The Squire’s Tale (3 page)

Reminded he was there for more than talk, Gil broke off, turned, and bowed to the room in general though mostly to Robert. When Robert after his marriage to Blaunche had found himself in need of his own manservant to see to him, he had taken Gil out of a place in Sir Walter’s household even lowlier than his own had been. More used to serving than being served, Robert had been awkward over the change for longer than Gil had been but Gil had finally trained him to where Robert knew he would be fairly lost without Gil’s cheerful overseeing of his needs and wants, even ones he did not know he had until Gil had seen to them. Now, to Robert’s questioning look at the covered goblet he carried, Gil said, “Something to help you sleep, sir.”

And added before Robert could protest he did not want it, “My lady Katherine brewed it, sir.”

Headed off from refusing the drink, Robert looked to Katherine come to stand beside Gil, smiling at him as if she knew what he had not said as she held up a fist-sized, towel-wrapped bundle and said, “A poultice.”

There had been no reason to turn down the offer of her wardship when Sir Walter had made it and perfectly good ones for taking it, nor had the little scrap of a girl who had been delivered to them one early summer day given any trouble to make either Blaunche or him regret having the raising of her. Reasonably biddable, she had learned what she was supposed to learn and moreover been glad of the learning, unlike Emelye, taken on because her mother and Blaunche were great good friends and who learned anything only perforce and forgot most of it soon afterwards. Katherine both learned and remembered and for extra measure was patient with Blaunche’s headaches, kind with the children, liked by the household, and good company at almost any time.

But when Robert had not been noticing, she had grown past being a little girl into the beginnings of womanhood, and when he had noticed, seeing her dancing in the hall one evening at Christmastide last past, with ribbons in her hair and bells tied to her sleeves, laughing up at Benedict, he must have made a sound or movement because beside him Blaunche, sitting the dancing out because she was queasy in her first month of another childing, had asked him what was the matter.

Still a little blank with surprise, he had answered, “Katherine. She’s grown.”

Blaunche had laughed at him. “Of course she’s grown. That’s why I’ve been saying these six months past that it’s time we looked out a husband for her.”

In all fairness, she had indeed been saying that but Robert had not been listening, certain it was surely too soon to be thinking of Katherine’s marriage. Only that Christmas evening, seeing her laughing, dancing, for once forgetful of duties, with Benedict’s admiring gaze on her, had he realized she was no longer a little girl but a young woman, a lovely young woman, and since then had spent bitter time trying to forget she was because he had no business thinking and feeling what he thought and felt when he remembered it.

But now she had drawn a stool close to his chair, was sitting beside him, the poultice in her lap, reaching for his hand, and he asked, “Where’s your Mistress Dionisia gone to?” Katherine’s own waiting-woman who, like Emelye, had been in the orchard with Katherine at the attempt to seize her but, unlike Emelye for whom screaming had sufficed, had joined with Katherine in making trouble enough to keep Will Hayton from laying hands on her until Robert reached them. Since then she had followed close on Katherine wherever she went, as if another attempt inside the manor’s very walls was likely, and Katherine smiled as she began deftly to unwrap the bindings holding the splints to Robert’s fingers. “She’s gone to make certain Master Skipton has seen to all the doors being locked.”

‘Oh-oh,“ Robert said because Brinskep’s long-time, much-trusted steward would take ill that doubting of his duty.

‘Oh-oh, indeed,“ Katherine agreed. ”She’s already reminded him thrice this evening to be sure it was done.“ But Katherine was more concerned with Robert’s bared hand lifting it to have close look at its bruised swelling.

Robert, preferring not to have close look, looked at the top of her head instead. Because she was unmarried, her braided hair, falling to below her waist, was uncovered, the lamplight finding chestnut sheens in its darkness, and from when she had been in his arms this afternoon he knew it smelled of camomile and was grateful now to be distracted from his thoughts as she said, “Pray, pardon me for being quick with this, but I want to put the poultice on while it’s still warm. It’s mostly artemisia to lessen the swelling and bruisewort against the bruising.”

‘And when, pray tell, did you learn about poultices?“ Robert asked, deliberately teasing her the way he had since she was small and came to tell him of any newly learned skill.

‘Mistress Avys says every woman should know herbs and how best to use them.“ Katherine paused, to look up at him from under her lashes as she added sweetly, ”On chance there’s ever need to poison someone.“

‘Mistress Avys never said anything of the kind,“ Robert returned with pretended sternness.

‘No,“ Katherine granted, returning to her task. ”Not about the poisoning. Still, it’s a thought.“

Robert tried to bend his hurt fingers and winced with the pain.

Katherine clicked her tongue at him and Ned said unsympathetically, “What did you think it would do, Robert?”

‘I’d like a little more pity here, please,“ Robert complained.

Gil, waiting patiently the while, took the cover off the goblet and held it out. “Here. This’ll be better than pity. The wine’s strong enough, you hardly taste the herbs or whatever she’s put in.”

‘And how would you know that?“ asked Robert.

‘I had a sip to be sure it was safe. Better safe than sorry, sir.“

‘Better drunk than dry,“ Ned murmured into his own drink.

Gil, who was never drunk except at holidays and Ned and everyone else knew it, ignored him with great dignity.

Robert, holding in a smile, took the goblet and drank a little. The poultice—a greenish-gray mess on a strip of waxed cloth—was laid open on Katherine’s lap now, and tenderly, the way he had seen her tend to one of the children when they had a scrape or were ill, she lifted his hurt hand, saying, “I’m wrapping your whole hand for the night and that will keep it rigid enough. The splint can go on again in the morning.”

As she set his hand carefully into the herbs, he made a small grunt of pain but when she looked up at him, concerned, he gave a slight shake of his head. “The warmth surprised me, that’s all.”

She looked into his face as if doubting him but then bent to her work again and was winding the last binding strip around the poultice as across the room Master Geoffrey neared the end of the story, “He wedded that lady as his wife, With joy and mirth they led their life twenty year and three, / And between them children had fifteen…”

Blaunche broke out in her loud, raw laughter again. “Mirth for someone!” she said. “But I doubt the lady was laughing much after the first five or so!”

Benedict, Mistress Avys and Emelye laughed with her. Katherine, with no sign of listening, tied the binding in place while Master Geoffrey finished with, “Here ends the tale of the Earl of Toulous,” and closed the book.

‘Well done, Master Geoffrey,“ Blaunche said. ”Thank you.“

She held out her hand to him and the clerk rose to his feet to take it, bow over it and kiss it with the courtly grace she particularly enjoyed and Robert had never been able to manage. Vaguely, Robert wished he could raise even a small stir of jealousy but could not. Blaunche encouraged men to notice her but it was only a game she played. Nothing more than smiling and the kissing of her hands ever came of it, and Robert wished that what he felt for Katherine was as simple, instead of simply sin.

But with the story’s end the evening was ended, too, and Katherine quickly tidied bandages and splints away until tomorrow while Ned who would sleep in the solar tonight instead of riding home in the dark and Benedict and Master Geoffrey who had their own rooms across the yard made their good nights, leaving as Mistress Dionisia came in and went with Gil into the bedchamber off the parlor to bring out from under Robert and Blaunche’s bed the mattresses she and Katherine and Emelye would sleep on in the parlor, while they fetched their bedding from a chest along one wall.

Robert, tired into his bones and his hand aching from being handled, only waited until they were out of the bedchamber before withdrawing with only the briefest of good nights into there himself, where Mistress Avys was now pulling out from under the great bed the truckle beds she and Gil would sleep on, to be at hand if their lord or lady needed anything in the night. With Gil to help him, he readied for bed, too tired to make much of it and hoping that somehow Blaunche, too, would be too tired for even talk tonight.

She was not. Undressed, her face, hands and feet washed and rubbed with lotion, her hair unpinned and combed out by Mistress Avys, she came finally to bed ready to say what she had held back from saying all afternoon and evening. Robert, lying with his hand as comfortable as might be on a pillow between them and halfway to sleep on the quieting tide of the medicined drink, tried to feign deeper sleep than he was in as Gil drew the curtains closed around the bed but that was an outworn ploy or else Blaunche simply did not care because, not even bothering with lying down, she leaned over him and whispered, not softly enough to keep anyone beyond the bed-curtains from hearing, “It’s going to go on happening, Robert. You know it is. Today you were hurt because of it. Who knows what will happen next time? It’s only going to be worse from now on.”

‘We’ll keep closer watch on her after this,“ Robert answered, not bothering with opening his eyes or whispering. ”It’s all we can do.“

‘It’s
not
all we can do,“ Blaunche said forcefully. ”What we can do is have her married and the sooner the better. Benedict…“

Robert jerked over onto his side, away from her, jarring his hand into pain that would keep him awake for a long while more, and on the pain he snapped, “Before we deal with anyone’s marriage, we’re going to have to deal with the Allesleys.”

He no more wanted to talk about the Allesleys than he did about Katherine’s marriage but it was the only sure diversion of which he could think and Blaunche took it, sitting rod-upright and exclaiming at him, “Don’t talk to me about the Allesleys! The Allesleys can rot!”

‘Northend is theirs.“ Robert started along the well-trod track again with no hope she would heed him any more than she had the other times he had said it to her, but if it kept her off Katherine’s marriage and Benedict…

‘The manor of Northend is mine and mine it stays!“

‘It wasn’t your husband’s to give you for dower. They’re not going to let the matter go. The manor is theirs…“

‘And they want it back and recompense into the bargain, yes, I know,“ Blaunche snapped, ”but they’re not getting either. Not from me and not from you. I’d go to my grave first.“ She abruptly fell back onto her pillow, jarring the bed and his hand again but her voice turning suddenly to reasonable. ”And don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing, Robert. You’re trying not to talk about Katherine’s marriage but no matter how much we make off her lands by the year, you have to see she’s not a child anymore and won’t we look the fools if we lose her marriage the way we almost lost it today? Especially when all we have to do to make an end of it is marry her to Benedict. Listen to me on this…“

Chapter 2

With every passing day of spring the sun was a little higher, at midday the cloister walk and garth a little less shadow-filled, making them today a warm, still haven from the bluster of the young wind wuthering along the roof ridges under the blue, scoured sky that was all that could be seen of the world from here. Only sometimes a gust swept down to catch and push at the three nuns’ black veils and skirts where they worked among the garth’s brown-soiled garden beds in the afternoon’s sunlight, and only a tease of wind more astray than most found its way into the roofed north walk to catch and lift the edge of the parchment sheet on Dame Frevisse’s writing desk. Just done with carefully penning “holy fathers,” she raised the quill clear of the words and shifted the inkpot—of too heavy a pottery to be bothered by the wind—to where it would better hold the parchment down without losing her place in the book propped up before her. Or, more precisely, the portion of a book.

The latest work asked of St. Frideswide nunnery’s small scrivening business was a fair-made copy, to be bound in white calf’s hide, of John Mirk’s
Festial
that a Banbury councilman’s wife was giving to herself as an Easter gift. She also wanted it done by Passiontide, and because Lent was already nigh to its second Sunday and none of St. Frideswide’s nuns were free of other duties but had to fit in scribing when they could, Dame Perpetua had carefully unbound the copy asked as a loan from their prioress’s brother, said patiently to Dame Juliana’s worry, “Yes, I can rebind it when we’re done so no one will know the difference,” and separated it into five parts, one for each of the nuns who, when they had chance, worked at their share at the writing desks set against the church wall along the cloister’s north walk where the sun fell warmest. By rights, Dame Juliana should have been with the four of them presently at work there—Domina Elisabeth, Dame Perpetua, Sister Johane and Frevisse—but Dame Juliana’s first love after Christ was not words but gardening and the past few forward days of spring had aroused all her gardener’s urges so that Domina Elisabeth, knowing full well what the worth of Dame Juliana’s scribing was likely to be if her mind was more to her gardening than her pen, had smilingly given leave at chapter meeting this morning for her to work in the cloister garth and except that Lenten silence held in the nunnery at present Dame Juliana would probably have gone singing—or at least humming—through the day. As it was, happy little exclamations kept rising over the low wall between the garth and cloister walk as she found—or her helpers Dame Emma and Sister Amicia showed her—one green thing or another thrusting back to life under last year’s leaves.