Frevisse was at Naylor’s side now, between the crowd and Joliffe, a naked place to be, the small torch-glared space between one man and the crowding, anger-harshened faces, but she set her voice bold as Naylor’s to ask, “So was Sym’s knife still in Sym’s hand when he got up?”
One of the three men caught her thought. “That’s right. He still had it. He put it back in its sheath. I remember.”
General nods from the others agreed with him.
“So whatever happened, if he was hurt then, it was an accident,” Frevisse said, “and of Sym’s making.”
There was nodding to that, too, through the whole crowd; but then the blunt-faced man said, “So it was maybe afterwards, in the dark outside, he did it.”
The crowd readily grumbled back toward anger. Frevisse swiftly turned to Joliffe and said, “So tell us where you truly were after you left the alehouse. You didn’t come straight here.”
She was guessing but already knew Joliffe’s face well enough to read, despite his control of it, that she had guessed right. Knowing only he could see her own expression, she willed him to understand it might be his life to answer her rightly; and maybe Naylor’s and Ellis’s lives, too. She and Dame Claire were almost surely safe enough; they would only be dragged aside if it came to fighting again; but she thought Naylor was not the kind of man to leave him to the crowd unfought for, and Ellis was already in the middle of it.
Joliffe met her look and read it. Or already knew the stakes as well as she did. With a penchant for survival and wry humor both, he answered, “I went from the alehouse into the arms of the pretty girl. She left when Sym turned ugly, and waited for me at the church porch. We saw him go stumbling past on what I suppose was his way home. Unfortunately,” he added carelessly, not seeming to hear the stir and mutter among the men, “all I could charm from the girl were kisses and sweet words, but surely we were there long enough for even Sym to have reached his door.”
“And that’s something Roger Naylor can ask about tomorrow,” Dame Claire cut in before anyone else could say more. “Tonight he can lock you up and be done with it, but Dame Frevisse and I need escort to the village if there’s someone hurt there. How bad is the wound?”
The men looked vaguely at each other and shuffled uneasily. Dame Claire stood up with a disgusted look, but it was Naylor who said, letting his aggravation show, “You came storming up here, breaking our peace and beating our guest without even knowing how bad the hurt is? You don’t have any idea of it?”
One of the men shrugged and muttered, “Meg came in t’alehouse. Said Sym’d been stabbed by one of the player folk. And we-” He looked around at his fellows and shrugged. “We called up some of t’others thereabouts and came up here to make sure the man wasn’t trying to leave without he paid for what he’d done.”
“Only you didn’t bother to grab the right man, and the right man hadn’t done it anyway,” Naylor snapped. “A fine lot of fools you’ve made of yourselves.”
Their looks said they agreed with him. Ellis had climbed painfully to his feet and went now to join Joliffe in the doorway. Dame Claire said, “So that’s settled. But we still need to go to the village. Who will…”
But she was interrupted. Torchlight and voices from the priory gateway turned them in that direction as four more village men trod heavy-footed in, carrying a piece of fencing flat among them, a blanket-covered body on it. Meg walked beside it, unsteady on her feet, clinging and leaning on Hewe, who was white faced, tear stained, dazed. Father Henry came behind the sorry little group, his head bent in prayer. There was no need to ask who lay under the blanket, and no one did.
14
FLATLY TURNING TO business in the face of death, Naylor said, “We can put him in the outer cowshed. It’s empty and he’ll keep there until the crowner comes.”
It became the King’s business whenever any of his subjects died in an unexplained or violent way. His representative in such matters, the crowner, must come to look and question and collect evidence until he was satisfied he had the facts of the case. If there was guilt, he made an arrest. If the death had been by accident or from natural causes, everyone was released to go about his business. Sym’s body could not be buried until it had been viewed by the crowner.
By custom, the body should go to lie in the village church, but there was no priest there now; and the priory’s church was not the place for one of Lord Lovel’s peasants. Indeed, the matter should have belonged altogether to Lord Lovel’s steward, but there was no telling where he was among his lord’s properties just now; it would take time to contact him, and he and Naylor had long since fallen into helping each other when either was in need or gone.
So for the time being the priory was the place for Sym’s body. But Frevisse said with quiet authority equal to Naylor’s, “Rather, put him in the new guesthall. It’s readier to hand for what needs to be done.” And better the guesthall than a cowshed.
Dame Claire had gone to Meg and was murmuring to her with the deep, ready sympathy she had for anyone in any kind of pain. But the blunt-faced man was not done yet and said loudly, still ready for trouble, “So it’s murder now maybe.”
“Ah, Jankyn, let it go for now,” someone said. But others rumbled.
Ellis and Joliffe still stood together in the doorway. Frevisse prayed they would have sense enough to fall back inside and throw down the bar across the door if the crowd turned ugly again.
But the ugliness was past. There was only the grumbled certainty of wrongs and a wanting of explanations. Frevisse, careful to seem unhurried, moved to Meg’s other side, took her hand-dry, callused, limp in her own-and asked, “What did your son say about his hurt? Did he say who did it to him?”
Meg did not raise her head. In a remote, weary voice, she answered, “He said the player stabbed him. In the alehouse. That’s all he said. It was another useless fight. Like Barnaby used to get into. Sym was always starting fights, like his father.”
Her voice trailed off, but it had been enough. Naylor raised his own voice to say, “There. You’ve heard it. It happened in the alehouse, in the fight, and enough of you saw what happened there to know there’s no one to blame but Sym himself. There’s naught else for any of you to be doing now until the crowner comes. Go on home. It’s a cold night to be standing about.”
Unpurposed now and aware of the hour and the cold, the men began to drift away out the priory gateway. The four bearing Sym’s body waited for Father Henry to lead the way to the new guesthall. Meg looked at Dame Claire, who said, “You come with me, Meg. You can stay the night here. There’s no need for you to go back to your house tonight, not alone.”
“There’s Hewe,” Meg said vaguely, looking around.
“I’ll see to him,” said Frevisse. The boy was standing where he had stopped, dazed, past tears for now. Meg did not look at him, only nodded and let Dame Claire take her from the women and lead her away toward the cloister door where cautious heads were brave enough to peer out, now the noise was over.
“You’d best tell Domina Edith what has happened,” Frevisse said.
Dame Claire nodded. The curious faces disappeared inside with her and Meg, and now the only light left in the courtyard was from the open guesthall door and a lantern sitting beside the mounting block. Naylor went to pick it up and held it so its yellow glow fell on Joliffe’s and Ellis’s faces where they still stood in the doorway.
“You were luckier than I’d have thought was likely,” he said. “But you’re not to leave here. Master Montfort will be wanting to talk to you when he comes.”
“They’ll stay,” Frevisse said. “There’s a sick child, and they’re to play for us tomorrow or next day.”