The Prioress’ Tale (21 page)

Katerin watched her speak, then gave an eager head bob to show she understood, bobbed a curtsy, and scurried away.

Alys shoved up out of her chair, about to pace again, then dropped back into it. Better to face him with all her dignity. But she could not. Sitting still was beyond her and she stood up again, facing the door as Katerin opened it and stood aside for Reynold and Hugh to enter.

“Godard is dead,” Reynold said without other greeting.

“You’re still armed,” Alys said back to him. All the men always wore their daggers but not their swords and particularly not in the nunnery, most particularly not in the cloister. Hugh was without his; Alys had a vague thought of him unbuckling it, handing it off to a squire to make it easier to kneel with Godard. Why did Reynold have to do yet another thing wrongly?

Reynold looked down at his hand, resting on his sword hilt against his hip as if surprised it was there, but kept on toward her, saying, “Given one thing and another, it’s probably best for now.” He held out his hands to take hers.

She turned away from him and circled her chair, putting it between them. “It’s not best here,” she said. “Katerin, light the lamps. All of them.” She suddenly wanted more light, much more light. There were too many shadows. She wanted to see Reynold’s face.

Katerin scurried to light a taper at the fire. While she carried it, carefully shielded in her hand, from lamp to lamp around the room, Reynold watched Alys a little, then sat down in her other chair and said, “It’s been a hell of a day. Godard was a good man.”

“So maybe was the man you killed,” Alys said back. But that was not to the point in this, and because there was no easy way to come to it, she went on bluntly, “You and your men have to be out of St. Frideswide’s before Tierce tomorrow unless you can find me a good reason why you shouldn’t be.”

Reynold looked at Hugh, who had gone aside to sit on a corner of the table, one leg swinging, his expression as grim as Alys felt. To Reynold’s look he only shrugged, as if he did not have an answer. Reynold shrugged back, looked back at Alys, and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of his knees, to say earnestly, “If I go, Master Porter will have your masons out of here within the hour. I’m all that’s keeping them here.”

“You said you’d worked the matter out with him, that you’d persuaded him it was best he stay.”

“And when I’m not here to go on ‘persuading’ him”— Reynold gave the word a different twist, broad with threat behind it—“he won’t stay, let me promise you.”

“You’ve promised me much, including help in paying him!”

“If I go, you still won’t have the money for it and he’ll be gone and you won’t persuade him back or any other masons to come instead and where’s your tower then?”

“Where is it now?”

Reynold spread his hands. “Say the word and you’ll have stone here in a day or so.”

“Stolen!” Alys accused. “You’d steal it in Banbury!”

“And why not?” Hugh asked. “He’s stolen everything else he’s brought you.”

Reynold slid him a hard sideways look. “Be quiet.”

Alys found her chest too tight for breath, had to fight for it before she could force out, “What?”

Reynold spread his hands, grinning wryly, asking her to share the jest. “How else could I come by it?”

“Pay for it, like everyone else!”

“The way you’ve paid your masons?”

“I’ll pay them! I’ve never meant to steal from them. There’ll be money for it and soon enough, too!”

“From where?” Reynold mocked.

He always turned to mocking when he thought he was going to win an argument without needing to lose his temper, but this time Alys had an answer and said triumphantly, “We had a miracle in the church this afternoon. Sister Thomasine cured a madman.”

“So?” Reynold asked.

She knew he was being deliberately thick and said, wanting to make him admit to what she had, “He was mute and witless and now he’s on his knees in front of the altar, praying.” Or he had better be. She had given orders for it to be seen to.

“And?” Reynold asked.

“Don’t be stupid, Reynold! Before Sister Thomasine touched him, he couldn’t speak, didn’t know where he was or what was happening to him. Now he’s cured! When word goes out there’s been a healing here and people start to come, there’ll be money enough for the tower and whatever else I want.”

“If they come.”

“They’ll come.” Of that Alys was positive. To doubt it after she had seen the miracle with her own eyes would be the same as doubting God.

“They very well might,” Hugh agreed.

“Be quiet!” Reynold snapped at him again.

“Reynold,” Alys said, “the point is, the straightest way out is for you to go before you drag the priory into more trouble than you have.”

“Than
we
have, Alys my girl,” Reynold said. “You’ve had most of the profit from my thieving, when all’s said and done and totaled up.”

“But I didn’t know until now that that was what was happening!”

“And so you’ll say, but will you be believed?”

“I’m more likely to be believed if you’re not still here when sheriff and crowner come!”

“And when the Fenners come?”

The constriction in her chest came back, worse than before. She could not always tell when Reynold was jesting, but she knew when he was utterly serious. “Fenners,” she said.

Reynold shrugged. “At least a few.”

That
was a jest. There was no such thing as “a few” Fenners. They were like crows—seen solitary sometimes and even sometimes quarreling among themselves but flocking loud and fierce together at any outward threat to one or any of them. There were no “few” Fenners. She looked desperately at Hugh. “It isn’t Fenners you’ve been raiding.” Silently she pleaded for him to tell her that, to tell her that Reynold had not been raiding Fenners and bringing what he stole back here and that he had not killed on Fenner property today.

Hugh made no answer except a level stare directly back at her that was answer enough and too much.

She slammed her hands down on her chair, facing Reynold in a rage. “You fool! What were you thinking of?”

Reynold swung his scabbarded sword up to rest across his knees and leaned forward over it, not touched by her anger, saying earnestly, “Alys, Alys, think about it. It’s a quarrel that’s been shaping a long while. It was time to bring it to a head and be done with it.”

What was he talking about? The quarrel they had with the Fenners had been in abeyance for years, with Godfrey properties finally left in Fenner hands when the legal fees looked to rise higher than the properties were worth.

“That was over years ago,” she protested.

“Not over,” Reynold said. “Only waiting to come to life again. It’s been long enough. It’s time they paid us back for all they cost us.”

“I don’t recall they ever cost you a penny,” Hugh said.

“Neither you nor your father were ever the ones who took it to court.” No, it had been Hugh’s father had done that, Alys remembered.

Reynold ignored him, concentrating on her. “Alys, I’ve raided the Fenners and they haven’t been able to do anything about it. I’ve shown what can be done against them, that they’re vulnerable, and I’ve sent out word I’ve done it. In a few days more there’ll be at least a score more Godfreys here, satisfied I can do what I said I’d do, and then we’ll set a raid against the Fenners—one great raid that will pay back for everything and have back our lands for good measure at the end of it.”

Alys shook her head, wanting to refuse what he was saying. “Why use me for that? Why use St. Frideswide’s?”

“You’re not a place anyone would come looking first when trying to find out who was doing this to Fenner lands. That was a way to buy us more time. And you’re better walled than any of my properties, so a better defense when we’re found out. And even when we are, whoever finds us will think twice about attacking a nunnery and that buys us more time, for more men to join the game. And they will. There’ll be men in plenty and not just Godfreys who’ll come for this sport.”

Alys came around her chair and sank slowly into it, her legs not able to hold up the weight of pain in her head, the weight of pain in her heart. That was why he was here? Because he needed her nunnery. And he expected her to let it go on happening?

“Alys, listen.” He leaned farther forward, reached out to lay his hand on hers. She drew it away from him, refusing to look at him, staring past him into a shadowed corner of the room. He rested his hand on the arm of her chair and went on, “You see how you’ve made it possible to come this near to having at the Fenners? I can’t leave here now. It’s too late to break this off.”

“Of course the dead Fenner villein ups the stakes,” Hugh said. “Thieving is one thing. Killing is another.”

Reynold made an exasperated sound. “Forget the villein. If it ever comes to having to explain it, it was Godard killed him after he struck Godard, and now Godard is dead and there’s an end to it.”

“Our men will go along with that, but I doubt the villagers will,” Sir Hugh said.

“They will if they’re told what will happen to them if they don’t,” Sir Reynold snapped. “Don’t make trouble where there doesn’t have to be.”

“You can’t stay here,” Alys said. She looked at Hugh. “Make him understand he has to leave.”

“He won’t listen to me either.”

“Don’t give me this!” Reynold said angrily. “You’ve been part of this every step of the way, Hugh. Don’t try slipping out of it now.”

“You’ve pushed the thing too far, too fast. I’ve been telling you that,” Hugh answered.

“And if we pull back now, what happens?” Reynold demanded.

“If we don’t pull back now, what’s going to happen?” Hugh returned.

“What happens to me, whatever you do?” Alys cried.

“Nothing happens to you,” Reynold said impatiently. “When it comes to it, just keep insisting you didn’t know until it was too late and what could you have done then to be rid of us anyway? Have your nuns drive out my men? Set your nunnery folk to fight us?”

“They’ll say I should have sent word the moment I knew what you were about.”

“You didn’t know until now.”

Hugh made a rude sound and said, “Try making anyone believe that.”

Alys glanced at him, a little wild with knowing he was right, no one would believe her, but Reynold said, ignoring Hugh, “You couldn’t send word anyway. I’ve set guards. No one goes out or in from here without I know it from here on.”

Alys started to rise, too caught between half-disbelieving outrage and outright rage to find words. Reynold, seeming not to notice except he put a hand on her knee to keep her down, went on easily. “No, you should be able to clear you and your nunnery readily enough.”

“So long as it’s only words, she maybe can,” said Hugh, “but if it comes to us being attacked here…”

“If you’ve lost your stomach for it,” Reynold said angrily, “leave.”

“If I leave, my men go with me.”

“All three of them,” Reynold scorned. “You’re a ways yet from being some great lord.”

Hugh stood up from the table. “And so are you, cousin!”

“I’m nearer to it than you are and at least I’ve the guts to try for it!”

Beside the door Katerin whimpered, understanding the anger if nothing else of what was happening, and Alys could almost have whimpered with her, for once not seeing how she ought to go, afraid—unbelieving, she found she was afraid, a thing that, like uncertainty, she had no use for—afraid of what would happen if Reynold and Hugh broke and openly went for one another.

Then Hugh gave way, drew back from both Reynold and his anger, and said, “Play it your way, Reynold,” sounding as if they had come to this end between them before and he no longer much cared. “I’m going to bed. You have this out with her on your own.” He started toward the door, then paused, looked back and said, “But, Alys, don’t let him talk you into this. From here on out, the way things are, you’re better off without him.”

Chapter 18

In summer the difficulty of rising at dawn came from the too few hours of night and rest. By late autumn, when the nights had lengthened and there were more hours for sleep, it was the cold waiting for her beyond her blankets that made Frevisse wish she could deny the dawn. In her young days as a nun, she had taken pride—God pardon her—and pleasure in making the sacrifice of rising at midnight and again at dawn for prayers; but although she thought—she prayed—that she had long since overcome the pride, lately she had noticed that her bones at least were taking less pleasure in the sacrifice. The spirit was still willing, but the body’s wish to cling to bed a little longer was becoming a problem.

And yet once it was done, once she had forced her body out of bed’s comfort and hurriedly dressed in the darkness by feel and familiarity, warm woolen gown over the linen underdress she wore to bed, feet into soft-soled leather shoes to be off the chill rush matting, white wimple over her hair and throat and around her face, black veil pinned carefully into place over the wimple, then she was near enough to what she wanted to gladly leave her sleeping cell, join the others at the head of the stairs at the near end of the high-roofed dormitory, and go down in silence except for the hush of their skirts, shadows moving through shadows, their way lighted only by the small lamp kept burning through the night at the head of the dormitory stairs, into the cloister walk and along it by starlight or moonlight or with no light at all if it were cloudy, to the church, where, for Frevisse, the joy of prayer, of greeting God’s day as dawn began to fill the eastern window, more than balanced the discomfort of rising in the dark and cold.

But this morning, at last, she would have no reluctance. This morning she was awake and waiting for the morning bell to release her from bed and her back. Dame Claire’s ointment had eased the pain to aching and she had managed to sleep, but in the throes of a dream she no longer remembered, she had rolled over on it and now was widely awake, lying very carefully still, willing the roused pain to subside, and hoping it was near dawn because she doubted she would be able to sleep again.

The pain at least was easing to a separate throbbing of each welt across her back and she was able to turn her mind away from it, to begin repeating silently into the dark the psalms for this morning’s Prime, for her own comforting in their beauty and to make the dark less endless.