The Reeve's Tale (22 page)

Frevisse startled with the realization that Elena had not been talking idly this while, had understood the suspicion behind her questioning, and had set out against it. Giving answers she was willing to give so as to forestall questions more dangerous to her?

Hiding her anger at herself for being so easily led, Frevisse asked something that had only to do with her curiosity, not Tom Hulcote’s death. “Why, with all his ambition, hasn’t Gilbey bought his freedom?”

‘Because he’d lose too much by being free,“ Elena said bluntly. ”First, there’d be the cost of buying himself free, then the cost of buying land if he could but more probably leasing it, land not being that readily come by. So long as he stays Lord Lovell’s villein, he holds his land here by right. Though we’re thinking that it may be better now to give his right up and shift to copyhold, no more workdays or fees owed, just a flat yearly rent, everything to be held in survivorship between us, with the boys to inherit.“

‘Will Lord Lovell agree to that?“

‘It’s common enough anymore,“ Elena said as if she had no doubt about it. ”The lords prefer cash in hand to the bother of reckoning workdays owed and trying to collect past-due fees, and Gilbey is a good enough tenant that the steward won’t want to risk losing him. It will come to much the same as being free without the cost of buying his freedom.“

‘What about this house?“ Because whatever actual practice was, in legal fact what a villein owned belonged to his lord, and if it came to law the lord’s claim would very possibly be upheld.

‘The house and everything in it are my father’s. He leases it for a penny a year to Gilbey in return for use of the land it stands on, and it’s tied to pass to my children when he dies. That way it will never be Gilbey’s and at risk to the lord. Though if for some fool’s reason, Lord Lovell decided to make trouble over it, worse come to worse, it can be taken down and moved away if need be.“

Worse come to worse, it could be taken down and moved away, too, if—for some reason—Elena’s marriage to Gilbey failed.

Some reason such as Tom Hulcote.

How right was Elena in thinking Gilbey would never be jealous of her, when he had so much to lose if he lost her?

And how honest had she been in claiming she had no inclination to Tom Hulcote?

But those were hardly questions Frevisse could ask outright and, ready to be done with Elena for a time, she took her leave gracefully. Elena saw her to the door, making equally graceful farewell but saying in a worried voice as Frevisse started away, “My lady, is anything you’ve learned so far of any use?”

Frevisse turned back to her, paused, almost said, “I don’t know yet,” but said instead, matching Elena’s worry, “Only that there’s someone so hurting in himself with anger or unhappiness that it isn’t enough he killed a man. He wants to be sure someone else suffers for it in his place.”

Chapter 15

The last of the day’s clouds were gone, save for a few wisps strayed across the west, gold and cream and touched with scarlet, above the setting sun. The day’s warmth had thickened through the afternoon, and walking slowly away from Gilbey’s messuage, Frevisse found herself wishing for the cool shadows and deep quiet of St. Frideswide’s church and cloister walk, wanting to be enclosed and silent with nothing needed from her but prayers, even if only for a little while. Her thoughts were tired and twisted into pieces with all the different ways the day had gone—from the dark, wearing hours with the ill children to facing down Mont-fort to questioning how Tom Hulcote had come to his death. She was used to days that held together, flowing in a steady pattern from their beginnings to their ends, not sharded into pieces that jarred and grated against one another and against her peace of mind.

She did not want to be part of Prior Byfield and its troubles.

But she was, and
Deus adjuvat me; et Dominus susceptor est animae meae.
God helps me; and the Lord is the protector of my soul.

And if God was her help and protector, she was likewise bound to help and protect where she could, giving to others what God gave to her, and just now her help was needed here, partly because Montfort would do his worst to believe what he wanted to believe—that Perryn and Gilbey Dunn were guilty—and partly because she could not rid herself of the fear that had come to her in the churchyard—that Tom Hulcote’s death was not the first there had been in this and might not be the last.

His death and Matthew Woderove’s had been so alike.

She paused in the midst of the street, caught between returning to the church and turning toward Simon Perryn’s with the questions she wanted to ask there, now being maybe better for them than later. But she had already been gone from the church far longer than she had meant to be and the questions could wait until morning; the children’s needs could not. And nonetheless, after a moment more of hesitation, she turned toward Simon Perryn’s.

There were others seeing to the children but no one else would ask the questions that needed asking.

Perryn, his two servants, and Dickon were still at their supper when she paused on his threshold, her shadow thrown ahead of her through the open doorway telling she was there before she need knock, and in the moment until her sun-brightened eyes were used to the house’s shadows, Perryn said, “Dame Frevisse,” in surprise and then in welcome, “Come in, please you, my lady.”

By then she could see him rising from his place on a joint stool at the table’s head and Cisily and Dickon and a man who must be Watt on benches down its sides all turning to look at her, and she had a sudden sense of how comfortably crowded it would be at the table when Anne, Adam, Colyn, and Lucy were all there, too, and how empty it must be to Perryn without them, how hard the days of not knowing who would come home again and who would not must have been.

And even now they were not sure that Adam would.

She put the thought away from her. They had finished eating, she saw. The meal’s end looked to have been applemose and some sort of wafers that were probably supposed to be thin and crisp and golden but were thick and brown and somewhat blackened around the edges and Dickon had been scraping the burned part of one away with his knife, into the remains of what looked to be overcooked pease pottage in the bowl in front of him. If this was Cisily’s usual cooking, no wonder he had been eager for Elena Dunn’s, Frevisse thought. But Cisily, Watt, and Dickon were rising to their feet with Perryn, and she said quickly, “I pray you, sit, please,” as she entered at Perryn’s invitation. Watt and Dickon did but Cisily began to bustle from the table, saying, “Let me fetch you some supper, my lady, if you’d eat with us, if it please you.”

‘I thank you but no,“ Frevisse said. Besides that she was satisfied already, the smell from whatever Cisily had cooked suggested there had been scorching at the bottom of the pot.

‘Ale then?“ Cisily said.

‘Thank you, yes,“ Frevisse said though she did not much want that either.

‘Is there aught wrong, my lady?“ Perryn asked, still on his feet and worried. ”The children?“

Sorry she had not realized that would be his first thought, she said hurriedly, “Not that I know. I’ve only come with some of the questions I asked at Gilbey’s. About Monday.”

Cisily, fetching another cup to the table, grumbled, “None of us know aught about naught at Gilbey Dunn’s. They keep themselves to themselves there, they do.”

Frevisse was a little used to Cisily from her helping Anne in the church: an older woman with a sprout of gray hairs on her upper lip and grumbling ways but part of the Perryns’ household for a long while past and a good worker and good with the children, who, like their mother, never seemed to heed her grumbling. Nor did Perryn now, asking, “Will you sit, my lady?” gesturing to the joint stool at the end of the table from where he stood. To put everyone at better ease, Frevisse sat while Cisily poured ale from a pitcher already on the table and Perryn named Watt to her. Watt stood again, made an awkward bow, and sat. Frevisse thanked Cisily for the ale and said, because she could think of no subtle way around to it, “In truth it’s you I want to talk to, Cisily.”

Pleased, Cisily sat down on a bench and smoothed her apron over her lap. “Yes, my lady.”

‘But if the rest of you will listen and put in anything that comes to you, that would be to the good, too,“ Frevisse said. The men and Dickon nodded and she turned to Cisily. ”I need to know about this Monday, the day before Tom Hulcote was found dead.“

‘Aye, I mind Monday,“ Cisily said.

‘Perryn went to the church early that morning. In the rain.“

‘And came home to breakfast and complained the oatmeal was over-done. I told him I’d been seeing to the hens, that was why, there being only me to see to everything about the house and that’s what happens when there’s only one and too much to do. Then he said there shouldn’t be that much doing, with only him and Watt and the boy to see to, and that made me want to cry, thinking of the poor babies all sick and gone, and…“

Cisily remembered Monday well enough, it seemed. More of it than Frevisse wanted to hear about, assuredly, and she slipped in hurriedly, “And we pray they’ll be home soon and everything back to the way it was. Who else was here on Monday?”

It took Cisily a moment to change course, then she said, “Watt and Dickon.”

‘No one else?“ Frevisse prompted. ”No one else came here all day?“

‘Oh, aye. You want that, too?“

‘Please,“ Frevisse said, afraid it might be all or next to nothing from Cisily.

‘Esota Emmet,“ Cisily said promptly. ”I remember her. The old cat. Come snooping, that’s all she was up to. Bess Underbush, too, to bring that ale you asked her to, Simon, because we were almost out.“ She thought a bit, her lower lip twitching with the effort. ”Was it that day Walter Hopper was here, wanting something?“

‘Aye, Monday,“ Watt said. ”You sent him on to me. Like I’d know what work Simon’d want from him this week.“

‘How was I to know you wouldn’t? If naught else, you’d maybe know where Simon was, for Walter to go ask him.“

‘Were you here in the house all day?“ Frevisse asked.

‘I mind I took some of the new ale to Anne at midday, and I was in and out and about in yard and garden now and again.“ She suddenly brightened, remembering more. ”Mary was here. I told you, Simon. Came to the door bold as you please, demanding to see you. That was Monday, sure as anything, because Tuesday we found Tom and she’s been shut up in her house ever since, carrying on like nobody in the world ever felt a loss but her, so it had to be Monday she was here because it wasn’t Sunday. And Ienet Comber, she came by about cheese. Anyone else?“ Cisily thought on that a moment, then decided, ”Nay. That was all.“

Except for whoever might have come while Cisily was out. “Watt,” Frevisse said, “can you mind anyone else here that day?”

Watt shook his large, grizzled head. “I was out at hoeing from morning until almost time for evening work.”

‘Where did Walter Hopper find you?“

‘Here. ’Twas early he came by. I was just done morning milking.“

Frevisse turned back to Cisily. “Do you remember anything about Perryn’s green hood that day?”

Cisily shifted to indignation. “You mean that hood that crowner fellow has? Do you know how we go about getting that back from him? It’s too good a hood to be lost to such as him.”

‘We’ll have to see,“ Frevisse said. ”Perryn, when you came in that morning, what did you do with your hood?“

‘Hung it there by the door.“ He pointed to a pegged rack on the wall.

‘Nay, that you didn’t,“ Cisily shot back. ”You left it lying like usual on the bench here, wet though it was. I hung it up, or it’d not be dry yet.“

‘Hung it there?“ Frevisse asked, nodding to the pegs.

‘Aye. There.“

‘What do you remember of it after that?“

‘Remember of it?“ Cisily frowned, thinking about it. ”Nothing, I don’t think. Nay. Nothing.“

‘Not whether it was there or not there after that?“

‘If t’wasn’t there, Simon had it. That’s all I’d think about it. It was there or else he had it, no great matter. As long as’t’wasn’t lying about for me to pick up, I’d give it no thought and wouldn’t now, except Esota Emmet came to tell me about it, right enough, while I cooking supper just now. About master’s hood and Gilbey’s belt. Somebody’s been up to no good with those,“ she added darkly. ”That’s what Esota says, and so do I and anybody else around here with sense.“

But until Montfort said the same, Perryn and Gilbey Dunn weren’t safe, Frevisse thought, and took the thought with her as she took her leave, declining with thanks Perryn’s offer to see her to the church, wanting the chance to be alone.

The west still glowed yellow above the lately set sun, the long summer twilight had hardly begun to fade, and from other times in other villages, Frevisse knew that on such an evening people should be out and about, work done for the day but with light enough left for visiting among neighbors, and surely there should be a scatter of children at play on the green, their laughter and shouting bright through the darkening hour or so until they were called in to bed. But this evening there was no one in sight except for a pair of the crowner’s men on the bench under the oak tree, a stoup of probably ale between them since one of their fellows was coming out the alehouse doorway bearing another. Save for them, Prior Byfield was outwardly empty of all the life there should have been, because somewhere among them was a murderer and they did not know who. While Tom Hulcote’s body rotted in its grave, the rot of his death was spreading here, and not helped in the least by Montfort corrupting where he should have cured.