The Servant's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  “Who?” Domina Edith asked. “Why?”

  There was no answer yet to that. Or there were several answers, but no way of telling yet which was the right one. Frevisse, her mind beginning to move past the reality of Sister Fiacre’s death to what it meant and what was going to happen from it, was already seeing possibilities and not liking them.

  “Roger Naylor must be told,” she said.

  “And Sister Fiacre seen to,” Domina Edith said, “before the others see her. They will have to be told, but they need only see her in her coffin. They need not see what we have seen. Thomasine, you are not to talk of what you saw here.”

  “Yes, Domina.”

  “I need to see the wound uncovered,” said Frevisse.

  “Why?” asked Dame Claire.

  “Perhaps the wound will tell what manner of weapon struck her. At the least, was it sharp or blunt.”

  “I am afraid her head may fall apart if the wimple is removed,” said Dame Claire, her voice reflecting her deep distress. Thomasine began to pray louder.

  “Could you, er, restore her, Dame Claire?” Domina Edith said.

  The infirmarian set her small hands to either side of the dead nun’s skull and gently pressed. The bones shifted to a more natural shape with a soft grating sound. Dame Claire swallowed thickly and said, “It appears her skin is mostly whole, but I would prefer that we not take off her wimple. Yet I understand Dame Frevisse’s request. We will need a clean wimple. And we’d best replace the veil.”

  “Dame Frevisse, take Sister Thomasine to help you bring what is needed. We’ll prepare her body here. That would be best, don’t you agree, Dame Claire?”

  Dame Claire nodded. “The less she’s moved the better. We can clean and coffin her here. Maybe before Vespers ends.”

  “Thank you. I will tell them then what has happened.”

  Sister Thomasine had risen and come to join them while they talked. Now, standing at Frevisse’s side, as sickly looking as Frevisse felt, her eyes on Sister Fiacre, she whispered, “Some wicked person denied her the Last Sacrament.”

  “She has known she was dying for a long time,” Domina Edith said, “and was as prepared for it as anyone can be. And when the blow was struck, she was at prayer at the foot of the altar. She died by violence but in the midst of holiness. We can only add our prayers to her own.” The prioress’s weight had become increasingly heavy on Frevisse’s arm. In the same quiet, even tone she said, “I wish to sit now.”

  Frevisse shifted to put an arm around her waist, guided her to her choir stall, and eased her down into it. In all the priory, each nun’s seat in the choir was her own, the one thing that was hers alone for all of her life as a professed nun—unless, like Domina Edith, she rose to be prioress and took the more elaborately carved and prominent one that belonged to that office. But the prioress’s choir stall had been Domina Edith’s for over thirty years now, and was probably as familiar to her as her own bed. She sank back on it and bent her head in prayer, for no one in this sinful world dies without needing prayers to speed her soul, no matter how forewarned.

  Frevisse went back to Dame Claire, and the two of them performed the grisly task of removing Sister Fiacre’s veil and wimple. Frevisse was surprised to note how gray Fiacre’s short hair was; she was not yet forty. But at the back, it was dark, thick with blood already almost dry.

  “This is strange,” said Dame Claire after a few minutes.

  “I agree,” said Frevisse. “Here, and here, the skull is cut, but here it looks smashed, as if by a club.”

  “Two murderers?” Dame Claire’s deep voice was sick with dismay.

  “Two weapons, anyway. It’s hard to think two people came together to murder Sister Fiacre. I pray we find out the truth of this, for I doubt Master Montfort is able.” Frevisse stood. “I’ll go collect what is needed. Domina, do you wish to join the others at Vespers?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway. Go on, and you also, Sister Thomasine.”

  “Yes, Domina.” Thomasine crossed herself and stood.

  What they needed to ready the body was in the infirmary. But once out into the cloister walk, Frevisse said, “You go ahead to fetch the wimple and veil. I’ll tell Master Naylor we need a coffin.”

  Somewhere in the priory’s storerooms there was at least one coffin, kept against the likelihood of winter death at the priory. Two weeks ago there had been fear that Domina Edith was marked for it, before she began to better from her cough. Now it would be used after all for the one thought most likely to be next to die, though not like this.

  At this time of day Roger Naylor should still be somewhere around the priory, seeing that all was in order for the night. Frevisse went into the courtyard, looking for a servant to send for him. Instead she saw the man himself, crossing toward her in his firm, stolid walk, casting a long shadow to one side in the failing light.

  He called to her, “What’s amiss in there? I hear nothing from the church when there should be singing.” Seeing her face he lengthened his stride. “What is it?”

  “Sister Fiacre is dead. Can you bring a coffin to the church? That’s where we found her, and Domina Edith wants her taken care of there.”

  Naylor crossed himself. “God take her soul into His hands. I didn’t know she was that close to dying.”

  “She wasn’t,” Frevisse said. “Can the coffin be brought? And someone sent for Father Henry, wherever he is?”

  Naylor’s look was sharp on her face, but he only nodded and went away.

  Frevisse returned to the cloister. Sister Thomasine was just ahead of her with a clumsy burden: a basin of water with two cloths floating in it, a wimple, veil, and towels over one arm. Frevisse hurried to catch up and took all but the basin, then went ahead to hold the door open ahead of her.

  Sister Fiacre’s body was cleaned, dressed again, and ready for her coffin when Naylor led in two of the abbey servants carrying it and a third man bearing the trestles it would rest on in front of the altar. Without seeming to do so, Dame Claire and Frevisse moved to block Sister Fiacre’s body from view while the men put the coffin down and set up the trestles. Naylor dismissed them, and when they were gone, asked, “Shall I help put her into this, or do I go away, also?”

  At this strong hint, Dame Claire said, “She was killed. Someone struck her from behind as she knelt on these steps.”

  “You’re sure she was struck down? That she didn’t fall?”

  “We’re sure,” said Dame Frevisse. “Have you seen any strangers within our walls today?”

  “Nay, Dame. Except the players, of course. I hear they had words with Sister Fiacre here in the church earlier today.”

  He produced this bit of gossip without rancor or arrogance, but Frevisse felt herself bristle. Before she could say anything, Domina Edith said, “If you will kindly assist in our sad task of coffining Sister Fiacre, Master Naylor. We would have it done before the end of Vespers.”

  “As you wish, Domina.”

  They stepped aside and let him go to the body. It was lying on its back now, the blood-stained bands covered with fresh ones, the blood-soaked veil replaced. Eyes closed, no trace of blood or agony, Sister Fiacre was simply lying there. Only the slightly unnatural angle of the head because there was no longer a curved back to the skull to hold it up betrayed how grievously wrong things were.

  “The crowner is coming anyway, for the village death,” he said toward Domina Edith. “It won’t be possible to keep it secret after his arrival that this death was murder.”

  Domina Edith shook her head slowly. “To keep it secret she was murdered—no. That would be neither honest nor safe. Yet we hope to keep the full ugliness of how she died from the others. That she was killed will come hard enough.”

  Frevisse raised her hand a little, asking for attention. “There’s something else.” Sister Thomasine, Domina Edith, and Naylor all turned to her; Dame Claire looked away. Frevisse tucked her hands into her sleeves and straightened her spine, taking the formal pose to
steady her voice. “The death of Sym was murder, too.”

  Naylor was the first to speak. “How can you be sure?”

  Dame Claire replied. “Because there are two wounds on the boy’s body. One of them is nothing much. He took it at the alehouse and walked home afterwards. The other one was struck while he was lying down.”

  Domina Edith suggested mildly, “But suppose the second, too, came at the alehouse, while he was brawling?”

  Frevisse said, “It was to the heart and would have killed him almost on the instant. He went walking nowhere after it was struck.”

  Naylor brooded silently a moment, then said to her, “I’ll want to look at him. I know something of knife wounds. In the meanwhile”—he turned back to Domina Edith—“best you see that no one is anywhere alone if they can help it until I’ve seen to having those players locked away for Montfort’s coming.”

  Again Frevisse had to bite down on an angry response. Naturally the players were an obvious choice for both murders, and she had yet to find a way to clear them. But it hurt to see Domina Edith accept his statement without question, inclining her head forward in agreement.

  “But now the coffin,” she said.

  Dame Claire stepped aside so that Frevisse and Naylor could raise it to the trestles.

  As they finished and stepped back, one of the servants who had brought in the coffin returned at a scurry up the nave. Red-nosed and short of breath, he pulled a swift bow to all of them in general and said, “It’s the crowner! He’s riding into the yard, he and his men.”

  “Sooner than expected,” Dame Claire remarked.

  Frevisse went taut but only said, “By your leave, Domina, I will go see that he is properly settled in our guesthall. Doubtless he will want his supper, and I will have to explain that his untimely arrival caught us unprepared.”

  The church’s side door opened, and Sister Juliana came in. Her eyes widened at the sight of the coffin, and again at seeing Master Naylor, but she curtsied to Domina Edith in her stall and said, “Dame Alys sent me to say that we have finished Vespers and want to know should we come back here or go to supper.”

  Domina Edith’s reply was soft, but prompt. “Do neither. Dame Claire, go to the warming room and with my authority set the watch beginning with Sister Lucy and Sister Emma, who must come immediately, and may go from here to a late supper in the kitchen when they are replaced. The rest as you all agree among yourselves, except Dame Frevisse, who will take the first watch after Matins and Lauds, as she has guests to see to now. Once you have decided how you will divide the night and tomorrow until chapter, then you may go to supper.”

  Dame Claire, with a nod of appreciation for the prompt solution to one part of the problem, curtsied deeply. “As you wish, Domina,” she murmured, and went, taking Sister Juliana with her.

  “Now,” said Domina Edith, “you, Master Naylor, had better go see to it that the players are in the lesser guesthall and stay there, then that Master Montfort’s horses are properly stabled.” To the servant she said, “Go, give Master Montfort my greetings and tell him I will see him in my parlor so soon as he is able to come. Sister Thomasine will accompany me there now. Dame Frevisse, you stay here until Sisters Juliana and Emma come, then haste to your duties in the guesthall. See if there is something warm that can be had from our kitchen.”

  She paused, considering if that covered all that needed doing on the moment, then nodded and held out her hand to take Sister Thomasine’s.

  She had hardly departed when the two nuns who would begin the watch over Sister Fiacre’s body came in. Frevisse brought two candles and two gilt candle holders from the sacristy for the head and foot of the coffin, and lit them from the altar candle, which she then blew out and replaced.

  It was nearly dark out, and the courtyard was lit by flaring torches. Frevisse, standing outside the church’s western door, made a quick count of the men Montfort had brought with him, and saw the crowner himself among them, his bulk muffled in a heavy hooded cloak, standing by his tall yellow gelding, giving curt instructions to a priory servant before handing over the reins. The torchlight made his face more florid than it already was, and judging by his expression, his temper matched its color.

  Frevisse pretended not to see him as she went quickly by, bound for the greater guesthall. The last time he had had to come to St. Frideswide’s, she had interfered with his investigation in what he considered a wholly improper manner for a woman and a nun. That she proved herself right and him wrong did not change his opinion of her. She did not want to set him off again, nor allow him to make his usual facile, incorrect deductions. She would have to work around him, and send her ideas to him by way of Father Henry or Master Naylor, in the form of suggestions or questions that would cause no offense. Master Naylor did not favor cleverness in women but at least knew how to work around stupidity in men.

  In the guesthall the servants were already gathered, waiting for instructions. She ordered first that Sym’s body be moved to an empty shed in the outer yard—Montfort would not approve of sharing his quarters with a dead villein—then that the fireplaces in the best chamber and the guesthall kitchen be lit. She set the servants to their other duties, and with everything in motion and certain her people knew how to carry through, Frevisse left them to it.

  In the yard, she looked toward the lesser guesthall. A servant she recognized as Naylor’s assistant was standing guard at the door. She ought to go back to the cloister, to confer with Dame Alys in her kitchen about heating cider. But she turned away from the cloister for the other guesthall. She would make sure the players knew there would be no play tonight.

  Chapter

  19

  FREVISSE AWOKE THE next morning heavy with weariness. Standing her watch in the cold church beside the stiff body of Sister Fiacre had, besides denying her needed rest, depressed her. She was tired of death, tired of being cold and ill, tired of being around other cold, sick women, tired even of prayers and worship. She forced herself through the day’s beginning until the end of chapter. Then, as the nuns left to go about their various morning tasks and Dame Claire moved to Domina Edith’s side to help her back to her rooms, the prioress, accepting her arm, gestured to Frevisse to come with them.

  Domina Edith needed only a little help while walking, but on the stairs to her private rooms gave way to their steadying help with simple grace. Under the furred cloak and several layers of clothing she seemed all thin flesh and small bones.

  Her rooms had more luxury than the rest of St. Frideswide’s. Her parlor, where she received guests of importance or ones personally welcome, overlooked the courtyard through three tall windows glazed with clear glass. In the more than thirty years since Domina Edith had become prioress, her personal things had so gradually come into the room that St. Frideswide’s would have seemed incomplete without them. A woven rug from Spain lay over a table and an embroidery frame with an unfinished wall hanging of Virgin and Child in a field of flowers stood near the fireplace. On the hearth was an elderly basket where her greyhound had slept; though the dog had died last summer, Domina Edith had not yet given order for the basket to be taken away, and no one would ever think to do it without her order.

  The parlor was ready for its mistress, the fire built up in the fireplace and braziers lighted in two corners of the room. The only thing not friendly or fitting was Master Montfort standing spread legged in front of the fireplace, displeasure plain on his fox-nosed face. His hands were behind him, the back of one slapping into the palm of the other, filling the gap of his waiting with sharp noise.

  Frevisse felt a sharp rise of dismay and alarm at seeing him. There was simply no way around the fact that Master Morys Montfort, the King’s crowner for northern Oxfordshire, was an arrogant fool.

  Domina Edith inclined her head to him. “Benedicite, Master Montfort. I pray you give me a moment to finish some bit of business with Dame Claire.”

  She did not slip free of her cloak as she turned to settle into her
chair, but kept it close around her. Even before this winter sickness she had been somewhat declining. Her soft folded skin was so pale it was difficult to tell where it ended and her white wimple began. But her eyes had lost none of their alertness and she fixed them now on Dame Claire.

  “So—” she began, but the word croaked and she paused to clear her throat before trying again. “So, how is our siege of the rheum doing? Is this going to be done with soon, or shall we go on like this until spring?”

  “Not into spring, surely,” Dame Claire said, a little stiffly. She had as little liking for Montfort as Frevisse did. “It’s easing among most of us, rather than going on to something worse.”

  “And for that we must thank you as well as God, I know,” Domina Edith said. “It will be a blessing when it’s finished, though. I’m very weary of the offices sounding like a chorus of frogs. Thank you, Dame.” She turned to Montfort with an unapologetic smile. “It was not something I was minded to ask in chapter for fear of inspiring relapses. Now, how are matters with you? Are you being well seen to, and helped in your questioning?”

  Montfort stopped his impatient hand slapping. “Your steward has told me enough that there’s going to be a little trouble in concluding matters.”

  Dame Claire knew more about Sym’s death and Sister Fiacre’s than did Roger Naylor, but it was clear from her expression that Montfort had not questioned her. But Montfort saw her ready to speak and directed so ill-tempered a look at her that she pressed her lips closed. He sniffed his contentment at putting an impertinent female in her place.

  “I had thought to find this was a mere death by misadventure,” he said. “A villein picking a quarrel with a rogue during Christmas idleness and falling on his own knife. I wish it were so, as I have my own holiday to enjoy, Lord Lovel being so kind as to honor my wife and me with an invitation to keep the holidays with him.”