But Perryn was waiting at the churchyard gate, leaning against one of the pentice posts, looking as weary as she felt, but he straightened as she joined him, bowed, gave her greeting that she returned, then asked him with a nod at the last slow dripping of the rain off the edges of the pentice roof, “Will this set the haying back?”
‘Most of the last cut was stacked before it started, and what’s left lying will dry without much hurt from this,“ he said. ”It’s what we couldn’t cut today we won’t make up.“ He nodded past her, toward the village green. ”The crowner’s come.“
Frevisse turned to see two men in brown livery strolling across the green toward the alehouse. “When?” she asked, surprised no one had brought word of it into the church yet.
‘About an hour ago.“
‘Who?“ she asked.
‘Master Montfort.“
The way Perryn said it told her that, like her, he had dealt with the crowner before and felt no better about him than she did. That Montfort might not come himself was something she and Master Naylor had discussed, with her own hope being, “He might not. It being ‘only’ a villein’s death, he might send one of his Sergeants rather than come himself.”
‘We can but hope,“ Master Naylor had replied.
But hope had failed and he had come.
‘He’s at Father Edmund’s,“ Perryn said, ”and giving orders like no one had wit in the world but him.“
‘Has he called for the jurors yet?“
‘Almost as soon as he was off his horse. They’re there now.“
Frevisse looked sharply away from the green to him. “Already? Why aren’t you there? You were one of the finders of the body.”
‘He said I wasn’t needed.“
Frevisse saw now the hard set of Perryn’s mouth, the rigidness behind his face’s tired lines as he stared broodingly at the two men going into the alehouse, and she echoed with the beginning of alarm, “Not needed?”
The jury inquiring into a death was made of the men who first found the body because they were ones most likely to know the closest details concerning the death. Or if the matter were complicated enough, the jury was made of them and men from neighboring villages, and even though Montfort’s usual way was to ask questions enough to have his mind made up before he had to deal with a jury, if this time he had already called a jury, then Perryn should have been on it, as one of the men who had brought in Tom Hulcote’s body.
‘He’s sent for Dickon, though,“ Perryn said. ”To witness. And ordered I wasn’t to go far.“
Worse, thought Frevisse. Montfort was moving as if he already had answers, and if he did, she did not like what she was seeing of the shape of them.
‘It was to ask about Adam, though, I wanted to see you,“ Perryn said. ”He’s not bettering, is he?“
That had been the question Frevisse had feared and she tried to find another answer than the only one there was but had to say, “No. Not yet.”
‘Will he?“ Perryn asked, his bluntness giving away more than Frevisse wanted to share of his fear. Colyn had bettered steadily since his fever had broken and Lucy had taken the mesels only lightly. But Adam…
This past day and more he seemed hardly to know even his mother and still his fever refused to break despite everything they did. If it did not break soon…
Low enough she hardly heard her own voice, Frevisse said, “We’re praying for him.”
Perryn stepped away from her, past her where she could not see his face, but not quite quickly enough she did not see the pain there. He knew as well as she did that the answers to prayers were not always the answers sought for. And although she believed that whatever came, came by God’s will and therefore for a greater good than men could see, she had rarely found that to be much comfort against hurt or the harsh, present edge of grief, and for now she gave Perryn the only thing she could- her silence-looking the other way from him until behind her, he said tautly, “Here’s trouble coming.”
Chapter 11
A last few drops of the finished rain were falling off the thatch edge, sparkling in the thick sunlight, as Dame Frevisse drew aside and Simon stepped forward to meet the crowner’s man in the gateway.
None too mannerly, the man asked, “You’re the reeve, right?”
‘I am, aye,“ Simon agreed. ”Master Montfort wants you.“
There was no question but that he meant “now,” and although Simon already knew the crowner’s men followed their master’s manners, he still gave way to a smoulder of anger at the rudeness, said, “Oh, aye,” and would have added he’d be there just as soon as he had shifted a manure pile or two, but Dame Frevisse put in mildly, “Of course. Show us the way, why don’t you, fellow?” with somehow an edge on “fellow” that made the man flick an uneasy glance toward her.
He had obviously had no order concerning a nun; nor had Simon had any thought but that she would go back to the church, but she stood staring, waiting for the man to go, and after a bare moment’s hesitation, he gave her the slight bow he should have given earlier and turned away, back toward Father Edmund’s.
Dame Frevisse followed, and Simon as he fell into stride beside her, asked low-voiced, “Is this something you should be doing?” Because if he had had choice, he would have stayed as far from Master Montfort as he could, not sought him out.
‘This is manor business and therefore mine,“ she said, still seeming mildly but with more of an edge under the words and her wimple and veil making it hard to read her face from the side.
Nor was there time to pry more out of her, even if Simon had thought it possible. The priest’s messuage was only the other side of the churchyard. If Simon had cared to, he could have shown the crowner’s man the shorter way, through the narrow stile in the churchyard’s low stone wall for the priest’s use in going to the church and home again, but he was in no haste to come to Master Montfort. Around by the street and in through the fore-yard would be soon enough.
There wasn’t even that much of a foreyard, since the priest’s place had garden, byre and barns all to the back, though the barn was larger than most since whoever was priest in the village collected tithes in kind from all Lord Lovell’s folk here and added church-gifts from the priory’s villeins to that for his services to them, all in all setting him up to rival Gilbey Dunn for wealth here and his profits going farther than most men’s because he had nor kith nor kin to see to, only sometimes a housekeeper, unless he was a priest who failed to keep to his vows, but the last lax priest had been in Simon’s grandam’s young years and a hard time he must have had of it, according to her, with himself to support and a woman he called his wife and their six children, and “If ever a man perished by surfeit rather than the sword, it was him, sure,” Simon’s grandam had always said when telling the story. “He sowed thick, as they say, but reaped thin. There wasn’t a brat worth breeding up in the lot.”
Simon wished it was his grandam going to face Master Montfort, rather than him.
He likewise wished he thought some good were like to come of the crowner being here because the unease there had been ever since Tom’s body was found was only worsening, too many folk uncertain of too many other folk and folk uncertain of them in return because someone among them was surely a murderer.
And from what he knew of Master Montfort he had small hope that things were going to better with him here. He had last had dealing with him six years back, when old Eva Mewes had slipped into the stream and drowned while doing Joane Goddard’s laundry. That time Master Montfort had complained bitterly all the while he was here, it being a wet, chill March, over the weather and having to come to nowhere over nothing more than a villager’s death, and had in the end ruled it an accident, as it had been, and taken the clothing old Eva had been washing as deodand-the cause of her death, and therefore taken to the king’s profit. Master Montfort’s complaints had been nothing to Joane Goddard’s at having to buy her own clothing back to satisfy the fine, and she had at least had cause to complain, none of the trouble being of her own doing, while the crowner was there because it was his business to be there and why did he have to make it a misery for everyone?