Hewe scuffed at the rushes and would not meet her gaze. “Ah, Mam, it’s so cold there-”
“And you could find nowhere to be warm but here with this sort?”
“They’re not bad-” Hewe flashed.
“They are.” Meg did not sound angry, only tired. “You come along. You’ve praying to do, and penance, too, for not caring for Sym like you ought, and for not doing what your mother tells you.”
Hewe flared again. “He never cared for me! Anyhow, I’m sick of praying! How can you say I’m to be a priest? I’ve no mewling, mincing priest in me!”
“You hush your words. Don’t say one more word.” Meg’s voice came out flat, but still not angry. “You come with me,” she repeated. “Now.”
Slow footed, he went. When he came close enough, Meg’s hand whipped out to grasp his arm, hard enough that he flinched and cringed from her. Meg, still not acknowledging anyone else was there, left, taking him with her.
Ellis let out a heavy breath. “There’s a woman who knows her own mind. Who would have thought it? Too bad the lad won’t be back.”
“Yes, that’s a pity,” said Bassett. “He had possibilities.”
“Did he?” Frevisse asked, surprised.
“Indeed. He has a better voice than most, and all the priest teaching she’s forced on him has given him a quick memory. He was the one working the curtain yestereve, and he did it as well as any of us would. He’s aflame to join us, and I would he could, for he might do us proud.”
“Well, no use crying over spilt milk,” Ellis said. “There will be others down the road, and I pray it’s not a long journey, for with more players we can do more plays.”
Piers said, “Shall I talk to him later?”
“No,” Joliffe said. Still looking toward the closed door beyond which Hewe and Meg had disappeared, he added, “He’s frightened of her.”
“And well he should be,” said Ellis. “Did you see that clout she fetched him yesterday? I warrant his ear is still ringing.”
“You don’t understand,” Rose said. Like Joliffe, she was looking where they had gone, with a strange expression on her face. Her tone echoed his. “He’s frightened of more than that.”
“He hates what she wants for him,” Bassett said. “As if we haven’t got enough bad priests.” He broke into old-fashioned English. “‘And shame it is to see, Clene sheep and a shitty shepherd.’ Begging your pardon, my lady.”
“Since those words were written by my great-uncle, I can hardly object.”
“Old Geoffrey is your-” Bassett was both surprised and awed. “Did you ever see him? No, of course not, you’re not old enough. But you must know his son.”
“I was partly raised in his household. He’s told me many stories of his father.”
“Well, I never! As I live and breathe! My lady, you take my breath clean away!”
Nearly Frevisse laughed at him, covering her mouth to hide her smile. To be related by marriage to the son of a famous writer was hardly to be famous oneself. Yet his pleasure and awe were warming to one who had too long practiced humility and self-denigration.
Rose said, “But we have thanks to be giving to Dame Frevisse for what she has herself done for us. Joliffe, you should speak up.”
“I keep trying. But I keep being interrupted.” Joliffe rose to his feet in a single long, graceful movement and swept Frevisse a deep bow. “My lady, you did me good service yesterday. My thanks to you shall be eternal, my gratitude unending, my repaying of the debt perpetual, if that becomes possible.”
Frevisse answered his bow with a deeper than necessary curtsey and answered, “My thanks for your bounteous thanks but be assured that seeing justice done is my recompense in full.” She straightened and added drily, “Besides, I doubt either of us could bear that much gratitude for very long.”
Joliffe grinned. “But it’s so grand while it lasts.”
Frevisse smiled and went away, moving hastily only when out in the cold. She crossed the yard to the new guesthall to see what Montfort was up to. A quick look around as she entered told her that all was in order in the hall. Frevisse went on to Montfort’s chamber. The man on duty outside its door shook his head at her as she approached and said, “He’s busy now, Dame, questioning another.”
A loud questioning, so loud that Frevisse did not need to strain to hear. As she paused, Montfort’s voice came strongly through the closed door, and then another man’s right after, declaring no, he had not.
“Gilbey Dunn!” Frevisse exclaimed.
“Came in this morning of his own will,” the guard said obligingly. “Said he’d come home late last night and heard this morning he was being looked for, and walked in before we even knew he was about.”
Come in of his own will he might have but Montfort did not sound mollified by it. But, “I’ve a right to go where I please, so long as I come back in goodly time, and I did! Look you, I was in Banbury for a day. I’ve a sister there, a freewoman, and was minded to see her and it was nobody’s business I meant to go so I wasn’t telling no one, was I? And I wasn’t to know you’d be swinging in here wanting me that very day. Nor have I run off, I’m here, so why be yelling at me for it?”
“You mind your tongue or you’ll be looking for it one of these days,” Montfort bullied.
“Now, you don’t know my lord so well as you think,” retorted Gilbey. “He’s a fair man and so’s his steward, and they don’t punish a man for speaking his mind, even if he is a villein. Especially me, for I’m the best laborer in all the village, and an honest man.”
A voice slipped in between them, too low for Frevisse to make out the words but enough for her to recognize. “Father Henry?” she asked.
“Your priest? Yes,” the man agreed, and added hastily, “Here, now, you can’t be going in there.”
But Frevisse had already lifted the latch. Montfort would bring Father Henry around to saying anything-or else believe what he wanted to believe out of anything Father Henry said-if left to himself, and she wanted the truth as it was, not as Montfort preferred it to be.
Montfort, red-faced and leaning forward across the table where his clerk was busy scratching down all that was being said, whirled to glare at her coming in. “You’ve been putting your nose in again, woman!” he snapped. “Sending this priest to ask questions that are no concern of yours. That will have you in trouble yet, you mark my words.”
Frevisse murmured with a feigned humility, “I pray your forgiveness yet again.” And could not forbear asking, “Has he been of use to you?”
“Maybe. Some.” Not liking giving that much ground, Montfort swung back toward Gilbey Dunn standing in the room’s center like a thick-necked, stubborn bull. Their glares were mutual. “So you left the alehouse early, you say, just after the fight between this player and Sym and went home to bed, you say.” Montfort made it sound a crime.
“Aye. I went home. It was late and I’m not minded to sleep in the alehouse.”
“And you heard the furor when Sym was found and stayed in your bed anyway?”
“I heard the noise but was warm in bed. They sounded like no more than drunken fools to me and I stayed where I was.”
Montfort said, “It’s illegal to ignore the hue and cry.”
“It wasn’t a hue and cry, it was a clot of fools seeking to go on a loon’s errand.”
“So you stayed in your house the rest of the night?”
“Aye.”
“Alone?”
“…Aye.”
Frevisse thought not, but she said nothing.
“This Sym was no friend of yours, though, was he?”
“You’d be hard put to find anyone who liked him, quarrelsome as he was.”
“And what did you have against the nun Sister Fiacre?”
That sidestep caught Gilbey flat for a moment. “Who?”
“The priory sacrist. She keeps the church in order. She’s been murdered, too.”