The Boy's Tale (7 page)

"Very little boys," Frevisse said. "Who probably saw men killed yesterday. Men they knew and men who were trying to kill them. It's not surprising the women wanted the extra safety of the cloister then, and surely if they still desire it today, we can't deny it. For the peace of their minds and the comforting of the children, until they feel safe again."

"Boys don't belong in the cloister!" Dame Alys insisted.

"It's long since been allowed by every bishop that boys less than eight years old are allowed in a nunnery when there is need," Frevisse said back.

"For schooling. For raising until they can go into someone's household or a monastery. That's not the case here!"

"They're allowed when there is need, and in this case there is need!"

"It would seem to me," Dame Claire put in moderately, "that there is some need, given what happened to them yesterday." Dame Alys snorted. Fixing her with a look but speaking to all of them, Dame Claire continued, "Could we agree it were better to err on the side of kindness rather than caution and let them stay at least for today?"

Dame Alys's face fully expressed her opinion of kindness as a reason for any action, but there was a general nodding of heads among the others.

"I think it would be sweet to have them in the cloister, even for a little while," Sister Emma said happily. " 'Suffer the little children to come to me, for such is the kingdom of heaven.'"

"It would be pleasant for little Adela to have companionship, even for today," Dame Perpetua added. "She's been so alone since she came here."

A little more talk among themselves decided it, though Dame Alys had the next to final word with, "Say what you will, Domina Edith ought to be informed of what's toward."

Dame Claire agreed and said, "Dame Frevisse, will you see to it after chapter?"

Dame Alys bristled. As hosteler, the matter of guests was her concern and she should have been the one to advise Domina Edith. With the uncharitable thought that Dame Alys enjoyed disliking people and now had reason to dislike both Dame Claire and her at once, Frevisse bowed her head in agreement.

Dame Claire moved the meeting on to its everyday business and firmly held it there, at the end gave the benediction and sent them all about their day's duties without chance to bring up the matter of their guests again, except that she bid Dame Perpetua to inform them they might stay this day at least in the cloister and to ask the boys' companionship for Lady Adela. Frevisse noted Dame Perpetua was smiling happily as they all left the room.

The cloister was still in shadows, the morning was so young, though there was a gilt edge to the roof ridges where the sun was reaching now. Because it was the shortest way to the stairs to Domina Edith's chamber, Frevisse crossed the cloister garth rather than going around. The path was narrow; her skirts brushed dew from the grass on either side, and the smell of earth and growing things was pleasant in the warming morning. Beyond the roofed, open-sided pentise where the bell hung in the center of the garth, a small figure stood up hastily on the path and curtsied to her.

"Lady Adela," Frevisse said. Because children were presently on her mind, she made an effort she would not have otherwise and asked kindly, "What were you looking at?"

"The lady's mantle, if it please you," the child said softly, her eyes down.

Frevisse glanced down at the wide-leaved plant in its neatly turned bed. Each leaf was silvered with fine hairs that held the dew in separate droplets, fine as pale pearls. "They say that if you're looking into a dewdrop on a lady mantle's leaf when the sun first touches it, you can see your future in it," Frevisse said.

Lady Adela nodded. "I know. That's why I come."

"And have you seen your future?"

Lady Adela shook her head. "Not yet. Dame Perpetua always wants me for something before the sun is high enough."

"Well, today Dame Perpetua has something to do before she comes for you so maybe, you'll have time."

Lady Adela considered the possibility—she was a quiet, considering child—before answering, "Thank you, Dame," as if Frevisse had given her some favor.

"You're quite welcome," Frevisse responded as solemnly, bowed her head to the child's slight curtsy and went on her way.

Because as prioress Domina Edith needed upon occasion to receive the priory's more important guests or conduct business requiring more privacy than the chapter meetings gave, her parlor was furnished with some degree more luxury than the rest of the nunnery. Its windows that looked out over the courtyard were glazed; a Spanish woven tapestry covered the table; there were two chairs and a fireplace, and even such small private comforts as the prioress's embroidery frame. As prioress, Domina Edith also had her own bedchamber, but this she had kept bare, with only her bed against one wall, a prie-dieu with a crucifix over it on another, and a plain rush mat for the floor. Since her illness, a table had been brought in where a candle or lamp could be set at night and her medicine kept. Through the day one small, unglazed window gave what light was needed.

Tibby came to the parlor door at Frevisse's knock. She was a village girl who had come in early spring asking if there was work she could do for money at the priory. Since there had been need then of someone who could watch by Domina Edith at night and during the days when everyone else was busy, she had been taken on and had proven to be both generous and gentle in her care. It was generally understood that she wanted to earn money to maybe buy her freedom because there was a young man in the matter somewhere, which was not surprising, she being a pretty thing and good-tempered, but in the meantime she had been an answer to prayers that had scarcely been offered and become a needed part of St. Frideswide's.

Now she smiled friendfully at Frevisse and made a low curtsy. Her curtsying had become more expert in her months in the priory, just as a natural neatness had likewise asserted itself in her clothing and manners. Frevisse smiled at her and asked, "How is it with her this morning? Could I talk with her, do you think?"

The nuns had come to depend on Tibby's assessment of Domina Edith's day-to-day health and strength, and Tibby now answered readily, "She'd like that, I think. She slept well last night so is feeling better than some mornings. Only mind if she starts to tire and don't go on if she does."

"I'll take care," Frevisse said, holding back her amusement at Tibby's young earnestness.

Domina Edith's bedchamber was soft with shadows. The prioress lay in the narrow bed that was no better than those her nuns slept on, even to its straw-filled mattress. She could have had better, presuming on her office, but she never had. Now she lay in it with the same quiet dignity with which she had sat for so many prayers through so many years in her prioress's stall in the choir, apart from her nuns only so far as her duty as prioress required.

As the Rule required, she wore her undergown even in bed. A white linen coif, tied under her chin, securely covered her hair. Her hands where they lay on the blanket beyond her sleeves were simply thin skin over bones, and her face was almost as pale as her coif and the pillow behind her, featureless in the vague light until, aware of Frevisse's coming, she opened her eyes.

Their color had long since faded with age to clouded blue, but their intelligence was not dimmed. "Dame Frevisse," she said softly, and smiled.

Frevisse curtsied to her. "Tibby says you're better today."

"Tibby said I was better than I am some mornings, and that is true enough." Domina Edith let her eyelids drift down. For a few moments she breathed as evenly as if she slept and possibly she did; there was clearly little strength left in her body. Frevisse waited, and in a few moments she opened her eyes and asked as if there had been no pause, "What brings you to me? The matter of the folk we sheltered last night?"

Frevisse glanced around to find where Tibby was. The girl had discreetly gone to sit with some sewing on the bench below the windows on the far side of the parlor; if they spoke low, she would not hear them, and since with Domina Edith it was simply and invariably best to be direct, Frevisse said, "Yes. You know how they came to be here?"

"Tibby found out for me. There will be prayers said for the dead. That much we can do for them, God rest them. And the man who was hurt, how does he this morning?"

"Dame Claire was going to see him directly after chapter. She has hopes he'll mend if the wound doesn't fester."

"I'll pray for him." Domina Edith's eyelids drifted again, this time not quite closing before she roused herself and said clearly, "But he is not your problem, is he?"

"No. There is the matter of the children. And the women with them. One of the women with them." Carefully, Frevisse told what she had suspected and now knew of Maryon and the children, and how that made their presence in St. Frideswide's a greater problem than it had first appeared.

Through all of it, Domina Edith occasionally, slightly, raised her eyebrows but held silent and did not drowse. Frevisse finished with report of what she had been charged to tell her from the chapter meeting, and at that Domina Edith nodded a little.

"That is as right. We cannot put them out so long as they ask our aid and do us no harm. Say in chapter tomorrow the women and boys are to be welcomed for as long as they feel the need."

"But the matter of who the boys are—" Frevisse hesitated. "The attack on them surely wasn't by chance. Someone wants them, possibly not dead but is willing to kill others in order to have them, and even Maryon isn't sure who or exactly why."

"Or so she says," Domina Edith said, summing up all of Frevisse's uncertainty, because when Maryon had last been here, she had proved herself an accomplished liar, and remembering that, Frevisse could not be sure how much truth or falsehood was in anything Maryon had said last night. Or would be today if questioned further.

But one thing at least was certain, and Frevisse said it as plainly as she was able, so that Domina Edith would fully understand. "There's danger in their being here. Possibly great danger."

Domina Edith slowly closed her eyes, smiling gently, and slowly opened them. "Not to our souls," she said, as if that made the matter simple.

And after a moment Frevisse saw that it did. Let their souls be safely kept, then what dangers to the body that the world might offer were irrelevant. All that was needful was to do their duty, and presently duty required them to give the sanctuary for which Mary on had asked.

Frevisse bowed her head. All of her prayers, her devotions and contemplations had not yet brought her to Domina Edith's depth of faith that made such matters simple. "Thank you, my lady," she said, and meant it for more than this moment's advice.

Domina Edith's eyes had closed again. Frevisse stood still, waiting to see if she were fully asleep this time or if she should slip away. Just when the prioress's even breathing had convinced her she was asleep, Domina Edith said with dreamy slowness, "You have a cousin. I would write to her if I were you."

"Alice?" Frevisse asked blankly. She had last heard from her cousin months ago when her Aunt Matilda, Alice's mother, had died, and had sent her an answering letter of condolence. Since then there had been no word between them nor none particularly expected. Their lives had long since gone widely different ways and though there was fondness between them, there was little else. "You mean Alice?"

Domina Edith did not open her eyes. "Countess of Suffolk, isn't she?"

Indeed. With her husband the earl deep into every matter around the young King Henry. And a member of the royal Council. If there were things to be known concerning the dowager queen and her children, Alice would know them, or be able to learn them.

"You need not say what is toward here, but that you have heard rumors and are curious. There are ink and parchment in my parlor. Tibby knows where," Domina Edith murmured. "Stay here to write it, and give it secretly to Master Naylor to send, so that no one knows about it who does not need to. It would be good to know . . . what someone else has to say about ... the queen dowager just now."

Chapter 6