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Authors: Margaret Frazer

BOOK: A Play of Heresy
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“Who’s he to be?” a tall, fair youth demanded. As it happened, Joliffe had sat down facing him, fully open to his suspicious stare.
“Ane in the Temple,” Sendell said.
The youth eased.
Sendell added, “And one of the prophets.”
The youth, who must be Richard Eme, the other Prophet, stiffened.
Giving no sign he saw that, Sendell went on, “Master Burbage will stay as Primus Doctor but has given over his part as a Prophet.”
The youth eased again, openly mollified by that, until Sendell continued, “But Master Joliffe will now be First Prophet and you, Richard, will instead be Second.”
Richard began an immediate bristling but got only so far as opening his mouth before Sendell smoothly cut off whatever protest was coming by saying, “I need you for that final speech, Richard. The one where the Prophet is alone on the pageant, speaking to the audience all by himself. That’s why the change.”
On the instant the youth’s protest turned to preening. “I understand perfectly,” he said. “I accept.” He smirked at Joliffe.
Joliffe smiled blandly back, easily able to judge what Sendell was up against with him. For one thing, no sensible player ever told his playmaster that he “accepted” the playmaster’s decision—not in that tone of voice at any rate.
“So if you’ll give your script to Master Joliffe,” Sendell went on, “and if Master Burbage will give you his, and here, Joliffe, is Ane’s part.”
The exchanges were made while Sendell went on, “Master Powet, I take it this is your nephew who may do for our Christ,” nodding toward the boy wiggling on the bench beside Powet.
“Christ help us, yes,” Powet said and gave the boy a light shove with an elbow. “Sit still, Dick.”
Dick gave another wiggle but then tried to sit still, grinning first at his uncle, then around at everyone else. If it were granted that Christ might be slightly gap-toothed and very ragged-haired, Joliffe saw the boy might serve the part. Of course there would be the long Christ-wig to cover the hair and did Christ smile all that much? What mattered more was what manner of voice he had and if he could use it well, but Sendell put off such revelation as lay that way by saying, “You’re welcome to our company, Dick. We’ll see how you do when we come to your part. First, though, we’re going to read through again from the beginning, now we have everyone. Ned and Hew, have you tried your singing together?”
“Already?” protested the young man who must be Ned.
With a patience that Joliffe did not remember in him years ago, Sendell said, “We’ve not that much time until Corpus Christi. You want to be better than only good by then. You want to be as fine as may be. We’ll work together on it when we’ve finished reading through today. For now, just sing as best you can when we come to those parts. Master Joliffe, begin when you’re ready.”
Glad he had had chance to see this much of the script anyway, Joliffe began to read, pitching his voice to almost play-level, to be heard a wide way and the words very clear but holding back from the strength and excitement Sendell had talked of for the part. That could wait until he knew the part better and everyone was more familiar with him.
Great astronomers, now awake,
With your famous fathers of philosophy,
And to the Orient your heed take,
Where news and strange sights be come of late.
 
From the corner of his eye, he saw Sendell nod approval.
Chapter 6
 
O
n the whole the practice went well enough. richard Eme, reciting the Second Prophet as if he were a particularly pompous Lord Mayor of London, would be simplicity itself to play off of. Joliffe’s change from Prophet into the prophetess Ane should be no trouble: he would have the Second Prophet’s long closing speech and Simeon’s longer opening one to throw the Prophet’s robe off, leaving him in a woman’s gown worn underneath, and only a woman’s cap, wimple, and veil to put on. Ane’s own speeches were few and mostly brief, unlike Simeon’s, so it was to the good that the man doing Simeon proved to have a deep voice that he used gravely, suitable to an aged priest of the Temple promised by God that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. He sang his Nunc Dimittis—“Now dismiss your servant, Lord, according to your word in peace . . .”—already well-learned and from the heart.
The two angels—Ned and Hew—were a mixed bag at best. Ned spoke clearly and with suitable angelic dignity and grace, but Hew sounded as if he was not sure what words were for. Sendell would have to work with him.
The slender youth playing Mary was somewhat too soft of voice, but he at least seemed to understand the meaning of the words he was saying.
Richard Eme as one of the doctors who talked with the young Christ in the Temple played it the same as when he was a prophet. Joliffe had expected that, knowing Richard Eme’s kind of playing. Any part someone like Eme was given he would make to his own size, changing the world to match himself, rather than taking on the challenge of changing himself to match the world, even the brief world of a play.
To the thankful good, both Master Burbage and the man who was playing Tertius Doctor had clear voices and some sense that who they played should not just be themselves with fancy words to say. With time and work on them by Sendell, they would likely do well enough.
It was Eustace Powet who took Joliffe by full surprise. As Joseph, Powet was better than only good. By voice alone, since they were only reading this evening, not up and moving, he caught Joseph’s doddering age as well as his querulousness, yet somehow showed, too, the old man’s deep devotion to his young wife and her son. He made Joseph both a figure for laughter, as he was supposed to be, and at the same time almost as heart-touching as—at best—he should be, too.
Powet’s nephew Dick, on the other hand, made a very poor Christ. He had a clear voice and that much was to the good, but he seemed to have taken Richard Eme’s style of playing for his own and that was
not
good. Why couldn’t he have taken after his uncle instead? As it was, Joliffe silently wished Sendell luck with changing the boy.
Interestingly, what came clear as they read the play to the end was that its “bones” were surprisingly strong. True enough, it lacked the Nativity’s possibilities for dazzling, and that showed in the flat looks among the men and dispirited rerolling of their scrolls when they were at its end, but Joliffe could see that, well-played, all the play’s differences from the Nativity would be a goodly, needed balance to the excesses of Herod and the murdering of the infants of Bethlehem played just before it.
The catch was in that “well-played.” The skills among the men and boys were very uneven. Much was going to depend on how far Sendell could bring them in the all-too-few days he had before Corpus Christi. That was surely in Sendell’s mind as, starting to reroll the master scroll from its end back to its beginning, he said, “There’s hope in it. Tomorrow we take it onto its feet. Joliffe, not then but the day after I’m going to want you to work with our Mary on how to move. So, Tom Maydeford, I need you to bring a dress you can wear for that.”
“Why can’t I just use what I’ll wear for the play? I’m not likely to hurt the tired old thing.”
“Because I’m probably going to use that tired old thing to wipe the stage clean. You can’t wear what you’ll wear for the play because we don’t have it yet.” Sendell paused, giving the men time to be puzzled by that, then said triumphantly, “I’ve talked the guild into money for some new garments and for fresh paint and a bit of gilt on the pageant wagon.”
Glum faces brightened, and there were exclaims of “Well then!” and “Hai-mai!” and “Not before time!” There was even some slapping of thighs and everyone in altogether merrier minds when they left the yard than when they had come. Only Dick was made unhappy by Sendell saying he wanted him to stay a while longer. The boy grimaced but, clouted on his shoulder by his uncle, granted he had nowhere to be just then.
“Except home to bed,” Powet said. “Nay, he can stay, Master Sendell.”
“It’s that the whole last part of the play depends on the young Christ,” Sendell said. “That’s why I want us to work particularly at it, Dick. There’s a while of daylight left. I won’t use it all up. Let’s sit here.” He moved to the farthest end of the benches and gestured for Dick to join him.
Dick grumpily did. Powet sat down on another bench, well away from them. Joliffe, who had lingered for a chance to talk to Sendell, went to sit beside him. The two scrolls of his parts were still in his hand, and Powet asked, nodding at them, “You mind having just those for your parts?”
“Mind?” Joliffe echoed, surprised.
“You’re the one of us does this for your living. You should be doing more than a dull prophet and a woman who’s only there because the Bible says she is, not because she does aught that matters in the play.”
“She gives Simeon someone to talk to besides himself. That’s useful,” Joliffe pointed out. “And, no, the size of the parts doesn’t trouble me. Like always, I’ll try to play them the best I can. That’s what matters.”
Powet made a humphing sound that neither accepted nor rejected any of that and shifted to stare at the cobbles in front of his feet. Mindful that the man knew Coventry better than anyone with whom he had yet had chance to talk alone, Joliffe said, in hope of drawing him on, “You’re a weaver, then?”
“Nay. I’m a mercer of sorts, although these days I mostly stand front for my niece, she having the greater skill and her husband being dead and all.”
“So the guilds aren’t tight about who can be in their plays? Only mercers in the mercers’? Only butchers in the butchers’?”
Joliffe would have been surprised if that was the way of it. The plays were too important for the guilds to hobble themselves like that. He simply wanted to keep Powet talking, and the man obliged with, “Nay, nothing like that. They all just want the best they can get. Mind, if you’re good and your guild has a place for you in their own play, that’s where you go before elsewhere, but there’s more who want to be in the plays than there are parts for, so those as direct have some chance to choose who they want. I’ve been in the mercers’ play more than once in my day, but other guilds’ plays, too. Good parts in all of them. Have been Christ twice. Pontius Pilate three times. The Devil more than once. Four times one and another of the Three Kings. God himself in the Doomsday one year. Like that. I was good enough to be wanted. Now—” He shook his head. “Now the knees are not to be trusted, and I’ve lost strength in my voice. Not fit for anything anymore but old, doddering Joseph, and soon I likely won’t even be up to playing old and doddering. I’ll just
be
old and doddering, no play about it at all. They all know I’m past my best. That’s why I’m here in this play. Nobody else wanted me this year.”
Mindful of how well Powet had read Joseph, Joliffe said carefully, “You need a new best. That’s all.”
“Oh, you’re young. You don’t know yet there comes a time when there’s no more ‘best’ to be had. Only ‘not so bad’ followed by ‘not so bad as it might be’ followed by ‘that’s the end then.’ ”
Having long since learned there was never sufficient answer to “You’re young. You don’t know,” Joliffe made none. The best he could hope for was that someday he would be old enough to say it to someone and irk them as much as it irked him now.
Powet went gloomily on, brooding at his hands twisting together between his knees, “Last year I was the prophet Elias and faced off with the Antichrist. That wasn’t so bad, but I knew I got the part because I’m aging out of all the rest. Can’t sing well enough to be Simeon, so there I am. Down to Joseph or nothing. Comic old Joseph.” He looked at Joliffe and demanded, “Come. It
must
fret you, you being who you are—making your living by playing and all—to be cramped into little parts like your dull prophet and Ane.”
Sensing a right answer might make great difference to Powet, Joliffe paused before trying, “I don’t feel cramped. For one thing, what are called ‘small’ parts matter as much in a play as something large. What’s hard to see from the outside is that ‘small’ parts can take as much skill as I have to make them work well.” Not scrupling to choose someone Powet knew, he smiled evilly and added, “Just think how someone like Richard Eme can make a large part into something not worth spitting at.”
Powet gave a barked laugh of both surprise and recognition. “Saint Swithin, yes! All you ever see of what he does is Richard Eme. Large part or small. Though God help whoever tries to give him a small part!”
“And I’ll warrant there’s no one so fond of Richard Eme—save himself and maybe his mother—as wants to see only him and nobody else in everyone he plays,” Joliffe said.
“No!” Powet agreed on another bark of laughter.
“That’s where what you did with Joseph, reading his part here, was so different and so good.”
Sobering, Powet gave him a sharp look of mingled surprise and wariness. “You’re saying that for kindness’ sake,” he challenged. His tone made clear how deeply he would scorn that manner of “kindness.”
“I mean it. You didn’t play him only for laughter at the old man. You added the sense that he’s someone who cares for his wife and child and is maybe afraid he can’t be good enough for them.”

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