The Bastard's Tale (30 page)

‘Not even a proper shroud,“ Lady Alice said. Despite her voice was low and even, her anger showed.

Dame Frevisse went forward, found a loose edge of the canvas, and pulled back a fold to uncover the man’s face. “This is who we found, yes,” she said quietly and stepped aside for Arteys to have clear look at him.

Arteys went closer. He had seen the man’s face only in the instant of killing him but, with one brief look, knew him again beyond any doubt.

‘Arteys?“ Dame Frevisse asked.

He stepped back, swallowing hard. “It’s him.”

‘Lady Alice?“ she asked.

Not needing to come closer, her voice cold, Lady Alice said, “He’s Edward Griggs. He’s… he was one of our yeoman of the hall.” Meaning he had been immediate and in the middle of Suffolk’s household, known to any number of people. “Now I’m going to have to find out why he’s lying here unacknowledged and all but abandoned.”

She did not sound as if she expected she would like the answer.

Arteys turned, went out of the shed, and stood staring at the garden’s quietness until Dame Frevisse and Lady Alice joined him a moment later. Dame Frevisse stopped beside him, briefly touched his arm. He looked at her and, to her silent asking how he was, made a bleak half-smile and shrugged one shoulder, helpless to find words. He had thought to feel more—horror perhaps, or sick shame, or even a deepening of his guilt despite of Bishop Pecock, but he seemed to feel nothing much at all, and that, in its way, was worse.

They left the garden, Simmons shutting and locking the gate behind them, and were midway across the courtyard when Lady Alice’s lady-in-waiting came hurriedly around the corner of the library with Lady Alice’s fur-lined cloak in her arms. Arteys took back his cloak and Lady Alice put on her own and around the same corner of the library Suffolk came into sight, two squires behind him.

If he was there by chance, it was a bad chance. Or it was maybe not chance at all; Arteys saw Lady Alice give one hard glance at her woman before she asked, bright-voiced, “My lord, what do you here?”

‘I came seeking you, my lady,“ he said. His voice was light but he was looking past her, straight at Arteys who, looking straight back at him, saw recognition harden in his eyes and his brows begin to draw down into a scowl of displeasure.

Rather than wait to see what Suffolk would decide to do with his displeasure, Arteys took a step close to Dame Frevisse, said, “Thank you, my lady,” made a short, sharp bow to her and Lady Alice both, and before anyone could speak to him, swung around and made at a long-strided walk for a roofed passageway running from the courtyard into the cloister buildings.

The back of his neck was crawling with expectation Suffolk would call him back or send the two squires after him but he reached the passage’s far end and turned the corner rightward, deeper into the cloister, without either happening, and once out of sight he walked faster. He did not know where he was going. Out of the cloister, into the confusion in the Great Court, out of the abbey, into Bury. That far he could see but not farther, except he knew he would not go back to Bishop Pecock. Nor to Joliffe. Nor to Dame Frevisse. Suffolk had seen him, there of all places, and recognized him. Lady Alice’s carefully prepared excuse would keep her and Dame Frevisse clear but Suffolk would ask why he had been there and Lady Alice would tell him and Suffolk would guess more. How many reasons could there be for wanting to see the man who had been killed instead of Gloucester?

So no going to anyone for help anymore.

What he would do instead, he didn’t know.

Chapter 23

Suffolk turned from frowning after Arteys, but before he could begin another question, Alice said, “I’ll see you later, Dame Frevisse. Yes?”

“Of course, my lady,” Frevisse said, quickly made a courtesy toward Suffolk sufficient to satisfy him of her humility, and went away across the yard opposite from where Arteys had gone, to the library. Once out of sight, she went up the stairs as if going to sanctuary, wishing she was, but at least it was quiet and somewhere to think. More than thinking, she needed to find Bishop Pecock and Joliffe, or have them find her.

The young monk was on duty at the door and openly unhappy about it, giving her a look that said it was her fault. Dame Perpetua gave better welcome, looked up smiling from her copying to whisper, “I’ve nearly finished.” She laid a hand on a pile of papers beside her. “Here’s what you and the young man did. I hope you don’t mind I brought it here.”

Frevisse assured her she did not and went on along the desks, hoping Bishop Pecock might be in his study stall, but he was not and Frevisse sat down at his desk and found she was trembling—not outwardly but with a fine inward shuddering. Finding for certain how twisted a way Suffolk was moving against Gloucester had un-steadied her more than she had expected. Then to come face to face with Suffolk himself… that had not been good. Alice might well convince him that she and Frevisse were innocent of anything but everything would show Arteys was not.

Elbows on desk and face in hands, she sat long enough to steady herself. Suffolk and Alice should have left the yard by now, she supposed, and although she was still unsure what she would do, she could sit no longer, rose, and left the library, only to find Joliffe coming up the stairs. He was in his own clothes, his hair sleek from washing out whatever had been in it and looking so much himself after so lately looking so completely someone else that she said, unguarded with relief, “You did better by Lydgate’s play than I would have thought possible. You were excellently the fool.”

‘You saw it?“ Joliffe seemed far more pleased at that than Frevisse would have expected had she thought about it.

‘Arteys and I were both there for the last part.“

‘Is he here? And Bishop Pecock?“

‘Neither of them. I don’t know where Bishop Pecock is. Arteys…“ She found she was not as steady as she had hoped she was. She paused to draw breath, made sure of her voice, and told Joliffe what they had found out and what had happened.

‘That’s bad,“ said Joliffe at the end. ”Every way, it’s bad. We can be all but certain Suffolk gave the order for Gloucester to be murdered and now he’ll be suspecting it was Arteys killed his man.“

‘And that therefore Arteys knows about the intended murder,“ Frevisse said. ”Worse is that there’s nothing we can do against Suffolk, even though we know.“

‘That’s worse, yes, but worst will be if Suffolk decides to move against Arteys. Will you stay while I go look for him? One of us should be here if he or our good bishop comes, and I can look farther and more quickly than you can.“

Because that was all true, Frevisse said, “I’ll stay,” despite she wanted to
do
something more than that, watched Joliffe leave, and went back to the library. She did not offer Dame Perpetua more help, doubting the worth of anything she might try to do just now, but brought Aelred of Rievaulx’s
Speculum Caritatis
she had noted another day to a table from where she could see the door and tried to read. Unfortunately she was more aware of the sunlight’s shifting slant through the high windows, telling the afternoon was slipping away, than she was of holy Aelred and her last pretense of patience was nearly gone when Joliffe appeared briefly in the doorway, saw her see him, and slipped out of sight again.

Frevisse closed the book, left it lying, and went out, to find Joliffe waiting at the stairfoot. Judging by his face, she did not want to hear what he was going to say but asked at him sharply anyway, “Did you find them?”

‘Not Arteys. I’d just found Bishop Pecock, was telling him about Arteys, when someone from St. Saviour’s came for him, said he was wanted to give the duke of Gloucester last rites, and took him away.“

Frevisse made the sign of the cross for Gloucester’s soul even as she asked, “Why Bishop Pecock? There are bishops in plenty in Bury St. Edmunds just now.”

‘I’d guess because somebody felt more than a plain priest should be there for a duke’s dying and that Pecock is so minor a bishop and not known to be on one side or another that he was ’safe‘ to go, that he’ll be believed if he says there’s no wrong in Gloucester’s death.“

‘The lords know how this all looks, then?“

‘If they’re listening, they’ve heard what people are starting to say and it’s not to their favor. They don’t care—or Suffolk doesn’t—so long as they’re rid of Gloucester.“

‘What’s going to happen to Arteys when his father’s dead?“

‘I don’t know. Will you still stay here longer?“

‘Until Vespers.“

Joliffe accepted that with a curt nod. “If he does come, tell him to go to my place and wait for me. Just wait, not do anything. If I find him… You’ll be where you were before in the church?”

‘Yes.“

‘I’ll come there after Vespers, to tell you how things are, whichever way.“

Left to wait again as best she could, Frevisse returned to Aelred of Rievaulx, found him no more comforting company than he had been but did not bother to find something else because nothing would be any better, her mind taken up with uneasy awareness that soon, if not already, the duke of Gloucester would draw his last breath, alone among enemies. It was a bitter end for anybody, and if the thought of it hurt her, how much worse it must be for Arteys?

But when Gloucester was done with earthly troubles, Arteys wouldn’t be.

Nor would Alice.

What had passed between her and Suffolk? She had answers ready for his questions, but would she ask questions of her own or ask him nothing, questions being useless when she would not trust his answers?

Frevisse welcomed the bells’ calling to Vespers. This being Lent’s eve, there was a greater gathering of people in the church and she and Dame Perpetua had to thread their way among them to St. Nicholas’s chapel, glad of its quiet when they reached it and, almost, Frevisse was able to give herself up to the Office’s prayers and psalms but today she heard more deeply than usual their grief.
Domine, miserere nostri… multum satiati est anima nostra irrisione abundantium, despectione superborum.
Lord, pity us… our souls are glutted with the mockery of the rich, with the contempt of the proud.

Joliffe was not there when the Office ended and she asked Dame Perpetua, “I need to wait here awhile. Will you stay? And please, no questions?”

‘Of course,“ Dame Perpetua agreed mildly and sat down on the low stone bench along the wall. Frevisse joined her, listening to the throb of voices and shuffle of feet over stone as the crowd of other worshipers left the church, going out to whatever feasting and pleasures they could cram into the few hours before midnight. The church had nearly emptied, was falling silent, before Joliffe came, and as Frevisse moved to meet him, away from Dame Perpetua, she knew that whatever news he brought was bad.

‘Gloucester’s dead?“ she asked, low-voiced.

What she did not know was that he was angry until he said, “I don’t know.” So furious he could hardly say the words. “It’s Arteys. He’s been arrested. Arteys and, from what I saw, everyone else who came with Gloucester.”

‘You’re certain?“ she asked, wanting him to deny it.

‘I saw it. I’d finally found him. Had seen him anyway. He was ahead of me along a street and it looked like he’d met up with someone he knew, another of Gloucester’s men. While I was going toward him, they went into a tavern there. I followed them in, was making my way toward him, when half a dozen men with the king’s badge crowded through the door and one big-mouth ordered everybody to stand and line up along the walls. Then he demanded if any of them were the duke of Gloucester’s men and Arteys and three others stepped forward. Not that it would have been any use to not. Everyone who didn’t step forward was asked who they were, and if they answered with a Welsh flavor to their words, into the bag they went.“

‘Arteys doesn’t sound Welsh.“

‘No, but it wouldn’t have mattered with him. Hell’s foul breath, they had someone with them who looked at everyone, and when he came to Arteys, he gave him a hard, long look, pulled him forward, and said, ’This is the one. Keep him and this man with him apart from the rest.‘ “

Frevisse drew a sharp breath. “They were looking for him.”

‘They were, and there wasn’t a damned or undamned thing I could do to help. Worse, as they were being herded out, he saw me and all I could do was look back at him and do nothing.
Nothing.“

‘He saw you?“

‘He saw me, and oh, my lady, he was afraid. He knew what trouble he’s surely in and he was afraid.“