The Squire’s Tale (24 page)

No one lived with their neck that twisted, their head bent that way.

With a moan Robert went down on his knees, belt and dagger dropped, and reached out toward him but stopped because there was so obviously no use. Instead, his hands fell helplessly back into his lap and, his head moving from side to side, trying to refuse belief, he said, low and in pain, “No. Blessed Jesus, no. Not this.”

Frevisse looked around for someone who would go to him, take him away from here and begin to give the needed orders, but everyone she could see seemed to be servants or Sir Lewis’ men for all she could tell of them. That was to be expected; they were who would have been sleeping in the hall, first to hear the outcry, nearest to come. Some were already going back inside to spread word but others were coming out, both from the hall and from around the yard, and she saw first Sir Lewis and Drew at the hall door and then, to her relief, Master Verney crossing the yard, somewhat more dressed than most, with doublet unfastened but strapping on belt and dagger as he came, shoving in among the men until his first sight of Benedict’s body brought him to a halt, pain sharp in his face. But he equally saw Benedict was past any help but prayers and went to take Robert by the shoulders, drawing him to his feet and a few steps backward, saying, “Come away. You don’t need to see more here. I’ll do what needs doing.”

Dumbly, Robert shook his head, not letting himself be drawn farther off, not looking away from Benedict’s body.

‘Come away,“ Master Verney insisted and looked around, asking, ”Has anyone gone for the priest?“

From the crowd’s back someone answered, “No need for haste there. That’s a dead ‘un.”

Master Verney cast a sharp look toward the voice. “You can take your mouth somewhere else.” He picked a man among the others. “Raulyn. See to Benedict being taken to his room…”

From where she stood close aside from Robert, Frevisse said quietly, “The body should be looked at before it’s moved.”

Without pause Master Verney included her in things with which he needed to deal. “Dame Frevisse, this is no place for you. Lady Blaunche will need…”

Robert straightened out of his friend’s hold, drew a ragged breath, said, “Do as she says, Ned. Look to see if there are any wounds on him.”

‘His neck is broken…“ Master Verney started.

‘And we want to be sure that’s all that happened to him,“ said Frevisse.

Master Verney looked to her, back to Robert, opened his mouth, shut it, rethought whatever else he had been going to say and said instead, “Yes. You’re right,” and, forestalling Robert, added, “No, not you. I’ll do it.”

Clearly not liking what he did any more than Frevisse would have if she had had to do it, he knelt and turned Benedict’s body over onto its back, careful of head and arm to keep them from flopping, as if that somehow mitigated the ruin there was of what had been a life.

But there was no more wound or blood or torn clothing to the front than on the back. Nor was there any way to tell how long he might have been lying there by how soaking wet his clothing was all around. With the night’s rains and the cobbles runneling water, he could have been lying there a half-hour or eight.

‘He’s only a little stiffened,“ Master Verney said, the words thick with the effort to speak evenly. ”He’s been dead a few hours maybe.“

Or he might have been unstiffening, for all they could presently tell, Frevisse did not say. There was such variance in how long it took a body to stiffen and unstiffen, depending on so many things difficult to gauge, that it was only sometimes a useful thing.

‘He fell,“ someone among the men said. ”Fell and broke his neck in the dark and rain. What else?“

‘How long was he in the hall last night after you and he left the solar?“ Frevisse asked Master Verney.

‘We only passed through. I saw him to his room, talked him a little further down, told him he was best to stay there, and went back to the solar.“

‘Did he come back to the hall later?“ she asked around at the gathered men. There was a general shaking of heads that he had not. ”Or did anyone see him anywhere else he could have been coming from and out the hall door here?“ she persisted.

Men looked around at one another but no one answered, except someone offered, “He could have been seen by someone not here yet.”

‘Or he might have fallen going up the stairs,“ another voice put in.

Frevisse did not bother with trying to find who was saying what, just asked of all in general, “You mean he tripped while going up the stairs, managed to fall all the way down, and landed facing away from them, breaking his neck on the way?”

Hesitancy spread out around her, someone finally saying. uncertainly, “That’s not likely, is it?”

She did not answer that. She was too aware that Master Verney was staring up at her from where he still knelt beside Benedict’s body, that Robert had not looked away from her since she had asked her first question, and that she had more to ask. But before she could, Lady Blaunche demanded shrilly from the stairs’ head, “What’s happened?”

When whatever half-word of something wrong reached her, she must have been dressing to go to Mass because although her hair was still unbound, she was in a bright azure gown rather than her bedrobe; she had to gather her skirts up in both hands as she started down the stairs, demanding, “Who is it?”

If she noted Sir Lewis and Drew were there, almost at the stairfoot, turned to look up at her like everyone else— if she even knew what they looked like to know them at all—she gave them no heed as they stepped back out of her way along with the men at the stairfoot, the ones who had been blocking her from view of Benedict’s body.

By now there was dawnlight enough she knew immediately what she was seeing and it brought her to a sharp halt on the last step, frozen, disbelieving, until all at the same moment Robert began to move toward her and she began to scream and, screaming, let go her skirts and hurled herself forward. Only Sir Lewis’ quick grasp of her arm saved her from falling headlong, gave her balance long enough to fling off his hold and stumble off the last step and time for Robert to be in her way, between her and Benedict’s body.

She would have shoved blindly past him but he took hold of her by both arms and said at her past her screaming, “Blaunche, no! You don’t want to see!”

She stopped both her screaming and trying to push past him, stood white and rigid in his hold staring at him, just staring, as if she neither knew nor wanted to know who he was, only wanted him out of her way; and Robert abruptly let her go and stepped aside, leaving her to go forward the few paces more and sink, slowly now, onto her knees beside Benedict’s body. There was no sound, from her or anyone, save for the whisper of her skirts as they spread out around her as she knelt and in that silence she reached out first to touch her son’s hand lying outstretched on the cobbles near her, as if she would not believe he could be anything other than asleep. Then, slowly, she touched his cheek, first with only her fingertips, then her whole hand cupped against it, her warm flesh to his cold. And then, with a moan beginning somewhere deep inside her, she bent and gathered him into her arms as much as she could, holding him to her breast, his head cradled against her neck, her face pressed to his fair, wet hair as she began to rock him… rock him… moan… and rock him…

Chapter 15

Mistress Avys came then in a rush down the stairs with Katherine and Mistress Dionisia behind her, closing in around Lady Blaunche in a mingling of tears and outcry as they realized what they were seeing. Dame Claire came next, from the other way, the men parting from in front of her at her crisp words until she was at Robert’s side, could see, too, and looked from Benedict’s body, still in his mother’s arms, to Frevisse who, feeling as white and rigid as Robert looked, moved her head stiffly from side to side, telling her there was no more hope than there looked to be.

But Lady Blaunche at sight of Dame Claire cried out in wordless plea and Dame Claire went forward, knelt, laid hand on Benedict’s chest and touched the side of his throat as if looking for heartbeat that too plainly would never be there again, before she said gently to Lady Blaunche, “He’s gone, my lady. Best let them take him now.”

Clutching Benedict’s body closer, Lady Blaunche shrank back from her, looked around desperately for help there could not be and, not finding it, turned her face, her eyes shut, to the sky and the rain-washed dawn and cried out with a high-wrought despair, a cry of the death of all the world’s hope, of heart breaking and nothing left but pain and pain and more pain after that.

Someone among the onlookers groaned, “Oh, God,” and it might have been Robert, but he was the only one who dared finally move toward her, a single step, enough that Lady Blaunche’s eyes flew open and fixed on him as if on an enemy, as she screamed at him, “Stay back from us! He’s none of yours! Stay back!” Screamed around her at everyone, “All of you! Stay back! You can’t have him!”

Mistress Avys, weeping openly, laid a hand on her arm, trying, “My lady…”

Lady Blaunche twisted away from her touch, making to shield Benedict’s body from her as well as from everyone else, crying, “He’s mine! Leave him alone! Leave him alone!” before she collapsed into weeping and bent over him, her hair sliding forward to make a curtain hiding both his face and hers.

Master Verney and Sir Lewis began motioning and quietly ordering the lookers-on to leave and mostly they went willingly, carrying the drift of manor servants come out from kitchen and stable away with them. It was through the outspread of them drawing off that Master Geoffrey came half-running, his clerk’s gown unbelted and lifted out of his way to show bare legs and feet as if he had thrown it on after a hasty rousing from bed. Frevisse saw him catch a man’s arm and ask something, then freeze in a long look toward the clot of them still at the stairfoot before gathering himself and coming on with less haste but more purpose, ready by the time he reached Lady Blaunche to kneel down on one knee in front of her and say gently to the top of her head, “My lady, you have to let him go. He died unshriven…”

Meaning Benedict’s soul had gone out of him unprotected from all the dangers that came after death.

Robert made a protesting move but Frevisse put out a hand to hold him quiet. Whatever was done now would have to come from somewhere other than him as Lady Blaunche jerked upright at Master Geoffrey’s words and turned wild eyes on him while he went on steadily, meeting her gaze, “… and he should be in the chapel. We can best make prayers over him there, my lady. He’ll be safest there.”

He left off then, giving her time to take it in, waiting while first her sobbing lessened, then stopped, and finally, straightening a little, she looked up through her hair to ask, faint-voiced, “You’ll go with him?”

‘I’ll go with him,“ Master Geoffrey assured her. ”I’ll take him there and see everything done that needs to be and then you can come to him.“ He went so far as to lay a hand over one of hers and say, gently still, ”Please, my lady.“

Lady Blaunche straightened a little more, her hold on Benedict a little lessening. “I want…” she began.

‘You
need
to lie down,“ Master Geoffrey said. ”For a little while. Only a little while. For the sake of your other child.“ He let his eyes briefly drop toward her middle. ”My lady, please. For your other children, too,“ he added, and Frevisse and Robert both, belatedly, looked up toward the still-shuttered nursery window where, blessedly, Nurse must be keeping firm hand, St. Nicholas be thanked.

‘My lady, please,“ Master Geoffrey repeated, and now Dame Claire said gently in echo, ”For only a little while. For your baby’s sake.“

Lady Blaunche looked up at her half-blindly for a moment before saying uncertainly, “Yes.” And when Master Geoffrey made to take Benedict’s body from her, she let him, then let Mistress Dionisia and Dame Claire help her to her feet, one holding to either elbow and Dame Claire’s arm around her waist to steady her as Master Geoffrey carefully laid Benedict’s body down and Master Verney came forward with his doublet off and folded into a pillow to put between Benedict’s head and the cobbles, as if somehow that would better things.

Maybe it did. At least Lady Blaunche nodded weakly in thanks while she stared down at Benedict’s face a moment more before, crying quietly now, she at last let Dame Claire and Mistress Dionisia turn her away toward the stairs. She stumbled a little over her skirts and Mistress Avys made herself useful by crowding beside Mistress Dionisia to lift them aside for her so that it was all three women helped her up the steps, leaving only Katherine who instead of following came a few steps forward and knelt beside Benedict’s body, silently there a long moment with bent head and prayer-clasped hands before, with head still bowed, she rose and went after the other women.

Only Frevisse did not go but stayed with Robert and Master Verney, Master Geoffrey, Gil and two other household men who, when Lady Blaunche was gone inside, came forward at Master Verney’s nod and, with Gil, took up Benedict’s body. As they moved off, slow with their burden, Master Geoffrey said, “I’ll go with them, to see to things.”

Robert, standing staring at where Benedict had lain, made no answer and Frevisse had no authority for any, but Master Verney, without looking away from Robert, nodded that Master Geoffrey should; and when the clerk followed the three men and Benedict’s body away toward the chapel, there was silence then in the emptied yard except for somewhere beyond the walls, in the garden probably, a bird was singing gladness to the morning, until finally Robert drew a deep, aching breath, raised his gaze to Master Verney, and asked, “Father Laurence?”