Pleased, Cisily sat down on a bench and smoothed her apron over her lap. “Yes, my lady.”
‘But if the rest of you will listen and put in anything that comes to you, that would be to the good, too,“ Frevisse said. The men and Dickon nodded and she turned to Cisily. ”I need to know about this Monday, the day before Tom Hulcote was found dead.“
‘Aye, I mind Monday,“ Cisily said.
‘Perryn went to the church early that morning. In the rain.“
‘And came home to breakfast and complained the oatmeal was over-done. I told him I’d been seeing to the hens, that was why, there being only me to see to everything about the house and that’s what happens when there’s only one and too much to do. Then he said there shouldn’t be that much doing, with only him and Watt and the boy to see to, and that made me want to cry, thinking of the poor babies all sick and gone, and…“
Cisily remembered Monday well enough, it seemed. More of it than Frevisse wanted to hear about, assuredly, and she slipped in hurriedly, “And we pray they’ll be home soon and everything back to the way it was. Who else was here on Monday?”
It took Cisily a moment to change course, then she said, “Watt and Dickon.”
‘No one else?“ Frevisse prompted. ”No one else came here all day?“
‘Oh, aye. You want that, too?“
‘Please,“ Frevisse said, afraid it might be all or next to nothing from Cisily.
‘Esota Emmet,“ Cisily said promptly. ”I remember her. The old cat. Come snooping, that’s all she was up to. Bess Underbush, too, to bring that ale you asked her to, Simon, because we were almost out.“ She thought a bit, her lower lip twitching with the effort. ”Was it that day Walter Hopper was here, wanting something?“
‘Aye, Monday,“ Watt said. ”You sent him on to me. Like I’d know what work Simon’d want from him this week.“
‘How was I to know you wouldn’t? If naught else, you’d maybe know where Simon was, for Walter to go ask him.“
‘Were you here in the house all day?“ Frevisse asked.
‘I mind I took some of the new ale to Anne at midday, and I was in and out and about in yard and garden now and again.“ She suddenly brightened, remembering more. ”Mary was here. I told you, Simon. Came to the door bold as you please, demanding to see you. That was Monday, sure as anything, because Tuesday we found Tom and she’s been shut up in her house ever since, carrying on like nobody in the world ever felt a loss but her, so it had to be Monday she was here because it wasn’t Sunday. And Ienet Comber, she came by about cheese. Anyone else?“ Cisily thought on that a moment, then decided, ”Nay. That was all.“
Except for whoever might have come while Cisily was out. “Watt,” Frevisse said, “can you mind anyone else here that day?”
Watt shook his large, grizzled head. “I was out at hoeing from morning until almost time for evening work.”
‘Where did Walter Hopper find you?“
‘Here. ’Twas early he came by. I was just done morning milking.“
Frevisse turned back to Cisily. “Do you remember anything about Perryn’s green hood that day?”
Cisily shifted to indignation. “You mean that hood that crowner fellow has? Do you know how we go about getting that back from him? It’s too good a hood to be lost to such as him.”
‘We’ll have to see,“ Frevisse said. ”Perryn, when you came in that morning, what did you do with your hood?“
‘Hung it there by the door.“ He pointed to a pegged rack on the wall.
‘Nay, that you didn’t,“ Cisily shot back. ”You left it lying like usual on the bench here, wet though it was. I hung it up, or it’d not be dry yet.“
‘Hung it there?“ Frevisse asked, nodding to the pegs.
‘Aye. There.“
‘What do you remember of it after that?“
‘Remember of it?“ Cisily frowned, thinking about it. ”Nothing, I don’t think. Nay. Nothing.“
‘Not whether it was there or not there after that?“
‘If t’wasn’t there, Simon had it. That’s all I’d think about it. It was there or else he had it, no great matter. As long as’t’wasn’t lying about for me to pick up, I’d give it no thought and wouldn’t now, except Esota Emmet came to tell me about it, right enough, while I cooking supper just now. About master’s hood and Gilbey’s belt. Somebody’s been up to no good with those,“ she added darkly. ”That’s what Esota says, and so do I and anybody else around here with sense.“
But until Montfort said the same, Perryn and Gilbey Dunn weren’t safe, Frevisse thought, and took the thought with her as she took her leave, declining with thanks Perryn’s offer to see her to the church, wanting the chance to be alone.
The west still glowed yellow above the lately set sun, the long summer twilight had hardly begun to fade, and from other times in other villages, Frevisse knew that on such an evening people should be out and about, work done for the day but with light enough left for visiting among neighbors, and surely there should be a scatter of children at play on the green, their laughter and shouting bright through the darkening hour or so until they were called in to bed. But this evening there was no one in sight except for a pair of the crowner’s men on the bench under the oak tree, a stoup of probably ale between them since one of their fellows was coming out the alehouse doorway bearing another. Save for them, Prior Byfield was outwardly empty of all the life there should have been, because somewhere among them was a murderer and they did not know who. While Tom Hulcote’s body rotted in its grave, the rot of his death was spreading here, and not helped in the least by Montfort corrupting where he should have cured.
Was it greed that made a person so stupid? Or was it that stupidity led to greed?
Frevisse turned toward St. Chad’s, tired with this gathering of pieces. And now, whether she wanted to or not, she would be sifting and shifting them around, trying to make sense from them without knowing if she even had the pieces needed to make sense.
And meanwhile there were her slacked duties waiting to be answered for. For that, she would not only to ask Sister Thomasine’s pardon but offer to take both their duties through the night in reparation. Unhappily, no matter how little she minded asking pardon, the rest of her resolve brought her to falter in the nave doorway. These past days’ duties had not grown easier with doing. If anything, they had grown harder for her. But that gave her no right to scant them, especially when she knew Mistress Margery purposed to spend tonight at her own cottage, tending a needed herbal brew through its simmering and sieving and more simmering, and with firm hold against what she would have preferred to do, she went on in.
The little family clusters of straw-stuffed mattresses laid on the floor down both sides of the nave were as they had been, the low, shielded lamplight showing here and there the restless shifting of a child, pale faces and glint of eyes as women looked up to see who had come and then, Frevisse being of no great interest to them, turned back to what they had been doing, which looked for a merciful number of them to be settling to sleep beside their sleeping children. Only Anne Perryn stood up and moved away from her children, bedded near the rood screen, to meet Frevisse and ask, low-voiced, “Have you seen Simon? Do you know how is it with him? Is he going to be arrested?”
‘He’s at home and well. As things are now, he’s not to be arrested, no.“