The Squire’s Tale (13 page)

He sounded false even to himself, but as it was he feigned better than Benedict who looked toward him with a start and made to rise, then when Robert gestured him to stay, looked nervously toward his mother, uncertain what to do until she nodded tersely at him to keep where he was. Confused into surliness, Benedict subsided, scowling, and Robert would have settled for greeting Dame Frevisse and meeting the other nun but Blaunche said at him, “You couldn’t have come sooner?”

His in-held anger stirred to rise into the open at that but he kept it down, saying evenly, “Ned has only just left with the arbiters. No, I couldn’t have come sooner.” And then, to have it over with, “There’s word that the Allesleys are at the grange.”

‘So you’ll be going there tomorrow, I suppose.“

‘They’re coming here,“ Robert answered stiffly. ”It was agreed on after you left.“

Blaunche stabbed her needle into the piece of linen she was embroidering and snapped, “So you’re giving them the roof over our heads, too. Next it will be the clothes off our backs.”

On either side of her Master Geoffrey and the nun were suddenly very still, understanding as surely as Robert did that she was set to quarrel. And once Blaunche was set to quarrel there was little chance of stopping her…

From across the room Dame Frevisse said mildly, as if noticing nothing amiss, “Well, I certainly hope the weather holds well if there’s to be all that to-and-froing these next few days.”

Robert turned toward her, momentarily blank of any answer to such a bland nothing comment because he had never found Dame Frevisse either bland or given to nothings. It was Katherine who said, bright-voiced, “Oh, I think it’s going to be dry. We’ve had our rain for a while, surely.”

‘Red sky at morning, shepherds take warning,“ Mistress Dionisia put in. ”But this morning was all gray, wasn’t it? Overcast. No red at all.“

‘But clear skies at night, shepherds delight,“ Dame Frevisse said with a nod at the sky above the orchard.

Then, for a mercy, because Robert did not know how long they would be able to go on heading off Blaunche’s quarreling, there was a knock at the stairway door and Nurse came in with the children. She was holding John by the hand to help his short legs up the steep stairs and carrying Tacine on her hip but Robin at five was more than proud to be on his own and squeezed past her skirts to be almost first into the room. He must have been warned there would be strangers because sight of the nuns did not pause him as he made a quick, bright-eyed survey of everyone there, grinned at his father, then trotted first to his mother, to make her the very fine bow he had been practicing while she was gone. Blaunche, her sewing already put aside, clapped her hands in delight and drew him to her with admiring exclaims.

‘Father taught me,“ Robin said, wriggling up onto the seat beside her, between her and Master Geoffrey to whom he gave a quick smile, then leaned forward to grin at the nun on her other side.

‘And very well he taught you,“ Blaunche said, her arm around him, squeezing him to her, then letting him go as she added, ”This is Dame Claire. You should bow to her, too.“

Robin willingly slipped off the seat and made his bow again. Dame Claire, with dignity to match his own, bowed her head to him.

‘And there’s Dame Frevisse,“ Blaunche said. ”You should bow to her, too.“

Happy to show off his skill, Robin headed obediently away and John, held back by Nurse’s hand until then, shot forward to scramble up beside his mother and wrap his arms around her neck. Laughing, trying to keep her wimple and veil on with one hand, Blaunche managed with the other to swing him around and set him firmly on her lap. She was months away from being too great with child to have a lap and that was good because while Robin at five years old had begun to lengthen to long arms and legs, John at three and a half was still in the soft, round puppy stage and ever ready for the cuddle Blaunche was ever ready to give him. Happy to have her back, he set to telling her busily about everything that had happened to him, and Robert turned to Tacine. Still on Nurse’s hip, one foot swinging in idle beat against Nurse’s skirts and a knuckle in her mouth because she was not allowed to suck her thumb, she was regarding the proceedings solemnly until Robert held out his arms to her. Then she regarded him with equal solemnity before, all in an instant, mischief lighted her face and she flung herself out of Nurse’s hold and toward him. Both Robert and Nurse were ready for that and with practiced skill Nurse loosed her and Robert caught her, swung her up to make her burst into delighted laughter, and brought her down to settle her on his own hip. In their familiar game, he poked a quick finger into her ribs and she answered by puffing at his chin. He ducked from that as from a blow and she laughed again, burrowed her head into the curve of his shoulder, and then wriggled mightily to be set down. She rarely deigned to talk yet, probably because she could make her wishes known without it, and when Robert obliged her now by setting her down, she took him firmly by the hand and led him away to where their parlor toys were kept.

In a while, Blaunche sent John to join Tacine and his father and called Robin back to her from his earnest talk to Katherine and Dame Frevisse about something that had them both nodding agreement to him. Tacine took the chance to desert Robert for Katherine, leaving him to John’s demands and then with a fine sense of how much time there was until supper took her mother away, left Katherine to go to Blaunche, pressing against her skirts until she was noticed and lifted up onto her mother’s lap and held there while Blaunche went on questioning Robin about everything he had done while she was gone.

It bothered Robert that Blaunche so obviously preferred her sons to her daughter, but if it bothered Tacine, it did not stop her from taking a share of her mother’s attention when she wanted it and being happy with her father’s and anyone else’s—usually Benedict’s—the rest of the time. Benedict returned the pleasure by, most evenings, joining in readily to play with his halflings, but tonight he stayed where he was, turned as much away from Robert as might be and seeming to heed no one but Emelye who in return was gladly heeding only him.

With the distraction of the children and help from Dame Frevisse, Mistress Dionisia, and sometimes Katherine, talk kept away from places it should not go until, to Robert’s relief, they were called to supper. The children would stay playing in the parlor, letting them be somewhere other than their nursery for a while longer, be there when their parents came back from supper to bid them good night, and then be herded away to their beds. It was the usual way of things but as Nurse was drawing Tacine and Robin away from Blaunche and Robert was disentangling himself from John’s clutch around his neck, Katherine said, “I’m more tired than hungry, I think. I’ll stay with the children rather than come down to supper, please.”

‘If you like,“ Blaunche said without a look at her, and all Robert could be was cravenly relieved not to have to deal with being near her through supper. He made it even better by seeing to it that Dame Frevisse was seated beside him at the high table, and though there was no help for Blaunche being seated on his other side, he left her to make what talk she would with Dame Claire and Benedict beyond her while he gave his attention to Dame Frevisse.

They kept to merely general things—how the roads had been, the weather, the children—while the first remove was served to them, until the servants had drawn off. He had shifted some of the fish tart, thick with fruit and dark with spices, from the platter between them to her trencher of thick-cut bread and was serving himself when Dame Frevisse asked, “This arbitration I keep hearing of. I know something of the why of it but how does it happen these Allesleys are coming here rather than you to them or somewhere in between?”

A servant came to refill their goblets, pausing their talk, but when he was gone Robert answered, “Here was near to midway for all the arbiters. It was for their convenience more than anything.” With a sideways look toward Blaunche and a bitterness he should have kept buried, he added, “Though elsewhere could well have been better.” And then, to be away from it, he said, “Has anyone told you we have a chapel here, rather than needing to go into the village to the church? It’s across the yard, near to the gateway. I’ll have Master Geoffrey show it to you tomorrow. You’re more than welcome to use it while you’re here.”

‘Thank you. That would be good,“ she said with a smile whose warmth changed her sometimes too-austere face to a different, younger woman’s.

How old was she? Robert wondered for the first time. Wimples and veils and the loose-fitted habits concealed, as they were supposed to, a nun’s womanhood and made difficult any close guess at her age in the years between very young and old. As he thought that, he had a sudden vision of Katherine as nun, garbed so and shut away into a nunnery for all her days, lost to him just as his first love had been, and his heart seemed to contract as if he had taken a blow there. Afraid he was showing the pain, he grabbed his goblet and feigned a long drink of the ale until he was sure of himself. What Dame Frevisse saw or guessed he did not know, only that she took their talk away into general matters again—more questions about the children, what a fine manor Brinskep looked to be, how large a household did he have—that he doubted she cared about but were at least safe.

Servants brought the second remove—a fish pottage and baked apple tart from last year’s dried apples—all there would be for tonight, it being Lent for one thing but also because there would be an overly fine dinner tomorrow midday when the arbitrators and the Allesleys would be here, so that overworking the cook and kitchen servants tonight would have been ill sense. But that also meant that, with supper finished, there was nothing for it but to go back up to the parlor and see the evening through. The children took up only a while of it, but when Nurse was gathering them up to go, both Dame Claire and Dame Frevisse claimed readiness for sleep, too, and left with them, Dame Claire advising Blaunche that bed for her as well would be a good thing. Mistress Dionisia put in that Katherine looked tired, too, and Benedict and Master Geoffrey accepted all that for sign to make their good nights and betake themselves away to their own rooms across the yard. Soon enough—or too soon—with the parlor left to Katherine, Emelye and Mistress Dionisia’s bed-going, Robert had nowhere else to be but in his own bedchamber. With Blaunche.

Alone together for the little while it would take Gil and Mistress Avys to fetch the wafers and light ale that would be kept to hand should Blaunche or Robert hunger or thirst in the night, there was no reason not to say something to her at last about what she had intended between Benedict and Katherine, but Robert found that he did not want to, that he was tired and past his anger. There had been too much time for it to fade, too much time for him to realize that neither his anger nor his fear were any use now. Whatever Blaunche had purposed, Katherine was safe for the present. And besides that—and almost despite himself—he could not help seeing how tired Blaunche was as she sat on the bed edge, combing out her hair. Loosed for the night from pins and wimple and veil, swung forward over one of her shoulders, its soft, straight fairness fell nearly to her waist. In the low lamplight the gray that was beginning to weave through it was merely fairer than the rest, silver-shining, and years, too, were shadowed from her face; she might have been no older than he was, the age she had been when they married, and wearing her loose bedgown and because she always carried her babies small, hardly showing she was childing until well along, there was no sign she was bearing except, because Robert knew her, her face’s thinness.

Instead of flourishing outward as other women did when bearing, Blaunche seemed instead to fade inward, as if she nourished her babies to life by feeding them on her own. No one else seemed troubled by that change in her—the Women merely made certain she ate strengthening foods— but Robert had always been frightened by it, wondering what it was like to give over your self so thoroughly to Mother’s need, even this one that brought another life into being. And tonight he was more troubled to see, watching her from across their bedchamber, that she was combing her hair with such a slow weariness that the comb might almost have been too heavy for her to lift. If things had been different between them, he would have gone to her, taken the comb and combed her hair himself, but as things were, he was not even sure she would accept his help and stayed standing where he was, not wanting the moment when they would have to lie tensely in their bed together, silently unfriendly.

That undesire was maybe what Blaunche saw on his face that moment when she looked up at him, because her own face, that had been softened, harshened and, tossing the comb down on the chest beside the bed, she demanded, “So. Are you going to draw back from this Allesley matter while there’s time or not?”

That was to be the way of it, then: attack him on the Allesleys before he could attack her on Benedict, Robert thought wearily. He should have been ready for it but he was not, taken up with too much else, and his own weariness came down on him so heavily that instead of answer he let his head fall back, looking up at the painted ceiling beams among the lamplight’s shadows instead of at her, with no answer to hand nor any desire for one, only for quiet.

But, “You’re going through with this, aren’t you?” Blaunche demanded at his silence. “Robert, look at me!”

He looked. She had shoved her hair back over her shoulders, out of her way, was staring at him with the harsh glint of anger in her eyes, and because there was no use in trying to go sideways from it, Robert said with answering harshness, “Yes, I’m going through with it.”