“I’m to go out after supper with George and some of the others, now Shrovetide is started. There’ll be crowds in the street here as much as in England?” These being the last few days before Ash Wednesday, folk generally crammed as much excess into them as might be before Lent with its fasting and penance began.
Master Wydeville nodded agreement, and Joliffe said, “Then I should be able to ‘lose’ myself and go to Master Doncaster’s.”
“By the back way, not the front this time.”
“Yes.”
Master Wydeville turned away from the window, raising his voice to normal pitch as he said sternly, for anyone to overhear who might, “Then see to it you remember it, Master Ripon, and keep better rein on yourself hereafter. Her grace is pleased with your work and with this play you made for her. I do not want her displeased by anything otherwise you do.”
Joliffe gave a jerking bow suitable to John Ripon’s chastened unhappiness, muttered, “Yes, sir,” and at Master Wydeville’s dismissing gesture hurried—head bunched between his shoulders—back to his desk.
He did not in the least mind losing his companions that evening. George and Bernard were not the most diverting of men, and Estienne was tedious. Nor was losing them any harder than he had thought it would be. People—many already masked—were out in milling crowds, looking for sport and pleasure by flaring torchlight and pole-hung lanterns. Shops were open and all manner of pastimes were happening at every widening of a street as well as in the marketplace below the cathedral’s west front where rough booths were set up for the selling of festive foods and, most especially, much ales, beers, and wines.
That was where George and the others headed first, and there that Joliffe chose to lose them, becoming apparently so interested in watching a juggler of firebrands that he seemed not to note being left behind. He trusted that when he looked around and around, unable to find them, he gave the seeming of someone somewhat alarmed to find himself abandoned. On the chance they might yet see him, he pretended to look for them while carefully going other than the way they had disappeared into the crowd. He twisted in and out of the crowd and between and around booths until he was certain no one could have kept him in sight and only then made for the back way to Master Doncaster’s.
Even along it a few lanterns had been hung tonight, but Master Doncaster’s gate was in shadow. The latch gave in well-oiled silence to his pull and he let himself into the garden, shut the gate silently behind him, and went up the path through darkness to the rear door. His careful tap there was shortly answered by someone who barely opened the door and asked, “Who?”
“Master Ripon,” he said back softly and was let into another darkness, until the door was shut behind him and whoever was there put aside a curtain hung across the passageway perhaps a yard in from the door. He understood that was to lessen the escape of light that would mark anyone’s coming or going from the house, and saw now it was the servant girl called Jeanne who had let him in.
Smiling, she led him to the kitchen, where warmth and the hearthfire’s leaping light met him. Matilde was scrubbing the top of the worktable with the vigor of a woman devoted to cleanliness, and Jeanne returned to the pot she had been scrubbing in a basin of water set on a low stool. Beside the hearth on another low stool, Perrette sat, her long hair loose over one shoulder, her head bent to one side to let the dark, damp fall of it hang free almost to the floor, the firelight shining auburn through it while she slowly drew a wooden comb down it.
Matilde was laughing at something Perrette must have just said. Both women were smiling as they looked toward him. “Ah!” Perrette said lightly, “The duchess’ English secretary who wrote the play that is giving us all so much trouble.”
The still face and downcast eyes she had at the hôtel were gone, and as he shed his cloak and cap onto the bench beside the table, Joliffe met her light mockery with a bow and, “Ah! The sempster’s humble helper, who works to cover in beauty the error of my ways.”
She laughed. “My cousin does indeed kindly let me work for her when I am in Rouen.”
“Nor asks no questions when you suddenly take away to parts unknown,” Matilde said comfortably.
“An excellent cousin,” Perrette confirmed.
“How does your side?” Joliffe asked.
Perrette narrowed her eyes, considering him with sudden sharpness. Then her face cleared. “Yes. That’s why you are familiar. You were here that night. I remember.” She seemed unbothered by how much of her he must have seen that night. “I do well as long as I remember not to move much or suddenly. The bruise fades. How goes your dagger-work?”
“I have my own bruises now,” he said ruefully.
“He will have more,” Matilde said. She was rubbing the table dry with a towel now. “Master Doncaster means to try him with long staffs next time they work together.”
Joliffe made the pained sound expected of him, and all three women laughed at him, as he had meant them to; but an uncle had taught to Joliffe and his brothers the use of the long staff as a weapon, so he had hope he might not gather too many bruises while relearning his lessons.
Jeanne was setting the pot to dry on the hearth as Matilde finished with the table. “There,” said Matilde. “Time we should be gone, Jeanne. Otherwise we are like to miss all the sport.” Which was a jest; high merriment would go on in the streets until dawn, likely, curfew forgotten. The two of them took their cloaks from pegs by the door. Perrette and Joliffe bade them farewell, and when they were gone, he went to sit on his heels at the other end of the hearth from her, holding his hands out to the fire and trying not to watch her combing, combing her shining hair.
She was watching him, though, and smiled sideways at him as she said, “I took this chance to wash my hair. It’s nearly dry. Then you’ll have your cipher lesson. Do you object to being taught by a woman?”
He did not hide his surprise. “No. Not when she knows things that I do not.”
“You think I know things you do not?” she asked lightly.
Remembering the pale leather sheath empty on her forearm and her simple acceptance that she had probably killed a man, he said, “Yes.” Then added, to shut out that thought a little, “How to learn Richemont is bringing Bretons against us, for one thing.” Emboldened by the twitch of a smile from her, he added, “But—um—who is Richemont?”
She laughed outright, lifted and turned her head, swung her hair to hang over her other shoulder, and went on combing it while she answered, “He is a little man, both of body and soul, but he struts big and talks bigger, and there are those who are fooled by that. He is brother to the duke of Brittany, and a betrayer of oaths. Once upon a time he was England’s ally for a while, but he quarreled with the duke of Bedford when Bedford would not give him command of English troops at Richemont’s demand—Bedford was no fool, you see. So now he is the Dauphin Charles’ constable for all the Armagnac armies.”
“Why hasn’t he yet invaded out of Brittany?”
“Probably because there has been an unexpected great strengthening of Norman garrisons along the Breton border. Unhappily, that likely accounts for why he has turned all his heed and the Armagnacs toward Paris.”
Her easy knowledge impressed him. He would have liked to ask more, but she straightened, tossed her hair behind her, and looked at him while asking, “So. How do you like the rich life of a duchess’ clerk?”
“I might die of screaming idleness if that was all I was doing.”
Merriment gleamed in her eyes. “As I would if I were only a sempster’s helper. You were a player before?”
Although he kept his voice light, he answered with a vehement urge to protect that part of himself, “I’m still a player.”
“Of a different sort, yes,” Perrette agreed easily.
“Of both sorts,” Joliffe said, maybe more firmly than the moment needed, because Perrette regarded him in considering silence for a moment, before saying, “Time to begin your lesson, I think,” and gathered he
rself to stand up.
Joliffe rose more quickly and held out a hand to help her. She paused as if in surprise, staring at his hand, then took it and let him pull her to her feet. Nor did she let loose of his hand immediately but stood gazing into his eyes for a thoughtful moment before loosing him and turning away to the table, leaving him shaken without being certain why.
From that moment, though, she was entirely business, and his lesson in ciphers—both the making of them and the reading of them—went quickly and well in the candlelight. But she left her hair unbound, and the lavender smell of it wafting to him whenever she turned her head was a distraction against which he had to set his mind. As she well knew, he thought.
But time came when she straightened from the table and began plaiting her hair while saying, “There. That is enough for tonight. You do well. Master Wydeville will be pleased. Now I say we should forget work and see what mischief and bonchief we can join in the streets.”
He could think of somewhere better than the streets to go with her, but since he had no idea where her bed was and assuredly could not take her to his, he asked, “Should we be seen together? Being what we are and you . . . being known?”
Still plaiting her hair, Perrette slid from the end of the bench and went to one of the shelves on the shadowed wall. She paused to tie the end of her plait with something waiting there, then took other things from the shelf, one in each hand, and turned back to Joliffe, holding them up and saying with laughter, “That is what masks are for.”
Chapter 15
Perrette proved excellent company for carnaval. With her for his guide, Joliffe doubted they missed many of the better pleasures possible in Rouen that night. Toward the end they even joined in a long line of other mostly-masked merry-makers snaking in clumsy-footed dance along streets until the dance fell apart from its own weight and weariness, leaving the merry-makers to stagger, stroll, or stumble their own ways away. He and Perrette, laughing, swung together into a shadowed corner where two house-fronts met unevenly, and all unplanned—although not un-thought of—he pressed her back against the wall, and his mouth found hers below the edges of their half-masks. She hotly returned his kiss, pulling him tightly to her with her arms low around his hips so that surely she felt his swelling desire for her. He slipped a hand free to find one of her breasts, and she did not resist that either.
It was when he slid that hand down, wanting to fumble her skirts up and out of his way that she freed her mouth from his and said, “No.” Not with the weak, unwilling protest of a woman who would rather say “yes,” but firmly like someone who meant “No. And don’t make me say it again.”
He drew back, both because he had never forced a woman and with the wariness of knowing the sheath along her forearm was no longer empty. But he asked, “Is that ‘no’ forever? Or ‘no’ only for now?”
He took it as a hope-filled sign that she laughed, answered, “‘ No’ for tonight,” and lightly kissed him.
Then she whispered in his ear, “Name for me the towns between here and Caen.”
His lust-muddled, wine-fuddled brain did a body’s equivalent of stumble and fall on its face, but he picked it up, dusted it off, and answered, and for a wonder answered right, so that Perrette smiled at him and said, “Well done. It is good to know you can keep your wits about you under, um”—she gestured delicately toward his groin—“pressure.”
“That,” he returned with mock sternness, “is cruel.”
“It is,” she agreed lightly. “Now I will see you in sight of the hôtel’s gateway and leave you there.”
He did not trouble to protest that, and they parted as she had chosen, with a final kiss to warm him the last lonely way to his bed.
Curfew held no more for household than for town during carnaval; he was not among the last among his fellows to come stumbling to bed in the dormer. Nor, judging by the groans, was he the only one to awaken with aching head and too little sleep in the morning. It was just as well that today and tomorrow not much in the way of work was expected of most of the household. These last days before Lent were the time for eating and doing all the things that would have to be given up until Easter. Or should be given up—there being a strong difference between “should” and “did,” and he had noted often enough before now that those who made the most of Shrovetide’s license were all too often those who least troubled themselves to heed Lent’s prohibitions afterward.
On his own side, he had yet to decide what he would give up this year. A player’s life was usually lived so scant of food and other things that there was little left that could be given up for Lent. This year, living in plenty as he was, he would have to decide on something to forego, he supposed.
Then there was the matter of confession. When time for it came, what was he to confess? His lust toward Perrette was straight-forward and ordinary enough, but the constant lying he had been living in since answering Bishop Beaufort’s summons was another matter. These past weeks he had been living by lies but could hardly confess to them here. Was lying maybe not a sin if done at a bishop’s order and for good, not ill? Or if it was a sin nonetheless, would Bishop Beaufort give him remission for it later, and would that suffice to compensate for failing to confess it now?
All that was a problem for later, Joliffe decided. Today and tomorrow were holiday and not to be wasted. Because surely waste was a sin, too?
Having had enough of the streets for a while, he chose to stay in the hôtel. Still in the year’s mourning for the duke of Bedford, it was quieter than it would have been in other years. Bishop Louys had even ruled against card games, but the long tables in the hall were left up, for chess and other games on boards to be played, and rich foods and drink in plenty were being constantly set out, although George did object to a sugar subtlety shaped into the likeness of a fish. “We’ll see enough of fish in Lent,” he complained.
In mid-afternoon, about the time practice for the play began in the chapel, Joliffe’s late night and short sleep caught up to him. Tired of talk and games and even of eating, he retreated, with a bowl of wine, from the great hall up the stairs to the long gallery. It being chill and without pastimes, he had the place to himself. Content with the wine and the white fluffs of cloud drifting across the winter-pale sky for company, he was just settled on a wide windowsill when M’dame came out of the great chamber. For respect’s sake, he immediately stood up.
He did not suppose she was looking for him, but she said sharply, “Good. That saves finding you. Come.”
She turned back through the doorway. Surprised but perforce obedient, Joliffe followed her. She led him back up to Lady Jacquetta’s rooms. Foulke, on duty at the door there, looked a surprised question at Joliffe as he passed. Joliffe could only answer with a shrug and a shake of his head.
“Close the door,” M’dame ordered.
He did, then followed her across the parlor and into the bedchamber. With everyone gone to the practice in the chapel and only Lady Jacquetta’s dogs there, curled together on a cushion near the hearth, the rooms were strange in their emptiness. “You must go to my lady at once,” M’dame said, still sharply. She snatched up a cloak lying across a chair and thrust it at him. “Here. She’s in the garden. Go to her.”
Catching the cloak awkwardly one-handed, Joliffe repeated, bewildered, “Go to her?”
Already going away from him toward a door in the chamber’s far corner, M’dame snapped, “In the garden. Yes.”
Joliffe set the wine aside on a chest and followed her, more confused by the moment. “What? Why?”
“She must come back here. Immediately. You are not to say that, but you are to bring her back here. Without delay. Go.” M’dame jerked the door open to shadows and a tight curve of stairway. “Go.”
Joliffe went.
The stairs—only a little lighted through a few narrow windows—went both upward and down. Up would be to a roof-walk, Joliffe supposed. The first door he came to downward had to be to the grand chambers, and he
guessed the next would be to the gardens, then found that it had better be because the stairs did not go beyond it, and let himself out, onto a graveled path and into the cold cut of the wind. Driven by M’dame’s urging, he had moved fast but stopped now, both to put on the cloak and to take chance to look around him. He had never been in the gardens, only seen them from upper windows, enough to know they were large and beautifully made. Besides the graveled, open paths between presently winter-bare beds, there was an ever-green laurel arbor along two sides, giving cool privacy on warm summer days but now probably chill and dank under its thick-growing leaves. Along it, on the garden’s far side was a greensward that in summer was surely a daisy-meadow where ladies would sit on cushions and pluck flowers from the grass to make flower-crowns; or it could be used for ball-games of various sorts, or strolling, or dancing. It ended in a small grove of slender trees between it and a high brick wall of what Joliffe guessed was an enclosed smaller garden, meant for lords’ and ladies’ particular privacy.
Whatever the garden was like in summer, today with the wind and cold it was no pleasant place to be. Was it fear for Lady Jacquetta’s health that had M’dame so urgent? Or . . .
Joliffe saw the more likely answer. Well away across the garden, their backs to him, walking along one of the paths, were a woman and a man. They were both in long cloaks, but she surely had to be Lady Jacquetta, while the red hair showing under the man’s hat told almost as surely he was Remon Durevis.
Only the two of them and no one else.
While all her ladies and most of the squires of her household were playing at being Sins and Virtues, Lady Jacquetta had taken this foolish chance to walk alone with a man. No wonder that M’dame wanted them interrupted. Joliffe had never supposed Lady Jacquetta so attached to her much-older husband that her heart might not turn to someone nearer her own age, given the chance, but that did not lessen her foolishness in inviting scandal this way. M’dame’s alarm was justified. Probably she had been ordered not to accompany her lady and was using him instead to interrupt this indiscretion.
A Play of Treachery Page 17