A Play of Dux Moraud

by Margaret Frazer

  Joliffe had started the day heavy with wondering what they would find once they were at the manor hall. For all that everything had seemed well enough in talk in the village, Lord Lovell was no fool, to be seeing trouble where there wasn’t any, and to that had been added worry at how Gil would be. Because no one else had been showing their probably like-worry, he had kept his own to himself, but now—watching Gil caper and play to the lookers-on—his own spirits rose past pretended merriment into true. If Gil proved to be anything like so good as he so far seemed to be, they would owe Lord Lovell far more than they already did, whatever bother there might be with Denebys in the meanwhile.

  Supposing Gil was what he seemed and not a spy set on them by Lord Lovell.

  That was a thought Joliffe wished his mind had not bothered to have.

  Their little band of merriment drew up in the middle of the yard beyond the gatehouse. Perhaps fifty yards from end to end and almost as wide, the yard was surrounded on three sides by various byres and sheds and stables, while directly across from the gateway was the high-roofed, tall-windowed great hall, not so new as Lord Lovell’s lately built at Minster Lovell but fine enough to tell the Denebys were no slight family. The round, stone-built tower seen from down the valley, standing at the hall’s right end, was older than the hall, with stark, plain lines and narrow windows, its one outer door a full story above the ground, all for better defense when defense was more an everyday matter in England than it presently was. The door was reached by worn stone stairs sheltered by a penticed roof slanted out from the stone wall of the tower, with a stone porch at the top that had originally been small, to keep enough men from gathering there for any strong assault on the door. With assault no longer a likelihood, a wider porch had been made of wood and extended past the tower into a covered walkway to the roofed upper gallery running the whole length of a long, new building along the yard beyond it. By the line of doors both along the gallery above and at ground level below, Joliffe guessed there was a whole wing of rooms there, more comfortable than whatever had been in the old stone tower.

  By all that, Sir Edmund looked to be a prospering knight with a firm hand on matters around him, making him well worth Lord Lovell taking trouble over his business, since much of a lord’s worth and reputation depended on the worth and reputation of the men allied to him and Sir Edmund looked to be an ally worth the having.

  Basset tossed his juggling balls to Ellis, shifted his manner to dignified, and strode forward alone to meet the man coming toward them from the hall doorway, servants clearing a way for him. He was a hollow-chested fellow with the drawn-in face of a man not in the best of health. Joliffe judged by his simple over-gown that he was not Sir Edmund, was probably the household’s steward, and to him but likewise for all to hear, Basset boldly announced that he and his company were come at Lord Lovell’s bidding as a gift to give sport and merriment and goodly plays for the delight of Sir Edmund Deneby, his household, and guests this happy time until his daughter’s wedding.

  “And afterward, too,” Basset finished with a low bow and sweep of his hat, “if it should be Sir Edmund’s gracious pleasure.”

  The steward replied in kind, with thanks both to Basset and Lord Lovell, adding assurance of Sir Edmund’s grateful pleasure at their being here. That, Joliffe thought, was the kind of welcome being a lord’s players got you and far better than many they’d had over the years.

  Basset and the steward fell into quieter talk then—the steward apologizing that with the guests and their people already here and those expected later, the players must be given somewhere less to stay than otherwise they might. Basset replied that so long as it was somewhere they could be private to ready themselves for Sir Edmund’s pleasure and keep the goods of their craft safe and secret, they would be well satisfied. It ended with a deep bow from Basset and a lesser bow from the steward before he called one of the servants to him, directing they might have use of the cartshed beyond the carpentry shop, since the great cart was gone to Oxford—“To fetch the wine for all the feasting to come,” he said—leaving plenteous space for their own.

  Basset smiled his respect, stepped back with another bow, and turned to follow the waiting servant. The rest of the players followed them both, Ellis making a high display with the bright balls and Piers leading Gil in a mad-footed dance to match Joliffe’s merry strumming on his lute while Rose and Tisbe were content with simply following them.

  The carpentry shop sat at the far end of the yard, with a cart-wide gap between it and the stables that led into a small yard wide enough to bring out and turn the several carts lined side by side in an open-sided, earth-floored shed backed against the manor’s outer wall. As Ellis rounded the corner into the cart-yard, he let fall the balls, catching them all into his arms. Piers likewise ceased dancing the moment he was beyond sight of the main yard and Joliffe ceased to play and dropped a hand on Gil’s shoulder to let him know he could stop, too, saying, “Save yourself for when there’s someone to pay for it.”

  “There’s where you can be,” their guide said, pointing toward an empty place at the farther end of the shed.

  “What of our horse?” Basset asked. “Will there be stabling for her? Or grazing?”

  “Master Henney didn’t say. Doubt there’s room in stable anyway. Maybe best you keep her here?” the fellow ventured.

  Basset thanked him and slipped a farthing into his hand in farewell. It wasn’t much, but the man beamed at him and went away, leaving the players looking at each other, smiles slowly spreading across all their faces.

  “This,” said Basset for all of them, “is shaping very well.”

  It was. An honorable reception, a private and dry place to stay, steady work for a week or more, their meals assured. Even Ellis, who was given to seeing the darker possibilities in anything, was whistling as they set to their settling in. While Joliffe unhitched Tisbe, Basset and the others debated how best to put the cart into the shed. Fit was no trouble. The “great cart” must be much the size of their own, and the shed was high-eaved enough there was not even need to remove their tilt. Whether to put it in forward or back was the question and finally they decided on back, because it was through the back their hampers of all their goods could easiest be got at, and when they were not here, the cart could be shoved against the rear wall, making everything harder to reach for anyone who shouldn’t be there. Not that a determined thief could be stopped by the tilt’s canvas or crawling over the forward seat and through the tied curtains behind it, but the idly curious would be kept at bay and there was small likelihood of theft here, because any thief could be too easily found out in the guarded bounds of the manor. But “Better safe to start with than sorry afterwards,” Basset said.

  “And the shoving the cart back and pulling it forward whenever we go and come will keep you fit,” Joliffe said cheerfully, waiting aside with Tisbe while Basset, Ellis, Piers, and Gil began to shift the cart.

  Rose came to him, took Tisbe’s reins from him, and said in her best mother-voice, “Go and help.”

  Grinning, Joliffe obeyed.

  With the cart in shelter, they changed into their plainer clothing before doing more, not that there was much more to do. With neither room between their cart and the next—nor need under the close-thatched roof—to set up their tent, they only put up the poles with a cloth hung between them that gave Rose a place of her own against the shed’s back wall to sleep and dress. For the rest of them, they pulled their bedding out of the cart and stacked it underneath, to be laid out later, both under their cart and between it and the one beside it. “Which happily is not a dung cart,” Basset observed.

  “Can we have a fire here, do you think?” Rose asked. An open-sided cartshed would not keep as warm around their firepot as a full barn did.

  “A very small one should be well enough,” Basset said. “In a pit and covered when we’re not here.”

  “Joliffe can collect the wood for it when he takes Tisbe to graze,” said Ellis.


  Joliffe did not bother to quarrel at that. They would probably be allowed some hay while here but taking Tisbe to graze, too, would both let her fatten a little during her time off from hauling the cart and give him a chance to be somewhat alone while with her. He was not as given to company as his fellow players, and they knew as well as he did how sharp-humoured he could become if he did not sometimes get away. For him to take Tisbe to graze suited everyone.

  “The question will be when you can take her,” Basset said. “We’ve somewhat of work ahead of us. My thought is to set young Gil to it as soon as might be. What do you say to trying The Steward and the Devil tonight? That’s good to start with, I think.”

  He looked around for their assent. Though there were memories that went with playing The Steward and the Devil, they all nodded. Gil, having seen it at Minster Lovell, knew it and asked, “I’ll be a demon?”

  “You will,” Basset said. “We still have the large tabard for it?” he asked Rose.

  “The tail, too,” she said.

  “After dinner, then, we’ll rehearse you,” Basset told Gil, as from the hall someone began to ring a handbell, calling people to the mid-day meal.

  The Steward and the Devil was a straight-forward play and one they often did, with Basset playing three parts, Ellis the Steward, Joliffe the Devil, and Piers as a small but lively demon who came on at the end to drive the Steward off to hell. As another demon, Gil would only have to copy what Piers did—something they had done before when they’d briefly had to include someone else in the play. Before this morning, Joliffe would have looked on it as a way to find out how Gil would do before an audience, because to think of being a player was one thing, to find a group of strangers staring at every move you made was another, and more than one would-be player had found himself brought to a mind-blanked halt at his first moment of it. But coming into the yard this morning, Gil had carried on as well as any of them, making it likely he’d do well enough as a leaping demon following Piers’ lead. What would happen when he was given words to say could be another matter, but as Basset too often said, “The moment’s troubles usually suffice for the moment,” and Joliffe put all else aside to ready for his first sight of Sir Edmund’s family and guests, among whom there might—or might not—be a murderer, who might—or might not—be going to kill again, depending on how right Lord Lovell’s suspicion was.

  Or wasn’t.

  The wide doorway into Deneby’s great hall sat at yard-level rather than over a cellar or undercroft and up any stairs. When the players came from behind the carpentry shop, people already crossing the yard toward it turned curious looks their way, and there were some exclaims and pointing from a small flurry of women hurrying along the gallery above the yard, but the only person who spoke to them was a small man who stepped forward to meet them as they neared the hall. Subdued in manner, gowned in a plain, brown, ankle-length surcoat and with ink on his fingers, he looked to be a clerk—the steward’s clerk, Joliffe guessed as the man said, “Master Henney said I should see you to your places in the hall, and ask your names, asking your pardon not to have had them earlier.”

  He spoke stiffly, very much on his dignity in dealing with them. Other people’s dignity at their expense being something to which the players were well-used, Basset merely thanked him graciously and gave their names but at the end asked in return, “And you are?”

  That briefly discomposed the man. Servants did not ask such questions back. But that was partly why Basset had done it. Where players fit in the world was never clear, but, whatever they were, they were not anyone’s servants. Even Lord Lovell was their patron, not their master. Respectful acceptance of someone’s higher place was one thing. Being servile was another. Lacking servants’ advantages of set wages and certainty of food and shelter, Basset did not see reason to accept any servants’ disadvantages that he could avoid. “If we’re going to pay the cost of being players,” he had once said, “we might as well have the profit of it, too.”

  “Even if that and a penny will buy maybe a loaf of bread,” Joliffe had said back and been lightly clouted along his head and told that that was not the point and to mind his tongue.

  But besides all that, it would be helpful to have the clerk’s name, and after an uncertain moment, the man gave way to Basset’s polite waiting and said, “I’m William Duffeld, clerk of accounts to Master Henney, Sir Edmund’s steward here, whom you have met.”

  “A fine man,” Basset said. “Now, Master Duffeld, would you know if he would permit us to have a small and careful fire where we’re staying?”

  Duffeld hesitated. “It’s the cartshed you’re in.”

  He sounded as if his concern was more for the wooden carts and thatch roof, but Basset readily, cheerily agreed, “It is indeed the cartshed, and therefore a small fire, kept well-covered when we’re not there, will do no harm to anyone and be a comfort to us, the nights drawing in chill and damp this time of year. In truth, as you can see, it would be more than a comfort to us. Our taking a rheum will do our playing no good, and if we do not play, we do not serve Lord Lovell’s purpose in having sent us here.”

  Joliffe did not doubt it was the use of Lord Lovell’s name that made the difference. Duffeld hemmed a little but then agreed they might have a small fire.

  “And wood for it,” Basset said, smiling. “Or allowance for us to gather some for ourselves when we graze our horse. If we may do so.”

  That was well-done, too. No one would know better than the steward’s clerk, whose duties included writing down each day’s tally of food and wood used in the household not only by its members but for all guests, the cost of hay and wood. Having already granted them a fire, he was now offered an easy way not only away from wood for it but less hay for their horse, too. The man’s calculation was quick. He shortly nodded and said, “I must needs ask Master Henney for a certainty. I’ll tell you later what he says, but likely that will serve well. Now if I may see you to your place?”

  Basset graciously allowed that he might and they followed him inside, into the low-ceilinged screens passage, its wooden wall shielding the hall from drafts from the outer door. On the left were the butlery and pantry, separated by a passageway to the kitchen. Opposite, a wide doorway through the screen wall opened into the great hall. Wide and long and open to the high rafters, the hall had a low-rimmed long hearth in its middle, flanked by two lines of trestle tables facing each other, running the hall’s length to the low dais at the far end and the high table where Sir Edmund, his family, and best guests would sit. They were not come in yet but such of the household as dined in the hall were taking their places along the benches on the outer side of the long tables. Being Lord Lovell’s players got Basset and the rest of them a little higher than the very end of one of the tables, only a few of the household’s lowest put below them, but since there had been times when they had been denied any place at table at all, they valued the difference.

  Basset sat highest, next to an older maidservant with whom he was soon in talk. Joliffe sat next to him, although Ellis had been in the company longer and should have sat there; but Ellis preferred to sit beside Rose, who by rights could have sat above Joliffe, too, but she thought it best to sit beside Piers, and they all—except Piers—agreed he should be at the bottom for the sake of his humility. Not that Piers had ever shown a shadow of anything even distantly resembling humility. That he presently held back from too openly showing his pleasure at being seated above Gil along the table was as near to grace as he was likely to come, to Joliffe’s mind.

  Joliffe, who didn’t much care where he sat so long as it was not at the high table or in the midden, was merely glad to have Rose and Ellis occupied with each other and Basset immediately in talk with the maid, because that left him free to look well around the hall and household. Those who dined here would be the household officers and clerks and better servants, not stablehands and kitchen help and suchlike. These were the people closest to the Denebys and how they behav
ed would tell much about Sir Edmund and Lady Benedicta. A careless, ill-mannered master tended to have careless, ill-mannered servants. A master with a heavy hand and foul humour had, at best, sullen, wary folk around him or, at worst, people as foul-humoured as himself.

  Here, Joliffe was eased to see, folk were well-kept, with easy talk among them and their looks at the players only curious, not wary or worried. All that boded well, and so did the signs of Sir Edmund’s prosperity around the hall. The well-plastered walls were freshly painted a rich earth-red. The wall-hanging behind the high table, painted with men and women in a flowery meadow, hawks on hand and hounds among them, was not only large but of good quality and likely London-made. There were open shelves standing at one wall, displaying a fine array of silver platters and goblets and plates against a green damask cloth draped shelf to shelf from top to bottom. The rushes covering the floor were fresh, the wooden tabletop in front of him scrubbed clean, and the high table covered by a shiningly white cloth. Everything told that Sir Edmund not only prospered but used his prosperity well, both for his own comfort and to impress his guests. A man so well-given to outward seeming as Sir Edmund looked to be would probably not be behind-hand in well-rewarding the players, too, the more especially because they were here at Lord Lovell’s behest.

  All that was left to see were Sir Edmund and his family and guests, and they were entering now through the doorway behind the high table, at the dais’ end. First were two older men who had to be Sir Edmund and the wealthy Master Breche in what looked like friendly talk together as they went to the two tall-backed chairs at the middle of the table. Joliffe watched as they delayed sitting down while each urged the other—to judge by their gestures—to be seated first. Then they laughed and the man whom Joliffe guessed to be Master Breche sat first, a stout-waisted man in an amply cut, long, loose gown of grey wool thickly furred in black at throat and wrists. He had a merchant’s look to him, while the other man was younger than Joliffe had expected Sir Edmund to be, in perhaps his late thirties, with a calf-long, deep crimson gown belted low on his lean waist and dark hair sleekly cut, his manner graceful as he turned to seat a woman on the bench to his right while a servant ushered the others to their places along the table.