The Maiden’s Tale (2 page)

A dark red stain was spread over all the left side of her face, curving out from her hair along her forehead to spread down past her eye, part way along her cheekbone, down past the corner of her mouth to under her jaw and along the side of her throat to her shoulder, ending out of sight under her clothing. Everywhere else her flesh was white, smooth, unmarred even by the pustulous pox she had had as a child, but no one ever saw the rest. They were either unable to look away from the marred half of her face or else were careful not to look at her at all and that was, in some ways, worse.

It was not true of everyone, Jane amended fairly. Lady Alice seemed to see her, actually see her instead of her deformity. But for most…

She wished she knew how it was for William Chesman when he looked at her but thought she knew. To have her off his hands, her uncle had offered a large dowry to go with her marriage to anyone who would have her. William Chesman had taken it. It was the dowry and the earl of Suffolk’s favor he looked at, not at her.

“He’s yeoman blood, no more,” Suffolk had warned when telling her the agreement was made. “But he’s as good as you’re likely to have. And he’s young, if that matters to you.”

Jane supposed it did. What mattered more, though, was that since he had been married before and since it had been a full four years since his first wife’s death, he must have been waiting for a marriage with money enough to make it worth his while and that meant he was coming to this marriage as practically as she was, understanding that what they were to be was of use to one another. She was bringing him money and the earl of Suffolk’s favor and would probably be able to give him children. In return he was giving her a place in the world that would be, as much as she could make it, her own.

Beyond those practicalities she mostly managed not to think much about being married or of William Chesman.

Except sometimes, she admitted to herself, the relief she would have in wearing a wimple and veil. An unmarried maiden was not expected to have her head, her hair, covered. It was the privilege of a married woman—brides of men or brides of Christ—to wear wimple and veil, the face encircled and even partly concealed by the wimple, more concealed, at least from the sides, by the veil’s falling folds. When it was still thought she could be driven into being a nun, St. Osburga’s prioress had told her bluntly, “Even when you’ve taken your vows and you’re finally veiled, your blemish will still show some. The wimple won’t cover it all but you’ll be better off than you are now and surely you don’t think you’ll do better, do you, going out into the world with that showing the way it does?”

And Katherine here in Lady Alice’s household, trying to be kind, Jane supposed, had once pointed out blithely, “At least when you’re married, you’ll have your wimple to mostly cover it during the day and you can always have the bedchamber mostly dark at night when he comes to you.”

She came off the last curve of the stairs into the great hall. This time of day, between meals and with everyone scattered to their morning tasks, there were no more than half a dozen people here, and Jane crossed from the dais and down the hall without particularly heeding them. It was the hall-steward’s duty to see they were well employed, and like anyone very long in my lord and lady of Suffolk’s service, he saw to his work well, knowing he would hear from my lady of Suffolk if he did not. It had not taken Jane long after she joined her uncle’s household to see that while he enjoyed all the pleasures and services his wealth and high rank allowed him, it was his lady wife who saw to the complexity of details that kept both services and pleasures flowing smoothly through their lives, and Jane had quietly set to learning all she could of how it was done so that, if little else, she could bring that skill to her marriage.

That same urge to learn had brought her to Lady Alice’s more close notice, first to being taught, then to being entrusted with small matters of the household and then to… this.

The screens passage at the lower end of the hall not only closed off drafts and the mealtime business of buttery, pantry, and kitchen from view of diners at the high table but served as a passageway between the outer door to the courtyard and the back stairways down to storerooms and through to the range of buildings between the great hall and the chapel over the gateway into Hay Wharf Lane. On its lower floor, the range of buildings was workshops and more storage; above were chambers for the squires and household yeomen when they were not on night attendance to my lord and lady and for such others of the household staff as were of too high rank to sleep in the great hall or kitchen. Some of the better of the household, such as Master Bruneau, had their own chambers. Others shared—two, three, four, or more to a room, depending on their ranks.

No one was likely to remark on anyone’s coming and going there; folk constantly did, and Jane went openly, meaning to ask the first likely person she met if Eyon Chesman was anywhere around. He was her someday-husband’s cousin, as it happened, a household yeoman as he was and even sharing a sleeping chamber with him, though Jane had never noticed them much together otherwise and their being related having nothing to do with why she had to seek him out. Yester evening she had given Eyon the pattern for a particularly elaborate harness ornament he was supposed to take to Master Belancer the silverworker in Silver Street this morning. Lady Alice meant the ornament as a New Year’s present for her husband and wanted to know if Master Belancer would be able to do the work and in time.

At least that was what it was agreed among her and Eyon and Jane would be said if it ever came to questioning. Not that it likely ever would, but he should have been back by now and Jane ran the excuse through her mind, to have it smooth if she should have to give it as she went from the screens passage into the gateway range. The first of the rooms there was somewhat larger than the others, meant as a place for those not on duty to gather and keep idle company if they chose. There always seemed to be a few men and boys there, any time of the day, and Jane expected to find, if not Eyon, then someone who could say where he was.

Instead she found a crowding of men around Master Hyndstoke, the household’s doctor. He was young, his Oxford education come by at the Suffolks’ expense so that he was serving in their household for a time in recompense, mostly an easy duty since both the earl and countess were in determinedly good health and kept their household the same. Presently he was gravely shaking his head at the questions being put to him by too many men at once and trying to go past them while he did, and Jane stopped where she was, momentarily frightened. But it was an unlikely time of year for plague and there was more curiosity than fear in the questioning. Then what was it? she wondered.

One of the men looked around, saw her, and broke from the others to come to her. Of anyone there, she would have least chosen Robyn Helas to tell her anything but he was already saying, even as he came, “It’s Eyon Chesman. He’s dead. Just now,” putting out a hand to steady her if she needed it. She stepped aside from his hand, neither needing it nor willing to have taken it if she had.

He was handsome, was Robyn Helas. No one would hesitate to admit it. But he was also fond of himself, and Jane was uncharmed by either his looks or the courteous attentions he sometimes made a point of giving her, because behind whatever he said to her, she always heard a hint of mockery, a lurking pleasure at paying her compliments both of them knew he did not mean.

So she did not want his “comforting” now, if that was what he intended, but demanded, “Dead? How?”

Not seeming to mind her shy from him, Robyn answered, “From too much drink it looks like. He drank himself stupid last night and died of it.”

“Where was his cousin? Why wasn’t he there?”

“He was attending on the earl last night.” That meant William Chesman had slept with other yeomen and squires in the earl’s outer chamber after seeing him to bed and waited on him through all the early duties this morning.

“And no one found Eyon until now?”

“You know as much as I do,” Robyn answered with a shrug. He was standing too close to her in the way she particularly disliked, but she was less concerned over him than over what she should do now. Lady Alice had to be told, but she also had to have back the other paper Eyon had been given last night, the one that mattered, folded up with the pattern of the harness ornament but not meant for Master Belancer the silversmith at all.

As she hesitated over which way to go, Master Hyndstoke won clear of the men and Jane moved into his way, asking, “What did he die of, sir? My lady will want to know.”

For the earl’s niece and one of Lady Alice’s ladies, Master Hyndstoke stopped and, dropping none of his gravity, answered, “I would say he taxed his body too heavily with drink last night and died of it.”

“It was only that?” one of the men asked. “Not anything contagious?”

“Nothing contagious,” Master Hyndstoke said firmly, directing his answer to Jane. “It was drink gone against him, no disease. It sometime happens that way with some men. Too much drink and the body can’t maintain itself. It closes down and dies.”

“You’re certain sure that’s all it was?” a kitchen maid asked from behind Jane where other housefolk were now pushing into the room, sure sign that word of an unexpected death was spreading through Coldharbour.

“Certain!” Master Hyndstoke insisted, impatient at being doubted.

Jane swung around from him to Robyn. “You’d best go tell my lady this. She’ll want to know and better she hear fact than rumor.”

“I…” Master Hyndstoke started in what was probably a protest that he had meant to bear the news himself.

“Yes,” Jane urged, “you go, too.” Robyn, who Jane had noticed was never unwilling to come to Lady Alice’s notice, was already going. Master Hyndstoke, with a haste that slightly lost him dignity, followed. Jane, intent now on somehow having the paper Eyon had had no chance to deliver, went the other way, working around and through the talking crowd who were all too busy to bother with her who knew no more than they did and did not want to talk about it with them.

Passing through several more small chambers, each one opening into the next, she found Eyon’s room easily enough, and to her relief and discomfort both, no one was left there but William Chesman, standing at the foot of his cousin’s narrow bed, looking down at the blanket-covered body. Jane never knew what to say or how to be with him but that was momentarily a lesser matter as she suddenly confronted the certainty of Eyon’s death. Until then it had simply been a complication, meaning trouble over having back the message of which no one else should know. Now abruptly it was real. Eyon was dead.

He had been one of the witnesses for his cousin’s betrothal but Jane had never had much to do with him beyond the few words occasionally needed between them concerning Lady Alice’s matter. He had been no one in particular to her—a moderately aged man of moderate appearance, moderate manners, moderate speech, that was all. Someone of use to Lady Alice.

But now where there had been someone called Eyon Chesman there was no one at all. His soul was gone—heavenward, hellward, into purgatory, there was no way of telling. The only certainty was that all that was left of him here was that body under the blanket, laid still and straightly out in the way that only the dead lay.

It was not as if she had never seen other people dead. She had and some she had known far better than she had known Eyon. She had even sat with Sister Thebaude while she was dying, seen her die. But each death was its own death, each death was singular, particular, and this one was Eyon’s, and beyond how little or much he had mattered to her, he had been near kin to William who, by the way he was standing at the foot of the bed, head stiffly bowed and back rigid, was in pain, so that Jane, knowing she had to say something rather than stand there watching him while he thought he was alone, said, “Someone has gone for a priest?”

William raised his head to stare at the crucifix on the wall above the head of the bed and finally said, “Yes.” He seemed to be having trouble finding his thoughts but managed after a pause, “There’ll have to be more than usual masses said for him.”

Because he had died without confession or last rites to ensure his soul’s safety.

“My lord and lady will surely help with that,” Jane said. It came out stiffly. She and William had never said anything to each other beyond the simple conversations inevitable in living in the same household until they had agreed to their marriage together in front of witnesses a month ago and then made the betrothal vows that sealed them to one another beyond recovery. After that even simple conversation had become almost impossibly awkward, for her at least, and William had surely made no effort at it; but just now silence had to be kept at bay and Jane managed to force out, “He was dead when you found him?”

William looked down at his cousin’s body again before answering, “I thought he was asleep when I came in, but I couldn’t rouse him. He wasn’t breathing anymore. Master Hyndstoke says he’s been dead, been past help for hours.”

William lifted his hands and ran them backward through his hair that, like his cousin’s, was moderately brown but, unlike Eyon’s, was given to a crisp curl that did not take well to the currently fashionable smooth bowl cut so that he wore it a little long, the better for running his hands through, Jane thought irrelevantly, and pulled her mind up short, knowing she was simply veering away from what she did not want to think about. What she needed to do was find that paper in the few moments before other people came, and how she would do it if it was on Eyon’s body—she looked around the room for where else it might be but there was neither cast-off clothing nor belt pouch, only Eyon’s shoes on the floor beside the bed—she did not know. But to gain time she asked, “He hadn’t been sick at all?”

“No,” William answered. “Yester evening we were…”

People were in the next room, coming. Probably the priest, certainly the curious. William broke off what he was saying and looked at her—an odd look that asked questions without expecting answers—for the briefest silent instant before he held out a hand toward her and said in a low voice, “Here. This is what you want, I think.”