Read The Bishop’s Tale for Free Online Page B

pointedly ignoring his nephew, followed her. Guy, darkly flushed and silent, bowed in his turn and went after them.
     
    When they were gone Frevisse said, “Despite all that, I have the distinct impression Sir Clement was enjoying himself.”
     
    “I’m quite sure he was.” Sir Philip turned. The small room’s single low-burning lamp was at his back; in what shadowed light there was, the deep pockmarks of his face were not visible, giving him momentarily the handsomeness he would have had without them. But it was handsomeness without expression as he said, “Strife has always been Sir Clement’s favorite pastime.”
     
    “You know him, then?”
     
    “He did give the impression of knowing me, didn’t he?”
     
    If there was amusement in Sir Philip’s voice, it was very dry. More than anything, his polite-and-nothing-else tone and expression told Frevisse that he intended—and expected her—to say no more about what had passed between him and Sir Clement.
     
    Matching him in discretion, Frevisse said, “What of his nephew and the girl? There seems to be trouble there.”
     
    “It’s been a while since I had anything to do with Sir Clement or any of his family. I have no idea what that was about, beyond guesses that you can make as well as I.” Now there was very definitely mockery in his tone.
     
    “I daresay I can,” Frevisse said. “Though of course we may both be wrong, it being none of our business.” She turned back to the chapel to use what little time she had left for prayers. She noticed Sir Philip did not follow her; his place beside the coffin remained empty.
     
    Chapter 5
     
    Cardinal Bishop Beaufort put aside the last of the correspondence and nodded to his clerk. “Have someone take them in the morning.”
     
    With a bow, the man gathered the pages up and carried them away. They would be folded and sealed and given over to a messenger, but none of that need concern Beaufort now he had read them over and given his signature. He was deeply committed to efficiency, and that included having servants he could depend on for minor details.
     
    That nonetheless still left a great deal for him to do.
     
    Beaufort had come directly to Thomas from a meeting of the Great Council. Nothing of importance had been decided, as usual, there being too many factions squabbling for control. Never mind that most of the faction leaders were unable to manage even their own affairs; each had convinced himself and his followers that without him the government would fall into chaos.
     
    So, generally, it was necessary that Beaufort manipulate them with such tact that they failed to realize that he was—far more than they—governing the direction the kingdom went. Able to judge more deeply and assess more broadly than most men both their needs and weaknesses, he was usually successful.
     
    He had—fully knew and fully admitted to himself that he had—a drive to power that had taken him now almost to the limit of his ambitions. But the ability to foresee what others would do and the effort to bring them to his will was tiring upon occasion.
     
    Eyes shut, Beaufort rubbed his forehead with his large, beringed hand. What he wanted right now was time for mourning, and there was none. He had taken on the main burden of overseeing the funeral arrangements because he could see—couldn’t anyone else?—that Matilda was barely holding in one coherent piece. Beaufort thought the better of her for it. She was a place-proud, tongue-wagging woman who had longed for the honors her husband had refused. Beaufort had listened to an amused Thomas’s reasons for rising no higher than an esquire, had accepted them but never understood them. Matilda had neither understood nor accepted.
     
    Though their daughter’s marriage to an earl and the prospect of noble grandchildren had soothed her somewhat, she had never let Thomas forget what he (and she) could have been.
     
    So her effort to cope with the funeral burden