The Hunter’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  ‘Can I show them?“ Hugh had never said it aloud, never even let himself clearly think it until now. ”How good am I going to be at this? I won’t be-damn like Sir Ralph, but I’m not Tom. There’s nothing to say I won’t be damned bad no matter howl try.“

  Offensively cheerful, Miles said, “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

  Even knowing that the cheerfulness was meant deliberately to goad him into cheerfulness himself, Hugh wanted to throw something at him. Unfortunately, a clean-kept kennel-yard offered little to throw besides straw and dogs, and before Hugh came up with at least some words to throw, Miles shifted aside for Degory to lean on the gate, too, carrying a slice of the fish tart in one hand and a thick piece of bread folded around other things for the rest of his supper in the other. The hounds gathered to the fence, too well trained to grab and snatch but assuring him of their coming gratitude if he cared to share with them.

  ‘I don’t eat your suppers,“ Degory told them, then said to Hugh over their backs and waving tails, ”That Master Selenger is here again. He’ll be going home by moonlight, won’t he?“

  Chapter 13

  It was that evening Frevisse could no longer hide from knowing how wrong things were at Woodrim. After Hugh’s leaving, supper finished in a stiff silence and eyes kept to bowls and tabletop until Lady Anneys asked Father Leonel to give the final grace. That done, Ursula hurriedly slid off the bench and went to open the parlor door too quickly for her mother to say more than “Leave him be…” before Ursula said from the doorway, “He’s gone,” all disappointment and worry.

  ‘He’s gone to the kennel then,“ said Lady Anneys. ”Miles.“ Miles rose quickly, gave her a slight smile, a brief bow, and left.

  Calmly, Lady Anneys invited Father Leonel to join her in the garden for a while but he declined. “Not because I don’t want to talk about…” He made a vague gesture of distress, to include all there might be to talk—or not to talk— about.

  Lady Anneys caught his hand and held it, saying affectionately, “I wasn’t going to ask you anything. I only wanted your company.”

  He clasped her hand in both of his. “Bless you, my lady. But I’m promised this evening to Roberd and Mariote. He’s Lucas’ younger son, you remember? They’re planning to marry just after Michaelmas. We’re to set when the banns will be and decide other things tonight.”

  ‘That I’ll not keep you from,“ Lady Anneys said. ”Be sure to let me know with what I can best gift them when the time comes.“

  ‘I will, my lady.“

  Father Leonel blessed her with a quickly sketched cross in the air between them. He was making another in a general way at Frevisse, Sister Johane, Lucy, and Ursula scattered along the table, when Lucy exclaimed, “Someone is coming,” and dashed to the window, looked out, and swung around to say with a glowing look at her mother, “It’s Master Selenger!” She dashed back to catch Ursula by the hand. “Come on. Let’s walk Father Leonel to the village. Are you coming, Father? Sister Johane, Dame Frevisse, you’ll come with us, too?”

  Even if she had wanted a different choice, Ursula was given no chance for it. Lucy was already dragging her toward the outer door, Father Leonel following, smiling, and after the barest hesitation and a look at Frevisse, who refused with a small shake of her head, Sister Johane went, too.

  ‘Dame Frevisse!“ Lucy insisted from the hall’s far end.

  ‘No,“ Lady Anneys said, too low for anyone but Frevisse to hear, all her smiling ease of a few moments ago gone.

  Frevisse waved the others onward. They met Master Selenger at the door, their brief exchange of greetings among them all giving her chance to say to Lady Anneys, “It might go easier if your daughters knew you didn’t want to be left alone with him.”

  ‘They’re the least burdened by everything that’s happened,“ Lady Anneys said. ”I’d like to keep them that way as long as possible. Ursula is still so young.“

  Remembering how Ursula had taken the news of her father’s death with relief rather than grief, Frevisse doubted Ursula was so young as her mother thought her. Grief had come only with her brother’s death and surely left her even less young than she had been before it. But this was hardly the time to take that up with Lady Anneys, who was moving from behind the table, down from the dais to meet Master Selenger coming up the hall toward her. Frevisse, tucking her hands into her opposite sleeves, followed her, eyes lowered in the seeming of quiet nunhood but not so far she could not see Master Selenger meet Lady Anneys with, “Good evening, my lady,” and a bow and a hand held out to take one of hers.

  Seeming not to see his hand, keeping her own folded at her waist, one over the other, Lady Anneys said with no particular feeling to the words, “Good evening to you, too, Master Selenger. What brings you here?”

  By then Frevisse was beside her, and Master Selenger, his hand returned to his side, made her a bow while answering, “Hope for the pleasure of your company and to ask about Lady Elyn.”

  Alarm sharpened Lady Anneys’ voice. “She left here hours ago. Isn’t she home yet?”

  ‘Yes! Oh, yes,“ Master Selenger said with instant, matching alarm. ”I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fright you. She’s home and safe. But…“

  He cast a meaningful look at the servants now coming to clear supper’s remains from the table. “We’ll be cooler in the garden, don’t you think?” he asked.

  Lady Anneys murmured unwilling agreement but added, “Dame Frevisse, you’ll come, too?”

  Frevisse accepted with a slight bow of her head.

  What Master Selenger thought he kept to himself nor, when they were in the garden, did he offer his hand to Lady Anneys again even while they walked side by side along the path. He could take an unspoken suggestion when it was given, Frevisse thought, following behind them. Except he as yet refused to understand that Lady Anneys did not want his company.

  The garden was in deepening twilight but not much cooled by the slight wind beginning to stir the evening air. The day’s warm scents of flowers and herbs still lingered and a last few bees were bumbling in the bee-flowers, late at going hive-ward. Lady Anneys paused near the door to break off stems of fern-leaved tansy for herself and Frevisse to keep off whatever evening midges might seek them out, but left Master Selenger to pluck his own, which he did. Since leaving the hall, none of them had spoken. Lady Anneys led the way to the long, wood-sided, turf-topped bench along one side of the garden’s wall and sat down, leaving room for Frevisse between herself and one end of the bench and nodding Master Selenger toward the bench’s far end, well away from her.

  He somewhat took the hint, sitting not altogether to the bench’s end but an arm’s length and a little more away as Lady Anneys demanded, “What about Lady Elyn, then?”

  ‘She came to see you this afternoon.“

  ‘She did.“ Lady Anneys said the words flatly and let them lie there, leaving it to Master Selenger to make of them what he would. She was looking not at him but across the path and down at a cluster of red gillyflowers so that the soft fall of her veil on either side of her face served to hide her from him and Frevisse both.

  ‘Why?“ he asked.

  ‘To see me. Isn’t that reason enough?“

  ‘She seemed unhappy when she returned.“

  ‘Sir William sent you to find out why from me, rather than ask her himself?“

  ‘He asked. She said she wanted to see her mother.“

  ‘Why wasn’t that enough?“

  Master Selenger very slightly smiled. “Because of the way she sniffled while she did it and wouldn’t look at him. He’s worried there’s something wrong that he should know.” Master Selenger paused, then added, subdued and apologizing, “Besides what’s obviously wrong, of course. He would have come himself but won’t until he’s asked. Besides, he knew I”—Master Selenger’s voice was very low—“would not mind the chance.”

  Lady Anneys still had not looked at him, nor did her voice give anything away as she said mildly, “I’m grateful for
Sir William’s concern and consideration, but since she was unhappy when she came here, the reason for it would be better sought there than here.”

  ‘Save that she might have spoken to you more freely than she would to Sir William and you could advise him of what best he might do.“

  Lady Anneys drew a long breath and sat up straighter, still without looking at him. “That would be somewhat betraying my daughter’s trust.”

  ‘If, truly, it’s something Sir William can’t help, then of course you won’t tell it,“ Master Selenger said.

  Such as ‘women’s problems,’“ Lady Anneys said, still mildly but probably fully aware that Master Selenger instantly shitted uneasily. There were few things so sure as ”women’s problems“ to set a man back.

  ‘Um,“ he said. ”Yes.“

  ‘Or,“ said Lady Anneys, still mildly and toward the gillyflowers across the path, ”Sir William may be worried that I’m trying to turn her against him because of her brother’s death.“

  Master Selenger went very still and in the blue gathering dusk Frevisse could see his eyes searching for some clue in Lady Anneys’ faceless stillness to her seriousness in that.

  She answered his unasked question, “I’m not.”

  Master Selenger went on looking at her with a worry Frevisse could not quite read. Then he reached a hand toward Lady Anneys’ lying quietly together in her lap; but her shoulder nearest him jerked forward, warning him away, and he took his hand back and after a moment tried, even more gently than he had been speaking, “Lady Anneys—”

  Her own voice suddenly crisp, she interrupted him. “I’ll tell you this much.” She raised her head and finally looked at him; Frevisse wished she could see her face. “Lady Elyn came to me with a woman’s worry. I advised her just as my mother advised me before ever I married—that a wife’s duty is to submit and accept. So I advised her and so I hope she will do. Will that satisfy Sir William?”

  Uncertainly Master Selenger said, “It should.”

  Lady Anneys nodded once and looked away again, letting him see she was waiting for him to leave; but he went on sitting there, still looking at her and silent as she was. In the quiet, small birds were twittering and settling for the night among the vine leaves over the arbor and from somewhere, faintly carried on the small wind, came distant laughter. From the village, Frevisse supposed; she did not think she had heard anyone here at the hall laugh since she had come, save maybe Miles, and darkness ran under his laughter.

  But then darkness seemed to run under and behind everything and everyone here.

  And from more than Tom Woderove’s death.

  Why that thought should come to her so clearly here in the garden’s quiet, Frevisse did not know, nor did she fully understand what it meant, but she followed it, to find where it would go. Sir Ralph was the core of it, she thought. Assuredly he seemed to have created darkness enough in his life that it still lay over everyone here. Tom Woderove’s death had only added to it. But there was some shadow more than that. Something sharper, newer. There was… fear?

  Frevisse moved carefully around the edge of that thought, looking more closely at it. Lady Anneys was afraid, surely, and admitted as much. She was afraid of Master Selenger because of the trouble he could bring on her; and of Sir William because if she was right about him, he was the cause of that trouble; and for her children—afraid not only of losing more of them but of how amiss their lives might go. But those were fears every parent had, and her worry over Sir William and Master Selenger was reasonable, too; but both those fears had shape and boundaries. It was her fear beyond that that Frevisse did not understand. There was a ceaseless wariness in Lady Anneys, a ceaseless waiting for something more to happen, as if some other, deeper, secret fear were feeding her more open, reasonable ones.

  And though to say Hugh or Miles or Ursula were afraid might be to say too much, still, there was something… There was a wariness in them, too. The sense of a guard being kept. Against what?

  Master Selenger stirred and said slowly, as if he regretted the need, “There’s something else, my lady.”

  For the first time Lady Anneys let impatience into her voice. “What?”

  Both looking and sounding on the edge of apology, Master Selenger said, “Sir William asked me to speak to you about Hugh’s marriage to Philippa.”

  Lady Anneys lifted her head and faced him again, said nothing, then said, with each word carefully separated from the others, “Hugh’s marriage to Philippa?”

  ‘My lady—“ Master Selenger began.

  Lady Anneys interrupted him with cold anger. “You can tell Sir William that he’ll be told when anyone here is ready to discuss marriage and that until then I do not want to hear about it from him or anyone else.”

  ‘You can tell him, too,“ Hugh said over the rear gate, ”that when and if the time comes to talk marriage, I will be the one to talk to.“ He shoved open the gate and came in with Miles behind him. ”Not my mother. She has grief and troubles enough without having to deal about that or with Sir William. Especially now.“

  Master Selenger stood up. “Hugh. Miles. Lady Anneys and I were—”

  ‘We heard,“ Hugh said. The arbor and the evening’s shadows had hidden his and Miles’ coming along the cart-track until they were at the gate. There was no knowing how much they had heard, but like his mother, Hugh was angry. Unlike her, he was not cold and sounded ready to include Master Selenger in his anger.

  Lady Anneys stood up, too, saying quickly, “Master Selenger was only asking because Sir William told him to.‘

  ‘Then Master Selenger can take our message back to him that no one here is ready to talk marriage yet,“ Hugh answered, his look fixed on Master Selenger.

  Master Selenger accepted that with a small bow and started, “Sir William only thought that—”

  ‘Sir William can keep his thoughts to himself,“ Hugh said tersely.

  ‘—that the marriage would reassure everyone that there’s peace between the families.“

  ‘They can be reassured by the fact that we’re not openly fighting.“

  “Is there peace?” Master Selenger persisted.

  ‘Yes. There’s peace,“ Hugh snapped.

  ‘Simply not ease,“ Miles put in quietly. ”Ease will take longer than peace.“

  ‘Tell Sir William we need time,“ Lady Anneys said. ”That’s all. He’s simply too soon with it.“

  Frevisse saw Master Selenger’s swift look from her face to Hugh’s and Miles’ before he bowed to her and said, “I’ll tell him so, my lady. He’ll understand.”

  He held out his hand for hers. It was a reasonable courtesy but unreasonable here and now since she had so lately refused it. But after only the barest pause and probably for the sake of keeping up a seeming of courtesy in front of Hugh and Miles, she gave her hand to him in return. He bowed over it, did not make so bold as to kiss it but, when he straightened, held it a moment overlong, taking the chance to gaze into her eyes. Only the instant before she would have snatched her hand away did he let her go, smoothly turning to bow to Frevisse and bend his head to Hugh and then to Miles, who said, “I’ll keep you company to the yard,” in a way that warned he would see him out of the yard and well away, too.

  While they left, silence except for the settling rustle of the birds in the arbor vine filled in the garden. Not until they were gone did Hugh ask, “Is that all he came for? To talk about Philippa’s marriage?”

  Again Lady Anneys paused, barely, before answering, He asked first why Elyn came here today.“

  Hugh frowned, puzzled. “Why shouldn’t Elyn come here?”

  ‘She was upset about something. Sir William was worried for her because she wouldn’t say why. I told Master Selenger that we talked and that I reassured her.“

  ‘Is she with child?“

  ‘No. It was a woman trouble.“

  That put Hugh off that track as thoroughly as it had Master Selenger, but he went to, “What about this marriage business?”r />
  ‘Nothing beyond the ordinary. Philippa’s marriage to Tom had been purposed for years. You know that and why.“

  ‘Because adding Sir William’s manor to ours is sensible. But not as sensible as it was before Father married Elyn to Sir William.“

  ‘Sir William was thinking to marry again. Sir Ralph offered Elyn to him as a way to double-guard our interest. Nor was Elyn unwilling.“

  ‘Of course Elyn wasn’t unwilling,“ Hugh said, sounding impatient at being told what he knew too well. ”And even if Elyn does bear a child or children, Philippa has enough inheritance from her mother that her marriage to Tom would still have been a profitable thing. I know all that. I suppose what Sir William wants is assurance I’ll marry her in Tom’s place. The trouble with that is—“