The Murderer's Tale (20 page)

“Except you need to,” Dame Claire said.

“Except I need to,” Frevisse agreed, trying to sort through her thoughts and, more tenuous but as real, her feelings.

“Are we going to Edeyn?”

Frevisse roused with a small shake of her head at herself and said, “We’d best.”

The great hall was clear of everyone, and the garden when they came out into it was empty of people except for a gardener and his boy making their way along the beds in search of weeds. Frevisse half-supposed they would meet Edeyn returning from the church since her errand was only a short one, but they did not and found her the next place Frevisse supposed she would be, kneeling before the altar almost where Lionel had been yesterday.

There was no shroud nor was Martyn’s body present, and quite deliberately Frevisse led Dame Claire up the short nave to near where Edeyn was, to make her aware that they were there. As they stopped a few yards aside from her, to kneel briefly to their own prayers, Edeyn looked sideways at them, and when they stood up she rose with them.

“Lionel?” she asked.

“Fidelitas is with him. She seems to be helping.” It was the only comforting thing that came to Frevisse’s mind so she said it first. “But he’s hurting. Not in body,” she added quickly at Edeyn’s immediate, sharp alarm. “In mind. For what he’s done. For Martyn.”

“But he remembers nothing of it, does he?” Edeyn asked softly.

“Nothing at all. I think that adds to the pain. To have not even known he had done it, the mindlessness was so complete.”

“He’s always hated that he knows nothing while an attack is on him,” Edeyn said.

“Where’s Master Gravesend?” Dame Claire asked.

Edeyn nodded toward a side door. “They have him in the sacristy until he’s cleansed and shrouded, to not risk blood in here, too.”

Because there was no way to ask reasonable permission to do what she wanted to do, Frevisse neither asked nor said anything but went to the sacristy door, knocked once, and entered. Behind her Dame Claire made what might have been the beginning of a protest but it was too late to be of use. Inside, Sire Benedict and the two servants he was overseeing at their work looked up in surprise from Martyn’s stripped body.

“Good my lady!” the priest began in startled protest, and stepped between her and Martyn’s body.

As if anything could be more indecent than the wound that had killed him, Frevisse thought, and that she had long since seen more than clearly enough. Besides, it was not Martyn’s body for which she was there. His soiled clothing was dumped in a heap on the floor near the door, and for something like courtesy’s sake she said, “Good father,” in greeting to Sire Benedict but stopped even as she did, to pick up first one and then the other of Martyn’s shoes, look at their soles, and drop them again, all so quickly that the priest was still gathering himself to say something else to her as she straightened, gave him a slight curtsy, and withdrew, shutting the door as she went.

Edeyn, too wrapped in her own feelings to be curious over it, paid no heed to her return but went on telling Dame Claire, “He’ll likely be buried here. He has no family living, and Giles says the trouble of taking him back to Knyvet when there’s no one of his own folk there isn’t worth it.”

Giles would say that, not bothering to consider what Lionel’s wish in the matter might be, Frevisse thought tartly. For Giles, Lionel was already only baggage to be dealt with, no longer a person. But she kept the thought to herself. Almost the only improvement she had noticed in herself was an occasional tendency toward discretion, probably come with age.

“I’ll see to masses being said,” Edeyn was going on. They had begun to walk down the nave together, Edeyn between the nuns and talking as if words were a shield against too many thoughts. “Beginning as soon as may be. He can’t be buried until the crowner has come but the masses can be started. Will I be able to see Lionel soon?”

That last came as they reached the door that stood open into the porch. Frevisse answered as straightly as she could, “I don’t know. Not for a while, I’d think.”

“But he’s being seen to, isn’t he? He’s as well as may be?”

“For now. I hope it can be made better when we understand a little more.”

“What more is there to understand?” Giles asked, appearing at the porch’s outer end, dark against the sunlight. “My cousin in his madness murdered someone and because we can never know when that madness will come on him again, there’s nothing for it but to keep him locked away the rest of his days.”

“I thought there were signs when an attack was about to come,” Dame Claire said. “Warnings.”

Frevisse would have said it first, but her sudden anger at Giles for being so suddenly there and so plainly having overheard them made her hold her tongue until she was sure of what would come off it.

“Yes,” Edeyn said readily. “There’s one. He feels it in his flesh, in his left hand, an oddness that warns him when one is near.”

“It’s his demon crawling back inside him,” Giles said, “and now that we know what comes of it, who’s likely to want to be near him when it happens after this? Martyn was fool enough to do it and look where he is.”

What he said was probably true enough, but he could have said it with less satisfaction, Frevisse thought and still held her tongue, leaving it to Dame Claire to say, “Yes, well, I daresay you have the right of it. My lady, if you’ll excuse us, we should be going.”

She was drawing away while she spoke, and though it seemed less than kind to leave Edeyn to her husband’s untenderness, Frevisse could think of no excuse to linger and she went with Dame Claire, the both of them circling Giles when he did not bother to stand aside to let them pass.

Chapter 16

Luce met them in the garden with word that Lady Lovell wished to see them. She was subdued, without her usual chatter, while she led them not to the parlor but the room where they had dealt with Lady Lovell over the nunnery business yesterday. She announced them at the door but left them to go in to Lady Lovell alone.

She was at the table as she had been yesterday. Her son Harry was not with her. but the clerks were at their tables, working in the warm sunlight through the southward window with its view of the purposeful come and go of people across the yard. From the west wing the clear sounds of the stonemasons at their building: the chink of metal on stone, creak of the lift-wheel, occasional good-humored shouts and orders. By every outward sign Minster Lovell was well along in a day as pleasant and well-ordered as yesterday had been.

But outwardly was not all there was to anything. As they had passed the stairs on the way to here, Frevisse had been sharply conscious of Lionel in his small prison above them, so near to everything, able to hear so much of it, and yet so hopelessly cut off from the day and everything there should have been for him. Almost, in his way, as cut off from it as Martyn was, but without the accompanying grace of oblivion.

Frevisse wondered how much of that thought was with Lady Lovell, too, because though she stood where she had yesterday, with her work spread out in front of her and a smile of greeting for them, her lightness and laughter were gone behind a dark sadness in her eyes, though she inclined her head to their low curtsies and said warmly, “My ladies. We’re trying to put the day back somewhere near to where it should be and go on with what needs doing. I talked with Master Holt and with your John Naylor yesterday, as you suggested, and have thought on the matter since. You may like what I’ve bethought me of.”

“At your pleasure, my lady,” Dame Claire said.

“It would seem from your customal that it was indeed by the Lovell responsibility the well was last made, with the nunnery to have the main share thereafter in its upkeep. We all agree the nunnery has done its share heretofore, but the wear of time goes on and the well now needs to be deepened and the stonework remade anew. Agreed?”

Dame Claire and Frevisse indicated that was exactly the case. It had taken Domina Alys far more words and a great deal more temper to say the same.

“The argument lies in who is to bear the cost of this new work, my steward claiming it should be the nunnery as part of the upkeep, the nunnery claiming it is ours because the well must virtually be made new and that is Lord Lovell’s duty.”

“Yes, my lady,” Dame Claire said. Frevisse made a small nod of agreement. That was exactly it.

“To my mind,” Lady Lovell said, “your customal is not precise on the matter. It states what was done then without clearly saying what should follow afterward in the fullness of time.”

“We tend to forget the fullness of time,” Frevisse said, “if the need of the moment has been satisfied.”

“Too often too true.” Lady Lovell smiled. “That seems to be what happened here, certainly. There’s wide possibility for argument, with nothing to bring the matter clearly down on one side or the other. So what I’ve to suggest—and Master Holt and your John Naylor both thought satisfactory to both sides—is that Lord Lovell undertake to find a master mason to oversee the work, so it should be well and expertly done, and pay him and for a work-ale afterward when the well is finished, while the nunnery would provide the men and the stone for the work itself. What think you? Would that satisfy?”

Dame Claire and Frevisse looked at each other. It was not precisely what Domina Alys wanted. Her desire was for everything to be at Lord Lovell’s cost and Lord Lovell’s effort, but this might be something she would accept because priory men could be set to the task at no cost in silver to the priory and there was stone enough about that there would be no need to spend anything on that either except the men’s time to gather it. “I think,” Dame Claire said slowly, “that we could take that offer to our prioress in good faith and reasonable hope.”

“I’ll have a letter made to my steward there and another to your prioress for you to take when you leave.”

Lady Lovell appeared as pleased as Frevisse would have been if she had been unaware of Domina Alys’ ability to refuse even so fair an offer. But sufficient to the day were the troubles thereof and she smiled with Lady Lovell and Dame Claire who said, “Our thanks, my lady. We can go whenever the letters are ready. This afternoon if you wish.”

One of the benefits of traveling with virtually nothing was that it took virtually no time to be on their way, but Lady Lovell said, still smiling, “Then I shall see they are not written until later, so that you can stay another night at least. Unless there’s need for haste?”

“No need at all,” Dame Claire answered.

That was true and to Frevisse’s mind leaving in the morning would be far better. It would do Dame Claire no harm to have another day to rest, and if they left in the morning rather than the afternoon, they should reach Oxford and its priory by tomorrow night instead of spending another night on the road. And it would give her the remainder of the day to ask for answers to questions she would not like to leave unfinished behind her.

She had been refusing to admit to herself how increasingly uneasy she was over Martyn’s death until it had momentarily seemed she would have to leave it behind her. Her rush of relief at not having to leave yet told her how important her questions were becoming to her, how deep her unease was running. Deep enough that although Dame Claire was finishing their thanks and beginning to withdraw, to leave Lady Lovell to all her other business, Frevisse asked, “Has anything further been decided about Lionel?”

Dame Claire cast Frevisse a glance of annoyance, and the satisfaction in a problem well handled went out of Lady Lovell’s face as the greater problem that could not be so easily seen to came back to her. “Nothing can really be done or decided now until the crowner comes. He’s been sent for but how long until he’s here depends on when and where he’s found and if he’s free to come immediately.”

“Until he comes—” Frevisse began hesitantly.

“Dame Frevisse!” Dame Claire said quellingly.

Frevisse with an effort stopped herself from going further, but Lady Lovell looked from one to the other and said, “Yes?”

Frevisse looked toward the clerks at their work, too near across the room. Lady Lovell understood and moved away, toward the room’s far end, drawing Frevisse and Dame Claire after her. When they were as away from the clerks as the room would allow, she said again, “Yes?”

Avoiding Dame Claire’s displeased look, Frevisse said, “There are things I’m not sure of about Martyn’s death.”

Dame Claire made an exasperated sound.

Levelly Lady Lovell asked, “Such as?”

Frevisse gathered her inarticulated unease into words, to make it clear to herself for the first time, as well as to Lady Lovell. “The way they were lying—Lionel and Martyn—it doesn’t agree with where the blood was.”

“Where the blood was?” Lady Lovell asked, not understanding, asking Frevisse to make it clearer.

“Martyn’s blood is on Lionel’s clothing in a way that makes it seem Martyn must have fallen across him and bled there before being pushed aside to lie where he was found, beside Lionel.”

“The blood might have sprayed when the wound was made,” Lady Lovell suggested. “Before Martyn fell. It will when a throat is cut.”

“Only when it’s cut low. Martyn’s wound was high under the throat. Blood doesn’t spray from a wound that high.” It had been years since she had ridden to a hunt, in her girlhood before she entered St. Frideswide’s, but she remembered that much about kills.

Lady Lovell nodded agreement. Hunting was still part of her life and she had seen deaths enough to understand the difference.

“And the blood was all in one place,” Frevisse said. “On Lionel’s side and the floor beside him, as if drained, not spattered.” The more she said, the more wrong everything she had seen in the chapel became. So long as she had not thought in detail about it, it had been simply enough, but now… In fairness she tried to make what it had seemed at first be possible. “It might be that Lionel fell even as he struck the blow and Martyn fell dying onto him. But then how did Martyn end up stretched out beside him instead of across him?”

“A last death spasm?” Lady Lovell offered. “Or by Lionel’s movement? It’s said he flings about wildly when the fit is on him.”