A Play of Knaves

by Margaret Frazer

  “Your best way to go, then, is to find out who knew Medcote would be where he was last night.”

  “You’re telling me my business?” Kyping asked it with curiosity rather than heat.

  “If we’re going to work for you in this, won’t it be better we work with you?”

  “I somewhat guess,” said Kyping, “that it will be you more than the others working in this.”

  It was fair enough that Kyping had been taking his measure while Joliffe was taking his, and Joliffe nodded for answer and said, “If that’s to be the way of it, I need to know more than I do. For one thing, how was Medcote murdered?”

  “He was drowned.”

  “Drowned? Just drowned?”

  “How many ways do you want him killed? There’s hardly ‘just’ about drowning. Keep a man’s head under water long enough, it works as well as any other way to kill him.”

  “True,” Joliffe agreed. “But most men give small cooperation to having it done to them, and Medcote was neither small nor looked to be a weakling. Was there any sign he was knocked senseless first?”

  “By the looks of the scuffled ground and the bruises on his jaw, there was a fight.”

  “There’s something to look for, then. Someone with bruises on his hands, his knuckles.” Then, regretfully, Joliffe added, “Unless he was wearing gloves. Riding gloves or a workman’s heavy leather ones. That might have kept down his own bruising.”

  “But it’s something to look for, yes,” Kyping agreed.

  Joliffe circled back to, “They fought and Medcote was knocked senseless and then dragged to the stream and drowned.”

  “He was dragged to the stream, yes. There’s marks of that. But he got back wits enough to struggle then. The marks of it are there on the muddy bank. Whoever it was, they knelt straddling his back, pinning his arms under their knees, holding him down while they forced his head under the water and kept it there until he was dead. Then,” Kyping said even more grimly, “they left him there, his head still in the water. The fish had got at him some before he was found.”

  First to last, it was an ugly picture. “Someone strong then,” Joliffe said. “Another man surely.”

  Kyping’s gaze flicked away toward the other players, toward Rose, and back to him. “Who’s her man here?”

  “We share her among us,” Joliffe said sharply. Then as Kyping’s eyes started to widen, he said even more sharply and with disgust, “No, we don’t. She’s Master Basset’s daughter. The boy is his grandson. She’s widowed and has nowhere else to be except here, mothering the lot of us whether she likes it or not.”

  “A hard life for an honest woman,” Kyping said.

  “And made the harder by people like Medcote thinking she’s easy for any man who wants her.”

  “I ask pardon,” Kyping said as if he meant it. He started for the gate again. “It was a question I had to ask.”

  Going with him, Joliffe said, “I ask pardon in return for being sharp about it.” Then he pointed out, “The man Piers saw this morning was dressed like that Jack Hammond was dressed yesterday when he quarreled with Medcote in the churchyard.”

  “So I’ve thought, too.”

  “It wasn’t a new quarrel between them either.”

  “It wasn’t, no.”

  “Piers didn’t see them quarreling. He probably never saw Jack Hammond at all, to take any note of, to be saying he saw him this morning.”

  “But you and Basset saw Jack quarrel with Medcote. One of you could have told the boy to say all that he did.”

  That told Joliffe that Kyping was not letting loose of them as suspects, but seeming as if he had not noted it, he said, “True. But what time was Medcote killed? It was dawn when Piers saw Hammond. Surely Medcote hadn’t been waiting all night for Rose, for Jack Hammond to happen on him at dawn and kill him. What hour was he killed? Do you know?”

  “Not for a certainty, but Medcote left his place just at dark, they say there, and the body was well along with stiffening when I saw it this morning.”

  “He wasn’t killed by Jack Hammond at dawn then.”

  “There’s nothing to say Jack hadn’t done it earlier and for some reason only came past here hours later, unlikely though that is. What I want to hear is why Jack was going past here at dawn when his holding is on the other side of the village. When I’ve heard what he has to say, then I’ll find out whether or not he’s telling the truth.”

  Heartened that Kyping looked willing to keep his mind open all ways, Joliffe asked, “What was the quarrel between him and Medcote?”

  “Jack was his tenant. Jack’s father held the land before him, and back in Francis Brook’s time, his father paid Francis a fee to have the holding put in his name and Jack’s. That was so that when Jack’s father died, Jack would have to pay no heriot or fine for inheriting. But when Jack’s father died two years ago, Medcote demanded not only that Jack pay the fine to inherit but he set it at twice what Hammond’s father had paid when he inherited the property twenty years earlier. On top of that, he claimed that Jack owed him not one but three of his best animals as heriot because Jack has three holdings from him. Jack claimed back at him that it’s not three holdings—he has but one split into three parcels and there’s never been three animals taken until now. Most folk in the village said likewise and I took Jack’s side so far as I could. He only had to give up one of his cows, but Medcote was still fighting him over the fine to inherit.”

  “That might make me mad enough to kill,” Joliffe said.

  “More than that,” Kyping said grimly, “it’s stirred up every man on every manor around here who’s displeased about anything. Even Lionel Ashewell, who’s fair as can be to his folk, is being troubled, and an old quarrel between Walter Gosyn and Wat Offington has flared up again.”

  “They were yelling together at the ale yesterday,” Joliffe said.

  “You saw that? That was Wat right enough. He’s taken to refusing his villein duties. Claims that if Gosyn can buy out of being a villein, so can he. But he’s a wastrel; has never had and never will have the money to do it, so he settles for behaving as if he has. He and Jack Hammond sit around drinking together and damning all landlords.”

  “Why hasn’t the manor court ruled about Medcote’s claim against Jack Hammond?”

  “It’s tried. Four times. But the juries have always locked between those too afraid of Medcote to stand out against him and those so angry they’re spitting fire. I’ve been set to take it out of their hands and to the steward, and none too happy he’s been to hear that.”

  “Now you won’t need to.”

  “I’d not wager on it. Hal Medcote isn’t likely to be better than his father was.”

  Joliffe had no trouble believing that. “Who else did Medcote have quarrels with?”

  “Pick anyone who’s ever come in shouting distance of him and you’ll be right.” Kyping started onward to the gate and his horse. “Now, if you’ll pardon me.”

  “One more thing. Who found Medcote’s body?”

  “Hal did. When his father wasn’t home by dawn, Anela Medcote sent him looking for him.”

  “How did he know where to look?”

  “Apparently it’s a place both he and his father are familiar with,” Kyping said in a way that told more than the words did.

  Preferring not to think too deeply into what that meant, the bare words sufficient, Joliffe asked what he should have thought to before: “What do the new widow and bereaved son and daughter say about where they were last night?”

  “The daughter, too?” Kyping asked, somewhat mocking.

  “Why not?”

  “True enough, I suppose,” Kyping granted. “They all say they were nowhere but at home last night, and no one gainsays them.”

  But they all slept in separate chambers, surely, and after some time in the night could not for a certainty say where each other were. Joliffe would wager, too, that servants there knew better than to notice anything, may have become truly b
lind to anything beyond what they were supposed to see and know.

  Kyping was waiting to see if Joliffe had another question. When none came, he slightly nodded farewell and went on leaving, with Joliffe’s slight and belated bow only to his back.

  Chapter 12

  Joliffe slowly crossed the pasture back to the other players, carrying his thoughts with him and surprised out of them by Ellis, who demanded of him edgily, “So. Am I still his first, best choice?”

  “Ellis,” Rose protested.

  “Well, am I?”

  “As far as Kyping knows,” Joliffe answered, “there’s nothing particular between you and Rose. I told him she’s here as Basset’s daughter and spends her time mothering the lot of us.”

  Rose gave a snort of agreement to that.

  “What about the rest of you?” Ellis demanded at them. “Do you think I did in Medcote?”

  “Ellis!” Rose protested again.

  “Well, do they?” Ellis said. “Because I am most likely, aren’t I?”

  “Not really,” Joliffe said easily. “The best you can do is join what seems quite a list of people who’ve, most of them, probably been wishing Medcote dead for years and for more reasons than you had. His own wife and son and maybe his daughter first among them, for all I know; but assuredly any number of his neighbors.” And then, as if it had just now come to him, he added thoughtfully, “Nor do I see you likely to leave Rose’s warm arms in the night to go groping through the chill dark to kill a man she doesn’t even want.” He looked to Basset, Piers, and Gil and asked as if serious about it, “What do you say? Wouldn’t that be more trouble than Ellis is ever likely to put himself to?”

  “Well,” Basset said with apparent deep consideration, “put that way I have to say it’s doubtful he killed Medcote.”

  “Of course I didn’t kill him!” Ellis yelled.

  Rose laid a hand on his arm and said, “Ellis, they’re having at you. They know as well as I do that you didn’t do anything to Medcote.”

  Ellis grumbled something under his breath.

  Basset came forward and laid an arm across his shoulders. “Of course we know you didn’t do it. And, Joliffe, leave off,” he added, although he was not looking at Joliffe and could not have seen him just beginning to open his mouth. Joliffe closed it and Basset went on, “No. What we need to do is nothing. We stay here quietly. We answer what questions are put to us. We wait until we’re told we can go.” His voice hardened. “And if it looks like things are going to the bad, one of us rides like a hellwind back to Lady Lovell to tell her what’s happening and ask for rescue.”

  That last was a defense they had lacked all the years they had been lordless players. They had small choice but to stay, to wait and see how things went here. But knowing there was Lady Lovell to take their part if need be made the staying easier. Not that Joliffe meant simply to wait, and he said lightly, “So, Rose, where is this place you were to meet Medcote?”

  On the instant he had everyone’s suspicious stares along with Rose demanding, “Why?”

  “I thought I’d go to see it. To see what’s to be seen that maybe Kyping didn’t see or think about.”

  “And?” asked Basset.

  There were disadvantages to being known too well. “And maybe ask a few questions if there’s anybody there,” he admitted.

  Ellis said sharply, “We’ve done what Lady Lovell wanted. Medcote’s murder isn’t any business of ours. Leave it.”

  Joliffe looked to Basset. “Basset?”

  Basset regarded him in close-lipped silence, very plainly weighing one thing against another in his mind before sighing and saying, “Tell him the way, Rose.”

  Ellis made a disgusted sound and turned his back on them all.

  Looking worriedly at Ellis’ back, Rose answered, “Medcote said there’s a place where the stream and trees swing closer to the lane about a half-mile from here toward his manor. He said he’d wait there for me.”

  Joliffe thanked her and started to leave.

  “I’ll come with you!” Piers offered.

  “You won’t,” his mother said back at him before Ellis, turning sharply around, could.

  Joliffe waved to them all and made his escape.

  A half-mile walk was nothing much. It would have been a little farther from Medcote’s manor, but even at night it would have been easily done under a clear sky like last night’s had been, and when Joliffe came to the place where stream and trees came near the lane, with a break through the trees to what looked a cattle-ford across the stream, there was no doubting it was far enough from the camp that, no, the players would have heard nothing of a quietly done murder here. Nor did he have to wonder if this was the place; there was no other likely reason for the five men clustered beside the stream.

  He started toward them while looking around. Where had Medcote intended his sport with Rose? Joliffe wondered. Not in the open here, where the grass was scanty and the ground hard-trodden from passing cattle. If Kyping was right about this being somewhere used before now to Medcote’s purposes, then Medcote probably had some particular grassy place among the trees. But last night while Medcote had waited for Rose, someone else had come and ended both Medcote’s waiting and his life. Happening on him by chance, which seemed unlikely, or because they knew the place and his ways?

  Two of the five men were come away from the stream to meet him, neither of them looking much like friendly. One of them never had been, and Joliffe said as they met, “Master Lynche, isn’t it?”

  Giving Medcote’s steward even that much title of respect was hard when a solid kick to his rigid behind would have been more satisfying, but as Basset was wont to say, a little flattery can go a long way and take not a penny from your purse. Whether it helped here, Joliffe could not tell, as Lynche said at him roughly, “That’s me, and you’re one of those players. What are you doing here?”

  As if he didn’t hear the rudeness, Joliffe said easily, “Come to look. Like them, I suppose.” He beckoned his head toward the three men still beside the stream.

  Lynche looked back at them as if to make certain whom Joliffe meant, but it was the fellow with him who demanded, “What business is it of yours?”

  “Master Kyping wants our company to stay for the crowner’s coming,” Joliffe answered evenly. “If we’re going to have to hang about where someone’s taken to murdering men, it’s for our own good we’d like to know what we have to watch out for.”

  “Thinks one of you did it, does he?” the fellow asked. “It’s more likely one of you we have to watch out for than anybody. Or all of you.”

  That manner of thinking was precisely what the players had to fear, but Lynche said curtly, “Let it go, Hod. They’re Lord Lovell’s men. If anything’s done to them, it’ll be Lord Lovell we’ll be answering to.”

  That was sufficient to silence Hod for now, although he looked to be inwardly grumbling as Lynche said at Joliffe, “You want to look along with the rest of them? Medcote’s still here.”

  “He is?” Joliffe said in surprise.

  The law was that a body was to be left where it was found until the crowner could come to view it where it lay, that he might better judge what had happened. But since it could take days for the crowner to be found, wherever he might be in the shire, and then to come, people—especially those in grief—often preferred to shift the body and pay the fine for having done so. There had been time enough today to shift Medcote’s body. Was his family going to leave it lying where it was? Why? Had they hated him that much? Or, there having been little love among them while he lived, were they indifferent now to respecting the dead? Or maybe they were just unwilling to “waste” money on the fine.

  Whichever it was, Lynche didn’t answer his surprise, just led him toward the stream and the other men, Hod trailing behind. As they neared, one of the men left the body, saying as he met Lynche, “I’ve seen enough. We can spread the word he’s dead for sure.”

  “Try not to make too merry over
it,” Lynche said curtly.

  “We’ll not,” the man said, but not as if he meant it. Over his shoulder, going away, he added, “We’ve not forgotten his whelp is still with us to make our lives hell.”

  One of the men still at the stream called out, “Still, one down, one to go!”

  The man leaving laughed at that and kept going. Lynche said after him and at the others, “Damn you for vultures and Saint Erasmus take your guts.” And at the two men still at the stream, “You’ve seen enough. Get out of here, too.”

  They laughed, no offense taken, and went the other way, by stepping stones across the stream, to disappear along a path into the field on the other side. Besides that as a way someone could have come and gone, Joliffe saw there was a path, too, running through the woods; and there was always wading along the stream running low between its banks and hidden by the trees.

  But now he was come to Medcote’s body lying on the stream’s muddy bank. Someone had at least pulled it out of the water and thrown a coarse piece of canvas over it. Lynche, with outward indifference, flipped a corner of the canvas aside, uncovering Medcote’s face. The dead man’s mouth hung open in the usual way and no one had troubled to close his eyes. They stared, bulging and blank. And as Kyping had said, the small fish that flicked through the shallows of the stream had been at him before he was found.

  The bruise along his jaw was plain enough, though, and Joliffe said, pointing to it, “Looks like he fought whoever did for him. Any other marks on him?”

  “If there are, they’re under his clothes and for the crowner to find out,” Lynche said.

  “That blow to the jaw maybe stunned him enough for the other man to wrestle him down, pin him, drown him,” Joliffe said as if making unconsidered talk. He added more as if asking himself rather than either Lynche or Hod, “But why drown him, I wonder? Why not stab him?”

  He guessed that both men would take too much pleasure in refusing to answer any straightly asked question. It was probably because he deliberately seemed to be not talking to them, only to himself, that Hod said, albeit glumly, “Stabbing? Stabbing might have been too quick for whoever did it, if they wanted it to last longer.”