The Sempster's Tale (38 page)

Chapter 25

After Emme left her, Frevisse stayed at the window with her suddenly sharpened thoughts, knowing her own dinner would be brought to her in good time. Servants were in a household to serve, but they also saw and listened to all they could of things done and said. She had had no secrets out of Emme, merely what anyone in the household was likely to know, and that Emme’s view of matters was probably not that of either Mistress Hercy or Raulyn Grene did not lessen its worth. Briefly, Frevisse wondered what the servants in St. Frideswide’s said among themselves about her and decided she did not want to know. The line between humility and humiliation could sometimes be too thin.

Lucie had followed Emme into the bedchamber, and Frevisse called Dickon to her and ordered, “When you go down to your dinner, don’t tarry over it. Eat and come straight back. I need you for something.”

Dickon brightened. “You know something, don’t you? You’re going to find out who killed the friar, aren’t you?”

Frevisse said quellingly, “What I know is that there are more things I want to know. Eat and come back, and don’t say anything to anyone about me while you’re at it.”

‘Not a word. Does Father know what you’re doing?“

‘Your father knows.“ Whether he approved or not was another matter. ”Go on.“ As afterthought, she added, ”You could bring my dinner when you return, to save someone else the steps.“

Dickon bowed and left with eagerness for more than the bread and cheese and cold meat that were likely waiting for him.

The servant came out of the bedroom. Frevisse told him that her man would be bringing her meal, then asked, “Has Master Grene come back yet?”

‘Not when I’d come up“ the man said, bowed, and left Frevisse to her continuing uncomfortable thoughts. If what she suspicioned against Raulyn were even half true—if he were guilty only of Brother Michael’s death—Pernell’s life was going to be torn to unmendable shreds; and if the rest of what Frevisse feared was true—if Hal’s death were his doing, too—Pernell’s pain would be hardly bearable. As great as her grief now was, what would it be then? And her anger. Because anger would surely come, later if not sooner, maybe made the worse because she had borne Raulyn a child and was carrying another for him at the very time he killed her first-born. Would she see her children by him as tainted with Hal’s blood because they were Raulyn’s, and come to loathe them, even hate them? All that should be set, too, to Raulyn’s account in Heaven’s reckoning against his soul, Frevisse thought. The sin of Pernell’s hatred should lie as heavily against him as against her, because he was the wanton, willing cause of it all.

Frevisse had found before now how narrowly most murderers saw the world. For most people their own needs and desires were what mattered most to them, but most people also granted the worth of other people’s needs, accepted other peoples’ right to their own desires, their own lives. Murderers like Raulyn Grene were otherwise—not simply first in their own regard but only. Other’s were worthless unless of use to them; and if someone else’s death might be of worth, then murdering them was reasonable. Only fear of being caught could stop such a man—or woman. Other things than a blind heed of only the self could bring a person to murder, Frevisse knew, but she did not think it was so with Raulyn Grene. But if he had killed Hal, what she didn’t see was
why
he had. There had to be more gain from it than being rid of Daved Weir, but what?

Someone was coming up the stairs too heavily and slow to be Dickon, even if he were carrying her dinner, and she was not surprised when Father Tomas entered. She rose to her feet and curtseyed to him, and he made a small sign of blessing at her, but when he would have gone onward to the closed bedchamber door, she said, “I pray you, Father, come sit a while. If you’ve been praying all this while beside Brother Michael, you’ve more than earned the right to rest.” And added with a nod toward the bedchamber, when he still hesitated, “They’re at dinner in there just now. Have you eaten?” Because he was so pale and bow-shouldered with weariness, she doubted he had yet broken fast today.

‘Just now I have eaten, yes,“ but accepted her offer of rest, sitting down on a nearby chair as if his back and knees hurt, which well they might if he had been kneeling on the cellar floor most of this while. ”I have done what I could for the dead,“ he said. He nodded toward the bedchamber. ”How does she?“

‘I haven’t seen her. Her mother and Lucie and Mistress Blakhall are with her.“

Hands on his knees, rubbing them, Father Tomas nodded. “Good. Good.”

Not knowing how much time or other chance she might have, Frevisse said, “A question, if I may, Father. About Hal.”

‘Poor Hal,“ Father Tomas said with a sad nodding.

Frevisse was abruptly irked. She had not gathered Hal had been “poor Hal” while he was alive. Why should he be rendered “poor Hal” forever afterward by his death? Death, in whatever guise, did not cancel out the good days there had been in a life nor the uncounted ordinary days, blessed by their ordinariness. Let him be Hal who came to a wrongful death, not “poor Hal” as if his death was all there had been to his life. And a little more sharply than she might have, she asked, “Was he much given to brotheling?”

Father Tomas’ eyes flew open. “What? Mercy of Mary, no!”

‘Would you have known?“

‘I was his priest. I would have known. Of his own choice he had even made a vow to me that he would stay chaste until his marriage. His last confession—“ Father Tomas stopped, his burst of indignation run out, then said wearily, ”No. I do not see him brotheling.“ And a little sharply, ”Why?“

‘Mistress Blakhall said someone had told her that was why Hal went out that night.“

‘No.“ Father Tomas shook his head firmly against that. ”No.“ He shook his head as if understanding none of it and said, sounding bewildered with grief and weariness, ”From what is said, he was lured out deliberately to be killed. But why? That is what I do not see.“

‘And why try to make it seem Jews had done it and in your church? Have you enemies?“

‘Enemies?“ Father Tomas sounded only the more bewildered. ”No, I have no enemies. Nor did anyone know of my family. Only Daved Weir.“

‘Did he?“ she asked carefully, covering her surprise. ”How?“

‘He brings letters from my sister and takes mine to her.“

‘And from the rest of your family, too?“

‘Such as still live, they do not write,“ Father Tomas said. ”They live as Christian, but in the heart they are not. When I took on the heart as well as the seeming and wished to be a priest, they cast me out. They do not know my sister writes to me or me to her.“ Father Tomas’ tired face firmed and he straightened, made the sign of the cross in the air between them, and said in the set and certain voice of a priest, ”What I have told you, I enjoin you to keep secret forever.“ He made the sign of the cross again. ”I bind you to silence on it now and forevermore.“

Frevisse opened her mouth in what would have been resentful protest but stopped herself. Both as a priest and as a man protecting himself Father Tomas had the right to enjoin that silence on her. Whether he had the right to keep his family’s grievous secret was another matter, but by enjoining silence on her, he kept it his problem and not hers, and she willingly gave up need to think about it in favor of strict obedience to his priestly command, saying quietly with bowed head, “As you will, Father.”

That did not mean she was done with questions, though, and as she raised her head, she asked, “Do you know why Brother Michael was in St. Swithin’s Lane yesterday when he was attacked?”

‘He had been at the church again with his questions.“

‘Of you? Or about you?“

‘Of everyone. And much about me, I think, yes.“ Sadness as well as weariness showed in the priest now. ”There are people not pleased now they know about me.“

And Brother Michael’s prodding and questioning would have only made that worse. That was beyond her help, though, and she asked, “Did he say he was coming here? Or was he maybe going somewhere else?”

‘I do not know whether he was coming here or simply taking this way back to the friary.“ Father Tomas frowned. ”Though if he were bound for Grey Friars, it would have made better sense to go by way of Candlewick to Budge Row than this way.“

‘Was there anyone else in the street besides the men who attacked him?“

‘A few people.“ Father Tomas frowned more deeply. ”But those men went only at him.“

Frevisse remembered Brother Michael had said they asked if he was the friar who had been preaching at St. Paul’s.

‘They were likely Lollards,“ Father Tomas was going on. ”They looked more London roughs than rebels, so I think.“ His voice went sadder. ”My shame is that when they attacked him, I only stood there, staring. It was Master Weir and Master Grene, come from the other way, who went to him. God forgive me, but I do not know if it was fear held me back or my dislike of him.“

Nor could anyone answer that truly except himself; but for what comfort it might be, Frevisse said, “You were pulling him from among their feet when I saw you. That’s more than many would have done.”

‘But was it for shame or for love of God?“ he asked sadly.

Another question only he could answer, and a little silence fell between them, until a flurry of voices in the yard bought him to join her at the window to see Raulyn
crossing toward the house, talking excitedly to two of his household men. One of them laughed to whatever he was saying and turned back to the gate. Raulyn and the other, still talking, went up the outside stairs and into the house.

‘Not ill news, anyway,“ Father Tomas said, drawing back. From the bedchamber Pernell’s voice rose, querulous and frightened. Father Tomas turned that way. ”I should go to her. By your leave.“

He bent his head to Frevisse. She curtseyed in return, and he went to rap slightly at the bedchamber door and go in, leaving Frevisse with the hope that he was as he seemed: a caring priest whose deepest desire in life was serving God.

Raulyn came so quickly up the stairs and into the room that she barely had time to blank her face before he was saying merrily, “Cade has them where it hurts! He’s made that fawning Stockwood an alderman, God save us, and is forcing I don’t know how many others to open their purses to him because he’ll let his men loose on them if they don’t!”

Pulling out the one good thing she heard in all of that, she asked, “He still has that much hold over his men?”

‘More hold than I thought he’d have by now,“ Raulyn said. ”The city’s own curs, they’re another matter. He’s had a few of those chopped for thieving he didn’t order. He’s had Hawardan out of sanctuary and dead, and that’s as much to the good as anything he’s done!“

Frevisse did not know who Hawardan was—or Stock-wood, come to that—but Raulyn’s pleasure in all of it repelled her, and she was glad Mistress Hercy came from the bedchamber to say at him, “Come in and tell Pernell that all’s well. She needs to see you.”

Raulyn laughed and went, pecking a kiss onto Mistress Hercy’s cheek as he passed. Rubbing at the spot, Mistress Hercy headed toward the stairs, saying to Frevisse as she went, “I’d best see how things are with the household. Are you doing well enough? Do you need aught?”

Frevisse assured her that she needed nothing. Except answers, she silently added.