The Sempster's Tale Read Online Free PDF Page A

think the business over vestments hid another matter altogether.
     
    But it did, and it was that other matter that had Frevisse restlessly pacing, angry to be here, as inwardly a-seethe as England presently was outwardly. With Suffolk’s years of misgovernment for the king and this past year’s headlong losses in the French war—with most of the late King Henry V’s great conquests in France now gone—there was such a continuing rumble of angers and rebellions that this was no time to be traveling, which Lady Alice had acknowledged in her letter to St. Frideswide’s prioress Domina Elisabeth when telling her of the intended gift and requesting Frevisse’s part in it as well as promising the use of her own rowed barge so that Frevisse and her escort could travel by river rather than road from Oxford to London.
     
    Domina Elisabeth, more than willing to oblige so wealthy a patron as Lady Alice, had agreed without apparent second thought. Frevisse, under a nun’s vow of obedience, had had no choice but to accept and obey. She had been uneasy, though. She and Alice had not last parted pleased with each other, that Alice should be asking this of her now; and her unease had only increased at finding the barge stripped of any sign it belonged to the duke or duchess of Suffolk. From bow to stern the Suffolk colors of blue and gold were painted over to a plain brown, and the canvas tilt no longer bore the ducal heraldic arms.
     
    Worse had come when the barge’s master had taken secret chance to give her a sealed letter, saying with a wary look around them, “My lady ordered it was for only you to know of.”
     
    Frevisse had slipped the folded and sealed paper into her sleeve with a sinking certainty she was not going to like whatever it said. She had learned to be wary of Alice’s secrets, and her wariness had not lessened when she finally had chance to read the letter, such as it was. The two sentences told her nearly nothing: “When my agent in London meets you about the vestments, he will have another matter for you that none else must know of. However much I have lost your friendship of late, I pray you, in mercy, to aid me in this.” That was all; and just as the wax seal had been plain, there was no signed name to betray who had written it.
     
    The writing had seemed Alice’s, though, and Frevisse was left with nothing but to pretend all was as it outwardly was supposed to be while keeping to herself her low-held anger and ill-graced curiosity at what Alice wanted of her. And now, after scarcely a day in London, her waiting might be at an end. Across the cloister garth a nun had stopped beside Dame Juliana and, mindful of the Sunday silence, was moving her hands in quick signs, to which Dame Juliana shook her head and pointed toward Frevisse. The nun started around the walk toward her, and Frevisse walked on to meet her, trying to curb any outward show of impatience. When they met, the nun signed with her hands that Frevisse was wanted somewhere, and Frevisse nodded silently that she understood and followed the woman out of the cloister walk and away through several rooms to the parlor near the cloister’s outer door where nuns met with such guests as they were allowed.
     
    At St. Frideswide’s the guest parlor was little used, friends and relatives only sometimes coming so out of the way to visit, but the nuns in St. Helen’s were mostly of London families, with much come and go of visiting, and their parlor was comfortable with cushioned chairs, cloth-covered table, rush matting underfoot, and tapestried walls. As Frevisse entered, the man there turned from considering the tapestry showing the Foolish Virgins with their burned-out lamps, and the St. Helen’s nun murmured, “Master Raulyn Grene,” before sinking onto the chair just inside the door as if all the walking to and fro had worn her out. Since no nun should meet alone with a man, she would stay there, but Frevisse supposed that must be a