Domina Edith’s reply was soft, but prompt. “Do neither. Dame Claire, go to the warming room and with my authority set the watch beginning with Sister Lucy and Sister Emma, who must come immediately, and may go from here to a late supper in the kitchen when they are replaced. The rest as you all agree among yourselves, except Dame Frevisse, who will take the first watch after Matins and Lauds, as she has guests to see to now. Once you have decided how you will divide the night and tomorrow until chapter, then you may go to supper.”
Dame Claire, with a nod of appreciation for the prompt solution to one part of the problem, curtsied deeply. “As you wish, Domina,” she murmured, and went, taking Sister Juliana with her.
“Now,” said Domina Edith, “you, Master Naylor, had better go see to it that the players are in the lesser guesthall and stay there, then that Master Montfort’s horses are properly stabled.” To the servant she said, “Go, give Master Montfort my greetings and tell him I will see him in my parlor so soon as he is able to come. Sister Thomasine will accompany me there now. Dame Frevisse, you stay here until Sisters Juliana and Emma come, then haste to your duties in the guesthall. See if there is something warm that can be had from our kitchen.”
She paused, considering if that covered all that needed doing on the moment, then nodded and held out her hand to take Sister Thomasine’s.
She had hardly departed when the two nuns who would begin the watch over Sister Fiacre’s body came in. Frevisse brought two candles and two gilt candle holders from the sacristy for the head and foot of the coffin, and lit them from the altar candle, which she then blew out and replaced.
It was nearly dark out, and the courtyard was lit by flaring torches. Frevisse, standing outside the church’s western door, made a quick count of the men Montfort had brought with him, and saw the crowner himself among them, his bulk muffled in a heavy hooded cloak, standing by his tall yellow gelding, giving curt instructions to a priory servant before handing over the reins. The torchlight made his face more florid than it already was, and judging by his expression, his temper matched its color.
Frevisse pretended not to see him as she went quickly by, bound for the greater guesthall. The last time he had had to come to St. Frideswide’s, she had interfered with his investigation in what he considered a wholly improper manner for a woman and a nun. That she proved herself right and him wrong did not change his opinion of her. She did not want to set him off again, nor allow him to make his usual facile, incorrect deductions. She would have to work around him, and send her ideas to him by way of Father Henry or Master Naylor, in the form of suggestions or questions that would cause no offense. Master Naylor did not favor cleverness in women but at least knew how to work around stupidity in men.
In the guesthall the servants were already gathered, waiting for instructions. She ordered first that Sym’s body be moved to an empty shed in the outer yard-Montfort would not approve of sharing his quarters with a dead villein-then that the fireplaces in the best chamber and the guesthall kitchen be lit. She set the servants to their other duties, and with everything in motion and certain her people knew how to carry through, Frevisse left them to it.
In the yard, she looked toward the lesser guesthall. A servant she recognized as Naylor’s assistant was standing guard at the door. She ought to go back to the cloister, to confer with Dame Alys in her kitchen about heating cider. But she turned away from the cloister for the other guesthall. She would make sure the players knew there would be no play tonight.
19
FREVISSE AWOKE THE next morning heavy with weariness. Standing her watch in the cold church beside the stiff body of Sister Fiacre had, besides denying her needed rest, depressed her. She was tired of death, tired of being cold and ill, tired of being around other cold, sick women, tired even of prayers and worship. She forced herself through the day’s beginning until the end of chapter. Then, as the nuns left to go about their various morning tasks and Dame Claire moved to Domina Edith’s side to help her back to her rooms, the prioress, accepting her arm, gestured to Frevisse to come with them.
Domina Edith needed only a little help while walking, but on the stairs to her private rooms gave way to their steadying help with simple grace. Under the furred cloak and several layers of clothing she seemed all thin flesh and small bones.
Her rooms had more luxury than the rest of St. Frideswide’s. Her parlor, where she received guests of importance or ones personally welcome, overlooked the courtyard through three tall windows glazed with clear glass. In the more than thirty years since Domina Edith had become prioress, her personal things had so gradually come into the room that St. Frideswide’s would have seemed incomplete without them. A woven rug from Spain lay over a table and an embroidery frame with an unfinished wall hanging of Virgin and Child in a field of flowers stood near the fireplace. On the hearth was an elderly basket where her greyhound had slept; though the dog had died last summer, Domina Edith had not yet given order for the basket to be taken away, and no one would ever think to do it without her order.
The parlor was ready for its mistress, the fire built up in the fireplace and braziers lighted in two corners of the room. The only thing not friendly or fitting was Master Montfort standing spread legged in front of the fireplace, displeasure plain on his fox-nosed face. His hands were behind him, the back of one slapping into the palm of the other, filling the gap of his waiting with sharp noise.
Frevisse felt a sharp rise of dismay and alarm at seeing him. There was simply no way around the fact that Master Morys Montfort, the King’s crowner for northern Oxfordshire, was an arrogant fool.
Domina Edith inclined her head to him. “Benedicite, Master Montfort. I pray you give me a moment to finish some bit of business with Dame Claire.”
She did not slip free of her cloak as she turned to settle into her chair, but kept it close around her. Even before this winter sickness she had been somewhat declining. Her soft folded skin was so pale it was difficult to tell where it ended and her white wimple began. But her eyes had lost none of their alertness and she fixed them now on Dame Claire.
“So-” she began, but the word croaked and she paused to clear her throat before trying again. “So, how is our siege of the rheum doing? Is this going to be done with soon, or shall we go on like this until spring?”
“Not into spring, surely,” Dame Claire said, a little stiffly. She had as little liking for Montfort as Frevisse did. “It’s easing among most of us, rather than going on to something worse.”
“And for that we must thank you as well as God, I know,” Domina Edith said. “It will be a blessing when it’s finished, though. I’m very weary of the offices sounding like a chorus of frogs. Thank you, Dame.” She turned to Montfort with an unapologetic smile. “It was not something I was minded to ask in chapter for fear of inspiring relapses. Now, how are matters with you? Are you being well seen to, and helped in your questioning?”
Montfort stopped his impatient hand slapping. “Your steward has told me enough that there’s going to be a little trouble in concluding matters.”
Dame Claire knew more about Sym’s death and Sister Fiacre’s than did Roger Naylor, but it was clear from her expression that Montfort had not questioned her. But Montfort saw her ready to speak and directed so ill-tempered a look at her that she pressed her lips closed. He sniffed his contentment at putting an impertinent female in her place.
“I had thought to find this was a mere death by misadventure,” he said. “A villein picking a quarrel with a rogue during Christmas idleness and falling on his own knife. I wish it were so, as I have my own holiday to enjoy, Lord Lovel being so kind as to honor my wife and me with an invitation to keep the holidays with him.”