The Murderer's Tale (13 page)

Frevisse paused to say a prayer for the late prioress’ soul. A strong, good, loving soul whose leaving still ached in Frevisse when she was not careful to keep her mind away from the thought.

But Domina Edith had not been all of St. Frideswide’s, and neither was Domina Alys. Even under Domina Alys, prayers were still the center of each day there and the rule of silence mostly held. And the prayers and the silence in which to grow nearer to God had been part of why Frevisse had chosen a nun’s life in the beginning. She had chosen to come on this pilgrimage with Dame Claire to be out and away from Domina Alys, not to escape St. Frideswide’s itself, and now she was finding that she wanted to be back there more than she wanted to be away from her prioress.

The realization startled her. She pushed at it but could not make it change. It was the truth. A truth, she told herself mockingly, that she had best remember when she was indeed back in St. Frideswide’s and faced again with Domina Alys.

Chapter 9

The morning’s hunt had been good pastime, but the afternoon had dawdled away in idle talk and nothing much to do. Now they were come to evening, with supper finished. Lady Lovell had chosen to spend the last while of daylight in the garden. Her untoward amount of influence with her husband made worthwhile the effort to have her good opinion, and so Giles was come out with the rest, to make show of enjoying himself over the hidden writhe of his impatience. Sharing a cushion with Edeyn on the grass under the trees among those who had chosen to sit with Lady Lovell rather than walk around the garden, he joined in the talk as much as need be. It was mostly idle chat about this morning’s hunt, the perfect weather, the evening’s beauty, but he made shift to be part of it, and for good measure paid Edeyn particular heed, holding her hand, occasionally sharing a smile with her, even troubling to seem to care what she said, enough to show how much affection there was between them, because Lady Lovell was fond of her and would think the better of him for it.

But it was actually Lionel whom he was most carefully noticing. So far it was going well. The day was this far gone and he had not yet given any sign the next attack was near. It would be soon but had not happened yet, and that was exactly as Giles needed it to be.

That need had ridden him all day. Every hour Lionel passed untouched meant his demon’s return was that much nearer, and every hour of waiting meant the chance was greater that it would come where and when Giles wanted it. He had gone on the hunt this morning because if the attack had come then, it would not have served his purpose, and he might as well enjoy himself otherwise. And likewise through the afternoon, he had forced himself to keep clear of Lionel because the attack coming then would have been no use to him either. He had spent the time in the mews discussing hawks, in the stable discussing horses, in the yard watching the builders at their work and considering what changes he would make at Knyvet when it was his; and all the while he had been at pains not to show he was on edge with constantly wondering how Lionel did. He had even prayed to St. Michael in his need, because who was more likely to be against whatever demon came to Lionel than the archangel who had fought the Devil himself out of heaven?

For good measure he had thrown in promise of a gift rich enough to turn even an archangel’s head if this went the way he wanted it to, but he had still been hugely relieved to see Lionel still upright and competent at supper.

Since then, with time now running close, it was difficult not to watch him obviously, and damn him, he was making it no easier with his pacing around the garden instead of sitting decently still somewhere. Not that it mattered. There was no way he could leave the garden without Giles seeing him go, or someone else who would then undoubtedly comment on it. Most likely Edeyn.

Giles was finding that watching her watch Lionel while trying to seem that she was not was somewhat less amusing than usual. Her glance went Lionel’s way rather too often. It was no more than her idiot sympathy for every sick, hurt thing that came her way, and Lionel was the most deeply sick, hurt thing she was ever likely to encounter. Besides, she knew as well as Giles did that another attack was near. But her concern was annoying anyway. Fondling her hand, Giles twisted a little hard at her smallest finger, making her gaze flinch around from Lionel standing at the arched way into the rose garden with the nuns to him instead.

She was always somewhat startled when he hurt her; it added to her charm. He kissed the offended finger, smiling to show he had not meant it. She smiled back, believing him, and he regretted he would have to postpone the pleasure of her tonight until after his other—he considered the word and decided it was the right one—pleasures.

Edeyn turned to answer a question from Lady Lovell. Giles turned back to watching Lionel act out his pretense that he had a life beyond his disease. Even now he kept it up, when he was waiting in sure knowledge of how near his demon was.

A few more hours, Giles promised silently. Wait it out a few more hours and then there’ll be an end to the pretending and everything made better.

The spring day’s mild warmth was turning toward coolness even before the sun was gone. The women and men not sitting with Lady Lovell among the birch trees walked along the paths among the formal garden beds, or in and out the arbor along the rose garden, and sometimes across the grass to join in the talk there, familiar among themselves, their voices were light and drifting on the evening air. At garden’s end the manor house rose up, its cream-gold walls and stone-traceried windows glowing in the long slant of setting sunlight.

Frevisse and Dame Claire walked together with nothing in particular to say to anyone or even to each other, aware how their quietness and black habits and plain, heavy veils so obviously put them apart from everyone around them. The bright-gowned women, the older ones with their soft veils lifting, drifting, floating lightly as they moved, the young girls with their soft hair falling loose almost always to at least their waists; the men so sure in their laughter and their talk.

Watching them, Frevisse found she was smiling at how completely they belonged here, now, in this garden, set jewel-like in the surround of sun-warmed manor walls, gracious with laughter and light talk.

“Do you ever wish—” Dame Claire began, and stopped, which was unlike her, usually so certain of words, or else, with equal certainty, silent. Frevisse looked at her questioningly. Dame Claire met her look, smiled, and remade the question. “Have you ever thought this—or something like it—could have been our life if we had chosen differently?”

Frevisse had thought it. Though there would have been nothing so grand as this for her, her birth and dowry both insufficient for her to marry so high or richly, there could have been something like this, something her own as nothing was or now ever would be, her nun’s vows long since taken. Assuredly she had thought of it. But she had also thought of how it was a loveliness that would pass, as all the world’s loveliness passed, and though its beauty was in some ways the more precious for its brevity, it was not more precious than what she had chosen in its stead, and she said with a certainty too great to need emphasis, “No. I made the choice I should have made. And so did you.”

Dame Claire answered her with an unshadowed smile. “I know. I only wondered if you did.”

Briefly intent on their own conversation, they had paused beside the arched way into the arbored walk. Now behind Frevisse, Lionel said, “My ladies, may I join you?” She turned to find him coming toward them, Fidelitas beside him but no one else.

“Join us and be welcome,” Dame Claire said readily. “We were going into the rose garden.”

Frevisse had not known they were but went willingly, saying, “I’m having little luck with my Rose allegory,” referring to their yesterday’s talk of the poem and its possible meanings. “Despite myself, worldly ways creep into my mind whenever I’m in the garden.”

“The same trouble Adam and Eve had, I believe,” Lionel said.

They laughed, and Dame Claire bent to stroke Fidelitas’ pretty head. “We thought we might say Compline while we walked, but I fear Dame Frevisse keeps humming the cuckoo song.”

“Once!” Frevisse protested.

“The cuckoo song?” Lionel asked.

Frevisse hummed the bright, glad notes of “Summer is a-coming in/ Loudly sing, cuckoo. Grows the seed and blows the mead/ And springs the wood anew—”

Lionel grinned. The smile warmed his long-jawed face, and Frevisse realized he
had
been worried how they would be with him. He confessed, still smiling, “I meant to say Compline, too, but what has been in my head instead is—” He sang, his voice surprisingly light and sure, “When spray begins to spring/ Little bird has her will on her branch to sing.”

“And I live in love longing/ For the fairest of all things,” Dame Claire went on, sure of words and tune.

“You are neither of you to be commended for your piety,” Frevisse said in mock horror.

“But doesn’t God accept a merry heart rejoicing in the beauty of his world as worship?” Lionel asked.

“And after all,” Dame Claire added, “what everyone means when they sing that is that Christ is the fairest of all things and they’re longing for Him.”

“Oh, yes, of course that’s what everyone means,” Frevisse agreed with overearnest solemnity, and they all three laughed together.

There was nothing uneasy in the silence among them then as they walked on. Fidelitas romped away to see to a beetle crossing the path ahead of them, but it flew ponderously off, bumping her nose as it went, and she came back to Lionel’s side, eagerly lifting her head to him to be petted. He obliged her.

Frevisse asked, the question coming more easily than it would have before they laughed together, “Of all the shrines of saints there are, why are you going to St. Kenelm’s in particular?”

Lionel’s look went from her to Dame Claire and back again, and she thought he was judging how they would take him directly talking of his curse, but at the same time his brief smile was appreciative of her directness, and his answer matched it. “Why Kenelm? Because I’ve tried so many of the others to no avail. St. Margaret, of course. St. Peter. St. Madron in Cornwall. St. Giles.” Lionel smiled a little bitterly at the irony of that. “Even so far afield as St. Dympna in Flanders as my need for hope widened. All to no noticeable avail.”

“And why Kenelm now?” A child saint martyred for his goodness in the face of his sister’s ambitions seemed an odd choice.

Lionel’s gaze on the path ahead of them went distant, to somewhere no one could see who did not live as Lionel was forced to live. And from far inside that somewhere he answered, more to his own heart than her, “Because St. Kenelm surely understands the grief of a life never fully lived. A life ended before it was well begun, the way his was. Maybe out of that understanding, he’ll have pity on me. I have no hope in anything anymore except holy pity.”

Frevisse wished sharply that she had not asked; but it was Dame Claire who sought to draw him back to them with, “At least you have a good friend in Martyn Gravesend. A better friend than most men have, no matter what their lives are like.”

“He’s my good friend indeed,” Lionel argued. “I’ve been shown that much mercy in my need. Though I doubt my need justifies how much he’s let his life be twisted to accommodate my need.”

“Does he see his life as twisted?” Frevisse asked quickly. “Or does he see it as a choice he freely made and freely holds to?”

Lionel’s gaze finally came back from whatever distance or depths he had been seeing. He turned to her, as if facing her would help her more clearly understand his answer and he needed her to understand it. “He made his choice freely, but he made it years ago. Matters change for every man. I’m bound by a necessity I can’t be rid of, no matter what I do. Martyn is bound by his choice and that’s a thing he can change if he chooses to. But what if he feels it’s a choice he cannot make?”

“Do you want him to?”

“No. For my own sake I don’t want him to. But for his sake I’ve told him that he can.”

“And he says?”

“He says he wants no change.”

“But you don’t believe him.”

The lines down Lionel’s face beside his mouth that were too old for his years deepened. “If I had the chance and choice, I’d be as far away from the life he lives as I could possibly go. It’s hard to accept he willingly stays, given the choice.”

“But you’ve given him the choice and he’s chosen to stay,” Dame Claire said. Her deep voice softened. “We were talking of choice just now, Dame Frevisse and I. Even knowing how different, how much more comfortable our lives might have been if we’d chosen otherwise, we still hold wholeheartedly to the choice we’ve made. It may be that way with him.”

“He’s maybe done what so few people do,” Frevisse said. “He’s knowingly chosen a duty that matters more to him than what other people would see as pleasures. He’s maybe accepted what’s so rarely accepted by anyone despite all Christ’s teachings. That we’re all responsible for one another. If not for each other’s actual souls, then at least for each other’s bodily well-being, to do what we can so that souls aren’t corrupted by our bodies’ miseries.”

“Our bodies’ miseries,” Lionel echoed. Frevisse inwardly flinched. Caught up in working through her thought, she had forgotten that the body’s misery was something more horribly real to Lionel than mere words.

Edeyn’s bright voice interrupted, calling from the arbor entrance, “Lionel! My ladies! I’ve come to warn you we’re going in.”

Frevisse’s gaze was on Lionel’s face in the moment that Edeyn called, and she saw the momentary, unthinking pleasure there as he lifted his head and turned toward his cousin-in-law, a pleasure instantly buried behind an everyday smile and answering wave back to her as he casually called, “We’re coming.”

But Frevisse had seen enough that, taken together with what she had earlier observed, she could guess that here was another grief cutting at Lionel’s heart. The grief of love where there should not be love. A love without hope. And she wondered, with aching pity, how long he had hurt with that as well as all his other pain—and wondered, too, how sick to his soul he was of other people’s pity.