The Murderer's Tale Read Online Free

words, rather than Frevisse’s protest, had given Domina Alys pause, so that her eventual, grudging decision had been that for today at least there would be no unseemly going abroad.
    But what could be forgiven—or at least ignored—from Sister Thomasine remained an offense from Frevisse. She had felt the blunt edge of the prioress’ displeasure through the day and knew, from past experience, that when Domina Alys had had time to think of something sufficient, she would be paid fully back for her temerity in so overtly interfering.
    But how could she not when such a wrong was about to be done? Irritable with helplessness, she repeated, “What can we do?”
    “Keep quiet?” Dame Claire asked.
    “How can I? How can you?”
    “I don’t know. But have you thought that maybe the problem doesn’t completely lie with her?”
    “No, I hadn’t thought that.”
    “She feels we disturb her rule by doubting her.”
    “Her rule is something to be doubted.”
    “She’s done the priory some good, you know.”
    Frevisse intensely disliked it when Dame Claire insisted on seeing the other side of a matter whose nearer side offended Frevisse so greatly. But Dame Claire was right. Through Domina Alys’ influence with her large family, St. Frideswide’s now had two novices, which was two more novices than the priory had had in five years. Besides, her family, pleased with her new position, had given the priory a goodly gift of money on Lady Day and talk was lively on how it should be used, with feelings running strongly several ways but mainly pleasure in the fact that there was spare money to be talked of at all.
    So, yes, Domina Alys had done the priory some good. “But—”
    “And she’s right in feeling that we—you and I—disturb her rule.”
    “We don’t do anything beyond sometimes question what she does,” Frevisse protested. “You can’t say I was wrong this morning.”
    “No. Nor yesterday when you asked why she meant to rent the Northampton messuage to her cousin at a lesser rate than we had been receiving for it.”
    “It was a needed question. Someone had to ask it.”
    “Undoubtedly. But it was you who did.”
    “Because no one else dared.”
    “Exactly.”
    Dame Claire looked sideways up at Frevisse to see if she had taken the point. After a moment, Frevisse smiled wryly in return. “And it doesn’t help that I don’t always question her in the mildest way possible.”
    “Nor does it help that you do it so often.”
    Frevisse made a small gesture of helplessness, and Dame Claire said, “I know. You tend to see matters more clearly than most do, and for good measure you think about them, and then, beyond that, you have the courage—more courage than I have—to speak out when you think you should.”
    “The courage or the stupidity.”
    “That, too, upon occasion,” Dame Claire agreed equitably. “But whether you speak out or not, she assumes that you disapprove of whatever she does, and sometimes the look on your face shows all too clearly that you do. I, on the other hand, annoy her simply by being here at all.”
    And that, Frevisse knew, was true enough, too. Dame Claire’s mere presence was reminder of what everyone knew Domina Edith had intended for the priory; and to Domina Alys’ choleric mind, Dame Claire’s presence was an ongoing rebuke.
    “And it doesn’t help,” Frevisse said, “that we keep each other company at recreation time.”
    “It makes her more suspicious of both of us,” Dame Claire agreed.
    “I’ll try to bridle my tongue. That may eventually help.”
    Dame Claire did not answer. Their walking had brought them back to the bottom of the garden, a little way from where Sister Thomasine still stood, her face lifted to the thrush still singing in the pear tree. By unspoken accord, they both stopped to listen, too, though Frevisse’s mind stayed more on what they had been saying then on the beauty of the evening. And so did Dame Claire’s, apparently, for