A Play of Knaves (6 page)

Joliffe’s juggling being notably worse than only poor, he always played the fool to Piers’ skill, which pleased Piers as well as the lookers-on; and then Basset came out, followed by Ellis, followed by Gil, all in their usual clothing, with Basset making great show of being head of the company, shooing Piers and Joliffe briskly aside and stepping forward to address “my good, assembled gentlemen and ladies all.” While he made a word-flourishing speech, Ellis and Joliffe made to strike dignified poses behind him but ended up shoving and sniping rude comments at each other while Piers climbed onto a table, and from there onto Gil’s shoulders, and started to juggle again, so that finally Basset broke off his speech, turned on them all with a roar, and chased them from the hall with threats and much arm-waving, leaving laughter, table-beating, and clapping behind them.

They came back in for quick bows and disappeared again, this time for good. Dyer, who had seen them in, followed them out, still laughing, telling them as they collected their hamper, “Mistress Ashewell says I’m to see you to the kitchen for food and drink.”

Basset thanked him and they followed him out into the kitchen yard where he left them to sit on the wooden benches either side of the kitchen doorway while he went in. The players looked back and forth at each other, grinning at how well the playing had gone, then stood up as two women and a half-grown girl came hurrying around from the hall’s front door and across the kitchen yard. Suddenly flustered to see the players there, the girl and the older of the women ducked their heads and went into the kitchen, but the younger woman stopped, eyeing them all but mostly Ellis. She was well-curved, with enough of her there for a man to get his hands on, and curls of butter-yellow hair creeping out from under the edge of her head-cloth. Smiling mostly at Ellis, she said, “You gave fine sport. I’ve not enjoyed myself so much since Shrovetide.”

Ellis, suddenly holding himself less like Ellis and more like Robin Hood, smiled in return and thanked her, and Joliffe knew trouble was coming.

Dyer came out of the kitchen and said, “Titha,” with the worn patience of someone who had had to give the same order too many times.

Titha gave him no look, just wrinkled her nose at Ellis and went away into the kitchen with a come-hither sway of her hips.

Giving her no more heed than she gave him, Dyer said to Basset, “Nan will bring your food in just a moment,” and left them, going back toward the hall.

They all sat down again and Joliffe, looking at Ellis, said, “Don’t.”

Ellis made a wordless, unfriendly sound at him.

Basset said, “Leave it, Joliffe,” and then they all stood up again as the woman who must be Nan came from the kitchen with a laden tray. Basset offered to take it from her but she shook her head, saying, “Nay then, I’ll just set it down on the bench end here. Sit yourselves.”

There were cups of ale and wooden bowls of gravy-brown pottage with meat in it—likely lamb at this time of year—and some thick slices of bread. Joliffe was immediately most interested in the food as Nan handed the bowls around, but Basset took the chance to ask, keeping his voice light, to make the question less than it might otherwise have seemed, “So, what can you tell us of Master Ashewell, who’s being so lordly good to us? How does he come to be the abbey’s reeve rather than lord of the manor himself, since he and the village bear the same name?”

As lightly, plainly telling no secrets, Nan answered, “Ah, that’s because he’s village himself and no lord at all. His father was just plain Tod Thatcher hereabouts. But old Tod bought his boy’s freedom from the abbey and young Lionel took himself off to France as one of the duke of Bedford’s men-at-arms and made his fortune in the war there.”

“Did he?” Basset said admiringly. “There’s been many tried that who didn’t succeed.”

“Well, he did, right enough.” Nan sounded as proud as if she had done it herself. “They say he got the ransom of some French lord’s younger son or some such thing. Came home, bought his wife’s and their Nicholas’ freedom—Nicholas was just a little, little boy then—and would have bought old Tod’s, too, but Tod told him there were better uses for his money. Sensible man, was old Tod. So Master Ashewell bought this part of the manor from the abbey when my lady the abbess was in need of money for taxes because of the French war, and he changed his name and is a gentleman now, with his last three children all born free.”

“And old Tod?” Basset asked.

The woman beamed on him. “Died three winters ago in a soft bed in his own room right there across the yard, with his family all beside him.”

The players were all eating by then, with Basset slowed from more questions by mouthfuls of stew, but Nan was in no hurry to leave them, and stood watching them eat as if men enjoying their food was a pleasure to her, and Joliffe took the chance to say, “Master Ashewell doesn’t seem to go on well with the priest here. Father . . . ?”

He stopped on a question, as if he could not remember the priest’s name.

“Father Hewwwwgo,” Nan obliged, mockingly rude and not at Joliffe. “There’s not many around here get on well with that pull-faced priest. John Medcote maybe comes closest to it, but then, well, that’s him for you, isn’t it?”

Joliffe did not know if that was John Medcote or not, but while he tried to find a way to ask more that way, Basset asked, “Who else was at table with Master Ashewell tonight? His wife, surely, but there was another couple, too.”

“That’s the Gosyns. Walter and Geretruda. The Ashewells and they have all known each other since forever.”

“Did Master Gosyn make his fortune in the French war, too?” Joliffe asked.

“No. He kept to home and took up his father’s holding. Nor he’s not ‘Master’ Gosyn, just plain Walter Gosyn, though there’s those say he’s done well enough adding lands to what he had that he has money enough to buy himself and his wife and their girl all free if he wanted to. There’s some say, too, that the abbess will soon make him do it whether he wants it or not, because then he’d have to lease his land from her, and his rents would likely bring her more than his villein service does.” Nan smiled widely. “There’s been some going-round with my lady abbess’ bailiff and steward over that, I’ve heard.”

The players all grinned back at her around mouthfuls of stew and bread or over the rims of cups; there was always a backhanded comfort for those holding no land at all to hear the troubles of those who did.

In the yard in front of the hall a busyness of people leaving the hall had started while they talked, and Nan said now, “That will be the Gosyns leaving to be home while there’s still light. It’s but a mile but that Geretruda doesn’t walk so fast now she’s been ailing.” The sun, just touching the horizon, would go from sight fast now, but the afterlight would linger long in the clear sky. Nan, watching who was in the yard, chuckled. “The walk will do Gosyn, good, though. He’s fattening up a bit with his easy living, he is.”

Joliffe had had no chance for a clear look at anyone in the hall and so took the one he had now as the Gosyns and Ashewells briefly stood in talk in the yard. As Nan had said, Gosyn was a stout-set man, but the woman leaning on his arm was thin as if she was indeed ailing. She was laughing, though, at something being said between Gosyn and Master Ashewell, and as they all began to stroll toward the bridge she looked as if she held to her husband more from affection than need. Nicholas and several other children of various heights were grouped around Master and Mistress Ashewell, while a girl much about Nicholas’ age went with the Gosyns as they left, all of them waving to the Ashewells as they crossed the bridge, and the Ashewells waving back.

With that much friendliness between the families, and a son and daughter on either side of much the same age, Joliffe was willing to guess that Lionel Ashewell and Walter Gosyn were thinking of a marriage there.

That surely couldn’t be where the trouble was rooted that had the abbess’ bailiff worried.

Could it?

Joliffe would have led Nan’s talk that way, but two serving men came from the hall’s kitchenward door, and Nan said, as she began to take the players’ empty bowls and cups and stack them on the tray, “Here comes the rest of what’s yours,” and Joliffe saw the men were each carrying a wooden platter stacked with the bread-made trenchers that had served in place of plates for most of those dining in the hall. Such trenchers soaked up the meal’s gravies and sauces and made good eating in their turn. In towns they were often given to the poor and beggars who would wait at house-doors to have them. Here in the country if there were no poor to hand they could go to fatten pigs. Or, this time, to fatten players, and Joliffe for his own part had no complaint about that at all.

Taking the tray, Nan said, “I’ll see to it being wrapped up properly for you to carry away,” and followed the men into the kitchen.

“No money?” Ellis complained, too low for anyone beyond themselves to hear.

“We’re eating well. Content thy soul in patience,” Joliffe suggested.

“I’ll content you,” Ellis said back.

“Food for the stomach will serve as well as coins for the purse just now,” Basset said peaceably.

“Food and good talk,” Joliffe added.

“You and your talk,” Ellis muttered; but Titha came out with the trenchers bundled in a waxed cloth, and he straightened back into being Robin Hood, standing up to take the bundle from her.

The rest of them stood up, too, and it was to Basset that she said, “Nan says she’ll not mind having the cloth back.”

“Then she most assuredly will, though I must needs crawl on my knees to do so,” Basset said with a bow.

Titha laughed at him, but her smile went back to Ellis, and when the rest of them started toward the gateway, he lingered in talk with her. He did not overtake them until they were over the bridge, when not even Joliffe said anything at him about it even though they all knew what that lingering probably meant. They all lived too much together not to know each other’s ways, and although there were men who could deny or curb their needs, Ellis was not among them. For him a willing woman was a woman he was willing to have. He would have been otherwise if Rose had been more fully his, Joliffe thought; but Rose was not, and things being as they were, neither Joliffe nor any of them were surprised that when they were about to turn into the lane that let toward their camp, Ellis thrust the bundle of trenchers at Joliffe and said, “Take these. I’m going to tarry here a while.”

Twilight’s shadows were already thick here between the hedges, hiding their faces. It was by Ellis’ taut voice that Joliffe knew he was being dared to say something, anything, in answer. So he did not, just took the bundle and turned away. The others were equally silent, nor could Ellis have seen their faces any better than they saw his: it had to be from their silence and the way they turned from him that he felt their reproof. Or maybe the reproof inside himself was enough. Either way, he said angrily, “It’s my business. You can just leave me to go about it.”

Not looking around, Joliffe said, “We are leaving you, Ellis. See? We’re walking away. So it must not be
us
you’re angry at.”

Briefly and clearly, Ellis wished him to go to hell.

Joliffe waved backward over his shoulder at him and kept going.

By the time they turned from the lane into Grescumb Field, most of the last light was drained from the sky, the twilight deepened enough into dark that the red leap of small flames in the firepit was welcoming. But as they neared it, Rose came from beyond the cart and in the flickering light Joliffe saw the small, quick shift of her head as she sought for Ellis and did not find him. She said nothing about that, though; instead held out an arm for Piers to come to her and asked, “How went it?”

“We played well and were well-received,” Basset said, his hands out to the fire’s warmth. With the sun gone, April’s too-usual night chill was quickly asserting itself.

Pressed against his mother’s side, held close by her arm around his shoulders, Piers declared, “They did well enough, but I was great!”

Quellingly, Joliffe said, “You were no worse than usual,” and held up the bundle. “Here are the bread trenchers from supper. A kitchen-tribute to our skill.”

“They’ll be our breakfast,” Rose said. “Put them in the kitchen box, will you?” While Joliffe did, she added to Piers, “Bed for you now. Nor will it hurt you either, Gil, to be off your ankle.”

Gil at least was past the age to be told his bedtime, but both he and Piers went so readily that Joliffe suspected they were looking on it as escape, as if maybe afraid Ellis’ guilt would somehow rub off on them and they wanted to be away before they suffered for it.

Joliffe was half-minded to escape, too, but that would leave only Basset, and after putting the bundle of trenchers in the kitchen box, he hunched down on his heels beside the fire next to Basset, who was still standing with his hands out to the warmth. Joliffe put his hands toward it, too, watching the flames rather than looking up at Rose standing on the fire’s other side, her arms now wrapped around herself. The silence among them might have been comfortable but it was not, only better than Rose asking in a small, tight voice when all had been quiet in the tent for a while, “Where’s Ellis?”

Joliffe very carefully went on looking at the fire. He had conscience enough not to desert Basset but left it to him to say, after a fatal pause, “He stayed behind. He needed to—” Knowing whatever he said was going to be painful or a lie, he paused, then settled for feeble and said, “—to talk with someone.”

“With a woman,” Rose said bitterly. “Nor is it talking they’re doing.”

Joliffe knew as well as Basset did that she had not needed to ask where Ellis was. She’d known. What she had needed was to say that aloud, even if saying it did not lessen the pain. That the pain was familiar did nothing to lessen it either, and Basset, in useless urge to ease her hurt, said a little desperately, “You know him. You know how it is. You know . . .”