The Clerk’s Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  ‘She was saying a rosary slowly. When she heard Master Gruesby, she was half the way through the second time since hearing the men in talk.“

  ‘How long a rosary?“ Because a rosary could be either a loop of beads or a straight string of them and either one could be of any size. ”Did she show it to you?“

  ‘It was six decades.“ Six sets of ten beads each for Ave Maries, with a single bead for Paternosters between each ten, and said slowly, that could be time enough for whoever had done the killing to be well enough away that anyone hearing the outcry might fail to link the outcry with having seen him.

  ‘Did the jurors think to ask Sister Ysobel about what she might have heard?“

  ‘They did,“ Christopher admitted. ”I said I’d asked her and she’d heard nothing.“

  ‘Safer,“ Master Gruesby said. ”For her.“

  Frevisse silently granted that was true enough. The murderer had come and gone unnoticed from the infirmary garden once. If he thought there was need to be rid of Sister Ysobel, why wouldn’t he try again? “But if not through the infirmary, then how?” she asked. “Not through the stableyard and other door, it seems. Nor over the fence.” Which she remembered was of wicker, not able to hold much weight beyond a squirrel’s.

  ‘Through it,“ Christopher said.

  ‘Through the fence? Leaving a great hole no one has bothered to mention?“

  ‘It’s of hurdles.“ Large but light-weighted pieces of withy-woven fencing easily handled by a man, meant to be moved around for making sheep pens and such-like things, kept up by being tied end to end with each other to make a pen, or else, as in the nunnery’s garden, made into an uncostly but sufficient wall by fastening to firm-set uprights. ”The twine holding a fencing to its post along the back side was cut,“ Christopher said.

  And with that done, the murderer needed do no more than simply push or pull the hurdle enough open to let himself in and out.

  ‘What lies beyond the fence there?“ Frevisse asked.

  ‘The mill ditch runs just outside the wall, fed from the Thames, with an open meadow beyond it all the way to the river.“

  ‘Nothing overlooks the ditch, the meadow?“

  ‘Some nunnery windows and the mill. But no one says they saw anyone along there that day. Not at the needful time or anywhere near to it. Our best hope was some workmen at the mill that day but they were at their hot dinner in a tavern up the street all the time we need someone to have seen something.“

  ‘Footprints?“ Frevisse asked without much hope. Even in raw mud, shoes and boots, soft-soled as they mostly were, would hardly leave prints that mattered.

  ‘The bank is well grassed. All Master Gruesby found was somewhere on the far side where a foot might have slipped and torn the grass a little. Otherwise nothing.“

  Nothing seemed to be almost all there was so far but. “What else did the jurors not ask that they should have? Or not notice?”

  ‘The dagger wound was not the only hurt to the body.“

  ‘Christopher!“ she protested. ”How could they not notice that? Or you not point it out?“

  Her protest did not unsettle him. After years of his father, it would probably take more than someone’s mere protest to unsettle him, and steadily he said, “I doubt any of them had seen a man violently dead before this. They weren’t minded to look closer than they had to this morning. They could see the dagger wound had surely killed him and that was enough.”

  ‘But you should have pointed out…“ She stopped, regarding him, his level look meeting her own. More quietly, she said, understanding, ”So as it stands now, the murderer doesn’t know what you know and thinks everything is over and he’s safe. Giving us“—she noticed the ”us“ too late to change it—”a small advantage.“

  ‘A very small advantage. Maybe none at all. But yes, that’s what I hope.“

  ‘What are the other wounds?“

  ‘A small cut in the right corner of the mouth. A scrape on the back of the head. Bruises on either side of the death wound.“

  ‘The tree,“ Master Gruesby murmured from behind Christopher.

  ‘The tree where the body was found,“ Christopher said. ”It’s…“ He made a ring with his hands maybe four inches wide.

  ‘I’ve seen it,“ Frevisse said. The young, slender-trunked ash tree in the grassy midst of the garden.

  ‘There was a narrow cut to the bark on one side. Where the edge of a dagger might have sliced along it. At about heart height for my father.“

  He said it coolly, keeping distant from it, probably the only safe way he could say it, and Frevisse matched him, keeping thought away from actual torn flesh to mere considering of the cut tree, saying after a silent moment of thinking, “It could be guessed, from that, that the murderer forced Master Montfort back against the tree with a hand put over his mouth hard enough to cut it with probably a ring, keeping him silent while he was stabbed.” It was a narrow tree; with Montfort’s body centered on it, a dagger thrust through his heart and on through him would very likely have sliced the bark the way Christopher said. She could see the rest of it, too. How the murderer had probably gone on holding Montfort there, weight leaned onto the dagger still through Montfort’s body, Montfort’s head still shoved back against the tree, hand still over Montfort’s mouth until Montfort was fully dead. Then his murderer would have stepped back, jerked out the dagger, and let the body slump aside and fall.

  But all that ugliness she left unsaid. By the look on Christopher’s face he could see it clearly enough for himself, though he said steadily enough, “That’s how we guessed it, too. Master Gruesby and I. It had to be someone strong.”

  ‘Someone strong or else very angry,“ Frevisse said. Anger’s strength was never a thing to be discounted.

  ‘Or very angry,“ Christopher granted. Angry enough to drive a dagger through a man to the hilt.

  ‘The bruises,“ Frevisse said. ”You said there were bruises to either side of the wound. Did you mean to the sides or at the ends?“

  Christopher paused as if sorting out what she meant. Behind him Master Gruesby said to the floor, “At the ends.”

  ‘I see.“ Christopher drew an imaginary slit in the air. ”At the ends, yes.“ And then added, ”Round bruises.“

  Now it was Frevisse’s turn to pause. “Round bruises?”

  ‘Like two knobs had been driven against him.“

  Frevisse drew a sharp breath. “A ballock dagger.”

  Christopher nodded agreement. “Neither Master Gruesby nor I can think of anything else that would do it. And they’re not common.”

  No, they were not. Usually heavy-bladed and often unusually long for a dagger, their handguard was shaped not in the usual outstretched quillons but, most often, into two rounded lobes. Sometimes there was only one lobe, sometimes there were three, with no reason Frevisse had ever heard as to why the shape was particularly desirable at all except for the sake of being different. Or lewd. She only knew they were indeed not common, and carefully putting aside thought of how much anger—or hatred—there had to be behind a thrust hard enough to leave those bruises with it, she said, “You said nothing about it at the inquest so that whoever it was will go on wearing it. Your men”—and you, she did not say aloud—“were watching for it today, in hopes the murderer would be here.”

  ‘Yes.“

  But they’d seen no one, or she and Christopher would not be having this talk; and because it was probably better that they be done and part company before someone saw her in talk with the crowner and wonder why, she asked, “What do you want of me?”

  Christopher did not hesitate over his answer. “To listen and to watch. You’re likely to hear talk of things no one would say to me. You’re likely to find questions to ask that I wouldn’t.”

  She did not argue that. She knew herself well enough to know that with all that Christopher had told her, she would be listening and seeing differently, both at Lady Agnes’s and here in the nunnery, and she would be a
sking questions, if only of herself, so that all in all there seemed no point to refusing Christopher her help and she bent her head to him with, “As you wish.”

  Christopher smiled with a relief that briefly made him look as young as he probably was. “Thank you.”

  But she already had a question she wanted to ask and said past him, “Master Gruesby, the letter you were taking to Master Montfort that afternoon, what was it about?”

  At his name Master Gruesby jerked up his head and now stared at her over Christopher’s shoulder with much the look he might have had if sentence of death had just been pronounced upon him. “The letter?” he whispered.

  ‘The letter.“

  He fumbled open his wide leather belt pouch with one hand and rummaged in it while still staring at her, rustling paper and parchment as if in search of a writing he could consult before he managed to say without help, “It was from Lord Lovell.”

  Frevisse waited until she realized that was all he meant to say, then insisted, “What was it about?”

  Master Gruesby’s eyes widened. “I didn’t open it.”

  ‘Where is it?“

  ‘With the other papers, waiting for whoever comes to finish the Lengley escheat.“

  ‘It had to do with that?“

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t open it.“

  ‘But it was addressed to Master Montfort?“

  ‘To Master Montfort as escheator, yes.“

  And might very well have nothing to do with his murder but she said anyway to Christopher, “You should maybe read it.”

  His look asked her why, to which she could only answer, “Just to see if Lord Lovell needs answer to something, I suppose,” and rose to her feet to show she was ready to leave.

  Christopher and Master Gruesby rose with her and across the nave Dickon leaped to his feet, plainly willing to do something besides sit. Frevisse beckoned to him while adding to Christopher, “How will I get word to you of anything useful I might hear?”

  ‘I’ll send Master Gruesby to you sometime. Or make occasion to talk with you myself.“

  ‘What excuse will you make for staying here longer, now the inquest is done?“

  ‘There’s still my father’s funeral. The in-gathering of folk to it and the funeral itself will keep me here at least four days more, I think.“

  ‘Here?“ Frevisse barely covered her alarm. ”He’s to be buried here?“ Rather than in his own parish church, the more common way.

  Christopher made a small shrug and said, giving away neither one thing nor another, “Mother thought here would serve as well as anywhere.”

  Because it did not matter to her where her husband was buried so long as she was rid of him? Frevisse lowered her head in hope of hiding both that unkind thought and her dismay at after all not being soon done with Lady Agnes.

  Chapter 7

  With bows, Christopher and Master Gruesby left her and Dickon came forward, curiosity writ large on his young face. The weak, long-slanted light through the nave’s south windows patchily brightened the nave’s gray shadows but told Frevisse that if she were at St. Frideswide’s she would about now have been finishing her day’s tasks before Vespers. Here there was only blank time to be filled, and tucking her hands more deeply into her opposite sleeves for warmth against the church’s cold creeping into her, she said, “Thank you for waiting this while, Dickon.”

  He had grown suddenly this past year, was all long bones and boyish angles and could have been awkward with it but was not. Instead, he reminded her of his father, contained and certain in both manners and movement. He was more given to smiling than Frevisse had ever seen from his father, though, and he was smiling now, a boyish grin as he made a bow to her and answered, “You’re welcome, my lady,” with a glance at the door closing behind Christopher and Master Gruesby, inviting her to tell him what it had been about.

  With the thought that it was better he knew something than be left to his own devisings, she said, “We were discussing his father’s death. If anyone asks, you’re welcome to tell them that.”

  Dickon brightened. “You’re going to find out who did it, aren’t you?”

  “That is something you’re not welcome to say.”

  ‘But you’re going to.“

  ‘As God wills.“

  ‘The way you did when—“

  ‘I think it would be better if that’s not talked about,“ she said quellingly.

  Dickon sobered with quick understanding. “Better if they don’t know to watch out for you. Yes.”

  That was not the way she would have said it but she let it go, saying instead, “You can go now.”

  ‘You’re staying here?“

  Frevisse suppressed a smile of her own at that. Dickon, like his father, wanted to understand what he was being told to do, rather than simply obeying. It made his father a difficult man with whom to deal but a good steward to the nunnery and she said, “I mean to pray here until Vespers. After that, I’ll be with Domina Elisabeth. You can be about your own business.”

  Dickon accepted that with a grin and a bow but hesitated before he turned to go and asked, “Shall I listen for… things?”

  In her turn Frevisse hesitated, then said, “Listen, but don’t ask anything. Or be caught at listening.”

  Dickon nodded with quick understanding, bowed again, and headed cheerily out.

  Frevisse closed her eyes, drew a deep, relieved breath at being alone again, slipped one hand from her sleeve to cross herself, then tucked the hand away and went hurriedly up the nave into the blessed quiet of the choir, into the choir stall presently hers, to kneel on the cushion there. The sacrist would come probably soon, to be sure all was in readiness for Vespers, and the bell would begin its steady calling, the nuns would come, there would be the rustle of pages turning, a pause full of waiting and then the Office, with voices raised to evening prayers and psalms; but for now there was only uncomplicated silence and softly deepening shadows, and Frevisse, resting her elbows on the book ledge in front of her, bowed her head onto her clasped hands, shut her eyes, and sank into the shelter and delight of prayer.

  Or meant to. From years of daily saying of the psalms woven into each day’s Offices, the cycle of them completed every week only to be done again the next week, they were become as familiar to her as the Paternoster, their passions both guide and shelter in her own reaching toward God, that endless questing of the soul that was the only thing she had ever found worth her whole heart’s longing. Now she slipped softly into, “De caelis respicit Dominus: videt omnes filios hominum… Qui omnium eorum corda finxit, qui attendit ad omnia opera eorum …” From heaven the Lord beholds: he sees all the sons of men… He who shaped the souls of them all, who knows all their works…

  What she intended was to wind herself further and further from the world into the deeper places of heart and mind. What she found in a while was that somehow she had slid away, back to a psalm from Nones, and was whispering, “Per te adversarios nostros reppulimus, et in nomine tuo calcavimus insurgentes in nos… Eos, qui od-erunt nos, confudisti.” Through you we drove back our enemies, and in your name we trampled on the rebels against us… Those who hated us you silenced.

  Worse, she was thinking of Montfort while she did and, startled and discomfited, she opened her eyes to stare down at her clasped hands without seeing anything but the dark way her thoughts had gone when she was not attending to them. At different times and places before now she had dealt with deaths of one kind and another. With ordinary deaths, come simply at the end of living, when the body was done and the soul had to move on in the natural way of things, there was sorrow to one degree or another, depending on what affection there had been for the dead. In her own life she had had some sorrows that had soon dimmed while others were with her yet and would be, even to her own death. Those were reasonable sorrows for reasonable deaths. The sorrow that came for deaths brought on violently was a different kind, because such deaths came out of the right way of things, before their
time and never for sufficient reason but because of greed or lust or simply cruelty’s sake. For those there was anger as well as sorrow, that such wrong could be done by someone to anyone else.

  There should be at least that much sorrow and something of anger in her for Montfort’s death, and in a way there was—sorrow at least for a soul gone unprepared and violently to judgment. But that Montfort was gone from the world… no. For that she felt no sorrow at all. His never-swerving greed, his ever-unmindful cruelty made the loss of him more benefit than pain.

  Eos, qui oderunt nos, confudisti. Those who hated us you silenced.

  And yet…

  … it had been wrong. However good it was to have Montfort gone, it was not by God’s will he had died. It was by murder, and Christopher had asked her help in finding out the murderer and she had committed herself to it because, by God’s grace, the finding out of things was a skill she had. Somewhere, probably near, there was a murderer freely moving among men, his corruption a taint to those around him, and with the deep sigh of taking up a burden she knew would be both heavy and unwieldy, Frevisse closed her eyes and set to praying again—Dirigatur, Domine, oratio mea. Exaudi nos in die qua invo-caverimus te. Guide, Lord, my prayer. Hear us in the day that we call to you—and this time held her mind to it better, only breaking off when she heard the sacrist moving among the choir stalls. She was late to her task, it seemed, because overhead the bell began to call to Vespers and with relief Frevisse settled back into her seat and bowed her head, to wait silent-minded for the in-gathering of nuns.