A Play of Dux Moraud

by Margaret Frazer

  Against the hotness of young life in Mariena, perhaps? Very possibly. Reason enough to want the girl married and away from here.

  He eased his way into a gentle song, trying now for no more than soothing over all the raw edges in the room, including Idonea Wyot’s, out of place here and ill at ease as she surely was, with seemingly no one trying to make her feel otherwise. All stayed quiet among the women, and in a while he moved on to more lightly playful songs, trying to raise smiles if nothing else; and when finally the song of the lady wakened by the crowing cock that nightly perched in her chamber brought even Lady Benedicta to laugh softly and shake her head, he dared try a love-song. After all, he was not supposed to know there was anything here but joy for the coming marriage, so a song of love was reasonable; but he sang the one he chose—“When the nightingale sings, the woods wax green”—in such a melting, over-lovestruck voice that by the time he reached, “I have so loved all this year that I may love no more,” first Idonea Wyot’s shoulders and then Lady Benedicta’s twitched with silent laughter that broke out aloud as he finished in the most mournful of voices, “I shall moan my song for my love it is for, until my heart doth fall on floor.” Which was not the end to it he had learned but the one he used when it suited him.

  Putting their sewing on their laps, the two women clapped, still laughing. Mariena did, too, but not with such open pleasure; and when the women took up their sewing again, she demanded at him, “Now sing one as if you meant it.”

  “Mariena,” her mother said in the tone of someone reminding a small child of its manners.

  Tight-voiced, her words at Joliffe but her glare for her mother, Mariena said, “I pray you, sing one from the heart.”

  Since Lady Benedicta said nothing against that, Joliffe began, “Nights when I turn and wake—by which I am waxed pale—Lady, all for thy sake is longing come on me,” obeying Mariena, singing as if such love-longing came from deep inside himself. It didn’t. All he had was the wish he might some time truly feel such love-longing for someone—and better yet, that that beloved someone would feel the same and equally for him. Since it had yet to happen, he made use of his skill as a player to show feelings he did not have, off-setting that, to his mind, his singing and his skill on the lute were no more than ordinary.

  He pleased Mariena well enough, anyway. At the end, she sighed like someone satisfied and said, “There. That was good. Another one, please?”

  If that wooing voice, as honey-smooth as her fair skin, was the one she used to her suitors, there was small wonder John Harcourt had come back well before their wedding to be with her, or that Amyas Breche had been doting on her the times Joliffe had seen them together. He found himself smiling warmly without meaning to as he answered, “If you will, my lady.”

  But before he could begin, there was sound of someone on the stairs and Sir Edmund entered. Joliffe stood up and bowed to him. Mariena and Mistress Wyot rose and curtsied. In strict courtesy, Lady Benedicta might have done the same, but she stayed seated. With an easy gesture for Mariena and Idonea to sit again, Sir Edmund crossed to his wife and kissed her cheek.

  She accepted it, nothing more; made no sign of welcome or willingness, nor did she give greeting of her own, merely looked at him, her gaze flat and shallow, as he stepped back from her. Seeming to expect nothing more than that, he turned and said easily to Idonea, “They’re keeping you busy. A guest shouldn’t be put to so much to work.”

  “It’s my pleasure, sir,” she answered, which was only politeness; but she added, “I enjoy sewing, and this is lovely cloth.”

  “From Flanders,” Sir Edmund said. He lifted a thick fold of cloth from Mariena’s lap. Guessing from the quantity of cloth there, she was sewing a seam in the gown’s skirt, the least demanding but most tedious part of the task because it went on, unchanging, for so many stitches. “A gift from Master Breche on his nephew’s behalf.” He smiled on Idonea. “But you knew that.” He laid the cloth down again, absently patted Mariena’s shoulder, and said, still to Idonea, “I hope you’ll be my daughter’s friend when she’s gone to live in Cirencester.”

  “I will, sir. Gladly.”

  He turned his smile to Mariena. “It will be all new to her and she’ll be missed. It will help to know she’s not gone completely among strangers.” He laid a hand on Mariena’s shoulder again. “Won’t it, sweetling?”

  Mariena looked up at him, meeting his smile. “It will,” she agreed. “Though I’ll miss you.” Said with the faintest weight on “you” and a bitter sidewise glance at her mother, who made no more response to her daughter’s jibe than she had to her husband’s kiss, simply watching all with that same flat gaze.

  Sir Edmund made a small laugh, satisfied by his daughter’s answer, it seemed, and said, “We’re going riding, the Breches and Harry and I. And Will, if we can find him. I only came to be sure you still did well, Mariena. Amyas will be pleased to know.”

  “I’m more than well enough,” Mariena said eagerly. “Let me come with you.” She made as if to rise, ready to go on the instant.

  Before Sir Edmund could answer, her mother said, cold as ice over dark waters, “Not if you want this gown done for your wedding.”

  Mariena sank back with disgust. Her father patted her shoulder again, smiling with fellow-feeling. “Tomorrow you can ride in with me to hear the banns read,” he promised. “I’ll see you at supper, my ladies.” He gave his wife another kiss that was no more welcomed than the other had been, exchanged bows of the head with Idonea, and left, having not once so much as looked at Joliffe, still standing because he had not been given leave to sit.

  “Joliffe,” Lady Benedicta said when her husband was gone, “sing us something bright.”

  Joliffe sat and set immediately and light-voiced into the shining, “I have a new garden that new is begun. Such another garden know I not under sun,” because he felt, with her, the need for something bright against whatever had come into the chamber with Sir Edmund.

  Yet Sir Edmund had done nothing beyond the ordinary and common. He had given greetings, made polite talk, said courteous farewell. Even Mariena seemed the better for her father’s visit. Whatever the ill-feelings and lack of trust between her and her mother, things looked to be well enough between her and her father. That might be simply because he did not have to spend hours in her company, Joliffe thought dryly. Still, it left him certain Mariena did not resent the marriage being made for her. If she did, she would likely have shown her anger against her father as readily as she showed it against her mother. What surprised him was his pity for Lady Benedicta, because even as he wondered at her coldness toward her husband’s open willingness to affection toward her, he was wondering, too, if Sir Edmund was not only aware she did not want his attentions but gave them deliberately in a place and way where she had to accept them with some outward grace.

  If that were the way of it, Joliffe thought, he did not want to know how matters went between them when they were alone, with no need of good manners between them.

  He then wondered which servants shared their bedchamber at night, and if there was any way he could make chance to talk with them.

  He finished the song. Before he could ask what Lady Benedicta would like now, Mariena flung her sewing aside and stood up, stretching her arms and back in show of how stiff she was become, saying, “Please, may I have rest for a while?” To which her mother, more quietly setting down her own sewing, answered, “We should all rest a while. Idonea, may I trouble you to find out a servant and ask that wine and something slight to eat be brought us? For our player, too, say.”

  With a willingness that might have been flight, Idonea said, “ Most certainly, my lady,” put aside her sewing, rose to her feet, curtsied, and went out. Lady Benedicta shifted on the windowseat to look out. Mariena crossed to Joliffe, sat down beside him, and said, smiling, “You play so well. I have a lute, but I don’t play nearly so well. I’d ask you to show me how to play, but it’s in my chamber.”

  She
was not touching him but was so near she might as well have been, her face turned up to his, eyes welcomingly bright, lips invitingly red.

  Not doubting that Lady Benedicta could hear them and need only slightly turn her head their way to see them, too, Joliffe said in a carefully bland voice, “Good playing is a matter of much practicing, my lady.”

  “I do practice, but surely lessons would help, too,” she said in her warm-honey voice, which was enticement as definite as her body pressed against him on the stairs had been.

  Steadfastedly refusing the bait, Joliffe said, “Surely. Beyond doubt there will be someone in Cirencester skilled enough to teach you when the time comes you’re there.”

  “But what of lessons from you here?” she asked and slid her hand, where her mother could not see it, along his thigh and down between his legs.

  Joliffe came to his feet and away from her before he had thought of what he would do once he was on his feet. Once up, he had to do something that seemed casual and so strolled toward Lady Benedicta at the window. She looked around. He had the instant certainty that she was not in the least doubt about what had happened; but her hard look went to her daughter, rather than at him, as he said, desperate for something to say, “Would you have me lesson your daughter, my lady?”

  That came out with more possibilities of meaning than he had intended, too late for him to take it back. Lady Benedicta’s sudden, bitter smile told she saw the possibilities as well as he did, but she surprised him by saying evenly, “I think my daughter has lessons enough, nor do I doubt you have enough to do without taking on more.”

  “Indeed, I do, my lady.”

  Dropping her voice too low for Mariena to hear, she surprised him more by asking, “With Sia, was it not?”

  His wits now caught up to his tongue, and with a mental gulp as he swallowed that, Joliffe said, matching her quietness, “That came to nothing, my lady.”

  “Did it? You surprise me.”

  “As you do me, my lady.”

  He had wondered if any of her smiles ever reached her eyes. Now as her eyes warmed suddenly with in-held laughter, Joliffe was as suddenly, however unreasonably, on her side, whatever that side was, because—given she was beset with a husband she gave no sign of loving and a daughter who gave every sign of hating her—that silent laughter was a gallant thing. It was even still there as she asked him, looking past him to Mariena, now on her feet and moving restlessly around the chamber, “Will you feel hard done by if I give you leave to go ere the wine comes?”

  “Not in the least, my lady.”

  “Then you have my leave.” To get away from her daughter, she did not say aloud.

  Joliffe bowed very low, more truly respectful of her than he had been, and made for the door. Mariena did not cross his way but caught his eye with a taunting smile that dared him to change his mind and come to her. Only barely he kept his slight bow to her plain rather than mocking in return before he escaped out the door and down the stairs.

  This time it was Idonea he met on the stairs, returning from her errand. He turned sideways and pressed his back against the wall for her to pass but she paused a step below him and asked with a nod up the stairs, “How is it in there now?”

  It was such a simple, worried question, and her plain face so pleasant after Mariena’s heated interest in him, that Joliffe answered straight-forwardly, “No worse than it was.”

  She sighed, “That’s bad enough,” and went on, past him and up the stairs.

  Joliffe, going down the stairs two at a time and glad to be away, silently agreed with her.

  Chapter 15

  Will was gone and Piers and Gil not yet back with Tisbe when Joliffe returned to the cart-shed. Basset and Ellis were sitting in low-voiced talk beside the cart. Rose was lying down on her bed, blanket-covered and apparently sleeping, and as Joliffe joined the men, Ellis tipped his head toward her, saying in a half-whisper, “She’s resting,” adding in answer to Joliffe’s immediately worried look, “She’s well. Just resting.” Not something they had chance at most days. Joliffe thought he might try it himself sometime.

  “How went it?” Basset asked.

  “Well enough.” Joliffe heard the uncertainty under his words and amended, “Well enough with me. It was watching mother and daughter dislike each other that was strange. Sir Edmund found Will?”

  “That Deykus came for him. Said he was to go riding with the men,” Basset said. “He should be safe enough there.”

  “He wasn’t yesterday,” said Joliffe. He looked at Ellis, waiting, then asked, “You’re not going to protest that yesterday’s fall was only an accident?”

  “How much good would it do if I did? Besides,” Ellis went on grudgingly, “he’s frightened. Not happy either. Something has him worried and scared.”

  Basset nodded agreement to that, and Joliffe asked, “Could you tell of what? Or, better, of whom?”

  “He said nothing sure,” Basset said. “He wouldn’t, would he? Not to us. It’s more in how he was than anything he said. You could all but see the knots in him loosen while he sat here listening to me tell him stories.”

  “That would be because he was being dulled to sleep,” Ellis muttered.

  It was a half-hearted scoff and Basset and Joliffe both ignored it, Basset going on, “You could see him forgetting to be worried or afraid or whatever he is. Then you could see every knot all tighten up again when Deykus came for him.”

  “Frightened of his father?” Joliffe asked.

  “He seemed to ease a little when he heard it was his father wanted him.”

  “Frightened of his mother then?” Joliffe wondered.

  “Or just worried Father Morice was after him,” Ellis said, “Only, no, it was more than that. For all his boldness and talk, he’s not a happy boy.”

  “Whatever the reason,” Basset agreed.

  “Did you learn anything of use from Father Morice?” Joliffe asked. “About Will or anything else?”

  “I don’t know how much of use it is, and it’s more what was behind what he said than in his words.”

  “Does he think everyone is as pleased about this marriage as they seem to be?”

  “I gather so. In truth, if I were asked, I’d say there was a general eagerness to have Mariena married and out of here.”

  “No sign that Mariena doesn’t want this marriage?” Joliffe asked.

  “By what Father Morice says, she’s very willing to be married and away.”

  “And Lady Benedicta has no objection to it?” Though Joliffe would be very surprised if she did, given the irk between her and her daughter.

  “I asked that directly of Father Morice, under seeming concern that we not rub folk the wrong way with over-playing the joys of marriage to someone who might not be so happy about it. ‘Is her mother, for one, quite resigned to losing her daughter?’ I asked.”

  “And he said?”

  “He said with somewhat staggering bluntness that Lady Benedicta just wants to have her married and gone. More than that, I had the feeling that so does Father Morice.”

  And yet Lady Benedicta had been unwilling for Harry Wyot to marry her, which would have got her out of here far sooner. Thinking on that, Joliffe said slowly, “From what I’ve seen, Lady Benedicta and Mariena don’t get on, true, but I can’t tell if that’s merely for the present or something more.”

  “That’s something long-set between them,” Basset answered with firm certainty. “Given the chance, Father Morice does like to talk. I said something slight about mothers and daughters going through a difficult time, and he said from all he’s heard, it’s a time they’ve been going through since Mariena was small. She likes to have her own say about everything—final say, mind you—and goes angry if she doesn’t get it. That sets her at cross-purposes with Lady Benedicta, who’s not minded to give over being mistress of the household to her.”

  “So it stands that the sooner Mariena is married and gone to a household of her own, the happier they’ll bot
h be,” Joliffe said.

  “Them and everyone else, I’d say,” said Basset.

  “You know,” said Ellis, “it could be no more than all the dislike going on around him that’s troubling Will. It would keep me ready to duck, that’s sure.”

  “It could account, too,” Basset said thoughtfully, “for Sir Edmund going after the Breche marriage instead of waiting for better, if the difference was made up by having a happy home in its stead.”

  “Were there other offers for her?” Joliffe asked quickly.

  “What Father Morice said was that when the Breche offer for her came, Sir Edmund took it on the leap. Mind you, it’s a rich marriage and no disparagement to the girl.”

  “Is Sir Edmund badly enough in debt to need a quick, rich marriage?”

  “Or is maybe his daughter in need of a quick marriage, rich or otherwise, for another reason,” Ellis said meaningfully. “She had a betrothed she expected to marry.”

  “She’d be showing by now if she’d done anything beyond bounds with Harcourt,” Basset said. “Nor is she likely to have had chance with anyone since then.”

  Joliffe kept to himself what he knew about her that way, partly because he thought that Mariena probably valued her place in the marriage market too highly to give herself freely to anyone, however much she took delight in stirring a man to lust. In truth, part of her delight in that might come from never satisfying a man once she had roused him.

  Only with that thought did he face how much he had come to dislike her.

  “Altogether,” Basset said, “I’d say we’ve learned nothing except this is an unhappy family and may be the happier once Mariena is married and gone.”

  “Not if the trouble runs deeper,” Joliffe said. “Not if matters have never been mended between Sir Edmund and his wife since she strayed. And don’t tell me they’ve had two children since then and still share a bed,” he added at Ellis, “because none of that means anything is mended at all.”