The Clerk’s Tale (27 page)

‘Oh, aye, my lady. Order’d been given for the workmen a good week ahead. It was just some cracked blades of the wheel that needed seeing to and better it be done before they were worse than later, that was all.“

She thanked him and left, with him looking no clearer than when she had come as to why she had been there at all. Since that could not be helped, she forgot about him before she was across the bridge, was only wondering as she went back up the street what she had gained and decided it was very little. Nothing she had seen had changed anything Dickon had told her, and if it helped to know the miller had not been there that day, she did not yet see how. That he would be gone to his daughter’s was something that could have been as easily known through Goring as that the mill would be shut down for the day, not limiting at all who could be suspected.

What she wanted now, she realized as she turned the corner into the street between the nunnery and Lady Agnes’s, was to be alone for a while without need to think about anything, most especially Montfort. She was worn down by the day, tired and not particularly happy, and if she had thought she could reach her room at Lady Agnes’s without having to talk with anyone, she would have gone there. The church would have been her next choice if she could have sat there quietly without feeling duty-bound to try yet again to pray for Montfort’s soul but what she wanted just now was to be without need to think about anything for a while, most especially him.

But since she had small hope of rest at either Lady Agnes’s or the church, she would settle for a chance to have more answers to questions and took her way back through the priory gateway and past the guesthall toward the cloister door. People who must have ridden in today for the funeral and hoped to be home before dark drew in were scattered about the yard in their various groups, their horses being brought for them, and she passed among them with her eyes down, to avoid being seen. That was an illogical thing but she had found over the years that it worked well and certainly no one spoke to her here before she reached the cloister door.

Her light pull on the bell rope was answered almost before she let go of it by a servant who stared a moment and then stepped quickly aside with a bobbing curtsy, saying half-laughing, “Pardon, my lady. I thought it would be someone’s kin again. They’ve been so coming in and out all the day to see one or another of the nuns that I’ve been set as doorkeeper, you see.”

‘A busy day all around,“ Frevisse said politely. ”Might I go to see Sister Ysobel, do you think?“

‘Surely. You know the way, yes?“

‘Yes. Thank you,“ Frevisse said over her shoulder, already on her way.

Today, after so much coming and going as the servant woman said there had been, the cloister felt fraught with it, even though there were only a pair of nuns in low-voiced talk on the other side of the cloister walk. Frevisse went the other way around from them, quickly and with her eyes down, just as she had crossed the nunnery yard, into the side passage and to the infirmary, entering without even a knock to find it blessedly empty of anyone else. The murmur of someone reading aloud beyond the shut door to the bedsroom told her Sister Ysobel was not alone but here there was only herself and she leaned with both hands on the battered worktable and closed her eyes, drawing a slow, deep breath, taking the chance to quiet herself, if only for the moment.

Steadied after a few moments, she straightened and went on and at her slight scratch at the door the reading broke off and Domina Elisabeth bade her come in. She did, to find not only Domina Elisabeth there but Lady Agnes, the both of them seated on the bed beside Sister Ysobel’s, with Sister Ysobel lying higher on her pillows than yesterday, her face bright with interest rather than fever as she greeted Frevisse before anyone else could, saying with a gesture to the foot of her own bed, “Pray, sit, my lady. How good of you to come! Have you brought me more talk of what’s gone on today?”

Frevisse sat, careful not to jar her, but admitting, “I doubt I can add much. You’ve surely heard of the funeral from Domina Elisabeth, and Lady Agnes probably saw and heard more in the guesthall afterwards. I talked mostly with Master Montfort’s clerk, Master Gruesby.” She tried to think of something she could say about him but a man with less to be said about him than Master Gruesby she had never met.

‘You were talking with the Champyons,“ Lady Agnes said and was a little unfriendly in the saying.

‘I was.“ Frevisse had not thought those few moments would go unnoted, if not by Lady Agnes herself, then by someone who would tell her of it.

‘What about?“ Lady Agnes asked, almost demanded.

‘The only thing they’re presently interested in. That manor of Rickling.“

Indirectly that was the truth. If truth could be indirect. She would have to give thought to that later but the answer satisfied Lady Agnes. More friendly, she said, “Humph.” And then, “What did you think of them?”

To that Frevisse could straight enough answer. “I found them unpleasant.”

‘They’re that, right enough,“ Lady Agnes agreed curtly.

With a smiling, sideways look toward Domina Elisabeth, Sister Ysobel asked, “How is the widow doing? Lady Agnes says grief hasn’t bowed her down.”

‘She’d be a fool if it did,“ Lady Agnes muttered.

More judiciously, Frevisse said, “So it seems for now. How she’ll be later…”

‘When she won’t have to keep in her glee anymore,“ said Lady Agnes.

‘Lady Agnes, that’s hardly charitable,“ Sister Ysobel remonstrated with a flicker of laughter.

‘I wasn’t trying to be charitable. Unless she’s a fool, she can’t be grieving over being quit of Montfort. He was a petty man, come to a petty end.“

‘He was murdered, Lady Agnes,“ Domina Elisabeth murmured, ”and needs our prayers.“

‘He does indeed, after earning so many curses in his life. The wonder will be if he gets any. Prayers, I mean. The curses are assured.“

“As much to go away from that as toward his own ends, Frevisse said, ”Sister Ysobel, a question. There’s a window overlooks the garden here from its north side. Where does it look out from?“

‘The nuns’ dorter,“ Sister Ysobel said. She smiled. ”So it therefore doesn’t truly overlook the garden or anything else.“ Because windows in a nunnery’s dorter were usually set too high for looking out of.

And besides that, no nun was supposed to be in the dorter during the day. At the hour when Montfort was murdered, whoever had killed him would have been doubly safe from being seen from there, not only in the garden but as he came and went along the ditch because the dorter’s other windows were those small, high ones Frevisse had seen from the mill.

That left only the one, large window to wonder about but she held back from a question about it with Lady Agnes there to hear her, lest questions be asked back at her about why she was interested—and how she came to know about it at all.

But now she had to wonder who, among those most possibly Montfort’s murderer, would have likewise known it was the dorter overlooked both the garden and the way the murderer had to come to it.

‘As for curses,“ Lady Agnes went on, back to where she had been, ”the Champyons have their share of them, too, right along of Montfort. If ever there was a pair worth the cursing, they’re it. And that son and daughter of hers, too. Strutting at the funeral was as if they belonged there.“

‘Cecely may feel she does have some claim to belong here,“ Sister Ysobel ventured.

‘It’s been—what—thirty years since she was at school here,“ Lady Agnes scoffed.

‘Surely not that long, has it been?“ Sister Ysobel demurred.

Lady Agnes shrugged. “Near enough. The point is that she and Rose were both at school here when they were girls, and Cecely hasn’t been seen or heard from by any of the nuns since she left.”

‘You mean Mistress Champyon was here in the priory as a girl?“ Frevisse asked, careful to sound barely interested, a little discomposed to be given information that she wanted but for which she had not asked yet.

‘Yes,“ Lady Agnes said. ”Just as I was. Years before her, of course, but I made friends then, both among the nuns and the other girls, that I’ve kept to this day.“ She paused on a thought. ”Well, not to
this
day. All the nuns I knew then are dead, God keep their blessed souls, save for Sister Margaret. She yet lives but we never agreed together. Nun or no, she’s a pushing woman and always has been. But I’ve other friends I’ve kept since then, women I’ve known all our lives. And now their daughters and grandchildren, too.“ Lady Agnes paused, momentarily turned inward, before adding, ”That shows how old I’ve grown, doesn’t it? But the point is that Cecely was here at school and has the priory or anyone in Goring heard aught from her since she left? Does she have any friends from when she was here? Has she been to see anyone since she has come back? No and no and no again. All she’s come for is to make trouble and what does that say about her?“

‘It’s maybe her husband who wants her to have naught to do with anyone here,“ Domina Elisabeth suggested.

‘It would have to have been her first husband as well as this second one who wanted it,“ Lady Agnes pointed out sharply. ”I’d like to think a husband has ever had the upper hand with her, but I’ll lay no money to it. No matter how much this one looks like he’s at the forefront of this business, never think for a moment that she’s not the one pushing to make it happen. All for that lump of a son of hers and never doubt it.“

‘What about her daughter?“ Frevisse did not resist asking.

Lady Agnes opened her mouth to snap some answer back but stopped, with a sharp look at Frevisse, before saying tartly, “She’s a whole other set of problems and not mine, thank God.” She rose stiffly to her feet. “Well. I think we’d best be going, my ladies.”

As she said it, the bell for Vespers began and Domina Elisabeth said, reaching out to lay a hand over her cousin’s, “I’ve said I’d stay to pray here.”

‘Ah.“ That was hardly something with which Lady Agnes could quarrel but she asked at Frevisse, ”You, too?“

‘If I may,“ Frevisse said toward Domina Elisabeth, who answered, ”Most welcomely.“

‘I’ll see you at supper, then, will I?“ Lady Agnes asked, wrapping her cloak around her.

They agreed she would and she left as Domina Elisabeth took up the breviary from the table and Frevisse moved to sit beside her, that they might share it. There was enough westering sunlight slanted through the high window for them to make out the familiar words—
Deus, in adjutorium.
God, be my help—but the very familiarity of the prayers worked against Frevisse this tiredly, her thoughts sliding away toward what she had learned from Lady Agnes just now.

That Mistress Champyon had been at school here in her girlhood meant she knew the nunnery well enough to have told either her husband or her son whatever he would have needed to know about the garden and the dorter. Or told both of them. That the murderer might not have worked alone was something she must needs consider, too, she supposed.

But if those stone blocks that Dickon said were half buried in the earth bank did indeed mean there had been a garden wall that had fallen, when had it fallen? If after Mistress Champyon’s time in St. Mary’s, she would not know about it. But the stones were well buried, Dickon had said, so the wall might have gone down that long ago, or longer. No one was in any haste to repair it, that was sure. Who could she ask about it? Not Lady Agnes. Almost the last thing Frevisse wanted was to awaken her curiosity by asking too many questions of her or around her…

“Domine, miserere mei, ”
Domina Elisabeth said. Lord, have mercy on me.

“Sana animam meam, quia peccavi tibi,”
Frevisse heard herself answering—Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you—and realized how little heed she was paying. With an effort, she let go the tangle of questions and set her mind to Vespers’ prayers and psalms with their reaching toward God that was the mind and soul’s eternal quest, until by Vespers’ end—
Fideism animae per mis-pericardium Dei requiescat in pace.
May the souls of the faithful rest in peace—she was quieted she would have been content to sit awhile with bowed head and in silence.

But Domina Elisabeth closed the breviary and set it aside with a brisk, “There. We’ll be going now, I think, Ysobel. Your supper will be coming soon and Lady Agnes will be waiting ours.”

Looking sunken and tired again but with a smile, Sister Ysobel held out a hand for Domina Elisabeth to take. “Tomorrow?” she whispered.

‘Tomorrow,“ Domina Elisabeth assured her.

She stood up and Frevisse rose with her, going to wait beside the door while Domina Elisabeth kissed her cousin on the forehead and whispered probably a blessing over her. Then in silence, leaving Sister Ysobel to the shadows until someone would bring an evening light and her supper, they went away, out of the infirmary and into the darkening cloister where there was candlelight through the choir windows of the church and, distant beyond the stones, the rise and fall of the nuns chanting toward their own end to Vespers.

There was no one at the door into the yard but it was not locked yet, only left on the latch, and they let themselves out, Domina Elisabeth waiting while Frevisse took the time to close the door silently and be sure the latch fell into place so that there would be no going in that way tonight by anyone unless someone opened the door from inside. Then, making haste because of both the dark and the cold now swiftly drawing in, they started toward Lady Agnes’s, Frevisse finding the comfort of Vespers was quite gone from her. Instead, she was realizing that if Lady Agnes had not told her about Mistress Champyon, she would have been left with only Stephen and Master Haselden to suspect—and that she would have been very uncomfortable with that, because if she chose whom she liked and whom she disliked in the matter, the Champyons lost out even against Stephen.