A Play of Isaac

by Margaret Frazer

  The man bowed and withdrew, closing the door while Basset and Joliffe both bowed to Master Richard, who beckoned them to come to him at the window. Outside, in the garden, Mistress Geva, Simon, and Kathryn were sitting in a circle on the grass, playing some sort of game with small Giles in their midst. Giles was laughing and, as Basset and Joliffe reached Master Richard, did something that made Mistress Geva laugh, too. Master Richard looked around and out at them, then back to Basset, and said, “You’re my father’s friend.” And added, answering Basset’s surprise, “He told me. After the dead man was found here, he told me about you and his brother and all. On the chance it would be necessary I know it.” Until now, Joliffe had only seen Master Richard being his father’s apparently willing follower. Now, with his father missing and the crowner come in search of his mother, he had justified his father’s training and trust by having plainly taken authority into his own hands. He held it well, looking steadily at Basset as he asked, “Do you know anything about what’s happening?”

  “What I’ve been told,” Basset said. “Nothing more. But Master Southwell does.”

  Joliffe found himself with both men looking at him.

  “What do you know?” Master Richard demanded.

  “Just tell him,” Basset said as Joliffe hesitated. “Start with where Master and Mistress Penteney are.”

  Joliffe was spared that by a sudden silence from the hall. The talk from there had been a low, uneven background sound. Its stop made all three men look toward the door, just as Master Penteney entered.

  “Father!” Master Richard said gladly, going to meet him. Only after he had grasped his father’s out-held hand did he take in his father’s disheveled hair and clothing and the strained unhappiness on his face, and say, far less gladly, “Father, what is it? Where’s Mother?”

  “She’s safe,” Master Penteney said. He had already taken in that Basset and Joliffe were there and seen beyond them to the garden. “Richard, fetch the others here, please. Geva, Simon, Kathryn. Don’t send someone. No, don’t call out the window. Bring them yourself. As quietly as may be.”

  “What do you mean by Mother is safe?” Master Richard asked.

  “I mean she’s in sanctuary at St. Ebbe’s church. Please. Bring the others here.”

  Master Richard, his own face suddenly as strained as his father’s, went out of the room. Master Penteney shut the door behind him and turned to Basset and Joliffe. “Master Southwell, I met Master Barentyne’s guard at my front gate, so I know what happened here after we left, and Master Barentyne will surely be back here soon. He knows about my wife tainting the sweetmeats. Does he know about Lewis? That she killed him?”

  “No,” Joliffe said. “I’ve said nothing. He has no reason to suspect further than he does. That Lewis died of his weak heart.”

  Master Penteney heaved a great breath. “That’s something, then. Will you keep it secret? The both of you?”

  “We swear it,” Basset said instantly, and Joliffe nodded to it, too, as Basset asked, “But what are you going to do about the other? About the poisoning. She’ll have to give some reason for it.”

  “We’ve decided that already. She’ll claim she doesn’t know why she did it. That it was a kind of madness. If she doesn’t admit to more, everyone will have to accept that.”

  “It was still a crime,” Basset said. “She’ll not be let lightly off for it.”

  “She won’t be, no,” Master Penteney agreed. “Aside from whatever punishment there would be if she wasn’t in sanctuary, the disgrace of it will finish her here in Oxford. More than that, I’m afraid that if she’s closely questioned, she’ll break down and confess Lewis’s murder and that would be the end of everything. No. She’s claimed sanctuary, she’ll admit the poisoning, and when she’s exiled, I’ll go with her. I have means enough overseas and know enough people there. We’ll do well enough.”

  “You’ll go with her,” Basset said.

  “I’ll go with her. Part of the guilt is mine. I wanted the Fairfield properties badly enough I let it blind me to anything else. It was because I wouldn’t see for myself or hear what she tried to tell that she did what she did. Besides that . . .” Master Penteney’s voice softened and went low. “. . . how could I let her go alone? I love her.”

  It all came down, very simply, to that.

  “What of everything here?” Basset asked. “You’ll just leave it?”

  “Richard is ready to take it over. More than ready. And Geva will be the happier, having a household for her own.”

  In the garden Master Richard was collecting the others, small Giles protesting the end of his game.

  “It’s Glover I’m wondering about now,” Master Penteney said. “Have you heard anything?”

  “Nothing yet,” Basset said.

  For the first time Master Penteney lost his certainty, shook his head with worry. “Damn. I hope he’s done nothing stupid.”

  “You think he might have?” Basset asked.

  “I’ve always suspected he never gave up lollardy so thoroughly as the rest of us but I’ve always been careful not to know for certain. What if that comes out in Master Barentyne’s questioning? What if it comes out he knew this Hubert Leonard?”

  “I think that’s a matter about which you can do nothing,” said Basset. “You’ve enough to see to here.”

  “And anything he accuses you of—about your brother or anything else,” Joliffe said, “just deny it all and go on denying it.”

  Master Penteney looked at him, then back to Basset, and said quietly, “Just as we did all those years ago.”

  “Just as all those years ago,” Basset agreed, quietly, too.

  There was deep understanding in their looks at one another. Then Master Penteney held out his hand to Basset and said briskly, “Best you be out of it, then. If I’ve no chance of better farewell later, farewell now, with my wishes for good health and fortune on all your journeyings hereafter.”

  Basset took his hand in a hard grip. “My wish to you for the same, and my thanks for all you’ve done for us. Good health and fortune to you and your lady.”

  He and Master Penteney looked long into each other’s faces, then stepped apart, and Master Penteney held out his hand to Joliffe, saying, “Thank you for giving my wife this chance.”

  Joliffe took his hand in a brief clasp, with no answer to make to that. He did not want Mistress Penteney to face death for what she’d done, but he was still angry for Lewis’s death, and so he settled for silence and a slight bow of his head before following Basset out of the room.

  They passed Master Richard returning with Simon and Kathryn. Mistress Geva, carrying Giles on her hip, had stopped to direct a lingering group of servants toward setting up the tables for supper. Master Richard gave Basset a questioning look as they passed but asked nothing. Mistress Geva did not notice them at all, and when they were past her, Basset murmured to Joliffe, “I think we’ll have our supper somewhere other than here tonight, all being as it is.”

  Joliffe was more than willing. The last place he wanted to be this evening was anywhere near the Penteneys and the wreck of what had been certainty and a family only a few days ago.

  He and Basset came out of the house just as Rose and Ellis and Piers were coming in the gateway from the street. They met in the middle of the yard, Ellis asking, “What’s this with the crowner’s guard at the gate and asking do we know where Mistress Penteney is?”

  Turning them around and toward the gate again, Basset linked one arm through Rose’s and another through Ellis’s, with Joliffe steering Piers with a hand on his shoulder after them, Basset saying as they went, “We’re going out to supper tonight, in some inn the other side of town. Over a good cut of beef and other things I’ll explain all. Or, better yet, Joliffe will.”

  “There’s trouble, isn’t there?” Ellis groaned. “And it’s his doing, isn’t it?”

  Chapter 20

  Despite of everything, the players went as usual to break their fast
in the hall the next morning. They mingled unremarked among the household’s ordinary folk and the Lovell servants, helping themselves to the bread, new cheese, and weak ale set out on the table. There was not much talk among the servants. Whatever the household had been told, they were subdued and no one lingered at their food but ate and went away to their duties. If this was sign that Mistress Geva had already taken the household in hand, it was a good one, but of the Penteneys and Simon and Lord and Lady Lovell there was no sign.

  Like everyone else, the players did not linger but ate and left. Not that there was much to do but wait or anywhere to go but the barn. For them to take to the streets and make even seemingly merry at their work or anything else felt wrong. Like everyone else, they were set to wait for whatever word came next, and to pass the time Piers brought the wooden horse for Ellis to carve on and silently hung over his shoulder while he did. Rose took up the mending there always was and Basset and Joliffe tried to talk about what changes they could make in their plays to better use Piers.

  Because they had set the barn doors wide open to the early morning light, a man’s long shadow thrown ahead of him into the barn gave warning that someone was coming; they were all on their feet by the time Master Barentyne entered. He had no men with him, which probably meant he was not bringing trouble, but still there was a hint of wariness in Basset’s greeting him with a bow and, “Good morrow, sir. How go things?”

  “Well enough. Master Southwell, I’ve come to thank you for your help in the matter of Glover. He’s refusing to admit to anything as yet but all the evidence lies against him.”

  “What did you find?” Joliffe asked.

  “Most importantly, lollard pamphlets hidden under the floorboards of his bedroom. Not just single copies but many of each and paper for writing more. My guess is that Glover is not only a Lollard but a busy one. Living out there, well away from town, he could have people come and go without being much noted, bringing him news and whatever and taking news and pamphlets away with them.”

  “But he denies he’s a Lollard?” Joliffe asked.

  “He admits to that freely enough. He might as well. But he denies Hubert Leonard was there and that’s a mistake. There’s a place in the kitchen where what looks to have been blood has been lately scrubbed from the floor. Not that anyone with half his wits couldn’t explain that away and Glover does, but it looks like far more blood than you’d expect to come from a killed chicken. And why was he killing a chicken in the house anyway? He doesn’t know. Then there’s the way the back of the house faces nowhere but a pasture closed in by hedges and runs down to a marsh, just as you said, and can’t be seen from the road or anywhere else. Seems that when Master Penteney is dealing in particularly fine horses, which he does sometimes, they’re kept there, to be less obvious to thieves and better under Glover’s watch. The only gate into the pasture is beside the house, but there’s a narrow stile at the bottom of it that makes an easy way in and out for a man on foot and a private way for any Lollards who might want to come and go secretly. In the mud of the marsh edge we found the marks of what look like heels being dragged along. Besides that, there were two broken pottery mugs in the kitchen midden.”

  “They quarreled over something,” Joliffe guessed. “They fought—there were Leonard’s skinned knuckles and the bruise on his chin—and when Leonard was down, Glover did for him, likely in anger and not thinking ahead. Otherwise he would have thought about the blood needing to be cleaned up.”

  “That’s how I see it,” Master Barentyne said. “Unless Glover talks, we’ll never know for certain but it’s close enough.”

  And if Joliffe had his guess, the quarrel had been because Leonard had gone to Master Penteney for money where and when he should not have. If Glover indeed kept a way station for secret Lollard comings and goings, peril to Master Penteney came too close to being peril for himself and everyone who dealt through him. That was surely reason enough for him to be murderously angry at Leonard.

  Those thoughts he kept to himself, only saying aloud, “Once he’d killed Leonard, he hid the body in the marsh because if it was found there, at least he could deny any knowledge of it.”

  “Then, after dark, with his men gone away to Oxford, he dragged the body to the stile and over,” Master Barentyne said. “Leonard being much about Glover’s size, dragging him would have been easier than carrying him. Likely if the ground wasn’t so hard, we’d have found drag marks from the house to the marsh. Once over the stile, Glover had the cart waiting. That torn bit of Leonard’s shirt? One of my men found it in one of the carts, just like we guessed, torn off on a rough splinter of wood. The first time anyone used the cart again, it would have been seen, but Glover did it all at night, by nothing but starlight, and it’s been holiday since then, with the cart just sitting in the shed. Its wheels, by the way, had been lately and thoroughly greased.”

  “Could someone else have used the cart without Glover knowing? Can he claim one of his men there might have?” Joliffe suggested.

  “Glover isn’t a trusting man. There’s a door on the cartshed with a padlock on it and he has the only key. No one else could have used it. No, he loaded Leonard’s body onto the cart, brought him here, dumped him, and went home again.”

  “Why here?” Ellis asked, still aggrieved about that.

  “There’s a question,” Master Barentyne said. “Since he won’t say he did any of this, he hasn’t answered it, but I’ve made guesses. From what you told me . . .” he nodded to Joliffe, “. . . about what Glover was saying against Master Penteney, my guess is that Glover hasn’t forgiven Penteney for gaining everything his brother lost, nor maybe for being rich when Glover isn’t. Glover and Penteney’s brother have stayed true Lollards, but it’s Master Penteney who’s thrived in the world.”

  “I thought true Lollards are supposed to scorn worldly things,” Basset said dryly.

  “Apparently some don’t scorn them enough,” Master Barentyne said dryly back. “There Glover was with a dead body and a dislike of Master Penteney. Burying a body is a chancy business. People tend to note new-dug earth where there’s no reason for it. In the general way of things, dead bodies don’t stay hidden well, and just left lying about, they draw attention to themselves sooner or later, one way or another, and people ask questions. So he put the body where people wouldn’t look at him about it and made trouble for Master Penteney at the same time. Whether he knew you players were in the barn . . .”

  “I don’t think I ever said so to him,” Joliffe said. “But one of his men is courting a maid here and could have heard and talked about it.”

  “Lollards don’t care much for plays and players,” Basset said. “Seems Glover is a bitter sort of man. If he did know about us, I doubt he’d have minded making trouble for us as well as Master Penteney. More for the price of one, as it were. Will what you have against him be enough to satisfy a jury, do you think?”

  “That’s never easy to say ahead of the time, but even if we fail to get him for the murder, there’s still the Lollardy. That will hold. More importantly for you, I’m satisfied he did it and you’re all free to leave Oxford whenever you choose.”

  Relief bright as sunlight after a cloud moves past the sun showed on all their faces; but Rose asked, “What about Mistress Penteney? We’ve heard she’s taken sanctuary and why—that she poisoned the sweetmeats—but why did she do that? Has she said?”

  “That she has not. She only claims it was a kind of madness came over her. When she confessed her guilt to her husband, he saw her into sanctuary.” Master Barentyne fixed Joliffe with a hard look. “Just before I came to accuse and arrest her. Almost as if she had had warning I’d come for her.”

  Joliffe tried for a look that said he did not understand what Master Barentyne was saying. Master Barentyne answered that with a doubting sound in his throat and went on, “Master Penteney says he doesn’t understand either why she did it, and it doesn’t matter in the end, I suppose, since she’s confessed to it
and there’s nothing more the law can do about it except see her into exile and be thankful that God was merciful and none but the idiot died.”

  Joliffe curbed the same spasm of anger he had had toward Glover’s easy dismissing of Lewis’s death. Whatever Lewis had lacked in the way of wits, he had been completely, honestly himself—a thing most people rarely were, even those said to be whole in their wits. More than that, Lewis had been full of eagerness toward his life and it had been roughly stolen from him. Whatever good came to Kathryn and Simon because of that did not in the least change the wrong that had been done to him.

  Joliffe kept all that to himself, though, while Basset thanked Master Barentyne for their release and walked him to the barn doors, saw him away, and stayed there until he was well gone before turning around to say, “Let’s load up. Joliffe, how long will it take to fetch Tisbe back?”

  “If I go for her now, we can be on our way by dinnertime.”

  “After dinnertime,” Ellis said. “Why travel with empty stomachs?”

  “Why not?” said Joliffe, heading out the door. “You travel with an empty head.”

  “Yours!” Ellis shouted after him.

  At the pasturage the fellow presently and somewhat bemusedly in Glover’s place made no protest to Joliffe claiming Tisbe. “Given she’s the scrawniest one in the pasture, you wouldn’t be claiming her if she wasn’t yours,” the man said.

  “What about that bay with the white forefeet?” Joliffe asked, pointing across the pasture.

  “Odd. The crowner’s man asked about that one, too.”

  “And?” Joliffe prompted when the fellow did not continue.

  “I don’t know nothing about it, is all. That’s what I told the crowner’s man and what I’m telling you. It was just here one day when I come back from Oxford. When I asked Master Glover about it, he said it belonged to a friend of Master Penteney’s, that’s all. Like your little mare here.”