Authors: Margaret Frazer
Christopher’s smile faded. “Thank you. Though I’m afraid it’s because of his death I asked to see you.”
She had been afraid of that, too, but hoping she hid her wariness, she said, “Your father has my prayers.” Difficult though they were to make and the effort probably of more benefit to her soul than to Montfort’s.
‘My thanks for that,“ Christopher said. His voice dropped, too low for Dickon, standing a little behind and to one side of him, to hear, ”But I needed to see you about more than prayers.“
Firmly avoiding what she feared was coming, Frevisse said moderately, “Judging by what I saw at the inquest, you have the matter as well in hand as could be hoped for.”
‘I have,“ Christopher agreed. ”But it was a false inquest.“
Chapter 6
Frevisse held silent, too taken by surprise that he’d admitted to what she had already thought to answer him, and defending nothing, only explaining, Christopher said, “So far as the jurors know, it was fair. But they didn’t ask all the questions that could have been asked. Nor did they look at the body so closely as they might have. And I didn’t tell them differently.”
‘Necessary,“ Master Gruesby said, come forward to just behind Christopher’s right elbow, the word hardly above a whisper and his eyes toward the floor.
‘It was necessary,“ Christopher agreed. ”And they made it the easier by being more impressed with themselves for being jurors than with what questions they might be asking. But it was my duty to tell them. I didn’t.“
Frevisse looked past both of them to Dickon. Left to himself, he was edging forward, interested. Christopher looked around at him, too, and said, “I asked him to come with us. One of your own people. To make it proper you were here.”
Frevisse doubted being alone in the church with three men—and Dickon could count as such at his age—was more proper than being alone with two but it was not beyond bounds, being a public enough place, she hoped, and said with a nod of her head toward the bench along the opposite wall for the sitting of those too old or ill to stand through Mass or Offices, “Dickon, go sit there and don’t try to hear us.”
Even from three yards away she saw his chest heave with a disappointed sigh before he turned away, obeying. She looked back to Christopher and asked, suspecting she should bite her tongue instead, “Why didn’t you tell the jurors differently?”
‘Because it wouldn’t have given us any better answer and would have told someone we knew more than he now thinks we do. If he’s still here.“
‘The murderer, you mean.“
‘We don’t have enough to know who he is. So we’ve kept some things to ourselves. Master Gruesby and I.“
‘That was why there were questions missing from the inquest that I would have asked,“ Frevisse said. ”Such as where Champyon’s stepson, I forget his name, was that afternoon.“
‘Rowland Englefield.“
‘He has as direct an interest as James Champyon and Stephen Lengley in this inheritance. It’s considerable, I gather?“
‘A fair-sized manor. Near Abingdon. It’s where it is that counts as much as it’s worth,“ Christopher said.
‘Why didn’t you question him?“
‘We know where he was. He…“ Christopher hesitated and looked around at Master Gruesby who looked up at him, his eyes owlishly large and worried behind his thick, wooden-rimmed spectacles. To whatever Christopher silently asked him, he lifted his shoulders slightly, let them drop, and went back to staring at his shoes. Left to make his own choice, Christopher said, ”Master Rowland was somewhere his mother would not approve of. A house here in Goring.“
Either bawdy or for gambling or both, Frevisse supposed while being briefly diverted, as usual, by what was thought nuns wouldn’t know or shouldn’t hear about, as if because they chose to live aside from the world’s general ways they were therefore ignorant of them, even by someone like Christopher who had had occasion to know better about her. But all she asked aloud was, “How do you know?”
‘He told me,“ Christopher said. Frevisse raised her brows to him and he agreed, ”No, not the best wellspring for truth if he’s the murderer. Nor does it help that the… woman… of the house swears he was there. He could have bribed her to it. But he said he’d lie if we asked him openly at the inquest. Therefore we didn’t.“
Fair enough, Frevisse supposed, especially since the jury had not thought to ask about him either, though it seemed to her that Rowland Englefield was a grown enough man not to be all that worried over what his mother would approve or not, but she let him go, asking, “And Philip Haselden. You overpassed him, too.”
Christopher smiled somewhat ruefully and said aside to Master Gruesby, “You were right. She didn’t fail to note that.”
Master Gruesby made a small, twitching nod of agreement without raising his head.
‘Master Haselden,“ Frevisse said, ”has an interest in the Lengley inheritance almost as strong as the Champyons, doesn’t he? Because of his daughter?“
‘If Stephen Lengley’s claim is good, then Haselden has made a very good bargain in marrying her to him. Otherwise, he hasn’t. How much have you heard about it?“
‘Only that the Champyons claim Stephen Lengley is a bastard, with no right to the manor.“
‘That’s all? You’re staying with Lady Agnes, aren’t you?“
‘Since yesterday, yes. But she hasn’t talked of it. No one has. I had this much and no more from Stephen’s wife at dinner today.“
Christopher looked aside to the bench along the wall on their own side of the church and asked, “Shall we sit?”
Frevisse agreed with a nod and they went and did, though Master Gruesby would have gone on standing to Christopher’s far side if Christopher had not pointed firmly at the bench while going on to Frevisse, “It goes this way. Sir Henry Lengley was a well-propertied knight. He had lands both here and in Berkshire and near Minster Lovell. He married once. To Rose Bower.”
Frevisse inwardly winced at the name though Christopher seemed not to have heard what he had said but went on, “She and her sister were the heirs of another knight. There were no sons and his lands at his death were split between the sisters.”
‘The entail,“ whispered Master Gruesby. Meaning the restrictions put by law on how land could be inherited, and though there were diverse of ways land could be entailed, once a particular way was fixed to a particular property, that way was supposed to be inviolate for all time to come. It might not be but it took considerable influence and costly legal work to change it.
‘Yes,“ Christopher agreed. ”The entail. That’s where the trouble lies. By it, the two sisters each received half their father’s properties. But if either sister’s line fails— if the time comes that there are no more of the blood of one or the other of the sisters—then the share of the property that went to her must needs revert to the other sister or to those of her lineage who then live. You see?“
Frevisse saw. There were entails that allowed property to pass only along the male line, never along the female, come what might, even shifting everything to remote male cousins if there were no directly descended sons. Other entails, such as this one, allowed property to be divided among daughters if sons were lacking, with provision that the divided lands be reunited should either line die out.
‘Rose is dead, I take it,“ said Frevisse.
‘Over twenty years ago.“
‘But she left two sons.“
‘According to Lady Agnes, she left two sons,“ Christopher agreed. ”Henry, who died last year…“
‘Naturally?“
‘You mean, is there suspicion he was helped to his death? No. He’d been in ill health since very young, it’s said.“
Beyond Christopher, Master Gruesby nodded agreement to that. His hands, laid unquietly one on either knee, looked to be longing for pen and paper, and Frevisse had the passing thought that today was the first time she had ever seen him without them, even as she went on, ¥ Which left Rose’s younger son, Stephen, to inherit.“
‘So Lady Agnes and Master Stephen claim. But Rose’s sister, now Mistress Champyon, claims Rose had but the one son. Young Henry. She says Stephen is not her nephew but Sir Henry’s son by one of his mistresses.“
“One
of his mistresses?”
Momentarily discomfited, Christopher said toward somewhere beyond her left shoulder, “He seems to have been noted for them.”
‘But there have to be records and witnesses as to whether this Rose had one son or two. There had to have been people at his birth—servants, midwife, friends, a priest—that can say who his mother was. There has to be someone.“
‘You’d think so,“ Christopher agreed with no joy. ”But it’s been more than twenty years. It seems Stephen was born at one of Sir Henry’s manors away in Berkshire. No one here and now outside the family knows anything. And Lady Agnes says he’s her grandson by Sir Henry and his wife. Mistress Champyon says that her sister never had a second child. But they’ve neither been able to give any proof, thus far. One way or the other.“
‘Why did she wait so long to challenge his legitimacy? If she’d done it from the first, there would have been witnesses easily come by, one way or the other.“
‘She claims she didn’t know he existed until now. Until after her admitted nephew, young Henry, was dead and she made to recover the manor. Then she was told her sister had had a second son.“
‘Where had he been all this while? Or where had she been, not to know of him?“
‘She says she never liked Sir Henry or Lady Agnes. She made no effort to know anything about them after Rose died.“
‘Or her nephew? The one she knew she had? She didn’t want to know about him, either?“
‘No. Her sister was dead and he was Sir Henry’s son and no concern of hers, she says. Nor, after her sister was dead, were there any family links to here. For her to hear more.“
‘Bedfordshire,“ Master Gruesby murmured.
‘That’s the rest of it,“ Christopher agreed. ”Her first marriage took her into Bedfordshire.“
Where she was not likely to hear anything by chance about the Lengleys and she must have left no friends behind to tell her anything, Frevisse supposed. She assuredly didn’t sound like the sort of woman who had long-lasting friends. “Then it was only after young Henry, the nephew she says she knew she had, was dead… How did she come to hear about that?” Because somehow Frevisse did not see Lady Agnes bothering to send her word.
‘Her second marriage lately brought her to Henley. Not so far off. She heard talk. Or someone wanted to make trouble. I don’t know.“
‘It might be worth finding out who saw to her knowing,“ Frevisse suggested, and Christopher turned his head and made a single nod to Master Gruesby, who gave a small nod in return, note dutifully taken despite lack of pen and paper, Frevisse gathered while she went on, back to where she’d been, ”So where was Stephen all this while, after his mother’s death? If she was his mother.“
‘With Lady Agnes. His father gave him over to her as almost a newborn baby and she raised him. That’s sure. It also seems that, whoever was or wasn’t his mother, Rose Bower did die about the time he was born. Lady Agnes says it was at his birth and that’s how he came to be given over to her. She says that Mistress Champyon…“
‘Englefield,“ Master Gruesby said at the floor.
‘She was Mistress Englefield then, by her first husband, yes,“ Christopher said. ”Lady Agnes says word was sent to her both of the birth and her sister’s death. Mistress Champyon admits she was told of Rose’s death but denies ever hearing of a second son.“
‘Still, whether she was told or not, there has to be someone who was at Stephen’s birth or knows certainly about it,“ Frevisse insisted. ”If nothing else, he was surely baptised.“
‘The priest is dead. So is the midwife.“
Frevisse paused, a side consideration thrusting in. “Christopher, how do you come to know so much of all this? You only came here yesterday, didn’t you?”
‘With my mother, yes. All this is mostly from the proofs readied by both sides for the escheat inquest. Master Gruesby sent word of it all to me while I was readying to come here. It’s everything my father knew before he was killed.“
‘Stephen’s godparents. They’d know as well as anyone who his mother was. Please don’t tell me they’re dead.“
‘No, they’re alive,“ Christopher said, not looking happy about it. ”They’re Lady Agnes and Master Philip Haselden.“
Startled, Frevisse protested, “Then how could his daughter marry Stephen?” Because the bond of a godparent to godchild was considered so close that any such marriage was incest and against church law.
But as she could have foretold with an instant’s thought, Christopher answered, “By dispensation.” Whereby the Church declared a thing acceptable to God that otherwise was not. But dispensations were not had cheaply or easily. That he had gone to the trouble and expense of one meant Master Haselden’s stake in Stephen’s legitimacy was even higher than it had seemed.
None of this was her problem or business, Frevisse pointed out to herself. It was all no concern of hers except out of curiosity, and while curiosity did not figure on the list of deadly sins, neither was it among the sovereign virtues. This matter of who inherited a disputed manor was not something with which she need deal, was something she would leave behind her as soon as Mistress Montfort and her people took Montfort’s body away home for burial and she and Domina Elisabeth were able to stay properly in the nunnery. But nonetheless she heard herself saying, “Then as it stands now, there’s no proof on either side? Only Lady Agnes’s word against Mistress Champyon’s?”