They were at the door to the church, already remiss in talking in the cloister and unwilling to be any later for Vespers. They slipped into the church, made apologizing curtseys to Domina Edith, and took their places in the choir stalls.
But once in her place, chanting the verses so familiar they did not need her thoughts, Frevisse felt the creeping impact of Dame Claire’s assertion. If she were right, someone had tried to kill Lady Ermentrude not two times but three. And it had to have been someone not of the priory, for none of the priory people went with her to the Wykehams or met her on the way back. So who, then? Someone who went to Sir John’s and Lady Isobel’s with her – or met her there or on the road on the way back to St. Frideswide’s. Whoever it was, they came with her into the priory and stayed to try again – and again.
So some of the questions Frevisse had been asking were no longer ones that needed answering, but at the very least Thomasine could no longer be considered guilty. If Dame Claire were right, even Sir Walter and Master Montfort would have to accept that. Except this was somewhat subtle reasoning, at least by Master Montfort’s standards. He would not take Dame Claire’s word for it. He would say she was lying to protect the nunnery and refuse to hear her. Or, being male, he would say a mere woman should not dare to offer some female notion as fact. Montfort, the fool, and Sir Walter, the arrogant fool, would never waste their valuable masculine time seeking the truth when they thought they already had it.
Suddenly Frevisse found the curses in today’s chanting of Psalm 109 very applicable. “Let his days be few; and let another take his office… Let his children be vagabonds… Let the extortioner consume all that he has; and let the stranger spoil his labor.” And she did not care if that curse fell on Master Montfort or on Sir Walter or on both of them, so well they both deserved it.
But even as she knew the translation of this verse, she knew the later verse, and her perverse mind recited it to her before she could stop it: “His delight was in cursing, and it shall happen to him; he loved not blessing, therefore it shall be far from him.” With an inward bow, she begged pardon for her soul’s sake, and turned her mind back to Vespers’ true purpose, to bring the day toward its close in peace and harmony.
Supper was bread and cheese and hot apple cider against the evening’s drizzling chill. Recreation was brief; no one was inclined to walk for long even in the damp shelter of the cloister. They all gathered in the warming room, waiting for Compline, and wishing the rule permitted a fire before October’s end. After awhile, Frevisse became aware that Dame Claire had gone out.
When she returned, Frevisse was waiting for her in the cloister, and they hurried into the slipe, where Dame Claire said with mixed eagerness and anger, “It was henbane. It’s useful for some things if carefully handled and poison if it’s not, and it’s easily come by. Red face, cold limbs, thirst, incoherence and inability to speak at all, delirium, the apple of the eyes so huge any light hurts them, everything seeming to be colored red. All of those are symptoms of it, laid out clear and plain in my book.”
“And every one of them Lady Ermentrude had–”
“Before she ate or drank a single thing here.”
“We must tell Domina Edith right away,” said Dame Claire, but the bell began its summons for Compline.
Frevisse shook her head and said quickly because all talking should stop with the first ring, “Tomorrow. There’s nothing to be done tonight and I’ll have time to think on it by then.”
Dame Claire nodded agreement; nothing could be done tonight, no matter what was said.
Frevisse tried to lose herself in the brief, familiar service and its quiet, closing prayer, Nunc dimittis: “Now, Lord, send your servant away in peace…” They sang it in low voices, a plaintive plainsong softened to silence at the end, bringing with it a sense of rest. Not until they had all made silent procession back to the dormitory and she had stripped off her outer gown and slipped into bed did her mind begin again the relentless search for a question, or questions, that would show her the road to the truth. But she fell asleep in the middle of her mulling, and did not wake until the cluster of small bells by the dorter door jangled her awake for Matins and Lauds in the dark middle of the night.
When the long service was done and she was back in bed, listening to sleep come back to everyone else, she found she was utterly awake. Thoughts ran at random, taking her nowhere, refusing to be disciplined.
So she heard the clumsy, cautious steps on the stairs from the cloister before they reached the dorter, and catching up a shawl kept for such night-rising, went quickly from her cell toward the small light at the head of the stairs. Old Ela, a servant from the guest hall who rarely ventured so far into the cloister, looked up as if grateful to see her and, unwilling to wake the other sleepers with her message, beckoned at Frevisse, turned, and dragged her lame foot down the stairs again and out into the cloister walk. Frevisse followed her.
“It was you I was coming for, my lady,” Ela declared in a whisper. “Only I didn’t know how I’d find you in the dark. But the boy said I must try, that I had to come since he could not and it’s a desperate matter. Robert, he said to tell you he was, and said I had to come straight away, though he never gave me even a ha’penny for doing it. Is it all right?”
“Very all right,” Frevisse assured her. “I doubt he has a ha’penny to his name to spare. What’s the desperate matter?”
“He says to tell you that they were talking late over there. But I could have told you that without his word on it; we all could hear that much of it, right enough. Loud, they were, then yelling at each other and then sinking down to soft again.”
“Who?”
“Sir Walter mostly. At the crowner hammer and tongs, and him not yelling back much, seems. He was objecting some, I guess, but feeble. Then everything settled and they went to their beds, except that boy Robert, who comes and tells me I have to tell you that they’re meaning to take Sister Thomasine in the morning.”
Frevisse drew a sharp breath, then steadied herself and said firmly, “That they won’t be able to do. We’re keeping her close in the cloister.”
“That’s where they’re meaning to do it, that Robert said!” Ela relished the shocks her tale was dealing. “When you’ve all gone in to breakfast and they can be certain where she is, they mean to come in from the orchard, through the infirmary door, and to the refectory and have her and be out with her before anything can be done. Now there’s wickedness for you, and against God’s own lamb, too, for that’s what the child is. Who else shall I be telling? There can be a goodly few of us between them and her when they come, and we won’t be bare-handed either.”
“Don’t tell anyone!” Frevisse said quickly. The last thing they needed was a confrontation between angry, armed priory servants and Sir Walter’s men. “Keep this all to yourself.”
“But if they think to take Sister Thomasine–”
“They won’t take her. Not now that we know their plans. But don’t tell anyone else about it or we might start a fight that’ll have people hurt who need not be. And don’t let anyone know you’ve come to me, or that Robert ever spoke to you. Sir Walter will surely kill him if he knows it.”
Old Ela’s eyes opened very wide. “So that’s the sort of man he is! A Fenner that would kill a Fenner.” She made a sound of disgust.
“And maybe worse than that to you if you’re found out. So keep you quiet about this.” Frevisse was not above unveiled threats; the fewer people who knew trouble was coming, the fewer there would be to make it worse.
Ela nodded her understanding. “No one will hear of it from me, I promise you. I’m back to my blankets and there I’ll stay till I’m dragged out at dawn. God’s blessing on you.”
“And on you,” Frevisse said to her back as the old woman scuttled away along the shadowed walk.
The rain had long since ended, but its chill and damp were still in the air. Frevisse shivered with more than the night chill and turned toward Domina Edith’s chamber.
The prioress slept in her own room off her parlor, above the hall kept for her own use. It was not difficult to rouse her servant woman sleeping just inside her doorway, and easier still to persuade the woman that Frevisse must talk to her mistress. The mere fact of Frevisse daring to be there at that hour was almost argument enough. Yet before she went to summon the prioress, Domina Edith called from her bed, “Who is it? What’s the matter? Is it Dame Frevisse? Let her in.” The servant went quickly to open the door, and Domina Edith continued, “You can go. Take your pallet into the parlor and finish your sleep there. Go, go. Come here, Dame.”
Domina Edith had been sleeping propped nearly upright on her pillows. As with so many of the elderly, she slept lightly and awakened easily, and in the small glow of a night lamp, her eyes were fully aware as Frevisse went quickly to kneel beside her bed.
“I pray you pardon me, my lady,” Frevisse said.
“Most likely I will. Tell me what brings you so urgently.”
“Old Ela from the guest hall just brought me word that Sir Walter means to seize Thomasine in the refectory at breakfast and have her out of the nunnery by force.”
Domina Edith’s face tightened with mixed anger and grief. “And Montfort supports him in this deed?”
“I gather so. Forced to it, I think. Sir Walter is wanting to have the matter settled so he can be back to Lord Fenner’s bedside as soon as may be.”
Domina Edith nodded slowly, her eyes contemplative and sad. “Not grief or justice, but only greed and a prideful need that someone must suffer if a Fenner does. Poor man.”
“Poor Sir Walter” was not something Frevisse was inclined to consider. She said quickly, “I need your permission to take Thomasine into sanctuary. Church walls should be enough to keep her safe until we can gather what we need to prove her innocent.”
“I think the only way you may do that is to find the guilty one.”
Frevisse hesitated, then said, “I think we can do that.”
“You’ve learned something that makes it possible?”
“Just before Compline. I’ve been thinking on it since and would have told you in the morning.”
“It must be drawing on to Prime now.”
“But Thomasine–”
“Is a long way from breakfast yet. Tell me.”
“Dame Claire thinks Lady Ermentrude was neither drunk nor brain fevered when she rode in here from Sir John’s and Lady Isobel’s. She thinks she was poisoned with henbane before she ever reached St. Frideswide’s.”
Domina Edith’s eyelids sank, hooding her eyes. But very clearly she said, “Another poison altogether, is that the way of it? And given to her before she returned here. A poison that made her seem drunk.”
“Dame Claire recited the symptoms of henbane, and they described Lady Ermentrude’s behavior exactly.”
“So it had to have been done at Sir John’s or on her way back to us.”
“Yes.”
“But there’s still no reason we know of for anyone to do it.”
“No.”
Domina Edith nodded. The hooded eyes closed, and she might have been drifting off to sleep, but Frevisse doubted it and waited, until the prioress raised her head and said, “Three times someone tried to kill her then, and did not care another died by the way. That’s wickedness indeed. So you must go on asking questions. Find out who among her people did it.”
“Or among Sir John’s.”
“Or Sir John and Lady Isobel themselves.”
Domina Edith said it in the same simple tone she had said all the rest, taking Frevisse unprepared. But she had voiced the same idea herself to Dame Claire, so, “Yes,” she agreed after a moment.
Domina Edith nodded. “They quarreled with Lady Ermentrude, and there must have been a reason for it. The pity of it is that we’ll never convince our crowner nor Sir Walter until we find the store of henbane and stains of it on the hand that mixed the potion, which we cannot do. So go see Thomasine into sanctuary with my blessing, and I’ll see to Sir Walter not disturbing our peace come morning.”
“If you send him word he’s been forestalled, he’ll know someone betrayed him.”
“But if I tell my gossiping servant that you’ve been frightened into convincing me Thomasine should be in sanctuary, then my gossiping servant will surely have word of it all through the nunnery and to the guest halls before we’re half through Prime and long before we’re in the refectory for breakfast.”
That was true enough, and Frevisse nodded acceptance, then curtseyed and left, but did not return to the dorter for Thomasine immediately. Instead she went to the kitchen. The corridor outside it was pitchy black and she groped her way until she reached its door. Inside, the banked hearth fire gave a ruddy glow to the ceiling beams and across the scrubbed-to-polish tables, showing the long lumps on the floor that were the sleeping kitchen help. Frevisse knew where the things were that she wanted, and no one so much as stirred while she gathered them quickly, nearly soundlessly. A jug of water, a loaf of bread, a cracked bowl for a chamber pot, an apple. The last was an afterthought, because it might comfort a frightened child in the cold last watch of the night.
She left as unnoticed as she had come, back through the black corridor to the cloister again and around it to the church. There, as always, a lamp burned at the altar, and now two candles glowed at the biers, outlining the heads of the two nuns praying there. Frevisse saw one head lift to look toward her, then bow to praying again.
Frevisse placed the food and drink and bowl behind the altar, then knelt on the step in front of it to ask for help and anything like wisdom that God or St. Frideswide might choose to give her for what she was going to do and what was going to come of it.
Returning to the dorter, she passed silently between the varied soft – and not so soft–snorings and breathings and someone shifting in her sleep, to the farther end and Thomasine’s cell. Her eyes were used to the darkness by now; she could see Thomasine curled on her side beneath her blankets, hand under her pillow to cuddle it closer to her cheek, her breathing as tiny as a sleeping kitten’s. Frevisse paused a moment, then regretfully touched the girl’s shoulder, waited for a response, then shook her slightly. She felt Thomasine awaken under her hand and said very softly, “Hush, Thomasine. You have to come with me. Dress now and come.”
Thomasine struggled upward, fumbling at her covers. Confused, she murmured, “I haven’t slept past my time, have I? I didn’t mean to sleep so–”
“Hush. No. Just come.”
She felt Thomasine still hesitating and said more urgently, “I’m taking you to the church. Come quickly.”
That reached past the edges of Thomasine’s sleep; Frevisse felt her come fully awake. With no word and hardly a sound, she arose and began to dress while Frevisse gathered up her bedding and the rustling mattress. They finished together, and Frevisse led the way out of the cell. Silently they passed the dorter’s length, down the stairs, and along the cloister to the church. This time both nuns stared, but Frevisse signed them back to their devotions.
As Frevisse laid her mattress and bedding down behind the altar, Thomasine asked, in a trembling murmur, “What’s wrong?”
“Sir Walter means to break in tomorrow morning and seize you in the refectory. Domina Edith has agreed you should be in sanctuary where he’ll not dare touch you.”
Thomasine’s eyes grew huge, but she made no outcry and after a minute she said softly, “Will I have to leave England? Isn’t that what you have to do if you claim sanctuary?”
“That’s for confessed felons. If you are proven innocent, you will stay right here.”
Thomasine shivered and wrapped her arms around herself against the church’s cold. Or against the fear shining in her eyes. “Can you prove me innocent?” she whispered.
“Dame Claire claims your aunt was poisoned before ever she came here the second time. It was poison making her act so wild when she rode in here that day, not her drinking or a brain fever. Someone was trying to kill her before she was anywhere near to you.”
Thomasine drew in a startled breath. “Then it wasn’t in her wine, with the medicine?”
“The second poison was, and the third, because the first poison wasn’t strong enough. Your aunt looked like she was recovering from it and so someone tried again, but Martha died. It was the third attempt that succeeded.”
With visible effort Thomasine absorbed the meaning of all that. Around them the church waited, layers deep in silence: Silence that was part of the night, silence that was left from years of praying, silence until Thomasine asked, “You know who did it?”
“No. Not yet. But now there’s a better chance I can find out.”
“And I have to stay here until you’re sure?”
“Until I’m sure and we’ve proven it to Sir Walter and Master Montfort.”
“I may stay here in the church? All of the time?”
Frevisse realized that the tension in Thomasine’s body was no longer fear, that she was standing eagerly, her face bright with more than just the lamplight. Being confined to the church was going to be no ordeal for her. Frevisse sighed and said, “Yes. Here in the church all the time.” The girl’s face bloomed with happiness. “Now let’s make your bed so you can rest at least.”
Together they laid out the mattress and spread the bedding over it.
“I’ll leave you now,” Frevisse said. “Domina Edith will speak to you in the morning. Until then, rest if you can.”
Thomasine nodded, her face still warm with delight; and Frevisse, looking back from the doorway before going out, saw her on her knees before the altar, hands clasped and face raised fervently toward heaven. Better one of us taking pleasure in this than that we all should be frightened, Frevisse thought wearily, and left.
From weariness more than intention, Frevisse fell to sleep as soon as she lay down on her bed. The bell for Prime woke her with the others, and quietly she made herself ready and took her place in the procession to the church. Thomasine’s absence was noticed, but she was so often in the church before morning prayers that there was hardly any twitch of curiosity at finding her there when they came in. She had hidden her bed and other things somewhere and was seated quietly in her place, and Frevisse guessed that if the other nuns had heard the rumors of murder and suspicion, her being there in prayer before them was amply justified to all their minds.
The morning hymn began. “Now daybreak fills the earth with light; we lift our hearts to God…” which hardly fitted with either the day or Frevisse’s heart. The September dawn was obscured by clouds that threatened rain again before the day was done, and her heart was clouded, too, with the many things she had to do and learn today.
The prayers ended at last. Two nuns stepped to the biers to resume prayers for the dead. Thomasine stayed where she was, head bowed. Domina Edith gave her neither word nor look, but began to leave the church, leaving no one any choice to do more than wonder and leave Thomasine behind.
Breakfast was uneasy. Silence was still kept, but clearly Domina Edith’s woman had done her work; every kitchen servant came and went from the refectory with half an eye to the outer door and a twitch at sounds that were not there, until everyone had no doubt there was something very wrong and Frevisse would nearly have welcomed a burst of rough voices in the outer hall to break her own tightening tension. But it never came. Breakfast ended in its wonted way. Domina Edith gave the grace and benediction, and they returned to the church for Mass. Now heads turned openly toward Thomasine where she waited in her place, and Father Henry pattered briskly through his Latin, making clear he was as eager as they to be done with the Mass so they could go to Chapter and find out what was happening.
They went directly from the church to the little room that served for their morning Chapter meetings as well as for sometimes their evening recreation. On a normal day they would deal together on daily nunnery business now, but today, after Father Henry had taken off his vestments and joined them, Domina Edith told what was to hand, ending with, “So we forestalled them in the refectory, but Thomasine will remain in sanctuary until all this is ended and she’s safe from wrong.”
With a sure knowledge of her nuns, she waited while, bright with indignation and outrage, each raised her hand to go on record that she was angry at Sir Walter’s unholy boldness and mad injustice, with Dame Alys loudest of them all, swelling with pleasure at having another Fenner to castigate.
Domina Edith had been prioress long enough to judge how long to indulge a thing and when to stop it. The crest of their exclaims was past and they had begun to repeat themselves when she said in her old voice, not seeming to raise it but carrying easily over all of theirs, “Because of this, none of us are to go outside of cloister today except Dame Frevisse, whose duties take her there. For the rest of us, we still have our duties and our prayers to follow and we will do so. Is there any business of the day we need to deal with?”
If there had been, it was forgotten in the present excitement. No one said anything, and firmly Domina Edith ended Chapter, setting them all back to holy silence.
As they filed out, Dame Claire gestured questioningly from Frevisse to Domina Edith. Frevisse gestured back that she had indeed told Domina Edith what they had learned. Dame Claire offered to accompany her again today. Frevisse found she wanted it very much, but less from need than because she was afraid of what she was going to face outside the cloister; so she smiled and shook her head, refusing. The questions she meant to ask today would not need Dame Claire going into trouble with her.
The trouble came as soon as she crossed the yard toward the guest house. She had been watched for, she guessed, because as she reached the top of the stairs, Master Montfort stepped out of the door to block her way. He was swelled with importance and stood there, hands on hips, waiting for her to speak and show she was impressed.
Frevisse gave him a curtsey and stood, eyes down, waiting for him to get on with whatever his business was.
Montfort gave up first and said with blustered authority, “The word is that the novice Thomasine has taken sanctuary by your doing. Is that true?”
“It is by God’s doing and with my prioress’s permission,” Frevisse said meekly. But she did not resist the urge to look up and be gratified by the angry red that welled up in his face.
“So she is in sanctuary and admitting her guilt?” he demanded loudly.
“She is in sanctuary and admitting nothing but her innocence,” Frevisse returned, pitching her voice to match his so that it carried across the yard to all the listening ears.
Sir Walter pushed past Montfort. “And you’re the one who put her there? Who warned you?”
“Warned me of what?” asked Frevisse innocently. She was aware of Robert among the men crowded into the doorway behind him.
“That… that…” began Montfort.
“That we meant to arrest the woman for murder, that’s what!” shouted Sir Walter.
Frevisse said in a clear, carrying voice, “Yes, we were told by a voice in the night that you purposed to break into our cloister, where no man should ever step even in humility, much less in violence. It was God’s will that we learned it, so the sister could be put in safety against your coming.”
A disconcerted murmuring swept through everyone listening, and Montfort crossed himself. Even Sir Walter was taken briefly aback, but then he snarled, “Which dreamer among you repeated such foolishness?”
“It was not a dream. She was awake who heard it. And now you have told me with your own words that the message was a true one.”
That did not please Sir Walter either. The color of his face began to match Master Montfort’s. “I want to see that she’s truly claimed sanctuary, and is in it now,” he snarled.
“God’s church is open to all,” Frevisse said graciously and, bowing her head, moved aside to let him pass, but she could not resist murmuring softly, “Only, I pray you, go in by the west door, not the cloister.”
Sir Walter’s breath hissed in sharply, but he bit back his retort and stalked down the steps, some of his men and Robert following him. Master Montfort, trying to regain lost authority, stayed where he was and warned, “You have her tucked away for now, Dame, but remember there’s a limit to how long she can cling to sanctuary. You and your prioress are doing yourselves no good this way. Why not make it simpler for all of us and have her out of there now?”
“Because she’s not guilty,” Frevisse replied.
“Ha!” Montfort exclaimed, and stalked away after Sir Walter.
Frevisse thought of the things her uncle Thomas Chaucer might say when baffled, and they were far more expressive than that. But facing Montfort and Sir Walter had been the most unpleasant thing she anticipated, and now it was done, and with relief she turned to what came next.
To her asking, the answers came slowly but steadily. By early afternoon she had talked to everyone who had gone with Lady Ermentrude to Sir John’s, and learned that the men had had nothing to do with their lady once she arrived there nor been close to her on the ride back or at St. Frideswide’s. Maryon and the other lady-in-waiting had been close to her now and again all of those times, and Lady Isobel and her servants had come and gone from her chamber at the manor. All of that Frevisse learned partly from the men, mostly from the other lady-in-waiting who was more than ready to leave off her inventorying of Lady Ermentrude’s belongings for Sir Walter and gossip with a friendly nun.
“Oh yes,” she assured Frevisse gladly. “I remember all of those dreadful two days. No, she didn’t stop to drink anywhere at all along the way from here to Sir John’s. She rode fast, and my small mare was hard put to hold the pace. And then we had to turn around and ride back the next day. It’s a wonder she isn’t broken in the wind, poor thing.”
“What happened after she arrived at the manor house?”
“Oh, shouting. Not right when she rode in, mind you. They were surprised but they greeted her well. Only she was having none of it, just swept them into the solar and slammed the door to and then started. The shouting, I mean.”
“So it was a quarrel? Between Lady Ermentrude and Sir John?”
“Yes, but mostly between her and Lady Isobel. Sir John said little and that almost too quiet to be heard, except once in a while he’d raise his voice to warn theirs down. All that we could hear through the door but not much else.” The woman smirked knowingly and leaned closer to Frevisse. “Though Maryon, mind you, could say more. She was that determined to know she slipped right up to the door and put her ear to its crack.”
Frevisse nodded. Cat-sly Maryon would be just the sort to do that, she thought. But she kept her face merely gossiping-interested and asked, “What did she hear?”
“A great deal, may be, but she wouldn’t say, though I did ask her. But whatever it was, it wasn’t what she was thinking to hear. I could tell that by her face at the time.”
Puzzled, Frevisse asked, “What was she thinking it would be?”
The woman shrugged carelessly. “Well, I don’t know. I was sort of behind her shoulder there at the door–” She caught herself and looked carefully at Frevisse to be sure she was not taking it wrong.
Frevisse smiled and said, “Oh, I know how it must be with you. You had to take an interest in the doings of your mistress. With her uncertain temper, you had to be forewarned, on chance it was something you could help, or at least not make your lady angrier about.”
The woman nodded in complete agreement. “You understand it right enough! I thought Maryon was going to grow donkey’s ears, she was listening so hard. But all I could hear was ‘marriage,” and then she gave me an elbow in the brisket and backed me off. Then in a little while – just a word or two longer, no more – she eased away and said it was no concern of ours, we’d best let them be and that’s all I know of it.“
“And in the morning? Did they fight again?”
“Oh, they fought nearly until morning, I promise you! And we thought there’d be more of it when they were rested, but Lady Ermentrude had us all up with daybreak and ready to ride. Not a word of thanks or farewell to our hosts, and only time for me to grab a cup of flat ale and a knob of bread before I had to climb into the saddle and be off. It’s good luck my mare stood it as well as she did.”
“Did Lady Ermentrude drink or eat on her ride back? She came in here rollicking enough.”
“She did that.” The woman giggled to remember it, then stopped her mouth with her hand as she realized to whom she was speaking. “She had a leathern bottle slung at her saddle bow and she drank now and again, especially toward the end of the journey, and no wonder; she rode like the devil was at her heels in all that heat.”
Frevisse nodded knowledgeably, but she felt very far from knowledgeable as she excused herself from the conversation and went in determined search of Maryon.
She found her in the ladies’ chamber, sitting on a clothes chest with an embroidery frame on her lap. It held a pretty pattern of flowers and leaves, but Maryon’s hands and needle were idle. She looked up as Frevisse approached and laid her work aside. “I heard you were still questioning,” she said. “Is Master Montfort going to be pleased with you?”
“As much as he is already.” Frevisse did not sit; nor did Maryon rise. They looked at each other with mutual assessment before Frevisse said, “You’ve been in Lady Ermentrude’s service only a little while?”
For so young and seemingly open a face, Maryon’s showed surprisingly little of any thoughts behind it. She said, “This week and a little more is all. Ever since she left Queen Catherine.”
“You were in the Queen’s service before that?”
“And lucky to be so, surely,” Maryon said readily. “As sweet a lady as ever tread earth. But she’s not much given to leaving Hertford and I’d a mind to see something of the world so I took service with Lady Ermentrude. Only that’s not come out so well, and I’m thinking her grace will have me back if I ask.”
“How did you come to be in her service at all? Wales is a ways and a ways from here.”
Maryon’s slender, dark eyebrows lifted in what was surely a deliberate show of surprise. Then she smiled appreciatively, and dimples showed in her round cheeks. “Now that’s clever of you, to know that’s where I’m from. Yes, I’m Welsh. My brother’s wife is cousin to one of Her Grace’s household officers and that’s how I came by my place.”
“And you left it to see the world.”
Maryon nodded but turned her head away so that she was looking slantwise at Frevisse, like a cat. There was too much satisfied knowing in that look and Frevisse asked quickly, wanting to encourage the woman’s cleverness while she was so proud of it, “So what did you hear at the solar door when Lady Ermentrude was quarreling with her niece?”
Maryon smiled archly. “You are a knowing one! I listened, indeed, but there wasn’t much I heard. Something about a marriage in France, or France and a marriage, or something like that. It was a very stout door and Sir John kept quieting them down to where I couldn’t hear what was being said.”
“They didn’t quarrel outside the solar?”
“No, indeed they seemed very careful about that, even Lady Ermentrude, who was never so very careful about most things. Why are you suddenly wanting to know about what happened before she came back here?”
“Oh, for the sake of a riddle,” said Frevisse, to show she could be clever, too, and left her.
Continue with Chapter 12 tomorrow!
