The Clerk’s Tale (19 page)

Lady Agnes straightened. “Very likely. People talk where they shouldn’t, and wives hear what they wouldn’t. But hopefully she has wit enough to realize how much better it is
not
to know. She’s not too young to learn that not-knowing and not-seeing are two of life’s most desirable skills.”

‘What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve at?“ Frevisse said dryly.

‘Yes.“ Lady Agnes thrust her staff fiercely at the crumbling coals at the fire’s edge. ”Besides, whatever Stephen does, she’s no call to complain of him. She’s had her rights of him. Her father made certain of that. She’s fully married, fully his wife. There’s nothing can change that, even if he’s taken care not to get her with child while she’s still so young.“ She poked ferociously at the coals again. ”That’s kinder than most husbands would be.“

And the more surprising, given the open affection Frevisse had seen between them yesterday. Stephen’s forbearance spoke better of him than his lust for Juliana did, but Lady Agnes rubbed at her forehead as if there were an ache there and said, “Mind you, if Philip ever finds out, there’ll be trouble. Until Nichola has a child, he can’t be sure of the Lengley lands.”

‘Sure of them?“ Frevisse asked. Whether Nichola had a child or not, Stephen’s lands were Stephen’s lands, not Philip Haselden’s. Unless, Frevisse amended, Nichola had a child and then Stephen died. Then, very likely, her father would be given wardship of the child and its lands— and their profits—until the child came of age.

There, if for some reason Stephen did not fully trust his father-in-law, was another reason he might hold back from getting his wife with child.

And there, Frevisse thought uncomfortably, was one of the corruptions caused by murder: until the murderer was known, suspicion spread out poisonous roots into places where it would never have gone without being fed by the certainty that someone unknown had killed and could kill again.

But Lady Agnes was saying easily, with no trace of troubled thoughts, “What Philip wants is to be sure of them staying in Lengley hands. There’s been alliance between the Lengleys and Haseldens for three generations and more. My husband and Philip’s father were like brothers, and before Philip and my son went off to the French war together, the young fools, they swore in St. Thomas’s church here that if either of them died, the other would see to his family like his own. Philip feels still bound by that oath, I think, just as my Henry would, did he still live instead of Philip. Stephen is the last Lengley heir, and until he has sons, Philip won’t feel he’s kept all as safe as he would have had my son keep things for his sons, if things were different.”

‘Was it for that Lord Lovell gave him Stephen’s marriage?“

‘Partly, but also because Philip has long been Lord Lovell’s man and had earned it.“

With assurance, too, of his continued faithful service, Frevisse guessed. That was the purpose of lordship and service after all—to bind lord and man to each other to their mutual benefit and the general good, because not only could a lord well served by others better serve the king, but a man in good service to a lord was less likely to make troubles where he should not. It was a power that could be likewise turned to ill-purpose in the hands of an ill-skilled lord or ill-intentioned, but that she had never heard ill of Lord Lovell meant he was likely a lord who used and governed his power and his people well.

Unlike the earl—no, marquis, now—of Suffolk, who seemed ever at the edge of ripples of rumor and trouble.

But Lady Agnes was still going her own way. “Not that the right to the marriage didn’t come to Philip in good time. What with buying good marriages for two of his sons and setting the other two up in the world and man-aging a sufficient dowry for his older girl, paying out for another marriage would likely have been too much for him. It would have to have been the nunnery for Nichola for certain. Not that Stephen looked to be all that good a take. Until his brother died, he only stood to inherit the least of the Lengley manors. But when young Henry died, well, there, Philip couldn’t have done better for the girl, and Stephen is no loser by it either.”

His grandmother’s casual mention of her grandson Henry’s death made Frevisse wonder how much less loved than Stephen he had been. He had never been strong, she remembered someone saying, and Christopher had had no doubts about his death, but still…

But shame on her, sitting here as Lady Agnes’s guest and thinking again of murder, especially when the likelihood was so little. Heirs often died and their deaths were usually convenient to someone without there being more to it than that mortality was the lot of every man.

But Montfort was dead. Was murdered. Very probably because of the Lengley inheritance. By someone familiar enough with Goring to make use of the infirmary garden. Someone…

Lady Agnes shifted, resettled herself discontentedly in her chair, and said, “I’d best tell Stephen to take better care in his dealings with this Juliana woman, I suppose. Being a man, he’ll doubtless never suppose Nichola has guessed at it. Nor he won’t have thought past a glimmer of how badly she may take it when she’s certain. Her mother is a mouse, sweet but a mouse nonetheless, and I don’t think Nichola will be the same, St. Waldetrudis be thanked. Stephen doesn’t need a mouse. Though why she thought I’d tell her anything…” Lady Agnes broke off with an impatient shrug.

‘Because she trusts you?“ Frevisse asked, with a sharper edge to the words than she had meant to show.

Lady Agnes eyed her a moment before answering, “You’ve a shrewd edge to your tongue when you choose, don’t you? Yes, she trusts me, and that’s to the good because it makes her more likely to believe me when I lie to her.”

‘The question then is, Should you lie to her?“

‘Most surely, yes. I know from all the lies there were between my husband and me that there’s often far more comfort in them than in the truth.“

‘A false comfort.“

‘Better false comfort than none,“ Lady Agnes snapped. With her staff she broke the nearest burning log down to glowing bits in the fire’s heart, scattering sparks. ”Haven’t you found that most things of the world are false and the best to be hoped for is to deceive yourself into thinking you’re happy for as long as may be before having to face that you’re not?“

Frevisse’s first urge was to anger at such a cruel view of the world, but even as the anger rose in her, she saw the bleakness of Lady Agnes’s stare into the fire and the strained, tired downturn of her mouth and her anger slipped sideways into pity, because whether Lady Agnes truly believed or not in what she said, it gave her a shield against a hurt so long a part of her she would probably, in life, never be rid of it.

But in the moment Frevisse thought that, Lady Agnes put her pain away, back to wherever she kept it, and said with a sudden, sharp look at her, “What I said about Stephen not meaning to get Nichola with child yet, that’s not to be said outside this room to anyone. You understand? Philip would be furious at them both and they don’t need that while living under his roof. There’ll be children in good time, not before, Stephen says.”

‘What does Nichola say?“

Lady Agnes waved a dismissive hand at that. “It’s not for her to say anything, any more than it’s her business to say anything about any other women he may have. That’s simply a man’s way. Let her be satisfied with knowing he loves her and she loves him. That’s more than many women have and St. Anne knows she won’t be the first wife and she won’t be the last who’s loved her husband despite he’s indiscreet.” She pointed a finger at Frevisse. “Nor don’t try to tell me where I’m wrong in this. I know things about men you’ll never know because you’ve been Christ’s bride all your life and he’s a far easier husband to have than one of flesh and blood, let me tell you.”

Frevisse was so taken by surprise at the thought that being wed to Christ was easy that for a moment she simply stared, then gave up and laughed aloud in open merriment. Christ was, beyond doubt, to be preferred to a spouse of flesh and blood, but as for it being easy to be wed to him… it was and it wasn’t, and there were days when “wasn’t” was very strong.

Except that, unlike with earthly husbands, she could be ever sure of his unfailing love and faithfulness.

But hopeless of making an answer Lady Agnes, probably already offended by her laughter, would believe, Frevisse stood up, saying, “I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t mean to be rude. I must be more tired than I knew. I pray you, pardon me. By your leave, I’ll withdraw for a while.”

Lady Agnes made a dismissing movement of one hand. “As you say, my lady. We’re likely both tired or I’d not have been so free of speech.”

‘It’s more than likely you’re tired,“ Letice put in, come back into the chamber without their noticing her. ”You’re past time for your afternoon rest by more than a little.“

‘I am, I am,“ Lady Agnes agreed and was making to rise from her chair as Frevisse took her cloak from the chest and left with a nod and a smile to Letice.

The smile faded as she crossed the gallery. She doubted Lady Agnes was judging Nichola rightly and very possibly so were Stephen and even her father. They all of them apparently presumed she could be shaped as each of them chose, but it had taken daring all her own to come to Lady Agnes today, and she had tried with more a woman’s need than child’s to have answers from her. That made Lady Agnes’s deceiving of her all the worse, because whatever amendment Stephen might make would have to come by his own choice and will, but if Lady Agnes were sensible—and although she was not wise, she was not a fool and could be sensible if so she chose—she would help Nichola toward becoming the woman Nichola needed to by giving her truths, not thwarting her with lies under the guise of calling them necessary.

Angry on Nichola’s behalf and at the troubles people made for themselves, she shoved shut the bedchamber door somewhat more forcibly than need be and was finally fully alone for the first time all that day.

Chapter 12

The bed had been made since Frevisse and Domina Elisabeth had left it that morning but nothing had been done to warm the chamber. Frevisse eyed the open window, its shutter lowered to let in fresh air, but decided against bothering to shut it. Simply closing it would do nothing toward warming the room, nor was she minded to call for a warming pan or anything else that would, even briefly, bring her company.

Instead, she wrapped herself in her cloak, sat on the bed with her feet tucked up under her safe from the floor’s draughts, and turned to thinking while she had the chance, beginning with what Christopher had told her of Mont-fort’s death and then about what she had learned on her own. Set out and looked at, there was not much. Of what she had learned, most was on the Lengley side, with very little about the Champyons, and none of it bearing plainly on Montfort’s murder.

But Montfort was dead. He had either angered someone sufficiently or been threat enough to someone that this person had killed him, and that anger or threat most probably had to do with this manor of Reckling.

It might not, of course. There was always the possibility he had been killed because of something else. But if he had been, the likelihood of discovering the murderer was even less than it already seemed to be. So, like Christopher, she would work at the problem from the only sure way they had, and that brought her to the question, What
was
the threat that had been worth Montfort’s death? If it came from something he had found out, then likely the threat still existed, a danger to whoever else might find it out.

Unless it was some sort of written proof and Montfort had had it with him when he was killed and now his murderer had it. Or more likely, had by now destroyed it. In which case threat and proof and hope of learning anything about them were all gone together.

But proof of what? The most damning, to one side or the other, would be something that showed Stephen was— or else was not—Sir Henry’s legitimate son.

So… who was most concerned with that?

Stephen, of course. To have the manor of Reckling, the Champyons had to prove he was illegitimate, and if that was proved against him, then he lost all claim to any inheritance at all from his father. All the Lengley lands would cease to be his.

That made it Lady Agnes’s problem, too. Frevisse suspected she had the fierceness to want a man dead and she was openly bound, both by oath and love, to the claim that Stephen was the son of her son Sir Henry and his wife. That she had a key to the garden’s gate was no use, because no one but Montfort and then Master Gruesby had been seen or heard to go in that way, and besides that, she was hardly strong enough to have driven a dagger through Montfort, let alone have managed to come into the garden by way of the fence.

Stephen could have done both those things, and Lady Agnes and her household were the only ones to say he had been with her that afternoon. But neither was there anyone who had yet said they had seen him elsewhere, and there was a large part of the problem, no matter whom she considered—no one had seen anyone along that side of the priory at the necessary time that day.

Where had Master Philip Haselden been then, she wondered. To him it mattered that Stephen be kept legitimate both for his daughter’s sake and because of his service to Lord Lovell. If Stephen was proved illegitimate, Nichola’s marriage to him would turn from being a profit to an utter loss, and if Lord Lovell were displeased enough over the loss of the manor, it might cost Master Haselden his favor with him, a favor that Frevisse gathered had been very profitable to him over the years.