Or wasn’t.
The wide doorway into Deneby’s great hall sat at yard-level rather than over a cellar or undercroft and up any stairs. When the players came from behind the carpentry shop, people already crossing the yard toward it turned curious looks their way, and there were some exclaims and pointing from a small flurry of women hurrying along the gallery above the yard, but the only person who spoke to them was a small man who stepped forward to meet them as they neared the hall. Subdued in manner, gowned in a plain, brown, ankle-length surcoat and with ink on his fingers, he looked to be a clerk—the steward’s clerk, Joliffe guessed as the man said, “Master Henney said I should see you to your places in the hall, and ask your names, asking your pardon not to have had them earlier.”
He spoke stiffly, very much on his dignity in dealing with them. Other people’s dignity at their expense being something to which the players were well-used, Basset merely thanked him graciously and gave their names but at the end asked in return, “And you are?”
That briefly discomposed the man. Servants did not ask such questions back. But that was partly why Basset had done it. Where players fit in the world was never clear, but, whatever they were, they were not anyone’s servants. Even Lord Lovell was their patron, not their master. Respectful acceptance of someone’s higher place was one thing. Being servile was another. Lacking servants’ advantages of set wages and certainty of food and shelter, Basset did not see reason to accept any servants’ disadvantages that he could avoid. “If we’re going to pay the cost of being players,” he had once said, “we might as well have the profit of it, too.”
“Even if that and a penny will buy maybe a loaf of bread,” Joliffe had said back and been lightly clouted along his head and told that that was not the point and to mind his tongue.
But besides all that, it would be helpful to have the clerk’s name, and after an uncertain moment, the man gave way to Basset’s polite waiting and said, “I’m William Duffeld, clerk of accounts to Master Henney, Sir Edmund’s steward here, whom you have met.”
“A fine man,” Basset said. “Now, Master Duffeld, would you know if he would permit us to have a small and careful fire where we’re staying?”
Duffeld hesitated. “It’s the cartshed you’re in.”
He sounded as if his concern was more for the wooden carts and thatch roof, but Basset readily, cheerily agreed, “It is indeed the cartshed, and therefore a small fire, kept well-covered when we’re not there, will do no harm to anyone and be a comfort to us, the nights drawing in chill and damp this time of year. In truth, as you can see, it would be more than a comfort to us. Our taking a rheum will do our playing no good, and if we do not play, we do not serve Lord Lovell’s purpose in having sent us here.”
Joliffe did not doubt it was the use of Lord Lovell’s name that made the difference. Duffeld hemmed a little but then agreed they might have a small fire.
“And wood for it,” Basset said, smiling. “Or allowance for us to gather some for ourselves when we graze our horse. If we may do so.”
That was well-done, too. No one would know better than the steward’s clerk, whose duties included writing down each day’s tally of food and wood used in the household not only by its members but for all guests, the cost of hay and wood. Having already granted them a fire, he was now offered an easy way not only away from wood for it but less hay for their horse, too. The man’s calculation was quick. He shortly nodded and said, “I must needs ask Master Henney for a certainty. I’ll tell you later what he says, but likely that will serve well. Now if I may see you to your place?”
Basset graciously allowed that he might and they followed him inside, into the low-ceilinged screens passage, its wooden wall shielding the hall from drafts from the outer door. On the left were the butlery and pantry, separated by a passageway to the kitchen. Opposite, a wide doorway through the screen wall opened into the great hall. Wide and long and open to the high rafters, the hall had a low-rimmed long hearth in its middle, flanked by two lines of trestle tables facing each other, running the hall’s length to the low dais at the far end and the high table where Sir Edmund, his family, and best guests would sit. They were not come in yet but such of the household as dined in the hall were taking their places along the benches on the outer side of the long tables. Being Lord Lovell’s players got Basset and the rest of them a little higher than the very end of one of the tables, only a few of the household’s lowest put below them, but since there had been times when they had been denied any place at table at all, they valued the difference.
Basset sat highest, next to an older maidservant with whom he was soon in talk. Joliffe sat next to him, although Ellis had been in the company longer and should have sat there; but Ellis preferred to sit beside Rose, who by rights could have sat above Joliffe, too, but she thought it best to sit beside Piers, and they all—except Piers—agreed he should be at the bottom for the sake of his humility. Not that Piers had ever shown a shadow of anything even distantly resembling humility. That he presently held back from too openly showing his pleasure at being seated above Gil along the table was as near to grace as he was likely to come, to Joliffe’s mind.
Joliffe, who didn’t much care where he sat so long as it was not at the high table or in the midden, was merely glad to have Rose and Ellis occupied with each other and Basset immediately in talk with the maid, because that left him free to look well around the hall and household. Those who dined here would be the household officers and clerks and better servants, not stablehands and kitchen help and suchlike. These were the people closest to the Denebys and how they behaved would tell much about Sir Edmund and Lady Benedicta. A careless, ill-mannered master tended to have careless, ill-mannered servants. A master with a heavy hand and foul humour had, at best, sullen, wary folk around him or, at worst, people as foul-humoured as himself.
Here, Joliffe was eased to see, folk were well-kept, with easy talk among them and their looks at the players only curious, not wary or worried. All that boded well, and so did the signs of Sir Edmund’s prosperity around the hall. The well-plastered walls were freshly painted a rich earth-red. The wall-hanging behind the high table, painted with men and women in a flowery meadow, hawks on hand and hounds among them, was not only large but of good quality and likely London-made. There were open shelves standing at one wall, displaying a fine array of silver platters and goblets and plates against a green damask cloth draped shelf to shelf from top to bottom. The rushes covering the floor were fresh, the wooden tabletop in front of him scrubbed clean, and the high table covered by a shiningly white cloth. Everything told that Sir Edmund not only prospered but used his prosperity well, both for his own comfort and to impress his guests. A man so well-given to outward seeming as Sir Edmund looked to be would probably not be behind-hand in well-rewarding the players, too, the more especially because they were here at Lord Lovell’s behest.
All that was left to see were Sir Edmund and his family and guests, and they were entering now through the doorway behind the high table, at the dais’ end. First were two older men who had to be Sir Edmund and the wealthy Master Breche in what looked like friendly talk together as they went to the two tall-backed chairs at the middle of the table. Joliffe watched as they delayed sitting down while each urged the other—to judge by their gestures—to be seated first. Then they laughed and the man whom Joliffe guessed to be Master Breche sat first, a stout-waisted man in an amply cut, long, loose gown of grey wool thickly furred in black at throat and wrists. He had a merchant’s look to him, while the other man was younger than Joliffe had expected Sir Edmund to be, in perhaps his late thirties, with a calf-long, deep crimson gown belted low on his lean waist and dark hair sleekly cut, his manner graceful as he turned to seat a woman on the bench to his right while a servant ushered the others to their places along the table.
Basset had been making use of his talk with the maidservant. He leaned away from her to say low-voiced to Joliffe, “That’s Sir Edmund in the red and his lady wife with him.”
Joliffe’s first thought about Lady Benedicta was that she was beautiful. There were women on whom their beauty came young and did not last, and women on whom beauty came only with the fullness of years, and women on whom beauty, in the world’s sense, never came. However she had been when young, Lady Benedicta was undeniably beautiful now. Her wide-cauled headdress draped with a short veil hid her hair but even the length of the hall Joliffe could see the fine line of her high-arched dark brows above wide-set eyes and fine cheekbones in the perfectly proportioned oval of her face. Her trailing gown was of a red brighter than her husband’s, the standing collar closed high under her chin showing off her long throat the way the long lines of the gown’s thick folds from the green-dyed leather belt just below her breasts showed off her slender form before she sat gracefully down.
“That’s their daughter, Mariena, on the other side of Master Breche,” Basset said. He cocked his head briefly toward the maid’s whisper, then added, “And her betrothed-to-be beside her.”
Joliffe switched his admiring consideration from Lady Benedicta to them. The young man bowing the girl to the place beside his uncle before sitting down on her other side had looks that were nothing beyond the ordinary, but with youth to recommend them, he was comely enough. The girl, though . . .
Like her mother, Mariena held the eye. Whether her beauty was the kind that would last there was no telling, but at present she had it in plenty, with the same arched brows and pleasingly proportioned face of her mother, but as pale and rose as a maiden’s was supposed to be. In token of her maidenhood, her hair—dark like her father’s—was uncovered, and although from where he sat Joliffe could not tell how long it was, he would have wagered it went to her waist and more. And a slender waist it was, shown off by a pale green gown loosely fitted but boldly cut and curved to leave the sides open far enough down to reveal a summer-blue undergown close-fitted over breasts and hips.
Young Amyas Breche would be getting a very comely bride.
Chapter 5
Beside Joliffe, Ellis was looking the same way with openly much the same thought because he said, “There’s someone worth their looking at.”
Joliffe returned, “If she does anything like so lovely as she is . . .”
Ellis started to laugh but Rose pushed an elbow subtly but firmly into his ribs, silencing him and Joliffe both with a dark look.
They were diverted then by servants coming with the first remove, carrying the first dishes up the hall to the high table with some ceremony. With less ceremony, other servants brought in and set out large bowls of mutton, turnips, and squares of cheese in a thick gravy along the lower tables, one to every two people, for them to spoon onto the thick-cut rounds of day-old bread that served in place of plates at each place. With hunger’s first edge eased, Joliffe leaned his head toward Basset and said, “So that’s Father Morice beside Amyas Breche, and young Will at the other end of the table. But who’s the couple between Will and Lady Benedicta?” A young man and woman with “married couple” all but blazoned on them, well-dressed in sober dark blues with no enriching fur.
“They’re the Wyots,” Basset said. “Harry was Sir Edmund’s ward. Sir Edmund set up his marriage with a merchant who wanted to marry his daughter into the landed gentry.” He lowered his voice and leaned a little nearer Joliffe to add, “And that’s all Bess here would say about them.”
His tone suggested that the
way
she had said no more had told more than what she’d said. An unhappy marriage then? Forced on an unwilling young man who might have preferred to marry Mariena but instead been given to the merchant’s daughter? The merchant’s daughter was not ill to look at but she was, to put it at the best, plain, and with her married woman’s wimple and veil encircling her wide-cheeked face and covering her hair she looked the plainer, contrasted to Mariena. How much did Harry Wyot resent being married to her when he might have had Mariena for his wife?
Come to that, if he was worth a wealthy merchant having him for son-in-law, why
hadn’t
he been worth Sir Edmund marrying him to Mariena? There were questions to be asked there.
Another question was why were he and his wife here now?
With disgust, Joliffe realized he was settling easily to the work Lord Lovell has asked of him. It did make everything more interesting, though, and through the meal—and a good meal it was, too, with cod seethed in spiced milk and a frumenty of barley in broth coming next—Joliffe watched, not too openly, the folk at the high table. Sir Edmund and Master Breche kept mostly in what looked to be good-humoured talk with each other, though Sir Edmund occasionally, briefly, spoke to his wife, while Master Breche exchanged a few comments with Mariena. She was mostly in talk with Amyas on her other side, and very close-headed talk it was. From where he sat, Joliffe could not be sure, but he thought that whenever Amyas passed the goblet they shared, she touched his hand, a not altogether unsuitable gesture since they were about to be betrothed but bold enough that Joliffe began to think she did not object to the match being made for her. Assuredly the young man did not. His attentions to her only faltered when he had to turn and serve Father Morice on his other side for courtesy’s sake.
For his part, the priest who had been so ready with talk last night in the tavern today ate with firm heed to his meal and little to the two young people beside him. At the other end of the table Will had it somewhat better. He could have been as odd-man-out as Father Morice, but young Harry Wyot was much in talk with Lady Benedicta, serving her from the dishes set between them and sharing a goblet, so that serving his wife and sharing a goblet with her fell to Will. Being so young, he had to stand to slice the meat and lift it onto her plate and spoon the vegetables and sauces that went with it, all of it better than the plainer stuff served along the lower tables. He did his duty with steady solemnity and in return Mistress Wyot received his courtesy with solemn courtesy of her own and talked with him when she might have ignored him or scorned him for no more than a half-grown boy.