Domina Elisabeth set the Office firmly on its way by saying in her clear, determined voice, “Pater noster, qui es in caelis…”—Our father, you who are in heaven… —and her nuns obediently followed her into the prayer.
Domina Elisabeth took a workmanlike approach to the Offices and every other service due to God and his saints, believing—as nearly as Frevisse could tell—that God and his saints would in return see to the priory’s well-being—fair pay for fair work, as it were—and indeed St. Frideswide’s was prospering compared to what it had been; but there were still times when Frevisse greatly missed Domina Edith, prioress when she first entered St. Frideswide’s. For Domina Edith, the Offices’ beauty and passion had been a way to deepen her own and her nuns’ devotion, a way to bring them nearer to God. There had been none of the “I give you thus and you give me so in return” that seemed to be Domina Elisabeth’s way. Instead Domina Edith had tried for as full a giving of herself as was possible, in the hope of growing to be worthy of God’s great love.
Much of what Frevisse understood of nunhood had come from her, but Domina Edith had been dead these twelve years, and at least it could be said that under Domina Elisabeth’s careful governance no one was allowed to scant their prayers. The chant rose, “Nunc, Sancte, nobis, Spiritus, Unum Patri cum Filio…”—Now, Holy Spirit, one with the Father, with the Son… —and Frevisse gave her full heed to that and for the while forgot all else, until at the ending Amen Domina Elisabeth promptly closed her breviary and rose to her feet.
Her nuns did likewise and, two by two, made procession from the choir and out the church’s side door into the cloister walk in a busy bustle. There Domina Elisabeth briefly blessed them and left them to scatter to whatever tasks they might do in the while before Sext. The day was bright and dry and warm again, and minded to work at her copying, Frevisse went the little way along the walk to the desk she used among the five set endwise there to the church’s wall for the sake of the best light. The half-filled page she had been working on before Tierce was waiting for her, but rather than sitting down, she stood looking back to the church door, waiting to see Lady Anneys come out.
The servants came. And Ursula, led by Malde from the kitchen, whose grip on her hand was just short of an open struggle as Ursula twisted to pull free.
‘Malde,“ Frevisse said. ”What’s the matter?“
Not letting go of Ursula, Malde stopped and started to say something. But Ursula said fiercely past her, still pulling to be loose, “He gave her money and told her to take me away so he could talk to Mother. Mother doesn’t want to talk to him. Let me go.”
She wrenched hard and it might have turned to tussling but Frevisse said, moving toward them, “I’ll see to it, Ursula. Go on with Malde. Malde, I’ll talk with you later about this.”
Malde looked suddenly uncertain she had been paid enough for that, but Frevisse went past her and Ursula to the door still standing open into the church. Yesterday Lady Anneys had made it plain to Master Selenger she had no wish to talk with him anymore. If she had changed her mind today, then Frevisse would discreetly withdraw but…
She was not even a single pace inside the door before she knew Lady Anneys had not changed her mind. Standing much where she had been during Tierce, she was turning away from whatever Master Selenger had said to keep her there, saying at him angrily, “There’s no use to this. Leave me alone.”
He reached out and caught her by the arm. “Lady Anneys, listen…”
‘Sir?“ Frevisse said, bland as if blind to what was happening. ”My lady?“
Master Selenger let go his hold so suddenly that Lady Anneys, still pulling back from him, stumbled. He caught her arm again to steady her, but as fierce as Ursula had been against Malde, she jerked free again, turned her back on him, and said with open anger to Frevisse, “Master Selenger was just making his good-byes. He’s leaving now.”
‘I’m certain he is,“ Frevisse agreed, staring coldly at him as she moved forward to Lady Anneys’ side. ”The Lord’s blessing on your going, sir.“
She made that more of a command than a blessing, and Master Selenger’s face was flamingly red and stiff with things unsaid as he bowed rigidly first to her, then to Lady Anneys’ back still turned firmly to him. He opened his mouth as if to speak, decided against it, swung around, and left, going at a swift walk down the nave and out the church’s west door to the guesthall yard without looking back.
Frevisse and Lady Anneys stayed where they were. Only when the heavy door had thudded shut behind him and the church was safely empty did Lady Anneys turn to Frevisse. A tear was sliding down one cheek and her voice shook a little as she said, “This mustn’t be talked about. I pray you, Dame Frevisse, say nothing about it to anyone. If anyone— anyone—asks if anything passed between Master Selenger and me, tell them what you saw. That he wanted to keep me here against my will and I was trying to leave. That yesterday I encouraged him to nothing.”
‘I will,“ Frevisse promised, since all that was nothing more than the truth.
Lady Anneys wiped at the tear, seeming angry it was there; shut her eyes and pressed her fingers to them to stop more from coming.
Carefully, Frevisse said, “Cry if need be. There’s no one here to mind.”
Lady Anneys dropped her hands and opened her dry eyes, refusing both the offer and more tears. “I would mind.”
‘It’s sometimes best to cry and be done with it.“
‘If once I started,“ Lady Anneys said, ”I might never be done. There are too many in me that I never shed. My late, damned husband would have treasured every one he ever forced from me, so even now I won’t give them to him.“
Frevisse had long since judged that Lady Anneys was hardly in mourning for her husband, but the hatred naked in Lady Anneys’ words and voice surprised her enough she showed her surprise, and Lady Anneys said bitterly, “Oh, yes, I hate him. I didn’t dare while he was alive, but now that he’s dead and I’m free of him, I hate him very, very much. That’s one of the reasons I needed to be here, away from everything. I need this time to pray and purge myself of him.”
She had said “one of the reasons,” Frevisse noted but did not ask the others, only offered, “Do you want I should leave to your prayers now?”
Lady Anneys looked uneasily the way Master Selenger had gone.
‘I’ll see that he’s left or that it’s understood he’s to go before I do anything else,“ Frevisse said. Under St. Benedict’s Rule, the priory was required to receive such guests as God might send them. That did not mean they had to put up with those who spoiled their own welcome by making trouble.
‘Yes,“ Lady Anneys said. ”Yes. Thank you. If I know he’s gone… yes, I’d like to pray for a while. But…“ She hesitated, then asked, ”No questions? No wanting to know anything else?“
‘I may want to know,“ Frevisse said in all honesty, ”but I don’t think you want to tell me.“
That surprised a half-unwilling laugh from Lady Anneys. “I don’t, no. Thank you.”
‘But if sometime you do, I’ll listen. And still not ask questions if you don’t want them.“
Lady Anneys regarded her in searching silence for a moment, then slightly bowed her head in thanks again. “If the time comes, I’ll remember.” She drew back a step, looking toward the altar. “For now, though, I think prayer will suffice. By your leave, my lady.”
Chapter 6
The bright, late summer days had turned from warm to hot, and Tom, Hugh, and Miles were lingering in the shadowy hall after midday dinner, none of them in haste to be about their afternoon work. Hugh had spent the early morning riding out to exercise the dogs while the day was still somewhat cool and then he and Degory had rather uselessly worked with Skyre, who was seeming less and less likely to ever be a usable scent-hound after all. In the alarm after Sir Ralph was found, no one had remembered her save Degory, and when they carried Sir Ralph’s body back to the manor, he had stayed behind, searched for her, found her, “Cower
ing under a bush close by where he was,” he told Hugh when he went to ask his help.
‘She maybe saw it or something. It’s like she’s witless. I’ve brought her in. She won’t stop shaking.“ Nor did she until Hugh had wrapped her in a blanket, tightly swaddling her almost the way a nurse would do a howling baby to quiet it. But Skyre had not howled, only trembled, and even now still trembled and cringed at any sudden noise or movement. Still, she had been too promising a hound to let go without he tried to save her, but it had made for a discouraging morning and because he had nothing particularly planned for this afternoon, he was simply sitting on the dais step with Baude between his knees, stroking a brush down her back and sides not so much because she needed the grooming as for the pleasure it gave them both.
Tom, with seemingly no more ambition toward the rest of the day than Hugh had, was leaned back in his chair behind the table, legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes shut although—if anyone had asked him—he would have said he was not sleeping, only not ready to move. He had spent the morning walking the fields with Lucas, the reeve, overseeing the start of the barley harvest, and once he bestirred himself he’d be out again all the afternoon.
Miles had his head down on his crossed arms on the table, and under the table Bevis was stretched out with his chin resting on Miles’ foot. When Hugh had laughingly goaded him at first about the hound’s unwanted devotion, Miles had grumbled, “Can’t you kennel him with the rest of the hounds?”
‘He’s too used to being with Sir Ralph. I doubt he’d do anything but make trouble if put with the other hounds.“
‘Instead, he’s making trouble for me,“ Miles had muttered. But lately, except when he remembered to complain, he had begun to seem as content in Bevis’ company as the hound was in his; he had not, Hugh noted, moved his foot since Bevis’ chin came to rest on it.
Miles and Bevis had been out about woodward duties from not much after dawn today, away to Skippitt Coppice to see where best to start the autumn cutting. Most times lately when Miles went out, George from the village went with him and, “I think he might do well enough in my place the while until you find someone else,” Miles had told Tom over dinner. “He knows what he’s seeing when he looks at it.”
That would be something to tell Mother when she came home, Hugh thought. What they would do for a woodward was one of the things she had talked of when he was taking her and Ursula to St. Frideswide’s. He had taken the chance to ask her then when she thought to come home and been relieved when she said, “Before Miles leaves us, surely.”
He had been half-afraid she was thinking of nunhood for herself. It would be the most straightforward way to fulfill Sir Ralph’s order that she live a virtuous, unmarried life, and almost Hugh could want it to be that simple for her. Almost but not quite.
Nor did he want it for Ursula, he had admitted to himself. She had been quiet out of the ordinary on the ride to St. Frideswide’s. Once, to Hugh’s pleasure, she had started to whistle back to a linnet in a hedgerow as they rode past, but Lady Anneys had reminded her that whistling was unladylike and Ursula had fallen quiet again, until—outside the cloister door in St. Frideswide’s guesthall courtyard when Hugh had lifted her up for a better embrace good-bye—she had clung to him and whispered in his ear, “I wish I was going home with you.”
He had whispered back, “I wish you were, too,” but had set her down and let the waiting nun take her hand as he turned to embrace his mother, too.
She had said nothing, only when she drew back from him had looked deeply into his eyes as if searching for something before briefly touching his cheek and turning away. He had stood there in the courtyard, watching as she and Ursula went inside, until the door was closed behind them, shutting them in and him out, and then he had ridden away, as oddly bereft as if that door would never open to let either of them out again.
To the good, he was not bereft by Lucy being gone to stay with Elyn. That was merely pleasant; but along with missing Lady Anneys and Ursula, he missed Tom sharing the loft with him and Miles. Before she had left, Lady Anneys had told Tom he should move into the lord of the manor’s bedchamber above the parlor when she was gone. “It’s yours,” she had said. “You may as well grow used to it.”
‘But where will you sleep?“ Tom had protested.
‘Not there again, if I can help it,“ she had said. ”In the girls’ chamber with Lucy, probably.“
But it was odd to have Tom gone from their own chamber. “It’s not that we miss your snoring,” Miles had told Tom the first morning after he had shifted. “It’s just hard getting used to the quiet.” They had been standing in the hall, breaking their morning fast, and Tom had thrown a heavy-crusted chunk of bread at him. Miles had ducked out of the way and Bevis had seized the crust for his own.
Now Miles gave a wide yawn and sat up.
‘Don’t,“ said Tom without opening his eyes. ”If you start moving, I’ll have to.“
‘All right,“ Miles said and put his head down again.
Hugh, still stroking the brush down Baude’s back, said, “I’m thinking to hare-hunt tomorrow morning. Helinor,” the manor’s cook, “says she wouldn’t mind some fresh meat for the pot. Either of you interested in coming?”
Tom stretched and said, “Yes. Good. I’ll come.”
Miles mumbled into the crook of his arm, “Not me.”
They sat in silence a little longer, until Miles said, still without lifting his head, “Did you know there’s a copy of Sir William’s will in Sir Ralph’s strong-chest, Tom?”
‘Um-hum,“ Tom murmured. His eyes were closed again. ”There’s Sir William’s will, and deeds, and rent statements, and papers that look left over from Sir Ralph’s lawyer-days. I’m still reading through them. It’s killing me.“
Idly, Hugh asked, “What were you doing in the strong-chest, Miles?” The iron-bound, padlocked box was kept under Sir Ralph’s… under Tom’s bed, to hold what ready money there was and whatever deeds, charters, and suchlike as were worth safe-guarding.
‘I had him fetch me some pence yesterday,“ Tom answered, rather than Miles. ”To pay old Wat for turfing that place where the stream bank had started to slide. He made good work of it. Wat, I mean.“
‘Sir William’s will was lying right on top of everything else,“ Miles said, ”and I was curious.“
‘You were snooping,“ Tom said lazily and not as if he minded.
Miles sat up, stretched his back and crooked his neck as if they were stiff, and asked, “What did you think of the will?”
‘I thought it read pretty much like Father’s.“ Tom sounded not in the least interested. ”He’ll have to make a new one, now Sir Ralph is dead and can’t be his executor. But if Philippa and I are married soon enough, he won’t have to bother with deciding who’s to oversee her marriage in his place.“
‘You’re thinking you’ll marry soon?“ Hugh asked.
Tom rolled his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Might as well, since we’re going to do it sooner or later anyway and none of us are much interested in a year’s mourning for Sir Ralph anyway, are we?”
‘If Sir Ralph had a copy of Sir William’s will in his safekeeping,“ Miles said, ”don’t you suppose Sir William has a copy of Sir Ralph’s?“
“I suppose.” Tom did not sound like he was supposing it very hard.
‘Then he must have known everything that was in it long before Master Wyck told us. Just as Sir Ralph must have known what was in his will, too,“ Miles persisted.
Still lazily, Tom granted again, “I suppose.”
Hugh looked up, frowning warily. Miles was going somewhere with this.
Miles reached over and shook Tom’s knee. “But remember how Sir William tried to put off Master Wyck telling us about it?”
‘He thought it was too soon to be burdening Mother with it,“ Tom said. ”That’s all.“
‘Was it?“ Miles demanded. ”What about Selenger?“
Tom finally drew himself up straight i
n his chair. “What about him?”
‘Mind how he was here so often before she went away? Always coming to see her? Keeping her company for half an afternoon at a time?“
‘Yes,“ Tom granted.
‘I half-thought…“ Hugh started, thought better of saying it but knew there was no going back, and finished slowly, ”I’ve half-thought she went with Ursula to be away from him.“
Tom was deeply frowning now. “She never said that, did she?”
‘No. It was just something I… felt.“
Carefully, as if he had considered the words for quite a while, Miles said, “He’s been to the nunnery to see her.”
The Hunter’s Tale Page 8
