The Hunter’s Tale (27 page)

‘He’s always gone somewhere,“   Ursula complained. ”Even more than before.“

‘He’ll be gone altogether after Michaelmas,“ said Lucy. She leaned forward to say past Hugh to Frevisse and Sister Johane, That’s when he means to go to his own manor in Leicestershire.” She sat back and added to Ursula, goading older sister to younger, “We’ll probably never see him again after that.”

“Of course we’ll see him,” said Hugh impatiently, shoving the cheese tart to her instead of politely serving her.

Lucy stared indignantly first at the tart, then at him, but Ursula reached for it and willingly helped herself while insisting, “He doesn’t have to go. Father hardly ever went. He could just stay here like always.”

‘He’ll want to marry, you goose,“ Lucy said. ”His wife won’t want to be here with all of us. Whoever she is,“ she added, trying to sound meaningful about it.

No one chose to take a meaning from it; or if they did, they kept it to themselves in a thick silence that made Frevisse wonder if some besides Lucy had thoughts about Miles and Philippa. Did Hugh suspect he might have a rival for his proposed wife? The day of the inquest, when everyone had been here and she might have noted something, Frevisse had known too little about anyone to be much judging what she saw. Had she seen anything particular between Miles and Philippa then? Or between Hugh and Philippa, come to that. She remembered nothing, but it had hardly been the time or place for something that way, anyway. But what if Lucy was not merely making trouble when she talked of Miles and Philippa? What would happen if that was real and they were foolish?

In the while she had been here, it had become plain to her that there was friendship between Hugh and Miles. That made her think better of Miles than she might have. With his bitter edge and sharp tongue, friendship with him could not have come easily; that it was there between him and Hugh meant there must be more to him than she had so far seen. And judging by the tender way Lady Anneys had leaned from her chair and stroked Miles’ hair back from his hot forehead the other evening, when he had been sitting °n the parlor floor playing at jackstraws with Ursula, and how he had paused to smile up at her, he was—as Father Leonel had said—a son in all but blood, as dear as Hugh and her daughters openly were. Frevisse guessed that despite all that Sir Ralph had done to ruin these people—when they might have chosen to be as savage to each other as he was to all of them—they had all banded together instead, made a hard knot of family against him and guarded each other as best they could. And that, Frevisse suspected, was Lady Anneys’ doing more than anyone’s. She had outwardly submitted to Sir Ralph because she had to and must have kept much of herself buried beyond his reach through the years of her marriage; but she had never surrendered. She had loved and sheltered her sons and Miles and her daughters as best she could and now—if she could have peace for a while and a chance to heal—maybe she could become herself, instead of Sir Ralph’s wife, just as they all had chance to live as themselves now Sir Ralph was dead.

And yet…

Listening without heed to Lucy trying to persuade Hugh that they all needed to go to Banbury market next week— “For something different to do!” she pleaded—and him telling her, “Not while harvest is on,” and eating without noting the pottage of broad beans fried with onions and sage set before her, Frevisse probed at the uneasy edge of her thoughts. And yet… what?

Behind the affection among them all and beyond the relief of Sir Ralph’s death and the still-raw grief for Tom there was something else.

She put a word to it.

Wariness.

Not that wariness was unreasonable, given the hell Sir Ralph seemed to have kept them in while he lived.

But he was dead now.

Was it simply that it was too soon after his death to leave behind all the old ways of feeling? Lucy seemed to have done so; Frevisse felt no undercurrents or shut doors in her. But from the others… even Ursula… there was that sense of wariness, of being guarded. Against what?

The meal was ended. As they rose from their places, Ursula asked, “Can you keep us company awhile, Hugh?”

He tweaked one of her long, braided plaits. “I fear not. I’m going out with Father Leonel to see how the harvest is coming on.”

‘The way Tom used to,“ Lucy said, all mournful.

Hugh sent her a glance of dislike. “Yes. Like Tom used to,” he snapped, then said to Ursula, more kindly, “I want to see how much longer it’s likely to be before we need to hunt a deer for the harvest-home feast.”

‘Kill two this year,“ said Lucy. ”So there’ll be enough for us afterwards.“

‘Greedy,“ he said, not meaning it, and bowed to Frevisse and Sister Johane. ”By your leave, my ladies.“

They bent their heads to him in return and he left, leaving them with all the afternoon ahead of them. Sister Johane went to be sure Lady Anneys was sleeping quietly while Ursula and Lucy fetched their sewing and Mandeville’s
Travels
from the parlor, and when Sister Johane came down, the four of them went out to the arbor’s shade. This warm middle of the day, the quiet there was as thick as the sunlight save for the hum of bees. Frevisse would have willingly joined the quiet or else read, but when the girls had opened their sewing baskets and set to work on Hugh’s and Miles shirts again, Lucy began to talk of how she meant to persuade her mother to buy her some red cloth to make her a new gown this autumn.

‘Something very, very bright,
but
I don’t know yd whether I want crimson or scarlet,“ she said.

‘You won’t be able to wear it for almost a year,“ Ursula pointed out.

‘I won’t have to hurry at making it, then, will I? And I’ll have it waiting for me when I don’t have to be in mourning anymore, while you’ll have to go back to wearing your same old gowns then.“

‘By then Ursula will probably have outgrown anything that fits her now and need a new gown, too,“ Sister Johane said, maybe trying to head off trouble.

But well able to see to her sister herself, Ursula retorted at Lucy, “
You’ll
probably be too fat by this time next year to fit into anything you make now.”

‘Fat?“ Lucy protested. ”I won’t be!“

“fatter,
” Ursula said with great and insulting precision.

‘Shall I read?“ said Frevisse, taking up the book at the same moment that Sister Johane said, ”Would you like me to stitch this neckband together for you, Lucy?,“ picking up the pieces of cloth from the sewing basket between them.

The distraction worked. While Lucy showed how wide a seam the neckband should have, Frevisse opened the book at the ribbon marking her place and began to read aloud about the court of the Great Khan in Cathay, her voice pitched low to match the garden’s quiet. She was reading of the Tartars’ round houses when Sister Johane cried out, “Oh!” with such sharp dismay that Frevisse, Lucy, and Ursula all looked at her. She stared back, wide-eyed with alarm. “I forgot! Lady Anneys asked if I’d make certain Helinor in the kitchen had sent the boon-ale to the field.” The lord of the manor’s expected daily gift to his people during harvest.

‘The workers won’t like it if she hasn’t,“ Lucy said. ”Even Father never dared stop their boon-ale. He wanted to, though.“

“Helinor wouldn’t forget,” Ursula said scornfully.

Sister Johane started to lay her sewing aside. “But I told Lady Anneys I’d make certain.”

“I’ll go,” said Frevisse. She placed the ribbon where she had left off, closed the book, and stood up before Sister Johane could. “You go on with your sewing.”

Sister Johane accepted that with willing thanks that gave some ease to Frevisse’s slight guilt, because she had offered not to be helpful but because she saw suddenly a chance to talk unsuspiciously with whoever was at work in the kitchen this afternoon.

When she had gone inside and through the pantry into the kitchen, she found it a square and high-roofed room with a deep stone fireplace along one wall, flanked with racks of pans, kettles, grill, and skillet and hanging long-handled spoons, ladles, and forks. A long, narrow table ran along the wall beside the door from the pantry, for setting out readied dishes to be carried into the hall during a meal, while the middle of the room was filled by the solid bulk of a worktable where three people could work side by side without touching elbows and broad enough a person would have
to
stretch to set a bowl across it to the far edge. To Frevisse’s regret, though, there was only one person presently at work there, an aproned woman of late middle-years briskly slicing a young onion’s long green leaves to small pieces on a well-scrubbed cutting board at the table’s far end.

She stopped when Frevisse entered and, with the knife poised over her work, gave her a quick curtsy while asking, “May I help you, my lady?”

The Woodrove household was not large but Frevisse knew more than a lone woman was needed in the kitchen and asked in return, surprised, “Where’s everyone else? Then immediately answered her own question. ”Gone
to
fields for the harvest, of course.“

‘That’s right,“ the woman agreed.

She still stood with the knife ready over the onion and Frevisse said, “Go on, please,” looked at the basket sitting beside the cutting board, heaped with more onions and clean, slender carrots, and said, “You’ve more than enough for one woman to be doing alone, if that’s to be for supper.”

‘Aye.“ The woman went back to slicing, deft and quick about it. She was not unfriendly, just very busy. ”Alson will be back in time to help finish it all off, though.“

‘May I help?“

The woman gave her a quick, doubting glance.

‘I often do it at the nunnery,“ Frevisse said. St. Frideswide’s was not so prosperous it could afford many servants nor so large that any nun could be allowed to stand on her dignity; they all had turns at what work needed to be done, including in the kitchen.

‘If you like, then, it would be a help, aye,“ the woman said without pausing at her work. ”There’s more knives there.“

She nodded to the rack fastened to the table’s end and Frevisse took one, saying while reaching for a carrot, “I came to ask if Helinor had seen to the boon-ale going to the field. Are you Helinor?”

‘I’m Helinor and the ale has gone. I’d not be allowed to forget for long, that’s sure. Somebody would be at the kitchen door asking.“

The kitchen door stood open to a garden far less well-kept than Lady Anneys’ but flourishing with all the different greens of herbs and summer vegetables useful to cooking. Frevisse complimented it as a way to starting talk with Helinor, who said cheerfully, “Oh, aye. It’s been a good-growing summer.”

‘The harvest looks to be fine, from all I’ve heard.“

‘Very fine. It’s going to be a happy harvest-home when it comes.“

‘Will it be much of a harvest-home, what with the mourning and all?“

Aye, there’s that,“ Helinor said soberly. ”Master Tom is going to be missed. He loved harvest-home, he did. Every year he worked hard as anyone to make it happen. He would have been a good lord to have. He’ll be kindly remembered. There’s been more than a few candles lighted in the church for him.“

‘But not for Sir Ralph?“

Helinor hacked with sudden, unnecessary savagery at a defenseless onion she had just put on the cutting board. “Any candles lighted will be in thanks to whoever did for the old bastard. Begging your pardon for speaking out,” she added.

‘No pardon needed,“ Frevisse said easily, to show she was willing to hear more. ”From what I’ve heard, he needed killing.“

‘He did that.“ The onion, having suffered enough, was swept aside with the knife blade to join the growing pile of its predecessors. ”At birth, if you ask me.“ Helinor began on another onion with no more mercy than she had shown the last one. ”The wonder is he lasted so long as he did.“

Working less viciously at a carrot, Frevisse ventured, “I don’t think anyone even cares who did it.”

‘They don’t that. Not in the least. Except maybe we’d like to thank him. Only there’s so many likely to have done it, we’ll never know. My own guess is it was one of the men he’d driven off from here, come back to do for him and long gone again.“

‘He’d forced a great many men away?“

‘More than his fair share.“ The pieces of the onion were swept aside and another took its place. ”He didn’t care about people at all, or their rights. The manor and its folk were here long before he came, but he acted like nobody mattered aught but him and what he wanted. We weren’t even supposed to keep the deer out of the fields. They come out or the woods into the fields to graze and we were supposed to let them, because then they’d be near to hand for hunting. ’Eaten by the deer‘ is what we say about someone when they can’t bear it anymore and leave. Half a dozen men in the past ten years. And women, too. It’s been bad.“

‘What sort of lord do you think Master Hugh will be?“

Helinor paused to consider that, then set at the onion again. “Not so bad as Sir Ralph, that’s sure. He has a kinder heart.”

‘No one’s afraid he’ll be like his father about the deer?“

‘He’s let Master Tom’s order stand that we could keep them out of the fields this year. That’s enough to satisfy everyone for now.“

Finishing one carrot and starting another, Frevisse said thoughtfully, “What I’ve found odd is that no one ever says how Sir Ralph died. They say he was found dead in the forest but not how he was killed. It must have been terrible?”