The Hunter’s Tale (21 page)

Bane and Brigand went eagerly ahead of him. It was their tails stirring into a pleased wagging that told him someone was in the clearing, someone they knew, and so he was only half-surprised to see Miles sitting sideways on the wall around the spring, staring down into water, so far into whatever he was seeing or thinking that, with the waters soft burbling over the pool’s edge to cover any small sounds of their coming, his first warning he was not alone was Bevis standing up from the grass beside him. He put a hand on the hound’s shoulder and twisted a little around to quirk half a smile at Hugh dismounting at the clearing’s edge. “Caught me doing nothing,” he said.

‘There’s two of us then.“ Hugh wrapped his reins over a branch low enough that Foix could reach the grass and went to sit on the low wall across the spring from Miles. The hounds, having circled with Bevis a few times and decided they were all still friends, were lapping busily from the stream, and Hugh leaned over to splash water up into his face before drinking from his cupped hands.

When he straightened up, Miles was watching him with a shut, unreadable look.

‘Hot, isn’t it?“ Hugh said for the sake of saying something.

‘Hot enough.“ Miles dropped his gaze and plucked up a handful of grass. The hounds, having finished their lapping, collapsed on the grass with sighs of pleasure, and Miles began to drop the grass blades one by one into the pool, watching one swirl away over the edge before dropping in the next. The forest’s late afternoon quiet closed around them, and Hugh, lulled by the stream’s burble and chuckle, slipped into a small measure of welcome unthinking until Miles said, ”You’ll agree soon with Sir William over marrying Philippa?“

‘What? Philippa? She…“ Almost Hugh blurted out ”She’s meant for Tom“ but stopped himself and said instead, even-voiced, ”I can’t marry her. You want her. She wants you.“

Miles shrugged.

‘Doesn’t she?“ Hugh persisted.

Miles shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” He dropped another grass blade, with great care, into the very middle of the pool. “With Tom dead, Sir William will be Poking for you to marry her.”

‘I don’t want to marry her.“

He said it maybe more strongly than need be but he hated when Miles went distant like this. Hated it worse when Miles finally looked at him blank-faced and said with no feeling at all in his voice, “You had better. Because I won’t.”

Hugh glared at him across the pool and demanded, “Why not?”

Miles went back to dropping grass blades into the water. “She’d lose everything and gain nearly nothing.”

‘She’d gain you.“

‘As I said. Nearly nothing.“

There was no point in trying to reason with Miles in his black humour but Hugh said, setting his stubbornness against Miles‘, “You might as well marry her because, come what may, I’m not going to.”

Miles did not answer that, only went on dropping grass blades. One. Two. Three. Then said quietly, barely above the sound of the flowing water, “Remember how we used to plot that we’d run off if ever we saw the chance? Join a cry of players or else cattle drovers, maybe? Anything to get away from here forever.”

‘I remember. You even tried to go. Twice.“

‘Only to be hauled back both times, beaten and bloody.“

‘At least you tried.“ Guilt stirred in Hugh. ”I never did.“

‘Because you had the sense to know he’d never let us go. Not even me.“

‘It wasn’t more sense. I wasn’t as desperate.“

‘Desperate, or else mad to think there was ever escape.“

There was a bleakness in Miles’ voice that Hugh could not answer and silence came back between them, Hugh watching the water flow, hoping they were done with talk, until Miles said, even more quietly, “Marry Philippa.”

Hugh jerked up his head too sharply, hurting his neck. Sharp with the pain, he said, “No! Not if you—”

‘Marry her,“ Miles said, still quietly, not looking up, watching his last grass blade swirl away out of the pool. ”If you don’t, who knows what kind of man Sir William will marry her to. Marry her so she’ll be safe.“

Staring at the top of Miles’ head, Hugh looked for some answer but found none, and said finally, bitterly, “I’m glad Sir Ralph is dead.”

‘The pity,“ Miles said, ”is that it didn’t happen sooner.“ He sprang to his feet, startling the hounds, who all sat up, looking around for whatever the trouble was. ”Come on. Let’s go home. I’m hungry.“

He seemed to have shaken off whatever humour had been on him, but they said little as they walked together, Hugh leading Foix and the hounds ranging around them. They left Bane and Brigand at the kennel with Degory, who was just back from helping with the harvest and said all was going well, and took Foix to the stable, where Gib was just back, too. With Bevis still at Miles’ side, they headed for the hall then, their shadows long across the foreyard ahead of them, and were met by Lucas, the village reeve, coming out of the hall doorway. He gave Hugh a deep bow and Miles a brief one and said, “I was come to find you, sir. This was something you needed to know as soon as might be.” He held out a sickle in two pieces, the metal blade broken off from the wooden handle. “It’s the metal broke, not the handle,” Lucas said. “I’d not say it was Hal’s fault it broke but it’s the manor’s sickle, not his, and he’s all tied up in fits that you’ll make him pay for it or have it out of his hide.”

Hugh’s insides turned sickly over with the thought that with Tom dead he now had the kind of power that could make people afraid of him that way, and maybe too quickly he said, “I won’t do that. Let me see it.”

Lucas gave the pieces to him and he easily saw for himself how worn thin the haft was where it had gone into the handle.

He remembered Tom had been at Sir Ralph early in the summer about the need to remake some of the sickles before harvest-time. Sir Ralph had refused, grudging the cost because the manor had no smith and the work would have had to be taken elsewhere. Once he was lord, Tom had probably meant to see to it but had not had time before…

‘So we’re a sickle short,“ Hugh said. And therefore a worker short. How much would that set back the harvest, he wondered.

‘Nay,“ Lucas said. ”As it happens, Master Woderove bought a new one that time he went to Banbury about Whitsuntide. So all’s well there. But this one needs remaking and there’s always chance another one may go, so I thought you’d best know.“

‘A new one?“ Hugh echoed. Where had Tom found the money for that? But aloud he only said, ”Yes. Thank you. I’ll see to having it done.“

Lucas bowed, took a step toward leaving, but stopped and said, “Begging your pardon if I speak out of turn, but you might want to talk a bit to Father Leonel. He might be able, like, to tell you things.”

‘Tell me things?“

‘About sickle blades and such like.“

Before Hugh had sorted himself to ask another question, Lucas quickly made another bow and left. Hugh watched him go, looked down at the broken scythe in his hands, looked after the now-vanished Lucas, and finally looked at Miles in hope of an answer from him.

Miles shrugged and said, “You’d best talk to Father Leonel, I guess.”

‘What am I supposed to say? ’Father, have you anything to confess to me?‘ “

‘That’s as good a way as any.“ Miles grinned, the task not being his, and went inside.

Hugh stared broodingly at the white-plastered wall beside the doorway, knowing yet again how little he liked being lord of the manor. But there was no use putting off what was probably better done sooner than later and he went, first, to find Lady Anneys, to ask if it would be no trouble to have Father Leonel to supper, then sent Lucy to ask if he would come.

The priest returned with Lucy as they were readying to sit down. He took his place on Hugh’s other side from Lady Anneys, Lucy, and Ursula, with the nuns sitting beyond him and Miles sitting between them, being courteous to both. Uncourteous though Sir Ralph had been, he had forced courtesy at table on everyone else. “I’ll not have you disgracing me in front of others,” he had said. A sure way to goad at least Miles into rampant discourtesy; but because Lady Anneys had asked it, too, and taught them, he had learned and this evening gracefully served the nuns the roast chicken in black sauce and a barley frumenty set before them and asked about their day. Lady Anneys talked with Father Leonel about a village woman who had badly cut her foot on a stone just before harvest started while Hugh, passing a small piece of chicken to Baude lying behind his chair, wondered what he could ask Father Leonel.

The day’s last sunlight, slanted across the far end of the hall’s east wall and banded with shadow from the tall, unglassed window’s wooden mullions, was slipping upward as the sun sank downward. Dusk thickened in the hall but there was light enough by which to finish the meal and talk, with no need for candles. Afterward, for the while until bedtime, they would probably go into Lady Anneys’ garden or else to the parlor, and Hugh wished that was all he need think about this evening; but when the fish in a green tart and the carrots roasted in herbs, oil, and vinegar had been served, Lady Anneys claimed Frevisse’s attention with a question about what flax was grown at St. Frideswide’s, Sister Johane was talking to Miles, and Hugh took the chance to ask Father Leonel, “Ivetta’s foot is healing then?”

‘The poultice Lady Anneys recommended seems to be drawing the poison out,“ the priest said. ”The cut is so deep, though, she likely won’t be walking well before Martinmas. She’s worried less about her foot, though, than that she can’t do her boon work this harvest. She fears you’ll either demand rent money she can’t pay or else force her out.“

‘Force her out?“ Hugh repeated, bewildered. ”Because she’s hurt?“

‘Because she can’t do her share of the field work she owes you and can’t pay you for either,“ Father Leonel said patiently. ”You’d be within your rights, as lord of the manor.“

Hugh gave intent heed to spearing a piece of carrot on his knife point, giving himself time to stop his insides’ turning before he finally said, “Weren’t you saying with Mother that she could help here in the kitchen until her foot is healed? In place of her fieldwork?”

‘That would need your agreement,“ Father Leonel said in the careful way he would have said it to Sir Ralph.

Hugh held back an urge to smash his knife down on the table and yell, “Don’t talk to me like that!” Instead, because lord of the manor was a thing he was, whether he liked it or not, he laid his knife down quietly, spread his hands flat on the tabletop to either side of his bread trencher, and said, “Tell me about her.”

Father Leonel did—how Ivetta had never given trouble or failed in her duty before now, nor had her late husband, and that their son kept his holding well and never failed of his rent or boon work. “A good family. First and last, a good family. It would be shame to—”

He broke off abruptly. Hugh knew well enough that he was thinking how it had always been ill to tell Sir Ralph what he should or should not do—and said, hating anyone could think he might be like his father that way, “It would be shame to repay them with unkindness in her need. She’s welcome to work in the kitchen this while for her boon work. Would it help if I sent a cart for her every day, so she doesn’t have to walk here?”

The relief that swept over Father Leonel’s face was even better payment than his quick thanks; and on Hugh’s other side Lady Anneys briefly laid a hand over his own, telling Hugh that despite she was still in talk with Dame Frevisse, she had heard and approved his answer, too. On the warmth of that, Hugh waited while Alson from the kitchen served out the meal’s final dish—apple pudding sprinkled with nutmeg—in wooden bowls to each of them, and said when Alson was gone, “This afternoon Lucas said I should maybe talk to you about some things, Father.”

‘Anything in particular?“ Father Leonel asked lightly, openly much eased now the matter of Ivetta was settled.

‘Sickle blades and suchlike, he said.“ From the side of his eye Hugh saw the priest’s hand, about to dip his spoon into the cream, cease to move. Trying to seem he had not seen that, Hugh went on, ”He was here to tell me that an old sickle blade had broken and that it was a good thing Tom had bought a new one at Whitsuntide. Then, as he was going, he said you might be able to ’tell me things.‘ “

Father Leonel set down his spoon, drew back his hands, and folded them together on the edge of the table. “Now?” he said, very softly.

Hugh put down his own spoon, knowing food would not g° past his throat’s sudden tightness even if he did pretend t0 eat. He turned in his chair toward the priest and said, “Now would likely be good.” Wishing he had not chosen How to ask, here with everyone to hear. He had thought it would be easier, done friendliwise over a meal. Instead he was suddenly afraid it was something he was going to wish he had never done at all. “Unless we should go apart,” he said hurriedly and too late. The change in their voices and in Father Leonel had drawn Lady Anneys’ heed toward them and now everyone else along the table was looking, too.

‘No.“ Father Leonel pushed back his shoulders, straightening his bent back as much as might be, and faced Hugh squarely—an old man whose body was failing him but not his courage. And that startled Hugh because ”courage“ was not a word he had ever put to Father Leonel shambling about the manor in his old priest’s gown and worn shoes, always worried about one person or another. He had come to the manor when Hugh was small, had never had interest in hunting and had therefore been despised by Sir Ralph; but he had gently taught all the boys and the girls their reading, writing, and numbers and had kept the manor accounts for Sir Ralph until Tom was old enough to have a hand in them and after that he and Tom had kept them together. A kindly, useful man and that was all, Hugh would have said if there had been need to say anything about him at all, until now he faced Hugh and said firmly, ”There’s no need to go apart. It’s not a thing of shame. What Lucas meant was that Tom and I had been deceiving Sir Ralph with the manor accounts for years. I did it when I kept them by myself. When Sir Ralph set Tom to be steward and I had to show him the accounts, Tom saw almost at the first, without my telling him, what I had been doing. From then on we did it together.“