Godard, his eyes shut, his face clay gray, groaned acceptance, and Frevisse turned away to find something, anything, that needed her across the hall.
Beyond telling Ela to have wine ready-“Dame Claire will want it to mix with what she’ll give him for the pain”-there was nothing except shifting the servants with naught to do clear of the doorways and well aside from Sir Reynold’s men and back from what was happening. There was no point in sending them away, but they did not need to crowd in on it.
By then Domina Alys was come, was standing with Sir Reynold away from his own men and the servants both, and Godard, with Sir Hugh holding his head, was stretched out flat on the pallet, the bloody leather doublet thrown aside but the wound still hidden by a wad of blood-bright cloth that had maybe been someone’s shirt. Sir Hugh was bent over him, saying something that was lost under Godard’s racked breathing, but Godard was still conscious enough to twitch his head in slight answer to it.
“Where’s Dame Claire?” Domina Alys said at no one in particular, then looked around, saw Frevisse, and demanded, “Where is she?”
Frevisse went forward, about to answer pointlessly that Dame Claire was surely coming, when Dame Claire was there, flushed and short-breathed with haste, carrying her box of medicines. With heed for nothing else, she passed servants, Frevisse, and Domina Alys to kneel beside Godard who opened his eyes and turned his head toward her with a desperate look. She laid a hand on his shoulder as if in reassurance she was truly there, spoke to him, then to Sir Hugh, asking questions. As she began, still questioning Sir Hugh, to loose the wadded cloth from his side, Godard shut his eyes and turned his head away.
Domina Alys, not heeding or else not minding that Frevisse and probably the hall servants were near enough to hear, asked at Sir Reynold, “What happened? Was it a fall? His horse went down on him?”
Sir Reynold made a disgusted sound. “It was some fool of a villein with a shovel. His side is all smashed in.”
“One of our people?” Domina Alys asked, sounding somewhere between disbelief and anger. “One of our villeins? Why? If it was one of ours, I’ll make the fool sorry…”
“There’s no making him more sorry than I have,” Sir Reynold said grimly. “I left him dead on his doorstep.”
Frevisse’s gasp was covered by Domina Alys‘, before, too disbelieving for anger yet, Domina Alys demanded, “You killed him? You killed him?”
Sir Reynold shrugged. “He struck Godard and I struck him. He’s dead.”
Disbelief was going to anger now. “You’ll have the crowner and the sheriff on your neck before you can turn around, if that’s what you’ve done! You’ll have them on my neck! And if he isn’t one of ours, he’ll have to be paid for!”
“No one is paying anything for his filthy carcass,” Sir Reynold answered harshly. “I gave him what he had coming.”
“He’s maybe not dead.” That Domina Alys was searching for a better side to it betrayed she knew exactly how much trouble this could be.
“He’s dead. I laid his guts open.”
Domina Alys tried a different way at it. “Why did he attack Godard? What was he doing? Where was this?”
“Some village. I don’t know.” Sir Reynold shrugged off the questions.
“One of our villages?” Domina Alys persisted.
Frevisse knew what she was trying for. St. Frideswide’s had property in more than one place. If the dead villein belonged to the priory, the whole thing could maybe be handled without the worst that could come of it, so far as Domina Alys was concerned.
“Not one of yours,” Sir Reynold answered impatiently. “Why would we be taking from one of yours? Where would be the sense of that?”
“Taking?” Dame Alys repeated blankly.
Sir Reynold flung a hand toward the outer door. “The carts are somewhere. They’re coming. That’s where most of the men are, guarding them. We brought Godard on ahead but they’ll be here. Food. Fodder. What you’ve been asking for. What I promised.”
Domina Alys grabbed his arm and jerked him around to face her. “What do you mean ‘taking’?”
Sir Reynold jerked loose from her hold. “They’re not likely to give it, are they?”
“Nor sell it,” said Master Porter from their other side, “because what good is money if there’s no food to buy with it once yours is sold?”
Frevisse had seen the master mason come in, sidling behind the gathered servants near the door and joining Sir Reynold’s men without drawing anyone’s particular notice. He was a short man, squared and solid as one of his own stone blocks and looking the shorter among the tall Godfreys around him, still wearing his coarse workman’s apron and with stone dust graying his hands, hair, and clothing to set him more apart, but he showed no sense that he was less than anyone there as he looked assessingly at Sir Reynold and added with what came perilously near contempt, “Not that you likely offered to pay.”
“There’d have been no point in my offering, would there?” Sir Reynold returned. Frevisse guessed that they had confronted each other before and not enjoyed the encounter. “And why pay when they give readily enough if they’re left no choice? Besides, it was only the one fool that gave trouble. Fifteen armed men in his yard and he tells us no. What did he think was going to happen when he did for Godard?”
“Eh, well,” Master Porter said, cocking his head, “people tend to take it badly when you go stealing from them when they don’t have enough to start with.”
“If they can’t hold on to it, why should they keep it?” Sir Reynold asked back sharply.
“So they can be alive come next spring to grow you some more! The starved dead won’t work. Or the unpaid,” he added at Domina Alys.
She started to answer, chewed air a moment, bit down on whatever she had been about to say, and turned on Sir Reynold instead, snapping at him, “That’s none of it to the point now. There’s no way we can keep the crowner and the sheriff out of this, and once they’re in it, the abbot will know and then the bishop, and what am I supposed to say about you being here and that girl and everything else?”
“There are ways around a thing like this,” Sir Reynold said dismissively. “Money does it. Your crowner in these parts is fond of it and probably your sheriff is, too.”
“Do you have money?” Domina Alys demanded. “I’d be pleased to hear it if you do, because I surely don’t!”
“If you’re so set on thieving,” Master Porter put in, “why don’t you thieve me some stone? Likely folk will part with that readier than food. As it is, this tower of yours is going no higher, that’s sure.”
Sir Reynold looked at him with sudden interest. “There’s building going on in Banbury. We could maybe-”
“No!” Domina Alys cut him off. “No more thieving! No more killing! There’s going to be trouble enough without more.”
From where he still knelt with Godard’s head in his lap, Sir Hugh said low-voiced, angry and showing it, “Take it outside if you can’t keep it down!”
Godard groaned. Only the men’s grip on him kept him from writhing away from Dame Claire. Domina Alys cringed and drew slightly back, looking away, then, as Godard subsided, she snarled at Sir Reynold, “There’s no good my being here. I’ve things to see to elsewhere. Tonight, when this is done…” She looked sideways at Godard as if she were caught somewhere between resentment and being sickened-or maybe she was resenting the sickened feeling, Frevisse disconcertingly thought; disliking weakness in others, maybe she hated it in herself. “… you come see me. We have to talk.”