In her quick look around the hall, Frevisse did not see Elianor. Or Jack Rowcliffe. Elianor was very likely gone to the church again. Had Jack followed her despite Frevisse’s hinted warning yesterday?
But now that she thought about it, she had noted neither him nor his father when she first came into the hall. Maybe they were with Symond, or else had gone out somewhere-to see how their horses did or simply to stretch their legs. She was not so much concerned about where they were as with her desire not to have Jack to hand when she questioned Symond Hewet about the bill of obligation between them.
Breredon’s chamber was nearer than where Symond lay, though, and for duty’s sake, she went first to see how Breredon did, pleased to find him up and walking carefully back and forth in his room. To her inquiry he answered, “My guts still ache from the beating they took, but food and drink stay down me now. I’ll be ready to talk with your abbot or whoever else about having Edward out of here and away home with me in no more than a day or so, surely.”
He did not look nearly that near to being able to sit a horse, nor did Frevisse know if he was going to have his way about Edward when all was said and done, but not wanting to discourage him while he mended, she merely answered, “My lord abbot is seeing Sister Cecely even now,” and went on her way.
Fortune was with her. No one was with Symond except a man who must be his own servant among the men who had come with him and the Rowcliffes, and by the look of Symond, she judged it was surely a good thing he was not being left alone. He lay with his head barely raised on his pillow, his arms and hands slack along his body on the blanket over him, his skin the color and look of dough gone bad; and even though his eyes were open and he turned his head a little when she came in, she asked the servant instead of him if he was fit to talk a little.
“I am,” Symond answered for himself. His voice, though weak, was the strongest thing about him. “Does your infirmarian know what this is yet? Has anyone else fallen ill?”
“No one else is ill yet, no,” Frevisse answered. “Dame Claire is still trying to learn what it is. Or was. We hope it’s done.” All of which was true, without being all the truth, and she went straight on, to leave it behind her, “There’s something I must needs ask you, and you might want that I ask it to you alone.”
“Geffe is to be trusted to keep quiet if I say so,” Symond said. “What is it?”
For the seemliness of not being alone with a man-with two men-Frevisse had been standing in the doorway. Now, although no one was near enough to hear her if she kept her voice down, she took a single step into the chamber before saying, “It’s about the bill of obligation between you and Jack Rowcliffe.”
Symond made what passed, in his weakened state, as an effort to sit up. Geffe jerked forward to stop him, but there was no need. Symond’s weakness sank him flat again, even as he demanded with what strength he had, “How do you know of that?”
“I have it,” Frevisse answered evenly. “And the deeds that Sister Cecely stole.”
Symond closed his eyes and breathed, “Thank God and all the saints.” He opened his eyes. “Does John know?”
“I haven’t seen him yet, to tell him.”
“The bill. Don’t tell him of that. That’s between Jack and me.”
Geffe made a humph sound that Frevisse took for his comment on that.
Symond ignored him, and Frevisse said, “If the bill is only between you and Jack, then there’s no need his father know of it. But I would know what it’s about.”
“It was between him and me and Guy. It matters to no one else but us.”
Frevisse hesitated, then decided nothing would serve but the outright truth and said, very careful that her voice not carry out the doorway, “Dame Claire thinks neither you nor Master Breredon were honestly ill. She thinks that indeed someone gave you both some manner of poison.”
Symond stared at her, frowning, openly not understanding what that had to do with what he had said. Then understanding came. He startled with it, started to say, “Jack…” choked and began to cough dryly, so that Geffe came hurriedly forward, lifted him a little with an arm behind his shoulders, took up a cup from the small table by the bed, and held it for him to drink. When he was quiet, Geffe eased him down again, only then sending a reproachful look at Frevisse. She made a small shrug, silently saying that it was not her fault.
Eyes closed, Symond said, still somewhat breathlessly, “Not Jack. If anyone poisoned us, it was Cecely. Not Jack.”
“Why not Jack?” Frevisse said.
“No reason he should.” He looked at her to be certain she was listening. “He’s already paid back half the money, and neither Guy nor I would ride him hard to have the rest. He knows that. If he took fifty years, I wouldn’t ride him about it.”
“What was it for?”
“A woman, of course.”
Symond must have felt the weight of her disapproval bearing down on him because he gave a single short-breathed laugh and said, “Not that way, no. A widow in the village. A young and pretty widow in the village. He’d had some sport with her. Then she started to threaten him that she was going to claim he had promised her marriage. You know the tangles that can get into, if it comes before the church courts. Not adding on what his father would do to him for being so much a fool.”
“Had he promised her?”
“He swore to us he hadn’t and, knowing the widow, I’d take his word over hers. I don’t doubt he would have won clear of her in the end, but in the long run it would have cost him in more than money. So he begged Guy and me for help, to keep it all secret from his father. We helped him, and last she was heard of, the widow had used our money for a dowry, got a little shopkeeper to husband her, and is happy in Norwich.”
Needing to rest after all that, Symond closed his eyes but lifted the fingers of his nearer hand to tell Frevisse he wanted her to stay. After a few moments, without opening his eyes, he murmured, “It’s been to the good. Between the widow with him and Cecely with Guy, he’s learned the cost of sport with women.”
“And maybe that true dealing will cost him less in the end,” Frevisse said dryly.
Symond gave a single, silent laugh. He lay quietly a moment longer, then opened his eyes and said, frowning upward at the rafters. “Guy talked me into helping him. I wonder if that’s why Guy was so willing to help him-that Guy had learned his lesson but the hard way and was having to live it out, whether he would or no, and wanted to save Jack from the same.” He looked at Frevisse. “Poison?”
“Poison.”
“That would be Cecely.” He closed his eyes again. “Why she’d poison Breredon, I don’t know. But me…yes, she’d like me dead.”
Frevisse judged he was fading, would soon be to sleep, but she asked anyway, quietly, “Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t let her use Jack’s bill to extort money from me, maybe. She found it among Guy’s papers. Before he was dead or after, I don’t know. But after he was dead, she told me if I’d give her money, she wouldn’t tell John about it. Bitch.”
“But you didn’t pay her.”
Symond’s slack mouth twitched toward a smile. “I told her if she did anything of the kind”-His words had begun to slide apart as he slipped toward sleep-“I’d make trouble for her…like she’d never seen before.”
Frevisse took another step forward, trying to reach him for just a little longer. “You told her you knew she was a nun.”
But his breathing had evened into sleep. Geffe moved as if to warn Frevisse against waking him, but Frevisse knew better than to do that. She shook her head at Geffe to let him know his master was safe from questions for a while and started to leave, then turned back and, with no one but Geffe to see what she did, slipped the deeds and bill from her sleeve, took the bill, and held it out to him. He took it with a questioning look. Frevisse whispered with a small beckon of her head at the sleeping man, “For him. Tell no one else.”