Free The Murderer's Tale by Murderer's Tale The Page B

no longer particularly set on finding John so much as on escaping Master Geffers; but Master Geffers, probably out of long experience of people trying to escape him, kept with her, saying as they went, “And you’ll have noticed that Master Knyvet isn’t here, either.”
    The eagerness behind his words warned Frevisse there was a particularly choice piece of talk to come, and she cast quickly through her mind for a way to avoid it. She liked what little she had seen of Lionel Knyvet. She did not want to hear about him by way of Master Geffers’ tattling, but Master Geffers’ tongue was too quick for her. He shook his head and said with a regret that Frevisse doubted went further than the turned-down corners of his mouth, “There’s a sad case. Poor man. We were warned but one always hopes, but I fear the worst, not seeing him here for supper.”
    Before she could help herself, Frevisse asked, “Warned?”
    “About his affliction.” Master Geffers dropped his voice unnecessarily low, as if everyone around them was waiting eagerly to hear what he said. “He’s possessed, you know. Horribly. Since childhood.”
    Frevisse crossed herself even as she protested, “Possessed? How?”
    “By a demon.”
    Of course by a demon, Frevisse wanted to snap at him. What else would he be possessed by? But Master Geffers was going on, gathering speed now that he had her attention. “It’s why he’s making this pilgrimage around to St. Kenelm’s shrines. Over the past years he’s gone everywhere, prayed everywhere, made gifts to saints from one end of England to the other, but no one and nothing has been able to free him.” Master Geffers nodded, solemn-faced with the weight of it, but it was avid delight that gleamed in his eyes. “Fits. He has fits. The falling sickness, you know. The demon seizes him and he loses all control. He flails, thrashes, spits, blasphemes God’s name and everything holy. He—”
    “You’ve seen this?”
    Master Geffers hastily crossed himself. “God forbid, no. But I was told by someone who’s seen it a hundred times and done what he could to help.”
    “Who?” Frevisse snapped, angry on Lionel Knyvet’s behalf that whatever happened to him was reduced to greedy talk in Master Geffers’ busy mouth by someone who should have known better.
    Her tone was lost on Master Geffers. Urged on by her interest, he said, “His own cousin. Master Giles. Who would know better? He’s seen the demon take him with his own eyes.”
    “And he told you about it? Does Master Knyvet want this thing known all over? Surely he doesn’t.”
    Master Geffers agreed to that readily. “Oh, of course he doesn’t. He keeps it secret as best he may. But we were traveling together, you see. What if an attack came and we had no warning? Master Giles wanted us prepared. For our own safety. The attacks are so violent and come so suddenly. Though mind you”—he leaned toward her, drawn by his avidity to tell— “he does have warning, Master Giles says. The demon taunts him, to add to the torment. It tickles in his left hand before it attacks. So if ever you see Master Knyvet look at his left hand oddly, leave him as quickly as you may.”
    Frevisse remembered Lionel’s face in the garden as he had held out his hand to look at it as if it were no longer part of him. He must have been feeling the demon then. Carefully she asked, “Where is he now?”
    “That’s the question, isn’t it? He takes the warning and finds some place alone before the fit comes on him, with only his man Martyn Gravesend to see him through it. A pushing fellow, that Martyn, taking every advantage of his master’s curse to put himself forward. And as damned as the demon itself or he’d never dare to face the fits out the way he does. That’s what Master Giles says.”
    Master Giles would say that, Frevisse thought. He had been quick enough to make his escape, she realized, to leave his cousin alone when he knew what was coming on