A Play of Knaves

by Margaret Frazer

  “My guess is he and the reeve—that’s Master Ashewell, you know—hope it will lessen troublemaking talk if everyone’s kept to work and be a way of being sure where everyone is, too, until things are settled about Medcote’s death.”

  Joliffe held out his cup and said, “So there’s no one suspected more than anyone else yet?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  “Does your business no good though, having everybody out.”

  She laughed while pouring the ale. “Won’t hurt it, likely. They’ll all be here come evening, full of talk and wanting to drink. I’ll be busy enough then if not now. Where’s the rest of your company?”

  “Too slothful to walk so far, even for your fine ale,” Joliffe said. When that brought another laugh from her, he ventured, “Truth is, we’re all somewhat worried over how folk might be toward us here.”

  She paused at pouring Gil’s ale. “Be toward you?”

  “With the murder and us being strangers and all.”

  She went back to filling Gil’s cup. “No need for any of you to worry about that. Medcote had enough people angry at him that folk are more pleased he’s dead than looking to blame strangers for it. Come to it, there’s no one looking all that hard for who did for him. Save maybe Master Kyping because it’s his duty to.”

  Joliffe took a long swallow of ale and made a deep, satisfied sigh as if it were the best of ale he’d ever had. It was not, but a friendly alewife willing to talk was the quickest way that he knew to learn about a village and he held out the cup to be refilled before he asked, making a jest of it, “Everyone’s easy, then, thinking his murderer is maybe here among them?”

  “It was Medcote that was murdered,” the alewife said, filling his cup. “Who’s to care or worry? Not even his own people, it seems, from what’s being said.” She rested the pitcher on her hip. “Except his wife is angry that Hal Medcote won’t let the body be moved before the crowner comes. She’d have it done, fine or no fine for it.”

  “From what I saw the time we played there, I’d not think she’d care that much, one way or other,” Joliffe said.

  “From what was said here last night, that’s just one more thing they’re quarreling over, her and her son. What had us in whoops was that Father Hewgo is taking her side about it when she’s not been able to stand him these three years and more since they quarreled over tithes and Medcote took his part against her. Not for any good reason, mind you. She was in the right of it, most of us think. He just liked to set against her, and besides, he and Father Hewgo were thick as thieves until just lately.”

  “They had a falling out?”

  “The way thieves do, yes.”

  “About what?”

  “Nothing certain that I’ve heard. Maybe just because they were both quarrelsome men. Now Father Hewgo’s siding with Anela Medcote over moving Medcote’s body, but I doubt he’ll have much joy of Anela in the long run. She’s never been able to bear him. But then I mind Father Hewgo’s not doing it so much for a good reason as because he and Hal Medcote are already at odds and quarreling. Over Medcote’s dead body, as it were.”

  “How?” Joliffe asked with the readiness of anyone wanting to hear a good story. “Why?”

  She laughed. “What I hear is that Father Hewgo asked more money for the funeral Mass and all than Hal thinks saving his father’s soul is worth.”

  Joliffe laughed with her and asked lightly, “How do you hear all this? They surely don’t come in here to do their quarreling in front of you.”

  She tipped him a wink. “No need they should. Their servants aren’t as quiet about things as they might be. What Medcote cheated them in wages they took out in talk against him. Are still taking out in talk. We know more about who’s mad at whom and about what in that household than Anela Medcote would like, I’d guess.”

  “Did Medcote know they talked? Or does Hal?”

  “Who’s to say? Even if they knew, they weren’t likely to care. If anything, Medcote went out of his way to stir up talk while he was alive, and Hal isn’t more than a hairs-breadth different from his father, the devil take him, too. Nor I doubt that Eleanor cares a penny about what anyone thinks or says. Cold as old stone, that one is. If anyone, it’s Anela who wouldn’t like it. Grew up here, she did. Was Francis Brook’s ward after her mother, that was his sister, see, died.”

  “Francis Brook,” Joliffe said while Gil held out his cup for more ale. “That’s the man that Nicholas Ashewell killed by chance, yes?”

  “No, that was Francis Brook the younger as was killed. His father is who I mean. Francis Brook the elder. He was a few years dead when his son was killed; that was Anela’s cousin, see. They grew up like brother and sister. That’s why young Francis put up with her husband when she married, though he and Medcote got on no better than Medcote did with anyone else.”

  “They were here when Francis Brook was hurt, weren’t they?” Joliffe asked, though he knew that wasn’t what he’d heard.

  “Anela was,” the alewife corrected him. “And Hal and Eleanor. Visiting, like. Getting out of Wantage for the summer when there was a bit of pestilence about, as I remember. When Medcote heard Francis Brook was hurt, he came fast enough, though. Then Francis died and there are those as have thoughts about that,” she added darkly.

  Joliffe feigned choking halfway through a sip of ale, swallowed hurriedly, and said, “Thoughts? You mean . . .” He broke off, preferring she say it.

  “I mean the word was that Francis Brook was on the mend. The bird-bolt had no more than scraped along the side of his neck. It was the blood he’d lost was the trouble and that’s why he was kept to bed. But he was getting his strength back, see, and then he was dead and nobody was in the house when he died but Medcote and some servants. And young Hal as was a half-grown boy then.”

  “Where was everyone else?”

  “It was Assumption Day in harvest. Everyone was gone to the church who could be. The servant that had been tending Brook went out to the well to draw some water, it being hot and Brook a little fevered. She had some trouble with the rope being in a tangle somehow, and when she came back, there was Brook lying dead in his bed. Heart failed him, it was said, and there was nothing to prove differently. Nor could she say Medcote had been near him while she was out.”

  “But folk thought otherwise,” Joliffe said.

  “Folk thought otherwise.”

  “Why wasn’t Medcote or Hal at church with the rest?”

  “There was another priest here then, and Medcote had already quarreled with him, so Medcote wouldn’t go, and little Hal was already his father’s boy and wouldn’t go either. A pair they were even then, and no good at the core, either of them.”

  “What became of the servant?”

  “Her? She moved on that next Michaelmas when her hire was done. Went Swindon way, I think. Nor was she the only one not to linger there, then or since. The Medcotes don’t keep servants long.”

  “How are the present ones taking Medcote’s death?”

  The alewife gave a throaty chuckle. “There’s no great grief going on there, that’s sure. Not among the servants nor the rest of them.”

  “Has there been talk about how Medcote came to be where he was when he was killed?”

  “Gone out to meet some woman,” the alewife said scornfully. “That’s what they’re saying he said. Me, I can see him saying that just to goad his wife, when all the time he was up to some other devilment, though I don’t know what.”

  That was good, then, if there was no talk of Rose, just of some woman and apparently doubt about even that. To see what else there might be, Joliffe tried, “I’ve heard there was a quarrel between Medcote and his wife the night he was killed. What’s said about that?”

  “Nothing particular that I’ve heard. Bitter words may have been passed, but from what’s said, those were common enough. I’d have thought they were long past outright quarreling. Why waste the time when she knew his ways well enough to know there was no ch
anging him?”

  Joliffe had a moment’s pity for Anela Medcote, cursed with a quarrel-hearted husband, a son who matched him, and a cold daughter. Despite them all, she had dealt fairly enough with the players that one time, which was reason enough for Joliffe to consider better of her than some might. Come to that, though, her daughter had seemed none so harsh either. So maybe it was best to remember it was easy enough to talk about someone, but knowing what was in their heart was another matter altogether.

  Though he had a fairly sure thought of what was in Hal Medcote’s heart and did not like it. Where his father’s death could have been a chance to begin a healing of all the angers and wrongs Medcote had done, Hal looked set instead on deepening and spreading the ugliness.

  He was forming a question about Hal when Gil set his emptied cup aside and asked, “Should we be seeing about food now?”

  He sounded so much like Ellis when Ellis had had enough of Joliffe making questions that Joliffe had to hold back from laughing while obediently turning the talk toward food and where they might buy some in the village. The alewife was as helpful there as with her ale, glad to fill their bottle while telling them who had done baking that morning and that her daughter-in-law had some new cheese from a cow that had calved early. Paying her with coins and thanks, they went on their quest and had better fortune with it than Rose had hoped for. The only loaves anyone would sell them were a coarse mix of rye and barley, but this end of the year few in the village were likely to have better, and they were surely better than none. Besides that, the daughter-in-law was pleased to sell some of her new cheese and she was even persuaded, by Joliffe’s ready talk and a few more coins, to part with some meat from a newly butchered lamb she had been readying for her household’s supper.

  “So you’d better get yourselves away with it, before they find out what I’ve done,” she jested at them as she gave it over, wrapped in rhubarb leaves.

  Taking it with a bow like a courtier receiving largess from royal hands, Joliffe said, “It is the more precious for being received from your fair hands. I will betray you to no one, good my lady.”

  She blushed and laughed and told him and Gil to get on their way. They went and were well outside the village before Gil said of a sudden, “That was a lot of talk you had from the alewife. You set out to find things out and you did.” He grinned. “It’s a good thing it was me instead of Ellis with you.”

  Joliffe matched his grin. “Yes.”

  “Did you find out anything? That helps, I mean.”

  “Nothing that helps. Not yet anyway. Maybe if I have a chance to learn more there’ll be pieces that fit, but nothing does yet.”

  “Oh.”

  Gil was disappointed by that, but it was the truth. If he had found out anything that helped, Joliffe did not know it yet, and what surprised him was how little he cared. If the players were given leave to go within the hour, he would go with a free heart, completely willing to leave Medcote’s death unsolved behind him.

  He only hoped they were given leave to go before someone murdered Hal Medcote, who looked as likely to it as ever his father had been.

  With the field hidden from the lane by the hedge, it was only as they came to the gateway that Gil said, “Uh-oh,” and Joliffe silently echoed him.

  Midway between gate and camp, Basset and Ellis were standing in talk with four riders. New trouble—that was Joliffe’s first thought, before he saw two of the riders were Kyping and Kyping’s man. Old trouble then.

  Or maybe new to go with them, because the third rider was Eleanor Medcote. The fourth, though, looked to be only a servant, probably companioning her.

  Joliffe handed the share of the food he had been carrying to Gil, saying, “Take this to Rose,” who was still at the fire, tending to something in the pot on its trivet over the coals. Piers was nowhere in sight, and Joliffe added, “Find Piers if you can,” following the players’ sure urge to draw together when there might be trouble.

  Gil obeyed without pause or question, circling the riders to go to Rose while Joliffe went forward to join Basset and Ellis. Kyping was just gathering up his reins as if to go but returned Joliffe’s bow with a bend of his head while saying to Basset, “That was all. I just wanted you to know word is the crowner will be here before sundown.”

  “Hopefully in time to view my father’s body so we can move it today,” Eleanor Medcote said.

  Joliffe could not tell whether it was bitterness or restrained anger in her voice. But why not both? he thought. Why limit her when she had reasons enough for both? And wanting to know more of her mind, he bowed to her and said, “May I offer regret for your loss, my lady?”

  As a player, he had small business offering her anything but his service and not even that at present, when such other matters were in hand, and she looked at him, surprised, before saying, graciously enough, “Thank you.”

  Kyping was starting to turn his horse away and she gathering up her own reins to go with him. Ignoring that, Joliffe said in the bright voice of someone too stupid to know he’s saying the wrong thing at the very wrong time, “But perhaps we’ll be asked back to play at your wedding and your brother’s? A double wedding perchance?”

  The sudden, sickened look on Eleanor’s face betrayed much. So did the sudden anger on Kyping’s. Seeming to misread hers and not see his, Joliffe said with distress, “My apology, my lady. Is your brother’s suit likely to go astray, then?”

  Eleanor’s sickened look hardened on the instant into anger deeper than Kyping’s. Her voice raw with bitterness, she answered, “Oh, Hal will get Claire if he wants her. Hal generally gets what he wants.” She harshly pulled her horse around, adding as she set heels to its flanks, “Even to having Father out of his way.”

  She rode off, her servant behind her, and Joliffe, despite feeling the daggers of Ellis’ gaze on him, said to Kyping in seeming contrition, “I’m sorry. I should have thought better before saying anything.”

  Turning his horse to follow Eleanor’s, Kyping said curtly, “Best have Basset tell you the rest.” Then he was away, too, his man with him.

  Joliffe, watching them go rather than turning to meet Ellis’ glare, said thoughtfully, “I’d not say she’s deep in grief. Would you?”

  “What I’d say,” Ellis snapped, “was that you need your head held in the stream like Medcote’s was. Leave off with the questions, can’t you?”

  Joliffe gave up patience and pretense, looked at him, and snapped back in matching anger, “I will when you give up womaning your way across the countryside.”

  Ellis’ head jerked back as if he had been slapped and his mouth opened but no instant answer came; and Joliffe turned on Basset and demanded, “So what ‘rest’ did Kyping mean you were to tell me?”

  In his usual way of “oil on troubled waters,” Basset said evenly, as if there were no anger anywhere around him, “Kyping has just found out—and it seems Hal Medcote took delight in telling him—that his father a year or so ago saw to all his property being put in his name and Hal’s, so that despite he’s dead, Hal will have to pay no fine for having everything, being owner with him instead of heir.”

  “But isn’t that what Jack Hammond and his father did?” Joliffe asked. “And Medcote refused it and was forcing Hammond into paying the fine to inherit anyway and doubling it or some such thing?”

  “Yes,” Basset said.

  Ellis had apparently decided answering Joliffe was not worth it. He was stalking away, not back to the cart or Rose but toward the woods along the stream. To wear off his ill-humour by thrashing the trees or water or something, Joliffe hoped, but was more interested in saying to Basset, “So Medcote had done the very same thing for himself and Hal that he was refusing to allow to Hammond. ‘Hypocrite’ doesn’t come close to describing him, does it?”

  “It doesn’t,” Basset agreed. He started back toward the fire, asking as Joliffe fell into step beside him, “What did you bring back in the way of food? Rose looks happy.”

  J
oliffe told him how well they had succeeded in the village and took pleasure in Rose’s delight at fresh meat. She had sent Gil and Piers to find some wild garlic and any other herbs to make the lamb more savory in the cooking. While Joliffe set up the spit to roast the meat, they came back with what they had gathered, and in a while Ellis returned, too, not openly angry anymore and bringing a piece of wood that he settled to carving. With Piers hanging over his shoulder making suggestions of what he should be making and Rose happy at her cooking and the rest of them sitting at rest, there was a contented time then—one of the small times when nothing of great matter was happening, when simply being was enough. They were together and at ease and for just now in need of nothing but what they had.

  For the sake and pleasure of that peace, Joliffe kept quiet. No one wanted to hear the questions still wandering in his mind. In truth, he was tired of his questions, too, and why not leave off them altogether, because what was the point of them? The crowner was finally here, would ask his questions, hold his inquest, and maybe as soon as sometime tomorrow give them leave to go. Then they would be away from here within the hour, even if they had to travel by moonlight, Joliffe thought, and that would be the last he would need ever even to think anymore about all this ugliness. The people to whom it mattered would sort it out or sink in it, however it might happen to go, but assuredly none of it would matter to him anymore.

  They had finished eating, had praised Rose until her face glowed more with pleasure than with the fire’s warmth, and were all still sitting around the fire, too satisfied to bother with any tasks so late in the day, when the sound of more than several hoof-falls in the lane turned all their heads that way, to watch as several riders, then a flat, horse-pulled cart with a long, canvas-wrapped bundle on it went past the gateway, headed villageward.

  “The crowner, his folk, and Medcote’s body,” Basset said.

  “Kyping was with them,” Ellis said.

  Several more riders followed the cart, Hal Medcote riding alone, his mother and sister riding side by side behind him. Two servants brought up the rear. A small procession seeing Medcote’s body to the church. If the inquest did not get in the way, the funeral and burial would likely be tomorrow.