A Play of Knaves

by Margaret Frazer

  In the stillness after it, Joliffe became aware of the pot’s weight at the end of his arm and went on, carrying not only the pot but the thought of how the lark’s flight was like so much of life. No matter to what heights of joy and beauty a man might go, in the end there was, always and inevitably, the return to earth. Still, he added to balance that somewhat heavy thought, it was surely better to live, however briefly, in joy and beauty than never to have them at all.

  And, he added cheeringly, to live in a constant exaltation like the lark’s would surely be wearying.

  He wondered if he was sickening for something, the way his mind was throwing thoughts around. Ellis would probably say he was just sickening, and that run of his thought had him smiling as he set the filled pot over the fire and said to Rose, “Thanks for the goodly breakfast. You’ve a fine hand with currants and honey.”

  “And you’ve a fine tongue in your head,” she said back. “Best you go put it to work instead of flattery.” But she met his smile with her own, understanding his thanks without his having said them.

  She had warned truly, though, that Basset meant to work them today. With breakfast and all else seen to and done, he gathered them all to him and said, calm as if it were nothing, “Now, about tomorrow’s play. I’ve thought we could made good use of some of what we did at Minster Lovell.”

  That brought united groans from all the players, not just Joliffe, even before Ellis asked, “What do you mean by ‘some of what we did’?”

  With all the blandness of knowing how unwelcomed his words were going to be, Basset said, “I’ve thought we could start with Christ Against the Money-changers and go right through to the Resurrection, but leaving out the Crucifixion , it being so hard to do, and . . .”

  “Leaving it out?” Joliffe said with sudden suspicion. “And do what in place of it?”

  “Why, have you write a speech to bridge the gap,” Basset said brightly.

  “By tomorrow?” Joliffe protested.

  “Before tomorrow. To give whoever has it . . .”

  “Not me,” Ellis muttered.

  “. . . time to learn it.”

  “I’ll do it!” Piers offered readily.

  Too readily. His grandfather fixed him with a look and said, “I think whatever Joliffe writes will need more weight than you can give it.”

  “Fledgling,” Ellis said, leaning sideways to give Piers a shoulder-to-shoulder shove. Piers shoved back, then remembered he was still angry at Ellis for his mother’s sake, and moved to the other side of Gil.

  Ignoring all of that, Basset went on, “So, Joliffe will write us a speech to begin it all. Then we’ll do Christ Against the Money-changers, Judas’ Betrayal, Last Supper, not the Crucifixion , not the Harrowing of Hell, then the Resurrection, and we’re done. That’s none so bad, is it?”

  A general chorus of “Yes!” answered him. Basset beamed on them as if they had shouted approval and said, “There now. This will be to the good for us all. You don’t want all that to slip out of mind through not being used. If nothing else, think of what a hit in the eye it will be for Father Hewgo. Holiness from us instead of profanation. So, to work! We’ll do a light run through it, then give Joliffe time to write what speeches we’ll need, and do it again.”

  “Mad,” Ellis muttered. “Utterly mad.” But he was getting to his feet with the rest of them. They had survived so long as a company because Basset’s instinct was sure for what to play in whatever place they found themselves—and because, however much they grumbled, his company trusted him. Besides that, in this particular matter he was right: It would be to the good to keep these new plays fixed in their minds.

  But what a pity it was, Joliffe thought with an inward grin, that no matter what noble-minded plays he did and wrote, he never seemed to grow more noble-minded in himself and above such petty desires as giving Father Hewgo a hit in the eye.

  Chapter 7

  Rough-running their lines while moving some-what at speed through the plays to find out how much they remembered and how much they had forgotten in the week and less since they had performed them, they were as far as the Last Supper when Joliffe said, low-voiced, “Don’t anyone look, but we’re being watched from the woods.”

  Without looking, Basset said, “Three of them. Ashewell’s younglings, I think. One of them is Tom that we met. They came while you were Judasing with the high priests.”

  “Shall I run them off?” Gil offered.

  “It’s their field more than ours,” Basset said easily. “Their woods and stream, too, come to that. No, let them stay. There’s no harm in it.”

  Aware of them now, Joliffe found himself lifting both his voice and the pace of his playing for the sake of the children. Not that it mattered that he did. The other players were doing the same, as unable as he was to resist any audience, however small. Despite the slips and pauses and startings again that came with rehearsing plays gone slightly out of mind, they had soon finished resurrecting Christ and, taking a rest before beginning again, were gathered to the water bucket for a drink, when Ellis said, “Heads up. We’ve more visitors.”

  Nicholas Ashewell and Gosyn’s girl, seen briefly at the Ashewells’ the other night, were walking through the gateway. Joliffe caught a sudden small flurry of branches from the edge of the trees, making him guess their watchers there were retreating, and he wondered where they were supposed to be instead of here as Basset went to meet Nicholas and the girl, bowing to them and welcoming them, bringing them onward to the fire where the other players likewise bowed and Rose smoothed her apron and curtsied.

  The girl looked about the camp with interest. Nicholas, trying to be less openly curious, gave Basset a stoppered leather bottle, saying, “It’s cider. My mother thought you’d like it.”

  “Your mother is a kind and thoughtful lady. Please give her our thanks,” Basset answered.

  “She also asks if you’ve seen Nicholas’ younger brother and sisters,” the girl said.

  “Until a few moments ago, they were secretly watching us from the woods,” Basset said. Nicholas immediately looked that way, and Basset added, “But I somewhat think they’ve gone now.”

  “They sport along the stream like otters,” the girl laughed. “Never fear, Nicholas. They’ll come home wet and dirty and in time for dinner.”

  With a frown weighted heavily with duty rather than any anger, Nicholas said, “It makes for trouble when they come home wet and dirty.”

  “But not trouble for you,” the girl reminded him kindly. “Let be.”

  He smiled at her a little shamefacedly, as if she often had to remind him of that, and Rose said, “If it please you and you care to join us, there’s spice cake just done.”

  Nicholas seemed about to refuse, but the girl said happily, “That would be welcome. Thank you.” And after a bare moment’s pause Nicholas echoed her thanks but added, “We shouldn’t stay long, Claire.”

  “There’s not all that much hurry.” Claire sat down on her spread skirts beside the fire, looked around at them all, and said, “I saw you at the Ashewells’ hall the other night. We all greatly enjoyed your play.”

  Basset gave her a small bow and said, smiling, “It’s our pleasure that you were pleased.”

  They were all still standing because Nicholas still was. Claire reached up, took hold of his hand, and pulled. He hesitated, then sat down. Freed, the players all sat, too, circling the fire, except for Rose, who stood cutting squares of spice cake in the cast iron pan she had just pulled from the ashes. Putting the pieces onto a wooden cutting board, she held them out to Claire with a smile. The girl smiled back and, thanking her, took one. Nicholas took his with matching thanks and an uncertain smile, as if not sure that smiling was safe. He wasn’t unfriendly, Joliffe thought, watching him. He was merely unsure. But how unsure did you have to be to doubt that smiling was safe?

  Of course the possibility of being married into the Medcote family could well be enough to make any man—let alone young Nicholas—
feel unsure, Joliffe thought. But did Nicholas know what was being talked of between his parents and Medcote, or had they kept it secret from him, if not from their servants?

  The spice cake was warm, tasting as rich as it smelled, and Claire said to Rose, “This is wonderfully good.” Then said to Basset, “My father says you played for the Medcotes yesterday.”

  Nicholas had begun to ease a little but now stiffened again, his gaze jerking from face to face while Basset answered easily, “That we did. Medcote and his son stopped by our camp yesterday to ask us to it.”

  Looking around the field as if for damage they might have done, Nicholas demanded angrily, “They were here?”

  Seeming not to hear the anger, Basset said, still easily, “Briefly.”

  “You went to their place and played for them,” Nicholas said, not quite accusingly.

  Basset shrugged. “We had no reason not to. I doubt, though, we pleased them much. They seem to be a prickly family.”

  Claire laughed. “My father says they make a hedgehog look smooth.”

  “At least a hedgehog curls up and leaves people alone,” Nicholas said bitterly. “They never do. They’re more like hawks. They clutch what they want and never let go.”

  That was somehow thrown at Claire, who said back at him as if challenged about something, “Not me. I’m not going to marry Hal Medcote, no matter what he wants.”

  “You’re safe enough,” Nicholas returned sharply. “Medcote doesn’t want you married to Hal.”

  Joliffe, knowing he should not, asked at Nicholas, “What about you to his daughter?”

  Both Nicholas and Claire turned startled looks at him before Nicholas burst out, “How have you heard that?” And answered his own question fiercely. “They were talking of it there last night, I suppose. Gloating.”

  Paying no heed to the dark looks Ellis, Basset, and even Rose were giving him, Joliffe said, “It was servants’ talk. You know how they are.”

  That deepened Ellis’ frown at him, but Nicholas accepted he meant Medcote’s servants and shrugged angrily as Joliffe pushed further, saying, “But surely it won’t come to you marrying her if you don’t want to.”

  Instead of Nicholas, Claire answered, “That’s the trouble! Medcote claims that because Francis Brook died that . . .”

  “Claire!” Nicholas exclaimed.

  Claire clapped her free hand over her mouth and said through it, “Oh, Nicholas, I’m sorry.”

  Nicholas stood up, threw what was left of his cake into the fire, and said even more bitterly, “It’s all right. They’ve surely heard of it.”

  Scrambling to her feet, too, Claire said, “But it doesn’t matter. You didn’t do it.”

  “I did. I killed him, and nothing is going to change that and now I’m going to have to marry Eleanor Medcote to make up for it.”

  He turned harshly away and started for the gateway. Behind him Claire said hurriedly to everyone, and low so that maybe Nicholas did not hear her, “I’m sorry. He was only nine when it happened. It was only ill-chance but he . . .” She faltered, made a helpless gesture.

  By then the players were all on their feet, too, Basset saying, “We understand.”

  Claire started to turn to follow Nicholas, but Joliffe said after her, “Surely Father Hewgo could help him. Could find him a way to ease his conscience?”

  Claire turned around, walking backward and still away while answering, angry and scornful together, “Father Hewgo? He only makes everything worse whenever he’s asked for help. He’s a horrible man.” Then with belated courtesy she said with a smile to Rose, “The cake was very good. Thank you,” before she turned again, gathered her skirts, and ran to catch up to Nicholas, already disappeared into the lane.

  In the players’ momentary silence after she was gone, a green woodpecker’s yelping laugh broke out in the woods along the stream. Then Piers faced his mother and said accusingly, “You gave away our cake!”

  “Not much of it,” Rose said evenly. She smiled at her father. “I thought you’d want the chance to ask or hear things from them.”

  “As ever,” Joliffe said to her, “you’re as wise as you are fair.”

  “And you’re as ever rattling off your mouth like that rat-a-tat woodpecker,” Ellis snapped at him.

  “Which is better than what some people rattle off,” Rose shot back at him.

  Ellis’ mouth shut with a snap as Gil and Piers found somewhere else to look and Basset said hurriedly, “Can we all have another piece of your wondrous cake?”

  Making her point that it was only Ellis who had her anger, Rose smiled—albeit a somewhat tightened smile—on the rest of them and cut pieces for each of them, even Ellis, who took his with his eyes down and muttered thanks.

  While they ate, Basset passed around the leather bottle of cider that young Nicholas had brought. The cider being good, too, they went on passing it when they had finished their second shares of cake. It was a contented moment, all of them sitting at ease together, not bothering with talk. In the quiet Joliffe could hear the burble of the stream away in the woods and the tear of grass as Tisbe grazed, and far too soon Basset stretched and readied to rise, saying, “Back to work with us.”

  Less ready to be up and about again, Joliffe said with a nod toward the gateway, “It doesn’t make sense what the boy said. However guilty Nicholas may still feel, why would Ashewell be thinking to marry his son to Eleanor Medcote to ‘make up’ for a death the boy was too young to be blamed for? Just because Medcote may say it doesn’t mean Ashewell has to go along with it. There must be more to it than we’ve learned.”

  “But not more that we have to learn,” Basset said. “This is enough to give the bailiff.”

  “But why wasn’t the abbey’s bailiff able to learn as much as we have?” Joliffe wondered.

  “For all we know, he may know all this and there’s something more, something worse, that we’ve not found out any more than he has,” Basset said. “Or else, not being as lowly as we are, he doesn’t have free talk with servants and children careless with their betters’ secrets. Nor are you putting me off working the plays again. Up with you.”

  “Joliffe hasn’t written what we need yet,” Gil pointed out.

  Basset shook his head. “I’m getting too old for all this,” he muttered. “I’d forgotten.” He brightened. “Still, he can write while the rest of us work our words together. We’re not so steady on them as I’d like. An hour, say?” he said at Joliffe.

  “An hour?” Joliffe protested. “For all you want done? An hour?”

  Choosing to take that as agreement rather than protest, Basset said, “Good. We’ll leave you to it then.” And to the rest of them, “Come on. We’ll set up the frame and curtain before we start.”

  “We’ll only have to take them down again to take to the church,” Ellis protested.

  “So it goes,” Basset agreed cheerily.

  To the single wooden bar held up by two pairs of slanted legs and hung with a curtain that had sufficed them for years in their travels, Basset had lately added a second frame that could be put up behind the first and then two wood rods fastened between their ends to make a square space enclosed by more curtains that gave the players somewhere to retire out of sight to change their garb and their person when need be in a play. Held together with wooden pegs, the whole thing was easily put up and easily taken down by either several or all of them working together. Joliffe left them to it, collected his writing box with its paper, pens, and ink from the cart, and went off to the far end of the pasture where a stump at the woods’ edge made a good place to sit well away from the others.

  For all his protests, the needed speeches came readily—one to cover Christ’s coming to Jerusalem and set up what was to come, another to cover the gap left by leaving out Good Friday’s play of Christ’s trial and torments, his crucifixion, and the bringing of his body down from the cross. Basset was right to forgo that one, difficult with too many changes of characters and garb except for
Ellis as Christ.

  Finished, knowing it was not his best work but sure it would suffice, Joliffe heard the others arguing over some piece of business in the garden at Gethsemane and decided against rejoining them just yet. With paper, pens, and ink closed into their box again, he gave way to the gentle blandishment of the midday sun’s warmth and stretched himself out on the grass on the far side of the stump, his head cushioned on a grassy lump, his hands folded on his chest. He had slept little and poorly last night, was shortly drowsing, and awoke to find Rose smiling down at him.

  “That,” he said accusingly, “is how you smile at Piers when he’s asleep.”

  “And for the same reason,” Rose returned. “You both look so sweetly innocent when you’re asleep.”

  “And we’re quiet, too,” Joliffe said, sitting up.

  “That more than anything,” Rose agreed. “Father wants to know if you’re sleeping for inspiration or resting from your labors.”

  “Resting from my labors.” Joliffe got up and picked up his writing box. “They’re ready for another go-through?”

  “Father is, anyway.”

  “That’s what matters.”

  The other players had snatched a rest while Rose fetched Joliffe. They were eating spice cake again and drinking cider, and Joliffe quickly took his share before all was gone, handing the fresh-made speeches to Basset while saying around a mouthful of cake, “You’ve not said who’ll have these, so I kept them short on the chance it was going to be me.”

  “You could have made them longer. I’m giving them to Gil,” Basset said.

  “Ha!” Ellis said, giving Gil a friendly shove on the shoulder. “You’re the victim of choice this time!”

  Gil, grinning, reached for the paper. He was like the rest of them: however much they griped and groaned, they were all usually happier with more lines than less. And while Joliffe had indeed kept the speeches short, he had expected Gil to be Basset’s choice and written them richly because Gil, for all he was not yet a year in the company, was skilled beyond the usual at the work, taking to Basset’s training much like the proverbial duck to water. Besides that, he learned with an ease to be envied and would have the lines to heart by tomorrow with no trouble.