The Widow's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries Book 14)

by Frazer, Margaret

  “Good woman,” Laurence said, satisfied and triumphant, not even thinking twice whether she meant “all well about the marriage” the same way he did. She doubted Milisent would have so easily trusted her submission, but Laurence heard only what he expected to hear, accepted her defeat, and made to lay a hand on her shoulder. Cristiana shrank back from him, refusing his touch, trying to make her disgust look like fear. At the same moment Dame Frevisse made a small movement forward and Laurence took back his hand and told her curtly, “I’ll see your prioress now.”

  To Cristiana, Dame Frevisse said, “Go back to what you were doing,” and Cristiana, glad for the chance to be away from Laurence, bowed her head lower in answer and started to leave.

  Behind her Laurence said, still triumphing, “Don’t hope your brother is going to help you once you’re out of here, either. He sailed with the duke of York for Ireland a month ago.”

  Cristiana let her shoulders slump more and went out. His words hurt but did not cripple her. Let him think what he would, she did not mean to wait for someone else’s help anymore. Let her be free of here and with her daughters and she would do herself whatever needed to be done for them and her, against Laurence and anyone else.

  Chapter 7

  The long-slanted light of a rose-and-yellow sunset fell through the wide, westward-facing window of the prioress’ parlor, keeping at bay the cool evening shadows gathering elsewhere in the cloister. Overly warm and worried over why she was here, Frevisse sat sipping wine slowly from her goblet while watching Domina Elisabeth seated in the room’s other chair turning her own goblet around and around in her hands, looking down into it instead of at Frevisse. Wine was a rare indulgence in St. Frideswide’s. Almost equally rare was Domina Elisabeth hesitating over what she had to say. Those things, joined with having been summoned here when the other nuns were gone out to the garden for their hour’s recreation after supper, made Frevisse warily silent, doubting it was for the pleasure of her company that Domina Elisabeth had summoned her.

  “About Cristiana leaving us,” Domina Elisabeth finally said, still looking into her goblet. “What do you think about it?”

  Respectful and cautious, Frevisse ventured, “It didn’t seem my place to think about it.”

  Domina Elisabeth looked at her. “My lady, pardon my saying so, but you think about everything. What do you think of this Master Laurence Helyngton?”

  “I didn’t like him.”

  Domina Elisabeth slightly smiled. “Nor did I. What do you think Cristiana thought of him?”

  “She didn’t like him either. She fears him, I think.”

  “But she was willing to go with him?”

  Frevisse hesitated, then said, “She wants to be out of here. If it means going with him, she’ll go.”

  “Lie’s also the reason why she’s here at all. I gather the warrant for her to be put away was given at his petition. That same warrant allows him to determine when she may be taken out, too.”

  “If he has the authority for that, then we’ve no concern left in the matter,” Frevisse said, knowing full well it must not be that simple or they’d not be having this talk.

  Still twisting the goblet around and around between her hands without ever drinking from it, Domina Elisabeth said, “The trouble is that I’ve had no release from Abbot Gilberd.” She rarely referred to her brother by other than his title and name, and yet somehow no one ever forgot it was by his doing she had been made prioress of St. Frideswide’s almost ten years ago. “In his letter about this woman he strictly charged me with her care, that she must not be let go or allowed to escape, that I must answer for her in all things. Now this man has come to take her out of our care, but I’ve had no release from Abbot Gilberd.”

  “Isn’t the warrant enough to forego any need of release from Abbot Gilberd?”

  “It’s enough that I’ve agreed she can go tomorrow.”

  “But?”

  “But I still feel bound by Abbot Gilberd’s bidding that she is mine to answer for. That’s why I didn’t release her to him today, the way he demanded. That she must go is plain— her daughter’s health being endangered, I understand—but I told him she could not go before tomorrow, that I needed to provide for her release.”

  “He accepted that quietly?”

  “I’d not say quietly, no. Nor happily. Nor was he happy that I won’t allow her to go with him unaccompanied. He didn’t see fit to bring any woman or women with him, and considering Abbot Gilberd’s charge, I’ve told him—and he has agreed—that when she goes with him tomorrow, I go with her.”

  Frevisse had a terrible certainty of what would come next, and inevitable as the coming sunset Domina Elisabeth went on, “I’ve chosen you to accompany me.”

  Because no nun was supposed to go out of the nunnery unaccompanied, someone had to go with Domina Elisabeth. That was beyond argument. Frevisse simply did not want to be that someone.

  “It’s ill enough that I be gone,” Domina Elisabeth said. “To take anyone who’s holding one of the great offices at present”—the cellarer, sacrist, and others who saw to the detailed running of necessary parts of St. Frideswide’s life— “would make for greater upset. Nor would taking one of the younger nuns be so satisfactory as taking someone on whom I can better depend for help in forestalling or dealing with any trouble Cristiana may make.”

  “Do you think she’s likely to? She’s made none here.”

  “She’s been obedient here in all outward ways, but do you truly think she’s changed inwardly, become truly penitent? Despite that Father Henry has softened toward her, I’ve seen obedience but nothing else. I have to worry what she may do once she’s freed from here. Until Abbot Gilberd releases me, I want all the help I can have in keeping watch on her and, if necessary, curbing her.”

  Still looking for reason not to go, Frevisse tried, “I’m presently hosteler.”

  But hosteler was least among the nunnery’s officers; she had small hope it would protect her. Nor did it. Her answer ready, Domina Elisabeth said easily, “Sister Amicia will take your place. Tomorrow in chapter meeting I’ll give all the needed orders and give charge of everything to Dame Claire for the while. We’ll leave immediately afterward.” Obedience had been for Frevisse the most difficult of her vows as a nun. She was far better at it than in her younger days but only with difficulty she said, “Yes, my lady,” and nothing else.

  * * *

  The three-days’ journey went unpleasantly. The weather was the best of it, with enough rain at nights to settle the dust of the road without making mud and the sky clearing before they were much on their way each day so that they rode under bright skies through countryside golden with ripened grain and harvested fields. Not the travel but the company was the trouble for Frevisse.

  Faurence Helyngton made plain how much he resented the slow pace that was all Domina Elisabeth would allow for Cristiana, weak from fasting. In return, Domina Elisabeth let him know her displeasure at having to come on the journey at all. In answer to that, Master Helyngton was as near to outright discourteous as made no difference and the four men he had brought for escort followed his lead. On her part, Cristiana was tautly silent or—when she spoke at all—snappish. She kept as far away from Master Helyngton as she could and wanted no more to do with Domina Elisabeth or Frevisse than could be helped. Domina Elisabeth thought her ill-natured and ungrateful for Master Helyngton’s mercy in bringing her to her daughter at so much trouble and expense for himself, but Frevisse suspected she was hiding anger and fear behind her silence and that both the anger and the fear were possibly very warranted. She had yet to decide whether or not she believed what Cristiana had told her in the church, but even if it had been all lies and Cristiana was what she was accused of being, that only justified Laurence Helyngton’s contempt of her, not the cruelty that lay behind it, flicking out from hiding now and again.

  Sometime during the first day of riding Frevisse decided that whatever was the truth about Cristiana, she d
isliked Laurence Helyngton on his own account.

  They spent the last night on their way at St. Albans where it would have been good to visit the saint’s shrine in the abbey church, but Helyngton curtly refused Domina Elisabeth’s request. With that, and after another night shared in an inn’s bed with Domina Elisabeth and Cristiana and faced with yet another day in constant company with them and Helyngton, Frevisse found herself waking to the next morning in a dark humour and disinclined to hide it. So it was odd that when Cristiana, trying to pin her veil into place and failing, let her hands fall into her lap, defeated, it was Frevisse rather than Domina Elisabeth who went to her and said, “Here. Let me.”

  When Cristiana held up the pins to her, her hands were trembling. Frevisse saw them but said nothing. To ask if Cristiana was all right was pointless: she plainly was not. To ask if’ there was anything Frevisse could do to help was equally pointless: there was nothing to be done except the small kindness of pinning her veil and seeming not to see the tears brimming in her eyes, ready to fall if she so much as blinked. But Cristiana did not blink. She sat with her back board-stiff and her hands white-gripped together in her lap, and by the time Frevisse had finished with her veil, the tears had sunk from sight and her voice was level when she thanked Frevisse.

  Frevisse silently granted that, whatever else Cristiana was, she was brave.

  She was noting other things about her, too. Cristiana had been given back her own clothing—laundered and smoothed—before they left St. Frideswide’s. She was again gowned as a respectable widow, but Frevisse was considering what she had considered before—that it was clothing meant for home, not travel. That gave weight to Cristiana’s claim she had been suddenly seized and carried off. Nor had she lied when she said she had a brother who might help her; Helyngton had granted as much by taking the trouble to quell any hope of him.

  Following Domina Elisabeth and Cristiana from the bedchamber to their breakfast in the inn’s common room, Frevisse had to remind herself that it was not her place to take any side in this. She was here to companion Domina Elisabeth and keep watch on Cristiana. Moreover, she should take heed against favoring Cristiana simply because she so much disliked Laurence Helyngton. That he was dislikeable did not mean Cristiana should be thought innocent. His wrong did not make Cristiana’s right. In fact, Frevisse told herself, for all she knew there might be no one in the right in this matter at all—dead husband, vanished brother, in-laws she’d never heard of—they might all be in the wrong, she thought fiercely and shoved out of her mind consideration of anything but the inn’s breakfast of thick bread spread with honey and bowls of last night’s leftover lamb stew.

  The morning went as the ones before it had gone. Miles were ridden with no one having aught to say to anyone else and the countryside changed, with more forest than there had been but still fields rich with harvest and busy with workers. Not far beyond St. Albans they left the main way for lesser roads winding between high-hedged fields, and in a while Frevisse realized Cristiana, riding between her and Domina Elisabeth, had straightened in the saddle and was looking around her with almost gladness.

  Quietly, not to be overheard by Helyngton riding well ahead of them or the guards around them, Frevisse asked, “You know where we are?”

  “Yes,” Cristiana breathed. “Finally, yes.”

  The road ran level here, with woodland to the left and on the right a low-cut hedge along a slightly downward slope of field with harvesters scything rye. Ahead, the low houses of a village, white and brown among the surrounding fields, lined the road, with five riders just riding out of it toward them. Not the first travelers they had met today. This was a populous part of England and even harvest-time was not enough to keep everyone at home, and probably only because they were nearing Cristiana’s own part of the country did Helyngton turn suddenly wary, making a low, backward gesture that told his men to close in around the women while drawing rein himself until he was riding close ahead of them.

  From the way Cristiana was staring at the oncoming riders, Frevisse guessed she still held hope of her brother’s rescue; and by the way she slackened again almost immediately, Frevisse knew he was not there. Helyngton, to the contrary, lost his sudden wariness as the other riders neared, went easy in his saddle, and raised a hand in greeting at almost the same instant the other lead rider did. They came abreast, and as both drew rein to a stop, Helyngton said with open courtesy, “Master Say. Well met.”

  Despite he was younger than Helyngton by some years Master Say returned the greeting with confident ease, taking off his simple-brimmed hat of a deep red that matched his short riding doublet worn over dark hosen and calf-high leather boots, and bowed from the saddle, answering, “Well met with you, too, sir.”

  “What brings you this way?” Helyngton asked, making easy talk.

  Hat on again, resting his hands on his saddle’s pommel, Master Say said as easily back, “To meet you, as it happens.” Openly surprised, Helyngton said, “To meet me?” Master Say nodded past him to Cristiana. “More particularly, her, in truth.”

  There was nothing of threat in the way he said it nor any threat about the four men a little behind him, two to either side, but Helyngton stiffened. Even from behind him Frevisse could see he was readying some protest. But Master Say, without looking away from him, held out a hand out to the man nearest on his left, who had ready a folded paper he immediately gave him, Master Say immediately held it out to Helyngton, saying, “A grant to me from his grace the duke of Suffolk to take Cristiana Helyngton, widow of Edward Helyngton of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, into my care and keeping.”

  The surge of blood up the back of Helyngton’s neck almost matched the red of Master Say’s doublet as he made a strangled sound, not taking the paper but finally choking out, “Into your keeping? Yours? But he . . . he . .

  “Gave you the wardships and marriage rights of Mary and Jane and keeping of their lands. He did, indeed,” Master Say said, still easily.

  “And the keeping of her! He gave her into my keeping, too!” Helyngton clutched at the pouch hanging from his belt. “I have it here.”

  Making a light, dismissing movement with the paper he still held out, Master Say said with calm cheerfulness, “But this cancels it and gives her into my care.”

  “What are you playing at, Say?” Helyngton demanded. “It’s maybe better you ask what his grace of Suffolk is”— Master Say gave the paper a small twitch that suggested

  Helyngton might do well to take it” ‘playing at’.”

  Helyngton snatched the paper from him with an oath, flipped it open, and began to read. While he did, Domina Elisabeth urged her horse forward a few steps and raised her voice to say firmly, “Wherever Mistress Helyngton goes, we go with her. She was put into our priory’s keeping on our abbot’s order and unless you have countermand to that …” Master Say bowed from his saddle to her, more deeply than he had done to Helyngton. “If that be the way of it, my lady, then most certainly you must continue in her company and be welcomed. By your leave, I’m John Say of the manor of Baas, Broxbourne.”

  Mollified by his courtesy and perhaps not hearing the subtle change of authority from her to himself in his answer, Domina Elisabeth said with matching courtesy who she and Frevisse were and from where, adding, “Our abbot is Gilberd of St. Bartholomew’s near Northampton.”

  Master Say gave Frevisse a courteous nod and said, still to Domina Elisabeth, “I saw your abbot only two days ago at Eltham. He was with the king and my lord of Suffolk.”

  “Was he?” Domina Elisabeth’s voice showed her pleasure, though the news meant the messenger sent to him at Northampton would not find him there. “He’s my brother. How was he?”

  “He was very well, my lady.”

  Finished with the paper, Helyngton folded it roughly closed and thrust it at Master Say, saying ungraciously, “It’s as you said, so have it your way for now.” He twisted around in his saddle to glare at Cristiana. “But your daughters are still mine t
o keep. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Ah, yes, that.” Master Say handed the paper back to his man without looking away from Helyngton. “Her grace the duchess of Suffolk sends her hope that you’ll let the girls join their mother while she’s with me at Baas. Her grace favors them being with her there. Favors it very much.”

  As with Domina Elisabeth, Master Say shifted the words’ weight, “favor” becoming something closer to “order”, and Helyngton swung from Cristiana to face him with a sound just short of an open oath.

  Not seeming to hear it, Master Say asked graciously, “You’ll bring them today, then?”

  Helyngton started to say something but cut it off; gave his men a sharp gesture to ride on instead; and snarled as he jerked his horse aside to go around Master Say and his men, “I’ll bring Mary today. You’ll have to wait for Jane. She’s away at Waltham Cross in Ankaret’s keeping. She’ll have to be sent for. Since my lady of Suffolk asks it.”

  He kicked his horse viciously into a hard gallop away, Master Say turned in his saddle to watch him and his men out of sight into the village, then turned back, for the first time looked at Cristiana, and said, “Well met, my lady. How goes it with you?”

  Cristiana had been sitting rigidly in her saddle, as if afraid any move or word from her would turn things wrong.

  Now she pressed a hand to her breast and said unsteadily, “John. How …” but broke off, losing her fight to control her voice.

  Master Say rode to her side, between her and Domina Elisabeth, and laid a gentle hand on her arm. “We’ll talk later. When there’s better time. First let’s get you home to Beth. Are you well enough to ride at more than a walk?” Cristiana gathered up her reins. “So long as it’s away from Laurence, I can ride as hard as need be.”

  Master Say gave her an approving nod but looked to Domina Elisabeth and Frevisse. “What of you, my ladies? I can leave one of my men with you, if you’d better go more slowly.”