The Hunter’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  There was a second surety, too, Frevisse thought suddenly—that everyone wanted Sir Ralph’s murderer to be someone long gone.

  And that, unwillingly, made her wonder if he was.

  At the gate she thanked Father Leonel for his time and help. He blessed both her and Sister Johane and was shuffling back toward his church as they went their way away toward the hall. Taken up with her own thoughts, Frevisse aid not notice Sister Johane’s silence until, almost to the manor yard, she asked, “Was he able to help?”

  Nearby, Frevisse said, “Very little,” before she remembered the reason she had given for wanting to talk with him and said instead, “Lady Anneys’ husband was something of a monster. You’ve spent most time with the girls. Have they talked about him?”

  ‘So very little that I’ve been wondering about him. They talk about their brother Tom but almost never about their father.“

  ‘He seems to have cared for nothing much beyond himself and his dogs. Everyone lived afraid of his anger. Even Father Leonel, I think.“

  ‘Nobody seems to mind he’s dead, that’s certain,“ Sister Johane said. ”It’s their brother that Lucy and Ursula are mourning, not him at all.“

  ‘Everyone seems to mourn Tom. Everyone seems to have liked him and thought things would go well with him as lord of the manor.“

  ‘Well, Master Hugh seems a good young man, too. He’s kind to his sisters and his mother, certainly.“

  ‘What do you think of Miles?“

  Sister Johane was silent a time before she answered, “He makes the girls laugh and I think he’s Master Hugh’s good friend, but he always seems like he’s about to be angry at something.”

  ‘By what Father Leonel says, Sir Ralph was worse to him than to anybody else.“

  ‘Well, I’m just glad he can make Lucy laugh. He was the first one to give her something else to do besides cry.“ Sister Johane wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully. ”Though she would have stopped sooner or later. You can only cry so long before you begin to bore even yourself.“

  Surprised, because she had not thought Sister Johane saw things that sharply, Frevisse said, “True,” so warmly that Sister Johane looked at her with answering surprise, making Frevisse wonder why. But something more had come into her mind while she and Sister Johane talked: they had both said “seems” again and again. Now that she thought of it, it was a word she had been using often, if only to herself, since coming to Woodrim, and she thought on it harder as she and Sister Johane went on across the foreyard. So many things “seemed” here at Woodrim. Why? And if so much “seemed,” what truly was?

  If so much was seeming here—if so many were holding up a mask of themselves between their truth and what they wanted others to see of them—then what were they hiding? Or hiding from? Not from Sir Ralph anymore. That only left that they were hiding from each other.

  Or hiding something they didn’t want known.

  Or else hiding from each other what they knew and did not want to know.

  Or else were hiding to keep from knowing something more than they did. Because if you buried yourself deeply enough, you could keep from knowing almost anything.

  Let them alone, she told herself. Leave things as they are. Let these people piece their lives back together and heal as best they could. It was no business of hers nor did she want to make it her business.

  But buried things had a tendency to rot.

  And what else had her questions to Father Leonel been except the beginning of making it her business? Something was deeply wrong here. She knew it, and she knew herself well enough to know that, once begun, she would not stop her seeking to know what.

  They were nearly to the hall door but she said, “Shall we 80 see the kennel and dogs we keep hearing about?”

  Yes!“ Sister Johane said instantly, then added more hesitantly, ”Well, yes, but wouldn’t it be better to ask Master Hugh to go with us?“

  Because it was not to Hugh she wanted to talk, Frevisse said, “Do we really want to hear that much about dogs?”

  Sister Johane smiled at that, then a little frowned and looked vaguely around. “Do we know where the kennel is?”

  Frevisse pointed vaguely away to their left. “I’ve seen Master Hugh go that way sometimes,” she said.

  They found their way well enough, past a large elm tree beyond the hall and by way of the stableyard to finally the kennels, where the dog-boy was leaning at ease on the kennel-yard’s gate, scratching under the chin of a young wolfhound standing on its hind legs, its forepaws on the gate top, its head towering above him. About a dozen other hounds of various sizes and kinds—rough-coated, smooth-coated, brindled, plain, and spotted brown and black—lay in the early morning sunlight or paced around the yard, and if the dog-boy was idle now, it was because he had already done his morning work; the kennel-yard was clean and the water in the well-scrubbed wooden trough unslobbered yet. He straightened from the fence and bowed low as Frevisse and Sister Johane approached, and Frevisse saw his eyes shift past them, expecting Hugh to be there.

  ‘We thought we’d like to see the dogs without troubling Master Woderove,“ she said before he could say anything. ”We thought surely you could tell us enough about them.“

  The boy showed doubtful but willing. “That I can, probably.” He looked past them again, maybe still hoping Hugh would somehow be there after all. “You don’t know where Master Hugh is, do you? He usually comes of a morning to see things.”

  ‘He walked his sisters home from Mass,“ Frevisse said. I don’t know where he is now.”

  The boy grimaced. “Likely he’s shut up with papers and ink again. There’s too much of that when you’re lord, looks to me.”

  ‘I doubt he likes it any better,“ Sister Johane said, kindly. ”What’s your name?“

  ‘Nay, I don’t suppose he does,“ the boy sadly agreed. ”Degory, my lady.“

  ‘You keep a fine kennel, Degory. It reminds me of my father’s. He keeps about thirty hounds. Or did when I was last at home.“

  ‘Does he?“ Degory’s deference slid into eagerness. ”We’ve but fifteen. But they’re good ones.“

  ‘And beautifully kept. You do all the work yourself?“ Sister Johane asked.

  ‘Master Hugh and me, we did it between us. It’s mostly me now, he’s so taken up with other things. But I don’t mind,“ he added hurriedly. ”He comes when he can.“

  ‘You’re breeding here, too, aren’t you? How many lines do you have?“ Sister Johane asked.

  Frevisse had been wondering how to set about putting the boy at ease enough to answer the questions she wanted to ask him. Sister Johane with her unexpected interest was solving that and Frevisse left her to it until in a while, when Sister Johane and Degory were talking of the training of hounds, Sister Johane said, “My father won’t have whip or stick used on his hounds. How is it with Master Woderove?” He’s the same. He never hits at all. It was Sir Ralph used (o hit all the time.“

  The dogs?“ Frevisse put quickly in. Me mostly. He liked the hounds best, see, and Master ugh and I, we train ‘em well. There’s never cause for hitting them.”

  With dogs this big, you want them well-trained, I suppose,“ Frevisse said.

  ‘Aye, well, they’re quiet-minded anyway, by nature,“ Degory said. ”You wouldn’t want hounds that big wanting to fight you all the time on everything. They’re quiet-natured but then we train them, too.“

  ‘But one of them ran off the day Sir Ralph was killed,“ Frevisse said, with a carefully concerned frown. ”That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.“

  ‘Oh, aye. That was Skyre, the silly bitch. She’s young and hadn’t learned better. That’s her there.“ Degory pointed to a smooth-coated, yellow hound lying alone in a corner of the yard, muzzle on paws but round, dark eyes fixed on the unknown women at the fence as if worried they were dangerous. ”She was shaping to be a good lymer but likely she’s ruined, Master Woderove says. Whatever happened with Sir Ralph there in the woods, by the time I found
her she was frighted silly out of her wits and doesn’t look to be getting over it. Twitchy all the time, see. So maybe we’ll keep her for a litter or two, if she breeds well, and then see what can be done with her.“

  ‘What did happen in the woods with Sir Ralph?“ Frevisse said, meaning to sound no more curious than anyone might be who lacked the courtesy not to ask at all. ”No one ever quite says and we don’t like to ask Master Hugh. He found his father, didn’t he?“

  Degory’s shudder looked a little practiced, as if maybe he had done it too often and hardly meant it anymore; and he answered readily enough, “It was terrible. There’s none of us will forget it.”

  ‘Skyre had run off and Sir Ralph had gone after her? Frevisse prompted.

  ‘Aye. Silly bitch,“ Degory said again, looking at the disgraced dog with pity and disgust. ”Saw a squirrel on the ground or something and took off after it. Sir Ralph yelled and that didn’t help. Then he hit me and he hit Master Hugh and said to get after her and took off himself after her, too. That was the last we saw him. Until he was dead.“

  “But you and Master Hugh went after her, too.”

  ‘Oh, aye. Wouldn’t dare otherwise once Sir Ralph said to.“

  ‘Together?“

  ‘No. Could cover more going separate, see.“

  “And everyone else stayed where they were.”

  “Master Tom wasn’t there anymore. He’d fought with Sir Ralph already and gone home. I guess Sir William after a while tired of waiting and told Master Selenger they could look, too. Master Selenger was there at Sir Ralph’s body even afore me when Master Hugh started yelling for help after he’d found Sir Ralph. Daft that was—all of us out looking for her. More likely to scare her off than not.” Degory lowered his voice but did not keep his satisfaction out of it. “Sir William isn’t so good with hounds as he likes to think he is. They’re just things to hunt with, that’s all, to him.”

  ‘I’ve known dogs with finer feelings than any person,“ said Sister Johane. ”There was one my father had…“

  Frevisse let her and the boy talk on awhile longer before drawing Sister Johane off by suggesting they would be missed by now. Sister Johane gave way unwillingly, told Degory again that he kept a fine kennel, and talked happily all the way back to the hall about dogs she had known. Grateful for the unwitting help she had been, Frevisse let her.

  Chapter 15

  Since coming to Woodrim, Frevisse had tried to keep the Offices of prayer at something like their proper times. This morning they were late about it because of her time with Father Leonel and the dog-boy, and while they were going back to the hall, Sister Johane said a little hopefully, “We’ve missed Tierce. We could simply forgo it and do only Sext.”

  ‘Or we could do both,“ Frevisse said in a way that said they were going to do both.

  Sister Johane sighed but made no protest. There were servant-sounds from kitchenward as they crossed the hall toward the stairs but the hall was empty, and the bedchamber, too. Breviaries in hand, they sat together on one of the chests and began. The familiar web of prayers and psalms— Et posuit in ore meo canticum novum, carmen Deo nostro… Beatus vir, qui posuit in Domino spem suam. And he put in my mouth a new song, a song to our God… Happy man, who puts in the Lord his hope—quickly drew Frevisse away from all the ways her thoughts had been twisting since yesterday. That was the pleasure and much of the blessing of the Offices: they were reminder that there was more than only here and this brief now; that there were other passions than the passing ones of the body; that there was Love beyond love and Joy beyond the world’s so easily lost happinesses.

  There were surely lost happinesses enough here at Woodrim. Nor had Sir Ralph’s death purged the ugliness he had made of his life. Exstingue flammas litium. Put out the flames of quarrel. Aufer calorem noxium, Confer salutem corporum, Veramque pacem cordium. Take away guilty love, Give health to the body, And true peace to the soul.

  But there wasn’t peace here. There was a shadow through everything, like blight through a field of grain, sickening and blackening what should have been well and fine.

  From what did the shadow come? And how many people knew of it?

  Most here might well be living in it without knowing that they were, or else, like herself, they knew there was a darkness without knowing what it was. But it was here, subtly eating at hearts and minds.

  Or maybe not so subtly, for some.

  Was it suspicion that cast the shadow, she suddenly wondered. She had her own suspicion, surely, and it was a dark one—that Sir Ralph’s murderer was not someone long gone; that he was still here. And very probably she was not the only one who suspected that. Suspicion without certainty— that was a darkness very hard to live in. Or—worse—not suspicion but certainty the murderer was still here without knowing who he was. That would cast a darkness deep enough to make the shadow she felt here.

  But worse yet was her guess that no one wanted Sir Ralph’s murderer caught. That they would rather, given the choice, live in the shadow.

  When the Office ended, she would have sat quietly awhile longer, but Sister Johane closed her prayer book with a satisfied sigh and stood up, ready for whatever came next. Frevisse set aside a stir of impatience, looked up at her, and said, kindly rather than accusing, “You’re enjoying being here.”

  With open pleasure, Sister Johane said, “I am. It makes such a change, being around people who aren’t nuns.”

  With effort Frevisse kept hidden her worry at that, but Sister Johane said next, with a small, thoughtful frown, “It helps me remember how good it is to be a nun. It’s not as if being a nun is easy.” She was frowning harder, staring at the wall above Frevisse’s head with concentration, her breviary held to her breast. “But so many of the problems are inward. They can be made all right if I look at them hard enough, grow enough so I can understand them and change myself. Not like poor Lady Anneys, who’s had so many things happen to her she can’t find her balance at all. Or like Lucy, who doesn’t even try to think about things, just feels them as hard as she can.”

  Sister Johane suddenly realized she was saying all that aloud and maybe read the surprise open on Frevisse’s face as disapproval because she ducked her head and said hurriedly, “It’s not that I don’t like Lucy. I do. She’s just so… so…”

  So very young?“ Frevisse supplied, with a silent laugh at herself because, to her, Sister Johane was very young; but Sister Johane had taken her vows when she was hardly older than Lucy was and had been a nun almost ten years.

  “Yes.” Sister Johane said, encouraged. “She’s very young.” And Ursula?“ Frevisse asked, finding for the first time that she was interested in what Sister Johane thought about something.

  Sister Johane a little frowned again. “I don’t know about Ursula. She reminds me of her brother, the way she keeps herself to herself. Or do I mean she reminds me of Miles? No, she doesn’t have Miles’ anger. She just has Hugh’s quietness. Is she going to be a nun, do you think?”

  ‘I don’t know,“ Frevisse answered, thoughtful in her turn because Sister Johane was right: Ursula did not show herself.

  She considered that as she and Sister Johane put away their breviaries and went downstairs. Despite Ursula seemed an open child and Hugh an open young man, Frevisse’s talk with Father Leonel had shown her there were very likely deeply hidden places in them both, places where they had hidden from their father. Nor were they probably the only ones. Lady Anneys, assuredly. Tom very probably. Even Father Leonel, elderly and crippled, had kept hidden his secret reworking of the manor accounts. Oddly enough, Miles in his way was probably the most open of any of them. His hatred for Sir Ralph had never been hidden, she had gathered, and his pleasure that Sir Ralph was dead was completely open.

  Or did he have other things hidden so deep there was no hint of them for anyone to see?

  When her thinking turned that far around on its own track, with nothing to feed on but itself, Frevisse knew to be done with it for a time and s
he was glad to find Lady Anneys, Lucy, and Ursula in the garden, weeding one of the herb beds. All three of them were lightly dressed in simple linen gowns over their underdresses, with sleeves pushed up and only Lady Anneys bothering with shoes though they all wore broad-brimmed straw hats against the sun riding high now, the day bright and warm.

  They all straightened to greet Frevisse and Sister Johane, with Lucy asking, “Aren’t you too hot, wearing all that and your wimples and veils and all? I’m simply roasting. Can’t you take some of it off?”

  ‘We’re used to it,“ said Sister Johane. She sounded faintly surprised, though perhaps not at Lucy so much as at herself, maybe only just realizing how completely her nun’s clothing was part of her. Frevisse well remembered the moment, well into her own nunhood, when she had realized how used she was to her nun’s clothing, how unnatural she would have felt wearing anything else or even less of it.