The Bastard's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  Now it was early afternoon and Arteys shoved away from the window, paced the room’s length, paced it back again and, giving up, came back to the window and the useless book. He’d escaped St. Saviour’s but to what good? Shut up here and doing nothing, he was as worthless as if he had stayed. More worthless, because if he had stayed, maybe there would have been something he could have done there. Here, he was doing nothing at all save too much useless thinking.

  He leaned his head against the window’s glass, willing the clouds to break. He was so sick of all the grayness both outside himself and in his own thoughts.

  Men—several—were coming quickly up the stairs. The sudden sound of their footfall faced Arteys around to the door, hand to his dagger’s hilt. If these were men come to arrest him… He dropped his hand away. If they were come for him, they would have more than only daggers to use against him and what would fighting serve except to make him look guilty?

  But it was Bishop Pecock who came in and Joliffe with him and Arteys took a quick step toward them, asking, “Do you have anything? About Gloucester or the others?”

  ‘Tut,“ said Bishop Pecock. ”You’ve not kept the fire up- You’ll take a chill.“

  While he went to the fireplace, Joliffe said, “Nothing has happened beyond the arrests, so far as we know. Gloucester is still at St. Saviour’s, kept under guard in his own rooms, and hasn’t been seen.”

  ‘Who was arrested? How many?“

  ‘Only five. Sir Roger Chamberlain. Sir Richard Middelton. Sir John Cheyne. Sir Robert Wer. Master Richard Needham.“

  ‘Needham!“ Arteys looked sharply to Bishop Pecock, who looked around from laying kindling into the young flames he had roused from the embers to nod confirmation. ”Needham?“ Arteys insisted. ”But he’s in Parliament.“

  ‘And therefore a voice in favor of Gloucester to be taken out of the way.“ Joliffe pointed to the pitcher on the table and asked, ”May I?“ of Bishop Pecock.

  ‘By all means. For all of us, please.“

  Arteys followed him to the table, a cold hopelessness tightening in his chest. “Has there been any outcry about Gloucester? Any protest?”

  Joliffe handed him a filled goblet, though by rights Bishop Pecock should have been served first. “No outcries. No protests. It’s all come too fast. Everyone is crouched and waiting to see what’s going to happen next before they make a move of their own. Drink.”

  ‘But something…“

  Bishop Pecock rose from the fire, saying as he took the goblet Joliffe brought him, “It’s been done in the king’s name, by the king’s men, for the king’s good. That leaves little space for anyone else to do anything without whatever they do being called treason.”

  ‘Something,“ Arteys repeated, from stubbornness more than hope.

  Turning from the table with a filled goblet for himself, Joliffe said, “Not by us, that’s sure. Not yet. I have a way, though, that might give you chance to see Gloucester if you want.”

  Bishop Pecock said with surprise, “You never said as much to me.”

  ‘Why say it twice?“ Joliffe asked. His gaze on Arteys was considering. ”Or even once, if it wasn’t going to work. I wanted to see if Arteys was fallen apart yet with fear or was maybe steady enough to try it.“

  ‘I’m steady enough and I’m ready,“ Arteys said. His fear was his own business.

  ‘I’d wait to hear what young Joliffe has planned before waxing wide with eagerness,“ Bishop Pecock murmured.

  ‘I’m ready,“ Arteys insisted.

  Still considering him, Joliffe said, “Master Grene, presently warden of St. Saviour’s, enjoys plays, and when Master Wilde’s way brings him through Bury, his company always plays there. When word first went out that Parliament was to be here, Master Grene bespoke Master Wilde for some pastime for whatever lord or lords he had for guests. By the time the chance to do Wisdom for the king came up, it was known his grace of Gloucester would be at St. Saviour’s, and rather than give up one for the other, Master Wilde committed to do both. Our company is to play there tonight.”

  Bishop Pecock sat down on the chair. “I’m hard put to believe that Suffolk—or Viscount Beaumont, since he officially has Gloucester’s keeping—is going to allow a Play for Gloucester’s diversion.”

  ‘I would be, too, if I hadn’t spent part of this morning rehearsing for it,“ Joliffe answered. He hitched a hip onto a corner of the table and somewhat sat. ”Not that we need much practice for this. It’s a farce we’ve done So often we could do it in our sleep and three-quarters drunk if we had to. It might go better if we were drunk,“ he added thoughtfully. ”It’s by Lydgate.“

  ‘But it’s actually to be allowed?“ Bishop Pecock said.

  ‘It seems Master Grene has taken a great dislike to the use they’re making of his hospital, with hardly a by-his-leave along the way. I gather he’s said that he’s paid for players to perform and, St. Saviour be his witness, he’s going to have what he paid for. Apparently there was some hint of hell fire and damnation behind the words because Lord Beaumont agreed to it with more haste than grace, as the saying is.“

  ‘Tonight, you said?“ Bishop Pecock asked.

  ‘Tonight. Which isn’t so bad as it seems, at least for us. After being terribly wise one night, being a fool the next is a respite.“

  ‘You weren’t wise last night,“ Bishop Pecock pointed out. ”You were Lucifer.“

  ‘Lucifer is wise in his own way,“ Joliffe protested. ”It’s worldly wisdom but wisdom nonetheless.“

  ‘If it’s worldly,“ Bishop Pecock returned, ”it’s hardly wisdom. Wisdom is an attribute of God, to which his created creatures should aspire—note that I say ’should‘ rather than ’do‘—but of which they can attain only a shadow.“

  ‘But the Devil, though admittedly created, was created among the angels and not of the world and therefore can have some share of wisdom beyond that of lesser created creatures.“

  ‘Possibly true, though his rebellion and fall from grace argue he can have had little of heavenly wisdom and surely lost that little in his Fall. But it’s worldly wisdom you contend he has.“

  ‘I might better have said he’s wise in the ways of the world. Would that suit better? Or…“ Joliffe forestalled Bishop Pecock’s reply with a raised hand. ”… should it be ’knowledgeable‘ in the ways of the world? Would that suit better?“

  ‘Knowledgeable to a degree, as a half-blind man is knowledgeable of what he sees only to a limited degree and no more.“

  Arteys, listening from one side to the other, understanding their pleasure in their game more than he understood most of what they were saying, said finally, ‘About tonight?“

  Both men stopped and looked at him. Then Bishop Pecock, immediately contrite, said, “Your pardon, please, young Arteys. We forgot ourselves and, worse, forgot you.”

  Joliffe, more practical, took up the wine pitcher again but found Arteys’ goblet still full and ordered, “Drink. You won’t want to say afterwards that you agreed to this while you were sober.”

  Arteys set his goblet aside, not for the sake of sobriety but because he did not trust his inward trembling not to reach his hands. “Tell me how there’s a chance I can see my father.”

  ‘Gloucester is said to have taken to his bed,“ Joliffe said and forestalled Arteys’ instant question with a raised hand. ”That’s all I know. That’s all that’s being said. But for your purpose it’s to the good because when we start the farce in St. Saviour’s hall there’ll likely be more interest in what we’re doing than in guarding a sick man in his bed.“

  Arteys immediately saw the possibility there. “Leaving a chance I could slip in to see him.”

  ‘Only a chance and probably a slight one,“ Bishop Pecock warned.

  ‘But better than no chance at all. I’ll take it,“ Arteys said, because he had taken his chance to run and must needs take this chance to go back.

  * * *

  There was more waiting to be gone through firs
t though, this time in the loft that was Joliffe’s sleeping place above an alehouse in Whityng Street off Church-gate.

  ‘It’s not much,“ Joliffe had said, ”but I can come and go without bother,“ by way of a narrow gap between the alehouse and a leatherworker’s shop next door, into a back yard that smelled pleasantly of brewing and up a ladder to a short door in the house’s gable end under a steep-slanted roof.

  Inside, standing upright was possible only in the very center of the little space there was between the door and a wooden wall that closed off the rest of the space under the roof. Joliffe had nodded at the wall and said, “The family’s bedchamber. Master Riggemen is a carrier between here and Norwich mostly and often gone, but there are still Mistress Riggemen and three children and noise enough sometimes, but no babies to cry in the night, thank goodness. There’s some bread and ale there.” He pointed to a box on the short-legged table pushed back under one steep side of the roof. “And the bed,” under the other side of the roof, where sitting suddenly up would be perilous to the head. “Rest if you can. Eat before you leave. You’re going to need your wits and strength tonight. An hour after Vespers, remember.”

  Arteys had nodded, too stiff-jawed with cold and worry to say anything, even thanks, and Joliffe had left, bending double through the short door. They had laid their plans at Bishop Pecock’s and there was nothing else to say, only the rest of the day to be gone through; but even though the days were still short here at February’s end and the dark drawing in all the sooner with the thick overcast, the afternoon had gone on forever, without even the relief of pacing. The three cramped strides one way and three back that were all Arteys could take were of no use. That left sitting on the joint stool or the floor or else lying down. Arteys had chosen to lie down. The short-legged bed was a rough-made, rope-strung frame with straw-stuffed mattress and thick wool blankets but it was clean, no small things moving in it. Come to that, everything about the room was clean, with no sign anyone stayed there at all except for a battered box at the bedfoot, small enough to be picked up and easily carried. Arteys supposed it was Joliffe’s, with maybe all that Joliffe owned in it, and he left it alone, unlocked though it seemed to be.

  But if all that Joliffe owned was in that box, he still had more than Arteys presently did. He had never had much of his own—some clothing, a few books, a sword—all given him by his father and all of it likely to be forfeit if Gloucester was found guilty of treason, because Arteys had no provable claim on anything. All he could lay claim to was what he presently wore and what was in his belt pouch. Clothing but none to spare, a cloak, his sheathed dagger hanging from his belt, enough money to see him to somewhere else so long as it wasn’t far, and Gloucester’s white swan badge hidden in the bottom of his belt pouch.

  Unable to lie still with his thoughts, Arteys rolled off the bed and went to sit on the floor beside the door. Since there was no window and he didn’t want to light the candle stub on the table, setting the door slightly ajar was the only way to have light or see out and he sat there, cross-legged and wrapped in his cloak, watching the flat gray sky and nothing happening in the yard below him. There were children’s voices below him in what was probably the kitchen since what warmth the room had came from there, and sometimes men’s laughter burst up loud from the alehouse. Ordinary sounds of people simply living the lives they expected to live, not people waiting out a desperate time to try a desperate thing and lonely in the waiting.

  When finally the abbey’s bells called to Vespers, Arteys nearly started to his feet in relief but remembered the peril of the roof and stood up slowly, watchful of the rafters and his own stiffened body. Bells from the hospitals beyond the walls joined the abbey’s, exciting the afternoon’s end, but he had to wait until the Office had run its course of prayers and psalms and then another hour until he should be at St. Saviour’s. That was still too long a time to wait and he set himself to eat and drink, as Joliffe had told him to do because, yes, he was going to need his wits and strength tonight—his wits to get him into where Gloucester was, his strength to run with if things went wrong.

  He ate most of the bread, drank all the ale. The bread was heavy and the ale light, but he felt the better for having them inside him and thought briefly of leaving a coin in payment; but Joliffe was Bishop Beaufort’s man; let Bishop Beaufort pay for it.

  In the loft it was dark because outside the twilight was well thickened, and whatever the time, he couldn’t bide here longer. He needed to be out and doing something, even if only walking toward St. Saviour’s. Below him what sounded like cheerful quarreling around a supper table was going on, a woman bidding John eat and not hit his sister with that spoon, and fairly certain of going unseen, Arteys went down the ladder to the yard and along the passageway to the street. Lighted lanterns were already hung outside some doors, yellow-patching the gathering darkness, with enough people still out and about despite the growing dark and cold that he felt safe from being heeded.

  He made his way back to Churchgate Street, then rightward down the slope toward the abbey, not hurrying- Bury St. Edmunds’ two parish churches were at the edge of the abbey yard, their west doors opening into the town’s lower marketplace. If there was a way he could tarry unsuspiciously along the market’s edge until people came out from Vespers, he would know he had only an hour more until he could be at St. Saviour’s; but he found as he came into the lower marketplace that he had been more patient than he thought. People were already coming out of St. James near the abbey gate and with relief—tainted by a chill tightening in his stomach that told him how badly afraid he was—he turned aside, with nothing left but to wander through Bury’s streets for the while. Fewer people were about now, all cloak-huddled and hurrying home to suppers and warmth and family, Alleys supposed. Cloak-huddled, too, but without family or home or decent supper, he walked and turned from one street to another to another. Bury was not so big he had any chance of being lost and the moving kept him something like warm until finally he gave up waiting and passed through Northgate with a straggle of other late-goers, trying to hurry no more than anyone else.

  He had worried he would not be able to find his way back among the houses, sheds, and fences to St. Saviour’s wellyard wall, especially in the dark, but he recognized the gap between two head-tall fences when he saw it and turned from the road, remembering Joliffe’s warning, “Don’t look around to see if anyone is watering you. Go as if you had the right to and even if someone is looking they likely won’t think twice about it.” As the heavy shadows swallowed him, he slowed, hoping no pits had been dug or other perils laid in the day and a half since he had followed Joliffe through here, and came out unscathed behind a long building where the thumping, the steamy air, and women’s loud talk the other day had told it was a laundry fronting on the river. Tonight everything was silent there. He could even hear the river’s murmur on the far side, peacefully about its own business in the dark. The sound kept him company as he leaned against the laundry’s back wall beside the board fence between it and St. Saviour’s, waiting and trying not to think. So far he had done nothing much— had run away, hidden, let others help him—but once he went back into St. Saviour’s that would change. There would be no one to help him, and no one but himself to get it right or wrong.

  He found he was clenched all over—hands, jaw, shoulders, back—and he tightened more at the sudden rattle and bang of a drum and a burst of shouting from beyond the buildings between him and St. Saviour’s main yard. “You’ll know when we’re there,” Joliffe had said. “We come with noise, to jolly up our audience before we start, usually not until we’re inside but tonight I’ll see to it we start in the yard.” And he had. There was no mistaking the signal, and Arteys felt in the dark for the board he wanted, pushed it silently aside, and slid through the gap.

  Chapter 15

  As Arteys had hoped, the wellyard was deserted at that cold, dark hour. He swung the board back into place and moved away from the fence. “Once you’r
e in,” Joliffe had said, “move as if you belong there. Try to stay out of the light, where you might be recognized, but don’t skulk. Nobody looks at servants going about their business but they look at skulkers. You understand?”

  Arteys had understood; had understood, too, when Joliffe added, “After you’re in, how you come to Gloucester is your trouble. I don’t know inside St. Saviour’s well enough to give you even a guess.”

  ‘He’s in the rooms he was meant to have?“ Arteys had asked.

  ‘Yes.“

  ‘Then if the guards go away, I can reach him.“

  If the guards went away as Joliffe had hoped and if nothing had been done about the outside stairs from the warden’s yard to Gloucester’s bedchamber.