By early afternoon the influx of guests hadbecome heavy. Nearest neighbors would come and go on the dayitself, but the November days were short and anyone more than a fewhours’ ride away would come today and stay over at least twonights. Thomas Chaucer’s connections had ranged from theranks of merchants in London to the innermost circles of courtpower, with all of them important, but precedence had to be notedand scrupulously given. To her relief, Frevisse found thatreceiving the highest ranking among them fell naturally to hercousin Alice. As widow of the earl of Salisbury, and now wifeof the earl of Suffolk, as well as daughter of the house, Alice wasalready acquainted with most of them; gracious in her duties, shereminded Frevisse both of the self-possessed little cousin Frevissehad last known, and of Chaucer himself.
Frevisse was left to see to the lesser folk,though lesser was a relative term. Landed knights andmerchants wealthier than earls were hardly lesser. But itmeant that she was waiting in the great hall when Sir WalterFenner, head of the prominent and numerous Fenner family wasushered in. The Fenners were among the most prominent patronsof St. Frideswide’s, though less generously and intrusively thanthey had been a few years ago, so Sir Walter and Frevisse werealready acquainted. Seeing him ushered into the hall, she hadtime to put on a polite face of mild pleasure tempered by theformal grief of the occasion, and said graciously, “How good thatyou could come, Sir Walter.”
“My deep sorrow that it’s for such asad occasion, Dame,” he replied. The Fenners had a longmemory for offenses, and the last time they had met, he had accusedher of hiding his mother’s murderer. But he knew the needs ofthe moment; his politeness was brief but correct. “Youruncle’s loss must grieve you deeply.”
“Indeed it does, sir.”
That was sufficient for both of them; but ashe turned aside to follow the servant who would show him in, shesaw that the squire with him was young Robert Fenner, who had aidedher against Sir Walter’s anger at St. Frideswide’s that same timeago. In the three years since she had last seen him, he hadleft the last of boyhood for young manhood, Frevisseobserved. But the brief, warm smile he cast her as hefollowed Sir Walter showed he remembered her.
Then the little, bouncing man – whom she hadlearned was Gallard Basing, the usher here – advanced on her withanother newly arrived guest. “Sir Clement Sharpe,” Gallardannounced with unusual terseness, and stood aside.
Sir Clement was a lean, pallid man withthinning hair the dull brown of dead leaves, and eyes that matchedit. He was elegantly dressed in a wide-cut dark bluehouppelande amply trimmed with gray fur, and a long-liripiped hatthat he had already removed for his bow to her, a bow a little moredeep and flourished than need be.
"My lady, my profound regrets for youruncle’s death.”
“Thank you. We greatly appreciate yourcoming. Aunt Matilda will be pleased.”
She did not understand the twitch of hismouth, or his answer. “Assure her we’d settled the matterbefore he fell finally ill, and I’ll not take advantage overit.”
She smiled and said, “I’m sure youwon’t.” Because whatever the matter had been, it would not beAunt Matilda he dealt with, but the earl of Suffolk’s lawyers, forSuffolk and Alice were Chaucer’s heirs.
“May I introduce my ward?” Sir Clement asked,and put back his hand to draw a girl forward. At firstFrevisse thought she was a child, but a more careful look revealedshe was more likely sixteen or seventeen, only small for her yearsand daintily made. “Lady Anne Featherstone.”
Lady Anne curtsied. She was dressed inplain dark wool for travel, but her manners were as pretty as herface. Frevisse curtsied back, but sir Clement was alreadyadding, less graciously, “And my nephew, Guy Sharpe.”
There was little family resemblance betweenlean and pallid Sir Clement and the broad-chested, handsome youngman who stepped forward on Lady Anne’s other side. He bowedand said appropriate words of greeting, but rather than his words,Frevisse noted the warm, sideways look of affection that Lady Annegave him as he did.
Frevisse was not sure if Sir Clement saw it,too, but before Guy had finished straightening, Sir Clement hadbegun to move away, drawing Lady Anne with him and to his otherside, away from Guy in one neat gesture. Frevisse saw theyoung man’s face tighten, his eyes on Lady Anne even as he finishedspeaking to her, before he followed in Sir Clement’s wake.
Frevisse hoped they kept in abeyance whatevercoil of trouble they were building until they had left Ewelme.
A gap in travelers came late in theafternoon, and Frevisse left her duties to go to the chapel. Except for a brief time this morning, she had not been there sinceyesterday about this hour.
Neither the shadows nor the candlelight northe cold had changed since then. Nor her grief. And shewas still tired, though now from dealing with too many people andtalking more than she was used to, rather than from cold andtravel. Even the watchers around the coffin might have beenthe same as yesterday’s; and then she saw that at least one of themwas: The household priest, Sire Philip.
She stood awhile inside the doorway, lettingthe silence envelop and soothe her, before she finally knelt topray. But she had barely begun when low voices outside thechapel’s shut door broke her concentration. She tried to prayin spite of them, but although their words were obscured by thechapel door, their emotions were not. A young man and a woman- or perhaps a girl – her tone desperate, urging something to theman, who answered with an urgency of his own.
Then there was a third voice, another man’s,raised loud enough to leave no doubt about what he said in angerand bitter satisfaction. “I thought you’d bothdisappeared most conveniently.”
The girl answered, her own words clear withmatching anger now. “How did you know where we were? Who told you?”
“I’m not the fool you wish I were. There aren’t that many places in a house this size and full ofpeople you could go to be alone. Once Jevan said you wereboth gone, I could guess where you were easily enough.”
“Jevan!” the girl said bitterly.
The young man began to say something, but wascut off scornfully by the older man answering, “You’re just idiotenough to think that, boy!”
Goaded into raising his voice, the young mansnapped, “Not so much an idiot as to think you can keep us apartforever!”
“You’d better think it, boy, because Ican!”
The girl cried out desperately, “We love eachother!”
Brushing past Frevisse on his way to thedoor, Sire Philip said under his breath, “Jesus, God inheaven.”
Supposing the young woman might take betterto her presence and hoping the men might abate their anger becauseit, Frevisse rose to follow the priest.
In the small antechamber to the chapel, SirClement Sharpe had his nephew Guy and his ward Lady Anne blockedinto a corner. Neither of the young couple looked intimidatedor shamed; side by side, they faced his towering anger at them withanger of their own, the girl’s hand laid possessively on Guy’sarm.
She was dressed now in a dark amber,high-belted houppeland and had loosed her pale, honey-colored hairin a haze around her head and shoulders. In the shadowed roomshe looked as delicately lovely as a carven angel, her brightnessthe focus of the dark anger between the two men.
“Love has nothing to do with whom you marry,”Sir Clement was saying with a sneer. “You marry whom you’retold and to the best profit. I paid money for that right andprofit and you’ll remember it!”
Before either Guy or Lady Anne could reply,Sire Philip said, “You’ll do better to remember where you are, andwhy, and lower your voices.”
His own voice was low, at church level, withno temper in it, but it stopped them and brought Sir Clement aroundto face him, clearly willing to turn his anger that way. Butthen with what Frevisse could only read as a dawning delight, heexclaimed, “God’s sweet breath, it’s Philip Base-born! You’relooking well above your place in the world!”