The Novice's Tale (Oxford Medieval Mysteries Book 2) Page 12

  ‘Foolish dog,’ she whispered. ‘I hope you are not hurt. Now we must both be brave.’

  She felt her way across the meadow to the large willow where she had stepped into the river before. On that occasion she had noticed a bank of shingle part way across, so it looked like a possible way to ford the river. But that had been in the daylight. Now, although she had gained some night vision, she was not at all sure that she could find it again.

  Here was the river’s edge, and this must be the little cove she had found before. She stepped into the water, which was surprisingly cold. She had decided to wear her sandals, for it would have been difficult to carry them as well as the dog, and besides they would be some protection against sharp stones on the river bed.

  The water was lower than it had been before. Nearly halfway across and the water had risen barely to her knees, soaking her habit, which dragged at her legs. She should have kilted it up, but could do nothing now, with the dog in one arm and steadying the awkward bundle with her other hand as it banged against her side.

  Here was the patch of shingle. She climbed on to it thankfully, and paused to draw breath. Jocosa, who had been quiet until now, either because the goat had frightened her or because she was puzzled by Emma’s behaviour, now began to squirm, demanding to be put down.

  Emma gripped her more firmly and stepped into the river again. She could make out the loom of the further bank now, only a few yards away, but the water on this side of the shingle was deeper, as though the river had scooped out a hollow here. She slid one foot carefully in front of the other. The water was up to her thighs now and her sodden habit clung to her legs like clutching arms.

  Then her foot reached out and found nothing. The river bed fell away and Emma pitched forward. Jocosa leapt from her arms with a squeal. Then the river caught her up and bore her away.

  Chapter Six

  All the way back to Oxford, I cursed myself for my weakness. The girl was desperate in her appeal for help, and I had nothing to offer her but the vague promise of a lawyer, so far unknown, and a bottle of tawny gold ink. Fool! Coward! Cautious as an old maid afraid to cross the road without help! I despised myself. An old grandfather would have ventured more for her sake.

  That put me in mind of her own grandfather, lying sick and alone on his manor away to the south of the county. And her unscrupulous stepfather living – where? – somewhere nearby? I must ask Mistress Farringdon. Could the fellow really have forced Emma into the nunnery, given her as an oblate, as part of a plan to seize her inheritance? Not only would such an action be a crime against the girl herself. It was an insult to God, to use His Church as an instrument in perpetrating a devious scheme to gain worldly wealth. The man would be punished for such a sin in the life hereafter, but I must find a way to ensure that he was foiled in the life here and now.

  This resolution did something, though not a great deal, to assuage my guilt. In one aspect I was sure that I was right. The matter of whether Emma could be forced to take her final vows must be decided in court, so that there could be no question about her status as laity in the future. Supposing, perhaps, that she might wish to marry.

  I jerked my mind away from that notion.

  We were nearing the North Gate of Oxford, and I had hardly realised that I had been riding down St Giles. It was fortunate that Rufus knew his own way home, for I was certainly not guiding him. For once Northgate Street was relatively quiet, so I soon turned into the High and returned Rufus to the Mitre. I considered walking round the corner to St Mildred Street to ask Maud Farringdon where Emma’s stepfather lived, but decided against it. At present, I had no real need to know. Later, when it was a matter of taking Emma’s case to Chancery, it would be necessary.

  As I continued down the High, I ran over in my mind such lawyers as I knew in Oxford. Most, if not all, were scholars of jurisprudence, not practising lawyers, but surely they would know how the law stood in the case of a woman forced into a nunnery. There must have been other such cases. Jordain knew more law than I did, but his interests lay in the field of theory, the ethics and moral basis of law. There was John Wycliffe, of course, a brilliant man, but he was contentious, more likely to stir up trouble than to give a calm appraisal of Emma’s rights under the law. He would go galloping away on one of his wild theories about the Church. Nay, Wycliffe would not be the best man to approach.

  Just as I reached my shop, already closed and shuttered by Walter, another name occurred to me. I stopped. Philip Olney. Although Olney was now librarius of Merton College and jealous custodian of its valuable collection of books, he also lectured in the law. His own advanced studies had lain in that field. It was his bibliographical passion which had prompted him to persuade Merton to put him in charge of their books, and I knew he was arguing that a dedicated building should be erected in the college grounds to house the ever growing collection. However, he had continued to lecture in both Canon and Common Law, for there was a great demand in England for more trained lawyers to be turned out by the universities, especially since King Edward had taken the organisation of the country in hand. Every county of England needed lawyers for the administration of local justice, and the reorganisation of England’s central government and the major law courts in London demanded even more trained men. Many a boy coming to Oxford from a quite humble background could – with talent and hard work – rise high through a career in law.

  It would be an hour or more before Margaret would expect me for supper. There was time to go in search of Philip Olney.

  I retraced my steps a short way and headed down Magpie Lane, reaching Merton, as I realised too late, just at the hour the Fellows would be sitting down to their evening meal.

  ‘Master Olney?’ the porter said. ‘Nay, Master Elyot, he went out some time ago and he’ll not be back now to eat in Hall. When he goes out of an evening he is often not back till the morning.’

  His face was bland and the tone of his voice gave nothing away, but the absence of a Fellow overnight from his college tended to mean only one thing amongst the well informed college porters – a visit to a whore house. There was one nearby in Magpie Lane, a street which had another, more unsavoury name, but a visit there was unlikely to involve an overnight stay.

  I wondered whether the porter knew, as I did, where Philip Olney was in truth likely to be found. Like others of his profession, Merton’s porter was probably privy to most of the Fellows’ secrets, but I knew that Olney had gone to a good deal of trouble to keep this particular secret well hidden from his college, for fear of the consequences.

  ‘No matter,’ I said. ‘The affair is not urgent. I will speak to him tomorrow.’

  Fired up with my eagerness to consult a lawyer, however, I had no intention of waiting until the morrow, but walked east along the High, past my shop, past the turn to Hammer Hall Lane and out through the East Gate.

  Between the gate and the Hospital of St John, which lay on my left just before the bridge over the Cherwell, there was a row of pleasant small houses, mostly, from their appearance, occupied by craftsmen and small traders. The third cottage was particularly neat and pretty, the area before the front door laid out in symmetrical beds with medicinal and culinary herbs and such flowers as lavender and marigolds which are both ornamental and useful. The door gleamed with fresh paint and the windows (unlike most of the other houses in the row) were glazed. Although the cheap glass was lumpy and irregular, it would allow light into the house when its neighbours must either remain dark with their shutters closed or freeze with them open in winter weather.

  On the other side of the road, but further on and opposite the front of the hospital, there was another row of cottages, altogether more shabby and neglected than these. I hesitated in front of the third house on the left. Although I was certain that this was where I should find Philip Olney, I was suddenly conscious that I had no right to intrude on him here, although he was aware that I knew of the house and what – or rather who – it contained.

 
While I was still standing there, debating with myself and occasionally being jostled by passersby heading for the East Bridge, the door opened and a woman stepped out. She was younger than Olney by perhaps ten years, near my own age, and very pretty, a fresh country beauty I would have thought, and not the sort to have been found in Magpie Lane. I had seen her once before, at a distance. Seen closer, she was even prettier. I thought she had come out to gather herbs from the garden, but instead she approached me smiling.

  ‘Master Elyot? Were you looking for Philip?’

  I was taken aback at her words, in the first place because she knew my name, and in the second because she was aware that I knew of her connection with Olney. It could only mean that he had told her. I found myself unaccountably blushing.

  ‘Indeed I was, mistress. Is he here?’

  ‘He is. Will you step inside?’

  I walked up the path between bushy hedges of lavender, whose full summer blooms cast up their sweet and spicy scent as I brushed against them, and found myself being ushered directly into the main room of the cottage, which was not unlike the Farringdons’ house, but much more comfortably furnished and full of the signs of family life: several bright rugs, a drop spindle wound with wool, a basket of darning, on the table three pewter plates scattered with crumbs, a fine shawl thrown over a coffer, and several books. Books? Was she literate? Beside the plates there were a few sheets of rough paper and a child’s horn book. On the far side of the table Philip Olney was sitting on a stool and appeared to be mending a small shoe with cobbler’s twine.

  For a moment I was lost for words.

  ‘Please to sit down, Master Elyot.’ The woman cleared a stool of a small pair of hose she must have been darning. She had been sitting with her back to the window, so it had been Olney who had seen me out in the street.

  He looked at me, half smiling but nervous, as I sat down. The woman brought a flagon of ale and poured for both of us, but took none herself.

  ‘Good evening, Philip,’ I said, raising the pewter cup. ‘I thank you, mistress.’

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘may I present Master Nicholas Elyot, bookseller and sometime scholar of this university? Nicholas, this is Beatrice Metford.’

  I rose and bowed. Colouring, she dropped a curtsey, then sat down and took up her mending. I was pleased that Olney had presented me to her first, rather than the other way about, just as he would have done for a woman of higher rank. Yet it was difficult to discern exactly to what rank she belonged. I knew that she was Olney’s mistress, but she was certainly no whore.

  ‘You are not making a very good job of that,’ I said, gesturing at the shoe, where the twine had now become entangled in several knots. ‘Let me look at it. This cannot be so very different from bookbinding.’

  He handed me the shoe, needle, and twine with some eagerness. The upper of the shoe had become detached from the sole, and all it needed was some simple stitching. I borrowed Beatrice’s scissors and cut away his poor effort. When I had threaded the needle and begun to sew the two parts of the shoe together, Olney gave me a wry smile.

  ‘Is there no end to your talents, Nicholas? I did not have you down as a cobbler.’

  ‘My father-in-law obliged me to learn a little about book binding. I enjoy working with leather. There, it is finished.’ I bit off my thread. ‘It is your son’s shoe, mistress?’

  ‘Aye.’ She looked startled, but then relaxed, perhaps realising that if Olney had told me about her, he might well have mentioned the boy. ‘He is abed now. Philip carried him up. He finds the stairs difficult.’

  She nodded towards a sturdy staircase which led up from the back of the room, much better than the stairs in the Farringdons’ kitchen.

  ‘My son is lame, Master Elyot, and drags his foot. His shoe springs apart.’

  I nodded my understanding. I had seen the boy in the spring, walking with crutches. He was the very image of his father.

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘We call him Stephen,’ she said, then blushed again, for by saying ‘we’, she made clear Olney’s relationship to the child.

  ‘You are teaching him, Philip?’ I indicated the horn book and the papers, on which I could see childish writing.

  ‘I am. It would not be easy for him to attend school, although he is a bright child, and also has a pure singing voice. However, I do not think one of the choir schools would take him.’

  Once again I nodded my understanding. The Church is prejudiced against those whose bodies are not perfectly formed.

  ‘It is about a Church matter that I wished to consult you.’

  He looked astonished. ‘I thought you were about to offer me some wonderful new book for our collection.’

  I laughed. ‘Not this time. Nay, it is a matter of law that I thought you might be able to explain.’

  I saw that Mistress Metford was listening with interest, but now she rose. ‘You will not want me here.’

  ‘Please do not go,’ I said. ‘There is nothing secret about this. Philip may know the point of law which I need to understand.’

  She sat down again and I turned to Olney.

  ‘This is the case. A young woman of seventeen was forced by her stepfather to enter a nunnery as a novice, against her wish, her mother being dead. She has no vocation for the religious life and abhors the thought of taking vows. Now, a year later, she has been told that her stepfather signed papers handing her over as an oblate, given irrevocably to God, and she must take her final vows. She wishes to leave the nunnery and resume a secular life. Do you know what her position would be, in law? Would it make a difference that she was not given as an infant or young child?’

  Olney drummed on the table with his fingers.

  ‘Difficult. It is an area somewhere between Common Law and Canon Law.’

  ‘That is what I feared.’

  ‘The Church would argue that once the girl became a novice, she was entirely under their jurisdiction and the matter must be settled under Canon Law.’

  ‘And they would insist that she must remain a nun?’

  ‘Almost certainly. No doubt the stepfather provided an ample nun’s dowry to buy her a place in the nunnery. They would be eager to retain that. Even more eager to stamp out any examples of backsliding amongst its nuns, lest such disobedience should spread.’ His tone was sour. He had good reasons to deplore certain aspects of the Church’s laws for men like himself.

  ‘What would be the view of secular law?’

  ‘Difficult to say with certainty. If any force was used against the girl, it might support her wish to leave. On the other hand, in some cases a woman is regarded in law as a child. She cannot make such decisions for herself. You say she was seventeen when she entered? And under the care of a stepfather? Even if he was not kin, he would probably be regarded as her legal guardian and so free to dispose of her as he wished, as surely as if she were a young child.’

  I thought of the capable women in my family, my sister Margaret, my wife Elizabeth, even Alysoun, who at six had more intelligence and strength of will than many a grown man. ‘It seems unjust,’ I said slowly. ‘I wonder whether that is another ill practice that John Wycliffe opposes.’

  ‘Do not pin your hopes of reform on Wycliffe’s wild fancies.’ Olney grinned. ‘We must deal with the law as it exists.’

  ‘Very true.’ I sipped my ale, thinking. It was excellent and I wondered whether Mistress Metford had brewed it herself. Many women bought their household ale from vintners like Edric Crowmer or professional ale-wives, but those who took pride in their housekeeping brewed their own.

  ‘The girl in question does have one male kinsman,’ I said. ‘Her grandfather, the father of her father. He disapproved of her widowed mother marrying again, so I do not know what may be his relationship with his granddaughter. He is said to be in his final illness.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Olney drummed his fingers on the table again. ‘In that case, if the grandfather was prepared to sign a document asserting that it was h
is wish that the girl should be released from her vows, it would probably count for more than the stepfather’s actions.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Even more so if he waived his right to the return of the dowry. Is he a man of some standing?’

  ‘Aye, a knight. And, I believe, a man of property. The girl is his only heir.’

  ‘Aha! Do I smell a rat?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Well, well, Nicholas, it seems you have nosed out a pretty plot once more.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘One which – it is to be hoped – will not put you and your family in danger again. I have reason to be grateful to you for your–’ He searched for the right word.

  ‘Interference? Nosiness into the affairs of others?’

  ‘I was going to say your championship of those less fortunate than yourself.’

  He glanced across at Beatrice Metford. I guessed from her expression that she was well aware of the history between us.

  ‘May I know the name of this unfortunate novice?’ he asked.

  I hesitated. I had wished to consult him merely on the point of law, but it seemed I might need his help in pursuing the matter further, certainly in drawing up a legally valid document for Emma’s grandfather to sign, if Sir Anthony could be persuaded to do so. Or was not so ill that he could not write his name.

  ‘Her name is Emma Thorgold, or Sister Benedicta, novice at Godstow Abbey.’ I paused. ‘She is the cousin of the late William Farringdon.’

  Olney went quite white, and I saw that his hands, loosely clasped before him on the edge of the table, began to tremble, so that he clenched them together until the joints stood out white against the skin. Although unintentionally, Olney was not altogether without blame in the matter of William’s murder by his colleague at Merton, the equally late, but unlamented, Allard Basset.

  He let out his breath in a long sigh.