The Clerk’s Tale (8 page)

‘She’s in mourning?“ Nichola ventured.

‘For the likes of Montfort? Then she’s a fool indeed,“ Lady Agnes said. ”No, Letice,“ she added to something her woman hadn’t said yet. ”I’m not coming back up. They’ll be setting tables for dinner soon. I might as well be down and be done with it. Stephen.“

Obediently, now that she was in his reach, Stephen held her by the waist, steadying her down the last few steps to the floor, where she turned and batted his hands away, saying, “Leave off, youngling. I’m not a two-year-old,” and demanded up at Master Haselden, “Hand me my staff, Philip, and get out of Dame Frevisse’s way, you silly man.”

‘My lady,“ Master Haselden said, obeying with a deep bow and a smile.

They were all enjoying themselves, Frevisse realized as she made her own careful way down. That the inquest had dealt with a man’s death seemed of no matter to anyone; it might have been no more than a show put on as a pastime for them. Of course, that Montfort was the dead man probably had much to do with that. Was anyone at all sorry for his death? Even his widow? Or his son?

Master Christopher and his mother were both gone now, last from the hall except for his young, sandy-haired and freckled clerk still at the table gathering up papers, pens, and ink bottle, unheeded by Lady Agnes’s servants come to ready the hall for her dinner. Lady Agnes was gone aside to question Domina Elisabeth, and Nichola was paused at the head of the stairs to gather her skirts with one hand before starting down, gripping the rope railing tightly with the other while Stephen urged her, “Just jump. I’ll catch you.” And added when she started carefully down anyway, “I’ve never dropped Grandma-dam and you weigh far less than she does.”

‘I heard that, boy,“ Lady Agnes called, ”and when you’re in reach I’m going to give you a good thump to show you I did.“

Laughing, Stephen caught Nichola by the waist, swept her off the stairs, her squeal of surprise changing to laughter, too, as he swung her around in a swirl of skirts, gave her a swift kiss on the cheek, and set her down. In return and as swiftly, she caught his face between her hands and rose on tiptoe to kiss him firmly on the mouth.

‘Here, here, here!“ Lady Agnes declared in feigned indignation, rapping her staff on the floor. ”What kind of wanton carrying-on is that for servants and nuns to see? Enough!“

Frevisse, drawn well aside from all of them but watching with pleasure, found suddenly the sandy-haired young clerk at her side, carrying papers, pens, and inkpot and saying in a low, hurried voice as he passed by her, for no one but her to hear, “Master Montfort hopes you’ll meet him in the church after Nones, please you, my lady,” and before she could answer had moved on to Lady Agnes, to give her the crowner’s thanks for the use of her hall this while.

Chapter 5

Even in the startled moment before she realized that the Master Montfort the man meant was Christopher, not his dead father, Frevisse noted that no one seemed to have seen his brief word to her. Stephen was saying something to Master Haselden intent on coming down the stairs and Nichola had moved away to join Lady Agnes and Domina Elisabeth, neither of them looking Frevisse’s way as Christopher’s clerk finished with his thanks to Lady Agnes, bowed, and withdrew. Only Nichola looked around at her and shyly smiled while Domina Elisabeth said, seemingly continuing from something said before, “She’d surely be pleased for the courtesy of your asking her but I doubt she’ll come, things being as they are.”

Lady Agnes tapped her staff on the floor. “She can’t really be cast down by being rid of him, can she? Is she that great an idiot?”

‘I’ve only talked with her hardly enough to know what she feels or how she is, only that she’s behaving seemly,“ Domina Elisabeth answered moderately. ”Was he truly as ill-mannered as everyone says he was?“

‘That and more,“ Lady Agnes said without hesitation.

Domina Elisabeth had never had the mischance to encounter Montfort, probably did not even remember he was the crowner who had dealt with a death near the nunnery a few years ago, nor did Frevisse intend to be drawn into talk about him. Instead, she merely stood, head a little down, listening with Nichola while Lady Agnes detailed a few of Montfort’s rudenesses and, a few paces away, Master Haselden and Stephen discussed the likelihood that last year’s increase in wool sold abroad was going, to hold for this year, too. The servants had quickly finished setting the trestle and tabletop in the hall’s center and a maidservant was going along it laying out bread trenchers, the man Lucas following after her with a pitcher in one hand and a stack of wooden cups in the other to set a cup and fill it between every two trenchers. Emme was smoothing a white linen cloth over the high table, finishing as the maid who had laid the bread trenchers brought pewter plates from the sideboard set along one wall of the hall and laid six places along the upper side of the high table, followed again by Lucas bringing three pewter cups, one to set between each two places, with Emme in her turn coming back from the sideboard with white linen napkins and pewter spoons to set beside each plate. That done, Letice, who had been overseeing it all, came to tell Lady Agnes, “All’s ready, my lady.”

‘Then shall we sit?“ Lady Agnes said graciously to her guests, took her own place at the center of the long, high-backed bench that was the high table’s seat, and pointed everyone to their places, Domina Elisabeth and then Stephen on her right, Master Haselden on her left, and Frevisse and Nichola beyond him.

‘And no throwing of bread pellets at one another,“ Lady Agnes added with a warning look first at Stephen, then at Nichola, who smothered laughter while Stephen said, all injury, ”It’s hardly kind to mention our youngling indiscretions in front of guests, Grandmadam.“

‘Nor would I if I thought you’d outgrown them,“ Lady Agnes returned. ”Pray, be seated, all of you.“

That was sign for Letice to sit at the near end of the lower table and beckon a rough-dressed man who probably saw to whatever outside work there was to come forward to a place at the lower table’s end and the first remove to be brought to the high table by Lucas, Emme, and the other woman servant—roasted quails, onions fried in egg and butter and seasonings, custard tarts with raisins, and bread still warm from the oven—while for the lower table there was a thick pottage and more bread. That much of their duty done, the three of them sat with Letice and the other man and fell to their meal along with them.

Since supper had been a private thing in Lady Agnes’s solar and breakfast the same, this was Frevisse’s first chance to see Lady Agnes’s household at the full, though there was surely a cook in the kitchen. A very good cook, Frevisse amended as she tasted the quail set before her. Because conversation was expected, Master Haselden and she agreed between them that the weather was mild for this time of year and were moving on to discussing the condition of the road between Wallingford and Goring before Lady Agnes claimed his attention with a question about whether it was wool sales abroad or to clothmakers hereabout they should be looking to sell to this year, but that merely meant, equally for politeness’ sake, that Frevisse should take up talk with Nichola on her other side, and forgoing the overtried weather, she asked the only other bland thing that came readily to mind, “Have you been married long?”

With a shy smile and happy eyes, Nichola said, “Six months the morrow of Epiphany just past.” And blushed a little and added, “I’m older than I look, truly. I’ll be sixteen come St. Mark’s.”

Frevisse agreed graciously that she did look younger than that but kept to herself the thought that even so she was young to be a wife and, if things went as usual, probably soon a mother. It also meant she had almost certainly been married to Stephen by others’ decision rather than her own.

Nichola, concentrating on neatly removing bones from her quail, said lightly, as if in answer to Frevisse’s unspoken thought, “It was because of the inheritance, you see. Lady Agnes held Stephen’s wardship but Father had his marriage.” And therefore the right to choose whom Stephen married and to make what profit he could from it. “With Stephen coming of age, we had to be married lest the chance be lost for it.” The chance that Stephen, left to his own choice, might have chosen to marry elsewhere when he was of age and his marriage out of Master Haselden’s keeping. It was common enough for orphans not yet come of age to be given in wardship to a kinsman by whoever was immediate overlord of whatever lands were their inheritance, as Stephen had been given to his grandmother; and it was at least as common for their marriage right to be sold or given to someone else for separate profit; nor was it any surprise that Master Haselden had chosen to marry Stephen and his inheritance to his daughter, seemingly with Lady Agnes’s good will, to judge by the friendship between them.

‘How long has Stephen’s brother been dead?“

‘Harry? A little over a year.“

‘Was he of age or did his grandmother have his wardship, too?“

‘She had both boys’ wardships, and Harry’s marriage, too. She had him betrothed and he would have been married just before he came of age but he died. Everybody was terribly unhappy about it. Especially Anne, the girl he was going to marry. Everyone liked her. But she’s married to an esquire over Reading way now, so that’s all right.“

‘But Lady Agnes didn’t have keeping of Stephen’s marriage,“ Frevisse said, almost too lightly for it to be a question, as if she were not much interested.

‘Oh, no. She meant to, along with his wardship, after Sir Henry her son died,“ Nichola chatted on happily, picking raisins from one of the tarts to eat one by one, ”but Lord Lovell saw to Father having it instead. But I think Lady Agnes would have agreed to our marrying anyway. There was halfway thought of Harry and I being married but then she had a chance for Anne.“

Following after the one part of that that interested her, Frevisse asked, “Lord Lovell is overlord of the Lengley lands then?”

Nichola paused with a morsel of quail on the tip of her sharp knife halfway to her mouth, thinking about it, frowning more uncertainly. “No. The Lengleys hold from the king. But Sir Henry and young Harry after him, they were feoffed to Lord Lovell.” Meaning they had been pledged his followers and he pledged to help them if there was need. “Sir Henry was in his retinue in France, in the war with him. So was Father. He and Sir Henry were friends.”

Emme and Lucas had left the lower table a few moments ago. Now they returned with the second remove— dishes of ground pork mixed with bread crumbs, spices, and cheese and cooked to firmness in a light golden crust that were set between each two of them along the high table; and parsnips thinly sliced and fried in oil; and a thickened mix of figs and raisins cooked in spiced red wine to go with a red gingerbread.

In the way of good manners it was the gentleman’s duty to serve the lady beside him. Dame Frevisse and Nichola, paired with each other, had served themselves, while Stephen had seen to Domina Elisabeth and Master Haselden to Lady Agnes who now slapped him on the back of the hand as he made to put a portion of the pork on her plate, telling him, “I taught you better than that. You move the goblet well aside first, that you can make the serving gracefully. Not all cramped in like you’re doing.”

‘Yes, my lady,“ Master Haselden said, like a chided schoolboy but smiling as he returned the pork to its dish, set down his knife, moved the goblet aside, then set to serving her again.

Frevisse, dividing the parsnips with Nichola, looked around the edge of her veil at Master Haselden, wondering if he was as unangry as he sounded. Nichola, catching her look, said with a soft laugh, “Lady Agnes had the raising of my father for a few years in her husband’s household when he was a boy. That’s why she treats him that way and he let’s her. Nobody else would dare.”

But he must have a deep affection for Lady Agnes, too, Frevisse thought. Little else was likely to make a man as well possessed as Master Haselden have such tolerance of Lady Agnes’s ways. And to keep up her side of the talk she asked, “Were you in Lady Agnes’s household like your father, Mistress Lengley?”

‘It still doesn’t sound right to be called that,“ Nichola complained, smiling. ”It makes me sound like I’m Stephen’s mother. No, I was with Lady Agnes but only for a while. Mostly I was with the nuns.“ Nichola brightened past courtesy into open pleasure. ”They taught me my reading and numbers and needlework and I liked it there. Then I was with Lady Agnes and then Stephen and I were married and now Mother is teaching me all the other things I need to know.“

‘You and Stephen live with your parents?“

‘Oh, yes.“ Nichola was blithe about it. ”I’m almost ready to have my own household, Mother says, but not yet. Besides, it makes better sense we don’t start to live as if Stephen has his own until he does. Have his own, I mean.“ Nichola had kept steadily at her food, neatly tucking words between bites with the hearty appetite of the young but the good manners of the well-raised, but now she stopped, looked at Frevisse, and asked, ”Do you know about those people trying to steal his inheritance?“

Used to eating far less at a meal than had been offered to her in even the first remove, Frevisse had mostly been only picking at her food, trying to give the seeming of eating without doing much. Now, to hide her interest— quickened despite herself—she spooned more of the figs and raisins onto the last of her gingerbread while answering, “Only what I heard here today at the inquest. That someone disputes his right to inherit.”

‘The Champyons.“ The name was not an easy one to spit but Nichola managed it, sounding something like a kitten being fierce. With a glance past Frevisse to be sure no one was heeding them, she leaned nearer, saying very low but still fiercely, ”They’re such liars. They want to take his mother’s land away from him. Only, to do it, they have to say he’s a bastard. But if he was, then he couldn’t inherit his father’s lands either. He wouldn’t have anything at all. They’re so nasty.“