The Maiden’s Tale (31 page)

Bishop Beaufort gave her a harsh, assessing look. “Take him with me so I’m the one who has to deal with him instead of you?”

“Yes.” Belatedly she remembered to add, “my lord.”

Bishop Beaufort’s look at her did not soften, but he made a sharp gesture at Robyn to rise, saying, “You’ll come with me. No, save your thanks until I’ve finished dealing with you.”

The possibilities implicit in that reached even into Robyn’s wits and his thanks broke off. Bowing deeply and more deeply, he retreated among the waiting, cold, impatient men, and with another gesture Bishop Beaufort bade Herry go, too, but as he started to draw off, Frevisse protested, sick with knowing her protest was no use, “You can’t take him, too.”

“I can, dame,” Bishop Beaufort answered flatly. His look and voice said he was no more pleased with her than he was with Robyn. “And I am.”

“He’s a murderer and an attempted murderer,” she insisted.

“And no longer a concern of yours, dame. What needs to be dealt with is that you now know far more of my dealings than I like, and have interfered with them, too.” He included William with the slightest glance aside to him. “Both of you. What I’m going to assume is that you’ll both do nothing with what you know except forget it. Robyn. Herry. All of it.”

As threats went, it was politely made but it was threat nonetheless, and after a long moment in which neither of them moved, Frevisse finally made a small, ungracious nod of agreement and William bowed his head.

“Good,” Bishop Beaufort said. “Now I will be going.

Good fortune in finding out who tried for the duke of Orleans, Dame, because I promise you, that is one thing I had no part in and I want to know who did because I very much need Orleans alive.“

That, at least, Frevisse believed. But it also opened another possibility and she asked, stopping him before he had quite begun to move away from her, “Has anything been found out yet from the man who tried to kill him at Winchester House? Anything that might help me here?”

In the pause then there was silence enough to hear the shuffle of the waiting men, the slap of the river against stone and wood, a cock crowing somewhere off among London’s gardens, before Bishop Beaufort gestured William to move away, waited until he was out of hearing, and then said, very low, “No one tried to kill his grace of Orleans at Winchester House.”

Quietness beyond reach of any sounds around her closed on Frevisse. A stillness so deep it was only with difficulty she managed to say, “That was another lie?”

“A necessary one.”

Frevisse did not think she ever wanted close look at what Bishop Beaufort considered necessities, as he went on, “An attempt on his life added urgency to his meeting with the king, both for Orleans and King Henry. One afraid for his life, the other afraid to lose this chance at peace. Interesting, in its way. So many lives to be saved by having peace but the saving of one familiar life so much more compelling than the saving of uncounted unfamiliar ones. To think Orleans, his own kinsman, is in grave danger adds pressure to King Henry’s thought of having peace. Therefore, an ‘attempt’ to kill him. It helped that you were here because I knew that with you to help her, Lady Alice would be able to carry through his ‘rescue.” “

Controlling her voice, Frevisse asked, “Who knows it was a lie?”

“Myself, the man who did the carefully botched stabbing, and the two men guarding him, from whom he’ll shortly escape, having revealed nothing.”

“You didn’t even tell my lord of Suffolk it was all nothing?”

“Suffolk? He’d be the last I’d tell. He has no subtlety and, worse, he thinks he does. Now if you’ll pardon me, I think we’re near to dawn and I’ve yet to see my bed tonight.” He made the sign of the cross at her. “Go with God, Dame. His blessing and mine be upon you.”

Chapter
27

She and William did not watch Bishop Beaufort and his people go but turned away, on her part because she did not want to risk sight of Herry or Robyn again, sick with knowing there was nothing more she could do against them. Nor did she want to know what was in William’s mind; and with everything unsaid between them, he and she crossed the yard back to the hall, up the stairs to the watchman huddled ear-deep in his cloak in the failing torchlight there, waiting to bar the door when they were in, the way his fellow was dropping the bar across the now-shut riverward gate, the thud of its falling clear in the freezing air. And that, Frevisse thought, was that, so far as Herry Elham and Robyn Helas were concerned. They were safe away; and while one part of her was relieved to be rid of them, a far larger part was bitter with their escape. Bitter, too, with the knowledge that she was no nearer to finding who had tried, and might try again, for Orleans’ life.

Distantly the cock crowed again and another answered it. How near was it to dawn? Not that it mattered. Come what may, she had to go to bed. There was no more thinking left in her.

If there had been, she would not be standing here in the cold at the head of the stairs, she thought, with William waiting patiently behind her but surely as tired and cold as she was.

Not sure how much of her aching was weariness, how much was discouragement, she went in, William following her, saying, “At least we’re rid of them, my lady.”

“And that’s something to be thankful for,” she agreed, giving him a half smile over her shoulder, wishing she meant it.

The watchman followed them in and closed the door, probably hoping for nothing now but them to leave so he could pull his bedding out from where he had kicked it hurriedly against the wall at Bishop Beaufort’s leaving and settle himself to a little more sleep across the doorway, but Frevisse turned back to him, a thought dredging up from her mind, to ask, “Fellow, have you seen Master Bruneau tonight? Lately, I mean. Since things quieted but before Bishop Beaufort left?”‘

“I’ve not noticed much quieting tonight,” the man grumbled. “Bishops at all hours, going, coming back, going again. Some man dripping blood on the paving here and half the household trampling and shouting all over it and who’s to wipe it up but me? Yes, Master Bruneau went out since then, and in again.”

“When?”

“A while ago is all I could say to it. Went out, was gone a time, came back.”

“But he did come back?”

“Oh, aye.”

“Has there been anyone else, except for Bishop Beaufort and his people, come or go?”‘

“None else. It’s not a night for being out if you can help it, is it?”

Frevisse agreed it was not and left him to his comforts, going on into the hall, William with her.

So Master Bruneau had been out and about to see to what she had asked of him, but where was he now? If he had not bothered to seek her out, he must have found nothing to report and probably was gone off to bed, supposing she would have done the same by now. She wished she had. But it seemed questioning Master Bruneau on what he had learned could wait until morning since he had not found it urgent, and by then, please God and given rest, she would have more wits working than she did now.

The great hall was deep in slumbers again after whatever disturbance Bishop Beaufort’s passing had made; no one roused at her and William going through more than they had before, and when they had climbed the steepened-with-weariness stairs to the lady chamber, all there was slumber and mostly darkness, too, only one lamp left burning and the last of those who had had no business there finally gone, leaving only a squire drowsing in a chair beside the stairway door who woke enough to look up and lose interest in them and be asleep again all in the same moment, and Adam asleep sitting on the floor with his back to the bedchamber doorjamb, and the two maids left to watch over Lady Jane curled asleep on cushions piled on the floor at her head and feet, blankets over them, and Master Hyndstoke’s man in a high-backed chair nearby, slumped down and lightly snoring.

In wordless agreement, Frevisse and William went to Lady Jane, still lying on her back, her arms along her sides, the blankets unrumpled over her as if she had not moved at all since they had left her. The fire, instead of being banked for the night, was burning low among its logs, casting warmth and a red glow that showed the slow, steady rise and fall of her breathing and her face in a repose it never had when she was awake; showed, too, William’s face, almost as unguarded as Lady Jane’s, gentle with concern and longing and… love?

Frevisse did not know what other name to give his look but turned from the question of how it could have happened, with nothing between them yet except their marriage sensibly arranged for their profit. It was something aside from everything that needed to be dealt with just now, first and foremost being the question of where she was to sleep. On more of die cushions here in the lady chamber, she supposed, past being particular, just so she could lie down and sleep. And despite of that heard herself instead say softly, “William,” drawing first his attention and then him away from the sleepers beside the fire into the colder shadows across the room, to ask him there, “Your cousin. What Bishop Beaufort said about him. That he was going to betray things to Gloucester. Is that possible?”

William paused before answering slowly, “I’d rather not believe it but, yes, it’s likely, once it’s thought on. Eyon was steady in all things but his judgment didn’t run very deep and he very much liked money. The hope of more coins in hand might have brought him to think it no great matter to sell away a little information.” That admittance hurt him but he gave it and then asked, “What of Herry? Does his grace have the right of it there? That Herry is fully his creature and didn’t make the attempt on Orleans?”

“I fear so. Otherwise Herry would likely have let Eyon give away to Gloucester what he meant to, with Beaufort none the wiser. And, too, I think that if it had been Herry who struck at Orleans, he would have struck true and Orleans would be dead.”

“And Robyn?”

“God forgive me, I wouldn’t mind finding that mean-spirited fool guilty of everything,” Frevisse said, with unashamed bitterness, “but he wasn’t among the men named as being with Eyon and you said he wasn’t at the gateway either.”

“He wasn’t.”

“How did it happen who would go with Bishop Beaufort and who wouldn’t?”

“My lord of Suffolk just pointed at some of us to give him escort. Robyn wasn’t even in the room.”

“It was random, who Suffolk chose to go?”

“I think so. Yes.”

Frevisse stood considering what very little she yet knew to any purpose and wished she would stop asking questions and settle for sleep. Rid of her weariness, she might be able to be rid of the sick feelings of anger and defeat that were driving her and probably confusing her thinking as much as her weariness surely was.

The trouble was that even rest was unlikely to rid her of her anger. Anger most at Bishop Beaufort because he had put together everything that had made tonight happen but angry, too, at herself for being helpless against it and unable to find the one more answer that she needed—who wanted Orleans dead and was probably still at hand to try again?

She felt as if something nasty had been dabbling in every corner of her mind. A nasty something with a bishop’s name.

“You should go to bed, my lady,” William said gently into her thoughts’ turmoil. “We’ll think the better when we’ve rested. You’ve done what could be done tonight.”

He was right but that made none of it better. What she might have answered him was stopped by the bedchamber door opening, swathing yellow lamplight across a little of the lady chamber, rousing Adam to start a scramble to his feet but Alice, coming out, laid hand on his shoulder, spoke softly to him so that he subsided as she closed the door and went quiet-footed to stand over Lady Jane. In the shadows and firelight, in her damask bedgown, with her fair hair loose down her back, she looked no older than the sleeping girl; and quietly, not to startle her, Frevisse said, “Alice.”

Alice, unstartled, looked into the shadows, found her and William, and came to join them, saying with a faint, tired smile, “Master Hyndstoke says it’s the remains of the drug in her that has her so deeply asleep but that her heart is beating evenly and strong and that when she awakes, she’ll be weak a while but well.”

“May I?” William motioned toward Lady Jane.

“Go to her? Be with her? By all means, yes,” Alice granted.

And when he was gone, Frevisse asked quietly, “How is it with Orleans?”

Alice tried to smile. “He’s well. Weak from so much blood gone but well, taken all in all. Word will be given out he fell ill directly he came to London, is too ill to see anyone. When he’s well enough, he’ll return to Stourton’s keeping, Gloucester none the wiser he ever saw the king. If we can keep him safe. What have you learned?”

Leaving out about Robyn and the poems for now, and that the first attack on Orleans had been feigned, Frevisse told her the rest. Of Eyon’s death and Herry’s treachery, of why he had thought Lady Jane should die and as much as she could of what had past in the yard just now.

Part way through the telling Alice sat down on a nearby chair, her head bent as if under the weight of what she was learning but saying nothing even when Frevisse had finished, the silence stretching between them, Frevisse leaving it there until Alice looked up and said evenly over a deep anger, “Then Eyon was about to betray us but Herry, who is after all actually my lord of Winchester’s creature while pretending to be Gloucester’s, killed him for it, to stop him and to punish him. Jane he wanted to kill because she looked to be a danger to him and probably he would have killed William if he’d known his part in it. But Bishop Beaufort has taken him away, is protecting him, presumably so Herry can continue to serve him.”

“Yes.”

“Herry.” Alice shook her head slowly, her disbelief at so much treachery and easy willingness to kill mingled with anger that she could see no way of doing to him what he deserved. But of Bishop Beaufort she said nothing, Frevisse noticed. Because nothing he had done came as surprise to her?

“So Jane is safe but not Orleans, since it wasn’t Herry who attacked him. Is that the way of it?”‘ Alice asked.