The Clerk’s Tale

The Clerk’s Tale

Margaret Frazer

Chapter 1

All in all it was a warm January, as Januarys went, this year of God’s grace 1446, with never a freeze nor snow after Twelfth Night, even at St. Hilary’s that was supposed to be a year’s coldest day and now it was coming on to St. Paul’s. The nights nipped and there were ice-rims to puddles and watering troughs more dawns than not but the days were only damp and gray, the world all heavy with rain and thaw rather than stiff with cold. In some sheltered places there was even grass beginning to green, as here in St. Mary’s infirmary garden where the little square of turf with the ash tree in its midst, the herb beds, and careful gravel paths were kept from the winds of the Chiltern Hills and the Berkshire Downs by nunnery buildings on three sides and on the fourth by a low turf-wall topped by a withy-woven fence.

It was a quiet place, meant not only for the growing of the infirmarian’s healing herbs but for those nuns who had been ill enough they must needs stay in the infirmary but were at last able to come out to sit or walk quietly on warmer, drier days than presently there were.

That it was a place where no man should be, a place meant for the healing of bodies, not their harm, made it doubly wrong for the man to be sprawled there on the grass beneath the ash tree’s bare branches.

Dead.

Master John Gruesby, on the graveled path a bare yard away, near enough that a single step forward would have let him touch him, did not make the step, but stood staring, unable to believe that it was true. The set, empty eyes. The death-grayed face. They weren’t enough to make it true. Nor the bright spread of blood… It wasn’t true.

But slowly he stepped backward from it, his gaze fixed as if somehow, even yet, there might somehow be life where there was plainly none. A single step. Then another. Beginning to believe it. Finally turning, stumbling into what he meant to be a run, unsteady shuffle though it was, his legs stiff with his unbelief, back toward the gate he had left open behind him, toward the passage away from the garden, into the stableyard where people would be. Heard himself cry out, though the voice was too shrill to be his own, “Help!” At last truly running, wanting someone else to come, to see, to make it true. “Help! Murder! Master Montfort’s been murdered!”

Old wisdom held that

A January spring Is worth no-thing

and over the years Dame Frevisse had found that was mostly true. A mild January too often meant a bitter February, a cruel March, a late-come spring; but just now it meant the three and more days of riding had been less of a travail than it would have been in usual January weather, at least so far as bodily comfort went. For ease of going and any haste they might have wanted to make, no, it had not been good. The roads that could have been firm with frost had been soft with mud instead, laboring the horses’ going, and so it was only now at midday that their small company of riders was coming by the Thames road from Wallingford down into Goring, bound not for the Thames ferry crossing that made the town prosperous but for St. Mary’s nunnery and journey’s end.

Message had come two weeks ago to St. Frideswide’s priory that Sister Ysobel, a nun here, was far along in the slow dying of lung sickness and had asked leave to see her cousin Domina Elisabeth, prioress of St. Frideswide’s, before the end. Domina Elisabeth had immediately sent off a messenger to ask permission to go to her. If she had been an abbess, she would have needed no permission but her own, but St. Frideswide’s was under the guidance, however lightly kept, of the abbot of St. Bartholomew’s near Northampton, presently her own brother, who had sent back not only permission but a new gown, properly Benedictine-black but fur-lined “for warmer winter riding,” he had said. But in fact, the gown was presently a closely wrapped bundle in one of the pack-hampers, safe-kept for wearing once they were at Goring, that Domina Elisabeth not compare poorly with St. Mary’s prioress. For the journey both she and Frevisse had made do with heavy woolen cloaks over their usual heavy woolen gowns, with both cloaks and gowns now direly muddied around their hems despite Frevisse’s efforts every morning to brush them clean after each night’s drying.

Because no nun was supposed to leave her cloister unaccompanied by another nun, she was here as Domina Elisabeth’s companion, her prioress’s choice with no question of adding to the cost of travel by taking any woman-servant with them, so that all such duties were hers. Both for safety and dignity, however, Domina Elisabeth had been unwilling to travel with less than three men for escort despite the cost that would be to the nunnery in more than money. It would have been better to have the men at winter-work, at plowing and dunging if weather allowed and at the hedging and ditching and array of other tasks for which there was rarely time the rest of the year, so compromise had been made by way of the priory steward’s son Dickon, age sixteen and near to man-grown, who would not have been at fieldwork but helping his father with priory accounts and even now after three and a half days’ dull riding was still a-glow with his escape.

Rather to her regret, Frevisse had had to admit to having much the same sense of escape herself. She had not thought she would. In truth she had been displeased when Domina Elisabeth chose her for companion, both because she was content where she was and because she suspected why she had been chosen, their way south inevitably taking them close by Ewelme, where all too possibly Frevisse’s near relative, Lady Alice de la Pole, would be at home to be visited. A woman of both wealth and, by marriage, high place in the world, her favor could be of use to St. Frideswide’s and a visit from her cousin would serve as reminder of that. Since it was Alice’s friendship, not her favor, that Frevisse valued, she had not liked the thought of being used by Domina Elisabeth. It was only when she had realized that Domina Elisabeth for now—whatever she might do later—was set on reaching her own cousin as the first business to hand, that Frevisse had been able to turn her mind fully to their journey and found herself enjoying it. She had not known how nunnery life had palled for her until, while tucking her cloak more closely around her against a chill little wind as they slogged down a muddy hill the first morning out from the nunnery, she found herself humming happily. The daily round of worship—the eight Offices of prayer and psalms through every day—were still her heart’s delight and soul’s joy, but the rest of it—the same duties, the same faces, the same voices, the same walls without let or change, days into weeks into months into years…

Without she had known it, a gray weight had settled on her mind and spirit. Only when she found herself riding a singularly graceless horse along a mud-bogged road between winter-barren hedges and raw-earthed fields under a gray sky that constantly threatened and sometimes gave rain, with the likelihood of more such days to follow, and had found she was happy, as if an unsuspected cloud was dispersing from around her, letting her mind lift into pleasure for the first time in… how long?… did she see how far she had been sunk without knowing it into accidie—into the weariness of spirit so deep it was a sin.

That was accidie’s most subtle peril: it crept so slowly into mind and heart that the spirit sank down into the mire of despair without knowing it until too late to win free without terrible struggle. Frevisse had faced it before now in her life and knew she had not been far gone in it this time or she would not have slipped this easily out but that did not lessen her gratitude for her escape. Hand hidden under the enwrapping cloak, she had signed herself with the cross while making a silent prayer of thanks for mercy given.

But that she was almost the only one enjoying their journey was too plain. Domina Elisabeth was taken up with worry for her cousin and annoyance at the muddied travel. The two men, without ever saying so, made it clear they would have preferred to be at something else besides this slow going along strange roads, with strange food at meals, strange beds at night, strangers everywhere they looked, and a constant uncertainty of where they were and of how far there was to go. Only Dickon seemed to feel with Frevisse that the pleasure of constantly being somewhere else outweighed all other troubles. Even now, as they rode along Goring’s High Street with its well-made timbered houses, shops, several inns, and folk busy with their day not greatly different from any number of other places through which they had ridden these past days, he was looking about with the same eagerness he had had ever since they left St. Frideswide’s.

Frevisse, on the other hand, was glad to know that tomorrow she would not have to be on a horse. Pleasure or no, she was tired and ready to be done with travel for a time and was glad as they approached a cross street well into the town to see ahead of them on the right a long stretch of wall that must enclose the nunnery. At the corner, turning where the wall did to run along a wide street with narrow houses and many shops on its east side, the nunnery wall and buildings on its west, she could see at almost its far end the timber and plaster gatehouse that must lead into the nunnery yard and was tired enough she failed to be uneasy at the sight of other riders turning in through it ahead of them. Since the ferry made Goring the main crossing place of the Thames between Reading’s bridge and Wallingford’s, travelers must be usual here and besides the inns along the High Street, the nunnery surely had a guesthall of its own where travelers either too important or else too poor to stay elsewhere were welcome. So when Bartelme, their lead rider, said over his shoulder, worried, to Domina Elisabeth, “There’s others ahead of us,” she only answered, as untroubled as Frevisse, “We’re expected. Place will be kept for us.”

Worry came only when they reached the gateway themselves and found that the few riders they had seen were the last of maybe a dozen altogether, the yard so crowded with them that Bartelme was forced to draw rein under the gatehouse, unable to go further. Domina Elisabeth rode forward to beside him and Frevisse with her, able to see from there that the cobbled yard was narrowed by a low wall directly across from the gateway, a low-penticed gate leading through it into a grassy churchyard with the nunnery’s long-roofed church and a tower along one side, a tall wall around the others. The cobbled yard itself ran to the left, between stables and what she took to be part of the nunnery’s cloister and probably the guesthouse, to judge by two nuns with the look of taking charge of things just coming out the door at the head of a few steps up to the doorway there.

Eyeing the riders and horses between him and there, Bartelme said, “I’ll shove through, should I, my lady? Let them know you’re here?”

Domina Elisabeth shook her head. In the frame of her white wimple and black veil, her face was set with an effort not to show displeasure, Frevisse thought, though she said moderately enough, “No. These are mourners. See? Their needs should be met before ours.”

She had the right of it, Frevisse agreed. Most of the riders ahead of them were darkly garbed and beside the stairs a woman in the full mourning-black gown and veils of a new widow was being lifted down from her horse by a man likewise thoroughly in black.

‘But my lady—“ Bartelme started unhappily.

Frevisse suspected he had come to enjoy the favors that had spilled over to him and Rob and Dickon as a prioress’s servants these past few days and nights and was minded to go on enjoying them, but Domina Elisabeth said firmly, “Humility, especially in face of another’s need, is a virtue to be practiced whenever the chance is given.”

From the hard glint in Domina Elisabeth’s voice, Frevisse suspected that humility came to her more by will than natural inclination. The question of whether a virtue was more virtuous if it was attained by effort or if it was better to be virtuous by nature, without struggle, was one that Frevisse had never been able to settle to her satisfaction and she was distracted from it here by better sight of the man who had lifted the widow from her saddle now following her up the stairs. Something about him, even from the back, was familiar but then he and the woman were both gone inside and Domina Elisabeth’s fingers had begun to tap with displeasure on the broad rim of her saddle’s pommel at still being ignored and from among the other riders now dismounting and the servants coming to take their horses Bartelme hailed a priory servant leading past a laden packhorse with, “Hai! What’s it take to be heeded hereabouts?”

‘You’re not part of this lot, then?“ the man asked back.

‘Not nearly.“

‘Hoi!“ the man yelled away across the yard. ”Here’s someone else to see to!“ and with a nod at Domina Elisabeth, he tugged the horse’s halter and went on his way toward the stable, leaving them to wait a little longer before a girl in a plain nun’s habit and the white veil that told she had not taken the final vows of nunhood, was only a novice yet, slipped out of the crowding around the stairs and came at a hurry toward them, a maidservant following behind her.

Flushed with hurry and probably the excitation of it all, she looked quickly between Frevisse and Domina Elisabeth and rightly chose to make curtsy to Domina Elisabeth while saying breathlessly, “My lady. May we help you?”

Domina Elisabeth acknowledged the curtsy with a small bow of her head. “I’m Domina Elisabeth, prioress of St. Frideswide’s. I was known to be coming, I think.”

‘Oh!“ The girl’s eyes and mouth made matching O’s of dismay. ”Oh dear.“

‘I sent word ahead,“ Domina Elisabeth said, a mere hint of displeasure under her courtesy.

‘Oh.“ The girl curtsied again, more deeply this time, as if that might help. ”Yes. You did.“ Her soft, unpretty face was flushing pink with confusion or distress or both. ”Of course you’re expected. We didn’t know when, only that you were coming but…“ She cast a rather desperate look around the yard. ”Only, since then, there’s been a man murdered, you see. These are his widow and family and all. They’ve come for the inquest. It’s tomorrow. And now you’ve come, too, all at once and… Oh dear.“