He was never a man much given to smiling, but today he looked more grim than usual. Although stewards were proverbially said to be greed-ridden, Frevisse had always found him a fair-minded man, careful of both St. Frideswide’s well-being and of the people under him. Now her unease roused toward alarm as he straightened from his bow and said abruptly, “Good day, my lady. Could you give me some guess as to how long your cousin and his men are going to be here?”
“As long as need be,” Domina Alys returned as abruptly. “Beyond that it’s none of your concern, Master Naylor.”
“It is if their score and more of horses are eating up the priory’s hay at a rate that will leave us beggared of it before Lent and some of the cattle having to be slaughtered because of it while our own horses starve.”
“God will provide,” Domina Alys snapped.
“God helps those who help themselves,” Master Naylor returned curtly.
Frevisse could not stop her own indrawn gasp at his discourtesy, and she was not alone. A ripple of alarm passed among all the women while Domina Alys stared at him, momentarily wordless, before she surged to her feet and thrust her face toward his own as she spat back, “You’d best remember, Master Naylor, that you’re here to do what I tell you to do and keep your mouth closed unless I tell you to open it! My cousin and his men and what they do is my concern, not yours!”
“Then you had best be more concerned about them than you are!” he answered.
There were more gasps among the women, and Domina Alys, in fury beyond words, swung a hand up and back for a blow at his head. Master Naylor, not flinching, flung up his arm to block it and they froze in mutual glare and rage.
No one dared stir either, in fear of what would happen if they did, until Domina Alys pulled her mouth into an angry, ugly smile and let drop her hand. “You’ve overstepped your duty, Master Naylor. Be out of St. Frideswide’s and nowhere on my lands by midday today or I’ll loose my cousin on you. Nor don’t come begging back for me to recommend you elsewhere because I’ll tell them exactly what you are and see you ruined. You’re finished here and everywhere. Go!”
He was breathing hard, his face rigid, his anger cold in his eyes, but he gave no more response to her order and threat than to turn without a bow and leave, jerking the door open and not bothering to close it after him, so that they heard his footsteps going away along the cloister, going and then gone, and no one moving in the long-held silence until finally Domina Alys heaved a deep breath and said, grimly pleased, “Good. That needed doing. I’ve wanted to be rid of him.”
Maybe too shocked to realize she was saying it aloud, Dame Juliana quavered, “But now we need a steward.”
It was true enough, although not the best of times to say it. There was no way any of them could deal with all the worldly matters of St. Frideswide’s outside the cloister while seeing to the duties they already had and all the hours of prayer, too, even if any of them had had the competence for it.
Domina Alys waved the problem aside. “Sir Reynold will recommend me someone who’ll serve us better than Naylor ever did. Someone who’ll know his place, for one thing.” The blessing she should have given them for the day forgotten, she gestured them away. “Now go on about your duties, all of you. This has gone on long enough.”
Frevisse stood up as readily as the others, no more willing than they were to remind Domina Alys of what she had left out and with an urgent need to reach Master Naylor. It was against her vows to send word to anyone outside the nunnery without her prioress’ knowledge and permission, and until now she had been able to tell herself that matters in St. Frideswide’s were not so ill that she should break them, even if she had been sure of a safe way to send a message to Abbot Gilberd at St. Bartholomew’s; and without a safe way, she was afraid of what would surely happen to her if she tried and failed and Domina Alys found her out.
But matters had changed, were worsening, with no likelihood of being better, and Master Naylor was leaving. He was no longer bound to the priory by any duty or loyalty, and if she could manage to see him before he left, say even half a dozen words to him, tell him…
“Dame Frevisse,” Domina Alys said.
Frevisse’s heart lurched heavily up toward her throat and she stopped the single pace she had taken forward. Quickly, in hopes her face had not shown something she wanted hidden, she bowed her head and said, “My lady?”
“Before you go to the guest halls, tell Lady Eleanor and that girl that Benet is coming to talk with her this morning. Tell her she’s to see him and why. Make it clear to her. We want to have this over with.”
“Yes, my lady.” Frevisse kept her voice unshaded and her frustration in check. The delay would not matter. Master Naylor would not be away upon the instant; he had wife and children to slow his going. She had time.
She also had a chance, with the other nuns crowding out the door, to be alone, briefly, with Domina Alys, not something she generally wanted, but she took the chance this time to say, “She’ll want to know if word’s been sent yet to her people that she’s here and safe. Has it?”
A moment too late and too tersely, as if in haste to be past a lie, Domina Alys answered, “It’s being seen to. Now go on.”
Frevisse doubted that was an outright lie. An outright lie was a thing Domina Alys could not help but admit, even to herself, was a sin. What it was, probably, was a forestalling of the truth, a going around it. Word was going to be sent-sometime. It would be “seen to” but had not been yet-and would not be for as long as Domina Alys could possibly delay it.
Chapter 6
Joice had had the night now to think on what had happened to her and on what might happen to her and on her own helplessness, and she listened to Domina Alys’ message silently, standing very still and straight, her fine-boned face as white and frozen as it had been flushed and alive with anger yesterday. When Frevisse had finished, she went on standing still a moment, then turned her head to Lady Eleanor across the room, sitting behind her embroidery frame where the light through the window fell most strongly, and asked, “Do I have to?”
Gently, Lady Eleanor said, “It would probably be best.”
“For whom?” Joice asked sharply. She might have quieted but she was not quiescent.
“For you. It will buy you time.”
“Time?” Joice exclaimed with vast indignation.
Lady Eleanor’s mouth twitched with the smallest of smiles but her head was turned toward her embroidery, so that only Frevisse saw it, which was as well. Joice would not have understood, was too young yet to have learned that time, well used, could be more than an impediment between her and her desires, it could be an ally. There was much to be said for not being that young anymore, and Lady Eleanor looked at her with a sympathy that Frevisse understood, to say gently, “So long as Benet and Sir Reynold think you’re about to be won over with words, they’re unlikely to turn to force to persuade you.”
Joice flinched and stiffened, then swung around to Frevisse. “Who thought of this?”
“Domina Alys gave the order in chapter meeting just now. That’s all I know of it.”
“But who thought of it?” Joice insisted. “Is she trying to help me or is there something else they have in mind?”
“It might have been Benet who thought of it,” Lady Eleanor suggested quietly. “It sounds more his way than what happened yesterday. Yesterday was more Sir Reynold’s doing than Benet’s, I’m sure.”
Joice’s face tightened with anger. “All I know of Benet is that he agreed to it. More than that about him I don’t need to know. I don’t want to see him or hear him or have him near me!”
“But for your own sake, it might be best for you to at least listen to him,” Lady Eleanor insisted, still gently.