The Witch's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries) (3 page)

The twilight had darkened to deep dusk but the rain had stopped as they came out of the guest hall.  Master Naylor steadied Margery by her elbow as they went down the steps to the yard.  No matter how much she had expected her fate, she seemed dazed by the crowner's pronouncement, and walked numbly where she was taken.  Frevisse and Dame Claire followed with nothing to say, though Frevisse at least seethed with frustration at their helplessness and  Montfort's stupidity.  Even the acknowledgement of the possibility of doubt from him would have been something.

Margery's two guards were waiting at the foot of the steps in the spread of light from the lantern hung by the guest hall door.  They stood aside, then followed as the silent group made their way around the rain-puddles among the cobbles to the gateway to the outer yard.  Beyond it was the mud and deeper darkness of the outer yard where the lamplight showing around the ill-fitted door of Margery's prison shed was the only brightness.  Busy with her feet and anger, Frevisse did not see the knot of people there until one of them swung the shed door open to give them more light, and Master Naylor said in surprise, "Tom, what brings you out?  And the rest of you?"

Frevisse could see now that there were seven of them, four women and three men, all from the village.  The women curtseyed quickly to her, Dame Claire, and Master Naylor as they came forward to Margery.  Crooning to her like mothers over a hurt child, they enveloped her with their kindness; and one of them, with an arm around her waist, soothed, "There now, Margery-girl, we can see it didn't go well.  You come in-by.  We've something warm for you to eat."  Together they drew her into the shed, leaving the men to front the priory-folk.

Tom, the village reeve and apparently their leader in this, ducked his head to her and Dame Claire, and again to Master Naylor before he said, "She's to go then?  No help for it?"

"No help for it," Master Naylor agreed.  "The crowner means to take her with him when he goes in the morning."

The men nodded as if they had expected no less.  But Tom said, "It makes no difference that there's not a body in the village but's glad to have Jack gone?  He was a terror and no mistake and she didn't do more than many of us have wanted to."

"I can't argue that, but it changes nothing," Master Naylor said.  "Margery goes with the crowner in the morning, to be taken before the bishop for what she's done."

"She didn't do anything!" Dame Claire said with the impatience she had had to curb in Master Montfort's presence.

Frevisse agreed.  "This Jack died from his own temper, not from Margery's silly words!"

"It was apoplexy," said Dame Claire.  "People who indulge in ill temper the way Jack Wilkins did are like to die the way Jack Wilkins did."

"If you say so, m'lady," Tom said in a respectful voice.  "But Margery cried something out at him, and Jack went down better than a poled ox.  God keep his soul," he added as an after-thought, and everyone crossed themselves.  Jack Wilkins was unburied yet; best to say the right things for he would make a wicked ghost.

"It wasn't even a spell to kill a man.  Margery says so herself."

"Well, that's all right then," Tom said agreeably.  "And a comfort to Margery to know it wasn't her doing that killed Jack, no matter what the crowner says.  But what we've come for is  to ask if some of us can stand Margery's guard tonight, for friendship's sake, like, before she goes."

Dim with distance and the mist-heavy dusk, the bell began to call to Compline, the nuns' last prayers before bed.  Frevisse laid a hand on Dame Claire's arm, drawing her away.  Master Naylor could handle this matter.  There was nothing more for the two of them to do here.  Better they go to pray for Margery's soul.  And Jack Wilkins', she thought belatedly.

Watery sunshine was laying thin shadows across the cloister walk next morning as Frevisse went from chapter meeting toward her duties.  She expected Master Montfort and his men and Margery would be gone by now, ridden away at first light; and she regretted there had been nothing that could be done to convince anyone but herself and Dame Claire that Margery had not killed her lout of a husband with her poor little spell and desperation.  But even Margery had believed it, and would do penance for it as if her guilt were real, and go to her death for it.

Frevisse was distracted from her anger as she neared the door into the courtyard by the noise of Master Montfort's raised voice, the words unclear but his passion plain.  She glanced again at the morning shadows.  He was supposed to be miles on his way by this time.  She opened the door from the cloister to the courtyard.

Usually empty except for a passing servant and the doves around the well, the yard was half full of villagers crowded to the foot of the guest hall steps.  Master Montfort stood above them there, dressed for riding and in a rage.

"You're still saying there's no trace of her?" he ranted.  Frevisse stopped where she was with a sudden hopeful lift of her spirits.  "You've been searching the wretched place since dawn!  My men have scoured the fields for miles!  Someone has to know where she is!  Or if she's truly bolted, we have to set the hounds to her trail!"

Even from where she was, Frevisse could see the sullen set of every villein's shoulders.  But it was clear that the main thrust of his words was at Master Naylor, standing straight-backed at the head of the villeins, deliberately between them and the crowner's rage.  With a hard-edged patience that told Frevisse he had been over this already more than once, he answered in his strong, carrying voice, "We have no hounds to set to her trail.  This is a priory of nuns.  They're not monks; they don't ride to hunt here."

Standing close behind the steward, Tom the reeve growled so everyone could hear, "And where she went, you wouldn't care to follow!"

Master Montfort pointed at him, furious.  "You!  You're one of the fools who slept when you were supposed to be guarding her!  Dreaming your way to perdition while she walks off free as you please!  What do you mean, `where she went'?  Hai, man, what do you mean?"

"I mean it wasn't a natural sleep we had last night!"  Tom answered loudly enough to send his words to the outer yard, to Master Montfort's entourage and a number of priory servants clustered just beyond the gateway.  Frevisse saw them stir as he spoke.  "Aye, it wasn't a natural sleep and there's not one of us will say it was.  We fell to sleep all at once and together, between one word and another.  That's not natural!  No more than Jack Wilkins falling down dead was natural.  We're lucky it was only sleep she did to us!  That's what I say!  And anybody who tries to follow her is asking for what happens to him!"

Behind and around him the other villeins glanced at each other and nodded.  One of the bolder men even spoke up, "Tom has the right of it!"

A woman -- Frevisse thought she was one of four who had come to Margery last night -- said shrilly, "You can't ask any decent man to follow where she's gone!"

Master Montfort pointed at her.  "You know where she's gone?  You admit you know?"

"I can make a fair guess!" the woman flung back.  "Flown off to her master the devil, very like, and you'll find no hound to go that trail!"

"Flown off?" Master Montfort raged.  "
Flown
off?  I'm supposed to believe that?  Naylor, most of these folk are the priory's villeins!  Warn them there's penalties for lying to the king's crowner and hiding murderers.  She's around here somewhere!"

"If she is, we haven't found her yet for all our searching," Master Naylor said back.  "Twice through the village is enough for one day, and there's no sign where she might have gone across country.  As you say, these are our villeins and I can say I've never known them given to such lying as this.  Maybe they've the right of it.  You said yourself last night she was a witch, and now she seems to have proved it!"

Master Montfort stared at him, speechless with rage.

"What we say," shouted another of the men, "is you're welcome to come search us house to house yourself, you being so much smarter than the rest of us.  But if you find her, you'd better hope she doesn't treat you like she did her husband!"

There was general angry laughter among all the villeins at that; and some from beyond the gateway.  For just a moment Master Montfort lost the stride of his anger, paused by the man's words.  Then he gathered himself together and rounded on Master Naylor.  With a scorn that he meant to be withering, he said, "I've greater matters to see to than hunting down some petty village witch.  She was in your charge, Naylor, and the loss is to you, not to me.  There'll be an amercement to pay for losing the king's prisoner, and be assured I'll see the priory is charged it to the full!"

"I'm assured you will," Master Naylor returned tersely, his scorn stronger than Master Montfort's.

For a balanced moment he and the crowner held each other's eyes.  Then Master Naylor gestured sharply for the villeins to move back from the foot of the steps.  Crowding among themselves, they gave ground.  Master Montfort's mouth opened, then closed, and with great, stiff dignity he descended, passed in front of them to his horse being held for him beyond the gateway, and mounted.  He glared around at them one final time and, for good measure, across the courtyard at Frevisse still standing in the doorway, then jerked his horse around and went.

No one moved or spoke until the splash and clatter of his going, and his entourage after him, were well away.  And even then the response among them all seemed no more than a long in-drawn breath and a slow release of tension.  Heads turned to one another, and Frevisse saw smiles, but no one spoke.  There were a few chuckles but no more as they all drifted out of the gateway, some of them nodding to Master Naylor as they passed him.  He nodded back, and did not speak either; and when they were gone, he stayed where he was, waiting for Frevisse to come to him.

She did, because there in the open courtyard they could most easily talk without chance of being overheard so long as they kept their voices low.  "Master Naylor," she said as she approached him.

He inclined his head to her.  "Dame Frevisse."

"I take it from what I heard that Margery Wilkins escaped in the night?"

"It seems her guards and the friends who came to keep her company slept.  When they awoke this dawn, she was gone."

"And cannot be found?"

"We've searched the village twice this morning, and Master Montfort's men have hunted the near countryside."

"They think she used her witch-powers to escape?"

"So it would seem.  What other explanation is there?"

"I can think of several," Frevisse said dryly.

Master Naylor's expression did not change.  "Just as you and Dame Claire could think of some other reason for Jack Wilkins' death besides his wife's words striking him down."

"And the fine to the priory for your carelessness in losing your witch?"

"It was villeins who had the watch of her and lost her.  I mean to make an amercement on the village to help meet the fine our crowner will surely bring against the priory."

"Won't there be protest over that?"

"Villeins always protest over paying anything.  But in this I think there'll be less arguing than in most.  She's their witch.  Let them pay for her.  Dear-bought is held more dear."

"They still truly believe she killed her husband?" Frevisse asked.  "Despite what we told them last night, they still believe she's a witch with that much power?"

"What else can they believe?" the steward asked quietly in return.  "They saw her do it."

"What do you believe?" Frevisse asked, unable to tell from his neutral expression and voice.

Instead of an answer to that, Master Naylor said, "I think a straw-filled loft is not an uncomfortable place to be for a week and more this time of year.  And that by the time summer comes there'll be a new herb-wife in the village, maybe even with the same first name but someone's widowed sister from somewhere else, freeborn like Margery was and no questions asked."

"And after all, witchcraft in itself is no crime or sin," Frevisse said.  "The wrong lies in the use it's put to."

"And all the village knows Margery has ever used her skills for good, except this one time, if you judge what she did was ill.  All her neighbors judge it wasn't," Master Naylor said solemnly.

"They mean to keep her even if it costs them?" Frevisse asked.

"They know she's a good woman.  And now that they're certain she has power, she's not someone they want to lose."

"Or to cross," Frevisse said.

Master Naylor came as near to a smile as he ever came, but only said, "There'll likely be no trouble with anyone beating her ever again."

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 the things she loves, 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