Raised voices startled her as she entered the other guesthall. Her first thought was that the man Barnaby had roused and was complaining loudly. But as she thought it, she saw that Meg, sitting beside her husband’s body, was looking not at him but, dry-eyed and tense, down the hall toward her sons in close and obviously angry talk with Bassett. Ellis, and Joliffe. Or rather, Sym was talking, shoving himself into Bassett’s face while Hewe, like a fair shadow, was poised behind him, clearly ready for whatever was going to happen. Frevisse started toward them, but before she reached them, Ellis said something that brought Sym around to face him, his voice rising for Frevisse to hear. “And I say my father was never so drunk in his life he couldn’t keep a cart on the road!”
With insultingly deep indifference, Ellis said, “Then yesterday he was drunker than he’s ever been before. When he drove past us, he’d beaten that nag into a mockery of a gallop and was standing up in the cart waving his goad and singing-” He turned to Bassett. “What was he singing, Thomas?”
Bassett for answer began in a mellow baritone, “I have a noble cock, whose crowing starts my day, he makes me rise up early-my prayers for to say!”
Joliffe, grinning, joined in harmony, “I have a noble cock, his eye is set in amber; and every night he perches-in my lady’s chamber!”
Ellis was opening his mouth to join them when Bassett caught sight of Frevisse and cut him and Joliffe both off with a sharp, embarrassed gesture. “And that’s the truth of it, lad,” he said more courteously. “It was no surprise to us, only a grief, when we found him smashed up a while after that.”
“So you’re saying. But there was no one else than you to see it, was there? I say it’s more likely you forced him off the road and into that crash, for a chance to dip into his pockets!”
“Boy, a glance would’ve told a simpleton there was nothing about the man, or his cart, worth taking,” said Joliffe. Before Sym could respond, Frevisse moved between the two sides and said, keeping her tone level, “They’ve already told us this. What’s brought you to questioning it now?”
Jerked out of his anger’s stride, Sym fumbled for the humility expected toward his betters, his eyes shifting hotly between her and the players. He finally burst out resentfully, “I asked the use of their mare. I’ve need of her to fetch in what’s left of Gilbey Dunn’s cart but they think her too good for the likes of me to use.”
“And so you’re trying to make other trouble,” Frevisse said coldly. “Saying things for which there’s neither proof nor likelihood. Better you put your passion into praying for your father than accusing the men who helped him.”
“Helped him into the ditch, most likely!” Sym burst out.
“Helped him to here rather than leaving him to die in the ditch where he’d put himself,” Frevisse snapped back. Sym was far beyond his bounds in speaking back at her and she cut off whatever else he meant to say. “Enough! They are the priory’s guests and this is no place for quarreling.”
Sym glared at her, his hands twitching halfway toward fists while he fought for control, until finally he dropped his eyes away and shoved his hands behind his back.
To smooth the matter, Bassett said, “Tisbe is as tired as the rest of us. And our own need of her is too great to be chancing her to a stranger’s hands, no matter what reason. There must be horses in your village you can borrow.”
Sullen and unconvinced, Sym avoided looking at Frevisse but swung his look from one to the other of the players, wanting to hit someone and knowing he could not. “Pah!” he exclaimed. “Maybe I don’t want to use your nag after all, you and it being no more than plain dirt off the road!” Unable to unleash his temper into action, he jerked away from them, nearly blundered into Hewe as he swung away, and took his revenge by swinging at him. But Hewe was clearly used to that and ducked the blow easily, backing toward their mother who still sat beside Barnaby, her anguish plain on her face. Sym, seeing Meg, ducked his head again, away from her, and lumbered into a heavy, swift walk, to go slamming out the door. Hewe stood where he was, unsure what to do until his mother, not meeting anyone else’s gaze, gestured for him to come to her and, when he had, pulled him down beside her to go on with the vigil over his father.
Bassett, holding Ellis from following Sym by a hard hold on his arm, said, “Dame Frevisse, I pray you, witness we’ve done nothing to warrant his anger at us.”
Frevisse nodded. “I doubt his tempers last long. He’s not likely to bother you with it again, but I’ll warn the servants to be mindful of him. Meanwhile I bring you a request from our lady prioress.”
Bassett immediately swept his deepest bow. “My lady, it will be our chiefest joy to serve you and your mistress.”
“She asks if you will perform for us-”
“Something sweet, meek, and gentle as the lady nuns themselves,” said Joliffe in a sweet, meek, gentle voice.
Frevisse glanced at him sharply. After her set-to with Sym, she was in small mood for trifling from anyone. “Something suited to the season and our worship,” she amended, giving her voice the same edge she had used on Sym. “Perhaps a miracle or mystery play?”
“Surely, my lady,” said Bassett. “We have several such ready to hand. You can look through our book to see which might best please you. Or let the lady prioress do so. It’s here to hand. Piers, fetch me that chest there, the little one-” He pointed toward their stacked belongings beyond the circle of the hearth and Piers began obediently to crawl out from his covers near the fire.
“Piers, stay,” Ellis ordered, stopping the child with a gesture even more quickly than Rose putting out a protesting hand to him. “You stay warm and covered like you’ve been told. I’ll fetch it.”
As he went, Rose’s look thanked him and his own look dared Bassett to argue, but Bassett was uninterested, so long as the shabby collection of bound sheets came to him. Instead he began to ask Frevisse where in the nunnery the play could best be held and how many folk would be coming to it. The two of them settled into a satisfying talk of details and possibilities that ended in deciding the church would do best, and that probably they would perform The Magi the day after tomorrow, or the day after that if Piers took that long to better, so that he could give his voice to the angelic choir.
7
FREVISSE FOUND A quiet corner in the cloister that the sun had warmed a little, and the wind couldn’t reach. She pulled the thick paper from her sleeve and unfolded it. Her uncle’s distinctive italic warmed her further just seeing it. For a moment she was transported home-with the Chaucers she had found the only permanent dwelling place of her life before she came to St. Frideswide’s-the house new-built when she came to it, bright outside with unmellowed Cotswold stone, bright inside with many large windows. She smiled, remembering how proud her uncle had been to greet visitors in his magnificent hall.
She opened the letter and began to read. Thomas Chaucer had not inherited his father’s gift for soaring imagery, but he was lucid and fluent, with more than a hint of his father’s sense of the ridiculous.
To my dear and right well beloved niece Dame Frevisse at St. Frideswide’s Priory: I greet you as heartily as I am able and so does your aunt Matilda, who begs me greet you in her name.
This winter proving severe, and my age beginning to weigh on me, I am staying at home this Christmastide. We, for a wonder, have no guests, and so are more than amply provisioned, all matters considered. Therefore I write to ask if you have any secret desire for some treat more than St. Frideswide’s can provide. Sugared almonds, perhaps, or three oranges to eat and share with Dame Claire and Domina Edith?