“About your ‘business’ here.”
Breredon’s smile left him. “Ah. That.”
“That,” Frevisse agreed.
“I do owe you-your priory and St. Frideswide-my apology.”
“You do. Both for lying to us and for what you meant to do.”
He admitted that with another slight bow of his head but said, “Still, I refused to steal her out of here on Easter day, which she first demanded of me. That should count something in my favor.”
Frevisse immediately saw how Sister Cecely would have purposed that, thinking they would all be too deep into the day to keep close watch on her. She had not counted on Domina Elisabeth taking her in charge. Even had Breredon agreed, there would have been no chance of Cecely’s escaping the prioress’ keeping, but neither she nor Breredon had known that when he refused her, and Frevisse asked bluntly, “Why didn’t you help her away then, as she wanted?”
“On Easter?” Breredon’s surprise was open. “I’d not do such a thing on that holy of a day.”
Frevisse held back from asking why he thought any day was acceptable for helping an apostate nun escape into sin again, because she thought she could guess his reason well enough-that if the only way to some worldly gain was through a spiritual wrong, he was willing to it. Or maybe he simply thought that Sister Cecely was so far gone into sin that he would be hardly adding to it by helping her away, and that whatever sin he did in doing it, he could be rid of later by some manner of payment to his priest or church.
As if a man’s dealings between himself and God were a merchant’s matter of debt and payment.
Was it so hard to remember whom Christ had driven from the temple, and why?
But all that was not to the present point, and she asked curtly, “To where were you to steal her away?”
“Simply out of here. When I had her well away, then I was to pay her a goodly sum of money and she would hand Neddie over to me with the deed to his manor and warrant to have him in ward and the right of his marriage, and that would be that. What she meant to do afterward she never said.”
So much for Sister Cecely’s desperate claim to care for her son above all things. If Breredon said true, she had meant to sell the child like merchandise for the sake of her own ends. But, “Did she ever say why she came back here, of all places she might have run to?” Frevisse asked. She meant to ask that of Sister Cecely, too, no more trusting her answer than she meant to trust Breredon’s but hoping that, together, their answers might tell enough.
Not that Breredon’s answer amounted to much. He made a vague gesture with hands and head and said, “We needed somewhere to meet that wasn’t too near to Wymondham for any search to cross our path. Somewhere no search would think to come, some place well out of the way but somewhere we’d be sure of finding each other and at the same time somewhere she and Neddie would be safe until I came. She said the Rowcliffes would never know to look for her here.” His voice took on a bitter edge. “Fool of a woman.”
Frevisse did not trouble to tell him that, for all Sister Cecely had known, the Rowcliffes had never heard of St. Frideswide’s, should not have been able to find her here. Instead she said flatly, “It was not chance you were in talk with Sister Cecely in the church the other day.”
“It was not.”
“How did you know when she would be there?”
He smiled friendliwise. “That would be telling.”
Frevisse snapped, not friendly at all, “Yes. It would be. And you should.”
She waited, but although his smile faded under her stare, he said nothing, and after a long moment Frevisse said curtly, “Very well,” turned sharply away from him and left, ignoring the bow he started toward her.
Her thought, as she passed through the hall, was that he would not say who had served between him and Sister Cecely because he still held hope of winning to his end. Let him hope. There was no chance of Sister Cecely being trusted enough now for her to have chance of escape, no matter who had helped her. Nor was anyone outside the nunnery going to lay hand on Edward until matters were far more clear than they presently were.
But poor Edward.
Whatever he had been told or come to understand of the use his mother had meant to make of him and whatever he knew or did not know about everything happening around him, he was the one innocent in all of this and yet likely to be the one who would suffer the most from it. Frevisse could hope he would be kept from more hurt than he already had, but she ruefully admitted to herself that hoping was all she could do for him. Or hoping while trying to do something toward curbing all the wrongs intended around him.
And there, she thought as she came out onto the guesthall steps and saw across the yard Jack Rowcliffe in talk with Elianor Lawsell and her mother beside the well, was maybe another wrong in the making. Young Jack’s heed was all too openly on Elianor rather than her mother, and all too openly Mistress Lawsell was not minding that, was even drifting back a step, as if about to make excuse to leave them alone together; and Frevisse called, going down the steps, “Mistress Lawsell, may I ask the use of your daughter for a few moments?” Adding to Jack as she went toward them, “Your father wants to see Edward. I’m going to ask our prioress about it.” And to Mistress Lawsell as she reached them, “If your daughter comes with me, she can bring word back to the guesthall when I’ve done and thereby spare me that much more walking.”
A shadow of displeasure passed over Mistress Lawsell’s face but her hesitation was minute before she answered, courteously enough, balked of any reason to refuse, “Of course. Elianor, make yourself useful to the nun.”
Elianor made a slight curtsy of obedience to her mother, kept her eyes downturned from Jack who was bowing to her, and wordlessly followed Frevisse away. Only when they were into the cloister passageway, with Frevisse closing the door between them and the yard, did she give way and say with with open delight, “I’ve been praying for chance to be in here! Thank you!”
Level-voiced, not acknowledging the girl’s pleasure, Frevisse said, “We’ll go to Domina Elisabeth first. Her permission is needed before anything else is done.”
Elianor accepted that with an eager nod and followed Frevisse along the passageway until, as they came from it into the cloister walk, her steps slowed. Glancing back, Frevisse saw she was looking all around, eyes bright. Not letting her linger, Frevisse started up the stairs to the prioress’ parlor. Elianor was forced to follow but paused to look out the narrow window that gave the stairway light and a view over the roof of the guesthall to the world beyond the nunnery’s walls, then had to hurry to catch up as Frevisse scratched at the prioress’ closed door. Beyond it, Domina Elisabeth called, “Benedicite,” and Frevisse went in, Elianor now crowding on her heels.
Frevisse had thought to find Domina Elisabeth at work at her desk beside the window, and indeed she was sitting there but with no sign she had been working. Instead, she had one hand idle in her lap and the other stretched out to the nunnery cat presently curled and comfortable on the window seat beside her. She looked with surprise at Elianor sinking in a floor-deep curtsy and then at Frevisse. Frevisse had reported in chapter what had passed between her and Elianor in the church; Domina Elisabeth had to know what was coming, but if that was why her look at Frevisse was somewhat pleading, almost as if asking to be spared this just now, Frevisse saw no way to help her. Talk with the girl and then her mother would have to come sooner or later. Best to start now and have it done, she thought, and perhaps Domina Elisabeth did, too, because she said graciously enough as the girl straightened, “I’ve meant to speak with your mother and you, now that matters have eased a little with Easter’s passing.”