“Did you learn anything?” Ellis demanded.
“That Sir Edmund is a generous lord, who sits his own manor-court,” when that task was often left to a manor’s steward or bailiff or reeve, “and against whom there are no great complaints.”
“But . . . ?” asked Joliffe, not of what Basset had said, but of the shadow faintly behind the words.
“But,” Basset echoed. “Yes. But. I don’t know the but. Nor am I sure it’s against Sir Edmund. And of Lady Benedicta, the wife, Father Morice would not talk at all beyond granting her to be a gracious lady, a good lady, a—”
“A lady he’d best not say anything bad about?” Joliffe suggested.
Although Joliffe could not see Basset’s face in the shadows, there was a thoughtful frown in his voice as he answered, “Maybe that. Or maybe she’s a lady about whom nothing can be said at all, she is so slight a being, of naught but gowns and gauds, of little wit and less—”
“What about this marriage?” Ellis asked. “Are we going to be playing to people who are glad about it or unglad?” Because there were few things more disheartening than playing to folk set into a determined dark humour, not only unready to be diverted but sometimes ready to be angry at anyone who tried it.
“Ah, the marriage,” Basset said in the mellow tones that told he was about to wax eloquent.
Rose, as able as anyone to see it coming, said briskly, “Hush. We’ll be waking Piers. Tell us tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Basset said. “The other day that haunts our dreams and hopes for evermore. The day that—”
“The marriage,” Ellis whispered fiercely, not willing to wait for tomorrow.
“Happiness all around,” Basset whispered back, “and everyone in haste to have it happen.”
Which left only the matter of why Lord Lovell had set them to spy here, Joliffe thought.
Chapter 4
The manor of Deneby was set in a wide valley among low, sheep-cropped hills thickly banded along their foot by a stretch of forest. The village with its squat-towered church sat near the valley’s lower end, the hedge-bordered great fields spread out around it, with Sir Edmund’s manor house farther on, marked by a round tower above a tight cluster of slate-roofed great hall and thatch-roofed lesser buildings, all surrounded by a tall stone wall and a wide moat fed by the stream.
Moats could be stinking things, stagnant and foul, but the stream’s flow had this one running clear. Joliffe could see the green ripple of water plants and the shadowy movement of fish in its depths as the company crossed over the wooden bridge from road to manor gateway. Ahead of him Basset and Ellis were juggling bright fountains of balls and behind them Piers and Gil were deeply bowing and sweeping their hats to either side as if already being applauded by the folk just beginning to gather into the yard to see them arrive. Joliffe came playing his lute behind them, dancing a little to his own lively music, while Rose brought up the rear with Tisbe and the cart. Over breakfast Basset had talked of getting yellow and red ribbons for Tisbe’s harness, to match the cart’s hood now it was so grand, but presently Tisbe was her plain self, while the rest of them had put on their best street-garb—parti-colored tunics and hosen, gaudy-dyed shoes, over-large hats for Basset, Ellis, and Joliffe, a parti-colored gown for Rose. Piers had been outgrowing the tabard that usually served over his daily clothing at these times—“He grows too much from one day to the next to bother the cost of making him better just yet,” Basset had grumbled months ago—but still had his cap with a green popinjay feather and today along with the men and his mother was wearing the proud Lovell tabard.
To Gil, because there had been neither time nor any chance to do better for him, was left Piers’ old tabard, laughably too short on him but the best they could do at present. All the way to the manor he had been pulling down on its lower edge as if somehow he could make it cover more of his other clothing; but now that there were people to see him—servants and other household folk gathering into the manor yard—he’d begun to use the tabard’s shortness, bringing laughter at himself with a flaunt of hip here, a buttock-revealing bow there, a sudden feigned shyness and renewed tugging at the tabard when he caught a girl’s gaze on him.
Joliffe had started the day heavy with wondering what they would find once they were at the manor hall. For all that everything had seemed well enough in talk in the village, Lord Lovell was no fool, to be seeing trouble where there wasn’t any, and to that had been added worry at how Gil would be. Because no one else had been showing their probably like-worry, he had kept his own to himself, but now—watching Gil caper and play to the lookers-on—his own spirits rose past pretended merriment into true. If Gil proved to be anything like so good as he so far seemed to be, they would owe Lord Lovell far more than they already did, whatever bother there might be with Denebys in the meanwhile.
Supposing Gil was what he seemed and not a spy set on them by Lord Lovell.
That was a thought Joliffe wished his mind had not bothered to have.
Their little band of merriment drew up in the middle of the yard beyond the gatehouse. Perhaps fifty yards from end to end and almost as wide, the yard was surrounded on three sides by various byres and sheds and stables, while directly across from the gateway was the high-roofed, tall-windowed great hall, not so new as Lord Lovell’s lately built at Minster Lovell but fine enough to tell the Denebys were no slight family. The round, stone-built tower seen from down the valley, standing at the hall’s right end, was older than the hall, with stark, plain lines and narrow windows, its one outer door a full story above the ground, all for better defense when defense was more an everyday matter in England than it presently was. The door was reached by worn stone stairs sheltered by a penticed roof slanted out from the stone wall of the tower, with a stone porch at the top that had originally been small, to keep enough men from gathering there for any strong assault on the door. With assault no longer a likelihood, a wider porch had been made of wood and extended past the tower into a covered walkway to the roofed upper gallery running the whole length of a long, new building along the yard beyond it. By the line of doors both along the gallery above and at ground level below, Joliffe guessed there was a whole wing of rooms there, more comfortable than whatever had been in the old stone tower.
By all that, Sir Edmund looked to be a prospering knight with a firm hand on matters around him, making him well worth Lord Lovell taking trouble over his business, since much of a lord’s worth and reputation depended on the worth and reputation of the men allied to him and Sir Edmund looked to be an ally worth the having.
Basset tossed his juggling balls to Ellis, shifted his manner to dignified, and strode forward alone to meet the man coming toward them from the hall doorway, servants clearing a way for him. He was a hollow-chested fellow with the drawn-in face of a man not in the best of health. Joliffe judged by his simple over-gown that he was not Sir Edmund, was probably the household’s steward, and to him but likewise for all to hear, Basset boldly announced that he and his company were come at Lord Lovell’s bidding as a gift to give sport and merriment and goodly plays for the delight of Sir Edmund Deneby, his household, and guests this happy time until his daughter’s wedding.
“And afterward, too,” Basset finished with a low bow and sweep of his hat, “if it should be Sir Edmund’s gracious pleasure.”
The steward replied in kind, with thanks both to Basset and Lord Lovell, adding assurance of Sir Edmund’s grateful pleasure at their being here. That, Joliffe thought, was the kind of welcome being a lord’s players got you and far better than many they’d had over the years.
Basset and the steward fell into quieter talk then—the steward apologizing that with the guests and their people already here and those expected later, the players must be given somewhere less to stay than otherwise they might. Basset replied that so long as it was somewhere they could be private to ready themselves for Sir Edmund’s pleasure and keep the goods of their craft safe and secret, they would be well satisfied. It ended with a deep bow from Basset and a lesser bow from the steward before he called one of the servants to him, directing they might have use of the cartshed beyond the carpentry shop, since the great cart was gone to Oxford—“To fetch the wine for all the feasting to come,” he said—leaving plenteous space for their own.
Basset smiled his respect, stepped back with another bow, and turned to follow the waiting servant. The rest of the players followed them both, Ellis making a high display with the bright balls and Piers leading Gil in a mad-footed dance to match Joliffe’s merry strumming on his lute while Rose and Tisbe were content with simply following them.
The carpentry shop sat at the far end of the yard, with a cart-wide gap between it and the stables that led into a small yard wide enough to bring out and turn the several carts lined side by side in an open-sided, earth-floored shed backed against the manor’s outer wall. As Ellis rounded the corner into the cart-yard, he let fall the balls, catching them all into his arms. Piers likewise ceased dancing the moment he was beyond sight of the main yard and Joliffe ceased to play and dropped a hand on Gil’s shoulder to let him know he could stop, too, saying, “Save yourself for when there’s someone to pay for it.”
“There’s where you can be,” their guide said, pointing toward an empty place at the farther end of the shed.
“What of our horse?” Basset asked. “Will there be stabling for her? Or grazing?”
“Master Henney didn’t say. Doubt there’s room in stable anyway. Maybe best you keep her here?” the fellow ventured.
Basset thanked him and slipped a farthing into his hand in farewell. It wasn’t much, but the man beamed at him and went away, leaving the players looking at each other, smiles slowly spreading across all their faces.
“This,” said Basset for all of them, “is shaping very well.”
It was. An honorable reception, a private and dry place to stay, steady work for a week or more, their meals assured. Even Ellis, who was given to seeing the darker possibilities in anything, was whistling as they set to their settling in. While Joliffe unhitched Tisbe, Basset and the others debated how best to put the cart into the shed. Fit was no trouble. The “great cart” must be much the size of their own, and the shed was high-eaved enough there was not even need to remove their tilt. Whether to put it in forward or back was the question and finally they decided on back, because it was through the back their hampers of all their goods could easiest be got at, and when they were not here, the cart could be shoved against the rear wall, making everything harder to reach for anyone who shouldn’t be there. Not that a determined thief could be stopped by the tilt’s canvas or crawling over the forward seat and through the tied curtains behind it, but the idly curious would be kept at bay and there was small likelihood of theft here, because any thief could be too easily found out in the guarded bounds of the manor. But “Better safe to start with than sorry afterwards,” Basset said.
“And the shoving the cart back and pulling it forward whenever we go and come will keep you fit,” Joliffe said cheerfully, waiting aside with Tisbe while Basset, Ellis, Piers, and Gil began to shift the cart.
Rose came to him, took Tisbe’s reins from him, and said in her best mother-voice, “Go and help.”
Grinning, Joliffe obeyed.
With the cart in shelter, they changed into their plainer clothing before doing more, not that there was much more to do. With neither room between their cart and the next—nor need under the close-thatched roof—to set up their tent, they only put up the poles with a cloth hung between them that gave Rose a place of her own against the shed’s back wall to sleep and dress. For the rest of them, they pulled their bedding out of the cart and stacked it underneath, to be laid out later, both under their cart and between it and the one beside it. “Which happily is not a dung cart,” Basset observed.
“Can we have a fire here, do you think?” Rose asked. An open-sided cartshed would not keep as warm around their firepot as a full barn did.
“A very small one should be well enough,” Basset said. “In a pit and covered when we’re not here.”
“Joliffe can collect the wood for it when he takes Tisbe to graze,” said Ellis.
Joliffe did not bother to quarrel at that. They would probably be allowed some hay while here but taking Tisbe to graze, too, would both let her fatten a little during her time off from hauling the cart and give him a chance to be somewhat alone while with her. He was not as given to company as his fellow players, and they knew as well as he did how sharp-humoured he could become if he did not sometimes get away. For him to take Tisbe to graze suited everyone.
“The question will be
when
you can take her,” Basset said. “We’ve somewhat of work ahead of us. My thought is to set young Gil to it as soon as might be. What do you say to trying
The Steward and the Devil
tonight? That’s good to start with, I think.”
He looked around for their assent. Though there were memories that went with playing
The Steward and the Devil,
they all nodded. Gil, having seen it at Minster Lovell, knew it and asked, “I’ll be a demon?”
“You will,” Basset said. “We still have the large tabard for it?” he asked Rose.
“The tail, too,” she said.
“After dinner, then, we’ll rehearse you,” Basset told Gil, as from the hall someone began to ring a handbell, calling people to the mid-day meal.
The Steward and the Devil
was a straight-forward play and one they often did, with Basset playing three parts, Ellis the Steward, Joliffe the Devil, and Piers as a small but lively demon who came on at the end to drive the Steward off to hell. As another demon, Gil would only have to copy what Piers did—something they had done before when they’d briefly had to include someone else in the play. Before this morning, Joliffe would have looked on it as a way to find out how Gil would do before an audience, because to think of being a player was one thing, to find a group of strangers staring at every move you made was another, and more than one would-be player had found himself brought to a mind-blanked halt at his first moment of it. But coming into the yard this morning, Gil had carried on as well as any of them, making it likely he’d do well enough as a leaping demon following Piers’ lead. What would happen when he was given words to say could be another matter, but as Basset too often said, “The moment’s troubles usually suffice for the moment,” and Joliffe put all else aside to ready for his first sight of Sir Edmund’s family and guests, among whom there might—or might not—be a murderer, who might—or might not—be going to kill again, depending on how right Lord Lovell’s suspicion was.