The Bastard's Tale (23 page)

In honesty Frevisse could only answer, with just about truth, “With everything that’s going on, I don’t, I’m afraid. I gather clerks and officers and suchlike have to see the deed first and I don’t know what else before it’s done. You know.” She ended vaguely, telling herself she must remember to ask Alice about the grant, if only to keep up the appearance that it was her reason for being here.

‘Yes,“ Dame Perpetua murmured, sounding as unclear about it as Frevisse had deliberately been but not in the least cast down. ”Then very likely I’ll have time for all of
Boece.“

‘I’ll try to help you more, now that Lord John is gone,“ Frevisse said contritely.

‘He’s gone?“ Dame Perpetua asked in surprise. ”Gone where?“

Frevisse explained that with so much happening, Alice had made things a little simpler by sending him away.

Dame Perpetua made a small tching sound of pity. “I suppose it is more troubling for her than many, with how worried her husband must be by it all. Everyone around the king must be worried. Still, if it was treason the duke had planned, this fading away might be best, both for him and everyone else.”

It would certainly be best for Suffolk, Frevisse did not say.

Dame Perpetua peered forward. “Is that Bishop Pecock ahead of us?”

To Frevisse’s relief, it was. He was walking toward them in company with another man who was neither Joliffe or Arteys, merely someone she did not know, cleric-dressed in plain black with none of the signs of rank about him and therefore probably a minor priest or lesser clerk, not another bishop. Her first thought was that Bishop Pecock had deliberately made this meeting, but deep in talk with the other man, he seemed unaware of them, looking downward at the path and saying intently as they neared each other, “Simply because St. Jerome wrote a thing doesn’t make it unquestionably true. He didn’t hold the keys to heaven or hell, you know. He…”

It took a touch on his arm from the man beside him to make him aware two nuns had stepped to the side of the path to let him pass. He vaguely sketched a cross in the air in blessing toward them and would have gone on, still talking, except Frevisse said firmly, “My lord bishop.”

At that he actually looked at them and said with open pleasure, as if they had just arrived unexpectedly and from far away—which, into his awareness, they had, “Dame Perpetua. Dame Frevisse. Well met.” To the man with him he added, “I’ve spoken of meeting these nuns, I believe?” And by way of introduction added, “Master Orle, my chaplain and sometimes clerk, who attempts to keep me from wandering so far away in the fields of thought that I forget my duties.”

Master Orle was a young man with a wide, clever face and sandy-brown hair whose neatly shaven tonsure showed as he took off his hat and bowed to them, while Bishop Pecock asked, “You‘ re out to enjoy the pleasant weather while it’s with us, my ladies?”

As you are, my lord,“ Dame Perpetua answered.

Not so much out for the pleasure of the day as for “the pleasure of avoiding my fellow lords, I fear.”

Parliament isn’t meeting today?“ Frevisse said.

‘Parliament is assembled, both lords and lay, but chattering away like a dray of squirrels and about as sensible.“

‘Squirrels may well make sense to each other,“ Frevisse suggested, ”even if they don’t to anyone else.“

‘Then I can assume that I am not a squirrel, I suppose, because my fellows in Parliament don’t make sense to me. Or perhaps, to be fair, I should say that they do somewhat make sense but go on at too great length while doing so and in too many circles while they’re at it. I stayed long enough to see that no one is willing to commit to anything regarding the duke of Gloucester until everyone knows to what the king means to commit, and then I came away. Dame Perpetua, I trust you’re not going in circles with your work?“

‘Indeed not, my lord. I go well forward, though more slowly than I’d like. But Dame Frevisse has said she’ll perhaps be able to help me since her cousin’s boy is gone home.“

Bishop Pecock turned with mild interest to Frevisse. “Has he?”

‘With all that’s happening, Lady Alice thought it best, my lord.“

‘One can see why. But how are you coming with Boethius, Dame Perpetua?“

‘Not nearly quickly enough but enjoying it greatly.“

They shifted to the side of the path to let several ladies pass. Bishop Pecock looked around and said, “Would you care to walk farther abroad, while the day is so fair? There’s a way between the prior’s house and the infirmary to the monks’ walk along the river.”

Except Bishop Pecock suggested it, Dame Perpetua might not have gone but said when they had come out from among the cloister buildings and across the small bridge over the ditch dug to bring water to the abbey’s mill into the meadow running long and narrow between there and the river, “It’s so good to be out from walls. Is that a vineyard?” Pointing across the river to ordered rows upon rows of bare vines waiting for spring and summer’s flourish.

Bishop Pecock confirmed they were.

Behind them, clear in the quiet morning, one bell and then another began to call to Tierce. Dame Perpetua immediately drew back a step, ready to make farewell curtsy and go back, but Bishop Pecock quickly signed the cross at them both and said, “I absolve you of the need to go.” He was very pleased with himself. “There. There
are
advantages to being a bishop. I must remember to make use of them more often.”

Master Orle rolled his eyes heavenward, as if in silent prayer.

‘I saw that, John,“ Bishop Pecock reproved. ”You’ll come to no good end, mocking your bishop.“

‘I wasn’t mocking, my lord. I was making an honest prayer to heaven for your increase in wisdom and strength. Surely that’s something to be hoped for, for you and every man.“

‘You hope a little too fervently sometimes. And a little too often, come to that. As if heaven were insufficiently answering your prayers.“

Master Orle made a small bow. “As your grace says.”

They were both solemn at it, but the laughter of friends underlay their words and, “Come,” said Bishop Pecock. “We look like a clustering of crows, standing here all in black and talking to each other. Let’s walk on.”

They did, taking the well-used path across the meadow to the river’s bank, Bishop Pecock walking ahead with Dame Perpetua, talking of Boethius, leaving Frevisse to Master Orle’s company. For form’s sake, he and she traded a few remarks but were both more interested in the scholarly talk ahead of them. They reached the riverbank, where the path split to run upstream to the bridge where Frevisse and John had played yesterday and downstream to another bridge at the very edge of the abbey’s walled grounds. It was possible, by way of the bridges, to cross from the meadow where they were to the river’s far bank and around, past the vineyard, to the meadow again, which Bishop Pecock suggested, then said, “Dame Frevisse, if you’ll walk with me? I would hear if you think there’s anything I might do for Lady Alice.”

Frevisse went forward to him, Dame Perpetua moved back to companion Master Orle, who asked as they began to walk downstream, “Tell me, do you find the shifting from prose to poetry and back again in Boethius distracts or increases your understanding?”

Bishop Pecock, as he had said he would, asked after Alice. Frevisse, watching the sunlight’s gladsome sparkle over the river’s rippled surface, said she did not know that Lady Alice was in need of anything but to have this business over with.

‘It’s said she’s a good friend to the queen. Is there anyone a good friend to her?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

‘I hope I am,“ Frevisse said. As good a friend as she could be despite working against Suffolk. She gazed downriver toward where—although out of sight from here—St. Saviour’s was and the duke of Gloucester was prisoner and perhaps dying. How was it with Arteys, knowing that but unable to come to him?

They were still too near Dame Perpetua and Master Orle for her to ask that, but while making careful conversation, she and Bishop Pecock both lengthened their strides, drawing a little more ahead; and when Dame Perpetua and Master Orle paused, still talking of Boethius, on the bridge to watch the flow and swirl of water under it, Frevisse and Bishop Pecock, across and turning to follow the path upstream, left them enough behind that she was able to ask, “How is it with Arteys? He knows what’s happened with Gloucester?”

‘By now I suppose he does. As for how he is, I can’t say. He went with Joliffe yesterday because there seemed a way he might slip in to see Gloucester while the players performed at St. Saviour’s last night. Did you know they were to do that?“

There was no way to help her sinking feeling but she kept her voice even as she answered, “I heard this morning they had.
Did
Arteys see Gloucester?”

‘I’ve had word from neither him nor Joliffe since they left me yesterday.“ Bishop Pecock sounded no more happy saying that than she was to hear it, but he added, ”Although if Arteys had come to grief, been caught in the attempt or suchlike, surely it would be noised abroad by this morning.“

‘The players’ boy I spoke with didn’t say anything had gone amiss at St. Saviour’s last night while they were there at least.“ But something had, then or later, to guess by what Alice had told her. That thought fingered coldly through her while Bishop Pecock went on, ”Arteys was to reach his father’s room, if he could, during the play and be out again before it was over. If naught went amiss, then likely we merely need wait until one of us hears from one or the other of them. Do you think you’ll be in the library all this afternoon?“

Aware that Master Orle and Dame Perpetua had left the bridge and were following them again, Frevisse began to answer, “Very likely. I—”

Behind them Master Orle called, odd-voiced, “My lord.”

Bishop Pecock turned around and Frevisse with him, saw Dame Perpetua and the priest had stopped on the path and were looking down the bank into the water, and went the little way back to join them. The river flowed slightly less swiftly, slightly more smoothly just there, but drifting a few feet out from the bank there was a slightly humped darkness that, busy in talk with Bishop Pecock, Frevisse had not noted when they went by. Only now, with Master Orle pointing at it, did she see it and begin to be afraid in the same moment that Bishop Pecock ordered, his voice gone whip-sharp, “Get him out!”

Master Orle, apparently having finally believed his own eyes, too, was already plunging down the bank, grabbing up the skirts of his robe to clear his legs to wade into the water, reaching out for the darkness that looked to be the back of a man’s doublet.

‘Bring help,“ Bishop Pecock ordered at Dame Perpetua.

Already backing away, her unbelief turning to raw dismay, she stammered, “Yes. Yes, my lord. Yes.”

‘That way.“ He pointed upstream where the bridge was not so near but crossed the river closer to the abbey buildings.

‘Yes, my lord,“ Dame Perpetua repeated, made him a slight, unthinking curtsy, and rushed away.

‘There are men there,“ Frevisse said, pointing to the other bank where a pair of men were strolling down the path toward the river.

‘They’ll come when they see her running,“ Bishop Pecock said, starting down the bank after Master Orle, who was thigh-deep in the water, holding on to the doublet with one hand, gripping the bank’s long grass with his other, his gown’s skirts floating around him.

It was hardly a stance he could hold for long but neither could he shift from it without letting go with one hand or the other, and Bishop Pecock with his feet braced on grassy tussocks reached out and grabbed hold on his belt. “I have you,” he said, and Master Orle let go the grass to seize the man’s doublet with both hands and lurch backward at the same moment Bishop Pecock pulled on him so that he stumbled against the bank, dragging with him what was all too clearly not merely a doublet but a man’s body. Together, he and Bishop Pecock hauled it mostly out of the water, onto the grass, and rolled it over, looking for life although almost surely there was none. From above them on the path Frevisse saw the man’s face, did not know him, and felt fear go out of her with a gasp.

‘He’s dead,“ Master Orle said pointlessly, because the staring eyes, gaping mouth, and slack-sprawled limbs already told that.

‘He’s been stabbed,“ Bishop Pecock said. ”Here.“ Pointing to the slice through the left side of the man’s doublet at heart height.

Master Orle, kneeling in the puddle spreading from the dead man’s clothing and his own soaked gown, crossed himself and began to pray.

‘His belt pouch is gone,“ Bishop Pecock added. ”He was robbed before he was thrown in the river.“

‘Not robbed,“ Frevisse said. ”He still has a ring on. There on his right hand, see? And look at his boots. Those are too good for a thief to leave on a dead body.“

‘He might have been killed where it was too dark for the thief to see the ring or note the boots,“ Bishop Pecock said, then added immediately, ”Though to bother with robbing him at all, the thief would likely have known what he had worth stealing before going to the bother of killing him.“

‘Perhaps it was murder first, with robbery an after thought,“ Frevisse said.

‘That’s possible,“ Bishop Pecock granted. ”And not long ago, whichever way it was. The body hasn’t been in the water long at all.“

‘Or drifted very far,“ Frevisse said.