A Play of Knaves

by Margaret Frazer

  On a little choked laugh, Rose stepped back from Basset’s hold. He did not fully let her go, held to one of her arms to keep her near him, and asked, “Should we, Rose? Or should we stay right away and be-damn them?”

  Rose lifted her chin. Dry-eyed and firm, she said, “There’s never a time not to play if someone wants it and is willing to pay.”

  “Don’t go saying my own words back to me,” Basset complained, trying to make light of it.

  Rose smiled. “You’ve no one to blame but yourself if I do. No, I won’t have more made of it than I already have, and it’s been foolish of me to make so much. Of course you’ll play for them tonight. It’s not our place to feud with our betters.”

  “‘Betters,’” Gil muttered. “Not nearly.”

  Joliffe wondered if there had been more that Gil had seen and Rose was not telling, but aloud he only said lightly, “What if we do Susanna and the Elders? That would suit.” The biblical story of a woman refusing her favors to two men who then accused her of unchastity, wanting her dead but earning their own deaths instead.

  “Joliffe!” Rose protested, while Basset said dryly, “We’ll give them Robin and Marian, just like we did the Ashewells. Then no one can claim we gave one family a better play than we gave the other, and we’ll not be sucked into whatever contentions there are between them.”

  Besides that, thought Joliffe, there would be particular pleasure in making, in front of Medcote, the Evil Sheriff “pay with his life” for laying hands on Marian.

  Chapter 5

  With thought that they would be paid at least with supper for their work, the players ate lightly before setting off to walk the mile or so to Medcote’s manor. Because Medcote had told Rose the way, they were spared the need to go by way of the village to ask it, meaning they were spared, too, the risk of encountering Father Hewgo—no small matter to Joliffe’s mind. The only part that probably none of them liked was leaving Rose behind alone. It was no one’s place but Basset’s to say so, though. Or else Rose’s. Joliffe pretended not to see Basset in close talk with her not long before they left, but Ellis watched openly and scowled fiercely when Rose shook her head against whatever Basset was saying.

  Ellis knew better than to say anything for her to hear, but he was still scowling when they left her, and as soon as they were far enough along the lane, going opposite the way to the Ashewells, he demanded angrily of Basset, “Should we be leaving her there?”

  More calmly than Joliffe suspicioned he felt, Basset said, “As Rose said when I asked her, someone should stay with the cart and Tisbe and all, and who is there but her to do it?”

  Ellis growled something unclearly under his breath.

  “She also said she would keep the iron skillet to hand while we were gone,” Basset added. “Besides, Medcote will be right where we are.”

  “And if he isn’t,” Joliffe said, “we’ll be back to Rose so fast the dust won’t have settled behind us before we’re there.”

  Ellis growled again, plainly not satisfied, then said, “Medcote and his son. I didn’t like the look of either of them.”

  “Yes,” Joliffe said thoughtfully. “The son was the better looking of the two, wasn’t he? And younger. He might not have the trouble his father did . . .”

  He sidestepped well beyond Ellis’ reach even before Ellis started to clout at his head. Basset, with much the same sharp impatience he would have used at Piers, said, “Stop it. The both of you. And you more than Ellis, Joliffe.”

  Joliffe hung his head in pretended penance and scuffed his feet along the road like Piers in a sulk. That brought the grins he had wanted from at least Gil and Piers, but Ellis muttered something fortunately not clearly heard and stalked onward, saying nothing else the rest of their way.

  Where the lane crossed another, wider lane between fields, they turned left, toward the Downs, the lane soon beginning to rise with the first lift of the valley toward hills. Sight of the White Horse came and went between hedges until the land briefly leveled below its hill and they came to the wide highroad that ran east to west along the valley’s length and beyond, set between the Vale and the steep rise of the Downs. Joliffe’s guess was that, although the Horse was ages old, the road must have been there even longer, with the Horse made to be seen by travelers passing by.

  Going left where the lane met the road would have taken them into Ashewell village from another side than they had come yesterday, but they turned right and soon came to a gateway that, if they had been told rightly, must be Medcote’s. A man slouched against one gatepost watching them approach straightened and stepped into their way as they neared him, asking, “You’re the players?”

  For all the welcome he put in that, he might have been asking if they were the dung cart.

  Basset, too used to the many ways players could be greeted, smiled, swept off his hat, and bowed lower than the man surely deserved. “We are, good sir, and ask your leave to enter.”

  The man frowned. By his good doublet, he was more than merely a servant here but apparently was as unused to receiving courtesy as giving it. “Come in then,” he said and walked off toward the hall at one end of the yard beyond the gate, saying over his shoulder as he went, “They’re somewhat overheated in the hall tonight. Whatever you’re going to play, it had best be good.”

  “We’re Lord Lovell’s players,” Basset said, weighting the words enough to make them both a sufficient answer and reminder that courtesy for courtesy was therefore called for. As he had said often enough to the company, even in the straitened years before becoming Lord Lovell’s men, “No one is going to value us at our own worth unless we let them understand we have some worth.”

  In one of his black humours Ellis had challenged, “Even if we have none?” And Basset had fixed a mocking gaze on him and answered back, “We’re going to be looked down on steeply enough by most folk without we make it worse by believing them. We can at least seem to have worth. If we seem it well enough, they’ll believe it and then we will have worth.” Then he had grinned and added, “If nothing else, there’s small use in letting them get away with counting us less than need be if we can fool them to otherwise.”

  And now they were Lord Lovell’s men and so had their lord’s worth to uphold as well as their own, and Basset lengthened his stride to fall into step beside the man as they crossed the yard, rather than letting him lead them all like a shepherd with a flock of idiot sheep. A little less friendly, beginning to go lofty on the man, he asked, “And you, sir, are . . . ?”

  That seemed to take the fellow by surprise. He hesitated, looking as if he were about to settle for merely glowering, then gave way and admitted, “Lynche. I’m steward here.”

  And if the rest of the household was as down-faced and unfriendly, playing for them would have all the pleasure of pulling one’s own teeth, Joliffe thought.

  From an even greater height of dignity than before, Basset said, “Before we play, we need somewhere to put on our garb and somewhere to leave our goods safely.”

  The man eyed him sideways with a look that suggested they were getting no such things if he could help it. Basset eyed him right back.

  Joliffe, for his part, was eyeing what he could see of Medcote’s manor. It was older than Ashewell’s and somewhat larger, its house and its hall of middle size and built of gray stone with blue slate roofs. The rest of the buildings around the yard were of timber and wattle and plastered daub, with here and there a need of new plastering and the thatch gone gray with age, but all and all a place not so much ill-kept as simply old and maybe beginning to sink under the heavy weight of its own years.

  Lynche’s heaviness was weighing, too, Joliffe thought. The man had brought them, grudgingly, to a little square yard cramped between the end of the hall and the kitchen building with a penticed walkway between the two. Already deeply in shadow between the buildings, it was an unwelcoming place, meant for passage and nothing else. A youth, who by his looks was near kin to the steward, was just passi
ng from the hall toward the kitchen, carrying a large, covered platter. Lynche asked him, “They’re nigh to finished, then?”

  The youth scowled at the players while answering, “They are. Just the custard tart and fruit left.”

  With a nod at the yard, Lynche said at Basset, “You’d best be quick about it, then.”

  “Here,” Basset said flatly, stating, not questioning.

  “Here,” Lynche agreed.

  “And our hamper while we play?”

  “You’ll have to take it in with you, won’t you?”

  The man’s stare challenged Basset to protest that. Basset gave him a grim little smile in agreement. “If you’ll leave us, we’ll make ready.”

  The youth went on to the kitchen, and Lynche paced away to stand next to the side door to the hall, making it plain he meant to go no farther, as if there might be something in the bare little yard for the players to steal.

  Refusing to show themselves in the least bothered, they set to changing, but as they gathered around the hamper for Piers to hand out their garb to each of them, Basset said low-voiced to Joliffe, “You have him?”

  “I have him,” Joliffe answered.

  Piers smothered a small laugh.

  Ellis, more grim by the moment, said, “Just the play, nothing else, right?”

  “Just the play,” Basset said. “Besides all else, I’m thinking we’ll be fortunate to be tossed a farthing when we’re done. Not if it’s master-like-man here.”

  “Supper isn’t likely either, is it?” Gil said regretfully.

  No one bothered to agree, all of them being too sure he was right. He had been with them long enough now to know the feel of a place and judge how welcome or unwelcome they were going to be. Not that this place was that hard to read, with Lynche glowering at them from the doorway.

  Willing to oblige him by being finished and gone as soon as might be, they wasted no time in changing. That done, Basset and Ellis picked up the hamper and Basset nodded to Joliffe. Joliffe nodded back, swung around, and led them in small procession toward the steward. He eyed them with no more favor than he had before, turned away, and led them inside without a word.

  The hall was much like Ashewell’s for size but altogether a darker place, with smaller windows and the thickness of the stone walls lessening the setting sunlight. Candles were already lit and set along the table at the hall’s far end, but the tables that ranged down both sides were in gray shadows. It was only by good luck that where the players would play in the hall’s middle was still in a final shaft of sunlight. It would be gone before they finished, but that was beyond their help and all the more reason to make quick work of everything, Joliffe thought as he followed the steward a few yards into the hall, stopped, and took his arrogant stand as the Sheriff. Behind him, Gil and Piers would be taking their stands, too, and Basset and Ellis be setting down the hamper against the wall beside the doorway before joining them.

  Not needing to see what they were doing, Joliffe looked up the hall’s length instead, to the two men and two women behind the high table. John Medcote and his son, Hal, with the older woman likely Medcote’s wife, the younger probably Hal’s, since she was wimpled and veiled like the older woman, showing she was married. He wondered where this daughter meant for Nicholas Ashewell was, but had no time to look for her elsewhere in the hall because the steward, as grudgingly as if every word were costing him money, was declaring for everyone there to hear, “The players.”

  His unpleasant duty done, he stalked to the aside. Joliffe strode forward to where he had been, and there were small snorts of laughter among the household at the tables along either side. At the high table, Hal laughed aloud and the younger woman put a quick hand over her mouth to smother her own laughter. Medcote cast them a frowning look, not seeing the jest, but Joliffe was satisfied. Enough of the lookers-on had caught his unerring match of the steward’s stiff-legged, self-satisfied stride that for the next few days there would be laughter behind the man’s back every time someone saw him.

  It was a small revenge, but a small revenge was better than none. Joliffe only wished he could do as much for Medcote.

  Then he had no time for thought of anything but surviving the play, because as soon as Ellis began his first speech to Gil, Joliffe knew they were in trouble. Ellis always and rightly played Robin boldly and fought the Evil Sheriff fiercely. Tonight, though, he was fierce from the beginning. That was warning he was forgetting to be Robin, was staying Ellis, and was still furious at the Medcotes. Forewarned, Joliffe was still almost not ready enough when the fight between Robin and the Evil Sheriff came, and Ellis came at him with a fury just short of uncontrolled. Every stroke and guard and move of the fight was planned, meant to be the same every time they played it, and Ellis did at least keep to the pattern, but his sword-blows were delivered with a force that had Joliffe really defending against them. He was worried, too, for Basset and Gil when Robin spun around and thrust for the kill to save Marian from the Sheriff’s Henchman. Done wrongly, there could be injury, but Joliffe had no time to know how it went as Ellis spun back on him to finish their fight. He was merely grateful the “killing blow” went under his arm as it should and he could cry out, stagger, fall down, and be done with it.

  His death was met with cheers and the last speeches between Ellis and Marian were followed by welcome table-pounding and hand-clapping from the lookers-on. Basset and Joliffe rose from the dead to take their bows with Ellis, Gil, and Piers, before they all went out together, “Robin” and “Marian” hand in hand, Basset and Joliffe picking up the hamper, Piers coming last, throwing himself into a series of backward somersaults and ending with walking out of the hall on his hands, feet in the air, to more clapping.

  Lynche did not follow them out, probably supposing that now they knew which corner of the yard was “theirs” and he need waste no more time on them. That left Basset free to turn on Ellis as soon as they were into the yard and alone and say furiously, “What were you doing in there? You carried on as if you’d never been in a set-fight before. It’s none of us you’re angry at!”

  Determinedly busy ridding himself of Robin’s garb and looking at none of them, Ellis muttered, “It was seeing them. The Medcotes. Sitting there. After what they tried.”

  “That should have made no difference to your playing, and you well know it!” Basset poked him in the upper arm with a stiff forefinger. “Whatever we’re—any of us—feeling or thinking about our own lives, it stops when once we start to play. Once we start to play, the play is where you are and nowhere else until it’s over. You do not take out on us what you want to take out on someone else. Now tell Joliffe you’re sorry.”

  Joliffe readily supposed that Ellis would rather have been beaten with a stick—a large stick—than apologize, but Basset had not offered him that choice, and grudgingly, still not looking at anyone, Ellis muttered, “I’m sorry, Joliffe.”

  Joliffe, knowing now was not the time to make any scoffs, muttered back that it had ended well so no matter.

  “Heads up,” said Gil in quiet warning from the far side of the hamper where he was folding their garb and putting it away.

  Joliffe looked aside to where the two women who had been at the high table were just coming from the hall into the yard. Seeing them more closely, he shifted his guess about them. Though the younger was the taller by half a head and more sturdily built, there was enough the same in their sharp-boned faces for them to be mother and daughter; and indeed the older woman said as the players straightened from their low bows, “I’m Anela Medcote. This is my daughter, Eleanor. We’ve come with our thanks and payment for your playing.”

  She held out her hand toward Basset, who stepped quickly toward her to take the several coins she gave him, bowing to her again and saying, “It’s worth the more, coming from your fair hand.”

  Anela Medcote gave him a sharp look. Her daughter said with equal sharpness but a hint of laughter under the words, “Certainly better than having it from
Lynche’s hand.” She had been looking among the players and now said at Joliffe, “You must have been the Sheriff. I’d be well away from here before someone tells Lynche you mocked him.”

  “Mocked him, my lady?” Joliffe said, raising his eyebrows in innocence and surprise. “Whoever might think that surely mistakes.”

  “They surely don’t,” Hal said with smiling ease, coming into the yard behind his mother and sister. “It was plain as anything.”

  The players bowed to him, but as soon as they were done, Ellis turned away and became busy rearranging garb and properties in the hamper. For his own part, Joliffe smiled back at Hal and said, “Then I must only hope that no one tells him.”

  “Hal probably already has,” Eleanor said. “Haven’t you, Hal?”

  “I may have mentioned it on my way to protect my mother and widowed sister from the scandal of being with strange men unattended.”

  Eleanor looked both pointedly and scornfully around at the open yard, hardly the place for making scandal, with servants starting to pass back to the kitchen with the supper’s dishes, while her mother said impatiently, “Oh, Hal, don’t be a fool. Your father sent me to pay them and you know it.”

  “But here’s my young and sadly widowed sister,” Hal said. “Ready to have her head turned by such rascals, poor innocent that she is.”

  He reached out and tweaked her cheek as she tried to duck away and had to settle for slapping his hand aside, hopefully hard enough to hurt, as she snapped, “My late, unlamented husband was sufficient to put me off men a while, thank you.” She was her brother’s height and not a dainty woman and did not bother to hide that she was angry. As well she should be, Joliffe thought, seeing the red mark on her cheek where Hal had twisted it.