Read The Bastard's Tale Online
Authors: Margaret Frazer
The Bastard's Tale (11 page)
York answered smilingly, “There’ll be a warm bed at the end of it. Better than those men on Henow Heath have.”
Dorset, looking as if he disliked York’s smile, said irritably, “It’s Gloucester’s fault they’re there and let them remember it. He was supposed to be here before now. If he’d come when we thought he would…”
Across that, Suffolk said smoothly to Master Tresham, “You’re staying at that man Baret’s place, aren’t you? I wanted to ask you…”
Frevisse saw Dorset’s wife was headed toward her. Not wanting to explain herself and why she was there, she faded through the doorway into the crowd and noise of talk in the other room, catching up to Dame Perpetua, who asked, “Why was it so unpleasant in there?”
‘Because too many people disliked each other.“
‘They did that. Did you see Suffolk look at the duke of York when York went to talk to Master Tresham? If a look could strike a man down, York would be dead. My head is beginning to ache. Can we go?“
The heavy warmth, unaccustomed wine, and too much talk around her were making Frevisse’s head ache, too. She had promised to be here and she was, and had had enough and said, “We can go, surely. There’s just the matter of making our way out. You go on and find our cloaks and I’ll give our thanks and farewell to Lady Alice.”
Dame Perpetua immediately headed away, threading her way around people toward the doorway. Frevisse, after pausing to be sure Alice was not in this room, followed her into the next and immediately met Alice in an eddy between one swirl of people and another. In what would have to pass for privacy, Alice said quickly, “You’re leaving. I saw Dame Perpetua go out. Did you learn anything?”
‘Nothing. But doesn’t
anyone
believe that Gloucester is coming with an army against the king?“
Alice’s smile neither wavered nor reached her eyes. “Not anyone around the king, anyway. Not anyone here.”
‘Then why…“ Why was word that he was being spread all over Bury St. Edmunds and some several thousand men freezing on Henow Heath?
She didn’t finish the question but Alice answered it. “Because the common people favor Gloucester. They always have. The only person they care for more is King Henry. The rest of us…” She made a dismissing gesture.
And therefore Suffolk hoped to turn the people against Gloucester by saying Gloucester was become a danger to the king. Did Suffolk also hope that if the people turned against Gloucester, they would turn toward him?
For a long moment Frevisse and Alice looked into each other’s eyes, neither speaking what they were both thinking. Then Alice broke away, said openly, cheerful to anyone who heard her, “Thank you for coming, dear cousin. Good night and, again, my thanks.”
Frevisse said courteous things back to her and, thankfully, left.
* * *
The next day went, outwardly, much the way of others lately. Frevisse and Dame Perpetua attended Prime’s prayers as usual, shivering in St. Nicholas’ chapel, went to a crowded, hurried breakfast in the guesthall refectory, and after that to Mass in the abbey church before Dame Perpetua went off happily to the library and Frevisse, far less eagerly, went to fulfill a promise made to help Mistress Wilde with the sewing this morning. The day was too early yet for the players to be at work, but when Frevisse entered the hall Mistress Wilde, Joane still with Lady Soul’s gown, and the wife of one of the Mights were already seated around a lighted brazier, stitching rapidly. They welcomed her with hardly a pause from their sewing. Frevisse, given a yellow gown to hem, briefly warmed her fingers at the brazier and joined them.
The other women’s talk was of how comfortable or not were the places they were staying and that there was a cookshop in Bernewell Street where a good but uncostly supper was to be had but the ale was better at a tavern near Risbygate. Not part of that, Frevisse would have been content to let her mind go quiet over the sewing, but found her thoughts ranging back to last night and ahead to when she would next speak with Joliffe.
What else besides a headache had she brought away from that gathering of supposed greatness? A continued dislike of Suffolk, unfortunately. Some grasp of the politic games he was playing with his children’s hoped-for marriages. The knowledge that Bishop Beaufort thought his great-nephew the marquis of Dorset was an ass. A curiosity about the duke of York, who had quietly stood there goading Suffolk and was not an ass, according to Bishop Pecock.
None of that looked likely to be particularly useful.
What about the blunt fact that no one among those positioned to know best had any fear that Gloucester was bringing an army? Indeed, rather than any fear, Suffolk and Dorset had seemed to be both very pleased and sure of themselves. Which might mean nothing; most of the other times she had seen Suffolk, he had seemed pleased with himself.
So she was nowhere. She had not helped Alice. She had nothing of any worth to tell Joliffe. She doubted she would ever get anything of any worth to anybody, and she was tired of people hoping she would. She wanted to be done with this nonsense and go back to St. Frideswide’s in peace.
When dinnertime brought the sewing to a pause, Joane had finished at last with Lady Soul’s gown and among them Frevisse, Mistress Wilde, and the other woman had everything else nearly done. Thread, needles, and scissors were tidied away and the four of them rose to go their separate ways, but Mistress Wilde drew Frevisse a little aside, letting the other women go ahead while she said with mild concern, “One thing. I’ve seen Joliffe Noreys talking at you. Much though I like him, I doubt he’s above plaguing a nun for a pastime when he’s in one of his fey humours. If he’s a bother, just tell me and I’ll see to him.”
‘He’s been no bother,“ Frevisse answered. At least not in the way Mistress Wilde meant. ”And Master John likes him.“
‘Children always like Joliffe and he likes them. He has a good heart under his jesting ways,“ Mistress Wilde said warmly. ”Until this afternoon, then.“
With the comfort that maybe Joliffe’s friendship to John had not been merely expedient after all, Frevisse went off to dinner and after it fetched John, relieved when a maidservant told her that Lady Alice was, as usual, gone to companion the queen. No message had been left either and Frevisse chose to think that meant Alice had no new trouble to share with her.
That was as well, because John proved to be trouble enough. Crossing the Great Court, he pulled loose from her hand and galloped around her like a colt freed to pasture, into her way and other people’s until she caught hard hold on him, ordering him to walk beside her, whereon he turned gloomy and outside the hall pulled loose from her again and ran inside by himself, past Master Wilde and Toller talking together at the door. With nothing more than sewing and probably Joliffe awaiting her, Frevisse made no such haste and as she approached heard Master Wilde say, “I’ve avoided Lydgate all day so far. If he shows up…” He paused to give Frevisse a quick bow of his head. “My lady.”
‘Master Wilde,“ she returned passing by.
‘… do whatever it takes to keep him out and away from me, short of maiming or killing him,“ Master Wilde went on. ”Maim him and we’ll have the abbot on us. Kill him, we’ll have the crowner.“
‘Though, mind you,“ Frevisse said over her shoulder, ”there’s good likelihood the jury would find it was manslaughter rather than murder, being done under provocation. To prove it, you could read out some of his poems to them.“
She went inside to the sound of Toller laughing. Her quick look around the hall told her Joliffe was not there and that John was busy sorting shoes out of a basket with Giles. Mistress Wilde gave her another doublet to hem and she went to sit alone in her usual place on the bench along the wall, barely started before Joliffe strolled in and over to her. She looked up and he pointed at John across the hall as if asking about him but said, “Did you hear anything of interest last night among the lords?”
Looking at John, too, she answered, “Nothing, except no one there seemed worried about this army Gloucester is said to be bringing.”
‘Because they know he isn’t,“ Joliffe said. ”So you don’t think he’s sickening for anything?“ he asked, not about Gloucester but because the player who would be the Might of Understanding when the time came but was now merely a young man in need of a shave, was going past them.
‘No. He had that little cough, but it’s gone,“ Frevisse said unhesitantly. ”He’s fine.“
Joliffe stood up. “Good then. I’ll—”
The other player was away and no one else near and Frevisse said quickly, “They expected Gloucester to be here sooner than he is.”
‘They who?“
‘Dorset said it. He said it was Gloucester’s fault the men were cold on Henow Heath. ’If he’d come when we thought he would‘ is what he said before Suffolk interrupted him.“
‘That’s Dorset. Whatever is wrong is always someone else’s fault.“
‘What do you think is going to happen?“
‘I don’t know, but my guess is that it’s going to happen to Gloucester, rather than by him.“
‘Are you supposed to… what did Bishop Beaufort intend you do?“
‘Only find out as much as possible about what’s being planned against Gloucester. Because something is. ’What‘ is the question, and the more Bishop Beaufort knows, the more he’ll have to work with if he wants to counter it.“
‘Why…“Why would Bishop Beaufort want to counter anything done against his old enemy, Frevisse meant to ask, but Ned Wilde and another player were passing close by and Joliffe said lightly, ”Do you know, I tried to persuade Master Wilde that Lucifer should be in a black churchman’s gown, but he said that would be unwise here and now.“
‘Considering who is paying for the play and all,“ said Frevisse dryly, ”yes, I can see his point.“
Joliffe gave the deep sigh of the gravely misunderstood. “Ah, well.”
Master Wilde was calling the players to him from the steps of Heaven, but before Joliffe started to move away, Frevisse took the chance to ask, “How would you have found a way to talk with me if I’d not been bringing John to these practices?”
‘If nothing else, I’d have lain in wait for you at prayers in the church.“ Joliffe smiled with all Lucifer’s charm. ”That’s always a good way to meet a nun.“
There wasn’t time to ask him any of the many other things she had in mind. About Arteys, for one. Was he indeed Gloucester’s bastard son? How did Joliffe come to know him? And Bishop Pecock. How were he and Joliffe known so well to one another? More immediately, how much more than what he was telling her did Joliffe know?
Joane came to take the doublet from her, unfinished though it was. “Master Wilde means to run it with the garments as well as music this afternoon,” she said. “He says if Ned is going to break his leg tripping over the skirts in Lady Soul’s gown, let him do it now so everyone can forget the whole thing and have a rest.”
‘Is Ned likely—“
Joane smile widely. “Not him. You’ll see.”
Since Arteys had not come with Joliffe today, she presumed he would not come at all, nor did he, or Bishop Pecock either, though she had half-hoped he would. But Brother Lydgate did not appear either and that was just as well; there were troubles enough without him even before they began the play. One of the Devil’s shoes pinched cripplingly and had to be stretched. Another Devil complained his doublet was too small in the waist, would not go around him, until Mistress Wilde pointed out he had Rob’s doublet and Rob had his. Among the Mights there was laughter and grumbling as they fixed and fastened on their womanly long wigs of flaxen hair and then much stumbling and fumbling as they tried out their gowns’ trailing skirts, fuller than the ones they had practiced in. Ned in Lady Soul’s far more full-skirted gown was all-graceful from almost the first and he and Joliffe—sleek in a short, black-damask doublet and crimson hat and hosen—set to showing them what to do and shortly had them sweeping back and forth across the playing place. Master Wilde meanwhile was occupied, first, with setting up the new musicians come to join the company’s piper and drummer, then with practicing the lift and shift of God’s heavy cloth-of-gold robes because although he would be seated throughout the play, at the beginning he had to reach his throne—as yet still the joint stool, not yet replaced by Abbot Babington’s best chair—and at the end come down from it, quickly and gracefully.
John and Giles sensibly came to sit beside Frevisse, out of the way, until Master Wilde called everyone to their places and began. With her sewing taken away, Frevisse was free to watch as well as listen and was surprised, as always when she had watched players at their work, how whatever seeming confusion there had been fell away once the play began. There might still be confusions—as when Lady Soul crossed to a place she should not be until two speeches later, and Lucifer had to shift his own movements to match hers without losing his lines—but it was a contained confusion and the play went forward despite it, with Master Wilde brooding from above, sometimes forgetting to be Wisdom, especially when the Devils in their dance with the seduced Mights added undignified hops and skips to avoid skirts that had not been there before. By Master Wilde’s down-drawn brows, Frevisse knew
that
would be rehearsed again.
Despite of everything they made it to the end without stopping and on the whole more smoothly than yesterday had gone, with time to run through it all again before it was time for Master Wilde to let them go to their suppers. The second time was even better, with little for Master Wilde to say at the end and even a little praise before he went on to remind them to meet in the King’s Hall after supper, to practice tonight where tomorrow they would perform. That was met with a general groaning, even from John and Giles, though more for the form of protest than otherwise, Frevisse thought, because they had all known this was to come.