The Traitor's Tale (35 page)

Under his hand his side had begun to be warm and sticky with his blood, nor were his legs so steady as he would have liked them to be as he went toward her, careful not to startle her. She went on tearing at the grass while he leaned over and took up the reins. She didn't argue about his slow climb into the saddle either, blundering though he was as pain began to awaken in his side. She only tore quicker grassy mouthfuls before he pulled up her head and swung her away from the wall.

Joliffe was thankful both for her forbearance and that the sun was gone, blotted out by the sweeping storm clouds bringing an early twilight that would go quickly into darkness. That would help to hide his flight if his foe followed, and he did not doubt the man would. Maybe not until he had made certain the packet was no longer in the priest's house but after that . . .

They had said not one word between them but Joliffe was certain past doubt the man had been there for the packet now being blood-soaked against Joliffe's side. The man had killed Lady Alice's man to have it, and having not found it on him, had been making use of the villagers' riot to try for it himself.

Making use of the riot? Or was he the cause of the riot? It had been by angry villagers and beheading that Suffolk's priest had died in Alderton.

That was wondering that could wait for later. More immediately, Joliffe knew—pursued or not—he had to do something about the bleeding.

He had without thinking set Rowan away along the road they were already on. It had climbed them out of the narrow valley onto higher ground where there was forest beyond the village fields, and he'd reached the forest now, the rising wind under the clouds beginning to whip the trees as he guided Rowan among them and stopped her out of sight of the road. She was not pleased, stood shifting from leg to leg and sometimes sidling, while he reached inside his doublet, shifted the packet and the priest's pouch to his other side, then twisted around enough, despite the pain, to pull his spare shirt out of his saddlebag. Folding it into a thick pad, he slipped it inside his doublet and pressed it over the wound without trying to learn how bad the hurt was, because there was no point in finding out, there being nothing he could do for it just now except stop the bleeding. If he could.

Chapter 20

Seasons came more subtly within the cloister than in the outer world. The Offices wove their changing garland of prayers through the days and months but otherwise the shifting of the year into autumn was mostly told by the cloister garth's and garden's fading to the duller greens of summer's end and the longer, lower slant of
each day's sunlight into the cloister walk. Beyond the walls was all the autumn haste of harvest, the gathering in of the year's yield, and the nuns took their small part in that— besides their prayers for good weather and a bountiful year—with gathering the apples in their own orchard, enclosed by a grass-grown earthen bank and ditch beside the cloister.

With baskets and ladders among the trees and much climbing up and down and laughter and eating of apples, they every year made a holiday of the work, and this bright, warm, dry September day as much as any other, with the sunlight green and gold among the trees, and the red bounty of apples filling basket after basket. Even Dame Emma's tumble from a ladder harmed nothing more than her dignity, and there would be fresh apple tarts with raisins and cinnamon and nutmeg for supper tonight and apple cakes drizzled with honey tomorrow.

All the same, for Frevisse at least there was awareness that under the long grass among the trees were all the nuns who had ever died in St. Frideswide's. They were all here, as— God willing—she someday would be, her grave as unmarked, as grass-grown, and as forgotten as all of theirs. She could not even say now, for certain, where Domina Edith, the prioress who had seen her with wisdom and kindness through her early years of nunhood, was buried among the others, and though that was as it should be—the earthly body something to be as free of as possible during life and willingly returned to earth at life's end—still, Frevisse was aware of an autumnal sadness that so much could pass and be forgotten. There were already very few left in St. Frideswide's who remembered Domina Edith. When they were gone, when there was no one anymore who remembered her, that would be the earthly end of all her goodness and wisdom; and when in their own turn they died and some day no one was left who remembered them . . .

"That basket is done!" Sister Johane said merrily, leaning from the ladder to put a last two apples in the willow-woven basket Frevisse was holding up to her. "Best fetch another one."

And there were worse things than being forgotten after death, Frevisse thought as she carried the basket away to set beside the orchard gate. Better a quiet and forgotten grave than a long-lived fame for ill and evil deeds. And weren’t the apples piled in their baskets a beautiful sight, she thought, firmly turning her mind to somewhere pleasant to be. With all the beauty and bounty there were in the world, to dwell on only sadnesses was surely some manner of sin— of ingratitude, if nothing else.

She was straightening from setting down the basket beside the others and already reaching for one of the stacked empty ones when Luce, the youngest of the guesthall servant women, looked hesitantly around the half-open gate, exclaimed, "Oh, good!" at seeing Frevisse, made a quick curtsy and said hurriedly, "Old Ela says you should come to the guesthall right away, you're needed."

Old Ela must be growing forgetful, Frevisse thought and went on picking up the basket while answering, "Dame Juliana is hosteler. It's her you want, not me."

"No," Luce said with undiminished earnestness. "There's a man hurt. Ela says he's someone you know and you should come."

Frevisse dropped the basket back into the pile, said, "You'd best tell Dame Juliana, too. And Dame Claire. They're over there," and pushed past her through the gateway, gathering her skirts clear of her feet so she could hurry and then—out of anyone's sight in the cloister walk—run, returning to a swift walk as she went out the cloister door into the guesthall yard, so that she had her breath as she came into the guesthall's large hall where some men and a few women were clumped around someone lying on the floor on his back.

Frevisse thrust in among them before they knew she was there and gasped at the sight of the filthy, bloodied man sprawled there on an outspread cloak, even before she knew him for Joliffe and demanded of the people drawing back, Is he alive?"

"He's that," a man kneeling beside him answered. "But badly fevered, seems."

She saw Joliffe's chest lift then in a ragged breath and she demanded, "Why is he here on the floor and not put into a bed? There." She pointed at one of the small side rooms meant for such guests as did not share the general sleeping in the hall for one reason or another but did not warrant the large bedchamber.

"The blood," one of the women protested. "On the bed?"

"Which counts more? A clean sheet or a man's life?" Frevisse snapped at her. "See the bed is ready." And to the men, less curtly, "Be careful how you move him. The hurt is in his side?" That being where his clothing was most blackened with blood, presumably his. It looked to be long-dried. How long ago had he taken this hurt? If he did not live, they would likely never know that, or from whom he had had it, but just now those were lesser matters against having him alive and keeping him that way.

While she was giving orders for someone to find and bring Father Henry, the nunnery's priest, and for someone else to tell Dame Claire on her way it was a wounded man with whom she must deal, Dame Juliana hurried in. Presently hosteler, she took over ordering the guesthall servants, demanding hot water and clean rags. Dame Claire came in soon after with her box of medicines and Sister Johane to help her. By then Joliffe was on a bed in one of the small rooms, still raggedly breathing, still senseless. Father Henry came close behind Dame Claire, and since there was neither need nor room for Frevisse in the small chamber, nor strictly any reason she should be there, she withdrew, taking a last look at Joliffe past Dame Claire's shoulder as she went.

He had more than a few days' rough growth of beard. Did that tell how long since he had been hurt? When she had first met him, years ago, his beard had been so fair as nearly not to show. He had been young then—very young to her mind as she saw the world now—and it came hard to think that he must be older now than she had been when they first met; and harder still to think he was maybe going to be no older if he was as badly hurt as he looked to be.

She made no effort to deny how much that thought hurt, and despite she should return to the orchard and her right work, she stopped in the guesthall to question the men who had brought him in. They were from the priory's village and more than ready to tell her all about it. "Found him about a mile off, by the gate into Westmede field," one of them said. "Was on his horse but all slumped over the saddlebow and the horse was cropping grass on the wayside. Not going anywhere fast, he wasn't."

"Still had some of his wits about him, though," the other said. "When we prodded him and asked what he was doing there, he stirred enough to name St. Frideswide's."

"But that's all he did."

"Except start to slide sidewise out of his saddle. He was gone then. Not another word out of him."

"So Peter propped him up in the saddle and I led the horse and we came on to here."

"God's blessing on you for bringing him," Frevisse said. "He likely owes you his life."

The man Peter looked toward the room where Joliffe now lay and said, "If he doesn't die anyway."

"He looked fair bad," the other agreed, then added with a shrug, "Still, better he be dead here than where he was, making trouble for the village."

"There's that," Frevisse dryly agreed. If Joliffe had died by the road, he would have been the village's problem. If he died here, he was the nunnery's. "And his horse is in our stable?" she asked in parting, to be sure that was where the horse
would
be and not somehow gone with them as no longer needed by the hurt man.

One of the men said, "Oh," and the other, "Aye," with a quick, regretful look between them, and then, "We'll be back to work then."

As they bowed to her, she somewhat assuaged their loss by saying, "See what they can give you to eat in the guesthall kitchen before you leave."

That cheered them, and while they went toward the kitchen, she went to Ela sitting in her corner and asked, "Why did you send to me about him?"

With her head bent sideways from her bowed shoulders to look up at Frevisse, Ela said shrewdly enough, "He's the minstrel was here when you came back ill. Here he is again, all hurt. Seemed a thing you'd want to know. Then, too, if he's going to die, there's none here likely to know his right name except maybe you."

Frevisse held silent for a long moment before saying, "Yes. Thank you." Except she did not know Joliffe's right name, only the several by which he had been called the several times she had encountered him. Still, one of them should suffice if Sir William Oldhall had to be told of his death, Oldhall being presently the only person in his life of whom she knew, and someone Alice would be able to find.

Dame Juliana was now sending the servants out of their clustered talk and back to their afternoon's work. With another thought, Frevisse went to her and apologized for being there at all when the business was Dame Juliana's. Dame Juliana shook her head. "The more help the better in something like this. I've never dealt with such."

That made it easier for Frevisse to say, "You might want to give order that no one not of the nunnery come near him."

Dame Juliana slightly frowned with puzzlement, then gaped as she grasped what Frevisse meant, before saying, "You fear that someone tried to kill him and will try again.

"There's little likelihood they will," Frevisse said quickly-"Whatever happened to him, it happened a few days ago and probably a good many miles away but ..."

"But better present care than afterward regret," Dame Juliana said. "Yes. I'll see the servants all understand."

Frevisse returned then to the orchard, gave what answers she could to Domina Elisabeth's questions, and went on with carrying baskets for the apple-pickers, silently praying for Joliffe's body and soul while she did. Dame Juliana returned, too, in a while but with nothing to add except that the hurt man still lived. Neither Dame Claire nor Sister Johane were seen in the cloister again until Compline, after which there was only silent going to bed; nor was there chance to talk at the Offices of Matins and Lauds in the middle of the night or at Prime at dawn; and after that, while the other nuns went to break their fast, Dame Claire and Sister Johane went instead to the guesthall and did not return to the cloister until time for Mass. Only finally at the chapter meeting afterward was everyone's curiosity a little eased, if not altogether satisfied, when Domina Elisabeth asked how the hurt man did and Dame Claire answered, "It's not so bad with him as it first looked."