The Midwife's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries) (3 page)

But Elyn stayed standing where she was, insisting, "He wouldn't put them somewhere else.  Where else would he put them?  He always put them there.  They're gone and I'm telling you so!  Someone was here and took them!"  Her face harshened with alarm.  "Our money!"  She ran to the hearth, knelt down heavily, and with knowing fingers pried up one of the stones around it. 
Why do we think that's a clever place to hide things?
wondered Ada.  Everyone she knew did it, including herself, when they had any coins that didn't need to be spent at once.  It was nobody's secret.

"No," Elyn said with naked relief, her hand on the bag that lay in the hole she had opened.  "All's here still."  She began to refit the stone, stopped, and said in a different voice, "But the stone's been moved.  It's the wrong way around.  Someone's been at it.  Look, you can see!"

"Jenkyn, likely," Ada said soothingly.

"He'd never.  He knew better.  And he'd put it back right if he did."  Elyn rose clumsily to her feet, looking desperately around the room.  "There's been a thief here!  He's taken Jenkyn's shoes and was after our money!"

"But he didn't take it," Father Clement said.  "You have to calm yourself.  No one's been here.  A thief wouldn't have left the money."

Elyn turned wide, frightened eyes toward him.  "Then I frightened him away ere he could take it!  He'd hurt Jenkyn but when he heard me coming he ran away!  He was here when I came home!"

"And went out the back way!" Ada exclaimed.  "When he heard you at the front, he went out the back!"  She started for the back door, and Father Clement with her, but Dame Frevisse was suddenly in their way, stopping them with her arm across the doorway, saying, "Whatever happened, he's long gone by now and you'll trample over any tracks he's left if you all go out.  I'll see what he's left."

What indignation Ada might have felt was lost at sight of Father Clement's face, surprise going to red-tinged indignation on it at realization that a woman -- and a nun at that -- had told him what he should do and she would do; and by the time he had his mouth working to object, Dame Frevisse was already gone.  Ada pushed past him to crane her head out the door to see what she was about.  On his dignity, Father Clement turned back to go on uncomforting Elyn.

Frevisse, with no compunction at all for thwarting Father Clement and careless of what the women thought, stood on the rear doorstep and overlooked the garden that ran from almost the back door to the woven withy fence that closed it off from the byreyard to one side, the neighboring garden to the other, and the field path and bean field to the back.  It was long and narrow, like the house, and its only gate led into the byreyard.  The path that ran from back door to there between beds rich with the late June growth of peas and beans and greens was narrow and neatly surfaced with small, round river stones, showing no trace of footprints, muddy or otherwise.  Frevisse walked it with her eyes down, distantly hoping something had been dropped or a careless footprint somehow left, but she found nothing.

The gate at its end was a new one, hung on leather thongs, with another thong to latch it closed and a flat stone laid under it to keep the way from wearing hollow.  It was a little open, enough that someone turned sideways could have easily slid through.  A narrow someone, for a spider's elaborate orb web was silver laced and sparkled with diamond dew across it now.

From the byre -- it looked to have been a house not too long ago -- across the yard a cow was lowing in complaint over her unmilked udder and chickens were softly cawing to be uncooped so they could be at their morning scratching.  They were not her concern and Frevisse stayed where she was, inside the gate, studying the muddy yard before turning to go back into the house.

Ada made no pretense that she had not been watching her.  She backed hastily inside as Frevisse approached. The nun followed her in, saying to everyone -- the priest and the wife and Dame Claire, too, "There's nothing in the garden, but beyond the gate into the byreyard, there's a line of footprints -- a man's by the size of them -- through the mud, overlaying all the others and going straight across to the outer gate.  The garden gate and that one are both open," she added with an inquiring look at Elyn who promptly said, "We never leave those open.  They're always closed.  Always."

"Then surely he's gone that way!" the midwife declared.  "Along the field path and probably toward the woods!  We have to raise the hue and cry!"

If it could be shown a village had not pursued and done their best to seize a felon by hue and cry fresh after a crime, the village was liable to heavy fine for the failure.  Because of that, and for the plain joy of hunting down a legal quarry, a hue and cry was rarely hard to raise.  But this was early morning after Midsummer's Eve and there was surely more interest among the village men in being in their beds for as long as they could manage rather than haring across the countryside.

Frevisse was darkly amused to see that counted for nothing with the women or Father Clement.  They had been up all the night and not at merrymaking for most of it.  He and one of the women after quick talk and a nod from the midwife hasted out the door and shortly could be heard calling the hue and cry around the village green.

The midwife had turned back to Elyn by then, left standing alone by her hearth, and gone to put an arm around her.  "At least come pray beside your man," Ada said.  "There at the foot of the bed."

Head bowed, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around herself, Elyn sank down on the nearest stool.  "He's going to die," she muttered brokenly, "And Father Clement has done what can be done.  There's no use in my prayers then, is there?"

Ada had no answer to that that Elyn would find reasonable.  Even the nuns held silent, pity on their faces, and the only sound in the room was Jenkyn's noisy, snoring breathing.  After a moment Elyn closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth in silence, leaving Ada nothing to do but stand beside her, ready to give more comfort if it were wanted.

Dame Frevisse went to Dame Claire.  Their heads close and voices low, they spoke together briefly, then Dame Frevisse went aside, to the room's other end, and beckoned for Ada to come to her.  Since Elyn seemed to be noticing nothing beyond herself, Ada went, curious and a little wary as to why she was wanted.

But it was only for a bit of gossip, it seemed, which went to show nuns were not so different after all, because Dame Frevisse said, low-voiced beyond Elyn's hearing, "Everything looks to have been going so well for them, it's a pity it's come to this.  Were they happy together?"

Ada thought about that.  Happy or unhappy did not much matter after a marriage had gone on long enough, just so the pair rubbed along as best they might.  And Elyn and Jenkyn had done that well enough, she supposed.  "Aye, they did well together," she said.  With the desire to think of something other than Jenkyn's unnerving breathing, she went on, "Though that's been mostly Elyn's doing.  Jenkyn is -- was -- is -- "  The wording was so difficult, things being as they were.  " -- so easy-going a man he'd likely never have brought himself around to marrying at all except she took a liking to him fifteen years -- "  She paused to think about that.  "Nay, closer to twelve maybe.  Or thirteen."

"A while," Dame Frevisse suggested.  "It was a while ago."

"Yes, it was surely that," Ada agreed.  "Elyn took a liking to him, despite her father had doubts and her mother thought she could do better, but she knew what she wanted and had him to the church door, just as she meant to.  And they've done well.  Mostly because of her, I'll have to say and so would anyone else who knows them, but Jenkyn's been a good husband to her."  She was keeping an eye on Elyn, still sitting with her eyes closed and arms wrapped around herself.  Ada lowered her voice even farther.  "Except they've had no children and that's a pity, for Elyn's a loving woman and sorely wanted them."

Ada shook her head sadly.  "It was when she still had hope of having them that she pushed Jenkyn into asking for the tumble-down holding next door when it came vacant, so she could keep the animals over there and have a better house with more room here.  But the children never came, and she gave herself over to managing Jenkyn in their stead.  He'd be content to have no better than a barn to sleep in and do naught more than he had to do to eat, only she stirs him up, and they've both lived the better because of it.  Though mind you, it's helped that Pers has come to live with them these past two years.  There's only so much Elyn can do with a man who's not -- was not -- " This was annoyingly difficult.  " -- a man not big or strong.  Nor so young as he once was."

"Pers is the nephew who's missing now?" Dame Frevisse asked.

"He's not missing, only at Pollard's courting their Kate."  Ada smiled fondly over the thought.  "That will be a match before long, and a good one, that's certain."

"But Pers won't inherit when Jenkyn dies, will he?" Dame Frevisse asked.

"No.  All this goes to Elyn for her lifetime.  Though likely Pers will stay on here to help at least until he marries.  But since he's like to marry Pollard's Kate, he'll do well enough, she being Pollard's only child and everything to come to her eventually."

"But Pers has no inheritance of his own?"

"Not while Elyn lives, and she's a healthy woman, God bless her.  Though we're all in his hands," she added conscientously, seeing over Dame Frevisse's shoulder that Father Clement had come back and was giving them both a hard stare, probably for what he thought of as their gossiping.  As it was, Ada had to admit, but felt no guilt at it.  Closed up in that nunnery, the woman must have little enough of it in her life.

But before she could go on, the front door was pushed hard open and five men rushed in.  Elyn, lost in her grieving until then, rose to her feet with startled cry.  Ada went hastily to hold her, saying angrily, "Will!  Nab!  The rest of you!  There's a man dying here.  Where's your sense?"

Abashed, the men crowded to a halt.  Will muttered, "Sorry.  We're right sorry.  Only we were told to come, and -- "

"Aye, aye," Dickon agreed.  "It's hue and cry, my woman said, so which way do we go?"

"Out the back.  There.  Go on."  Ada pointed them out the back door.  "There's footprints through the byreyard.  That's your trail." 

"I'll bring the others round," Nab said and went back out, to the front where voices in the road told other men were coming.  Will and the other three hastily crossed themselves as they went on past Jenkyn on his bed, their faces showing their dismay at the look and sound of him.

Father Clement followed them out to bless their mission.  The room was left to Jenkyn's harsh breathing and the muffled tangle of men's voices, in the byreyard now, until a single hard rap at the front door brought in two more men.  A barrel-chested older man and a youth tall enough he had to duck below the lintel as he entered.

"You're nigh too late, Tom Pollard," Ada said.  "Haste out back, or they'll be gone."

"No need to push, Ada," Pollard rumbled.  "My regrets, Elyn," he added to the widow-to-be; but his gaze swung around the room, speculative and assessing, and that was Tom Pollard to the core, Ada knew.  Always a man who looked ahead: a hand to the plow in springtime and plans for the harvest all at once.  "You'd best stay here, Pers," he said.  "For your uncle and to help your aunt.  There's enough of the rest of us to see to what needs doing."

Pers' broad, pleasant face under its thatch of tow hair betrayed how much he did not want to stay, and Ada did not blame him.  He was hardly seventeen yet, for all that he was so well grown.  Too young yet to be easy around someone's dying.  But he stayed and Pollard left, as outside the men's voices rose in angry flurry, Father Clement's blessing done and the hue and cry begun in angry earnest.

Hesitantly, Pers looked around the room, then went uncertainly to his uncle's side.

"He's beyond us now," Dame Claire said kindly.  "I doubt he's feeling anything."

Pers nodded without looking at her, his gaze fixed on his uncle, his expression grading from wariness to increasing horror as the dying man's breathing sank through its pattern, each indrawn breath shorter than the one before, each breath rasping harshly out...  Dame Claire began to explain that the breathing was something that went with a broken skull, but Father Clement entered then and, seeing Pers, went to him, to lay a hand on his arm and cut off what she was saying to offer his sympathy and add, "The men are off now.  They'll do all that can be done to right this wrong."

Pers nodded dumbly, still watching his uncle.  The breathing stopped and they all waited, frozen in the silence, until Jenkyn's chest heaved upwards again, drawing in another hideous breath, and the pattern went on, perhaps more shallow now, more slow, but still remorseless.

Elyn on her stool moaned and crouched more in on herself.  Pers pulled out of Father Clement's hold and said in a strangling voice, "I'd best see to the animals.  Clover needs milking sure by now.  I'll be back."

Without waiting for any answer, he escaped out the back door.  Frevisse waited until Father Clement had bowed his head to pray over Jenkyn, then drifted quietly after Pers.

The sun was above the hedgerows now, bold in a cloudless sky, the day perfect for haying but so early yet that dew still silvered wherever shadows lay.  For all his haste to be away, Pers had gone no farther than the garden's end and stood there now, holding to the top of the gate, staring out.  Moving slowly, careful to let him hear her coming, Frevisse joined him.  He acknowledged her with a look and a low bow of his head, but when she did not speak, neither did he and they stood together looking out for a few moments, Frevisse noticing that the hue and cry had trampled out the earlier footprints with the myriad of their own, and left both the outer and garden gates open behind them.  Someone had bothered to shove the garden gate almost closed behind them, though, and the spider had begun to spin her web again.  So far only a single strand across the gap, but she was already dropping another down from it.  Watching her, Frevisse said, "I'm sorry about your uncle.  Sorry there was nothing we could do to help him."