by Amanda Scott
Jenny watched for a time as the group at the table discussed the play. But fat Gerda’s simpering smiles grew tedious. So, when she saw some of the children aping the fools’ behavior, she went to watch them instead.
Some of the little ones tumbled and flipped as skillfully as Gilly did, and for a while their antics amused her. But the afternoon crept slowly, and she itched to practice throwing her dirk. That she had hit her target in only half of her attempts while Hugh watched was disappointing. She had wanted to impress him. Somehow, it had mattered more for her to do well while he watched her than when Gilly had.
Finding Peg busy with her mending and Gilly practicing with Gawkus—and having no desire to sit and chat with the other women—she was tempted to return to the hilltop alone. Glancing toward the table, she met Hugh’s gaze. When he frowned as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, she decided to practice her lute instead.
Fetching it, she sat on a rock where she could see the children playing and began to play the comic song she had sung with Hugh the night before.
The memory of that performance made her smile. His ability to turn himself into another character without changing anything but his expression, accent, and tone of voice had both astonished and amused her.
Motion at the table diverted her as the players moved to the end of the clearing, where they began to walk through their parts. The Joculator stood a little to one side, watching them. Recalling his promise to let her try her skill on the hurdy-gurdy, she returned her lute to its casing and went to him.
“I warrant ye’ll be ready for me to let ye try the vielle,” he said, smiling.
“Aye, sir, for ye did say we might play it if I stayed with ye long enough.”
“So I did. Would ye like to walk with me to my tent? I’ll fetch it out and we can sit on the rocks there and try it out.”
She agreed and was not surprised when he took the path she had taken that morning. As she had suspected, his tent stood not far from where she and Gilly had thrown their dirks. It was lucky, she thought, that they had faced the other way.
She realized then that Gilly had probably known where the tent was but decided to say nothing about her new skill unless her companion mentioned it. From what she had seen of him, she would not be surprised if he knew all about it.
Heat flooded her cheeks when she remembered that he had seen Hugh kissing her. She was grateful that he said nothing about it as they walked, but she could not help wondering what he had thought about that kiss.
After all, she had sworn to him that she had not encouraged the troubadour. She had said she did not want to encourage any man. And those had been the parts of what she had told him that she had thought were at least true. But no one witnessing that kiss would think she had been reluctant or was just being kind.
Reaching the green tent, set again near a bubbling rill, she waited while the Joculator dove inside and emerged with the five-foot-long vielle.
It had a body shaped something like a lute, with a very long neck into which the keys were set, and three strings, two of which ran over its bridge. It also had a small wheel. One person turned the wheel while the other pulled the keys.
He suggested a tune and Jenny agreed. She also agreed that she would pull the keys as he turned the wheel. She had forgotten how slowly one played the vielle. After the lively tunes she and Hugh had played, it seemed especially slow.
When they paused to rest, she expected him to comment on her playing, but he said, “You and Hugo make a fine couple.” When she looked at him, struggling to think how to reply, he added, “… for singing, lass. Your voices blend well together.”
Gathering her wits, Jenny thanked him but squirmed again at the fib she had told him about Hugo’s supposed interest in her. Having misled him to think Hugo had offered her marriage but that she preferred men of a more delicate manner, she felt her cheeks burn anew at memory of Hugh’s anything-but-delicate kiss. Then she wondered if the Joculator might be looking for just such a blushing response. Even if he was, she decided, if he wanted to talk more about Hugo, he would have to say so, and she devoutly hoped he would not.
She was a poor liar at best, having had little practice in what she was rapidly coming to think was an art form. She would not make matters worse by telling more lies—or by telling him the truth. Instead, she concentrated on the music and on trying to avoid any topic that might lead him to ask questions about Hugh.
As it was, he cut their practice time short. And although she had enjoyed it, she could not imagine that her skill on the vielle was such that he would invite her to play it for their Dumfries audience.
He said only, “Thank you, lass. That was a pleasant interlude and brought some pleasant memories. I have a gittern as well, though, that you might prefer.”
Taking leave of him, she returned to the clearing to find preparations for supper in hand. Hugh, standing with Lucas Horne, saw her and strode to meet her. To her relief, his expression revealed only curiosity.
“What did the Joculator want? You have been gone for nearly an hour.”
She shook her head at him but kept her voice low enough so that only he would hear. “ ’Twas not the Joculator who told you so this time. Truly, sir, I am not a dafty or a bairn. If you are going to suggest that I ought not to have walked back here by myself, you would do better to save your breath to cool your porridge.”
He smiled. “Porridge? We’ll be lucky tonight to get cold beef. In case you’ve not noticed yet, they have lighted no cook fires. So it will be cold fare only, I fear.”
“I know it will, because Peg said they won’t risk leaving hot coals here in the woods. I warrant it would take a miracle to set them afire though, as damp as everything is with patches of melting snow still on the ground.”
“A good habit is a habit only if one maintains it regardless of the weather,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me what you have been doing all this time?”
“I was learning to play the Joculator’s vielle,” she said.
“I have never played one. Is it difficult?”
“One always feels awkward when one is new to an instrument, and the vielle does not accommodate itself to lively tunes,” she said as they strolled toward the others. “In any event, I’d prefer the lute or a gittern. Should we practice what we’re going to sing tonight? I expect we’ll have time before we eat.”
He said, “We’ll sing the songs we sang last night, and I’ll tell a tale I’ve told many times before. So we’d do better to rest whilst we can and then decide by the audience’s reaction what else we should do. Gawkus said he and Gilly always add bits on the hop, so folks never know what to expect from them.”
“I thought we might be singing more songs with such a large audience.”
“The Joculator wants us to add a new thing or two each night, rather than show everything straightaway. His object is to persuade as many as possible from each audience to attend our next evening’s performance.”
She noted the pronoun but ignored it as bait to which she would be foolish to rise. He might expect to leave the minstrels before the end of the week, but she hoped to remain with them at least long enough to learn just what was going on.
“When will you be doing the play?” she asked.
“We begin tomorrow night, but he suggested that we do just a short version first, mayhap the first act. It shows the troubadour wooing his many ladies whilst the woman he eventually marries plots to snare him. It has more physical humor than lines to learn, so it is simple enough, and I won’t have to remember everything the first night. I’m no player, though, so be warned, lass. I want to be away from here before we have to act out the whole play.”
“Faith, sir, it cannot be so hard if they think you can do it. And surely you won’t leave them without a troubadour for their final performance here. That would be most unkind when they have been so generous to you, and to me. Moreover, you and Gerda make a most charming couple.”
“We’ll have less of t
hat, if you please,” he said with a grimace. “If that woman keeps simpering, and ogling me from under her lashes, I’m likely to upend a pot of water over her head.”
“Suggest that to the Joculator,” she said. “He prefers comic things to romantic ones, I think. I wonder if he has ever been married. He said the vielle belonged to his son, but he has never mentioned a wife to me.”
“I didn’t know he had a son,” Hugh said. “But I’ll suggest the pot of water. I’d rather douse Gerda than marry her, even in pretense. I’m sure she’s a kind lass, but I think she has much more experience with men than I’ve had with the lasses.”
Remembering that the Joculator had said at least one of the gleewomen invited liberties, she nearly told Hugh as much but decided against it.
The cold supper was soon ready, so they joined the others for a hasty meal, and then packed up the things they would need for their performance. The company took two cartloads to the market square and had things set up there before dark.
As soon as they had people enough to count as an audience, the jesters began their antics while Cuddy and two other musicians played, and Gerda and Cath sang.
By the time the main performance began, the market square was packed. People perched in trees and on roofs of the buildings that lined the square. Others had brought stools, and still others made places for themselves wherever they could.
The performance was much the same as the previous night’s practice, with Jenny singing her first song alone as she had at Lochmaben. Hugh joined in on the second one, and the applause afterward encouraged them to sing two more, including the comic one they had done the night before.
“That was grand, ye two,” the Joculator said when they had finished. Clapping Hugh on the back, he said, “Ye’ve a great talent for mimicry, lad. Just take care ye dinna mimic any o’ the nobles we meet, lest one take offense and lop off your head. I’m thinking o’ the sheriff especially. Them two fools of ours may rattle his temper yet if they go on as they did last night, so I’m thinking it would be as well if ye’d try soothing him rather than riling him, for all our sakes.”
“I don’t want to rile anyone,” Hugh said, “least of all the sheriff.”
He spoke so firmly that Jenny said without thinking, “Do you know him?”
Hugh seemed taken aback by the question but rallied swiftly, saying, “I just dinna want to anger anyone with as much power as he wields.”
“ ’Tis as well ye don’t,” the Joculator said. “Sithee, at Threave, we’ll be performing for men with even greater power, and I dinna want any o’ my people to suffer for their wit.”
He spoke firmly, too, even adamantly.
Jenny looked from one man to the other and doubted that either feared she might do such a thing. She could not imagine herself doing or saying anything to anger the Sheriff of Dumfries or the Lord of Galloway, let alone the King of Scots if he should attend the celebration at Threave.
She turned to watch Gilly and Gawkus, who had returned to the central area to do a turn in which Gilly pretended to be Gawkus’s shadow. Whatever the tall man did, the short one imitated, and the pair of them soon had the audience roaring with laughter. She had not seen them do the sketch before, so clearly, Hugh was right and they would do as they pleased and say what they pleased.
She enjoyed their antics, but as she watched them, she was strongly aware of Hugh standing near her. Others in the company milled about as they waited to take their turns in the clearing, but Hugh stayed right beside her.
Tumblers and jugglers dashed in to take the fools’ places, and painted clubs and balls flew into the air and from juggler to juggler.
“You did not answer my question,” Jenny said quietly to Hugh when she was sure that no one else would hear. “Do you know the Sheriff of Dumfries?”
Hugh had been expecting her to ask the question again, but the Joculator had moved away, and he had no reason to avoid answering now.
“I do know Sheriff Maxwell,” he said keeping his voice low. “That is, I have met him and he knows me by name. It has been two or three years since we met.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Do you think he recognized you last night?”
“I took care to give him only glimpses of my face, and the plume waving from my cap should have made it hard for him to get a good look. I don’t mind admitting, though, that I was wishing I wore whiteface as the fools do to perform.”
She chuckled. “I can just imagine you in an eared cap with its bells tinkling accompaniment to our songs, sir.”
He found himself wishing she would laugh more often but quickly reined in his fancies. He would do better to think of a way to persuade her to go home.
Their luck so far had been extraordinary. The company accepted her as simple, bonnie Jenny. But surely, people from Easdale must visit Dumfries. It was just a matter of time before someone from home saw and recognized her.
For that matter, it was only a matter of time before someone in Dumfries recognized him. The Joculator’s damnable play would make that even more likely.
Following that thought, Hugh wondered if the Joculator might suspect him of being more than a simple troubadour. The man had given no such indication, but having seen more than one conversation break off at his approach over the past day and a half, Hugh was beginning to suspect the minstrels of playing an even deeper game than he and Jenny were. Whether it involved jewels, Threave Castle, or something else altogether, he had nary a clue.
Tuesday passed as Monday had, although their performance Tuesday night produced more daring tricks from the tumblers, more audacious songs from the musicians; and the Joculator thrilled them all by juggling torches with his daggers.
Jenny had taught the children a merry round and encouraged the audience to sing it with them. And “The Troubadour’s Wife” began with a fanfare of horns and a humorous introduction of the play and the players by the Joculator.
The audience received the opening act with cheers and applause, whereupon the Joculator announced that the play would continue on the morrow.
“Our players will repeat the first act again then, so that any who have not seen it can do so then. So invite your neighbors and friends to join ye,” he cried as the fools and gleewomen passed hats and long-handled collection baskets so members of the audience could show their appreciation with their contributions.
As the minstrels gathered their gear, Jenny adjusted the strings of her cloak and stowed her lute in its case, keeping an eye on Gilly and Gawkus, who continued their antics as they cajoled yet more coins from the dispersing townsfolk.
When a hand touched her shoulder, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“You should not have let me get so near unbeknownst, lass,” Hugh said, eyeing her sternly and forgetting for once to keep his voice low. “In a crowd like this one, nearly anything could happen.”
“I was woolgathering,” she admitted, annoyed with herself. Even so, she did not want him thinking he had any right to scold her. “I doubt that anyone would try to molest me here, amidst so many of our company.”
“Don’t be daft,” he said. “A strong man could easily clap a hand across your mouth and snatch you into the bushes or into the next street without anyone’s being the wiser because the crowd would conceal his movements. Sakes, any member of the company could do it by making it seem part of an act.”
“Now you are being daft,” she said. “I need only scre—”
His hand stopped the word and any other sound beyond a squeak as he scooped her into his arms and strode through the crowd, away from the minstrels. She kicked and struggled, but those who saw her only laughed or cheered him on.
To her shock, Hugh nodded and grinned as he carried her into the woods, plunging them into what seemed to be pitch blackness.
There was no moon, and if he followed a path, she could not discern it. But he seemed to know where he was going. As strong as he was, she wondered if he meant to carry her all the way to Annan House.
Hugh strode through the woods with his burden and enjoyed knowing that he had truly startled her for once— and doubtless infuriated her as well. He knew he’d have to take care when he set her down not to let her draw her damnable dagger.
Not that he feared it, but neither did he think it would do her good to learn how little protection it offered her. The confidence that carrying it gave her, aided by her natural habit of command, would serve her well in a crisis—he hoped.
“Don’t set up a screech when I set you down,” he said. “I know you’re angry, and I don’t doubt that you have much to say to me. But I have no evil intent other than to prove to you that I mean what I say and know more about danger than you do. Can I trust you to keep a still tongue if I set you down?”
His night vision was excellent, and her face was as expressive as ever. When she nodded, he took his hand from her mouth and set her on her feet, whereupon she raised a swift hand to strike. He had expected it, though, and caught her wrist easily.
When she tried to jerk it free, he held it, saying, “You would do better to control your temper, lass.”
“You asked only if you could trust me not to screech,” she said.
He grinned. “Aye, that’s true. Nevertheless, you should think before you act. My father raised me as a gentleman, and knighthood adds responsibilities of a similar sort. But before you strike anyone, you should consider whether he or she might strike back. And I’ll tell you now,” he added, still firmly grasping her wrist. “If you try to lay hand to that wee dagger of yours, I’ll put you straight across my knee and not spare a thought for your screeching.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“I think you ken fine that I would,” he said. “Moreover, I’ll let you tell any tale you like to anyone who tries to come to your aid. Now, will you behave?”
She hesitated, glowering, then looked pointedly at his hand on her wrist.
He relaxed his grip a little but did not let go.