The Witch’s Tale

A Short Story by Margaret Frazer

Part of the Dame Frevisse Medieval Murder Mysteries

Published by Dream Machine Productions at Smashwords

Copyright 1993 Margaret Frazer

http://www.margaretfrazer.com

* * * * *

The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men,

As whilom to the wolf thus spak the mare.

Canterbury Tales - The Reeve's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer

* * * * *

The night's rain had given way to a softened sky streaked with thin clouds.  The air was bright with spring, and the wind had a kindness that was not there yesterday.  In the fields the early corn was a haze of green across the dark soil, and along the sheltered southward side of a hedgerow Margery found a dandelion's first yellow among the early grass.  The young nettles and wild parsley were up, and in a few days would be far enough along to gather for salad, something fresh after the long winter's stint of dried peas and beans and not enough porridge.

Margery paused under a tree to smile over a cuckoo-pint, bold and blithe before the cuckoo itself was heard this spring.  Farther along the hedge a chaffinch was challenging the world, sparrows were squabbling with more vigor than they had had for months, and a muted flash of red among the bare branches showed where a robin was about his business.  As she should be about hers, she reminded herself.

She had set out early to glean sticks along the hedgerows but there was not much deadwood left so near the village by this end of winter; her sling of sacking was barely a quarter full, and all of it was wet and would need drying before it was any use.  But she must go home.  Jack would be coming for his dinner and then Dame Claire at the priory was expecting her.

Though she and Jack were among the village's several free souls and not villeins, Margery's one pride was that she worked with Dame Claire, St. Frideswide's infirmarian.  They had met not long after Margery had married Jack and come to live in Priors Byfield.  In the untended garden behind the cottage she had found a plant she could not identify despite the herb lore she had had from her mother and grandmother.  With her curiosity stronger than her fear, she had gone hesitantly to ask at the nunnery gates if there were a nun who knew herbs.  In a while a small woman neatly dressed and veiled in Benedictine black and white had come out to her and kindly looked at the cutting she had brought.

"Why, that's bastard agrimony," she had said.  "In your garden?  It must have seeded itself from ours.  It's hardly common in this part of England and I've been nursing ours along.  It's excellent for strengthening the lungs and to ease the spleen and against dropsy, you see."

"Oh, like  marjoram.  Wild marjoram, not sweet.  Only better, I suppose?" Margery had said; and then had added regretfully, "I suppose you want it back?"

Dame Claire had regarded her with surprise.  "I don't think so.  We still have our own."  She looked at the cutting more closely.  "And yours seems to be doing very well.  Tell me about your garden."

Margery had told her and then, drawn on by Dame Claire's questions, had told what she knew of herbs and finally, to her astonishment, had been asked if she would like to see the priory's infirmary garden.  One thing had led on to another, that day and others; and with nothing in common between them except their love of herbs and using them to help and heal, she and Dame Claire had come to work together, Margery gathering wild-growing herbs for Dame Claire's use as well as her own and growing plants in her garden to share with the infirmarian, as Dame Claire shared her own herbs and the book-knowledge Margery had no way of having.  And for both of them there was the pleasure of talking about work they both enjoyed, each with someone as knowledgeable as herself.

Now, this third spring of their friendship, the soil would soon be dry enough, God willing, for this year's planting.  Margery and Dame Claire had appointed today to plan their gardens together, so that Dame Claire could ask the priory steward to bring back such cuttings as they needed when he went to Lady Day fair in Oxford.

But Margery had to hurry.  Her husband Jack wanted both her and his dinner waiting for him when he came into the house at the end of the morning's work, and his displeasure was ugly when she failed him.  She had left herself time enough this morning, she was sure, even allowing for her dawdling along the hedgerow; but as she let herself into her garden by the back gate from the field path she saw with a familiar sick feeling that Jack was standing in the cottage's back doorway, fists on his hips and a mean grin on his fleshy mouth.  He was back early from hedging -- Margery would have sworn he was early -- and neither she nor his food was waiting and no excuse would make any difference to what he would do now.

Wearily, Margery set down her bundle on the bench beside the door and looked up at him.  It was better to see it coming.

"Y'know better than to be late," he accused.  "Y'know I've told you that."

"I can have your dinner on in hardly a moment."  She said it without hope.  Nothing would help now; nothing ever did.

"I don't want to wait!"  Jack put his hand flat between her breasts and shoved her backward.  He always began with shoving.  "I shouldn't have to wait!"

Margery stumbled back.  Jack came after her and she turned sideways, to make a smaller target, for all the good it would do her.  He shoved her again, staggering her along the path, then caught her a heavy slap to the back of her head so that she pitched forward, her knees banging into the wooden edging of a garden bed, her hands sinking into the muddy soil.  She scrambled to be clear of him long enough to regain her feet. So long as she was on her feet he only hit.  Once she was down, he kicked.  His fists left bruises, sometimes cuts.  His feet were worse.  There were places in her that still hurt from last time, three weeks ago.  From experience she knew that if she kept on her feet until he tired, he did not kick her so long.

But her fear made her clumsy.  He was yelling at her now, calling her things she had never been, never thought of being.  A blow along side of her head sent her stumbling to one side, into her herb bed among the straw and burlap meant to protect her best plants through the winter.  She scrambled to be out of it but Jack came in after her, crushing his feet down on anything in his way.

Margery cried out as she had not for her own pain.  "Stop it!  Leave my plants be!"  Jack laughed and stomped one deliberately.

"Them and you both," he said, enjoying himself.  "You'll learn to do what you're told."

Margery fumbled in the pouch under her apron and, still scrambling to keep beyond his reach and get out from among her herbs, snatched out a small packet of folded cloth not so big as the palm of her hand.  She brandished it at him and screamed, "You stop!  You stop or I'll use this!"

For a wonder Jack did stop, staring at her in plain surprise.  Then he scoffed, "You've nothing there, y'daft woman!" and grabbed for her.

Margery ducked from his reach, still holding out the packet.  "It's bits of you, Jack Wilkins!" she cried.  "From when I cut your hair last month and then when you trimmed your nails.  Remember that?  It's bits of you in here and I've made a spell, Jack Wilkins, and you're going to die for it if you don't leave me alone and get out of my garden!"

"It's not me that's going to die!" he roared, and lurched for her.

After two days of sun the weather had turned back to low-trailing clouds and rain.  But it was a gentle, misting rain that promised spring after winter's raw cold, and Dame Frevisse, leaving the guest hall where everything was readied should the day bring guests to St. Frideswide's, paused at the top of the stairs down into the courtyard to look up and let the rain stroke across her face.  Very soon the cloister bell would call her into the church with the other nuns for the afternoon's service of Vespers, and she would be able to let go the necessities of her duties as the priory's hosteler to rise into the pleasure of prayer.

But as she crossed the yard toward the cloister door, Master Naylor overtook her.  He was the priory's steward, a long-faced man who kept to his duties and did them well but managed to talk with the nuns he served as little as possible.  Bracing herself for something she probably did not want to hear, Frevisse turned to him.  "Master Naylor?"

"I thought you'd best know before you went in to Vespers," he said, with a respectful bow of his head.  Master Naylor was ever particular in his manners.  "There's a man come in to say Master Montfort and six of his men will be here by supper time."

Frevisse felt her mouth open in protest, then snapped it closed.  Among her least favorite people in the realm was Master Morys Montfort, crowner for northern Oxfordshire.  It was his duty to find out what lay behind unexpected deaths within his jurisdiction, then to bring the malefactor -- if any -- to the sheriff's attention, and to see to it that whatever fines or confiscations were due King Henry VI were duly collected.

Frevisse had no quarrel with any of that, but Master Montfort had the regrettable tendency to prefer the least complicated solution to any problem and find his facts accordingly.  He and Frevisse had long since struck a level of mutual hostility neither was inclined to abate.  She was not happy to hear of his coming, and she said, "I trust he's just passing on his way to somewhere else?  There's no one dead hereabouts that I've heard of."

Master Naylor shrugged.  "It's Jack Wilkins in the village, the day before yesterday.  They tolled the village bell for him but you were likely in church for Sext then."

"But why is Montfort coming?  Is there's doubt about the way this Wilkins died?"

"No doubt.  His wife shook a charm at him and cast a spell, and he fell down dead.  At least three of their neighbors saw it.  I'd not have thought it of Margery," he added.  "She's never been known to put her herbs to aught but good, that I've heard."

"Margery?  Dame Claire’s Margery?"

"That's her, the herbwife who visits here sometimes."

"Does Dame Claire know?"

"No more than you, I doubt.  It was witchcraft and murder certain enough.  Montfort will have it done a half hour after he's seen her and talked to her neighbors.  He'll probably be on the road to Banbury with her before noon tomorrow and she'll be in the bishop's hands not long after that.  I'd have reported it all to Domina Edith come week's end with the other village business."  He seemed to think that was all the dealing there needed to be with the matter; Jack and Margery were not among the priory's villeins, and so not his responsibility.  The lethal use of witchcraft wasn't usual; on the other hand, all herbwives used spells in their medicines, and it was but a small step to misuse them.  He would not have mentioned it except he knew of Margery's link with Dame Claire.

The bell for Vespers began to ring.  Frevisse said impatiently, "Where is she being kept?"

Master Naylor pointed through the gateway toward the outer yard.  "She's in one of the sheds there.  I've two of our men guarding her.  She's gagged so it's all right; they're safe.  There's nothing to be done."

"Dame Claire will want to see her after Vespers," Frevisse said.  "Please you, tell the guesthall servants for me that Montfort is coming.  I have to go."

The Vespers she had expected to enjoy was instead a prolonged discomfort of impatience; and afterwards she had to wait until supper was finished and the nuns went out into the garden for recreation time -- the one hour of the day their Benedictine rule allowed for idle talk -- before she could tell Dame Claire what was to hand.

"Margery?" Dame Claire exclaimed.  Disbelief arched her eyebrows high toward her veil.  "Killed her husband with witchcraft?  I very much doubt it.  In fact I don't believe it at all!  I want to see her."

That was easily done.  Frevisse waited at the foot of the stairs to the prioress' parlor while Dame Claire went up to ask permission.  Then they went together, out of the cloister and across the inner yard -- Frevisse noting there were lights in the guesthall window so Montfort and his entourage must have arrived -- through the gateway to the outer yard where a stable hand, surprised to see them outside the cloister, pointed to the shed at the end of the stables where the prisoner was being kept.

"I should have thought to bring a cloak for her, and something warm to eat," Dame Claire regretted as they went.  "These spring nights are cold, and she must be desperate, poor thing."

As Master Naylor had said, two stolid stable men were keeping guard inside the shed door, and Margery was gagged and her hands bound at her waist.  But a clay lamp set in the corner on the bare earth floor gave a comforting yellow glow to the rough boards of her prison, and by its light as they stood in the doorway -- Dame Claire explaining to the guards that they were come with permission to talk with Margery -- Frevisse saw that Margery had several blankets, a cloak, and a straw-stuffed pillow to make her a bed along the farther wall, and that beside it were a pot of ale and various plates with three different kinds of bread and parts of two cheeses.  Frevisse knew that in such cases as Margery the nunnery provided a blanket and an occasional piece of bread.  So who had done this much for Margery?

Margery herself had risen to her feet as the nuns entered.  Despite her crime, she was much as Frevisse had remembered her, a middling sort of woman -- of middling build, middling young, middling tall, with nothing particular about her, except -- to judge by her eyes above the gag -- that she was frightened.  As well she should be.

Dame Claire finished with the men, and crossed the shed to her, Frevisse following.  As Margery curtseyed, Dame Claire said, "Let me loose your hands so you can take off the gag.  I've told them you won't do anything.  We want to talk to you."

Dame Claire freed Margery's hands, and gratefully she unknotted the cloth behind her head.  "Thank you, my lady," she said hoarsely.

"Have something to drink."  Dame Claire indicated the ale kindly.  "Have they let you eat?"

Margery nodded over the rim of the clay pot as she drank thirstily.  When she had finished, she said, "They've been as kind as might be.  And village folk have brought me things."  She gestured at her bed and food and lamp.  She was clearly tired as well as frightened, worn out by too many strange things happening to her.  "But I hoped you'd come, so I could tell you why I didn't come t'other day when I said I would."

"I wondered what happened to you," Dame Claire answered.  "But I never thought this."

Margery hung her head.  "Nor did I."

"They say you killed your husband."

Margery nodded.  "I did that."

"Margery, no!" Dame Claire protested.

"Jack came at me, the way he's done ever since we married whenever I've not done right.  But this time we were in my garden and he was trampling my plants."  It plainly mattered very much to her that Dame Claire understand.  "I told him to stop but he didn't care, and I -- lost my temper."

"You truly did kill him?" Dame Claire asked, still disbelieving it.

"Oh, yes.  Sure as sure.  I didn't know the spell would work that way but it did.  Took him off afore he could hit me again, just like that."

"What -- exactly -- did you do?" Frevisse asked carefully.  Murder, serious enough in itself, was worse for the murderer when done by witchcraft.  Charms and spells were simply part of healing; every herbwife knew some.  But if they were turned to evil, they became part of the Devil's work and a matter for the Church as well as lay law.

Margery looked at Frevisse with mingled shyness and guilt, and did not answer.

"Tell us, please," Dame Claire urged.  "Dame Frevisse and I want to help you."

"There's no help for me!" Margery said in surprise.  "I killed him."

"How?" Frevisse persisted.

Margery hung her head.  She twisted her hands in her apron and, low-voiced with embarrassment, said, "I'd been saving bits of him this while.  Hair, you know, and his nail cuttings."

"Margery!  That's wicked!" Dame Claire exclaimed.

"I know it!" Margery said piteously.  "But I was only going to make a small charm.  When I'd money for the wax to make the figure.  Not kill him, like, but weaken his arm so he couldn't hit me so hard.  That's all I wanted to do.  Just weaken him."

"But you hadn't made the figure yet?" Frevisse asked.  Margery shook her head dumbly.  Frevisse pressed, "What did you do then, that you think you killed him?"

"I had the -- things in a little packet.  I held it up and told him what it was and that he'd better stop what he was doing.  That I'd made a charm and I'd kill him if he didn't stop."

"But you hadn't made a charm yet.  You said so," said Dame Claire.

"That I hadn't.  But I meant to.  I really did."  She looked anxiously from one nun to the other.  "If I make confession and do penance before they hang me, I won't have to burn in hell, will I?  Not if I'm truly penitent?"

"Surely not," Dame Claire reassured her.

"But if you didn't have the charm, what happened?" Frevisse asked.

Margery shuddered.  "Jack kept hitting and shoving.  I knew he'd near to kill me, once he had his hands on me, and I'd never have another chance to make a charm against him, not now he knew.  I was that frighted, I grabbed the first words that came to me, thinking to scare him off with them.  I didn't even think what they were.  I just said them at him and shook the packet like I was ill-wishing him.  I just wanted to keep him back from me, I swear that's all.  Just hold him off as long as might be."

She broke off, closing her eyes at the memory.

"And then?" Dame Claire prompted.

Faintly, tears on her cheeks, Margery said, "He stopped.  All rigid like I'd hit him with a board.  He stared at me with his mouth open and then grabbed his chest, right in the center, and bent over double.  He was gasping like he hurt, or couldn't catch his breath.  Then he fell over.  In the path, away from my herbs.  He curled up and went on gasping and then -- he stopped.  He just stopped and was dead."

A little silence held them all.  Frevisse was aware of the two men at her back, and knew that everything they were hearing would be told later all around the nunnery and village.

"Margery," Dame Claire said, "You can't wish a man dead.  Or rather, you can wish it, but it won't happen, not that simply."

"But it did," Margery said.

And there would probably be no convincing anyone otherwise.  But for Dame Claire's sake, Frevisse asked, "What was it you said to him?  A spell?"

Margery nodded.  "The one for -- "

Master Naylor interrupted her with a firm rap on the door frame. He inclined his head respectfully to Frevisse and Dame Claire, and said, "The crowner wants to see her now."

"So late?" Dame Claire protested.

"He hopes to finish the matter tonight so he can be on his way at earliest tomorrow.  He has other matters to see to," Master Naylor explained.

Matters more important than a village woman who was surely guilty, Frevisse thought.  A woman who was the more inconvenient because she would have to be sent for examination before a bishop before she could be duly hanged.

"We'll come with her," said Dame Claire.

Master Montfort had been given the guesthall's best chamber, with its large bed and plain but sufficient furnishings.  The shutters had been closed against the rainy dusk, the lamps lighted, and at a table against the farther wall his clerk was hunched over a parchment, quill in hand and inkwell ready.

The crowner himself stood by the brazier in the corner, his hands over its low warmth.  He was short in the leg for the length of his body, and had begun to go fat in his middle, but to his own mind any shortcomings he might have -- and he was not convinced that he had any -- were amply compensated for by the dignity of his office; he no more than glanced over his shoulder as Master Naylor brought Margery in, then sharpened his look on Frevisse and Dame Claire following her.  A flush spread up his florid face and over the curve of his balding head.

"You can stay, Naylor," he said.  "But the rest of you may go."  Belatedly, ungraciously, he added, "My ladies."

With eyes modestly downcast and her hands tucked up either sleeve of her habit, Frevisse said, "Thank you, but we'll stay.  It would not be seemly that Margery be here unattended."

She had used that excuse in another matter with Master Montfort.  He had lost the argument then, and apparently chose not to renew it now.  His flush merely darkened to a deeper red as he said tersely, "Then stand to one side and don't interfere while I question her."

They did so.  Master Montfort squared up in front of Margery and announced in his never subtle way, "I've questioned some several of your neighbors already and mean to see more of them before I'm to bed tonight so you may as well tell what you have to tell straight out and no avoiding it.  Can you understand that?"

Margery did not lift her humbly bowed head.  "Yes, m'lord."

"You killed your husband?  Now, mind you, you were heard and seen so there's no avoiding it."

Margery clearly had no thought of avoiding anything.  While the clerk's pen scratched busily at his parchment, recording her words, she repeated what she had already told Frevisse and Dame Claire.  When she had finished, Master Montfort rocked back on his heels, smiling grimly with great satisfaction.  "Very well said, and all agreeing with your neighbors' tales.  I think there's no need for more."

"Except," Dame Claire said briskly, knowing Master Montfort would order her to silence if she gave him a chance, "I doubt her husband died of anything more than apoplexy."

The crowner turned on her.  In a tone intended to quell, he said, "I beg your pardon, my lady?"

Dame Claire hesitated.  Frevisse, more used to the crowner's bullying, said helpfully, "Apoplexy.  It's a congestion of the blood -- "

Master Montfort's tongue caught up with his indignation.  "I know what it is!"

Frevisse turned to Master Naylor.  As steward of the priory's properties he had far better knowledge of the villeins than she did.  "What sort of humour was this Jack Wilkins?  Hot tempered or not?"

"Hot enough it's a wonder he was in so little trouble as he was," Master Naylor said.  "He knocked a tooth out of one of his neighbors last week because he thought the man was laughing at him.  The man wasn't, being no fool, but Jack Wilkins in a temper didn't care about particulars.  It wasn't the first time he's made trouble with his temper.  And he was known to beat his wife."

"Choleric," said Dame Claire.  "Easily given to temper.  People of that sort are very likely to be struck as Jack Wilkins was, especially in the midst of one of their furies.  He was beating his wife -- "

"As he had every right to do!" Master Montfort declared.

As if musing on his own, Master Naylor said, "There's a feeling in the village that he did it more often and worse than need be."

But Dame Claire, refusing to leave her point, went on over his words, " -- and that's heavy work, no matter how you go about it.  Then she defied him, maybe even frightened him when she said her spell -- "

"And down he fell dead!" the crowner said, triumphant.  "That's what I'm saying.  It was her doing and that's the end of it."

"What was the spell she said?" Frevisse interjected.  "Has anyone asked her that?"

Master Montfort shot her an angry look; determined to assert himself, he swung back on Margery.  "That was my next question, woman.  What did you actually say to him?  No, don't look at anyone while you say it!  And say it slow so my clerk can write it down."

Eyes turned to the floor, voice trembling a little, Margery began to recite, "Come you forth and get you gone...."

If Master Montfort was expecting a roaring spell that named devils and summoned demons, he was disappointed.  The clerk scratched away busily as Margery went through a short verse that was nevertheless quite apparently meant to call the spirit out of the body and cast it away.  Part way through, Dame Claire looked startled.

In the pause after Margery finished speaking, the clerk's pen scritched on.  Master Montfort, ever impatient, went to hover at his shoulder and, as soon as he had done, snatched the parchment away.  While he read it over, Frevisse leaned toward Dame Claire, who whispered briefly but urgently in her ear.  Before Frevisse could respond, Master Montfort demanded at Margery, "That's it?  Just that?"  Margery nodded.  Master Montfort glared at his clerk and recited loudly, "Come you forth.... "

The man's head jerked up to stare with near-sighted alarm at his master.  The crowner went on through the spell unheeding either his clerk's dismay or Master Naylor's movement of protest.  Margery opened her mouth to say something, but Frevisse silenced her with a shake of her head, while Dame Claire pressed a hand over her own mouth to keep quiet.

When Master Montfort had finished, a tense waiting held them all still, most especially the clerk.  When nothing happened after an impatient minute, Master Montfort rounded on Margery.  "How long is this supposed to take?"

Margery fumbled under his glare.  "My husband -- he -- almost on the instant, sir.  But -- "

"Spare me your excuses.  If it worked for you, why didn't it work for me?  Because I didn't have clippings of his hair or what?"

Keeping her voice very neutral, Frevisse suggested, "According to Robert Mannying in his Handling Sin, a spell has no power if said by someone who doesn't believe in it.  Margery uses herbs and spells to help the villagers.  She believes in what she does.  You don't.  Do you believe in your charm, Margery?  This one that you said at your husband?"

"Yes, but -- "

"She's a witch," Master Montfort interrupted.  "And whatever good you claim she's done, she's used a spell to kill a man this time, and her husband at that.  Who knows what else she's tried."  He rounded on Margery again and said in her face, "There's a question for you, woman.  Have you ever used this spell before?"

Margery shrank away from him but answered, "Surely.  Often and often.  But -- "

"God's blood!" Master Montfort exclaimed.  "You admit you've murdered other men?"

"Margery!" Frevisse said urgently, "What is the spell for?"

Driven by both of them, Margery cried out, "It's for opening the bowels!"

A great quiet deepened in the room.  Margery looked anxiously from face to face.  Frevisse and Dame Claire looked carefully at the floor.  Red darkened and mounted over Master Montfort's countenance again.  Master Naylor seemed to struggle against choking.  The clerk ducked his head low over his parchment.  Nervously Margery tried to explain.  "I make a decoction with gill-go-on-the-ground, and say the spell over it while its brewing, to make it stronger.  It provokes urine, too, and... and... "  She stopped, not understanding their reactions, then finished apologetically, "They were the first words that came into my head, that's all.  I just wanted to fright Jack off me, and those were the first words that came.  I didn't mean for them to kill him."

Master Montfort, trying to recover lost ground, strangled out, "But they did kill him, didn't they?  That's the long and short of it, isn't it?"

Margery started to nod, but Frevisse put a stilling hand on her arm; and Dame Claire said, "It's a better judgement that her husband died not from her words but from his own choler, like many another man before him.  It wasn't Margery but his temper that did for him at the last."

Master Montfort glared at her.  "That's women's logic!" he snapped.  "His wife warns him she has bits of him to use against him, and cries a spell in his face, and he drops down dead, and it's his fault?  Where's the sense of that?  No!  She's admitted her guilt.  She was seen doing it.  There's no more questioning needed.  Naylor, keep her until morning.  Then I'll take her in charge."

The twilight had darkened to deep dusk but the rain had stopped as they came out of the guest hall.  Master Naylor steadied Margery by her elbow as they went down the steps to the yard.  No matter how much she had expected her fate, she seemed dazed by the crowner's pronouncement, and walked numbly where she was taken.  Frevisse and Dame Claire followed with nothing to say, though Frevisse at least seethed with frustration at their helplessness and  Montfort's stupidity.  Even the acknowledgement of the possibility of doubt from him would have been something.

Margery's two guards were waiting at the foot of the steps in the spread of light from the lantern hung by the guest hall door.  They stood aside, then followed as the silent group made their way around the rain-puddles among the cobbles to the gateway to the outer yard.  Beyond it was the mud and deeper darkness of the outer yard where the lamplight showing around the ill-fitted door of Margery's prison shed was the only brightness.  Busy with her feet and anger, Frevisse did not see the knot of people there until one of them swung the shed door open to give them more light, and Master Naylor said in surprise, "Tom, what brings you out?  And the rest of you?"

Frevisse could see now that there were seven of them, four women and three men, all from the village.  The women curtseyed quickly to her, Dame Claire, and Master Naylor as they came forward to Margery.  Crooning to her like mothers over a hurt child, they enveloped her with their kindness; and one of them, with an arm around her waist, soothed, "There now, Margery-girl, we can see it didn't go well.  You come in-by.  We've something warm for you to eat."  Together they drew her into the shed, leaving the men to front the priory-folk.

Tom, the village reeve and apparently their leader in this, ducked his head to her and Dame Claire, and again to Master Naylor before he said, "She's to go then?  No help for it?"

"No help for it," Master Naylor agreed.  "The crowner means to take her with him when he goes in the morning."

The men nodded as if they had expected no less.  But Tom said, "It makes no difference that there's not a body in the village but's glad to have Jack gone?  He was a terror and no mistake and she didn't do more than many of us have wanted to."

"I can't argue that, but it changes nothing," Master Naylor said.  "Margery goes with the crowner in the morning, to be taken before the bishop for what she's done."

"She didn't do anything!" Dame Claire said with the impatience she had had to curb in Master Montfort's presence.

Frevisse agreed.  "This Jack died from his own temper, not from Margery's silly words!"

"It was apoplexy," said Dame Claire.  "People who indulge in ill temper the way Jack Wilkins did are like to die the way Jack Wilkins did."

"If you say so, m'lady," Tom said in a respectful voice.  "But Margery cried something out at him, and Jack went down better than a poled ox.  God keep his soul," he added as an after-thought, and everyone crossed themselves.  Jack Wilkins was unburied yet; best to say the right things for he would make a wicked ghost.

"It wasn't even a spell to kill a man.  Margery says so herself."

"Well, that's all right then," Tom said agreeably.  "And a comfort to Margery to know it wasn't her doing that killed Jack, no matter what the crowner says.  But what we've come for is  to ask if some of us can stand Margery's guard tonight, for friendship's sake, like, before she goes."

Dim with distance and the mist-heavy dusk, the bell began to call to Compline, the nuns' last prayers before bed.  Frevisse laid a hand on Dame Claire's arm, drawing her away.  Master Naylor could handle this matter.  There was nothing more for the two of them to do here.  Better they go to pray for Margery's soul.  And Jack Wilkins', she thought belatedly.

Watery sunshine was laying thin shadows across the cloister walk next morning as Frevisse went from chapter meeting toward her duties.  She expected Master Montfort and his men and Margery would be gone by now, ridden away at first light; and she regretted there had been nothing that could be done to convince anyone but herself and Dame Claire that Margery had not killed her lout of a husband with her poor little spell and desperation.  But even Margery had believed it, and would do penance for it as if her guilt were real, and go to her death for it.

Frevisse was distracted from her anger as she neared the door into the courtyard by the noise of Master Montfort's raised voice, the words unclear but his passion plain.  She glanced again at the morning shadows.  He was supposed to be miles on his way by this time.  She opened the door from the cloister to the courtyard.

Usually empty except for a passing servant and the doves around the well, the yard was half full of villagers crowded to the foot of the guest hall steps.  Master Montfort stood above them there, dressed for riding and in a rage.

"You're still saying there's no trace of her?" he ranted.  Frevisse stopped where she was with a sudden hopeful lift of her spirits.  "You've been searching the wretched place since dawn!  My men have scoured the fields for miles!  Someone has to know where she is!  Or if she's truly bolted, we have to set the hounds to her trail!"

Even from where she was, Frevisse could see the sullen set of every villein's shoulders.  But it was clear that the main thrust of his words was at Master Naylor, standing straight-backed at the head of the villeins, deliberately between them and the crowner's rage.  With a hard-edged patience that told Frevisse he had been over this already more than once, he answered in his strong, carrying voice, "We have no hounds to set to her trail.  This is a priory of nuns.  They're not monks; they don't ride to hunt here."

Standing close behind the steward, Tom the reeve growled so everyone could hear, "And where she went, you wouldn't care to follow!"

Master Montfort pointed at him, furious.  "You!  You're one of the fools who slept when you were supposed to be guarding her!  Dreaming your way to perdition while she walks off free as you please!  What do you mean, `where she went'?  Hai, man, what do you mean?"

"I mean it wasn't a natural sleep we had last night!"  Tom answered loudly enough to send his words to the outer yard, to Master Montfort's entourage and a number of priory servants clustered just beyond the gateway.  Frevisse saw them stir as he spoke.  "Aye, it wasn't a natural sleep and there's not one of us will say it was.  We fell to sleep all at once and together, between one word and another.  That's not natural!  No more than Jack Wilkins falling down dead was natural.  We're lucky it was only sleep she did to us!  That's what I say!  And anybody who tries to follow her is asking for what happens to him!"

Behind and around him the other villeins glanced at each other and nodded.  One of the bolder men even spoke up, "Tom has the right of it!"

A woman -- Frevisse thought she was one of four who had come to Margery last night -- said shrilly, "You can't ask any decent man to follow where she's gone!"

Master Montfort pointed at her.  "You know where she's gone?  You admit you know?"

"I can make a fair guess!" the woman flung back.  "Flown off to her master the devil, very like, and you'll find no hound to go that trail!"

"Flown off?" Master Montfort raged.  "Flown off?  I'm supposed to believe that?  Naylor, most of these folk are the priory's villeins!  Warn them there's penalties for lying to the king's crowner and hiding murderers.  She's around here somewhere!"

"If she is, we haven't found her yet for all our searching," Master Naylor said back.  "Twice through the village is enough for one day, and there's no sign where she might have gone across country.  As you say, these are our villeins and I can say I've never known them given to such lying as this.  Maybe they've the right of it.  You said yourself last night she was a witch, and now she seems to have proved it!"

Master Montfort stared at him, speechless with rage.

"What we say," shouted another of the men, "is you're welcome to come search us house to house yourself, you being so much smarter than the rest of us.  But if you find her, you'd better hope she doesn't treat you like she did her husband!"

There was general angry laughter among all the villeins at that; and some from beyond the gateway.  For just a moment Master Montfort lost the stride of his anger, paused by the man's words.  Then he gathered himself together and rounded on Master Naylor.  With a scorn that he meant to be withering, he said, "I've greater matters to see to than hunting down some petty village witch.  She was in your charge, Naylor, and the loss is to you, not to me.  There'll be an amercement to pay for losing the king's prisoner, and be assured I'll see the priory is charged it to the full!"

"I'm assured you will," Master Naylor returned tersely, his scorn stronger than Master Montfort's.

For a balanced moment he and the crowner held each other's eyes.  Then Master Naylor gestured sharply for the villeins to move back from the foot of the steps.  Crowding among themselves, they gave ground.  Master Montfort's mouth opened, then closed, and with great, stiff dignity he descended, passed in front of them to his horse being held for him beyond the gateway, and mounted.  He glared around at them one final time and, for good measure, across the courtyard at Frevisse still standing in the doorway, then jerked his horse around and went.

No one moved or spoke until the splash and clatter of his going, and his entourage after him, were well away.  And even then the response among them all seemed no more than a long in-drawn breath and a slow release of tension.  Heads turned to one another, and Frevisse saw smiles, but no one spoke.  There were a few chuckles but no more as they all drifted out of the gateway, some of them nodding to Master Naylor as they passed him.  He nodded back, and did not speak either; and when they were gone, he stayed where he was, waiting for Frevisse to come to him.

She did, because there in the open courtyard they could most easily talk without chance of being overheard so long as they kept their voices low.  "Master Naylor," she said as she approached him.

He inclined his head to her.  "Dame Frevisse."

"I take it from what I heard that Margery Wilkins escaped in the night?"

"It seems her guards and the friends who came to keep her company slept.  When they awoke this dawn, she was gone."

"And cannot be found?"

"We've searched the village twice this morning, and Master Montfort's men have hunted the near countryside."

"They think she used her witch-powers to escape?"

"So it would seem.  What other explanation is there?"

"I can think of several," Frevisse said dryly.

Master Naylor's expression did not change.  "Just as you and Dame Claire could think of some other reason for Jack Wilkins' death besides his wife's words striking him down."

"And the fine to the priory for your carelessness in losing your witch?"

"It was villeins who had the watch of her and lost her.  I mean to make an amercement on the village to help meet the fine our crowner will surely bring against the priory."

"Won't there be protest over that?"

"Villeins always protest over paying anything.  But in this I think there'll be less arguing than in most.  She's their witch.  Let them pay for her.  Dear-bought is held more dear."

"They still truly believe she killed her husband?" Frevisse asked.  "Despite what we told them last night, they still believe she's a witch with that much power?"

"What else can they believe?" the steward asked quietly in return.  "They saw her do it."

"What do you believe?" Frevisse asked, unable to tell from his neutral expression and voice.

Instead of an answer to that, Master Naylor said, "I think a straw-filled loft is not an uncomfortable place to be for a week and more this time of year.  And that by the time summer comes there'll be a new herb-wife in the village, maybe even with the same first name but someone's widowed sister from somewhere else, freeborn like Margery was and no questions asked."

"And after all, witchcraft in itself is no crime or sin," Frevisse said.  "The wrong lies in the use it's put to."

"And all the village knows Margery has ever used her skills for good, except this one time, if you judge what she did was ill.  All her neighbors judge it wasn't," Master Naylor said solemnly.

"They mean to keep her even if it costs them?" Frevisse asked.

"They know she's a good woman.  And now that they're certain she has power, she's not someone they want to lose."

"Or to cross," Frevisse said.

Master Naylor came as near to a smile as he ever came, but only said, "There'll likely be no trouble with anyone beating her ever again."

THE END

Margaret Frazer

Margaret Frazer is the award-winning author of more than twenty historical murder mysteries and novels. She makes her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, surrounded by her books, but she lives her life in the 1400s. In writing her Edgar-nominated Sister Frevisse (The Novice's Tale) and Player Joliffe (A Play of Isaac) novels she delves far inside medieval perceptions, seeking to look at medieval England more from its point of view than ours. "Because the pleasure of going thoroughly into otherwhen as well as otherwhere is one of the great pleasures in reading."

She can be visited online at http://www.margaretfrazer.com.

Sister Frevisse Mysteries

Beginning in the year of Our Lord's grace 1431, the Sister Frevisse mysteries are an epic journey of murder and mayhem in 15th century England.

The Novice's Tale

The Servant's Tale (Edgar-Award Nominee)

The Outlaw's Tale

The Bishop's Tale (Minnesota Book Award Nominee)

The Boy's Tale

The Murderer's Tale

The Prioress' Tale (Edgar-Award Nominee)

The Maiden's Tale

The Reeve's Tale (Minnesota Book Award Nominee)

The Squire's Tale

The Clerk's Tale

The Bastard's Tale

The Hunter's Tale

The Widow's Tale

The Sempster's Tale

The Traitor's Tale

The Apostate's Tale

Player Joliffe Mysteries

In the pages of Margaret Frazer's national bestselling Dame Frevisse Mysteries the player Joliffe has assumed many roles on the stage to the delight of those he entertains. Now, in the company of a troupe of traveling performers, he finds himself double cast in the roles of sleuth and spy...

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Dux Moraud

A Play of Knaves

A Play of Lords

A Play of Treachery

A Play of Piety

Margaret Frazer Tales

Neither Pity, Love, Nor Fear (Herodotus Award Winner)

Strange Gods, Strange Men

The Simple Logic of It (A Bishop Pecock Tale)

The Witch's Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)

The Midwife's Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)

Volo te Habere...

This World's Eternity

Shakespeare's Mousetrap

The Death of Kings

The Stone-Worker’s Tale (Sister Frevisse Mystery)

Winter Heart (Sister Frevisse Mystery)

Cover Art: Henry Wallis - Death of Chatterton, 1856.

Cover Design: Justin Alexander