The Reeve's Tale (24 page)

Mistress Margery’s look at her did not lessen. “Best you step outside a time, maybe. I can see to things here the while.”

Frevisse accepted the offer gratefully and found, even before she had left the church porch, that the cool dawn air worked on her much as a strong draught of rich wine would have done. For a few deep-breathed moments she simply stood on the churchyard path, breathing, feeling, deliberately not thinking. The day was barely there, the world still mostly only shapes and shadows in the cool and colorless dawnlight, with no more than the barest trace of rose and peach tinting the eastern sky but the birds still in full-throated song, and Frevisse softly joined them with a prayers from Prime.
“Domine Deus omnipotens, qui ad principium huius diet nos pervenire fecisti. .
.” Lord God all powerful, you who to the beginning of this day have made us come…

It was a prayer that almost always served to lift her heart but its other words struck too near to what else the day was going to ask of her. “…
semper ad tuam iustitiam faciendam nostra procedant eloquia, dirigantur cogitationes et opera.
”… may always our words lead, our thoughts and works be directed, to fulfilling your justice.

Because today she would have to go on with what she had started yesterday.

But not yet, she prayed. For just now let there be simply the dawn and a quietness of heart and mind and soul.

The riot of birdsong was ending as the daylight grew and the world took on colors—summer greens of grass and trees, gold of the grain in the field beyond the churchyard wall, subtle blues rising across the sky. Without haste, Frevisse began to walk, her gown’s hem sweeping over the churchyard’s long, dew-damp grass, keeping her mind away from what she would all too soon have to deal with, thinking instead that the worst of the plague was past now Adam’s fever had broken. Even better and for a wonder and against all likely hope, it seemed no one was going to die. And three and more days were gone by without any new mesels now, and that made it likely there would be no more, and soon she and Sister Thomasine would be free to go back to St. Frideswide’s.

There was still the harvest to face but that seemed simpler now…

And the matter of Master Naylor’s freedom…

And Tom Hulcote’s murder…

Frevisse sighed to find she had come back to that.

And that she was standing looking down at the raw brown, clodded earth of Matthew Woderove’s grave mound.

Even as she said a prayer for his soul, she noted there was no sign to show that more had happened here than a hole been dug and the dirt then shoveled back into it for maybe no good reason.

She had talked to Elena Dunn about Tom Hulcote’s murderer being someone who was unhappy, but now that she thought on it, unhappiness was part of both men’s deaths. By all she had ever heard of Matthew Woderove, he had been unhappy in his life and now, to judge by his grave, he was not even mourned in death. An unhappy man come to an unhappy end.

Like Tom Hulcote.

Frevisse paused on that thought.

She had only thought of Tom Hulcote as angry, but behind the anger he had to have been unhappy—unhappy in the life he had and unhappy in not being able to better it, his best hope broken that day at the manor court and no likely way it could ever be mended. An unhappy man brought to an unhappy end.

Like Matthew Woderove.

Frevisse shook her head, still not wanting the two deaths together in her mind.

But what if they should be?

What if the matter of Hulcote’s death had to be taken back a step? To Matthew Woderove’s. What then?

She didn’t know.

Her head bowed, she turned and walked away from the grave and only as she was passing the churchyard gateway heard soft-soled footfalls and looked up to find Simon Perryn there.

He bowed and said, “Good morrow, my lady,” as she stopped, and she bent her head in return, wondering if she looked as under-slept as he did.

Then she saw the fear rigid in his face and said quickly, “Adam is better. His fever broke just ere dawn.”

Perryn sagged against one of the pentice posts, letting go his taut hold on himself. “It did?” he breathed, wanting to hear it again.

‘I left him sleeping quietly.“

Perryn crossed himself. “Praise be to all the saints. And the others?”

‘All doing well.“

‘None… ?“

He hesitated over the question, asking after not only his own but all the children, Frevisse realized, and she answered, “Mistress Margery says we’ll lose none of them. They’re all going to live. It’s over.”

The worst of it at any rate, and as easily as that there were suddenly tears in Perryn’s eyes, not falling as his wife’s had but shining in the morning light as he said, finally smiling, “Thank you.”

‘God’s doing, not mine.“

‘But your help and your prayers. And Sister Thomasine’s.“

Now Frevisse met his smile. “And yours. All of us. Your wife was awake when I left, if you’re thinking of going in.”

‘I was, aye.“

Smiling, he went and, smiling, Frevisse watched him go, taking pleasure in his pleasure. The more she knew of Simon Perryn, the more she liked him.

But it would take more than her liking to save him from Montfort.

The sun’s rim slid clear of the horizon, its low rays striking long across the fields, changing the world to sudden brightness and long-reached sharp shadows, the dew to glinting silver, the rising dawn mist along the stream into a golden veil. With its dazzle in her eyes, Frevisse turned away, toward the village, and found that Perryn had only barely been the first out and about. Folk had been at their first work around their houses and byres before light, surely, and now they were bound, men, women, older children, most with hoes as well as scythes or rakes over their shoulders, for probably Shaldewell Field to weed in the beans until the hayfields dried and they could turn to those.

Frevisse held where she was, caught between returning inside to join Sister Thomasine for Prime and all the first-of-a-morning work there was or setting out to ask more questions before Montfort did worse than he already had. Both were her duty, in their different ways, but she knew which was the one only she could do and, bearing the weight of her choice, she went out the gateway.

Going along the street beside the green, she met folk on their way to the church, bringing food and to see how family or neighbors did. The children were too shy to more than give her a quick bow of the head and sidewise looks as they passed, and Frevisse discouraged their elders from talk by giving them a brisk nod and a bare smile to acknowledge their bows or curtsies without encouraging more, thereby reaching Perryn’s messuage unhindered. Neither Watt nor Dickon was in the yard, but she was not seeking them and before ever she knocked at the house door, standing open to the warm day, she could guess where Cisily was by the rasp of sand being scrubbed over wood, and indeed, when at her knock Cisily called, “Come in then. No need to hang about out there,” Frevisse found her with sleeves rolled to above her elbows and a rag in her hand, stretched over the table, scouring at a stain. At sight of Frevisse, though, she stopped, pulled up to straight and said, “Pardon, my lady, I didn’t know ‘twas you. Pray, come in,” as she dropped the cloth out of sight below the table and began to roll down her sleeves.

‘No need for pardon,“ Frevisse said easily. The last thing she wanted was Cisily on her manners. ”I’ve come to tell you Adam’s fever broke at dawn.“

Cisily crossed herself with huge relief. “Praise God and the Virgin. The master was bound for the church, so he knows?”

‘He’s there now.“

Smiling as if unable to stop, Cisily came around the table. “Come in. Sit you down, please. There’s oatmeal still from breakfast and the cream is fresh if you’d like. Please.”

Despite what she had seen of Cisily’s cooking yesterday, Frevisse accepted; she was here to talk with Cisily and the woman might do it more easily across food than otherwise. Or maybe not, because when the bowl of oatmeal and cream was in front of her and she asked Cisily to join her, Cisily did readily, sitting on the other bench, across the table, with mug of ale in hand and talk on her tongue, beginning with how blessed they were that the children were past the worst. “Though trying to keep our three a-bed from now until they’re full well, that’s something I’m not looking forward to. And what with Anne worn out with all this, I can see already where the burden is going to fall.”

‘They’re fortunate to have you,“ Frevisse said with shameless flattery.

‘I’ve known them since they were born. Known Simon and Anne all their days, too, come to that.“

‘You’re village-born, then?“

‘Oh, aye. Born, bred, and never been out of it except twice to Banbury,“ Cisily said with pride.

‘You knew Matthew Woderove then, too.“

‘Matthew?“ Cisily clucked her tongue. ”Aye. All his life, poor man. Never had a chance, he did, with a father like that and then wedding Mary Perryn, though I say it who shouldn’t, seeing I work for Simon who’s as good as Midsummer Day is long.“

‘And Mary isn’t?“

‘Good as the day is long? Not even nearly,“ Cisily said bluntly. ”Never has been. Never will be.“

‘Not even for Tom Hulcote?“

Cisily tutted fretfully. “Well, there’s no surprise you know about that, is there? People talk, that’s sure.”

‘Do you think Matthew ran off because of his wife and Tom Hulcote?“

‘Who’s to say? Though he’d put up with it two years and more already, so why go hot over it all of a sudden?“

‘He maybe didn’t know until now.“

‘Who’s to say? He never did. Still, everyone else knew, didn’t they?“

‘And Father Edmund never sought to put stop to it?“

Cisily put down her mug, frowning a little. “Now there you have me. He didn’t know because nobody would tell him, would they? Him being new-come here and all.”

‘But Matthew Woderove never said anything to anyone? Not about his wife or Tom Hulcote or running off?“

‘Not that I’ve heard, and I would have.“ Cisily seemed quite sure of that. ”My own thought is that, Mary or no, losing his land was too much shame for him, that’s all. He just wanted to be away, once and for all, and he went.“

‘How did he go?“

‘At night.“ Cisily shuddered. ”That shows you how desperate he must have been, to be away in the dark like that.“

‘With no warning either?“

‘Oh, he’d had a yelling time that afternoon with Mary, out at the end of their furlong at west end of Shaldewell Field.“

‘What over?“ Frevisse asked.

Cisily shook her head, looking put out. “Now there, no one else was working that end of the field that afternoon. No one was near enough to hear more than that they were angry. But they were that, right enough. The way I’ve heard it, they were at it a while and while, then Mary threw down her hoe—a wonder she didn’t throw it at him, I’d say—and went home on her own and that was the last she saw of him.”

‘He never went home?“

‘Oh, aye, he did, but not until he’d worked the afternoon out, there in the field, and came home when everyone else did. Wouldn’t talk to anyone nor didn’t want them talking to him neither. And then what do you think he found when he was home?“ Cisily leaned a little forward over the table and said with slow relish, ”She’d barred the door. Wouldn’t let him in. Not into his own house, with half the village passing by on their own ways home and able to see it. That’s what she did to him.“

It briefly crossed Frevisse’s mind to wonder why it was not Mary Woderove who was dead instead of her husband, but all she asked was, “What did he do?”

‘Matthew?“ Cisily was as free with her scorn as with her tale. ”Some of the men asked if he wanted they should bring a timber, they’d have the door down for him, and that’s what he should have done, if you ask me, and given her a beating she wouldn’t forget. But then he should have done that years ago, God’s truth. I’ve heard Simon tried to bring him on home to here, but all Matthew did was shake his head at everybody and skulk away into his byre, to spend the night in the hay, it was reckoned. Like always.“

‘She’d done this to him before?“

‘Oh, aye. More than once. Have a screaming quarrel with him, bar the door, and leave him to sleep in the byre, and the next morning he’d be asking her pardon and thanking her for letting him back into his own house, fool man. Nobody thought but it’d be the same this time, but next morning he and one of Gilbey’s horses was gone.“ Cisily slapped the tabletop with a merry hand. ”And you should have heard Gilbey swearing over that horse!“ She changed her mind. ”No. Pardon, my lady. No, you shouldn’t have.“ But the memory was too ripe for her; she could not help adding, ”But it was worth the hearing anyway.“

Frevisse did not doubt it had been, if your humor went that way. Trying to make the question sound like idle talk, she asked, “That was about Midsummer, wasn’t it?”

‘Two days past. They held the court where Matthew lost his land—and wicked that was of Gilbey, he doesn’t need more land—the day after Midsummer’s, and a day later was their quarrel, and Matthew disappeared that night.“

‘How did Mary take his leaving her like that?“