“Joice,” Aunt Eleanor said, calling the girl to her as Lady Adela went to take Joice’s hand, asking, “Couldn’t we go with him, too?”
“No,” Aunt Eleanor and Alys said together. What Joice would have said was cut off by the cloister bell beginning to ring to Vespers. Sister Thomasine immediately turned away toward her choir stall; and Aunt Eleanor, taking the bell for cue, came to take Lady Adela’s other hand, saying firmly, “What we’ll do is pray for him. That will do him the most good. Come along.”
Lady Adela’s lower lip went out in sign of coming stubbornness, but Joice said, “That would be good,” and held between them, Lady Adela submitted, going away down the nave with her and Aunt Eleanor, Margrete following, so that Alys was free to swing her attention toward the cloister door where the incoming nuns were making a confusion, more interested in having a look at the madman that clearing the way for him. Alys advanced on them, ready to give them both sides of her tongue and enough of her mind that after this they would think twice before having anything but prayers in their heads once the bell rang for an office. St. Frideswide’s had finally been blessed like it deserved, and by blessed St. Frideswide, they were going to start being worthy of it, like it or not.
Chapter 16
As Frevisse led Joliffe out of the church, willingly leaving Domina Alys to make whatever she would of the madman, Sister Amicia was already fending off Sister Emma and Sister Cecely’s attempt to go in with, “You can’t. I told you. She said no one. She’d be angry.”
Probably reminded by sight of Frevisse what Domina Alys’ anger could lead to, they passed quick looks among them and fell to an embarrassed silence that Frevisse gave no sign of noticing; nor sign that she saw their looks change again as Joliffe came out behind her, merely bent her head to them slightly as she passed. But behind her Joliffe said in a deliberately deepened, mellowed voice, “Good day to you, my ladies,” bowing low without losing stride as he passed.
Knowing too clearly what effect that would have, Frevisse walked faster, leaving Sister Cecely’s beginning giggles behind, saying at Joliffe without turning her head, “You’re not helping things here.”
“Of course I am. Now they’ll have something new to talk on.”
“They have something new to talk on. We have a madman in the church.”
“A cured madman,” Joliffe pointed out.
Frevisse was not ready to think about that yet. The complications that would come if it were true were too many. “I thought you were going to see him out of here and away yesterday.”
“I did. I thought I had. He must have come back on his own.” The protest was real, but then Joliffe shifted his voice to profound piety and added, “It has to be God’s will he’s here.”
Goaded, Frevisse swung around to tell him what she thought of people who invoked “God’s will” whenever they did not want the responsibility of dealing with things gone ill, but the sharp movement startled pain across her back and she went very still, waiting for it to subside.
Joliffe froze with her then said quickly, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
She managed something toward a smile. “It was my own doing.”
“Then is it safe to mention that I think I’d rather not go out this way?” He nodded ahead of him toward the door into the guest-hall yard. “There are likely to be men out there who aren’t too happy with me at present.”
Chagrined she had not thought of that, Frevisse said, “The kitchen yard instead,” and started to go on around the cloister walk, meaning to let him out through the kitchen passage, but stopped short again-more carefully-to ask, “Your lute. Your other things. Are they somewhere the men could come at them?”
“There’s nothing of mine they can come at,” Joliffe said cheerfully. “Master Porter asked me last night if I would prefer his masons’ company to Sir Reynold’s, and the choice wasn’t hard. My lute and all are in the masons’ lodge and very safe.”
“Then you’d do better to go out through the orchard rather than the kitchen yard,” Frevisse said, thinking aloud.
“A quiet walk in an autumn orchard with a lovely lady,” Joliffe said. “Yes, that will do well.”
“I’ll go so far as to take you to the gate and see you out,” Frevisse said dryly, not to be drawn again. “You’ll have to do your walking on your own.”
They had come almost around the cloister to the slype, the narrow passage out to the walled path that ran along the gardens to the orchard gate. The other nuns’ voices were rising shrill, with Sister Johane come from somewhere to join the excited talk outside the church door, and Frevisse turned down the passage with relief. Joliffe followed her without comment or question, still a few proper paces behind her, through the slype and along the path to the gate, where she turned to face him again, saying, “The gate is locked and Domina Alys has the key, but I don’t suppose it will bother you to climb the wall.”
“Not in the slightest,” he assured her, his face alight with silent laughter. “Only tell me before I go, are those the women you’re penned in with all the time? Is it always like this?”
“It can’t be always like this,” Frevisse pointed out. “We’ve not had a madman in the church before and it seems to me that that was your doing.”
“But your prioress isn’t. God’s mercy, how did you come to vote her into office?”
“I didn’t,” Frevisse answered curtly.
Suddenly unlaughing, Joliffe agreed, “No. I don’t suppose you did.”
They regarded each other silently for a moment, before Frevisse said, “You’ll take word to Mistress Southgate’s people and our abbot when you leave here?”
“Assuredly.”
“I’ve no way to pay you for it,” she began.
Joliffe dismissed that with a hand over his heart and a deep bow. “I’ll do it for nothing else than the pleasure of thwarting your prioress. And Sir Reynold, too, come to that.” He eyed the wall, gauging its height. “This wall must be meant only for keeping nuns in, because there’s hardly enough of it to keep anyone out.” He stretched up a hand, easily reaching its top, then turned to her again. “If you need to see me before I’ve gone…”
“There won’t be any way for me to talk with you after this. Sister Amicia has to be with me whenever I leave the cloister, and after tomorrow I won’t be allowed out of it at all, and from now on, for a time at least, Domina Alys will surely keep the church door to the yard barred to protect her madman. You won’t be able to come in.”
Joliffe dismissed all that with a gesture. “There’s always the tower.”
“Yes,” Frevisse agreed. “There’s the tower. I can go to its top and call across the rooftops for you. Except there’s no way in for me.”
For a grown man, Joliffe’s smile could take on all of a small boy’s mischief. “Secrets, my lady. There are always secrets. You know those boards covering the doorway into the choir? If you take good hold of them on one side, lift a little, and pull, they swing open just wide enough for someone not too broad to go through into the tower. Then all you need do is go up the stairs inside and down the scaffolding outside and there I am.”
“Oh, yes,” Frevisse said, covering her alarm and sudden speculations-who else knew that, had used it, for what, and how had Joliffe come to know of it?-with mockery. “I’m likely to do that. Why isn’t there a secret door directly through the tower’s outer wall, too, and save the trouble of stairs and scaffolding?”