“Though I’m sorry for Tisbe,” Piers called as Joliffe led her away. “Spending the afternoon with you.”
“Not so sorry as she is when she has to spend it with you,” Joliffe said back at him.
“It’s me I’m most sorry for,” Ellis growled. “I have to put up with the other of you, no matter who goes.”
Joliffe laughed and kept going, not bothering to sling more words. He had his writing box in a bag over his shoulder, was looking forward to time on his own, hoping to work a little further through the problem of the evil Moraud.
Sir Edmund, Mariena, and a servant were just riding over the drawbridge as he neared the gateway. Sir Edmund had kept his word then—that she could go with him to the second reading of the banns. That no one else was with them was no great surprise; today’s reading would be the same as yesterday’s. The surprise lay not in no one else going but in Sir Edmund’s courtesy to Father Morice in going again. It gave Joliffe pause in his thoughts against the man. But only pause. Of all the virtues, courtesy might be the easiest to feign, needing only outward show of it at no great cost.
That Mariena would bother herself to go was not a surprise at all, since it gave her excuse to be away from her mother—probably to Lady Benedicta’s relief as much as her own, Joliffe thought, watching them ride away toward the village while he crossed the drawbridge with Tisbe. Beyond the drawbridge he went left by a trackway that curved first along the moat, then away along the headland between two ploughed fields. A stretch of woodland lay beyond them and the track turned again, to run along the outer edge of the field, between it and a narrow band of rough pasture before the trees began. It was pasture that had been well-grazed, though, and he led Tisbe onward, supposing he would find somewhere better before he reached the village’s common land.
Following the curve of the woods around the fields, he was maybe midway between manor house and village and well away from both when the woods opened away from him into a large bay of open ground and long grasses. Sometime there had been a cutting back of the woods here, almost enough to begin another field, though not lately if judged by the well-grown scrub closing in around its edges. Likely it had been an intake of land begun when there were more people at Deneby and need for more land, meaning probably eighty or so years ago, before the Great Pestilence made such a killing of people that afterwards there was more than land enough for those folk who were left. Joliffe could just remember, at the edge of childhood memory, his grandfather remembering that pestilence from the very farthest edge of his own very-long-past childhood. Only he and his mother had survived out of their family. She had married again and had more children. Joliffe’s grandfather had grown up and generously done what he could to repeople England by way of three wives and ten children; and most of them had generously done what they could by having children of their own. However much he had sometimes wished it otherwise, Joliffe had never been a poor, lone orphan left to make his own hard way in the world. He had had to make especial effort to go so far astray from all his family as he had.
He had also strayed far enough just now for his present purpose. Since the forest had not closed on the clearing again, the land must be used for grazing sometimes, even if not lately. Tisbe would not make difference enough to offend anyone, and there was an up-thrust rock against which he could lean if the ground was not too wet, or else sit on to stay dry. If the rain held off, the place would suit well; and when he had hobbled Tisbe and turned her loose, he matted down the grass beside the rock, judged it sufficient between him and the ground for a while at least, and made himself comfortable, his writing box on his knees. He left the box closed, though; closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the rock, thinking—just as he had feared he would—not about Dux Moraud and his sins but back to last night’s wondering.
Was everything that had happened here at Deneby of late—from John Harcourt’s death to Will’s accidents to Mariena’s illness—no more than life’s usual unshaped chances? Or was there a link between all those different things that made them part of some same thing? A thing still going dangerously on?
Dangerous to whom?
There was a good question. The last bridegroom had died and Lord Lovell was uneasy enough about that on Amyas Breche’s behalf for the players to be here, but thus far there was no sign of any threat against Amyas. Will and Mariena were the two who had suffered of late. Were those maybe someone’s revenge for John Harcourt’s death?
Whose revenge?
Joliffe felt like a housewife trying to beat fleas out of a blanket—persistence was getting him nowhere.
What if he took it step by step from where he knew things had first, at least lately, gone awry here? Supposing he could tell when that was. Had it been when Harry Wyot refused to marry Mariena? And had he done that because Lady Benedicta indeed warned him away from her? But if she had, then why had she? The only certain thing about Wyot’s refusal was that he had stood out against Sir Edmund despite what it cost him, settling for a marriage far more to Sir Edmund’s advantage than to his own. Or so it was said.
Then there was John Harcourt. There had been delays in making the final agreement, and then when it was done, before the marriage could happen, he had died. Suddenly. In itself, that told nothing. Death happened—rarely conveniently and more often by chance than by someone’s ill-will. But if his death had not been chance—if it had been convenient for someone—then who? And why?
Not for Lady Benedicta, who had surely been looking forward to having her daughter wed and gone. Not for Mariena, said to want the same. Sir Edmund? Had he found, too late, some reason against the marriage? Or some suddenly developed need for a richer marriage? Was the Breche marriage a richer one? Joliffe was not sure. No one had said as much. And how could Sir Edmund have been sure of a richer marriage anyway? Amyas Breche had not come into the reckoning until after Harcourt’s death.
So far as Joliffe knew.
Was there some link between Amyas Breche and John Harcourt he had not heard of? It didn’t seem likely. It was said to be from Harry Wyot that the Breches first heard of Mariena, and so far as Joliffe had heard, Wyot had not known Harcourt at all.
Harry Wyot.
Sir Edmund’s first choice for Mariena’s husband and now here again, companioning the man who would finally have her.
Joliffe’s flare of excitement at that thought of Harry Wyot as the link between the things that had happened faded as quickly as it had come. He had been this path before. Harry Wyot had been married and gone from here before the Harcourt marriage was ever even talked of. Joliffe hadn’t heard that he even knew John Harcourt, but even if he had, hadn’t someone said he’d not been back here between his marriage and now?
Still, what if he had come to repent his refusal of Mariena? Could he have found someone here—maybe bribed a servant—to kill John Harcourt to keep the way clear for himself, in hope of another chance at her? That he was left with a wife himself might seem no great problem to him. She could always be sent the same way Harcourt had gone.
Except why would he have let the Breche dealings go this far when he could have stopped them by warning Amyas away from Mariena with some story against her? Unless he meant for Amyas to marry her, to get her into his reach at Cirencester, then kill both his wife and Amyas and then win Mariena to him . . .
That was so far a stretch Joliffe set it aside, only noting to himself to see if he could sometime make a play out of it.
But if not Harry Wyot, then who? Who else was there who might have an interest-unto-death in whom Mariena married?
Go back, he told himself. Try it all again around a different angle.
He rubbed his head, trying to find that different angle.
Harcourt’s death. Set it aside for now. Look at everything else that had happened. Did they make a pattern of their own? What could be made of Will’s mishaps? They had started before Harcourt’s death. They had continued since his death. Had they all come during marriage talks or randoml
y around them as well as during them? That was something to find out, because maybe Will was in danger, rather than Amyas. Or they both might be. Or neither of them.
At least who would gain from Will’s death was plain enough. If he died, Mariena inherited everything instead of having only her marriage portion. That could be reason enough for several people to want Will out of the way. Amyas Breche for one. But he hadn’t even known the Denebys when the first accidents happened. Mariena then. But her possible willingness to be rid of her brother wouldn’t account for Harcourt’s death. His dying made no difference to Mariena’s inheritance, only served to keep her trapped here at Deneby longer.
Joliffe realized he was back to considering Harcourt’s death as part of everything that had happened here. But what of Mariena’s sudden, strange illness two nights ago? What had that to do with anything? No one had made mention of any mishaps to her before then. Had it been only chance, too, like Harcourt’s death had maybe been? Or did it mean that someone had broadened their attacks to include her? Or that they had changed from Will to attacking her? But why now and not before? Had something changed, to bring on that change? What? The fact that her marriage agreement was finally made? But the last time she had been betrothed, it had been the bridegroom who had fallen ill, not her. And he had died. She had not. Though that could have been her good luck rather than someone’s intent. Even so, why would someone now prefer her dead instead of the bridegroom? Or her instead of Will?
Always supposing that all of these happenings were not merely mischance. Mischance did happen, could happen even in quantity like this. What he needed was something that linked these happenings one to another—something that told why someone would do them at all.
But if someone was doing them, how had this someone been able to strike down John Harcourt so skillfully and yet done so poorly in the attempts against Will and Mariena?
Or what if two different people were at work here, pursuing different ends, working at cross-purposes and apart from each other? Or could it be two people who were working together? Or one person but with two different ends in mind. Or, Joliffe thought savagely, half a dozen people all working at malign counter-purposes all at once. Wouldn’t that make such a cat’s cradle of everything as he would never untangle.
No. Instead of adding tangles to tangles, what he should do is convince himself that nothing was wrong here, that no one was doing anything to anyone, that it was all mischance and would work its way out in the fullness of time. That would make his life simpler all the way around and he could start this very moment.
He shifted himself and his writing box, resting his head on it as he lay out on his back in the long grass. If he wasn’t going to write, he could watch the broken clouds drifting white across the sky and maybe even sleep. That would be more useful than his thoughts, for certain.
Tisbe lifted her head, listening a moment before Joliffe heard, too, hoof-fall and the chink of harness along the trackway, coming from the village. Several horses, Joliffe guessed, listening. Probably ridden rather than led. Not pulling anything anyway. He stayed flat. With any good fortune, horses and riders would simply pass by, taking no particular note of Tisbe or seeing him at all.
Fortune favored him. But when they had passed, Joliffe gave way to curiosity, rolled to his side, and raised himself enough on one elbow to see the backs of Sir Edmund, Mariena, and their accompanying servant riding away from him toward the manor. Taking the long way home to give Mariena a longer ride, Joliffe supposed, and lay down again, idly watching Tisbe’s head instead of clouds as she turned it, watching the riders away. She spent very little time with others of her kind nor ever seemed to want their company, but she took an interest in them nonetheless and her head went on turning, watching.
Or . . . listening now, to judge by her forward-pricked ears as her head went on turning, so that she had to be looking toward the woods now . . .
Joliffe sat up, frowning toward the trees. The trackway ran along the wood’s edge. He and Tisbe had come along it, coming here, and he didn’t remember seeing even a footpath into the woods there, let alone a track wide enough to ride a horse easily. Why were they going into the woods where there wasn’t a path?
With one part of his mind very clearly telling him to stay where he was, he got to his feet. Tisbe swung her head to look at him. Suspecting that her look was much the one Ellis would have given him had he been there, Joliffe patted her on the flank and went away from her toward the curve of woods where she had last been looking. The riders would be past there by now. He would be able to follow them. Which would be better than meeting them.
Once through the brush along the woods’ edge and among the trees, he found he had been wrong about there being no path through the woods there. It was narrow and a rider would have much ducking under tree limbs, but it was there. What was not there, he saw when he looked back to where it must start, was any break in the brush along the woodshore. The path began in the wood itself.
That would need closer looking at, but more immediately he wanted to know where Sir Edmund was going, and he followed the path the other way, farther into the woods. With all the rain there had been, the fallen leaves were too softened underfoot to make a betraying rustle. He had only to avoid cracking any sticks as he walked, and that he did. The horses could not. He could hear them ahead of him; and when sound of their going stopped, so did he, except he stepped sideways off the path to lessen his chance of being seen should someone back-track the trail to be sure they were unfollowed.
When no one did, he went carefully on, not wanting to come on them suddenly and be seen. What he came on instead was the path’s end as it met a trackway undoubtedly far more traveled than ever the path was. The track’s hard-packed earth and the smooth-worn grooves running equally apart from one another along it made him guess it was used for sledges rather than wagons. For hauling firewood probably. Or maybe there was a charcoal burner’s camp somewhere near.
Whichever it was, even with the rain there had been, the way was too firm to show certainly which way the horses had gone. Joliffe listened, heard nothing, decided they were more likely to have kept going away from the village than back toward it, and turned and went that way along the track.
That was nearly his undoing. He had gone less than twenty yards, the track making a long, easy curve to the right, when a sudden jink of horse-harness, as if a horse had shaken its head, warned him he was far closer to the riders than he had thought he was. He froze. There was no hoof-fall. They were stopped. Waiting for him? Waiting for someone else?
He slipped sideways into the underbrush, more careful than ever of his feet. Hidden behind a hazel bush that had not fully lost its leaves yet and was covered over with the grey-white haze of traveler’s joy for good measure, he stood still, listening, but heard nothing more than the same sound of a restless horse. No voices. Nothing. He eased forward, not back to the trackway but through the trees toward the horse. A little later in the season and he would have had no cover, but while many of the trees had begun their leaf-fall, the lower bushes and lesser trees had not; he could move from tree to tree with little chance of being seen unless he was careless. Or watched for.
He kept from being careless nor, he found, was anyone keeping watch. In truth, when he crouched low to look through a last screen of hazel bushes and more vining traveler’s joy between him and a long clearing widened out to either side of the trackway, the man sitting nearby on one horse and holding the reins of two others looked to be doing nothing so much as wishing he were somewhere else. In the first few moments Joliffe watched him, he shifted his seat to one side in his saddle, then to the other, drummed impatient fingers almost silently on his saddle’s pommel, then shifted his seat again. Of Sir Edmund and Mariena there was no sign, but he was Sir Edmund’s man and those were Sir Edmund’s horses, so unless Sir Edmund and Mariena had decided to walk for a while—which struck Joliffe as unlikely in the dripping woods—they could only be in the small woodsman�
��s hut across the clearing.
Why? It looked to be a common enough woodsman’s hut—was small, with low-eaved, roughly plastered, wattle-and-daub walls, the roof rough-thatched with bracken, and no bother about a chimney. A hole at the top of the gable wall under the point of the roof would serve to let out smoke from any fire made inside, though there was presently no smoke and so likely no fire. It was a place to warm yourself and briefly shelter from wet weather, nothing more, and Sir Edmund and Mariena had to be in there. There was nowhere else for them to be. But why? To get out of the rain would have been reasonable, except it was not raining. Nor was the day so cold they should need to shelter for warmth a while with the manor so short a ride away.
He considered creeping to better vantage but decided he had pressed Fortune’s favor as far as he should. Instead, he shifted silently to a slightly easier crouch and settled down on his heels to wait. Except for the sometime drip of water from leaves and the occasional heavy-hoofed shifting of one or the other of the horses, the forest was muted around him. Even the servant provided no interest, slumped in his saddle with every appearance of trying, not too successfully, to doze. He wasn’t keeping watch, that was sure. Even when he did rouse to restlessness in his saddle again, his long stares at the hut and sometimes a roving look at the woods around him were more to pass the waiting time than any watching out, and Joliffe did not worry about being seen. In his plain clothing of grey and muted browns—best for not showing the stains of travel—and motionless behind the bushes, he doubted he would be seen even if the man looked directly his way.
The man never did, and Joliffe had no doubt that, if he wanted to, he could withdraw as unseen and unheard as he’d come—very probably a better thing to do than crouch here, cramped and beginning to be chilled. But he stayed. He knew too well that curiosity was one of his failings. Even without Lord Lovell’s behest to find out what he could, his curiosity would have kept him here. Although maybe this time he could forgo blaming himself for his weakness, could lay the blame on Lord Lovell. A satisfying thought. He could so rarely, fairly, blame someone else for his failings.
A Play of Dux Moraud Page 19