“She’s still closely kept and under guard,” Frevisse assured him. “Now if you’ll pardon me, I’ve other things to see to.”
“Besides accusing us of poisoning people, you mean,” Rowcliffe grumbled, low enough she chose to pretend she did not hear as she went away, while behind her Symond cheerfully pointed out, “She didn’t accuse us. She only asked.”
She had already decided against asking any questions of Mistress Lawsell, partly because there seemed little point-the Lawsells had nothing to do with Breredon, no reason to want him ill or dead-but also because she did not want to chance stirring up Mistress Lawsell to no purpose. With no other questions to ask of anyone in the guesthall and expecting the bell to Tierce at any moment, she returned to the cloister, a little unsatisfied that she knew no more about what had made Breredon ill than she had when she started her questions but satisfied his illness was by chance, not of someone’s doing. Jack Rowcliffe had been right: she had kept a thought of poison to the side of her mind, but the only people with possibly an interest in harming Breredon were the Rowcliffes-counting Symond Hewet as one with his kin-and as Rowcliffe had said, right was on their side. Unless Sister Cecely escaped with Edward and their deeds, they had little to worry about, and there was no one else here with any quarrel at all against Breredon. So he had not been purposely poisoned, and Dame Claire was certain it was not disease, and therefore so long as no one else fell ill of whatever had sickened him, there was nothing more that needed to be asked or done.
There was relief in that certainty, and it was with lighter mind that she went to ask Dame Johane sitting beside the guest parlor door with the promised herbal open on her lap, “Have you found anything useful?”
Dame Johane looked up from a page that was half words, half a picture of some plant, its stem and leaves drawn in plain ink but the flower of it painted red. Frowning a little with thought, she said, “The trouble is there seem to be any number of things that will bring on such vomiting and purging. I’d want to ask what color was…”
Sister Cecely came out of the parlor’s shadows, almost into the doorway but not quite, surely remembering Domina Elisabeth’s warning even while she pleaded at Frevisse, “It was the Rowcliffes. Can’t you see that? They poisoned him. You have to make them leave here before they do more, before they do worse!”
Frevisse looked at Dame Johane and said dryly, “She’s heard, then.”
“She’s heard,” Dame Johane agreed grimly. “While we were in chapter.”
“Listen to me!” Sister Cecely cried. “You have to send them away! You can’t let the Rowcliffes stay here and poison the rest of us!”
Frevisse looked at her coldly and said in a voice to match, “Abbot Gilberd will be here soon. The matter will be his to determine.”
“We could be dead by then, Neddie and I!”
From the far side of the cloister walk, Dame Amicia was going toward the bell in its pentice in the middle of the cloister garth. In the moment before the call to Tierce would enjoin silence on her, Frevisse returned, “I truly doubt that,” and turned away toward the church.
Behind her, Sister Cecely gave a smothered cry that might have been of despair or fear but to Frevisse sounded only angry.
Chapter 19
Tierce went its brief, quiet way. Mistress Petham was there with Edward. So were Elianor Lawsell and her mother, but none of the Rowcliffes nor any of the nunnery’s servants, the latter being all too busy readying for Abbot Gilberd’s arrival. That he would be here soon was surely first in Domina Elisabeth’s thoughts, because at the Office’s end she made short work of the final prayer and response and afterward hurried the nuns from the church to give them her benediction quickly at the door before she hurried toward the kitchen. Abbot Gilberd would be staying in the guesthall, but at least his first meal would be taken with her in her parlor, and Dame Amicia said wearily, to no one in particular, “She wants it all to be as fine as may be for him. I’m already looking forward to him leaving,” before she gathered herself and hurried after her.
Frevisse, not so hurried, overtook Dame Claire just at the infirmary, in the outer room where her medicines and all the means by which she made them were kept. Bunches of dried herbs hung from a roof beam, waiting for use, and Dame Claire crossed toward a clay pot on a low tripod over a small fire in a brazier in the room’s middle where something was warming, asking as she went, “What have you learned?”
“Nothing. He ate alone in his chamber, and he ate what everyone ate. Dame Johane says any number of things could have caused the vomiting and purging, but I’ve found no way Master Breredon could have had anything that no one else did, nor any way the Rowcliffes could have come at his food.”
“Maybe he did it to himself,” Dame Claire mused, taking up a narrow wooden spoon.
“You mean he made himself ill?”
Dame Claire began to stir whatever was in the pot. “He could have.”
“To make trouble for the Rowcliffes,” Frevisse said. “Yes, I can see he might. But why would he have something like that with him? He didn’t expect to encounter them.”
“For some other reason?” Dame Claire ventured.
“But to make himself that ill would be mad.”
“He might have misjudged his dose. An amount that barely touches one person can make another very ill. Or kill them.”
“Sister Cecely claims the Rowcliffes did it, and that she and Neddie will be next.”
“Sister Cecely is an idiot,” Dame Claire said without looking up from whatever she was delicately stirring.
The sweet smell wafted from the pot, and Frevisse drew a deep breath of pleasure, then asked, “What are you making?”
“An essence of costmary. For the water when Abbot Gilberd dines with Domina Elisabeth.”
“To drink?”
“To wash his hands. As you well know. I’ve also made a cordial of borage and betony that I hope will ease her mind somewhat. Worry as much as anything else is wearing on her. It’s making me worried for her.”
“But she’s otherwise well?” Frevisse asked quickly.
Instead of the instant reassurance Frevisse wanted, Dame Claire paused in slightly frowning thought before saying only slowly, “I don’t know that she’s ill.”
Frevisse waited until sure Dame Claire was not going to say more, then asked, “But you don’t know that she’s not?”
Somewhere still in thought, Dame Claire nodded before saying, still slowly. “I’ve thought that it isn’t that she’s ill but that, like Mistress Petham, she’s tired. That may be all it is.”
“Lent seems longer some years than others,” Frevisse offered.
But, “This began before Lent. Before Advent even. That’s when I first saw sign of it anyway.”
“That she was tired?”
“‘Worn’ might be the better word. She’s not young, you know.”
Frevisse almost protested that Domina Elisabeth had to be much about Dame Claire’s own age and not that many years older than herself; but the thought came to her that, after all, neither she nor Dame Claire was likely to be thought “young.”
“She’s borne the burden of being prioress for twelve years, after all,” Dame Claire went on. “It’s not been a light burden.”
“And now this,” said Frevisse, meaning Sister Cecely and Abbot Gilberd and all the rest.
“And now this,” Dame Claire agreed. She stirred delicately at the costmary. “So I’m doing what I can to ease her. Sadly, there’s very little.”
The cloister bell gave a sudden single clang. Both women raised and turned their heads, as if they could see it from where they were and Frevisse said, “And I would guess that’s sign you’re out of time anyway.”
Dame Claire sighed. “Yes.” She moved the clay pot from the fire. “You go on. I’ll be there shortly.”