The Stone-Worker's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries) Read Free

too often when love came in, reason went out.  And if it were lust instead of love, then reason was likely to have even less hold.  Having barely seen and never spoken to either Elyn or Simon, Frevisse had no way of knowing whether it was lust or love between them, but either way reason seemed to have gone completely out.  They had gained only trouble – and worse trouble to come – by this running away from their duties.
    "What I don't see," Alice said, snatching a spire of flowers from a lavender plant as she walked past, "is why Elyn would do something this headlong.  She's always showed sensible until now.  Even in this dalliance with Simon Maye, this thinking they might be in love, hasn't been foolish until now.  She's even asked if I'd speak favorably to her parents about him, and I'd said I would."
    "She did?  You would?" Frevisse said in surprise.  "They'd countenance such a thing?  Marriage between her and a journeyman stone-worker?"
    "Oh, they're none so fine as all that," Alice said easily.  She held the lavender to her nose and breathed deeply.  "Elyn's grandfather on the father's side was a merchant out of Gloucester who bought himself into land and his son into marriage with a squire's daughter.  He was a friend of my father.  That's how I know the family.  Elyn isn't even their eldest or heir, just a younger daughter, here to be given some graces.  If she had caught the eye of a young lord while in my household, they'd not have minded."  Alice's small laughter at that was her first lightness of the morning.  "But they'll not mind a master stone-worker for her, which is what this Simon Maye will shortly be."
    "And Elyn knows that?"
    "Oh, yes."   Alice's humour darkened again.  "She only had to wait.  What are they thinking of?  It's Sir Reginald.  He's behind this some way.  I swear I'll tell everyone he can't find good workmen of his own but has to steal mine.  I'll making a laughing-stock of him.  He found some way to turn Simon Maye's head..."
    "How would he go about that?" Frevisse asked calmingly.  "Wouldn't anyone he sent be noted here?"  Ewelme being a small place and most of it centered on Lady Alice's household.  "Wouldn't any stranger who's only business was with one of workmen be talked of?"  And talk of it would almost surely be brought to Alice by way of any of her household officers whose duties included knowing such things as went on around her.  Alice's frown acknowledged as much and Frevisse went on, "Besides that, is Simon Maye such a fool?"
    "I wouldn't have thought so," Alice snapped.  "But I'd not have thought it of Elyn either.  Oh, how could either of them have been so foolish?"
    That seemed the morning's refrain, Frevisse thought. 
    "And no matter what Master Wyndford avers about his son," Alice said fiercely, "I won't have the drunken lout working on my angels."
    Surprised, Frevisse said, "Was he drunk?"
    "What else would you call how he looked this morning?  Or if he wasn't outright drunk, he was at least ale-addled.  Did you see when he bowed?  He swayed near to falling over.  He's not touching my angels."  She threw the sprig of lavender away.  Lavender was supposed to soothe and had maybe worked a little on Alice because, less harshly, more resigned, she said, "Ah well.  All this doesn't mean the rest of us should waste our day.  My chamberlain will be waiting.  And then my steward."  Because being lady of a large household and of lands spread over a goodly number of counties did not mean she lived a life of plain leisure.  Rather, it meant she was responsible for a great many people, must needs deal for hours at a time with her various officers and make decisions about a great many matters.
    Frevisse, of no use to her with any of that, left her to her duties and sought out Beth and Cathryn at their morning work of tidying Alice's bedchamber, and asked, "Tell me, what did Elyn take with her?"
    "Take with her?" Cathryn echoed a little