Read Online The Squire’s Tale by Margaret Frazer - Free Book Online Page B

Blaunche’s four men waiting with the horses and Father Henry. While one of the men strapped Dame Claire’s bag behind her saddle and another took the medicine box to pack into one of the hampers on the packhorse, Father Henry and Domina Elisabeth gave their blessings and made farewell, with Father Henry at Domina Elisabeth’s prompting formally releasing them both from the saying of the Offices at length while they were gone. Such pardon was commonly given and, “Do as you can, best as you can,” Father Henry said. “God knows what’s in your heart.”
     
    Frevisse, doubting God would approve of what was in her heart at the moment, bowed her head more low, trying for humility and acceptance where she was hard put to want either.
     
    ‘You’re freed, too, from heavy fasting,“ Domina Elisabeth said. ”There’ll be greater demands on you bodily outside the cloister. Fast, but only so far as does you no harm.“
     
    The man had taken Frevisse’s bag and was strapping it behind her saddle now, leaving her free to put on her own cloak as Lady Blaunche came out of the guesthall, Katherine with her, Mistress Dionisia and Lady Blaunche’s woman following after. Frevisse did not know whether Katherine had spent the night there instead of in her cloister room or had simply breakfasted with Lady Blaunche. What she did know, by her first look at Katherine’s face, was that the girl was showing no feelings at all, one way or another, either to gladness or sadness, at leaving. She merely looked… nothing.
     
    It came to Frevisse that most of the time she had been in St. Frideswide’s, except maybe when she had been playing with Lucy and Helen, there had always been a careful stillness to Katherine, as if she were waiting for whatever might come next. As if, maybe, she was afraid of what might come next.
     
    But Lady Blaunche was making a cheerful bustle down the guesthall stairs, coming to thank Domina Elisabeth for all she had done for Katherine and for letting Dame Claire go with her, adding, “And?” with a meaningful look at Frevisse before Domina Elisabeth could have a word in.
     
    ‘Dame Frevisse,“ Domina Elisabeth answered. ”Our precentress.“
     
    ‘Dame Frevisse,“ Lady Blaunche repeated with a gracious nod and smile in Frevisse’s direction. ”Yes, you’re one of the ones Katherine mentioned.“
     
    ‘My lady,“ Frevisse murmured but Lady Blaunche was already turning away with a sweeping look around at everything and everyone. Like most Fenners, she was of moderate height and a solid build. Years and childbearing were working their ways to broaden her but she was not yet run to fat and likely never would, Frevisse guessed, watching as she set to organizing Katherine and Mistress Dionisia to their horses with the busy assurance of someone who knows nothing will turn out right if they do not see to it. Girths were fussed over, baggage made certain, questions about the horses asked before finally Lady Blaunche allowed the men to set to helping her and the other women into their saddles. The man seemingly given charge of the nuns for now led Dame Claire’s horse toward the mounting block when she asked him because, unused as she was to riding, she wanted all the help she could have, but Frevisse, left beside an unimpressive bay gelding, gathered up its reins for herself, shook back her skirts to clear her foot for the stirrup, took hold of the saddlebow, and swung herself up into the saddle, glad there was no fashionable nonsense over side-sitting in box seats, even by Lady Blaunche. Finished with settling her skirts and cloak, she found everyone else was ready, too, however uncertain about it Dame Claire might look, with Lady Blaunche sorting them into the order she wanted: two of the men to ride ahead, the women in pairs behind them, Lady Blaunche with Dame Claire, Frevisse beside Katherine, the two waiting women together and the other two men behind.
     
    Domina Elisabeth and Father Henry