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 b...
Mostly, it was work at his desk, with occasional need to consult with one or another of the household officers over some small matter or, more rarely, with Lady Jacquetta herself. He avoided doing the latter when he could, wary of being drawn into anything about the play that seemed to have taken...
sort of. By the late 1990's several of my Dame Frevisse novels had been translated into German. As a result, I was asked to write a short mystery story for a German-language Swiss magazine. And when I say “short”, I mean short: It could only be 800 words long. The magazine, sold mainly in railway...
He looked forward to hearing what Thamys would have to say about the play, but meanwhile had to join Basset and Ellis in bowing as Master Penteney presented them, first, to Lord Lovell, then to another man who, like Thamys, wore a scholar’s dark gown. It was the gown of a far wealthier scholar th...
In the kitchen, though, a stub of candle burned on the middle of the worktable, casting its soft yellow glow across the faces of the four women gathered there. Only one of them was not familiar from yesterday, and as they all looked toward him with a mingling of welcome and curiosity he made a fl...
She wished she could as readily huddle away from the sorrow in the house behind her. She was village midwife and had done what she could but it had not been enough and now there was nothing left but the hope that after Father Clement's ministrations, Cisily's soul would go safe to whatever bless...
With her skirts to hold, the climbing was not easy, and he took her arm to help her the last way, steadying her as she stepped from the ladder. Her smile rewarded him for that as she slid a folded blanket off her shoulder, where she had been carrying it, saying as she handed it to him, “I brought...
Drained by reedy ditches between the road and the broad fields and pastures, the land here was rich both for crops and grazing, Joliffe thought as he, Ellis, Gil, and Piers walked along. There was the hopeful green of young growth across the ploughed fields, but that was a promise of harvest-to-c...
Beth brought her something to drink and that finally quieted her wild sobbing, but when she was done with the drink she bent over on her pain again, rocking gently and sometimes moaning, and to all their urging to lie down or speak only shook her head from side to side, refusing. &nbs...
His cloak was a long way yet from soaking through nor had he troubled to pull up his hood; the rain felt good against his face. Too, he judged by blue patches of sky showing in the east that clearing weather was on the way and there would likely be sun enough to dry his hair and cloak well before...