett said quickly. “We were just talking about how well the church would serve for the play. Piers’s voice should be excellent there.”

  “He’ll be well enough for it by then?”

  “We’re thinking so, if he keeps warm till then and goes directly to his bed afterwards.”

  “I’m tired of bed,” Piers announced loudly from his blankets beyond the fire. “Hewe, hand me that.”

  One of their baskets full of props and goods had been dragged close to where he lay. Like the others, it was large, almost his boy’s length and waist high on him if he had been standing. It had completely hidden Hewe where he was sitting, but now he moved at Piers’s command, holding out a brightly painted box and glancing warily at Frevisse to see what she would say to his being there.

  She said nothing; where he was was his concern, or his mother’s, and he seemed to be doing no harm. Instead she said to Bassett, “Will you be rehearsing this afternoon?”

  Assured of her uninterest, Hewe crawled closer to Piers and they began to look through whatever the box held.

  “We mean to,” Bassett said. “But I suppose not in the church?”

  “It might be better if you didn’t. Sister Fiacre—”

  Rose made an angry sound and a sharp movement.

  “Rose,” Ellis said, and went to her. His gesture was one of support, but he did not touch her, only stood close. She folded her arms tightly across her breast, making a battlement of them.

  “She’s there by choice and by duty,” Frevisse went on. “She’s sacristan. If her temper seems uneven, it’s not that she wills it thus. She’s…unwell. She has a cancer in her breast, and is often in much pain. What medicine Dame Claire can give her doesn’t help much anymore. So she seeks the silence of the church and the solace of offering her pain for her few sins and for the repose of the souls of those who have helped our priory prosper.”

  Bassett grimaced with pity, and the others looked abashed or embarrassed. But Bassett’s gaze shifted past Frevisse’s shoulder, and she turned to find Meg standing there, bent sideways under the weight of a bucket of coal.

  “Meg!” Frevisse said. “Surely there’s a man servant better able to carry that. Why don’t you go home?”

  Meg’s worn face seemed sunk more deeply into its lines than ever. She was carefully not looking beyond Frevisse’s feet to any of the players. In a monotone she said, “I don’t want to risk losing my place here.” She glanced at the bucket of coal. “Domina Edith sent word this was to be brought over to the guests. I’ll just set it by the fire then, may I?”

  Eyes still down, she staggered forward, set the bucket by the fire, and turned to leave; but her lifting eye was caught by Hewe and Piers who had been sitting still as fawns that hoped to escape the hunter.

  Frevisse saw both her amazement and Hewe’s chagrin, before anger clamped over Meg’s face and she said, “Hewe, how dare you sit idle here with work to be done at home? And if you’ve no strength or will for that, then you should be by your brother, praying for his soul, while I can’t.” For the first time, her eyes raked the players. “Least of all should you be found with these folk. You don’t belong here, not with them. Come with me.”

  “Aw, but Mam—” Hewe started.

  But Meg was already by him, grabbing him by the ear. “Don’t you speak back to me!” She twisted and he came to his feet making sounds of pain. “Come along! I can’t trust you to do what you ought, can I? Well, there’s chickens to catch, and be killed and plucked, and you can help. Hush, hush that noise! I don’t understand how you can be so wicked. Can’t trust you an inch! You come along with me!”

  She stopped by the door long enough to bob a clumsy curtsey in Frevisse’s direction, and Hewe grimaced an apology to Piers, then they were gone.

  Chapter

  18

  MIDDAY AND NONES passed. Frevisse, coming and going about her tasks, kept watch for Father Henry’s return from the village and left word with the gateward and servants to find her when he came back, if they saw him before she did. But he did not come, nor was there any word of the crowner’s arrival, and the clear winter’s day drew in toward its early sunset, the cold starting to deepen with the twilight.

  In the long slant of shadows and thickening light, the bell began to ring for Vespers, and from all around the nunnery, in a flurry of hurried footsteps, coughing, and one loud sneeze, the nuns gathered toward the church.

  Frevisse was among the first, glad of the chance to sink into the service’s peace, away from her circling thoughts. There would be no time now today to talk to Father Henry. But after the long, frustrating wait, she was ready to put him and her questions from her mind.

  Her sickness was like a weight dragging her body and her thoughts to a slow trudge. She was hoping prayers, supper in a warm room, and then the play before Compline would be distraction enough to ease her way into sleep later.

  It was cold in the cloister, with just enough of a breeze to lift her veil. Frevisse pulled at the heavy door to the church, and went into dimness, two nuns close behind her. They would wait just inside for the others. At first the black shape stretched on the altar steps made only a vague impression, a thicker darkness among the gathering shadows. It took a few moments for them to realize it was a wrongness that needed closer investigation.

  Sister Thomasine went forward first, always bolder when it was a matter of the altar or of her prayers than any other time. But it was Frevisse who suddenly realized what she was seeing and moved sharply forward as Thomasine knelt, one hand outstretched toward the shape.

  “Thomasine!” she said sharply, stopping the young woman’s hesitant hand, making her look around. More quietly, almost coaxingly, she added, “Come away, Thomasine. Don’t touch her.”

  Sister Thomasine’s veiled head came around, her eyes blurred shapes in her white face and white wimple, wide with bewilderment.

  “But I think she’s dead,” she said.

  “Don’t touch her yet,” Frevisse repeated, coming to lift her up and away from the body. “Just stand here.”

  “Who is it?” asked one of the other nuns, a question repeated in fragments as they looked among themselves to see who was missing. Others had been coming in, and now two more entered, to be told in frightened whispers what was happening.

  “Is Dame Claire here?” asked Frevisse.

  Even as she said it, her eyes were searching among their faces.

  “Here I am,” said Dame Claire, breaking free of the whispering throng. She went to kneel beside the prone figure. For a moment her hand hesitated before, very gently, she touched the back of the fallen nun’s head, then put a hand under the nearer shoulder and rolled the body sideways enough to see her face. In the poor light, it appeared almost as white as the surrounding wimple, which was itself touched with darkness. Dame Claire returned the body to its original pose, crossing herself before rising to turn to the others.

  “It’s Sister Fiacre,” she said, keeping her deep voice level with an effort.

  Sister Thomasine sank to her knees, crying in a loud voice, “Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine; quis sustinebit?” If you shall observe wickedness, O Lord; who shall endure it?

  That sent the others to their knees. Someone began to sob.

  Frevisse saw beyond their bowed heads Domina Edith just come through the door on Sister Juliana’s arm. Threading her way among the kneeling figures, Frevisse went to her and said quietly, “Sister Fiacre is dead. She is over there, on the altar steps.”

  Deep among wrinkles, Domina Edith’s eyes went swiftly to Sister Fiacre’s still form and Dame Claire on her knees beside it, then back to Frevisse’s face. She said, “Take me to her.” And to Sister Juliana, “Stay here,” as she transferred her unsteadiness to Frevisse’s arm. Carefully they circled the kneeling nuns.


  Dame Claire rose to her feet at their approach, moving to put herself between Domina Edith and the body, but Domina Edith said, “She is one of mine. Can I refuse to look on her?”

  Dame Claire hesitated, then said, too low for anyone except themselves to hear, “It wasn’t her illness that killed her.”

  Equally low, not hesitating, Domina Edith repeated, “I’ll see her.”

  Frevisse went to the altar, genuflected, then pulled one of the candles from its holder. She went to the altar lamp and lit the candle, then brought it down the three steps.

  Dame Claire again turned the body so its face was exposed, and in silence Domina Edith stood looking down at her dead nun. The wimple and veil around Sister Fiacre’s head had concealed the flatness of the back of her head, and the sideways distortion the broken skull bones gave to her face, both now revealed in the golden candlelight. The eyes bulged as if startled to be overtaken by death, and a little blood had seeped brightly through the white, close-bound wimple along her face, but there was no distortion of terror. What had come had come unwarned and on the instant. The veil had soaked up most of the blood, leaving only a thin gleaming line on the stone floor as the candlelight caught it.

  Behind them came the sound of someone rising, and Dame Alys’s hoarse voice. “It’s a shame, but not unexpected, her being so ill. Who will help move her? I’ll light some of these candles and lanterns. We’ll need more light, and there’s all these waiting for the play tonight. Though now there won’t be any play.”

  Domina Edith, her hand heavy on Frevisse’s arm to steady herself, said without turning around, her tone giving nothing away, “Leave the lights alone, there is no need for them yet. Dame Alys, take everyone to the warming room for Vespers. Except Dame Frevisse, Dame Claire, and Sister Thomasine. The rest of you, go. Remember to take the psalter. Pray the harder in our absence. I will come to you as soon as may be to tell you the schedule of vigil for Sister Fiacre.”

  Grateful and calmed by guidance, the other nuns rose in a hush and rustle of skirts and soft soles. Some two or three relaxed enough to cough. They left the church in Dame Alys’s wake, the door thumping solidly behind the last one out.