The Reeve's Tale (3 page)

He and Master Naylor and Simon all looked to the jurors, their decision not needed in a matter like this but their witness wanted against later disagreement, should it come. They all nodded understanding of what had passed, and Master Naylor said, “Let it be so noted,” to Father Edmund, who nodded in return without looking up from his pen scratching across paper.

Gilbey bowed to Master Naylor and to Simon and withdrew, leaving Simon glad to be finished with both him and the lease despite knowing there would be listening to Mary over it later. Their father had always called her his ‘little bird’ because she had been—and was—so small built and lively, pretty in her childhood and pretty enough now, for that matter, he supposed, but the word for her that always came to Simon’s mind was “shrew,” and as good a question as to why she’d married Matthew Woderove was why had Matthew had married her.

Still, to each their own and, “There’s only the dividing of William Bonde’s land between Alson and young William still to do today,” he said.

‘And that should be no trouble?“ Master Naylor asked in his ear as Alson Bonde hobbled forward on her son’s arm. Her husband had been St. Frideswide’s villein and therefore how his property would go between his widow and only son was Master Naylor’s concern, but he freely depended on Simon’s knowledge of the village and its folk in such matters, just as Simon depended on his in others, and Simon whispered back, ”No trouble. They’re well agreed, the last I knew.“

Father Edmund rose to bring his own stool for old Alson sit on although it meant he’d have to stand to write and was thanked by her smile as she sat down gratefully.

Master Naylor inquired what the custom was concerning the Bonde holding, and Alson, whose legs might be old but whose wits were well with her, said the custom was for half of it to go the widow for her life, the other half to the eldest son. “And that part is easy enough,” she added, “there being only young William,” patting her son’s hand where it rested on her shoulder as he stood beside her.

Young William was somewhere past thirty years old, having been born toward the end of the king-before-last’s reign, and though he was married and had three sons of his own, none of them were named William, and he was likely to stay ‘young William’ all his life, however old he came to be.

‘You say the same?“ Master Naylor asked him.

‘I do.“ His certainty was easy and unhesitant. There were few complications in young William. A fondness for too much ale on a Sunday afternoon or holiday, followed by a desire to sing more loudly than anyone so constantly far off key should ever do, was the worst that could be said about him. He was good to his wife, good to his children, good to his mother, and even if he seemed never to have a thought of his own about how things should be done, he followed other folks’ ways and how things had always been done without making trouble over it. There was no reason Simon knew that he shouldn’t have his share of his father’s holding, nor did the jurors, when Master Naylor asked them, ”What say you? Is this dividing evenly between widow and eldest son the custom as you know it for the Bonde holding?“

The jurors had been ready for the question. They bent toward each other in busy comment only briefly before Tod Denton, as the oldest, said for them all, “Aye, that’s the way it’s been since any of us remember. The holding divided ‘tween widow and eldest son, with her share going back to the son when she dies. God keep you in possession of it a long while yet, Alson,” he added.

‘Thank you, Tod, and the same to you with yours,“ she answered.

‘Then let it be put down as such,“ Master Naylor said, closing the matter.

And what pity it couldn’t all be that easy, Simon was thinking soon afterwards, when he and Master Naylor were still sitting on the oak tree’s bench but at ease, bowls of ale in hand and everyone gone away to other business, except for Simon’s sons, Adam and Colyn, sitting side by side on one of the oak’s upheaved roots, waiting fairly patiently for their father to have done and come away to his other business this afternoon which wasn’t to be weeding that furlong in Shaldewell Field after all; he had forgotten his promise to take them fishing after manor court until he had turned from thanking Father Edmund for his help and found the two of them waiting behind him, smiling, each with a bowl of ale in one hand and fishing pole in the other.

‘Mother said you might forget,“ Adam had said cheerfully, ”and said we should bring you these to help sweeten your remembering.“

So he and Master Naylor were having a drink and a friendly word before they went their ways, partly because it didn’t hurt to stay friendly with a man you had so often to work with but mostly because Simon simply liked him. Steward though he was and strong hand though he kept over all the nunnery properties, letting nothing go by that was St. Frideswide’s due, Master Naylor was a fair man who had never, to Simon’s knowledge, misused his place or power.

Simon tried to be the same himself, and it pleased him when they could talk together almost as friends, though “almost” was as near as Master Naylor ever came with anybody, Simon thought. Still, “almost” was better than “not at all,” and Simon made bold to ask, as he and Master Naylor rose to their feet, ready to part company, and Adam and Colyn leaped up to come take the empty bowls back to the alehouse, “How goes it at the nunnery then? All still well with your new prioress?”

‘All’s well, so far as I can tell, with both her and the nunnery,“ Master Naylor said. ”There’s nothing to complain of there.“

And even if there had been, he would likely never have said so, Simon thought, idle talk not being Master Naylor’s way.

But there was never harm in asking.

Chapter 2

The warm days of June were drifted into the warm days of July, with the early haying done, the shearing and its noise of sheep finished, and the weather still holding fair, giving hope for the late haying and, God willing, harvest. Though for now, Frevisse told herself, it should be enough that this year of our Lord’s grace 1440 had, thus far, gone so quietly in every way.

She was come out from the cloister into St. Frideswide nunnery’s walled garden to sit on the turf bench in the sun-speckled shade of the chestnut tree through this quiet while of the afternoon with one of the nunnery’s account rolls, intending to bring the kitchen accounts to date, but somehow very little of them was being done because now that she was here it seemed enough merely to sit, letting the day happen around her. The garden, with its high walls and single gate, its herb-edged flower beds and careful paths, the vine-shadowed arbor, the turfed seats along the wall, their grass grown with small daisies, was a place unto itself. All of summer seemed held here, touched by no more of the world beyond its walls than came in with the busyness of the bees and sometimes birdsong.

Across the garden Dame Perpetua sat on another of the turf benches, a small box with awl, thick needle, and heavy thread beside her and a breviary in need of mending on her lap, though she seemed working on it only slightly more than Frevisse was on her accounts. And if Dame Claire’s excuse for being here was because, as infirmarian and responsible for the nunnery’s health, she needed to see to the herbs here in the garden that she used in her medicines, she
looked
to be doing no more than drifting from one plant to another, plucking an occasional leaf to smell with what looked more like idle pleasure than purpose. At least Dame Juliana was truly at work, diligently weeding one of the corner beds where something undesirable had apparently been creeping in among the gillyflowers; but then, the garden here and in the cloister garth were her delights and a chance to work in them were all the pleasure she could ask of any day.

On the other hand, Sister Johane and Sister Cecely were making no pretense of doing anything. Their embroidery was left on a bench, not a stitch done, while they walked together in the arbor, their black gowns and black veils dappled with sunlight among the leaf-shadows, talking despite it was still the silent time of the day, when no one should talk except at need. They were the youngest of the nuns and cousins to each other and in St. Frideswide’s more by their families’ wishes than their own inclinations, by all that Frevisse had ever noted about them.

She caught herself on the thought and made a quick, small prayer of contrition. However true, it was a petty thought, and for a while afterwards she set herself to the kitchen accounts…

Die sabbati proximo ante festum Pentecostes: Item in piscibus
—for fish, one shilling ten pence.
Item in farina avenarum
—for ground meal, nine and a half pence.
Item in pipero
—for pepper, three pence.

And another pence to the carrier for having bought and brought it by particular request from Banbury, she remembered and penned in.

Item in piscibus etfabis
—for fish and beans… Why had she put them together in the account? she wondered… and found she was looking not at the page in front of her anymore but at the bees in the blue-flowered spires of the bellflowers across the path, their hum and bumble far more interesting than
Item in primis in pane
—for bread, one shilling twelve pence—that had been when the priory’s oven had needed repairing and they had had to buy from the village instead of baking their own—and told herself with in-kept laughter that after all it was only right she take an interest in the bees. The past years’ hard weather had made for a death of bees and thereby a dearth of honey and none knew better than she did, as the priory’s cellarer, that if the priory’s hives failed to thrive this summer, there would be need to buy honey come the autumn and there was presently small money in St. Frideswide’s for buying anything, even necessities, which honey was because certainly they could not afford sugar and without even honey it would be an unsweet winter.

The trouble had come with their last prioress who, one way and another, had made a waste of the priory’s properties and taken them deep into debts—as well as into other troubles. Domina Elisabeth, their present prioress, was slowly bringing matters around, St. Benedict keep her. She had brought peace and prayers back into the nunnery, there was good hope for the harvest, Master Naylor had bargained a better-than-expected price for the wool clip, and Domina Elisabeth’s plan to bring in a little ready money toward settling some of their debts by setting the nuns to copying books to sell had actually begun to pay. In fact, today was a little holiday because of their latest success at it; yesterday had seen the finish of a psalter ordered for an anchorite in Northampton by her family as a gift for when she took her final vows of enclosure on St. Mary Magdalen’s day. It was a plain work, no one in St. Frideswide’s having skill at illumination, but that was all the better for an anchorite in her plain life. What mattered was that the script had been well written, clear and even and an almost unvarying black—Dame Perpetua had an excellent receipt for ink—with only the faintest differences to show how many hands had worked at it.

St. Frideswide’s was a small priory, unable to spare anyone from their other duties to do only scribework, and among the ten nuns, only Domina Elisabeth, Dame Perpetua, Dame Juliana, Sister Johane, and Frevisse had proved skilled enough to do it at all and all of them had offices or other duties that took up much of their time aside from scribing.

Or else their scribing took them away from their offices and so Frevisse was behind in the kitchen accounts and should be paying better heed to them now while she had the chance, she thought, and tried again to take an interest in
Item in candelis
—for candles, two pence. As cellarer she was responsible for the nunnery’s worldly needs within the cloister—what they ate or wore or used; what they were in need of; whether what they had would do or if, St. Zita forbid, something had to be bought. Besides that, she was also kitchener, overseeing everything that was done, everything that was used, in the priory’s kitchens, both in the cloister and in the guesthalls. What time those duties did not take up, the account keeping for them did, it seemed, so that between all that and the scribework and the eight daily Offices of prayers in the church, time merely to sit had been slight.

Dame Claire and Dame Juliana were now talking together over one of the lavender-bordered middle beds, and Frevisse noted sadly that although Domina Elisabeth had made some attempt to restore the rule—lost under their last prioress—that silence should be kept except at certain times and places in St. Frideswide’s, no one held to it very much, even the older nuns, except herself sometimes, when she was able, and Sister Thomasine always, when she was allowed.

But then Sister Thomasine had never lost her quiet, even in the worst days under Domina Alys, and if she had no other duty to hold her, she was probably praying in the church even now.

The garden’s gate opening turned everyone to look, even Sister Johane and Sister Cecely pausing in their chatter to see who was come, despite the gate led only to the cloister and no one more unfamiliar than another nun or cloister servants was likely; and indeed it was only Sister Emma and everyone went back to what they had been doing, except Frevisse because Sister Emma, after a moment’s hesitation to look around the garden, came purposefully toward her, and regretfully Frevisse rolled closed the accounts. Today Sister Emma was taking turn to attend on Domina Elisabeth, and if she was seeking Frevisse, it was on Domina Elisabeth’s behalf rather than her own. Indeed she called while still bustling along the path, before she reached where Frevisse sat, “My lady says you’re to come. She needs you in her parlor right away, please you.”