The Squire’s Tale (19 page)

‘There’s Ned,“ Benedict said. ”With Robert,“ he added darkly.

For the first time Frevisse gave Ned Verney a long look. He was a match for Robert in age and build, with the look °f a man confident of himself and his place, standing in talk with Robert and Sir Lewis at the head of the stairs while the arbiters went to their horses. To Frevisse’s relief, as she and Benedict, now sullenly silent, followed Drew, Katherine, Dame Claire and Emelye around the edge of the yard, circling wide from the waiting horses and riders, the talk among the three men looked to be serious but not grim, and when they descended to meet Katherine and Drew just Caching the stairfoot there were smiles and pleasantries all round before Robert, looking past Katherine, saw first Emelye, which puzzled him, and then Benedict. Anger mixed with worry crossed Robert’s face in a fleeting frown but Frevisse had been delaying Benedict as best she might by lagging her steps, and there was time for courteous farewells between Robert and Drew and chance for Drew to thank Katherine for her company and her to thank him for his, with a smile that Drew more than willingly matched. By the time Benedict, sullen again, joined them, she was making courteous farewell to Sir Lewis and Master Verney in their turn.

Frevisse, with nothing more she could do, faded aside to join Dame Claire standing a little apart with Emelye, thinking how much at sorry odds Benedict was with everyone else’s mutual courtesies, returning only a curt bow of the head and no word at all to Sir Lewis’ good-day to him and giving Drew even less—only a glare to the other’s farewell. Both men ignored his discourtesy, turning away to their horses, but Master Verney, coming after them toward his own horse, gave Benedict a clenched-fist shove to the shoulder in passing that might have been from friendliness except it was hard enough to sway Benedict backward a step, almost off his balance. It took Benedict by surprise but he caught himself without saying anything and stood, unpleasant-faced, until the Allesleys and Master Verney and everyone else were riding out the gateway in the clatter of hoofs and jingle of harness and Katherine and Emelye, followed by Mistress Dionisia, started for the stairs. He moved then to follow them but Robert caught hold of him by an upper arm and said with low-voiced anger, “You wait.”

Benedict twisted slightly, trying to break loose without being plain about it, but could not and stood still, glaring at Robert glaring back at him. Above them on the stairs, Katherine and Emelye looked briefly back but Mistress Dionisia bustled them inside and Robert, hand still clenched around Benedict’s arm, demanded, “What do you think you gain by acting the cur the way you did just now?”

Benedict tried again to pull loose and go on past him. Robert, control of his anger visibly slipping, wrenched him back.

‘More to the point, what are you doing here at all after I told you not to be anywhere around Drew Allesley if you couldn’t put a fair face on?“

Around the now uncrowded yard there were still too many manor folk to see what was happening, and Gil took a step forward with the look of meaning to come between them, then stopped, thinking better of it. Dame Claire, with different instinct, made to draw back and leave, but Frevisse, caught like Gil between wanting to stop them and knowing she could not, held where she was. And now Benedict, letting go hold on his own anger, said fiercely, twisting loose of Robert’s hold, “I don’t have to do what you say. Without my mother, you’re not anything!” He made to turn away, adding, “I’m going for a ride. It stinks here.”

But Robert grabbed him by the arm again, shoved him backward hard against the hall’s stone wall, and said, close into his face, “Don’t
ever
try to bring your mother in between us. Nor are you going for any ride. Until everything is settled, you’re staying where I can see what you do. And if ever you’re as rude again as you were just now to Sir Lewis and his son, you’ll spend the while until this is finished in your room under guard. Understand me?” Not bothering with Benedict’s answer, whatever it would have been, he let go his arm and stepped back from him, adding coldly, For that matter, go to your room now and stay there, because all you’ll do if you go near your mother is trouble her, and if you do, God help you because I’ll have your hide for it.“

Benedict lurched forward from the wall, meaning to go for him, and Robert braced to meet him, but Gil said, low and urgently, “The younglings are watching.”

To both their credit, Robert and Benedict stopped and looked toward the nursery window across the yard, and Frevisse, looking, too, saw Robin chin-high to the windowsill waving his arms mightily above his head and Tacine in the nursery maid’s arms flapping both hands in a floppy wave and John who must have scrambled up on something to be leaning that far out but with his tunic’s back firmly gripped by Nurse. Robert raised a hand toward them, managed a wave, and so did Benedict, making Frevisse think the better of him. And when Robin called, “Come play with us, Father!” and Robert called back, “Not just yet, small bits,” Benedict said toward the cobblestones at his feet, “I’ll go,” added at a mutter, “And to my room afterwards,” then looked at Robert, defying him to refuse.

Robert looked back at him, the silence tight between them until whatever he saw in Benedict’s face satisfied him and he nodded curt permission. Benedict nodded curtly back, called to the children, “It’s to be me, instead,” and went, to cheers from the children who promptly disappeared from the window.

Robert, his smile dead the instant they were from sight, his stare flat at Benedict’s back, said to Gil, “See to it everyone, beginning with the stablemen, knows he’s not to leave the manor. By horse or otherwise.”

With a grim nod, Gil headed across the yard the other way from Benedict, toward the stables, with everyone else in sight suddenly on their way to somewhere else, too, likely on business they should have been about before now, except for Dame Claire and Frevisse, caught unsure of which was their best way to go, before Robert looked to Frevisse and said with deep-cut pain rather than any anger, “Blessed St. Mark. What am I going to do?”

Without thought, Frevisse answered, “Come to the chapel with Dame Claire and me.” And to Robert’s momentarily blank stare, added, “There’ll be no one else there.”

To that he nodded, and though she and Dame Claire had said nothing to each other about going to the chapel, Dame Claire said nothing now, either, simply came with them as they crossed the yard and into the chapel’s cool silence, where Robert went forward and sank onto his knees in front of the altar, bending his head over his tightly clasped hands. Behind him, Frevisse and Dame Claire exchanged brief looks, then went to kneel a little to one side and behind him, making no attempt at any Office, only silently praying as suited them each. Or Dame Claire did, Frevisse supposed. For herself, she was too much heeding the tense curve of Robert’s back and the rushed whisper of his praying. The words were too low for hearing but the pleading and pain in them was clear enough and never bettered, only the outpouring broke down at last into shorter and shorter rushes until it finally altogether ceased, leaving him in bowed stillness.

Even then, Frevisse waited until at last he drew a deep, ragged breath and straightened before she said quietly to him, “Robert.” And when he looked at her, blind-eyed with uneased pain, she said, “Come away and sit,” and rose to her feet.

He stood up heavily, as if years older than he was, and followed her aside to the chapel’s single long-backed bench, brought out for the manor’s lord and lady to sit when they came to service and otherwise kept out of the way against one wall. Because Frevisse sat, so did he, and when he was seated, said toward the floor, his clasped hands clamped between his knees, “My head is one huge ache. All day, ever since this morning, I’ve tried to watch every word out of my mouth, be careful of everything I said, and now I’ve gone and ruined it all at Benedict in front of lord knows how many people.”

More than that, he was not used to giving way to anger at all, toward Benedict or anyone else, Frevisse guessed, or he would not be in such after-pain, and she offered, “Not all the blame of it is yours.”

‘Enough of it is.“ He jerked his hands up and scrubbed at his face as if to drive something out of or something into his aching head, dropped them back into his lap, limp now, and said, ”This making peace with Sir Lewis was supposed to better things, save us from trouble to come. All it’s done so far is make everything go from bad to worse.
Everything“

‘Without you dealt with Sir Lewis, think what would come. Worse than all this, from what I’ve heard.“

Robert cast back his head, looked up and said at the roof beams, “Yes,” but not as if it comforted him any.

‘There would have been people hurt who had no part in the rights and wrongs of the Allesley matter at all,“ Frevisse persisted.

‘Yes,“ Robert granted, still at the roof beams, and added with a forced calm that betrayed he was not calm at all, ”I just wish that that certainty was enough to stop what’s hurting now.“

But he knew as surely as Frevisse did that present pain could only be lived through to its end, with only the hope that better would come afterward; and to give him something of that better for comfort, she said, “If nothing else, Katherine and Master Drew were pleased and pleasant with each other’s company the while they were together this afternoon. That at least may go to the good.”

Finally, for the first time since they had sat down together, Robert brought his gaze down and around to stare at her with what looked too much like naked, heart-deep despair for a blank half-moment before saying, “Yes. I thought as much. Watching them cross the yard just now.” He stood abruptly up. “I’ll leave you to your prayers, my lady. By your leave.”

But he did not wait to have it, simply left. And left Frevisse afraid, without being certain of what.

Chapter 12

There was no more sight of Benedict that day or evening, and Lady Blaunche kept to her room the while, with Dame Claire in attendance after returning from the chapel, and Master Geoffrey, Mistress Avys and Emelye for company. Even the children she saw only briefly and then left them to Robert who, between leaving the chapel and when Frevisse saw him next, at supper served simply in the solar, had rid himself of—or, more likely, buried—his anger and pain. He was simply Robert again and openly glad of his children’s company in the parlor for the evening, as ready for play as they were.

Katherine, changed into an everyday dress and her hair braided back, would have joined them, but Mistress Dionisia declared she was too pale, had had too tiring a day, should sit quietly, and looked somewhat surprised when Katherine agreed with her and withdrew to a corner, to sit on piled cushions and read.

Frevisse tried to read, too, Psalter in hand, but found it difficult to hold to the words while Robert and the children played a loud game requiring much climbing on, over and under the settle and on, over and under Robert as well, bringing them all to hot, red faces and laughter until Master Geoffrey brought word from Lady Blaunche they had to stop, she couldn’t bear the noise. Silence fell with a rock’s grace, along with the children’s faces, but when Master Geoffrey was gone back into the bedchamber, Robert leaned toward them and said in a mock whisper, “Ah, well, small bits, we can always go clean the nursery.”

Against expectation, the children brightened back into laughter, immediately ready to go, and Katherine set her book aside and started to rise, but Robert said, “No. Stay. Dame Frevisse, will you help me see them to their room?”

‘Assuredly,“ she said, and though she found it was no easy matter to manage eager children down the steep curve of the stairs, even with Robert carrying Tacine, they made it safely enough and she was spared her next fear—that she would be expected to help with them in the nursery—by Robert bidding them tell her good night in her bedchamber and going on with them himself into the nursery where Nurse and Anabilla were presumably waiting to even the odds.

On her own part, Frevisse stayed where she was, thinking she would prefer the bedchamber’s quiet to going back to the parlor; but the quiet was a long while coming because whatever “clean the nursery” meant, it entailed much shouting, laughter and thumping that must have had very little to do with settling down to sleep. When quiet finally did come, she thought Robert would be back but instead heard him leave by the stairs to the yard, not much before Dame Claire joined her.

Together, talking about nothing else, they went to say Compline in the chapel and the rest of the evening went much like the evening before and the next morning began the same as yesterday’s, though it was the nursery maid Anabilla who was just out of bed and readying for the day when Frevisse and Dame Claire returned after saying Prime in the gray light of the overcast almost-dawn. She was a shy, freckled girl who ducked her head and whispered when spoken to, murmured them good day, and slipped quickly away to the nursery where sounds of merriment said the children were up, as early a-stir as the rest of the manor, it seemed, because a servant shortly came to the other door with Frevisse and Dame Claire’s breakfast.

Despite how Lenten-spare it was—yesterday’s bread and some warmed, lightly spiced wine—it was welcome. Fasting at its best brought not greed for more food but grateful pleasure in what there was, and they made no haste with it, were soaking the last of their crusts in the wine when Emelye scratched at the tower door, entered at Dame Claire’s bidding, made quick, low curtsy to them, and said, “Please you, my ladies, where’s Nurse?”

‘With the children,“ Dame Claire said with a nod toward the nursery. Emelye curtsied her thanks and hurried out by the room’s other door, only to hurry back soon, curtsy to them again, and say to Dame Claire. ”Can I tell Lady Blaunche you’ll be there soon? She’s asking for you.“