The apostate's tale (20 page)

“That Edward being your half brother and our little Edward’s grandfather.”

“Aye, little Edward’s grandfather and my half brother. He was a good man.” Rowcliffe shuffled his feet as if suddenly uneasy about something and said, almost apologizing, “Heed. What I just said about my stepmother—that God knows why my father married her—that’s my anger talking. She was a good woman, a good wife, and the only harsh words she ever gave us were ones we’d earned.” Something very like a boy’s mischief warmed half a smile of remembrance from him. “Edward was a good brother, too. We’re a family that likes each other.” The remembered mischief faded, replaced by the weight of the present, and he said heavily, “It’s hard to have both my brothers gone. Robert and Edward both. And now there’s Guy and George gone, too, sudden and together, and while we’re still in the midst of grieving, this fool of a woman brings all this other trouble on us, where there didn’t need to be trouble at all.” He glanced toward the chamber where Symond Hewet lay. “Now there’s this,” he said and crossed himself. “God keep us all.”

Frevisse copied the cross before saying, “So Guy had only claim to a portion of a manor, not a whole one, as Sister Cecely says. And Edward has nothing, not being legitimately his son.”

“No, there’s a whole manor that’s young Edward’s, just as the—” He stopped, started again. “Just as his mother says. Guy bought a manor and willed it to Edward. Come to Edward that way, there’s no question it’s his and no quarrel about it.” This time his glance was an angry one at Breredon’s chamber. “Except over what she means to do with it. No, the trouble is she’s got it into her addled head that Guy’s father should have had an equal share with my brother Robert and me in all my father’s manors, and that share should have come to Guy and then to young Edward, and that he’s been cheated out of it.”

“But your father hadn’t divided them that way?” Frevisse asked.

“He couldn’t. He was a merchant rich enough he married into the gentry, but the three manors were my mother’s, her inheritance from her father. They were to go to her sons after she and our father were dead, and that’s what happened. Robert got two. I got one. Our half brother Edward had a moiety—a life-share—in one of Robert’s, and besides that, our father had bought him into a good apprenticeship with a mercer in Norwich. The moiety went back to Robert when Edward died, but Edward had done well enough that he left Guy as well off as the rest of us, just not in lands.”

“Because the lands were all from your father’s first wife and couldn’t go to his second wife’s son,” Frevisse said, to be sure she had followed all of this.

“You have it. Sometime or other your Sister Cecely took hold on it otherwise. She made the last three years or so a hell for Guy, nagging him to do something about ‘the wrong’ done him and his father. It was to shut her up he bought a manor and willed it to Edward. Didn’t shut her up, though, and once he was dead, she pulled this trick on us, despite she knows—she
has
to know—that Edward, being a bastard, has no rights to inherit anything not straightly willed to him. Not that we were supposed to know there was no marriage,” Rowcliffe added bitterly.

“Nor would you have known it if Symond had not told you.”

“If Guy hadn’t told him and he hadn’t told us, no, we’d not have known. Even then, Symond might not have told us, except she ran and took Edward and the deeds with her.”

That raised a few questions about Symond, but more immediate was Frevisse’s wondering why Guy had told him at all. Was there more to it than what Symond had already told her? She was looking forward to when he would be well enough for her questions, but that would not be now, and she asked, “Yesterday at meals who served your food? A guesthall servant or one of your own?”

Rowcliffe had been braced for more questions about inheritance, it seemed, or else he had to think about it to remember. Either way, he took a moment before answering, “One of yours. I wouldn’t have one of my hamfists do it for fear of more on me than anywhere else.”

“Would Symond have had to drink and eat whatever the rest of you did?”

“Of course.”

“All the same,” she persisted. “Nothing different.”

“Nothing different,” Rowcliffe said.

“From the same pitcher, from the same platter,” Frevisse said, thinking aloud.

But not the same bowl or cup, said the back of her mind.

Rowcliffe had sharpened to her questions now and demanded, “Why? Are you thinking poison instead of disease? You’re thinking he was poisoned?”

“I think that sometimes food spoils without anyone knows it in time,” Frevisse said. “If it’s that rather than disease, I have to find it out.”

That was not a denial of poison, but Rowcliffe took it that way, as she had meant him to. “Better if it’s that,” he agreed. “Couldn’t be poison, anyway. How would she get it here?” His voice hardened. “She’s locked up, isn’t she? You’ve said she is.”

“She’s confined in a room, with guard kept at the door at all times. She goes nowhere, even to the church.”

Rowcliffe gave a curt nod, satisfied by that. His next likely question would be about Abbot Gilberd and his dealing with Sister Cecely. Frevisse avoided it by thanking him for his answers and walking away. Unfortunately she took with her the one question to which she had not even a glimmer of answer yet:
who
had poisoned Breredon and Symond. She expected that
how
would answer the
who
, but in truth she was a little afraid of what that answer might be, because it was more and more shaping toward being not one of the outcomers but someone of the nunnery, and why someone of the nunnery should want to do this much harm—and even murder—was something she did not understand at all, and not understanding it made her afraid that what she might find out would be not only altogether apart from but even darker than the matter of Sister Cecely.

W
hatever Frevisse’s fears, they did not release her from her duty, and she went next to Breredon’s chamber, to be met at the doorway by his man Coll, who bowed and said before she asked, “He’s fit to talk, if that’s what you want.”

It was, but more than that, Frevisse was pleased to find Breredon somewhat sitting up, leaned back on a pillow against the head of the bed. Color and strength were still gone from his face, but there was more life in his eyes than there had been yesterday, and before she could speak, he said, “They tell me Symond Hewet has sickened, too. Has anyone else?”

“Only the two of you thus far.”

“I pray to God there are no more. This has been dire. How does he?”

“Badly. Worse than you, but better than he was.”

“God keep him. Coll says you don’t know what it is we have.”

“We don’t.” Which was true enough: Dame Claire did not yet know what poison had been used.

“Just so it goes no further. That’s what I pray.”

“So do we all. Master Breredon, there’s something I would ask you.”

“Ask.” He made an effort at smiling. “If I fall to sleep in the middle of your question, I’ll answer later.”

“It’s about the Rowcliffes, about this property that Sister Cecely claims should be her son’s. Not his own manor from his father but some of the other Rowcliffe manors. Which side has the truth? Do you know?”

Breredon considered before answering. Or maybe he was gathering his strength before he finally said, “My family knew John Rowcliffe’s mother’s family before ever Rowcliffe’s father married into it. As I’ve always heard, the Rowcliffe manors come by way of her. The manor I want is one that Guy bought and willed to the boy, nothing to do with John, except it sits so well with one of his own.”

“And besides that, you have a daughter to marry to Edward.”

“I do.”

“But you say you want nothing to do with the other Rowcliffe lands.”

“Blessed Mary, no. Whoever Mistress Rowcliffe—your Sister Cecely—might have befooled into taking those deeds would have been pouring gold into lawyers’ laps for years to come, fighting over it with the Rowcliffes.” Breredon sighed. His eyes closed again. “Fool of a woman,” he said on a fading breath and was asleep with the ease of a man still far from well.

Ida, as if she would warn Frevisse away from disturbing him, rose from the stool where she had been sitting beyond the foot of the bed. Frevisse drew back a step to show she meant to leave him sleeping, gave the woman a slight nod to which Ida was returning a curtsy as Frevisse left.

So now she had not only the two sides of the quarrel over the deeds but a very certain thought on who was in the right, and it was not Sister Cecely.

There was no surprise for her in that.

She likewise believed Breredon’s insistence that he had wanted nothing to do with any stolen deeds. John Rowcliffe, being no fool and probably knowing Breredon for no fool either, surely did not think Breredon was after them, which meant Rowcliffe had no reason to poison Breredon, let alone his own cousin.

So surely there was something else to be learned about Symond Hewet and Breredon. There might be reason to poison one man or the other, but why both of them, as much on different sides as they were?

Different sides of what?

Of Sister Cecely’s lies and ambitions.

There was surely, somewhere, a straight answer through the tangle, but all that Frevisse could yet see was the tangle, and she suspected that her sight of even that was blurred by her having had too little sleep since yesterday.

She found that she had come to a stop outside the chamber, was standing there with her thoughts, and realized that Breredon’s man Coll beside the doorway had stood up from where he had been sitting on his heels, back against the wall, and was waiting to see if she wanted anything. She turned to him. “Coll, two evenings ago, before Master Breredon fell ill, was it you or Ida or someone else who fetched his supper from the kitchen?”

Coll gave her a startled stare while he put his mind around the question, then said, “I did, my lady. No. I didn’t. The nunnery’s man did. He brought it up from the kitchen, and I took it from him and took it in to Master Breredon.”

“Where did you take it from him?”

“Where? Um, here.” He made a small gesture at where they were standing, just outside Breredon’s door. “Or…I came out the door and saw him coming, and I went a few steps and took it from him. But here, near enough.”

Her questions had openly confused him. “Thank you,” she said. “Tell no one I asked.”

That confused him more, but he said obediently, “Yes, my lady.”

She walked away, going toward the stairs down to the kitchen, trying to guess how long she had before the cloister bell would call to Nones. Still somewhat muddled by lack of sleep, she found she had no good guess and hurried a little, not having much in the way of questions to ask and wanting to have them done before she had to turn away from them.

In the kitchen Tom and Luce were as confused as Coll at being questioned, but their replies were straight enough. Luce had readied Master Breredon’s tray. Tom had taken it up the stairs and given it to Master Breredon’s man.

“Just like that?” Frevisse asked, not wanting to ask outright if there had been chance of anyone else coming close to it. She did not need more thoughts of poison starting around.

“Just like that, aye,” said Tom, and Luce nodded agreement. With the unease of a servant afraid he was going to be accused of something, Tom added earnestly, “We didn’t do anything wrong with it.”

“I don’t think you did,” Frevisse assured him firmly. Ela would take it much amiss if she upset either Tom or Luce too much to work well.

But somehow, some place, something had happened to whatever Breredon had eaten or drunk two days ago. Maybe she needed to ask more questions about whatever food or drink of his own he had, that supposedly only his servants would have handled but might have been reached by someone else.

But that would not explain how Symond came to be poisoned.

Or, come to it, why either man had been.

She left the guesthall, hardly noticing the rain still softly falling as she crossed the yard, not going directly back to the cloister but to the church, entering by its west door and going up the nave, reaching the choir just as the cloister bell began to ring, so that she was first in her place for Nones, already kneeling, forehead resting on her folded hands when the others came in. She slid backward onto her seat only as Dame Juliana began the Office and saw then that everyone was present except Domina Elisabeth yet again. Frevisse supposed that meant either Abbot Gilberd had left the cloister, and Domina Elisabeth for reasons of her own had chosen not to come to the Office, or else that one of the servants was with them. Whichever it was, it was Domina Elisabeth’s concern, not hers, she thought and from there set herself to go as deeply into the Office as she was able, into the greater realms of soul and mind and heart there were beyond the shallow troubles mankind made for itself. Her voice joined with the others in these prayers and psalms and was joined with the voices of all the women who had ever prayed them, women she would never see and never know, uncounted other women not only now but all the ones who had prayed them through centuries before and all the ones who would pray them through centuries to come. “
Etsi moveatur terra cum omnibus incolis suis: ego firmavi columnas eius…. Hunc deprimit, et illum extollit…. Ego autem exsultabo in aeternum…
”—Even if the earth with all dwelling there shift, I have made firm its pillars…. This one hehumbles, and that one he lifts up…. But I will exult intoeternity.

At Nones’ end, she only regretfully came back to the day and its questions and the nuns’ midday meal. Time had been when Nones had come well after midday, halfway to Vespers, but for the sake of giving the day just one longer while of uninterrupted work, the Office had slipped backward to vaguely the day’s middle, with what had been the late-morning’s meal now coming after it, leaving all the after-Nones of the day for work. It was in Frevisse’s mind that today she might well spend some of that time at the copying work she had set aside through Holy Week, her hope being that if the work did not help to clear her mind, it would at least give her brief relief from her thoughts. But at dinner’s end, when the final blessing had been said and the nuns were readying to go their separate ways until Vespers, Dame Claire slipped to her side and said, “Mistress Petham has asked to see you.”

Despite herself, Frevisse took and let go a deep, impatient breath, but there was no help for it. She was hosteler. More than that, Mistress Petham was a better guest than most and did not deserve her impatience, let alone the neglect Frevisse had had toward her these past few days. So she made herself say mildly, “I’ll go now,” before asking, “Have you any better thought on what was used against Breredon and Symond Hewet?”

“I mean to have Dame Johane go through our stores this afternoon, to see if there’s less of something than she thinks there should be.”

That would have to do, being the best that could be done about it, and Frevisse nodded and went her way up to Mistress Petham’s room. She knew that Dame Margrett would have been seeing to her mother’s good care by the servants and that Dame Claire had not neglected her health, but Frevisse had her duty, too, had not been doing it as well as she might have, and had her apology ready as she knocked quietly at Mistress Petham’s closed door.

There was a quick patter of soft footfalls, and Edward opened the door enough to look out the gap and see her. His eyes grew large and frightened and he backed away. That surprised her. She could think of nothing she had done to make him afraid of her.

From across the room, Mistress Petham called, “Come in,” and Frevisse did, to find her sitting on the floor near the hearth beside a scatter of small, bright-glazed clay boules. She was just flicking one with her thumb, setting it rolling along the hearth stone. It clicked against another one, and Mistress Petham laughed and said, “There, Edward! I’ve not forgotten the trick of it after all!” She looked up and laughed again, this time at Frevisse’s open surprise, and said, making to stand up, “They’re Edward’s. We’re finding out just how badly he can beat me at every game.”

Edward, who had retreated to her side, took hold on her near elbow, helping her to her feet while mumbling something toward his own.

“Yes,” Mistress Petham agreed. “I am getting better. If we go at this for six more months, I might actually win.” She wiggled the fingers of her free hand at Frevisse. “Stiff with age and use, I fear me.” Edward, now that she was standing safely up, was clinging to her other hand with both of his own, his head still bowed. She looked down at him, reached across herself with her free hand to stroke his hair, and said gently, “Edward, she’s here now. We need to tell her why.” Still stroking his hair, she said, to Frevisse now, “I asked to see Domina Elisabeth but she’s in talk with Abbot Gilbert and not to be disturbed, Dame Margrett said. She said I should speak to you instead. Thank you for coming.”

Frevisse bent her head, acknowledging the thanks, still ready to make her apology for not having come more often, but Mistress Petham was going on, freeing her hand from Edward so she could put both her hands on his shoulders and steer him from her toward her bed. “It’s time, Edward,” she said, still gently. “We have to show Dame Frevisse what you have.”

Edward stayed where he was for a long moment, then suddenly broke away from her, ran forward to the bed, reached under a pillow, grabbed something, and turned around, clutching a folded paper or parchment to his chest. He looked confused and frightened as he raised his head to look at Frevisse again, and she went down on one knee, to stop towering over him, and said, matching Mistress Petham’s gentleness, “What do you have, Edward?”

He went on staring at her. It was Mistress Petham who said quietly, “The stitching on the inside of his tunic’s collar was coming loose. I made to mend it this morning. These were in it for stiffening, along with the buckram. Edward.”

Biting his lower lip, his eyes still frightened with what might have been fear or confusion or guilt or all of them together, Edward came to Frevisse and held out the folded something to her. Still kneeling, she thanked him and took it from him, a little smiling to reassure him that it was all right, whatever it was. Apparently not reassured, he broke away from her and ran to hide his face against Mistress Petham’s skirts as Frevisse stood up.

“I didn’t look at them when I first found them,” Mistress Petham said, patting his shoulder. “I gave them to him, saying they were his. He says that, no, they’re not, and that he wants Symond Hewet to have them.”

Frevisse was unfolding what were proving to be several pieces of parchment folded together into a narrow strip to fit inside a small boy’s collar, but at Symond Hewet’s name she raised her gaze sharply to Mistress Petham. “He’s…” she started and broke off, not certain how much to say.

“Not dying, we hope,” Mistress Petham said quickly. “We’d heard he was sick but…”

“No, not dying,” Frevisse answered as quickly. “He was very sick, but he’s bettering now.” Then, gently, “Edward, what is this? Why do you have it?”

“He isn’t sure what it is,” Mistress Petham answered for him again. “His mother sewed it into his collar and told him to keep it secret. Edward, you have to tell Dame Frevisse what you told me. What did your mother tell you?”