The Sempster's Tale (22 page)

But Pernell was struggling to her feet again, Lucie trying to help her, and Anne went to steady her just as Mistress Hercy returned, bringing a pitcher of probably more wine. Pernell cried out to her, “Raulyn is going out! He mustn’t!” But Mistress Hercy said briskly, setting the pitcher on the table, “He must. It’s what men do. Don’t fear. Master Weir will see to him. Come away to your chair again.”

Pernell let herself be guided back to the chair and sat down heavily, saying on a half-sob, “And there’s Hal lying there in the church alone, with no one praying over him.”

‘We’ve paid Father Tomas good coin to pray beside him,“ her mother said.

‘Paid prayers!“ Pernell snapped, suddenly angry. She lurched to her feet again and away from both her mother and Anne, awkward with the straddled walk of a bearing woman, her hands clasped under the weight of her belly and angry tears running down her cheeks. ”He needs more than paid prayers! He’s lying there alone. He’s…“

Out of the way and silent until then, Dame Frevisse said, “He isn’t there.”

Pernell paused her pacing. “What?”

‘Your son has long since gone free. It’s not your Hal there, only his body.“ She went to Pernell, took her by the arm, started her walking again but slowly now, saying with steadying calm, ”Grieve for him being gone, but let go worry for his body. Whether it’s buried or lying in the church, he’s done with it. Until the Last Judgment and the Resurrection, it matters not at all. Whatever comes to it, Hal is gone from it. Only your love for him still matters, and nothing can hurt or touch that, can it?“

‘No.“ However much bewildered she might be by all the rest Dame Frevisse had said, Pernell was sure of that.

But shouting more near than before jerked everyone’s head around to the window, and on a sob of fear, Pernell said, “Oh, please,” though for what was unclear. God’s help? Strength? Safety? Dame Frevisse turned her in a gentle curve toward the southward window, saying, still quietly, “Listen. Those are glad shouts, not angry ones.”

Anne, Lucie, and Mistress Hercy joined them at the window. The nun was right, and Mistress Hercy added firmly, “They’re going past, staying on Candlewick. ‘Strike your sword on Londonstone. Claim the city for your own.’ That’s what Cade’s doing.”

The large, rough stone sat in the middle of Candlewick Street, no one certain from when or why, but yes, there was a rhyme that went that way, and as a greater shouting burst up beyond the houses hiding view of Candlewick, Dame Frevisse said, “He’s done it, I’d guess. Struck Londonstone and claimed the city for his own.”

‘Seems he’s welcome to it so far the king cares,“ Mistress Hercy said bitterly. ”Now you’d best sit again, Pernell. Remember you’ve a babe that needs you careful of him.“

Dame Frevisse began to ease Pernell toward the chair again, and Pernell let her, seeming calmer, as if finally willing to be comforted. Mistress Hercy—with a wary eye on her daughter—put an arm around Lucie still standing beside her straight-backed and wide-eyed, maybe afraid to move or cry for fear of making something worse, and said, “Come, Lucie-dear. Whatever else is afoot, everyone is going to want their supper. Let’s go be sure the servants are seeing to their work, not thinking to go out to see the sport.”

Even as she lightly said it, a look of understanding and agreement passed between her and Dame Frevisse. She would see to Lucie and the servants. Dame Frevisse would see to Pernell; and while Mistress Hercy bustled out with Lucie, Dame Frevisse sat Pernell down, sat down beside her, and Anne copied them, sitting on the window bench with wary care, half-fearing a sudden movement would unsettle the little peace. In that moment she envied Mistress Hercy and Dame Frevisse, both of them so ready and certain at decisions not only for themselves but for others, both of them— being widow and nun and much of an age—free of the burdens of childbearing and the body’s passions. Just now Anne would have given much to be free of her body’s passions—fear, for one, but also her ache to be in Daved’s arms and alone with him again.

Mistress Hercy’s round sewing basket sat in the bench’s corner, its lid shoved aside, a baby’s unfinished yellow gown partly hanging over the edge. Anne took up the gown, found the needle and thread where Mistress Hercy had left off gathering the cloth into a narrow neckband, and began to sew. Dame Frevisse seemed to be praying with Pernell, and Anne, making even in-and-out stitches, thought how sewing was for her much what prayer must be for the nun— giving her mind comfort and sanctuary, somewhere to be besides in worry.

But not from hearing the rabble-noise as it rose momentarily louder through the window. Pernell’s head jerked up and around, and Anne said, deliberately going on with her sewing, “They sound farther off, don’t they? They’re headed up Walbrook, I’d say. Toward the Stocks Market. They’ll be making for St. Paul’s. Or the Guildhall, I’d guess. It sounds like holiday-making, doesn’t it?”

‘Not like riot or fighting, certainly,“ Dame Frevisse said, and Pernell murmured agreement and bowed her head to the nun’s praying again.

Done with stitching the small gown into its neckband, Anne took up Lucie’s sampler. A strip of fine-threaded linen cloth with each and fastened to a wooden rod so it could be rolled up at one end while being unrolled at the other, the sampler was Lucie’s guide to all the stitches she learned and record of patterns she might some day use. Unrolling it to the beginning, then rolling her way forward, Anne smiled at the evidence of Lucie’s growing skill these few past years, trying by that small satisfaction to turn her thoughts from her body’s need, her heart’s longing, her mind’s fear. Trying, but not much succeeding.

Chapter 16

Frevisse had long ago found that she was better at watching than at being part of what went on around her. She had passions, she knew, and they ran deep and strong; but their running was toward God rather than into the passing happenstances of every day, and sometimes, even now, she wondered whether, if she had chosen marriage and motherhood, her passions would have turned as fully to husband and children or whether, instead, she would have failed both husband and children, drawn as she was so fully another way. She would never know. She had followed where her heart and mind had led her and never regretted her choice. Her only—and only sometimes—regret was that, living her half-step aside from other people as she did, she sometimes saw more than she was happy to see.

Living that little aside from the thick swirl of desires and fears by which most people let themselves be governed, she was able, even here and now while comforting Pernell and listening for any change to the street-shouting, to be thinking how steadily less happy she was with what she saw between Anne Blakhall and Daved Weir. Their awareness of each other was sharp enough to cut; beyond doubting there was more between them than should be between a virtuous widow and any man.

But outwardly Frevisse went on comforting Pernell as best she could, leading her in the Kyrie, saying with her,
“Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.”
—Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.—over and over because words said over and over until the mind was given up to them could serve to loosen the mind’s tight moorings to the world, letting it float free toward what lay beyond the body’s fears and needs, away from the Lesser and toward the Greater. If Pernell was to have any deep comfort at all, it would be there, in the Greater. So,
“Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.”
Lord have mercy. On the living, and on the souls of the dead.

But even while doing that she was listening to the shouting going more northward than westward, and judged it was not toward St. Paul’s then but still with no sounds of fighting. With no threat seeming near to hand, a quiet scratching at the stairward door frame was too slight a thing to fright even Pernell, who simply broke off praying to say, “Yes?” and Dickon sidled warily into the room, maybe afraid he would find frantic women.

Quietingly Frevisse said to Pernell, “He’s mine.” And to Dickon, “Yes?”

He bowed in a general way to all of them and said to her, “My father hasn’t come back. I was wondering…”

‘We’ll stay here until we know better what’s toward,“ Frevisse said. And added, knowing full well how tempted he must be to see for himself what was happening in the streets, ”You and I will
both
stay here.“

Although his face was younger and less formed than his father’s, it matched Master Naylor’s in giving nothing away. Only the faint underlay of disgust in his voice betrayed him as he said, “Yes, my lady.”

‘Meantime,“ she said, ”help as you may with whatever watch and guard is being kept here.“

He bowed again and left. Pernell, gazing after him, said, “My Hal would have grown to be much like him,” and bent her head, her tears falling into her lap; but they were quiet tears, not rending ones, and Frevisse let her cry in silence, and she was done before Mistress Hercy returned with Lucie and quick, diverting talk about having kept the cook and kitchen servants to their business of readying supper. Frevisse moved away, leaving Pernell to Mistress Hercy. Because Lucie had gone to sit beside Anne, Frevisse went to the other window, that overlooked the yard, with Mistress Hercy, behind her, asking Pernell’s help in planning coming meals. “Because it’s best to make what we have on hand last. I don’t want to pay what the market-rascals will be asking if this goes on.”

She did not add that there had to be the worry, too, that if alarm spread too greatly into the countryside, the daily inward flow of food to London could stop, leaving bakers soon out of flour for bread, greengrocers of fresh produce, the flesh markets of meat. But while they talked and Anne occupied Lucie with some new stitch for her sampler, Frevisse was left with nothing but the waiting, hoping for Master Naylor’s return. Wherever the rebels and loud Londoners were, she could no longer hear them. Were they too far off for any harsh sounds of fighting or the thicker noise of pillaging to reach here? At least there was no black-clouded smoke from burning buildings that she could see, but the quiet now settled onto London was, in its own way, disquieting. She had grown used to the constant undersound of London busy about its business and pleasures, and she admitted to herself that, much like Dickon, she would rather find out for herself what was happening, not have to wait here to be told.

Nor did it help that by supper’s time Master Naylor still had not come back, nor Daved nor Master Grene. The women ate the scant meal of fried eggs in a green sauce of peas and scallions in the parlor, joined by Master Bocking, who told how guard would be kept in watches through the night at the house’s foregate and rearyard; and at the meal’s end, when Pernell began to fret openly for her husband’s return, Master Bocking fell into talk about his travels. Listening to him, she was somewhat eased, with Lucie leaning against her to listen, too; and by no spoken agreement, Anne and Frevisse drifted to the windows, Anne to the south, Frevisse at the north; and watching and listening, Frevisse slowly began to hear… not shouting but… many men on the move. Anne rose in no haste and crossed the room to her, to ask low-voiced and looking out the window, “What is it? Where?”

‘East of us.“ Maybe a street or so away, but it was hard to tell.

Anne leaned suddenly forward, looking down. The pale twilight sky was clear and full of light, but thickening shadows filled the yard; only barely Frevisse saw two men crossing it toward the hall. Master Grene and Daved Weir, she guessed, since there had been no challenge from the gate guard. Neither she nor Anne said anything, but something in their watching must have caught Pernell’s eye because she called out, “Are they back?”

‘I think so,“ Anne granted carefully.

‘Master Bocking, would you—“ Pernell started, but he was already going.

And was back mercifully soon, bringing Master Grene and Daved with him, followed by a household man carrying a lighted candle. Pernell cried out, “Raulyn!”, holding out her hands to him, and while he went to her and quickly kissed her and assured her he was well and all was well, the man lighted the pricket-held candles along the walls, and Daved closed the shutters across first one window and then the other, and maybe only Frevisse noted how Anne’s eyes followed his every move in the warm, growing light.

Master Grene was still assuring Pernell, “I’m here. I’m well. Everything’s well. Look, love, I’ve brought James to hear what I’ve to say, so he can tell the rest of the household how well it is. We’re unscathed, and so is London.” He gave a sudden, sharp laugh. “Except for Philip Malpas.
He’s
scathed and no mistake.”

Ready to be alarmed out of her relief, Pernell said, “They’ve killed him. He’s so hated, someone has killed him.”