The Clerk’s Tale (29 page)

Dame Frevisse turned back to Master Christopher. “You’ll ask?”

‘I’ll ask,“ Master Christopher said with a glance at Master Gruesby that asked pardon.

‘And about the women. Mistress Champyon. Juliana.“ Dame Frevisse paused a moment, then added, ”Lady Agnes, too. Not simply where they were but if they sent a message to anyone. Though a sent message is unlikely. Master Montfort saw all of them that morning. Whatever took him to the garden that afternoon could have been set then, with no need to pass word by way of anyone else.“ She looked at Master Gruesby. ”You still say no message came to him that day except the one from Lord Lovell?“

He blinked rapidly but managed to nod.

‘Nor the day before,“ Master Christopher said. ”We’ve asked.“

‘And you’ve read that letter from Lord Lovell and there’s nothing in it that helps?“

Master Christopher paused. Master Gruesby guessed he was considering how much to say, but when he answered he held back nothing. “Without saying it in so many words, it makes plain that Lord Lovell supposed my father knew which way his decision over the manor should go. If he were to please my lord Lovell.”

Mistress Montfort had seemed at ease this while, leaned back in her chair and sipping occasionally at her wine, removed from all of them in her thoughts if nothing else, but now of a sudden she asked, “What if the killing was for something other than this inheritance?”

Master Christopher looked at her bleakly. “Then our chances of finding the murderer out are even less than they already seem to be.”

‘Oh,“ Mistress Montfort said as if a little surprised but not much concerned.

Dame Frevisse turned her head to stare into the flames and after a short silence said, slow with thought, “Since it seems he had no messages and talked to no one that day but those concerned with the Lengley inheritance, we’re in safe bounds to think his death has to do with that. Given that, the questions about who was where and when can be centered on those most concerned with it.” She moved away from the fire, toward the table, and set her goblet with its untouched wine beside the pitcher and turned back to Master Christopher. “What have you done toward finding out about the dagger?”

‘I’ve had men asking about it through the town and looking for it. But only quietly and by the way. No one knows anything, it seems.“

‘You may have to ask less quietly. There might be use, too, in knowing how much beforehand people generally knew the mill would be closed that day, the ditch drained.“

‘You want to know how long ahead the murderer had to plan.“

‘Yes.“

‘Master Gruesby,“ Master Christopher said. ”Find out, please.“

Master Gruesby gave a small bow, not letting show how pleased he was to be treated as if he were still crowner’s clerk instead of not. There was still young Denys to consider, but as often as not these past few days, it had been himself and not young Denys to whom Master Christopher had turned. He had not enjoyed being an escheat clerk, because dealings over property too often led to arguments and angers. Crowner’s work was usually with people either grieving or wary or both but on the whole far less troublesome than those involved in escheats. He did not like trouble.

The thought of trouble made him think of Dame Frevisse, and with his head bent as if he were staring into his wine cup, knowing his spectacles’ thick rims hid his eyes, he watched her where she stood beside the table, silent again, her hands folded out of sight up her opposite sleeves. He had sometimes wondered if she so often hid her hands because they gave away what her carefully still face did not; even now, here with Master Christopher, whom she seemed to trust, both her face and voice were mostly bare of anything except quietness as she raised her head and said, “I can’t see what else we should do for now.”

‘Nor do I,“ Master Christopher said. ”But thank you for all you’ve managed so far.“

‘Little though it’s been.“ Briefly her voice gave away how much that annoyed her.

‘It’s the little pieces brought together will tell us finally what we want to know.“

‘True,“ she said and smiled at him, to Master Gruesby’s startlement. Had he ever seen her smile before this? She never had in Master Montfort’s presence, that was certain.

There came a knock at the door and Master Christopher sighed, raised his voice to say, “I’ll be there,” then said more quietly, “I must needs go and make farewells to people too important to be neglected. If you’ll stay awhile longer with my mother, it will give color to why you’re supposedly here. If you will.”

‘Of course.“

He set down his goblet, slightly bowed to her, and went to kiss his mother on the cheek. With no wish to be left here to Dame Frevisse, Master Gruesby quickly set aside his own drink, and with his eyes carefully down, followed Master Christopher out of the room.

Chapter 18

Left behind, Frevisse sat and made talk with Mistress Montfort over how long a ride she would have to home tomorrow—it would take more of a day than not, Mistress Montfort said—and about how long Frevisse thought she and Domina Elisabeth would stay here in St. Mary’s—Frevisse was unsure—before a small silence fell between them, until Mistress Montfort said, “I think we’ve served to cover my son’s purpose well enough, if you want to go.”

Frevisse did, only paused when they had both risen to their feet, to ask, “What’s Master Gruesby’s place now? Is he become your son’s clerk or is he working for him only this while?”

‘I don’t know if they’ve made decision or if what’s happening is simply happening. My hope is that Christopher will take him on as a crowner clerk again. Because if he doesn’t, I’ll have to think of giving him place in my household.“

‘And you’d rather not.“

‘I’d rather not,“ Mistress Montfort agreed.

Because he made her as uncomfortable with his silences and watching as he made Frevisse? Or for some other reason? Or reasons?

Abruptly impatient with herself for conjuring up yet more questions she could not answer, Frevisse moved toward the door. Mistress Montfort moved with her, following thoughts of her own but in the same direction because she said, “I think he makes me uncomfortable because he never seems happy nor unhappy. He never seems much of anything. He’s always just simply there.”

For something to say rather than because she had considered it, Frevisse offered, “Mayhap it’s because he’s happier than any of us. It may be he’s so settled into it he’s past need to show it.” Once said, though, there was a kind of sense in it—that there might be small outward sign of someone’s happiness if they were so deeply happy as to be past the need for seeking out of pleasures and bursts of merriment.

‘Much like you, I might guess,“ Mistress Montfort said musingly.

Because they were at the door, Frevisse was spared trying to find some answer to that. Instead, hand on the handle, she asked, “Should I send someone in to you?”

‘No.“ Mistress Montfort was both quick and sure of that. ”They’ll come soon enough, thinking I shouldn’t be left to myself. Until then a few moments of peace…“ She smiled and made a small gesture meant to show Frevisse had not troubled her peace. Frevisse smiled to show she understood, slipped out the door, closed it and turned all in one quick movement, and was still barely in time to hold back the two Montfort daughters and the woman ready outside to knock and enter as soon as she was out of the way, saying to them in a hushed voice, ”Best let her be for a time, I think. She’s in prayer.“ Which was close enough to truth; she was probably praying to be left alone a little longer.

Outside, full day was come, with the thickness of clouds that had darkened the dawn broken into drifting fluff high overhead and clear morning sunlight slanting long across the yard. Not far from the guesthall stairs Christopher was in talk with several men and women, their servants standing nearby with their horses, ready to leave. Master Gruesby seemed to be nowhere in sight but neither did Frevisse much look for him as she passed along to the cloister door. Her knock brought the same servant as yesterday, who said as soon as she saw her, “Oh, good. Your prioress is with Domina Matilda in her parlor. I was to bid you join them, if you would.”

Frevisse felt she would rather not, but good manners did not permit that choice and she said only, “Of course,” and followed as the women led her into the cloister walk and around it, past the church to stairs up to a door where the woman scratched lightly and, at someone’s bidding to come in, opened it and stood aside to let Frevisse go into the room beyond it, a large, comfortably furnished chamber. Because among a prioress’s duties was the receiving of particular visitors, often for the sake of dealing with matters beyond what could be dealt with in the daily chapter meetings, her parlor presented the best a nunnery could offer and St. Mary’s could offer much, it seemed. Besides beautifully braided reed matting for the floor and glass in the upper quarter of the two windows that let light in even though the shutters were closed, there was a bright, fringed cloth over the broad table in the middle of the chamber, beautifully embroidered cushions on the window seats, a woven tapestry covering one long wall showing the Three Christian Worthies with their banners unfurled above them, and a wide fireplace where the two prioresses were seated in high-backed chairs, a small, silky-haired spaniel curled against Domina Matilda’s skirts.

They looked to have been in comfortable talk, each holding a mazer bowl of what Frevisse feared was more spiced wine, and indeed it was, she found, after Domina Matilda had welcomed her, gestured to a third chair beside Domina Elisabeth, and bade her help herself to the wine and cakes from a nearby table. Frevisse hardly wanted more wine or any food but took both for courtesy’s sake and to occupy herself, pouring only a little of the wine while answering Domina Elisabeth’s asking how Mistress Montfort did, and taking the smallest cake before she joined Domina Elisabeth and Domina Matilda, talking together of the troubles that went with being prioress.

Frevisse had long since seen enough of the duties and worries that came with being a prioress to be purged of any desire she might have had, when she was young and foolish, ever to be one herself. Worse, as if the usual burden of seeing to the spiritual and bodily well-being of her nuns at St. Frideswide’s was not enough, Domina Elisabeth also had the repairing of all the damage left by her predecessor, both to the nunnery’s worldly well-being and its spiritual health. St. Mary’s looked to be in altogether better circumstances although presently Domina Matilda had the pressing problem of yet another day of feeding guests. “Though, thank St. Anne, there’ll be almost only Mistress Montfort’s household folk and the escheator’s men before the day is out. A few more days of so many as there were and I’d be going door to door asking for alms instead of giving them out. Happily, Master Haselden has promised us a roedeer. Or maybe two, if the hunt goes well today.”

‘Venison,“ Domina Elisabeth said on a sigh. ”How lovely.“

Domina Matilda’s sigh matched hers. “Especially since we’ll soon be having naught but salt fish.” Because Lent would soon be on them. “How many barrels of stockfish do you find sufficient for a year?”

They were away on practical matters then, leaving Frevisse with chance to think about what had passed between her and Christopher this morning. Faced squarely on, it seemed to her they were trotting in circles, on the move but going nowhere, unable yet to close on one person more than another for the murderer. Somehow, some way, Montfort had been threat enough to someone for that someone to want him dead. And the threat had most likely to do with the Lengley inheritance. But what was the threat? Who had been threatened? How had they lured him to the garden and come and gone from there themselves unseen?

The same few certainties. The same returning questions. Around and around.

She finished both the wine and the cake, set the bowl aside, and folded her hands into her lap, to sit with downcast eyes and not much listening to Domina Matilda and Domina Elisabeth, who were comparing the prices of London spice merchants and whether the added cost of carriage from London made it more reasonable or less to buy from a merchant nearer to home. Uninterested, Frevisse drew her mind back to Montfort. If the supposed threat had to do with the Lengley inheritance, then it was almost surely some sort of proof—something firmer than one person’s word against another’s—of whether Stephen was legitimate or not, because that was the one thing on which everything else hung. If Montfort had found certain proof that Stephen was—or was not—legitimate and then had, for whatever reason, told the wrong person of it, yes, his murder could have come easily from that.

But what proof? From where and in what form?

Her own guess would be it was something written.

And that brought Master Gruesby and his perpetually ink-stained fingers immediately to mind.

But if he had known of anything to do with the Lengley matter, he would surely have told Christopher about it long before this.

‘Are you well, Dame Frevisse?“

Frevisse raised her head to find both prioresses looking at her and said hurriedly, “Yes, my lady. Only tired.” Which was maybe not a strict untruth. She was tired of too much thinking up questions to which she could find no answers, was tired of other people’s troubles… She brought herself up short and made a small beckon toward the room’s windows. “May I look out?”

‘Of course,“ Domina Matilda said graciously. ”If you see the hunt coming home, tell me, please.“ And added to Domina Elisabeth, ”Everywhere near here was fairly well hunted out at Christmastide. Master Haselden thought that rather than spending the day riding far enough afield for good hunting and then having the long ride home afterwards, the hunt could ferry over the Thames to hunt closer to hand. You can see the ferry from my window there.“ She nodded toward the room’s far end.