The Squire’s Tale (12 page)

Two of the riders, by their plain doublets and plain horses, were attendant on the third, a young man in dark riding doublet and tall leather boots, his horse a long-legged, well-bred bay. Horse and boots were well-muddied, as if from hard, fast riding, and so were the other men and horses; but while they looked merely tired, the young man was plainly something much more like angry if his tense seat in his saddle and the abrupt jerk of his head sideways as he answered a question from someone in the yard was anything to judge by.

‘Who…“ Frevisse began to ask.

‘Benedict,“ Katherine said curtly. ”Lady Blaunche’s son by her second husband.“

Katherine said the words so near to spitting that Frevisse looked at her, startled. Hands clutched together and between her breasts, the girl was standing tautly, her eyes rigid on the man as he jerked his horse to a stop at the foot of the hall stairs. Frevisse looked back to him in time to see him fling himself from his saddle and his reins at one of the men standing there. Young, fair-haired, a little long of leg perhaps, like a colt still growing, he was not, except for the anger, uncomely. Nor was he much older than Katherine. With a sideways look toward her, Frevisse said carefully, “I wonder what he’s angry at.”

Staring at him as he went up the hall stairs, Katherine said sharply back, “He’s angry at having failed to cut off my coming home. At having failed to seize me and make me marry him.”

Openly startled, Frevisse turned toward her. “What?”

Katherine faced her in return, now as openly angry as Benedict. “Do you really think Lady Blaunche had forgotten her cousin had a manor along that road we were forced to take yesterday because of the gone bridge?”

‘She might have…“ Frevisse began, ignoring her own doubt about it.

‘There was never Fenner yet forgot where any Fenner land is. What she was protesting was having to go a different way than she had purposed. She—“ Katherine stopped her words short, said instead with a quick curtsy and only a little strangled on the effort to shove her anger down, ”Pray, pardon me. I must needs tell Nurse that you’re here and Lady Blaunche will want to know how the children are. By your leave.“

She was backing away even as she said it, turned without waiting for Frevisse’s answer and left, going by way of the door toward the nursery.

Frevisse let her, not having right to bid her stop and in doubt that Katherine would have anyway, angry as she was; but unless Katherine chose to go down the stairs and across the yard, she would have to come back through here and Frevisse spent the while until she did by unpacking her bag and Dame Claire’s, shaking out their spare habits and laying them flat across the foot of one of the beds for the travel’s wrinkles to fall out as best they might. The clean wimples and veils, tightly rolled, had not much rumpled, would do, she thought and laid them beside the habits. Then, with nothing else she could do, she sat herself down on one of the joint stools.

Prayer should have been a possibility then but instead her thoughts were an unhappy mingling of uncertainty over what to do with herself now she was here, an uncomfortable wondering about how much pleasure she could manage to show when inevitably confronted by Nurse eager to show off Robert’s—three, had he said?—children to her, and— though she tried not to—an even more uncomfortable wondering over what Katherine had said. Because if the girl was right and Lady Blaunche had been plotting with her son to thwart Robert both over Katherine’s marriage and this arbitration that was underway—and if Robert found out— matters here were going to be more difficult than ever she had thought.

She heard a door snick quietly shut across the landing and stood up, ready when Katherine came back into the room, thankfully alone and composed, pausing to say with a smile, “I told Nurse that you’re tired from travel and wouldn’t want to see the children today. I’ll see to sending someone with warm water and a towel now.”

She was going for the tower door before she finished speaking but Frevisse said, “Mistress Katherine, a moment please.”

Already past her, Katherine stopped short, visibly drew a deep, steadying breath, and turned, not bothering to feign any smile now, to face her again.

Not smiling either, Frevisse asked, “How do you know a forced marriage is what Lady Blaunche and her son intended against you?”

Katherine’s eyes darkened with anger as she answered, her voice edged, “Because of yesterday. Beginning with how more angry than upset she was when we first found out the bridge was gone. And then she lied.”

‘About being afraid of nowhere to stay, you mean.“

‘She never forgot that manor was there. And then I overheard her trying to send Jack somewhere.“

‘You followed her deliberately to overhear her, didn’t you?“

‘If she’d wanted Jack for something usual, she’d have sent one of us after him, not gone herself. By then I was beginning to be afraid. I didn’t know of what. Just afraid. And then I heard her trying to order him to go somewhere.“

‘You think to Benedict. To tell him where we were,“ Frevisse said.

‘I think so, yes. But Jack wouldn’t go. He’s more Master Fenner’s man than Lady Blaunche’s, and Master Fenner had given orders the men weren’t to leave us for any reason. So Jack wouldn’t.“ In the relief of saying it all aloud to someone, Katherine was talking rapidly now. ”Then she was willing to dine with the bailiff and his wife in the hall. That wasn’t like her, either. Tired as I know she had to be and little as she likes to spend time on ’lesser‘ folk, she should have been more than willing to have her supper in bed.“

‘She was maybe merely being well-mannered.“

‘No, she wasn’t,“ Katherine said flatly. ”She was seeking a chance to talk alone with the man, to set him to send someone, or go himself, to Benedict.“

‘And you kept her from it.“

‘Yes.“ Katherine shivered. ”I had to.“

‘Would it be so bad to marry Benedict?“ Frevisse asked gently. ”At least he’s someone you know.“ Or was that the trouble?

Katherine drew a deep breath, gazing past Frevisse as if into her own thoughts before she said carefully, “I know him and there’s nothing amiss with him. But…” She looked at Frevisse, pleading for her to understand. “We don’t suit. We simply… don’t.”

‘It may be the same with the Allesley marriage if it goes through.“

‘I know. But Master Fenner needs that marriage. Lady Blaunche hates that he’s willing to have anything to do with the Allesleys, has fought him at every step, but it has to be done, and if my marriage is what…“ Her voice broke. She had to stop to steady it, and went on, ”My marrying Benedict would serve no purpose but Lady Blaunche’s greed.“

Frevisse hesitated but, having gone so far into what was no business of hers, went further. “Will you tell Master Fenner?”

Katherine paused in her turn, before saying carefully, “From how angry he was at Lady Blaunche in the yard just now, I’d guess he knows already.”

Frevisse had not noticed Robert was angry in the yard just now but that was maybe because she had been too busy being grateful to be done with riding to heed much else. “How would he know?” she asked.

‘He could guess easily enough. He knows Lady Blaunche’s mind as well as anyone does. It was partly their quarreling over the Allesley marriage and Benedict that set him to take me to St. Frideswide’s in the first place. Then if Benedict disappeared from here while Lady Blaunche was gone for me—and surely Benedict did and without any word to anyone because he doesn’t lie well…“ Katherine’s voice rose, fear and anger twisted together in it. ”That’s all Master Fenner would need to guess the rest and by then there was nothing he could do about it!“

‘He should have foreseen the treachery,“ Frevisse said.

‘He trusts,“ Katherine said, as if made angry by it. ”He believes in the good until the bad is forced on him.“

‘Couldn’t he have sent men after Benedict?“

‘To where? He couldn’t know Lady Blaunche purposed to come back from the nunnery the same way she’d gone. I wouldn’t have, if I’d been planning it. And how long was Benedict gone before Robert knew about it? If Benedict had too great a lead…“

Katherine broke off, hands pressed over her mouth, eyes shut, until she had steadied. Then she dropped her hands and said, subdued, her eyes toward the floor, “Your pardon, my lady. This isn’t anything I should be troubling you with.”

‘I asked.“

‘And have kindly listened. But it’s done. They failed and we’re safely here.“ Katherine swept down in a low curtsy and came out of it moving toward the tower door, saying over her shoulder as she went, ”I pray you pardon me, I’ve other things I should see to,“ and was gone.

Chapter 8

Not much ere sunset, while Ned was gathering Masters Durant and Hotoft and their men to ride with him to his manor for the night, word came that the Allesleys were indeed arrived at the bishop of Coventry’s grange where they were to stay the nights, hardly farther off than Ned’s manor though in a somewhat different direction and bespoke for them by the duke of Buckingham, both he and the bishop being often together on the royal council, making double point by this favor to Sir Lewis that he had strong backers to be reckoned with.

Already in the saddle, Ned grinned down at Robert. “That they’re come means, likely, that his grace of Buckingham’s arbiters and Master Fielding are at my place waiting for me. Barring trouble or vile weather, we’ll be back first thing in the morning, Allesleys and all.”

‘I dare say we’ll be here,“ Robert said back, managing to sound easy about it, slapped Ned’s horse on the shoulder, and stepped back, making farewells to Master Durant and Hotoft and waiting where he was while they and Ned rode away, their men after them and the yard abruptly back to its usual quiet once they were gone, no one there except household folk about their work. As if everything were simply as it always was, Robert thought as he returned up the stairs and into the hall, relieved at being done with pretense for a while but knowing the thought that everything was as always was pretense, too, and now there was the evening to be gone through with Blaunche and Benedict.

And Katherine.

He tried to close off thought of her as soon as it arose. He needed her as near to not in his thoughts as he could possibly keep her, and he would to God he did not have to see her again, ever, until this was over with and she was married to the Allesley whelp. And, for the best, he would not ever see her then, either, because what he had felt—in mind and body both—at seeing her this afternoon, safe and back with him, had been too near to overwhelming. He was supposed to feel that way for no one but his wife, and for Blaunche he felt…

What did he feel for Blaunche?

Anger, he decided. For now, anger would do. Better anger at her and at Benedict for what they had planned than memory of his sickened relief at seeing Katherine safe, here, not wed to Benedict.

God help him, in the moment he had seen her and known she was safe, he would have seen Blaunche and Benedict and anyone else who came to hand into hell before he would have had her at risk again.

And that was sin.

The sin of pride, to begin with—putting his own desires ahead of whatever cost there might be to anyone else because of them—but the sin of covetousness, too, because he would, if he could have, kept Katherine for himself alone, away from anyone else who wanted her. Sin upon sin and the sin of lust added to them, no matter how much it shamed him, no matter how much he wanted to deny it. Worse yet, he could make no confession of any of it to the priest because confession meant he wanted not only forgiveness and penance but to cease the sin and, God help him, he did not want to stop loving Katherine.

Which left him to the sin of wrath, in a kind of blind hope that if he gave way to it fully enough, it would obscure all else he was feeling.

In the hall the servants were setting up the trestle tables in readiness for supper, the familiar evening business that would be mirrored at the meal’s end by taking down and setting away the tables. Keeping out of his people’s way rather than they out of his, Robert passed among them, paused to answer the butler’s question of whether Lady Blaunche would be coming down to supper by saying he did not know, and went through into the solar. For a wonder, there was no one there and he was alone, as he so rarely was during any day or night, and he nearly turned aside, to linger in the quiet; but that would leave him with his thoughts and he was better without them.

But his steps lagged nonetheless, resisting the stairs up to the parlor and Blaunche. Momentarily he considered going to see the children instead but they were likely already at their own meal and Nurse would not care for his interfering with that, he knew and, left with only the shove of his conscience, he went up the stairs.

He had forgotten the nuns. The surprise of that was as sharp as the surprise of seeing them in the parlor, Dame Frevisse in talk with Mistress Dionisia and Katherine at the window, the other one—Dame Claire, she’d said—and Master Geoffrey keeping Blaunche company on the settle. Mistress Avys was a little aside from them, intent on her embroidery, and Benedict was well apart, sitting in Robert’s chair, leaning forward in earnest talk to Emelye on a cushion on the floor in front of him, her blond little head tipped back to look up at him. In his craven relief that confrontation with Blaunche would have to be put off because the nuns were there, Robert said with the best seeming of good humor he could manage, “All here then, I see.”