The Prioress’ Tale (4 page)

Unhesitatingly, he did, shoving her from his saddle into Frevisse’s hands as if only too willing to be rid of her as Sir Reynold shouted, “You fool! Don’t let her go!” But Frevisse noticed that he did not fully loose her until he was sure that Frevisse safely had her. Only then did Benet let her go, but if the girl noticed, it made no difference to her. The moment she was on her own feet, she twisted free of Frevisse and the cloak, flinging the cloak from her as she spun around to snarl up at Benet, “You ever touch me again, I’ll kill you!”

Raw color surged across Benet’s face and Frevisse urged the girl away from him toward the cloister door as behind them Sir Reynold ordered, “Someone stop them both!”

Another rider swung his horse in front of them, and Frevisse jerked the girl to a stop and her own head back to look up at him, ready to demand he let them pass; but he was Sir Hugh, one of the few of Sir Reynold’s men she knew by name, another Godfrey, fair-haired where most Godfreys were dark but large-built like Sir Reynold and as close to being his next in command as anyone was in the rough order among the men. He sat looking down from his horse’s height at them with an easy smile that said any try they made to pass him would only pleasure him, and Frevisse, feeling the girl trembling with fury or fear under her hand, tightened hold on her, willing her to stand steady. Neither fear nor fury would serve any better now than Frevisse’s own desperation to reach the cloister’s safety before somebody’s rashness made more trouble than there already was.

From the cloister doorway beyond Sir Hugh and out of Frevisse’s sight, Lady Eleanor’s clear voice inquired, raised to carry over man and horse and across the yard, “Pray, what’s toward here? Hugh? Reynold? What are you about?”

Before they could answer, Domina Alys flung back angrily, “These fools have grabbed a girl to marry to Benet, but she doesn’t want him.”

“A girl?” Lady Eleanor’s voice rose in sharper inquiry. “Hugh, move. I can’t see anything.”

Sir Hugh’s head had turned from her to Domina Alys and now back again, but he did not shift his horse, and impatiently Lady Eleanor slapped its flank, repeating, “Move, I said.”

Grudgingly, Sir Hugh pulled back from her way.

And Benet, before anyone else could do anything, dismounted and in a single swift movement caught up the fallen cloak and put himself between the girl and Sir Hugh, holding out the cloak to her with one hand, holding out his other toward the cloister door as a lord at the height of manners would do to make way for a lady.

“Benet, you idiot,” Sir Hugh muttered. His leg tensed as if he would urge his horse forward, but Lady Eleanor, equally low, said quellingly, “Hugh,” and he held where he was, while Benet—as if he more than half expected to have his words shoved back down his throat—said stiffly, with a slight bow, his eyes on the girl’s face, “My lady, this way, if it please you.”

The girl would have drawn back from him, but Frevisse wasted no time on hesitation or revulsion, simply pushed her toward Lady Eleanor and the cloister door. Sir Hugh spat out a word that she chose not to hear. Behind them Sir Reynold swore, “You’re a fool, Benet!” and louder with rising anger, “There’s no use to this, you women! She can go in, but she’s not coming out again except to marry him! Be sure of it!” while Benet said low and in a rush, as they passed him, “Joice, this isn’t what I meant to happen. This isn’t how I meant for it to be.”

The girl turned a fierce and disbelieving stare on him. “But it
is
this way, isn’t it?” she hissed. “And you can’t
unmake
it, can you?” And as he recoiled from the force of her anger, she snatched the cloak from him and swept on past Lady Eleanor into the cloister, followed by Frevisse who gave a grateful look at Lady Eleanor, who nodded acknowledgment and followed them both, shutting the door behind them, against Benet and all the rest, with something more than necessary force, leaving Domina Alys to whatever else she might want to say to Sir Reynold.

Chapter 3

As they came out of the passageway into the cloister walk, Frevisse overtook the girl, laying a hand on her shoulder again to turn her around, wanting to ask the questions for which there had been no time in the yard, but the questions fled as she saw Joice had gone ash white and was beginning to shudder the whole length of her body, her eyes dark and large with all the fear she must have been hiding behind her fury until now it was safe to give way to it; and instead of questions, Frevisse took the cloak from her and swung it around her shoulders without a word. Joice garnered it close to her, huddling into it with an unsteady attempt at a grateful smile. Cut in a full circle, made of close-woven, Kendal-green wool and lined with lambs’ fleece, it reached from her chin almost to her feet. Her gown was equally fine, Frevisse had noted—of light wool dyed darkly red and falling in deep folds from the close-fitted, high-waisted bodice to the floor, its high-standing collar shaped to her delicate throat and the wide sleeves gathered to cuffs at her wrists. Such quantity and quality of cloth in cloak and gown meant wealth went with her, bearing out Sir Reynold’s contention that she was worth the risk of carrying her off.

But none of that was any ward against the fear-cold shaking her now, and Lady Eleanor said, “My room, I think. And warmed wine. Spiced wanned wine. For all of us. You, too, Dame Frevisse.”

She said it briskly, but Frevisse saw with an edge of alarm that the soft rose of her cheeks was paled to white and she was trembling a little herself. Her show of determination against Sir Hugh and the rest must have cost her more than Frevisse had realized, and quickly Frevisse agreed, “Yes, that would do well,” and took Joice by one elbow to lead and support her toward Lady Eleanor’s room. Neither Lady Eleanor nor the girl was overly tall and both were delicately boned; for Frevisse, fine-boned but tall for a woman, Joice was an easy matter, and she would have reached to help Lady Eleanor, too, except the older woman had gathered herself and was firmly leading the way for them, showing no apparent need nor desire for anyone’s help.

Her room, like Domina Alys‘, was on the first floor in the cloister’s west range but there was no connecting way between them, so although the stairs up to Domina Alys’ rooms were close at hand, they had to go further along the cloister walk to the other stairs. Dame Juliana, going toward the infirmary with an armload of clean, folded linens, stopped, staring at Joice, a stranger where so few strangers came. Her curiosity would have gone to outright questions, but reading Frevisse’s look aright, she held her tongue and hurried on, intent now on being rid of linens so she could go to someone to tell what she had seen.

More usefully, Margrete appeared at the head of the stairs as they started up and, having taken them all in with a single quick look, was already turning back as Lady Eleanor ordered, “Warmed wine with spices, please, Margrete. Quickly,” so that by the time they reached the room, she was busy at the aumbry along the near wall, pouring wine into a brass pan, the cinnamon and other spices ready to hand.

Like most of the nunnery’s rooms, Lady Eleanor’s had no fireplace, but the coal glowing in a brazier in one corner gave heat enough for warming it. Her own wine and her own coal were among the few luxuries Lady Eleanor had brought with her when she came, but a room to herself was by itself more luxury than any of the nuns except their prioress had. Even the small cell each of them slept in, partitioned off from each other in the dormitory by thin wooden walls, was not supposed to be thought of as a nun’s own. Lady Eleanor’s room, shared only with Margrete, took up the full width of the range and was long enough that her wide bed with its canopy and curtains set at one end of it left ample room at the other for the aumbry, two chests with her clothing and other belongings, two chairs, a low stool, and the square, tall-legged table with shelf underneath where Lady Eleanor kept her few books. A painted tapestry brightened one of the white-plastered walls, and at this hour of the autumn afternoon the westering sunlight through the window spread across the dark polished wooden floor and golden matting of woven rushes.

Lady Eleanor’s two dogs, ankle-high pieces of white fluff, hurtled out from under the foot of the bed in a scrabble of nails and eagerness to see who had come, but Lady Eleanor countered them with a sharp word, stopping them where they were. “Not now,” she added, and disconsolately they removed themselves back under the bed. To Frevisse and Joice she said, “The chair by the brazier would do best, I think. Let me move it nearer.”

She did, and Frevisse sat Joice down in it while Lady Eleanor tucked the cloak more closely around her, murmuring, “You’ll be fine now, dear. Just sit and be still until the wine is ready.”

“And you should sit, too,” Frevisse said, drawing the other chair close to the first. “Here.”

Lady Eleanor looked momentarily surprised, then smiled and did as Frevisse bid, before leaning toward Joice to ask, “Is it better with you now?”

Stiffly upright in her chair, her hands gripping its curved arms, the girl shook her head. “No, it isn’t better and it’s not likely to ever be ‘better’ again, is it? Not after this!” She let loose of the chair to make fists and pound them on the arms. “I could kill them for doing this to me! Benet and all the rest! I could kill them!”

Margrete coming to set the pan to heat over the coals cast her a look of question more than alarm, and Lady Eleanor took Joice’s nearest fist, gentling it between her hands as she asked, “You haven’t been… harmed, have you?”

Joice snatched her hand away, striking the chair arm again. “Not that way. They grabbed me and flung me onto Benet’s saddle, that’s all they did, but do you think Sir Lewis will marry me after this? Do you think anyone will marry me after this?” Her face and voice and body were all rigid with rage. “Not without my father having to pay twice the dowry he meant to and my taking less marriage settlement than I should have had! That’s what they’ve done to me!” Her voice dropped to brooding bitterness. “And likely anyone who has me will make me listen every day of my life afterward to how good he was to take me even at that.”

Not if he knew what was good for him, Frevisse thought. Slight of build and delicate of face though Joice was, there was nothing slight or delicate about her temper.

With the fury that seemed to have driven out her brief facing of fear, Joice sprang to her feet, throwing the cloak back onto the chair behind her. “And all that supposes I’m ever able to leave here to make any kind of marriage at all! I heard what Sir Reynold said. He won’t let me leave. I’m worth too much. He’ll try to take me himself if he has to, I’ll warrant!”

Lady Eleanor began a soft denial of that. Ignoring it, Joice spun around, pointing at Frevisse. “And don’t think I’ll ever become a nun, because I won’t!”

Frevisse held back from saying aloud her sharp-edged thought that a less likely possibility for a novice she had rarely seen.

Lady Eleanor, as if oblivious to the girl’s fury, said thoughtfully, “You could possibly change your mind and marry Benet, you know. He’s an uncomplicated boy and there’s property to be had with him when he inherits.”

“All I want from Benet is his death!”

“Ah,” Lady Eleanor said. “But if you married him first, my dear, you could then be a widow, and that’s frequently a very pleasant thing to be.”

Joice stared at her, shocked to silence by outrage, until, like Frevisse, she must have seen the small smile crooking at the corners of Lady Eleanor’s mouth and—apparently as much to Joice’s own surprise as Frevisse’s—the girl began to laugh. “I hadn’t thought of that!” she said around the laughter, and then broke down in tears that seemed to take her as much by surprise as the laughter had done so that, hiding her face in her hands, she sank back down into the chair, sobbing helplessly.

Lady Eleanor exchanged a look with Frevisse who nodded in return, agreeing with her that the crying was for the best. This girl had been through fear and courage and cold shock and rage, almost all together and far too rapidly; her tears would exhaust her and then the wine would quiet her and she would be able to rest, even sleep, and after that be better able to deal with whatever came next.

Margrete had taken the pan from the brazier back to the aumbry and was pouring the wine into goblets. Frevisse crossed to the window that overlooked the yard. Whatever came next would have much to do with how things had gone—or were going—between Domina Alys and Sir Reynold, and from here she could see them, Sir Reynold dismounted now, standing on the guest-hall steps in gesturing talk with Domina Alys who looked to be returning as good as whatever he was giving her, with Sir Hugh and Benet, both dismounted now, standing close below them. The rest of the men had all dismounted, too, and were drifted away or standing about at discreet distances from the steps in talk of their own but undoubtedly listening, while servants led off the last of the horses to the stable. There was nothing to be told from all that except that neither Domina Alys nor Sir Reynold seemed in a rage at each other now, and Frevisse found herself wary at the thought that they must be coming to some manner of agreement. Given Domina Alys’ willingness to indulge her relatives, she might even be coming around to Sir Reynold’s view of matters, ready to take his side against the girl. But then again, she rarely changed her mind on any matter, so mayhap she had brought him around to her way of seeing it and so to peace between them.

Margrete served the wine. The rich savor of mixed spices wafting from it was warming in itself as Lady Eleanor laid a kind hand on Joice’s shoulder and urged, “Drink now. While it’s warm. You’ll be the better for it.”

Drawing a deep, shaken breath, Joice raised her head. The worst of the crying had passed and she wiped her eyes with the edge of one sleeve, took the goblet Margrete held out to her with an unsteady smile, and said, “Thank you.”

She drank a little while Margrete brought Lady Eleanor and Frevisse their goblets, and then leaned back in her chair, nursing the goblet’s warmth between her hands and against her breast. Even with her face marred by the crying, she had a simple loveliness that made clear how easily young Benet could have been drawn to her, low birth or not; and because of its simplicity, it was a loveliness likely to last through the years, not fade with youth, although just now, with her hair still fallen loose and the tears and anger at least momentarily gone from her face, she looked even younger than she was, as if she were a small, exhausted child in need of her supper and bed. And with a child’s simplicity she said, “I’m sorry for the crying. I won’t do it again.”