A Play of Knaves

by Margaret Frazer

  Ellis made a wordless, unfriendly sound at him.

  Basset said, “Leave it, Joliffe,” and then they all stood up again as the woman who must be Nan came from the kitchen with a laden tray. Basset offered to take it from her but she shook her head, saying, “Nay then, I’ll just set it down on the bench end here. Sit yourselves.”

  There were cups of ale and wooden bowls of gravy-brown pottage with meat in it—likely lamb at this time of year—and some thick slices of bread. Joliffe was immediately most interested in the food as Nan handed the bowls around, but Basset took the chance to ask, keeping his voice light, to make the question less than it might otherwise have seemed, “So, what can you tell us of Master Ashewell, who’s being so lordly good to us? How does he come to be the abbey’s reeve rather than lord of the manor himself, since he and the village bear the same name?”

  As lightly, plainly telling no secrets, Nan answered, “Ah, that’s because he’s village himself and no lord at all. His father was just plain Tod Thatcher hereabouts. But old Tod bought his boy’s freedom from the abbey and young Lionel took himself off to France as one of the duke of Bedford’s men-at-arms and made his fortune in the war there.”

  “Did he?” Basset said admiringly. “There’s been many tried that who didn’t succeed.”

  “Well, he did, right enough.” Nan sounded as proud as if she had done it herself. “They say he got the ransom of some French lord’s younger son or some such thing. Came home, bought his wife’s and their Nicholas’ freedom—Nicholas was just a little, little boy then—and would have bought old Tod’s, too, but Tod told him there were better uses for his money. Sensible man, was old Tod. So Master Ashewell bought this part of the manor from the abbey when my lady the abbess was in need of money for taxes because of the French war, and he changed his name and is a gentleman now, with his last three children all born free.”

  “And old Tod?” Basset asked.

  The woman beamed on him. “Died three winters ago in a soft bed in his own room right there across the yard, with his family all beside him.”

  The players were all eating by then, with Basset slowed from more questions by mouthfuls of stew, but Nan was in no hurry to leave them, and stood watching them eat as if men enjoying their food was a pleasure to her, and Joliffe took the chance to say, “Master Ashewell doesn’t seem to go on well with the priest here. Father . . . ?”

  He stopped on a question, as if he could not remember the priest’s name.

  “Father Hewwwwgo,” Nan obliged, mockingly rude and not at Joliffe. “There’s not many around here get on well with that pull-faced priest. John Medcote maybe comes closest to it, but then, well, that’s him for you, isn’t it?”

  Joliffe did not know if that was John Medcote or not, but while he tried to find a way to ask more that way, Basset asked, “Who else was at table with Master Ashewell tonight? His wife, surely, but there was another couple, too.”

  “That’s the Gosyns. Walter and Geretruda. The Ashewells and they have all known each other since forever.”

  “Did Master Gosyn make his fortune in the French war, too?” Joliffe asked.

  “No. He kept to home and took up his father’s holding. Nor he’s not ‘Master’ Gosyn, just plain Walter Gosyn, though there’s those say he’s done well enough adding lands to what he had that he has money enough to buy himself and his wife and their girl all free if he wanted to. There’s some say, too, that the abbess will soon make him do it whether he wants it or not, because then he’d have to lease his land from her, and his rents would likely bring her more than his villein service does.” Nan smiled widely. “There’s been some going-round with my lady abbess’ bailiff and steward over that, I’ve heard.”

  The players all grinned back at her around mouthfuls of stew and bread or over the rims of cups; there was always a backhanded comfort for those holding no land at all to hear the troubles of those who did.

  In the yard in front of the hall a busyness of people leaving the hall had started while they talked, and Nan said now, “That will be the Gosyns leaving to be home while there’s still light. It’s but a mile but that Geretruda doesn’t walk so fast now she’s been ailing.” The sun, just touching the horizon, would go from sight fast now, but the afterlight would linger long in the clear sky. Nan, watching who was in the yard, chuckled. “The walk will do Gosyn, good, though. He’s fattening up a bit with his easy living, he is.”

  Joliffe had had no chance for a clear look at anyone in the hall and so took the one he had now as the Gosyns and Ashewells briefly stood in talk in the yard. As Nan had said, Gosyn was a stout-set man, but the woman leaning on his arm was thin as if she was indeed ailing. She was laughing, though, at something being said between Gosyn and Master Ashewell, and as they all began to stroll toward the bridge she looked as if she held to her husband more from affection than need. Nicholas and several other children of various heights were grouped around Master and Mistress Ashewell, while a girl much about Nicholas’ age went with the Gosyns as they left, all of them waving to the Ashewells as they crossed the bridge, and the Ashewells waving back.

  With that much friendliness between the families, and a son and daughter on either side of much the same age, Joliffe was willing to guess that Lionel Ashewell and Walter Gosyn were thinking of a marriage there.

  That surely couldn’t be where the trouble was rooted that had the abbess’ bailiff worried.

  Could it?

  Joliffe would have led Nan’s talk that way, but two serving men came from the hall’s kitchenward door, and Nan said, as she began to take the players’ empty bowls and cups and stack them on the tray, “Here comes the rest of what’s yours,” and Joliffe saw the men were each carrying a wooden platter stacked with the bread-made trenchers that had served in place of plates for most of those dining in the hall. Such trenchers soaked up the meal’s gravies and sauces and made good eating in their turn. In towns they were often given to the poor and beggars who would wait at house-doors to have them. Here in the country if there were no poor to hand they could go to fatten pigs. Or, this time, to fatten players, and Joliffe for his own part had no complaint about that at all.

  Taking the tray, Nan said, “I’ll see to it being wrapped up properly for you to carry away,” and followed the men into the kitchen.

  “No money?” Ellis complained, too low for anyone beyond themselves to hear.

  “We’re eating well. Content thy soul in patience,” Joliffe suggested.

  “I’ll content you,” Ellis said back.

  “Food for the stomach will serve as well as coins for the purse just now,” Basset said peaceably.

  “Food and good talk,” Joliffe added.

  “You and your talk,” Ellis muttered; but Titha came out with the trenchers bundled in a waxed cloth, and he straightened back into being Robin Hood, standing up to take the bundle from her.

  The rest of them stood up, too, and it was to Basset that she said, “Nan says she’ll not mind having the cloth back.”

  “Then she most assuredly will, though I must needs crawl on my knees to do so,” Basset said with a bow.

  Titha laughed at him, but her smile went back to Ellis, and when the rest of them started toward the gateway, he lingered in talk with her. He did not overtake them until they were over the bridge, when not even Joliffe said anything at him about it even though they all knew what that lingering probably meant. They all lived too much together not to know each other’s ways, and although there were men who could deny or curb their needs, Ellis was not among them. For him a willing woman was a woman he was willing to have. He would have been otherwise if Rose had been more fully his, Joliffe thought; but Rose was not, and things being as they were, neither Joliffe nor any of them were surprised that when they were about to turn into the lane that let toward their camp, Ellis thrust the bundle of trenchers at Joliffe and said, “Take these. I’m going to tarry here a while.”

  Twilight’s shadows were already thick here between
the hedges, hiding their faces. It was by Ellis’ taut voice that Joliffe knew he was being dared to say something, anything, in answer. So he did not, just took the bundle and turned away. The others were equally silent, nor could Ellis have seen their faces any better than they saw his: it had to be from their silence and the way they turned from him that he felt their reproof. Or maybe the reproof inside himself was enough. Either way, he said angrily, “It’s my business. You can just leave me to go about it.”

  Not looking around, Joliffe said, “We are leaving you, Ellis. See? We’re walking away. So it must not be us you’re angry at.”

  Briefly and clearly, Ellis wished him to go to hell.

  Joliffe waved backward over his shoulder at him and kept going.

  By the time they turned from the lane into Grescumb Field, most of the last light was drained from the sky, the twilight deepened enough into dark that the red leap of small flames in the firepit was welcoming. But as they neared it, Rose came from beyond the cart and in the flickering light Joliffe saw the small, quick shift of her head as she sought for Ellis and did not find him. She said nothing about that, though; instead held out an arm for Piers to come to her and asked, “How went it?”

  “We played well and were well-received,” Basset said, his hands out to the fire’s warmth. With the sun gone, April’s too-usual night chill was quickly asserting itself.

  Pressed against his mother’s side, held close by her arm around his shoulders, Piers declared, “They did well enough, but I was great!”

  Quellingly, Joliffe said, “You were no worse than usual,” and held up the bundle. “Here are the bread trenchers from supper. A kitchen-tribute to our skill.”

  “They’ll be our breakfast,” Rose said. “Put them in the kitchen box, will you?” While Joliffe did, she added to Piers, “Bed for you now. Nor will it hurt you either, Gil, to be off your ankle.”

  Gil at least was past the age to be told his bedtime, but both he and Piers went so readily that Joliffe suspected they were looking on it as escape, as if maybe afraid Ellis’ guilt would somehow rub off on them and they wanted to be away before they suffered for it.

  Joliffe was half-minded to escape, too, but that would leave only Basset, and after putting the bundle of trenchers in the kitchen box, he hunched down on his heels beside the fire next to Basset, who was still standing with his hands out to the warmth. Joliffe put his hands toward it, too, watching the flames rather than looking up at Rose standing on the fire’s other side, her arms now wrapped around herself. The silence among them might have been comfortable but it was not, only better than Rose asking in a small, tight voice when all had been quiet in the tent for a while, “Where’s Ellis?”

  Joliffe very carefully went on looking at the fire. He had conscience enough not to desert Basset but left it to him to say, after a fatal pause, “He stayed behind. He needed to—” Knowing whatever he said was going to be painful or a lie, he paused, then settled for feeble and said, “—to talk with someone.”

  “With a woman,” Rose said bitterly. “Nor is it talking they’re doing.”

  Joliffe knew as well as Basset did that she had not needed to ask where Ellis was. She’d known. What she had needed was to say that aloud, even if saying it did not lessen the pain. That the pain was familiar did nothing to lessen it either, and Basset, in useless urge to ease her hurt, said a little desperately, “You know him. You know how it is. You know . . .”

  “I know why he does it,” she snapped, maybe as angry at her hurt as she was at Ellis, Joliffe thought. “What I don’t understand is why he has to. You never do. Why must he?”

  Basset held off his answer for a long moment before finally saying carefully, “Rose, I had your mother’s love and whole heart, and she had mine. After that, to have less isn’t bearable. If I could find the same—no, there’ll never be the same, but if I found something like to it—that would be different. But to settle for less . . . no.”

  “Then tell me, why is Ellis able to make do with less?” Rose demanded.

  Basset hesitated again. Seeming to be looking only at the fire, Joliffe was watching them both, sorry for their mutual pain, unable to help. And finally Basset answered gently, “Rose, it’s different with every man, surely, but I think with Ellis it comes down to he’s able to make do with less because he’s never had a whole heart and a full love given to him.”

  “I can’t give him more than I do!” Rose cried softly, mindful of Piers and Gil too nearby in the tent but angry with her pain. “I shouldn’t give him even what I do. We shouldn’t even have what we have! But I do love him. With my whole heart I love him. But I can’t . . . we shouldn’t . . .” She broke off, choking on tears she did not mean to shed.

  Quickly, trying for comfort, Basset said, “I know. Ellis knows. It’s just that sometimes . . . sometimes knowing isn’t enough.”

  “No,” Rose agreed sharply and suddenly her tears seemed gone a deadly distance away. “Sometimes knowing is not enough. Not for me any more than for Ellis. Which might be something he’d better start to think on if he doesn’t want to lose me altogether. Now you’d both do well to go to bed. No, I’ll see to the fire,” she added at Joliffe as he moved to bank it for the night. “Just go.”

  Willing to escape, Joliffe stood up quickly and started away with Basset, then turned back and said with attempted lightness, “If it helps, Rose, just think that it’s a lack of wits with Ellis rather than a lack of love.”

  From where she was laying turf onto the coals, Rose snapped back at him, “You’ve no place to talk. You do as much as he does when you have the chance, meaning you must lack wits, too.”

  “Ah, there’s a difference,” Joliffe returned. “I have no one woman all my own to love the way he does, do I?”

  “True,” Rose granted tartly. She lifted her head, her face mostly in shadow but with enough upward cast of low red light from the dying fire for him to see her bitter smile. “God in his mercy has spared some poor woman that misery.”

  Joliffe clutched a hand over his heart as if she had given him a hard blow there, said lightly, “Well struck, my lady. Well struck,” and ducked to safety in the tent.

  Chapter 4

  The morning was cool, with mist writhed thickly along the stream and thinly across the meadow, so that both the fire—roused from its banked coals into flames again—and the hearty breakfast of last night’s trenchers were welcome. More welcome than Ellis was, that was sure.

  He had come back sometime in the night. His settling into his blankets had disturbed Joliffe’s sleep only a little, and if anyone else awoke, they had said no more to him than Joliffe did. The trouble was that this morning there was still no one speaking to him. It wasn’t anger on the men’s part, merely wariness. None of them wanted to find himself between Ellis and whatever anger Rose had stored against him.

  That Ellis brought a defiant strut to the morning did not help. Nor did Joliffe by saying aside to Basset, just loud enough for both Ellis and Gil to hear, “Being cock of the walk doesn’t keep the cockerel out of the stew pot when the time comes.”

  That earned him a glare from both Ellis and Basset, while Gil had to turn laughter into a choking cough that brought him a sharp look from Rose as if maybe considering him for a dose of hot honey water. But she kept to her stiff silence as she saw to her morning work with no look at all—so far as Joliffe saw—at Ellis, who in his turn seemed in no hurry to have her “see” him.

  They all knew she could keep in that silence for hours, and if everyone was fortunate, she would, for her own sake as well as Ellis’, Joliffe thought, because better cold silence than hot words that could not be taken back when the anger was gone.

  It was while they were gathered about the fire, taking turns at toasting their shares of the trenchers and passing around the leather bottle of ale, that Ellis broke under the strain of her silence and said somewhat too loudly and too near defiantly, “I learned a few things last night.”

  Hard though it
was, Joliffe held back from saying, She must have been good; I thought you knew it all.

  Ellis, oblivious, went on, “I found out there’s bad blood between the Ashewells and the Medcotes. Bad blood as in murder.”

  That got him looked at by everyone save Rose, who went on tending to the trencher presently toasting as if he had said nothing at all.

  A little lessened by that, Ellis said, “Or a chance-death anyway. Not outright murder, like. Young Nicholas Ashewell killed the cousin of Medcote’s wife a few years back, when he was nine years old or thereabouts.”

  “When Nicholas was nine years old?” Basset asked. “That’s young to have been killing someone.”

  “Seems he was out birding with a small crossbow, bird-shooting along the stream here, the way boys do. This cousin happened by, just riding the bounds of his land that meet up with Ashewell’s not far off, and took a birding-bolt just under one collarbone.”

  “That was a killing wound?” Joliffe said. “From a birding-bolt?”

  “He didn’t die right off. Seems he must have been bleeding inwardly, though. He died of a sudden a few days later, just when it was thought he was on the mend.”

  “It would have been manslaughter more than murder,” Basset said. “And Nicholas was over-young to be tried, yes? He must have got his pardon,” it being usual for a child who killed someone to be arrested but afterward to have the king’s pardon, being below the years of discretion when a person could be held to account for their acts. Unless deliberate malice could be proven, of course.

  “He was pardoned surely and no trouble about it,” Ellis said. “He ran for help as soon as he saw what he’d done. No one thought there was intent about it. Hasn’t made for friendlihood between the Ashewells and Medcotes, though.” Ellis gave a short snort. “Should have, you’d think. It was by way of the cousin dying that Medcote’s wife inherited the manor here, being the nearest heir. Before then, Medcote kept a butchering place in Wantage. Had no land at all. Now he holds a manor. Not that he and his are much liked. There’s those that still call him Butcher John behind his back.”