A Play of Isaac

by Margaret Frazer

  “Worse luck. Rain all spring and dry weather just now. Here’s what we’re going to do, because Master Penteney is expecting Lord and Lady Lovell today and we want to be out of the way before they come. When Master Crauford is done with the stablemen, two of them can carry the body away. By your leave?” he paused to ask Master Penteney, who nodded ready agreement. Master Barentyne went on, “While we’re waiting for that, I’m asking you to stay with the body while I go through the players’ things to see if there’s any evidence there they had anything to do with this. While I do that, Master Penteney is going to ready his household for whatever questions Master Crauford and I will then be asking them. If you please, sir?” he added to Master Penteney, who again bent his head in agreement.

  Since their agreement was not going to be asked, Joliffe and Ellis simply stepped aside to let Basset lead Master Barentyne into the barn ahead of them. Rose had surely been listening. She was just inside the door, curtsying to Master Barentyne as Joliffe and Ellis entered. Standing beside her, Piers was looking fierce and did not bow until his mother, rising from her curtsy, slapped him on the back.

  He bowed then, still scowling. Master Barentyne, pretending not to notice, said to her, “I beg your pardon, but I have to look through your belongings. Will you help me, that I do no harm to anything?”

  Rose’s stiffly courteous face eased a little. “Gladly, sir.”

  He turned to Basset, Ellis, and Joliffe. “First, though, may I see your daggers? And would you set the doors wider open, to give more light?” he asked of Piers.

  With a slight shove from his mother, Piers went to do it while the three players unsheathed their daggers and held them out, hilts forward. Master Barentyne took them one by one and looked at each of them closely, especially near where the blade met the crossguard, the most likely place for blood to be left after a careless cleaning.

  That done and nothing found, Master Barentyne went through their various hampers and the cart with Rose’s help. He was quick at it but thorough and careful. He was on the last hamper, dragged from the far inside of the cart, packed with properties they did not need this week, when Joliffe gave way to his curiosity and asked, “So you think mayhap one of us—or several of us—was drunk enough to have killed this man and left his body lying outside our own door, but had wit enough to get rid of all the other evidence?”

  Master Barentyne looked up from the folded clothing in the basket and smiled. “No, I don’t think that. If you’d been drunk enough to leave the body lying there, I doubt you’d have had wit enough even to clean your daggers. Besides, none of you stink of drink this morning and you’d have to be stinking drunk to leave your victim’s body at your own door. I’m only searching your goods so I can say afterwards that, no, there was no sign any of you had done it or even sign any of you had been drunk enough to do it.”

  “So you don’t think it’s one of us at all,” said Piers indignantly.

  “No.”

  Piers glared. “Then why bother us like this?”

  “Because it’s not enough that I think a thing. I have to show others, too, that it wasn’t likely to have been any of you, no matter how much somebody might want it to be. Which very likely someone does, or the body wouldn’t have been left here.”

  “Oh,” said Piers a little blankly, seeing what he had not seen before.

  “You believe the body was moved here, then. For certain,” Basset said.

  “For certain,” Master Barentyne agreed. “Unless I can think of some other way mud got on his heels that way, and where the rest of the blood went.”

  Chapter 10

  Finished with their belongings, Master Barentyne wandered through the rest of the barn, back and forth from one side to the other its whole length, presumably looking for mud, blood, or a discarded dagger but more for the form of the business than as if he expected to find anything. The players stayed where they were near the cart, watching him, saying nothing, waiting for him to finish and Joliffe thinking that despite how quickly, seemingly casually Master Barentyne went at his looking, he would have missed nothing if it had been there to find.

  Thankfully, nothing was. Master Barentyne finished his search and came back to where they waited. “How long do you mean to be in Oxford?” he asked Basset.

  “We perform at St. Michael Northgate on Corpus Christi and will likely stay at least a day longer before taking to the road again.”

  “Here?”

  “By Master Penteney’s leave, yes.”

  Master Barentyne turned to Rose. “My apologies to you, mistress, for your trouble, and my thanks for your help.”

  “You’ve been all kindness, sir,” Rose said back with a low curtsy.

  Master Barentyne slightly bowed his head to her, then to Basset who in return bowed deeply but plainly, not spending a flourish he probably judged would be wasted on someone not likely to be impressed. Master Barentyne likewise nodded to Ellis and Joliffe, who likewise bowed. Then he left. Not needing to be told, Piers followed him to the doors, and when he had gone out, pulled one of them shut and the other almost shut, then waited, as they were all waiting, until they heard Master Barentyne begin to give orders for the body to be moved.

  Assured by that that the man was indeed done with them, Basset heaved a great sigh. “That’s it then. Unless something goes woeful wrong, we’re off that hook. Thank St. Genesius for fair-minded men and may he send more of them our way. Right. To The Pride of Life.”

  No one protested being set to work. By not going into breakfast, they avoided the talk and questions there surely would have been, and work made a welcome refuge from thinking about anything else. They went at it with a will, keeping to it all the morning until by dinner’s time even Basset was well-satisfied.

  At the best, dinner would not have been much today, what with the whole household readying for tonight’s feast. Even so, Joliffe guessed the thin-gravied, poorly seasoned stew ladled onto thick slabs of hard bread set at each place was mostly due to the morning’s upset having reached the kitchen. Fairly enough, the Penteneys at the high table did not look to have much more, and oddly almost everyone seemed in good spirits. Leonard’s death seemed to have darkened nobody’s day, but that there was not even talk of it by anyone made Joliffe suppose that Master Penteney had warned his people off being distracted by it, must have even forbidden open talk of it, the business of readying for Lord and Lady Lovell being of more importance than an unknown dead man in their yard, by happenstance.

  Only Lewis at the high table looked out of sorts, but that seemed to have nothing to do with the murder. He was restless, and over and over through the meal looked to be complaining at Simon and Kathryn beside him, pointing at Piers and making a show of not wanting his food. Once he started to slide down from his seat as if to make escape under the table but Simon and Kathyrn both caught him by the arms and Matthew stepped forward to help pull him, wiggling, back onto the bench. Mistress Penteney leaned forward then to say something at him and after that Lewis sat still, although his chin was sunk nearly to the tabletop and his lower lip thrust out, proclaiming his feelings no matter what he did not say or do.

  At the end of eating, Master Penteney rose at his place to say he regretted the scant fare but trusted they all knew why. “I promise you,” he said, “that there will be more than enough for all and everyone tonight.”

  That was greeted with raised cups and the laughter of a household well-pleased with their master and easily trusting his word. That he made no mention of the murder settled Joliffe’s thought that he had forbidden talk of it for the time being. That left Joliffe, when grace was done and he and the others left the hall, to worry if Basset was going to keep them as hard at it this afternoon as he had through this morning; but when they were in the yard Basset said, “We did good work this morning. Unless we all lose our wits between now and tonight, the play ought to go well. What I think we must needs do now is see how things are at St. Michael’s. Sire John promised their scaffold wou
ld be up by now. We should see where we play tomorrow before we’re there to do it.”

  No one quarreled with that. Piers was sent to fetch the men’s hats from the barn and very shortly they were headed down Magdalen Street and through the North Gate into the town. Once through the gateway, the church’s west tower was close to the left around the corner, the church stretching beyond it along the street there, with its churchyard at the far end for a fair distance farther, separated from the street and its eastward neighbors by a tall wall, with the town wall for its rear side.

  As Basset had hoped, the scaffold was indeed standing in the churchyard, set close to the town wall to leave room in plenty between it and the street for an audience. It looked encouragingly sturdy, made of heavy timbers and thick floorboards, with the playing platform maybe six feet above the ground and reached from behind by stairs almost steep enough to be a ladder. It was a good-sized stage, larger than their own, measuring maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet, with the back third framed by wooden posts and crosspieces from which curtains would hang to hide the back of the stage from the audience. An elderly man, long in his age-bent limbs and short of teeth, was seated on a joint stool in the shade beneath it, leaning on a heavy-headed wooden club. He narrowed his eyes as they came toward him, hefted the club up to lie across his lap, and crabbed at them as they came near, “The play is tomorrow and ye’ve no business here before then.”

  Basset made him, of course, a flourishing bow. “Good sir, here is our business. We’re the players who will be using this scaffold tomorrow. We wanted to see it aforetime.”

  The old man went from crabbed to pleased. “The players, are you? Good! You’ll find naught wrong with this scaffold, I’ll tell you. I made it myself, almost twenty years ago, and it’s done good service ever since with never a complaint from no one.”

  “I can see there wouldn’t be,” Basset said. While the old man talked, he was already looking to see how well the front posts joined to the stage, leaving Ellis and Joliffe to circle the scaffold, likewise looking at everything as the old man went on, “My sons put it together now I can’t. They took over my carpenter’s trade when I had to give it up, but I still keep my eye on their doings. There’s no mistakes or I’d know the reason why.”

  There was indeed nothing to complain of. Scaffold and stage were well made and worth the old man’s pride.

  “And now you’re guarding it?” Basset asked.

  “Through the day. I’ve a grandson who’ll do it tonight.” The old man cracked a laugh. “And that won’t cost the priest a penny. He set it to young Nick for penance, he did. Me, I get two pence for my sitting here, so I’m happy.”

  “You mean to fight troublemakers off with that club?” Ellis asked, jesting at him.

  The old man cracked another laugh. “I’m smarter than that, you young louter.” He reached behind him and lifted a long-handled fry-pan into sight from where it had been leaning against the stool. “I bang away on this and there’ll be folk come do my fighting for me.” He put the pan behind him again. “But there won’t be trouble. There’s nobody doesn’t want to see the plays.”

  “Even Lollards?” Joliffe asked. “I hear Oxford has more than its share.”

  The old man spat into the grass beside him. “Lollards. They’d best know enough to keep their heads down and their mouths shut after the way Duke Humphrey finished with ’em, God bless and keep our good duke of Gloucester.” He brightened. “Have ye heard there was a Lollard killed here last night? Not here but hereabouts? Stabbed full of holes and thrown into somebody’s stableyard with his head beaten in and serve him right, God damn ’em all.”

  Rose who had been standing with her hand on Piers’s shoulder tightened her grip, warning Piers to hold his tongue, while Joliffe and Ellis carefully showed nothing and Basset said smoothly, “We’ve heard that, yes. What a pity to come to an end like that without chance to make his peace with God.”

  The old man spat again. “If he’d not been a fool of a Lollard, he’d not have been in such need of making peace with God. Probably wouldn’t have come to such an end neither.”

  “May we go up, to have a feel for how much room we’ll have?” Basset asked.

  “Surely, surely. Go on with you,” the old man obliged cheerfully. “You’ll find no splinters or aught else to trouble you.”

  Nor did they. Ladder and stage were as smooth as hope would have them. Likewise, a little subtle jouncing by Joliffe and Ellis made not even the slightest sway, and Basset pushed and shoved at the frame that would hold the backcloth without wiggling it the least. Piers had scrambled up the ladder after them but was content to stand at the forward edge, feet wide, hands on hips, gazing out on where their audience would be.

  Rose had stayed below, in talk with the old man, and had him laughing when they descended the steps. Basset pointed to the wooden pegs driven upward-slanting around three insides of the scaffold’s frame and asked, “For the hanging?” that would close the understage and stairs from view.

  “That’s it, and a handsomer cloth you won’t see at any of the other churches, mark me. Here’s Sire John. He’ll tell you.”

  A man in hale middle years, in a priest’s plain black gown and sober plain hat, had come into the churchyard and was crossing toward them, smiling. As he came near, he exclaimed, “Master Basset!” and reached to grasp Basset’s hand before Basset could bow, then turned his smile on the rest of the company. “And your fellow players.” He rested a hand on Piers’s curly head. “Our lamb of almost-sacrifice. Young Isaac, aren’t you?”

  Piers gave a bow worthy of his grandfather. “If it please you, sir, yes,” he said in his brightest, I’m-a-good-boy voice.

  “And Master Basset is God. That I know,” Sire John said. He turned a questioning look on Joliffe and Ellis. “That leaves you two to be Abraham and the Angel.”

  They both bowed and Ellis said, “I’m Abraham, yes, and he’ll be the Angel,” with a nod at Joliffe.

  “I heard you asking about the hanging,” Sire John said to Basset. “You’ll find no fault with it.”

  “I supposed not,” Basset answered graciously.

  “No, indeed. We’ve had it but four years. Some of our wealthiest parishioners paid for it and a mercer of the parish provided it. It will do you proud, I promise.”

  “We hope to do it proud, too,” Basset said.

  “There’s provision made, too, for keeping folk from coming too far around the scaffold, just as you asked. Tomorrow there’ll be some of our sturdiest young men to keep folk from seeing anything behind your curtains there.” He nodded at the frame above the stage.

  “You are a most excellent patron,” Basset said. “I have to say we’ve never had better.”

  “My pleasure, I assure you. My pleasure indeed.”

  With mutual pleasures and their thanks to Sire John and the old man, they took their leave and were out of the churchyard and going back toward the North Gate before Ellis turned on Joliffe and demanded, “What is it with you and your mouth? What was that with bringing up Lollards for no good reason?”

  “Ellis . . .” Basset started.

  “Look!” Piers made to bound forward but Rose caught him by his doublet’s collar and hauled him back.

  “You stay with us,” she said.

  “But look! Something’s going on!” Piers pointed more insistently and no one argued that he wasn’t right. Ahead of them the flow of people had thickened and bunched and come to a stop with all their heads craned leftward, completely blocking any way onto Northgate Street and to the gateway. Across the street more crowd was gathered, looking the same way and now the players were close enough to catch the excited repeating of “Lord Lovell. It’s Lord Lovell.”

  “That’s what it is, then,” Basset said. “Lord Lovell and his people are come and heading toward the Penteneys.”

  “I want to see!” Piers demanded. So did the rest of them, but there was small hope of pushing through the crowd. The best they could hope f
or was seeing past other people’s heads, except Ellis swung Piers up to straddle his shoulders with the warning, “Don’t kick me or you’ll come down head-first, whelp.”

  Piers exclaimed, “Here they are!” as the first horsemen came into view. Their horses were mostly out of sight beyond the crowd but the riders were plain enough—men in matching livery of muted red, Lord Lovell’s foreriders making sure the way was cleared for their lord and lady. Behind them came another rider bearing aloft the Lovell banner with its nebully bars of gold and gules across it, and after him rode Lord Lovell and his lady themselves, both dressed in red that matched their banner but Lord Lovell with a green hat with a wide liripipe draped from one side of the padded roll and slung over his shoulders, while Lady Lovell had only the smallest of wimples circling her face under the slightest of padded circlets from which her white veil floated lightly back.

  Lord Lovell looked a hale, long-faced man with a long-swooped nose; Lady Lovell showed as fine and fair a lady as comfortable living and good care could make her; and they both nodded and smiled friendliwise to the crowd on either side as they passed. It raised Joliffe’s hope that they would be willing to be pleased by the play tonight. There were few things worse than playing to people determined not to be diverted.

  They passed out of sight through the gateway. There was a glimpse of the top of the heads of two children riding behind them and then the rest of their household was passing pair by pair, men and women both—knights and ladies, squires and gentlemen, Joliffe supposed—maybe a dozen altogether and all in holiday finery of bright summer colors—greens and blues and flower-reds and sunshine yellow—and after them the necessary servants, easy to know in their Lovell livery. Not interested in servants, the crowd was breaking up, with grumbling from some that no coins by way of largess had been scattered to make it worthwhile to watch at all.

  “Cheap, that’s what he is,” one man was saying as he and another elbowed between Joliffe and Basset. “Spend a fortune on himself and his, but never a half-penny for anyone else, I’ve heard.”