Frevisse stopped in the midst of stepping aside and curtsying to her to ask blankly, “What?”
Already past her, Domina Elisabeth said back over her shoulder, “When you’re in the village and out about the fields, you can’t be forever running back here whenever it’s time for prayers. You’re excused them for this while, whenever necessary.”
Frevisse found, following Domina Elisabeth down the stairs and into the cloister walk, that she was angry. Not even so much at being forced into Master Naylor’s place when she very much did not want to be but at the way Domina Elisabeth was so easily dismissing her from prayers that were supposed to be the heart of everything they did within St. Frideswide’s. But Domina Elisabeth was going on, “And there’s the question of who should go with you.” Because no nun was supposed to leave the nunnery unaccompanied by another nun. “I think Sister Thomasine would be best.”
Frevisse lost stride, literally stumbling over that. Of the few nuns there were in St. Frideswide’s, Sister Thomasine would have been, from simply a practical point of view, Frevisse’s last choice.
‘She prays so much of the time, I doubt it’s good for her,“ Domina Elisabeth continued, going along the cloister walk toward the church now, some nuns already waiting at the door there, others still coming from elsewhere around the cloister. ”She needs to be more in the world, I think, if only for a little while. Because how can she pray well for what she doesn’t understand?“
The sense in that was counterbalanced, Frevisse feared, by the reality of Sister Thomasine. She had desired nun-hood and the cloistered life since she was a child, had shunned men to the point of fear in her first years in St. Frideswide’s. Frevisse could not remember when last Sister Thomasine had been out of the cloister but didn’t think she had been past the priory’s gates to the outside world since coming in them eleven years or more ago, and behind her prioress’ back, Frevisse prayed soundlessly and from the heart, “Ad Dominum, cum tribularer, clamavi et exaudivit me. Kyrie, eleison. Christe, eleison…” To the Lord, when I was troubled, I cried out and he heard me. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy… On her as well as Sister Thomasine.
Chapter 3
Simon’s thought when word came from the priory was that it was bad news all the way around-first of what was toward with Master Naylor and then that a nun was taking his place. Simon’s grandam had always said-far more often than anyone wanted to hear it-that you could always judge someone by how they took news of another’s troubles, and the news of Master Naylor’s troubles had proved her right again, as she would have declared to any who’d listen if she hadn’t been dead these fifteen years.
Some had been simply glad to have something different to talk about. It hardly mattered who was in trouble so long as they could run off their tongues about it, shake their heads, and tut-tut over how the world went, you never knew, did you?
Then there were those-and not just those who might have had quarrel with Master Naylor one time or another but even some with reason to be grateful to him for justice or mercy given-who made glee he was come to grief and might come to worse before it was done. They were the sort who always felt that another man’s going down somehow meant they were going up, as if everything were a seesaw, when to Simon’s mind Fortune’s wheel was still showed best the way the world went, taking you around and up and around and down and around and up again, and the best you could hope was that the being down went faster, ended sooner, than the being up, but the only thing certain was that Fortune was always turning that wheel. As his grandam, God keep her soul, had likewise been wont to say, Fortune’s wheel and a fool’s tongue were the two things never still.
For himself, Simon was sorry to hear of Master Naylor’s trouble, whatever the rights or wrongs of it, and wished him well. It was when he found he had to deal with a nun in Master Naylor’s place that he had turned sorry for himself, too.
‘How’m I to deal with a nun?“ he’d complained to Anne. ”What’s she to know of aught? Likely she can’t even tell handle from prongs on a hayfork, let be what field should be grazed and which one plowed and what to do when Ralph Denton’s hell-bound cow has been impounded again.“
‘So long as she knows she doesn’t know and follows where you lead, it’ll be well enough,“ Anne had answered and thumped the bread dough over on its board and gone on kneading it. ”It’s if she thinks she knows and doesn’t that you’ll have trouble right enough.“
Simon had been wanting pity, not reason, and tried again. “With having to go back and forth to the nunnery whenever there’s need to talk to her, there’s good hours wasted every day.”
‘You can be to the nunnery by the field path in less time than it takes you to down a bowl of ale on a hot day,“ Anne had answered, ”and you’ll save the cost of the ale in the bargain.“
Simon had given up. She’d find out soon enough what he was trying to make her understand, that this dealing with a nun was going to be trouble and more trouble, nothing but trouble.
So he was surprised to be sitting here on the bench by his own front door in the pear tree’s shade, talking with this Dame Frevisse about what fieldwork needed to be done before Lammastide and starting to be at ease with her. Partly that was because she listened more than she talked, though he was finding there was a sharpness to the way she listened, as if she were hearing more than he said, that kept him careful of his words, but it boded well she’d come to the village, had sought him out instead of sending for him, and it boded better she’d brought a short, penned message from Master Naylor that she had his trust in taking his place this while. With that to start from, Simon had settled down to make the best of it, and they had agreed, right off, that neither of them was happy with Master Naylor’s trouble and never thought, either of them, that he was villein-born and had run from it and lied about it. “I think his tongue would turn to wood if ever he tried to lie, he’s that stiff-necked a man over truth,” Simon had said, and Dame Frevisse had laughed, agreeing. Then he had set to telling her what things she’d need to know in Master Naylor’s place: how far along the crops were, which fields were still in need of weeding before second haying came next week, who was caught up on their workdays, who was behind and why, and that he didn’t know yet if there’d be need to hire out of the village for the harvest or not.
‘It looks we’ll likely need more men if we’re to have it done as fast as I’d like,“ Simon said, ”but money is short to hand after these past bad years and if we can do without hiring it’d be to the good.“
‘But if we put off hiring for too long,“ Dame Frevisse said, ”there might be no one left to hire if after all there’s need.“
‘Aye, because likely everyone else is in the same case as we are, and we’re short a man already as it is, with Matthew Woderove gone.“
‘Gone?“ Dame Frevisse asked. ”Dead?“
‘Nay. Run off and stolen a horse into the bargain, too, the fool.“
‘One of ours or one of Lord Lovell’s?“
‘Gilbey Dunn’s, and he’s not happy about it, right enough.“
‘Not the horse. This Matthew Woderove. Is he the priory’s or Lord Lovell’s villein?“
‘Oh. Lord Lovell’s.“ And so Simon’s problem and not hers, worse luck.
‘Warrant has been put out for him?“
‘I sent word to Master Spencer. That’s all I know about it but I suppose so.“ His lordship was tight that way, he didn’t add aloud.
‘Was this just lately?“
‘Just past Midsummer.“
‘Odd he’d leave before harvest could give him money to run on.“