‘That’s stupid!“ Mary hissed. ”Your brain’s withered away along with the rest of you, shut up in that nunnery there!“
‘Because it wasn’t Matthew who sold the horse in Banbury, was it?“ Dame Frevisse said, sharp as a whip’s crack. ”Matthew was dead before he ever left your byre, wasn’t he? It was Tom Hulcote who stole Gilbey’s horse, used it to carry Matthew’s body away to hide near Wroxton, sold the horse in Banbury, then went back to put the body out to be found and came home again while all that while you played the outraged, wronged, deserted wife.“
‘That’s… None of that’s true,“ Mary said, furious. ”Tom wasn’t even here when Matthew left. You remember!“ she demanded at Simon. ”He was gone before Midsummer court and didn’t come back until after Matthew was long gone.“
‘I mind he was gone then, yes,“ Simon said, cautious.
‘But how far?“ Dame Frevisse asked. ”Who’s to say he wasn’t lying up in the woods, waiting for you to quarrel with Matthew and bar him out of his house, both of you knowing Matthew would refuge in the byre as he always did, but this time for Tom Hulcote to come and kill. Or Tom and you. Did you help in your husband’s death? Or merely plan it?“
‘That’s filthy!“ Mary cried.
‘There would have been blood in the byre if he was killed there,“ Walter protested.
‘Was anyone looking for blood?“ Dame Frevisse retorted. ”No one even looked for Matthew, let alone his blood, and on a byre’s dirt floor, with a little shovelling and some treading down, it’d not likely to be found, especially with no one looking for it.“
‘I mind Tom wasn’t back until three days at least after Matthew was gone,“ Bert said consideringly. ”Three days. Four nights. Time enough for shifting Matthew’s body around and all the rest you said.“
‘You old fool!“ Mary snapped. ”I suppose Tom killed himself, too? Or did I kill him? The only love I had in the world, and I might as well be dead now he is?“ Her voice scaled up and broke and she hid her face in her hands.
The lie of that was enough to stop Simon’s breath, but Dame Frevisse said in her hatefully cold voice, “Was it easier the second time to smash a man’s head in, Mary? From killing Matthew you knew to hit Tom from the side, didn’t you? And the stabbing. Once wasn’t enough? Were you just that angry with him because he wouldn’t leave when you wanted him to so you had to stab him and stab him again?”
Mary’s hands dropped from her face as she sprang to her feet. “You lying bitch! You don’t know anything about any of it. So shut yourself up!”
‘Here now!“ Walter said, but to Dame Frevisse, ”By your pardon, my lady, but it doesn’t make sense, all that you’re saying. About killing Matthew to start with. Why would Tom go to all that trouble of moving the body, stealing and selling the horse, moving the body again? If he’d killed him, why not just hide the body and be done with it?“
‘Because it wasn’t enough to have Matthew dead,“ Dame Frevisse answered. ”They needed it known he was dead. Otherwise Tom Hulcote couldn’t bid to have his holding and his widow.“
Walter started to say something to that, but she cut him off, saying to Mary, “How hard was it, waiting for word that his body had been found but it never coming? You finally sent Tom Hulcote to… what? Make sure it was still there, probably, and then go into Banbury and start a rumor that someone had seen a body out Wroxton way.”
‘You’re mad,“ Mary scorned.
Dame Frevisse looked to Bert. “Do you remember Tom was gone a few days at St. Swithin’s?”
‘Aye, I mind Gilbey was swearing that was the last he’d put up with Tom’s going off without a word.“ He elbowed John in the ribs. ”You mind that.“
John nodded that he did, and so did Walter and Hamon, who said for good measure, “Gilbey was right angry about it, aye.”
‘That doesn’t mean he was in Banbury,“ Mary said, her voice daggered with fury.
‘Gilbey Dunn saw him there,“ Dame Frevisse answered.
‘You’re lying!“
‘The trouble was that you couldn’t wait longer for Matthew’s body to be found. There had to be enough of it left to tell who it had been. Did you tell Tom, when you sent him off, to be sure of it? Rotted as it had to be by then, you had to have been worried there wasn’t enough of it still there…“
‘Stop it about Matthew’s body!“ Mary slammed her fists down on the tabletop. ”I don’t want to hear about his thrice-damned body, rotted or otherwise!“
‘You’ll hear about it for as long as I choose to talk about it,“ Dame Frevisse said, cold with authority.
‘I won’t! I’m going.“
‘Master Christopher,“ Dame Frevisse said, and as Mary started to pull back from the table, he rose and took hold of her nearest arm. For an instant she looked about to strike him, but Dame Frevisse said, ”Sit,“ and Master Christopher pulled her down so that she sat, albeit with the gracelessness of an outraged cat who, baffled though it might be for now, is only waiting to have its own way.
‘But even so,“ said Bert, ”even if that’s all anything like true…“
‘Fool!“ Mary flung at him. ”It’s none of it true. It’s all lies she’s making up because she’s ugly and a nun and I’m not!“
‘… what’s Tom dead for?“ finished Bert.
Dame Frevisse fixed her cold eyes on Mary. “Why don’t you tell us how Tom came to be dead, Mary? You struck him in the head first, to bring him down, then stabbed him. He’d not have stood there to be stabbed without fighting back. You’d never have put two knife thrusts into him if he’d been conscious. But you’d learned from killing Matthew what to do. That’s what the blow to the head was for, wasn’t it? To be sure he didn’t fight back while you finished killing him.”
Mary was drawing sharp, shuddering breaths through her set teeth, her hot-eyed, hating glare fixed on Dame Frevisse who went on, still coldly meeting her hatred, “And after you’d killed him, in that while until you could haul him out to dump him in that ditch, where did you keep his body, Mary? Under your bed? Or maybe in your bed, for old times’ sake?”
‘Simon!“ Mary shrieked, finally tearing her gaze away to him. ”Make her stop!“
But it was Walter who said, “That’s not going to work. Even if she did kill him…”
Mary’s head whipped toward him. “I didn’t kill him!”
‘… she’d not be able to move Tom’s body far, and we know it was moved. And even if she could have moved it, where’s the sense in her killing him anyway? I can see her doing for Matthew…“
Mary made a sound like a spitting cat.
‘… and I can see Tom helping her at it,“ Walter went on despite a startled glance at her, ”because he stood to gain by Matthew being dead. He was counting on having Matthew’s holding…“
‘By marrying her,“ Dame Frevisse agreed. ”Because he didn’t know she was Father Edmund’s paramour as well as his.“
Mary sprang up again at that, screaming, “Liar! You liar!” And at Simon, at all of them, “Make her stop! Shut her up! Make her stop it!”
Surprised how far he was from having any feeling for her except disgust, Simon said, “I can’t. She’s only saying what someone else has said.”
Mary swept a look of derision around the table. “Who?
Someone of you who couldn’t have me, so you’re making up lies about me instead?“