The Traitor's Tale (43 page)

"There's going to be displeasure among the others over this," Domina Elisabeth grumbled. "At me, at you, and at whoever goes with you."

"Could that be Sister Margrett again, please you?" Frevisse said; and added before Domina Elisabeth could ask why, "The fewer who know of the matter the better. She already knows something, and that way no one else need learn it." And Sister Margrett had already shown how well she could hold back from questions best left unasked.

Domina Elisabeth made an impatient sound, granted, "Yes. Very well. Send her to me, I suppose," and with a wordless sign of benediction dismissed Frevisse as if glad to have her gone.

Chapter 25

They rode out of St. Frideswide's in the early afternoon—Joliffe and Vaughn ahead, then the man Ned, then Frevisse and Sister Margrett together, then two men from the nunnery—leaving a seethe of unsettled nuns, Dame Claire's anger, and Master Naylor's displeased glare behind them.

Sleep and another meal had done Vaughn some good. With that and having taken the chance to wash and shave, he no longer looked either so haggard or unkept, and however he and Joliffe truly felt in themselves, they made good miles. Frevisse thought Joliffe held himself somewhat too carefully in the saddle, but the one chance she had to talk with him, when they paused at a ford to water the horses, she thought better of asking directly how he did and only asked, nodding at his side, "Does it hurt?"

"Not beyond reasonable," he said easily.

Never a weighty man, he was even less fleshed now, and the full light of day did him no favors. He was too hollow below his cheekbones, and the fine bones were ridged too sharply in the back of his hands; but he held his reins easily, not like a man taut in pain, so maybe he was right and his wound was healed enough for riding. Frevisse supposed the question was then how long his strength would hold, and she must have betrayed that in her look, because Joliffe grinned and said, "We'll find out, won't we?"

It held through the afternoon, at least, and so did Vaughn's, and they rode into Bicester before sunset. There was an Augustinian priory in the town, but on Joliffe's recommendation they took rooms at the White Hart Inn. "The easier to leave in the morning," he said.

Frevisse and Sister Margrett took supper alone in the small chamber they were given for the night. It was when they were done and readying to say Compline before going to bed that Sister Margrett for the first time asked anything about what they were doing, and then it was, "Dame Frevisse, will you swear to me on St. Frideswide's name that all this is needful?"

Sunk in her own thoughts and grown used to Sister Margrett's accepting silence, Frevisse was startled by the question and said, her surprise showing, "Yes. I swear it. Willingly." She steadied. "I swear I saw no other way to do this."

Sister Margrett regarded her solemnly, then asked, "You trust both of these men, then?"

Frevisse paused over answering that,  before saying, "Lady Alice trusts Nicholas Vaughn. Knowing him as little as I do, I have to trust her judgment of him. As for Master Noreys, I know him somewhat better and, yes, him I do trust."

The ease with which that answer came surprised her. But she did trust him. Each time they had met over the years she had been forced to trust him further. She could wonder whether trust brought on by necessity counted as strongly as trust by free and unforced choice, but then without necessity how could a trust's worth be proved and known? And in necessity, she reminded herself yet again, Joliffe had never betrayed her trust. Had sometimes pulled it nearly to its breaking point but never betrayed it.

Sister Margrett, apparently satisfied, gave a short nod and took up her breviary.

There were a great many miles between them and St. Albans, more than a good day's ride. "Meaning we'll have to make a bad day's ride of it," Joliffe had said cheerily when they parted last night.

Frevisse had not doubted he meant it, and indeed they set out in the morning when the world was still gray, with only barely light enough to show their way out of Bicester, and they were more than several miles on their way by the time the first sunlight spilled thickly gold over the horizon and into their faces. Joliffe looked none the better for it but not so bad as Frevisse had feared he might. No worse than Vaughn, anyway.

Tierce's familiar words, when she and Sister Margrett prayed the Office as best they could between one time of cantering and the next, had a different richness to them, with Frevisse knowing what she knew, fearing what she feared.
Dominus lux mea et salus mea. Quern timebo? Dominuspraesidium vitae meae. A quo trepidabo?
The Lord is my light and my safety. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the guard of my lift-By whom shall I be frightened?

The countryside became wider, with more open fields and fewer hedges. The day promised to stay clear, was even warm with remembered summer although the lay of light across the harvested fields was entirely autumn and last night had been chill. As always after harvest-time there were gleaners in the stripped fields, people without land to grow food enough for themselves searching for whatever might have escaped the harvesters. The harvest had been fine this year, though, and if people were good to one another, no one should go hungry this winter. The barns and granaries were full and there were goodly numbers of cattle grazing the stubbled grain fields.

It had all the look of a world at peace, but somewhere in it the duke of York was moving southward with men enough that he had been able to face down and force aside the king's men in Wales; and somewhere maybe the king was moving with more men to meet him, and somewhere other lords and men were beyond doubt on the move, some to join York, some for the king. It was the way—given the foolishness to which men could sink—that battles happened. Some place as presently at peace as these fields could in a day or two or in a week or before the month was done become a place where men were killing one another.

And the letter she was carrying hidden might be the thing that brought them to it.

She wished she were back in St. Frideswide's, unwitting of all of this from beginning to end. She knew that was cowardice and did not care.

They stopped in Aylesbury at an inn, dismounting in the small cobbled yard, leaving Ned, Bartelme, and Perkyn with the horses, the rest of them going inside where a cheerful woman served them ale and slices of a meat pie warm from the morning's baking. Some was sent out to the men in the yard while Joliffe asked the woman if she had heard of troubles anywhere near. "Like there were all summer," he said. "We don't want to ride into anything."

"I've not heard tell of any stirrings lately, no," the woman said comfortably. "Harvest-time settled most folk, I think. Set them tending to business instead of to trouble, and not beforetime, either. Haply it was more talk than doing around here, anyway."

Frevisse said with not much outward show of interest, "We heard at the nunnery that the duke of York has come back from Ireland. Have you heard anything of that?"

"Oh, aye, I've heard that.
That's
making some manner of stir. There was a fret of men through here yesterday on their way to somewhere because of it."

"York's men?" Frevisse asked.

"Not his, no. Most of the ones I saw had the Stafford knot for their badge. The duke of Buckingham's men, see you. But there were some of Lord Warrene's among them, too, like it was an in-gathering. One of them said they were on their way to Towchester. That's a fair ways from here, but that's what he said."

"Why?" Joliffe asked as if in all innocence.

"Ah, who knows? They didn't seem to know, that's sure. Only that Buckingham had summoned them up and away they were going. If it means the duke of York is truly back from Ireland, then it's none too soon and I'm only glad of it, that's all I can say. Say what you will about the duke of Suffolk, we didn't have trouble like Jack Cade when he was seeing to things. We can only hope the duke of York, God keep him, takes his place and sees to things. Since it seems the king won't," she added darkly, then crossed herself and added hastily, "God keep King Henry, and never think I mean otherwise. But York's his cousin after all, and so who better to take place close to him?"

"The duke of Somerset?" Vaughn said. "He's likewise the king's cousin."

The woman made a scornful noise. "Don't talk to me of Somerset. The way he handed Normandy back to the Dauphin as if it was his to give away and never mind all. I've a cousin buried over there, killed these twenty years ago when that French witch made all that trouble at Orleans and afterwards. Don't talk to me about cousins. There he is, Somerset, settling in with the king as if it never happened, if I've heard rightly, while all those poor people who've lost their homes and everything are still on the roads and miserable. There's a family here. Jack Wryght indentured to go to Normandy when the duke of York was governor there. Did so well that when his indenture was up, he bought a house in Falaise and set up to be a blade-smith, just like he was here, and his wife went out to join him five years ago or so. Took their two boys and all. Has had two little girls since then, so it was all six of them came dragging back here not three weeks ago, all ragged and everything they own piled in a little handcart he was pulling while the rest of them walked, all but the littlest girl, and poor Alison was carrying her and looked fit to drop, so people say who saw them. They've nothing here now, of course, and nothing left in Normandy. They're staying with his brother and trying to put a life together here again out of what's left to them. They're better off than many, but that isn't saying much." She sniffed mightily. "So why Somerset shouldn't be called to account for what he's done, king's cousin or not, I don't know. He ought to be charged with treason, and I hope the duke of York sees to it."

Joliffe said in strong agreement, "We can only pray," and shortly thereafter gathered them all up and had them out of there, leaving Vaughn to pay their bill, but saying to him when they were all a-horse again and riding out of Aylesbury, "There was a woman who knew her own mind about matters."

"She did that," Vaughn agreed. "I just wish the king was as firm-set as she is about things."

"We can only pray," said Joliffe.

Not many miles further on they made the steep climb into the wooded Chiltern Hills. The hours grew longer and so did the miles as they rode, and their shadows that had been behind them and then beside were now ahead of them. They rode with purpose and no pleasure, paused for food and drink in Berkhampstead and heard nothing they had not already heard, and rode on and came into St. Albans in early evening, the white tower of the abbey church glowing rose-red in the westering light. The long, wide marketplace outside the abbey gates had only townsfolk going about their business—no armed men in the streets, no signs of alarm. Whatever trouble might be spreading to meet Richard of York, it was not here yet.

St. Alban's abbey was one of the great abbeys of England, its abbot summoned to Parliament as the equal of many a temporal lord. Named for the saint who had been martyred in far off Roman times on the very hillside where the monastery now stood behind its enclosing walls, the church was also his burial place, his tomb a well-accustomed place of pilgrimage. Their little company was received at the abbey's gatehouse without trouble, no one even asking to
see what bishop's papers the nuns carried to give them permission to travel.

Beyond the abbey's broad gatehouse the wide guestyard lay four-square, with a long line of stables to the right and the various guesthalls around the other three sides. Above the red-tile rooftops the west front of the church rose massive against the sky. Sister Margrett had looked longingly toward it as they rode toward the gateway, and she looked back now, asking Frevisse, "Will there be time to see the shrine?"

"Tomorrow assuredly," Frevisse said. "We're too late for even Vespers tonight, I fear."

Only from the guesthall master was there trouble and— finally—sure word of York.

"His foreriders came in not two hours ago," the black-robed monk said with unhappy fluster. "He's at Stony Stratford tonight and will be here tomorrow. His grace and I'm not clear how many more. Enough to fill us to overflowing, certes, even without the pilgrims already here. Not that there are so many, nor have been these past weeks. With all the troubles there are, people aren't taking to the roads like they would be otherwise."

Unmoved by the man's troubles, Joliffe said, "Fortunate for us we've come ahead of the duke, then, while you've still beds for us. If you'll show us where to go, we'll gladly leave you to your other duties and wish St. Benedict's blessing on you."