The Prioress’ Tale Read Online Free PDF Page A

and to her waist, obscuring her face as she twisted angrily in Benet’s hold despite that she had no chance of breaking free, trapped as she was in the cloak and his tight hold. Cheerfully Sir Reynold called, “Don’t let her slip! Some of the taming you’re going to have to do yourself from here on.”
    There was laughter among the men to that, though not from Benet, as the girl threw back her head, missing his chin with the back of her skull only because he ducked away from it. Domina Alys, finally finding words, demanded at Sir Reynold, “What have you done, you fool?”
    Sir Reynold answered, grinning, “There’s naught wrong. Benet means to marry her.”
    Her hair thrown back from her face at last, the girl cried out in open fury, “Not this side of hell he won’t! Help me!” She turned desperate eyes on Domina Alys and Frevisse.
    “You’re nuns! I won’t marry him! Don’t let them do this to me!”
    “No one is doing anything to anyone, marriage or otherwise, until I know more about what’s toward here,” Domina Alys said grimly. “Dame Frevisse, have her down from there. Take her into the cloister.”
    Frevisse started down the stairs to obey, for once as openly angry as Domina Alys; but Sir Reynold backed his horse across her way and said over her head to Domina Alys, now above her on the stairs, “Alys, Alys, come on, my girl. It’s not so bad as all that. Benet means to
marry
her. Your priest can do it ere supper, if you like. She’s only merchant-get, but there’s money enough in it to make it worth the while. And better that Benet have her than that fool of a Fenner her people were planning to betrothed her to.”
    “Fool or not,” the girl cried, still twisting in Benet’s hold, “he has friends at court and they’ll make you sorry for this!”
    Without looking around, Sir Reynold said, “Benet, muzzle her.”
    The girl instantly twisted her head around as far as it would go, to snap her teeth at Benet before he had made any move at all against her. Around him the other men were offering suggestions, none of them helpful, some of them lewd. Benet, tight-mouthed and intent, answered nothing, kept hold of her and clear of her head. Frevisse moved sideways to go around Sir Reynold, but again he backed his horse, still blocking her way, saying over her, “Call your nun off, Alys. The girl is Benet’s.”
    “I’m not anyone’s!” the girl cried back.
    “Dame,” Domina Alys snapped, “I said take her into the cloister.”
    “Alys, don’t push this,” Sir Reynold warned.
    “Don’t you push it, Reynold,” Domina Alys warned him back, fists on her hips, her face mottled red with temper in the white surround of her wimple. She had nothing to set against him but God’s displeasure and her own, and Frevisse doubted that either was likely to matter much to Sir Reynold. Worse, Father Henry had come out of his chamber door beside the gateway and was taking in what was happening. He was a burly man, almost a match in size for Sir Reynold, but with no complications in him. Direct to the point of simpleness in both his religion and his living, he would side without thought with Domina Alys once he understood what was happening here, even if it came to blows, as it all too readily could, given the tempers there were; and if it did, Frevisse doubted his priesthood would protect him from Sir Reynold or his men.
    As he stood trying to decide what was going on in front of him, before Domina Alys saw him and demanded his help, Frevisse threw up her hands and her full black sleeves at Sir Reynold’s horse’s face. The animal startled backward, tossing its head aside out of her way, and more quickly than Sir Reynold could recover control, Frevisse ducked not only past him but between the two riders beyond him, to Benet’s side. Grabbing hold of the girl’s skirts as if laying a claim of her own to her, she ordered, “Give her to me, Benet. Now.”
    Unhesitatingly, he did, shoving her from