The Traitor's Tale (48 page)

For her part, Frevisse tried to hold her gaze to the floor but found herself watching York; and although the candles still burned strongly, keeping the shadows at bay, she saw a darkness grow on him as he read. And when he looked up from the last page there was the bleakness to him, as if he had aged years in the few minutes he had taken to read the thing. For a long moment his gaze did not see any of them. He might have been alone in some far and empty place, and Frevisse had the shivered feeling that alone was what he mostly was, no matter how many others were around him.

Then he came back from whatever far place in his mind he had gone; was folding the papers closed and saying with forced lightness, "Suffolk always did say more than need be. Joliffe, tell me about this. Who else has read this? Where has it been?"

"To the best of our knowledge no one has read it but Suffolk and his secretary who wrote it for him and saw to its safekeeping."

Sir William put in sharply, "Where's this secretary?"

York held up a hand. "Let's have it from something like the beginning. Tell me, among the three of you, how this came into your hands and here."

Most of that telling fell to Vaughn and Joliffe. For her part, Frevisse told why she had been with Lady Alice at all and what had passed at Kenilworth while she was there and, in its turn, of Joliffe coming hurt to St. Frideswide's. "Nor is he altogether healed," she said firmly. "Rest is what will presently serve him best."

"I'll remember," York said with the smallest possibility of a smile that was more at Joliffe's open discomfiture than at her, Frevisse thought.

There was little left to tell then, except what had happened yesterday, with Frevisse having to hide her alarm at what she had not heard before now. When that was done, York stood silent a time, looking downward, then raised his gaze to them all, his face quiet, his voice merely courteous, as he said, "Vaughn, I'll want to talk with you in the morning concerning Lady Alice. She's more than earned my gratitude and any help that I can give her. Dame Frevisse, I think your part in this is done. I hope you can return to your cloister with clear mind and heart. Joliffe and Sir William, I want you to stay a time longer, but Dame Frevisse, Vaughn ..." He slightly lifted his voice. "... Sister Margrett, I give you all leave to go to your belated beds."

Vaughn made a low bow and Frevisse and Sister Margrett deep curtsies and then they . . . escaped, was the word that came to Frevisse's mind as they went down the stairs and into the abbot's cobbled yard again. The hour was late. Some of the lanterns beside doorways had gone out and there were few men about and no women. If there were stars, Frevisse did not see them, concerned more with her feet and reaching the stairs to the nuns' dorter. There Vaughn left them with a bow and no more than a murmured, "My ladies," before going his own way to the men's dorter, but Frevisse paused Sister Margrett by a brief hold on her sleeve and asked, "How much did you hear?"

"Nearly nothing. You all spoke low, and I hummed psalms to myself to stop my ears."

That was more discretion than Frevisse had hoped for and she said, "Thank you. That was well done."

But curiosity could only be curbed so far, and Sister Margrett asked, "Did it go badly?"

"It went ... as well as it could. Worse for his grace of York than anyone, I think." Remembering York's stark look when he had finished reading Suffolk's damning letter. Who the letter damned had never been said aloud, and for that she was half-thankful, half-raw with wondering if she and Joliffe had guessed rightly. She might never know. Did not know if she wanted to know. Did not know if she could live unknowing . . .

She wrenched her mind away from that and said, "It's done for us anyway, and that's what must matter. Tomorrow we can start home."

Chapter 2
9

Frevisse's hope in the morning was that she would chance to talk at least once more with Joliffe, but it was Vaughn who came up to her and Sister Margrett as they left the church after Prime, to ask, "Do you plan to leave today, my ladies?"

"After Tierce. We mean to make an easier journey of it than the one here," Frevisse said. "And you?”

“I've planned much the same."

Frevisse had awoken with a thought that his answer gave her chance to follow, and she asked, "Then may we beg a boon of you? A final favor from my Lady Alice? Given how unsettled all the countryside is, would you and your man join ours and see us safely back to St. Frideswide's? It will hardly be out of your way, if you're going to Lady Alice at Kenilworth."

If he hesitated, it was so briefly she could not be sure of it before he slightly bowed and said, "Gladly. I'll find your men and tell them so."

She thanked him and they parted with courtesy on both sides, Frevisse watching him away toward the abbey's outer gateway until, behind her, making both her and Sister Margrett startle, Joliffe said, "Good morrow, my ladies. I trust you slept well."

"Better than you, by the look of you," Frevisse said, eyeing with disfavor the dark smears of weariness under his eyes.

He was freshly shaven, though, and there was a glint in his eyes that was more mischief than weariness, lessening her worry for him as he ignored her jibe and said, "I've been given permission for us to talk in the abbot's garden this morning after breakfast. I'll send someone to bring you there. By your leave, of course."

"Of course," she said, feeling anything but "of course" about it. "But ..."

"My thanks," he said, bowed, and slipped away among the people still spreading outward from the abbey doorway, leaving her question unfinished behind him.

Since she wanted to talk with him and they could hardly have talked here, she knew her irk at him was unreasonable but that did not ease it.

Sister Margrett made no murmur over the matter. They broke their fast, then asked the way to the abbot's garden. It lay high-walled behind his house, on the slope toward the river at the valley bottom, and was reached by a narrow passage between buildings. The way in from this wide was by a door in the wall, and a man with York's falcon badge on his doublet was standing there, openly a guard. Without need for them to say anything, he opened the door for them to go in, then shut it behind them, and Frevisse did not doubt he would stay there all the while they did and be there to let them out when they were ready to leave.

The garden was as such gardens were. With walks between beds bright with the last of autumn flowers and flowering herbs; a long arbored walk; a square of lawn with a fountain gently plashing in its middle, it had all the usual graces of a great lord's garden, except for Joliffe standing beside the fountain, watching the water play.

Sister Margrett went to sit on a bench where the morning sun was falling warmly. Frevisse went forward to Joliffe, who turned at her approach but stayed where he was, greeting her with a courteous bow to which she returned a bending of her head before she said, "I hope this isn't to ask anything more of me. Sister Margrett and I are bound for St. Frideswide's this morning, come what may."

"Go freely and with my good wishes," Joliffe said, smiling. "No, I've only asked you here because I thought you might like to have your curiosity satisfied before you leave."

"You know I would," she said. She was afraid to know for certain that what she feared was true, and at the same time knew herself too well to think she would choose ignorance if she were given any choice. "York told you what was in Suffolk's letter, then?"

"He let me read it. Let both Oldhall and me. We feared rightly, you and I."

Frevisse drew a short, uneven breath and had to steady before she could ask, so low the words were almost lost under the soft sound of the fountain, "The king?"

As grim-faced as she had ever seen him, Joliffe said what she did not want to hear. "The king. As Suffolk tells it in that letter, France was lost, Normandy given up to French, the war forfeited not simply by Suffolk's and Somerset's choice and treachery, but with King Henry's willing agreement."

"He . . . couldn't have known what he was doing. He's simple. Men say so. He doesn't know what he does. Everyone ..."

"There are men say the world is flat, too, when it's been known for a thousand years and more that it isn't. I think— though Suffolk doesn't say it—that maybe our King Henry simply hates being king."

"He . . . That isn't possible."

"Why not?" Joliffe asked with mocking lightness; but this was a thing he had thought dark and deep about. "He was, what, nine months old when he became king? He spent all his childhood being forced and ordered about by lords who knew what kind of king they wanted him to be, never mind who he might be in himself. Then he came of age and they handed his power to him and went on telling him who he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do. For him it's been nearly thirty years of that. His whole life. For myself, I doubt I'd have much love for anyone—and certainly not for my much-urged 'duty'—after all of that. Would you?"

But he was the king, Frevisse wanted to protest. The
king.

And at the same time she could understand what Joliffe had said and she choked her protest down and said evenly, "Did Suffolk say all of that?"

"Suffolk did not. I think that much grasp of another person was beyond our shallow duke of Suffolk, wrapped with love for himself as he was. But I think he had sensed enough that he'd begun to be afraid of his king, if only at the last. Hence the letter, written against the bitter possibility he would be betrayed. Which he was."

"He was murdered on King Henry's order?"

"We can suppose he was, from what we otherwise know."

"And all the murders that followed?"

"There's no proof King Henry ordered them. That's the trouble with all of this. There's no proof of anything. Only Suffolk's accusations about Normandy and our own suspicion that somewhere behind all of these deaths there has to be someone with power enough to order outright murders and afterward stop any true seeking for the guilty."

"Someone not the duke of Somerset." For reasons on which they had long since agreed.

"Not Somerset. Nor is there any other lord who's shown they have that kind of power. Until we find that one of them secretly does, I think we have to more than suspect the murders were done by King Henry's orders, by men in his service. Or maybe only the one man. The one who nearly did for me in Hedingham. He surely gave every sign of
sufficiency that way."

"And there's an on-going trouble," Frevisse said. "Because that man is still somewhere and knows you. Knows you're here, if you're right about seeing him yesterday."

"I'm right."

The fountain played quietly beside them, the garden's only sound for a moment, before she said, "You killed a man yesterday."

"I did."

"You've killed other men."

"I have."

She did not know how to ask her next question; but with his disconcerting way of sometimes seeming to know her too well, he said, "But only when they've intended my death or someone else's." He paused, then added, "And I've prayed for their souls afterward. As I hope someone prays for mine."

"You're prayed for," Frevisse said, and added somewhat more crisply, "Besides, I've done more for you than that. I've asked Vaughn to accompany Sister Margrett and me back to St. Frideswide's, four men being better than only two for guard in these times."

Joliffe smiled widely. "To make sure he doesn't follow me about my business? Don't you trust him, my lady?"

"St. Frideswide's is on his way to Lady Alice at Kenilworth," Frevisse said with feigned austerity. "There need be nothing more to it than that."

"Nonetheless, I thank you for your—shall we call it 'discretion'?"

"Then you don't trust him either?"

"When all is said and done, my lady," Joliffe said lightly, "I find I trust surprisingly few people."