The Stone-Worker's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries) (4 page)

The ordered peace there had been in Ewelme church when Frevisse was last here was now given over to scaffolding, stone dust and workmen, the chancel's south aisle raw with being enlarged for my Lady Alice's tomb. The summer afternoon's heavy sunlight poured unobstructed through the unglazed holes that would someday be stone-mullioned windows of richly stained glass, and the crane with its ropes and pullies still straddled the tomb chest from yesterday when the slab that sealed it shut had been lowered into place for final carving. But work was paused just now, the workmen standing silently while Lady Alice questioned the master sculptor on the loss of Simon Grene, his best journeyman, here yesterday and now, with no warning, "Just gone?" she demanded. Master Atwell uncomfortably agreed to what he had already admitted. "And my woman Elyn with him," Lady Alice complained. The youngest of her waiting women. "Which is all very well for them, but what about my angels? Who's going to finish them?"

That was the sorest point in the matter, Frevisse thought, standing a little aside, listening to her cousin's indignation. Come from her nunnery on visit, she had quickly seen that Lady Alice's present interest was all for the making of her tomb and most particularly for the angels carved around it, each standing elegantly in its own niche, their faces proud, serene, the curve of their wings matching the arches of the arcading above and below them. They should have been of Master Atwell's making, as master sculptor, but his hands were beginning to distort with arthritis, no longer capable of such carving, so the angels were all young Simon Grene's – his masterwork that would leave him a master sculptor in his own right. But he was gone, with the last two angels unfinished, and Lady Alice said impatiently, "The need for work and wages lasts longer than young love. He and Elyn will return eventually, I suppose, but I don't like having to wait on them. I want my tomb finished."

Looking at the angels, Frevisse thought there was as much love given to their carving as could be given to a woman and she asked, "Master Atwell, when did you last see Simon and Elyn?"

"Last evening. They came to ask me how long they should wait to marry."

"And you told them?"

"I told them never," Master Atwell said darkly. He was holding his right hand in his left, the way he so often did, usually rubbing his left thumb in slow circles into his right palm to ease what must be a constant aching there. Today the aching must have shifted; his fingers were closed and it was his wrist he rubbed while he went on, "Marriage would waste Simon, steal his chances from him. The way it stole mine. I told him to forget her. I told her that if she loved him, she would let him go."

"But they didn't listen," Frevisse suggested quietly.

"No," Master Atwell agreed, but distantly, as if explaining now to something far inside himself rather than to her. "It wasn't what they wanted to hear. So we sat. We talked. I gave them wine. They didn't listen. They never would have listened."

"And so you poisoned them," Frevisse said, still quietly. "You poisoned their wine, didn't you? You killed them while they sat there, trusting you."

Master Atwell roused. "No! I gave them sleep, that's all! How could I bear to see them dead? Death is so... empty. It was only poppy syrup in the wine. I have it for the pain in my hands. I left them sleeping."

"Where?"

Master Atwell refused that. "Let them sleep. Now they'll never lose their love, not live through all the years of ugliness and hatred that come after it's gone. They'll sleep away to death and never know. Just leave them. Let them be done with it. Let them..." He had always used his hands, not words, to bring his visions to others' seeing. He gestured now as if reaching for a word the way he would have reached for a chisel. And Frevisse glimpsed his hand and grabbed his wrist to turn it palm upward, demanding at the red, raw rope burn there, "How did you come by that?" But let him go without waiting for answer and ordered at the workmen standing by, "The tomb chest! Open it!"

To lift and lower again the tomb's stone cover with the ropes and pulleys left from yesterday had been brutally hard for Master Atwell alone in the dark as he must have done it. The workmen made quicker work of it and Simon and Elyn were there, still sleeping. A little longer and they would have slept away to death, smothered in the sealed darkness without ever rousing, if God were merciful. Now, instead, they were lifted out, carried outside to waken in sunlight and wide air, given back to life, given a different mercy.

Unless, of course, Master Atwell had been right.

Margaret Frazer is the award-winning author of more than twenty historical murder mysteries and novels. She makes her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, surrounded by her library of books, but she lives her life in the 1400s. In writing her Edgar-nominated Sister Frevisse (
The Novice's Tale
) and Player Joliffe (
A Play of Isaac
) novels she delves far inside medieval perceptions, seeking to look at medieval England more from its point of view than ours. "Because the pleasure of going thoroughly into otherwhen as well as otherwhere is one of the great pleasures in reading."

She can be visited online at http://www.margaretfrazer.com.

Beginning in the year of Our Lord's grace 1431, the Sister Frevisse mysteries are an epic journey of murder and mayhem in 15th century England.

The Novice's Tale

The Servant's Tale (Edgar-Award Nominee)

The Outlaw's Tale

The Bishop's Tale (Minnesota Book Award Nominee)

The Boy's Tale

The Murderer's Tale

The Prioress' Tale (Edgar-Award Nominee)

The Maiden's Tale

The Reeve's Tale (Minnesota Book Award Nominee)

The Squire's Tale

The Clerk's Tale

The Bastard's Tale

The Hunter's Tale

The Widow's Tale

The Sempster's Tale

The Traitor's Tale

The Apostate's Tale

In the pages of Margaret Frazer's national bestselling Dame Frevisse Mysteries the player Joliffe has assumed many roles on the stage to the delight of those he entertains. Now, in the company of a troupe of traveling performers, he finds himself double cast in the roles of sleuth and spy...

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Dux Moraud

A Play of Knaves

A Play of Lords

A Play of Treachery

A Play of Piety

Available Now as Kindle E-Books

Neither Pity, Love, Nor Fear (Herodotus Award Winner)

Strange Gods, Strange Men

The Simple Logic of It

The Witch's Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)

The Midwife's Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)

Volo te Habere...

This World's Eternity

Shakespeare's Mousetrap

The Death of Kings

The Stone-Worker's Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)

Cover Art: Gustav Courbet - Der verlezte Mann, 1844-1854.

Cover Design: Justin Alexander