“Who couldn’t have?” Joliffe asked.
Kyping nodded at Rose. “Her. Anela Medcote. Gosyn’s wife. Mistress Ashewell. Eleanor Medcote.” He was seemingly keeping to the thought that no woman could have killed Medcote the way he had been killed, but Eleanor Medcote was altogether another matter from the other women. She had surely known as well as the rest of the household had where her father was going, and she was quite sufficiently built that, if once she had him down, she might have been able to do the rest. Curious why Kyping dismissed her with the others, Joliffe asked, “You think Eleanor Medcote couldn’t? Or is it that you think she wouldn’t? I saw no love lost between her and her father.”
“If she hadn’t murdered Medcote before this,” Kyping said somewhat too sharply, “she’s unlikely to have done it now.”
He sounded ready to leave it there, but Rose—bless her, thought Joliffe—asked, “Why? What had he done to her before?”
“Her first husband.” Kyping bit the words off short and angrily.
This was where Kyping had the advantage, Joliffe thought. He knew these people and about their pasts in ways the players could not match.
But that was maybe against Kyping, too. Knowing too much too nearly maybe made it hard for him to sort what mattered from what did not—the grain from the chaff—and to see what else he could get him to say, Joliffe said, “I take it her first marriage was bad. You don’t think being forced to another marriage was more than she was willing to bear? Or does she want this marriage?”
“She doesn’t want it,” Kyping said.
Rose asked, “Then how could she be forced to it? She’s a widow, with say in her own life. She surely has dower that she could live on if that was the only way to be free of her father.”
That had to be true enough, it being unlikely Medcote had married her the first time to a poor man. And while a woman brought a dowry of goods or land or money to her husband when they married, he in his turn settled a portion of his own land or goods or money on her in dower, to be hers should he die first, to see her provided for as much as might be in her widowhood. Poor men left little; rich men left much. But either way it was all of it likely to be laid out in the marriage contract that careful couples—or their parents—saw made before ever the Church’s blessing came into the matter.
But Kyping said sourly, “She had dower, right enough, but Medcote drove a twisted bargain with her first husband and he was a twisty mongrel in his own right and crabbed with years into the bargain. They settled it between them that nothing was to come into Eleanor’s own hands until she’s thirty years of age. Until then she was to be dependent on Medcote for everything. Including another marriage.”
“And now she’s dependent on her brother,” Joliffe said.
“On him now, yes,” Kyping agreed.
So killing her father would not have been enough to free her, and Eleanor must have known that. Again Joliffe thought that Hal Medcote had best look to his back, because even if she hadn’t killed their father, she might have less scruple against him. He kept that to himself, though, and asked, “What about men who might have done for Medcote? I take it you fully think Jack Hammond is clear.”
“Unless his uncle and a quarter of his uncle’s village are lying together for him.”
“Could they be?”
“I doubt it. Hammond isn’t that well-liked by his uncle. Or by anyone else there for that matter. I’m still prying about other men who wouldn’t mind Medcote dead, but even of the ones I don’t know for certain where they were, it’s hard to judge how they could have known where he would be. I’ve had no satisfaction from the Medcote servants that way, yet, try though I have.” Kyping looked at Rose. “Could someone have overheard Medcote when he was with you?”
“No. There was no one close by.”
“You’re certain?” Basset prompted.
“Yes,” Rose snapped.
Kyping was watching her too carefully for Joliffe’s ease; nor was he any way eased by Kyping saying at her consideringly, “Being asked about it makes you angry,” as if finding something particular about that.
Sharply, giving no ground, Rose said back at him, “It’s having even to think about him makes me angry. He was a mind-befouling kind of man.”
Kyping made a small sound that might have been agreement, and Joliffe asked, to take Kyping elsewhere than Rose, “What of Master Ashewell and Gosyn? Is it certain where they were that night?”
This time Kyping did not try to hide his thought behind a straight face but said, his mouth as wry as his words, “They claim they never left their own places after they came home from the church ale, and I’ve found no one to gainsay them.”
“Then maybe it’s true,” said Basset. “There’s usually someone ready to make trouble for someone if they can.”
“True enough in Gosyn’s case for certain,” Kyping agreed. “Maybe less likely with Master Ashewell.”
“What of Father Hewgo?” Joliffe asked.
Kyping showed surprise at that. “The priest? What would he know of where Master Ashewell or Gosyn were?”
“I mean would he have had chance to know where Medcote was?”
Kyping held quiet, his stare brooding on Joliffe but his thought apparently on the priest because after a moment he said, “There was less love lost between them all the time, I’ve noted, and there was maybe more wrong than has shown on the surface. But I doubt Father Hewgo’s such a fool as to think Hal Medcote will be any great improvement over his father in dealing with one matter or another.”
“Unless Medcote knew something Father Hewgo didn’t want him to know,” Joliffe said.
“But he’d have to worry that Medcote had shared something like that with Hal, as Medcote seems to have done with whatever he’s holding over Ashewell.”
“Father Hewgo might have thought the risk worth the taking, if there was chance Medcote hadn’t told Hal,” Joliffe said.
Kyping held that thought for a long moment, frowning on it before he said, “I’ll ask some questions that way, too. So. Now you know fairly well all that I do. What have you learned?”
He asked it of Basset and Joliffe both, and Joliffe looked to Basset, who looked back at him and said, “It’s yours to tell.”
Joliffe accepted that with a slight shrug and said to Kyping, “We’ve told you the only new thing we had—what we heard at Gosyn’s last night.”
“How deep do you think the quarrel is between Master Ashewell and Gosyn about these marriages?” Kyping asked.
“I would guess fairly deep. If there’s peace kept between the families, it will be because of the wives, and I don’t know if that will work either. I don’t know what Mistress Ashewell thinks of any of the business, but we heard Gosyn’s wife say she didn’t see why Claire shouldn’t marry Hal if she couldn’t have Nicholas.”
“She must not know much about him, then,” Ellis muttered.
“She maybe doesn’t,” Kyping said. “Or chooses not to. She’s never been a sharp-witted woman. Good-hearted and a good wife, but never with much reach beyond her kitchen yard and never any heart for trouble—either making it or seeing it.”
“And now she’s dying,” Joliffe said.
“Has been this past half year, now anyone looks back on it,” Kyping said regretfully. “She’ll see summer in but likely won’t see it out.”
“How will Gosyn take that?” Joliffe asked.
“Joliffe,” Rose said, disapproving.
But Kyping answered, “Hard. There’s no one will say she hasn’t always been the better side of him, keeping him safe from his own ill-humours as much as anyone could. Gosyn is going to be the worse man for her being gone.”
“That’s maybe why she’d like to see her daughter safely married while she still can,” Rose said. “Except marrying her to Hal Medcote has nothing ‘safe’ about it, does it?”
“Nothing,” Kyping agreed. “By all the look of it, he’s his father over again.”
“What I’d
like to know,” Joliffe said, “is what Medcote was using to force Master Ashewell to this other marriage.”
“So would I,” said Kyping grimly. “I’ve been hoping to learn something along the way that would add weight to my asking him again, but I haven’t.”
And he probably believed no more than Joliffe did that Ashewell was likely to give away whatever it was unless he was forced to it.
Kyping was looking at them, one after the other, as if to draw some useful answer out of them. Joliffe kept his own face blandly unhelpful, knowing the others were matching him. Even Gil in the months he had been with them had learned the usefulness of a blank face when faced with someone’s questions that couldn’t, or else shouldn’t, be satisfied. Just now they were none of them lying. There was nothing else to tell. Whether Kyping believed it or not was hardly their fault, and his terse sigh only betrayed his impatience as he seemed to accept there was nothing more to be had from them and said, “Well enough. I still can’t give you leave to go, not until the crowner comes. If you learn aught in the meanwhile . . .”
He looked at Basset as he broke off. Basset somewhat bowed and assured him, “You’ll know whatever we know, sir, as soon as may be after we know it.”
The rest of the players matched Basset’s bow, and Rose made a small curtsy. Kyping nodded in reply and made to turn away toward his waiting man and horses, but Joliffe took a step forward and asked, “Have you learned anything about who gains from Medcote’s death?”
Kyping stopped. “Who gains?”
“Besides everyone by being rid of him,” Joliffe said.
“No one in particular,” Kyping replied. “His wife more than anyone except Hal. She’ll have her dower and her freedom, I suppose. Hal has the rest and looks to be taking up where his father left off and that’s surely no surprise to anyone nor any gain. If it was change the murderer wanted when he killed Medcote, he needs to be rid of Hal, too.”
So Joliffe wasn’t the only one to see that. He wondered if Hal did, too, but said, “Then likely Medcote was killed not to change things but because he knew something his murderer didn’t want him to know.”
“You’re thinking of whatever we suppose he was using to force the Ashewell marriage,” Kyping said.
“Not foremost,” Joliffe answered. “If his murderer had any sense at all, he had to suspect that whatever Medcote was using as a lever against Master Ashewell, he was all too likely to have shared with Hal and maybe his wife.”
“Which he did,” Kyping said. “With Hal anyway. Anela gives no sign of knowing anything. What you’re thinking is that there’s some other secret he was killed for. A secret we’ve not thought of.”
“A secret so new the murderer had hope Medcote had so far kept it to himself.”
Kyping’s eyes widened a little with sudden speculation as he took in that thought. Slowly he said, “Yes.” Then gave a short, bitter laugh. “But good luck to us finding it out.”
“Still, it won’t hurt to look,” Joliffe said mildly. “It would likely be something come up of late. It might pay to look twice and thrice at everyone he’s lately had dealings with, of whatever kind. Anyone he maybe had some new falling out with but not yet a full and open quarrel. Father Hewgo, say,” he added, to help Kyping along.
Staring down at the grass as if revelations were to be had there, Kyping nodded slowly. “There might be something to find out going that way, yes.” He looked up suddenly and sharply into Joliffe’s face. “So. Anything more you’ve thought on?”
Joliffe smiled, all outward easy friendliness. “Not a thing. All I can do is wish you luck with it all.”
Kyping did not bother with smiling back, just nodded, turned away to take his horse from his man, mount, and ride off with no other farewell.
Chapter 17
Until Kyping and his man were well gone, the players stayed standing where they were, no word among them. Then Piers said at Joliffe, “He doesn’t like you,” at the same moment Ellis said bitterly, “Seems one of us could still turn out the first choice for hanging for lack of anyone better.”
Ignoring Piers, Joliffe said more lightly than he felt, “Then we’d best set to finding someone better for him. I do feel a need to see what’s being said in the village among ordinary folk. Fair Rose, what would you like for us to bring from there?”
“Bread,” she said promptly. “There should be that at least, but I don’t know what else is likely. Whatever was to spare would have gone at the church ale, I’d think. You’d not rather go to Faringdon, I suppose?” That being a market town, there would be more to be bought in this lean time of the year when the winter stores were run low or out and little was to be had yet from field, flock, or herd.
“Tomorrow maybe,” Joliffe said, going toward the cart to fetch his lute. “Today we’ll have to feast on local talk.”
“Famine on it, more likely,” Ellis muttered.
“Take Gil with you,” said Basset.
“And me!” Piers cried.
“No,” said Rose, Basset, Ellis, and Joliffe all together.
Despite Piers had to have known they would say that, he glared at them anyway. Basset handed Joliffe coins from his belt pouch to pay for whatever food he might find, while Ellis got the leather bottle for ale and tossed it to Joliffe with, “Get some fresh ale, too. There should be that to be found at least.”
Joliffe tossed the bag to Gil, took up his lute and swung it around to carry on his back by the strap over his shoulder, saying, “Gil will see to the ale while I see if sweet music will bring sweet words.”
“If it’s sweet music you want, you’d best let Gil sing,” Ellis growled.
“Come on, Gil,” Joliffe said with more outward cheer than he had inwardly. “Time to sing for your supper.”
As he and Gil headed away, he waved over his shoulder at everyone without looking back and his stride was light; but outside the gate and hidden by the hedge from everyone but Gil beside him, he let his walk flatten to match his thoughts, and Gil asked, “As bad as that?”
Joliffe quirked one corner of his mouth, acknowledging the sharpness of the question. Gil did not rattle-talk as much as the rest of them did, but he saw things well enough. There was even the chance that—unlike most people in the wide world—he thought about what he saw, rather than merely jabbered about it, and so Joliffe answered him fairly with, “It’s bad enough. Not so bad as Ellis has it. I don’t think Kyping is bent and set on finding one of us guilty unless we are. He’s willing to have us not be his first choice anyway, and that’s something.”
“You think it but you’re not sure. Is that it?”
“I don’t know Kyping well enough to be sure. Maybe if no one better is found, he’ll settle for one of us being guilty. And anyway, there’s nothing sure in life, no matter what we do. How’s your ankle? No trouble with it?”
Gil admitted to twinges but nothing that mattered, he said, and after that they walked in silence that was companionable enough, leaving Joliffe to his own thoughts that were not good company at all. Even if Kyping was as fair as he seemed to be, there was still the crowner to come, with no way to say aforetime if he was someone willing to take the easiest way to closing a murder of a man who, after all, had not much mattered in the general way of things.
Of course if he did look to be that way, then Basset would send someone fast-footed to Lady Lovell, who would make plain the players were not easy prey, and then all would likely be well enough, but even a disproven charge of murder had a way of dragging after a man. Talk went from village to village to town easily enough, and scandal attached readily to players at the best of times. Would Lord Lovell want to keep a company of players that was burdened with that kind of talk about them? Maybe, since he—and now his lady wife—had found other uses for them than merely as players.
And that was another uncomfortable thing to think about, because he had an unsettled feeling that this question-asking the Lovells had sometimes asked of the players could lead to more than
it had. If he let himself, he could worry over what that “more” might be. He thought Basset thought the same but they had neither of them said as much to each other, and if the others had any thought about it at all, they had all likewise kept it to themselves. After all, there was more than enough to worry about in the usual course of a day without brooding on “maybes” that might never happen.
Besides, if he wanted something to worry on, there was the more pressing worry about what anger or suspicion he and Gil might meet in the village, and despite giving no outward sign of it, he kept a wary eye around them as they arrived there. This hour of the day, most folk were gone to the fields or were busy at their work at home. The few they passed in the street gave them looks only maybe a little longer than was usual and nods that were ordinary enough. Somewhat encouraged, Joliffe said, “The alehouse first. That’s where there’ll be talk.”
“And ale,” said Gil readily.
What there was not in the alehouse were any drinkers or men loitering, which likely accounted for the warmth of the alewife’s greeting to them. But to Joliffe’s question as she urged them to a bench she assured him she had new ale ready. “Just passed by John Greene, who’s been ale-taster here for the assize since before I was old enough to walk. He knows his ale, he does, and he says it’s a good batch. So sit you down and I’ll bring you some.”
“Where are all your customers, then?” Joliffe asked as she went to fetch two clay cups and a pitcher from across the room.
“That Master Kyping,” she said, sounding somewhere between approving and irked. “He’s been at it to see to it everyone is out and at work, to get as much done in the fields as can be while the weather holds, he says.” She laughed as she handed Joliffe and Gil each a cup. “He even has the old men out. Said they could keep an eye on the children if nothing else. You should have heard old Will going on about that.”
“What’s Master Kyping’s reason for it all?” Joliffe asked, despite he could guess.
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