9 The Reeve's Tale by Frazer Margaret

Author:Frazer, Margaret [Frazer, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: __Fixed, Britain, Convent, England, Fiction, good quality scan, Great Britain, Henry VI; 1422-1461, Historical, History, Medieval, Mystery & Detective, Nuns, Traditional British, Women Sleuth, _BIG_FIXUP
ISBN: 9780425176672
Google: -I0m5HcCL9EC
Amazon: 0425176673
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1999-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Hoping her bowed head and hidden hands concealed her fine shuddering of anger, Frevisse followed Perryn and Gilbey out of the house and across the foreyard to the street. Montfort had always brought her to anger and, at his worst, fear, because he was an arrogant and dangerous fool, disliking anyone and anything that came between him and whatever his present purpose was, and what she saw of his present purpose here frightened her.

Ahead of her, at the green’s edge, Gilbey turned on Perryn and said angrily, “He wants us guilty.”

They were well away from any of Montfort’s men but not out of their sight and maybe not out of their hearing, and Perryn said back, “Not here.”

‘My house then,“ Gilbey said, and Perryn nodded terse agreement.

They must needs talk somewhere and quickly, Frevisse thought, because she doubted they would have much time. All Montfort need do was bring the jurors around. When once he had their agreement—and she had seen no sign they would make much trouble over it—it would be small matter to put together a full jury to have an indictment and Gilbey and Perryn arrested.

Gilbey’s messuage was not far. Most of Prior Byfield stretched out down both sides of the long green, but at its churchward end a short lane pushed out and Gilbey’s was there, the farthest and nearly the only house along it, Frevisse saw as she followed the two men that way. Of the other two on the lane, one was no more than a poor toft— a small house set in a small garden and no more—while the other had some time been lived in but was now turned into a cattleyard, its house into a byre.

Beyond it was Gilbey’s, and even taken up with the tangle Montfort was making, Frevisse nearly came to a stop at full sight of it across the low withy fence between the street and its wide yard. Most villeins’ houses were serviceable but simple: of timbers, wattle, daub, and plaster, long and low, easily put up, easily taken down and shifted around in the yard as desire or need required, with thatch likely to be the greatest expense in keeping it up and nothing much changed from one generation to the next because what was the point in putting much money into something that belonged, when all was said and done, to the lord rather than the man who lived in it? But although Gilbey’s house was of timber, wattle, daub, plaster, and thatch well enough, there was nothing long and low about it. Beyond its foreyard garden, it stood square, with gable ends high enough, roof steep enough, it must have an actual upper floor instead of merely a loft tucked among rafters; there was even a small window poked out under a little gable of its own from the thatch along the side of the roof Frevisse could see and a fireplace chimney showing on the other side.

Elena was at the door, looking

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