A Play of Piety (18 page)

Something suspiciously near to a smile twitched in the steward’s face as he set the stool down, but he sounded solemn enough as he said to Idany, “He knows what will work best for his own play. Come away now.”

“Neither Mistress nor Master Thorncoffyn will be pleased,” Idany threatened.

“They will be when they see the play, I’m certain,” Master Aylton assured her. As she unwillingly started to leave, he added to Joliffe, “Nor will I move the stool when you’re not looking, or let anyone else.”

Joliffe gave a slight, silent bow of thanks for that and, behind his back and Idany’s, exchanged a lift of eyebrows with Basset. He did not know what Basset’s thought might be, but his own was a true wonder at how Mistress Thorncoffyn could turn even a play for a hospital of ill men into argument and trouble.

Chapter 14

T
he play went perfectly despite the gap of time and place since Joliffe last worked with the others. That was partly because they all knew the play so well, partly because they knew each other so well. Whatever unease or quarrels there might sometimes be among them outside their work, within their work each fully trusted the other. All else in the world dropped away. There was only the play.

Piers began it. Wearing the bright red and yellow tabard of Lord Lovell’s livery, he marched from the sacristy into the hall, tootling on a recorder held in one hand, with the other beating on the small drum slung from a strap over his shoulder. Directly in front of the chapel, centered on the aisle between the beds, he stopped, faced everyone there, and declared the players and he were come to do a play and now, by everyone’s kind leave, they would. This served, as it usually did, to draw the lookers-on out of their talk among themselves and their eyes toward the playing place, and Piers, his duty done, gave a deep bow and continued his march, tootling and beating again, out the opposite door, into the passageway. As he went out of sight—to dash around to the sacristy and rid himself of drum, recorder, and tabard and come back in a few moments as the Merchant Woman’s Servant—Joliffe came out of the sacristy in bishop’s robes and mitre, white of beard and hair, carrying a tall crozier and deeply dignified. As Saint Nicholas—or rather as a statue of Saint Nicholas—he paced solemnly to his place in front of the chapel, stepped up onto a low box waiting there for him, and struck a proper statue-pose, his right hand raised in blessing, his empty gaze into empty air above everyone else’s heads, no movement in him anywhere. He and Gil had paced the distance earlier and determined on a slow count of ten for him to be in place. Now, as he finished his deliberate count of ten, the Merchant Woman entered from the sacristy with a proud sweep of skirts.

How to move as a woman had been one of Gil’s first lessons after he joined the company, just as it had been Joliffe’s. Besides becoming at ease with all the treacheries long skirts could work around legs, they had had to learn to use their bodies differently and to seem not simply “a woman” but a young woman, an old woman, a comic woman, a proud woman—all the sorts of women there were. As Basset had had to say more than once, “If you can’t stop being you, you’ve no business trying to be a player. You have to be whoever the play needs, not just yourself spouting words, and that means every kind of woman as well as every kind of man.”

Watching Basset as an elderly widow in gown and wimple and veil in
The Steward and the Devil
was a revelation of just how far one could go from being oneself.

So now, to all appearances, it was a proud and wealthy Merchant Woman who swept into the hall from the sacristy, cloaked, gloved, and carrying a riding whip to show she was about to travel. Her Servant Boy followed her, staggering with the supposed weight of the chest he carried. At her gesture, he set the chest down in front of the statue. She explained how she must go on a long journey and was commending her treasure to the saint’s keeping. Then she swept out, all wealth and confidence, her servant behind her, and Ellis as the blackcowled Thief came in from the passageway.

Skulking was the word that best applied as he looked all around, saw no one, spotted the chest in front of the statue, opened it, gloated aloud over what he saw inside, mockingly thanked the saint for his bounty, closed the chest, took it up, and skulked out the way he had come. Few people skulked as well as Ellis did, and his turn around at the last moment before leaving, to raise a finger to his lips to warn all the lookers-on to silence about his crime, raised laughter, just as it always did.

The Merchant Woman returned. Finding her treasure gone, she railed at the saint for failing her and beat on the statue with her riding whip.

Gil’s business was to look as if he were hitting hard while hardly hitting at all. Joliffe’s business, as a statue, was to stand completely still until, weeping, the Merchant Woman threw down her whip and left. With her gone, the Thief furtively returned, carrying the chest. As if he were in some other place than where he had stolen the chest, he set it down and began to gloat over it, not seeing, behind him, the statue of Saint Nicholas come to life, step down from its “high place,” and pick up the whip. Here the lookers-on began to laugh, easily able to guess what was coming. With solemn dignity, St. Nicholas paced to the thief who heard him and swiveled around to be appalled at the sight. Saint Nicholas proceeded to belabor him with the whip, explaining this was in return for the beating from the Merchant Woman, then uttered dire warning against greed and theft and sins in general and paced back to become a statue again. The terrified Thief scurried to put the chest back at the statue’s feet and fled. The Merchant Woman returned, still weeping, only to be overcome with joy when she saw her treasure was restored. She thanked and praised Saint Nicholas, bade her Servant Boy take up the chest, and swept out, all wealthy pride and happiness again. Piers, comically playing the chest’s heaviness for all he was worth, staggered after her, earning a last burst of laughter. On that laughter and the clapping that came with it, Saint Nicholas stepped down from his place, made solemn sign of the cross toward everyone, and followed the others out of the hall.

The clapping had not yet ended when Master Aylton put his head into the sacristy, his face still full of laughter, and said, “Mistress Thorncoffyn wants to see all of you. To give her thanks.”

He was gone too quickly to hear Ellis’ muttered, “And some coins with it, I trust.”

He had already stripped off the Thief’s black cowl but he shrugged back into it while Gil straightened his veil, Joliffe set aside the crozier, and Piers threw on the bright Lovell tabard again.

Going back into the hall, they were met with more clapping. Gil swept everyone a deep curtsy. Joliffe, Ellis, and Piers made sweeping bows, Joliffe remembering only just in time to catch his bishop’s mitre from falling off his head. They then made their way down the hall to where Mistress Thorncoffyn sat wide-hipped on her stool, waiting for them. Master Soule and Geoffrey Thorncoffyn stood on either side of her, with Master Hewstere a little behind Master Soule, Master Aylton a little behind Geoffrey. Idany on her feet directly behind her mistress was making short, sharp beckons for the players to hurry and present themselves.

Ellis, as senior among them, strode forward first. Gil and Joliffe followed side by side. Piers, who never took to modest last if he could, skipped around them to join Ellis. That could have warranted a good cuff to the back of his head in another time and place but not here, Joliffe regretted before he forgot to be irked at Piers, first with pleasure to see how widely Basset was smiling at them from his bed, Rose sitting beside him looking equally glad, then with surprise at Jack and Amice standing together just inside the door there, their arms around each other’s waist and heads bent close together, she saying something in his ear and both of them smiling smiles that looked to be more for each other than for the play they had just seen.

Oh.

Jack had never so much as hinted . . .

Joliffe let go the last of his already well-faded hopes of sharing more than talk with Amice and was glad for Jack who looked to have more reasons to be content with his life than Joliffe had guessed at.

He and the other players made their courtesies to Mistress Thorncoffyn, to Master Soule and Master Hewstere and Geoffrey. She briefly enthused to them about the play. Ellis, bowing again, said in his best manner that their pleasure in pleasing her was even greater than the pleasure she had taken in their playing. She snapped fingers over her shoulder at Geoffrey who had coins ready and put them into her raised hand. Piers, confident of his childish charm and golden curls, went quickly down on one knee, smiling up at her most winsomely. As usually happened with women when Piers did his “sweet small boy” trick, Mistress Thorncoffyn cooed at him and held out the coins for him to take. As he did, she put a hammy hand on his head and tousled his curls, telling him what a dear child he was. If anyone among the players had tousled his hair that way, they would have needed to dodge a hard kick at their shins, but for Mistress Thorncoffyn, Piers beamed and looked as if he were about to wiggle with happiness like one of her dogs.

A small box was nestled between her thighs. She took something from it and held it out to Piers, saying, “Have this candied ginger, child. A reward for your struggle with that heavy chest.”

Joliffe at least among the other players had to hold in a derisive snort. The “treasure chest” weighed less than the bucket of water that Piers was supposed to carry to camp. Piers, though, took the ginger, beaming at her, and piped, “Thank you, my lady,” making Joliffe pray with greater devotion than he gave to most of his prayers that Piers’ voice would change soon. He would find his life a little more difficult without that childish treble, indeed he would.

Master Soule cleared his throat, perhaps readying to assert his own thanks as the hospital’s master; but beyond him Jack and Amice were moving aside from the doorway and turning around as two men came into the hall. They were no one Joliffe knew. By their rough-woven tunics and hoods and loose hosen, they were country men, villagers from somewhere. By their general dustiness and well-used shoes, they had been traveling. Faced suddenly with an assembly of people turning to stare at them, they stopped short, staring back. Neither looked ill. They looked hale and hearty in fact, and Joliffe’s first thought was that they had left an ill companion outside and were looking for permission to bring him in; but as they hastily pulled off their soft-brimmed caps, Geoffrey exclaimed in surprised, “Cawdry. Wyke. What brings you here?” And added to his grandmother, who was heaving her bulk around to see what everyone else was looking at, “It’s Dick Cawdry. He’s reeve at Tybchurch for you. And Simond Wyke. He’s reeve at Crofte.”

“Those are both twenty and more miles from here. What are you doing here?” Mistress Thorncoffyn demanded. “It’s harvest time. You’re needed where you live. You’ve no business vagabonding around the countryside.” She seized her staff from Idany and began her cumbrous rising. Geoffrey and Idany quickly had hands under her elbows, helping her as she ordered, “Come here. Don’t try to hide yourselves now. It’s too late.”

Neither man had shown any sign of trying to hide himself. Indeed, the older one was already coming forward. His fellow was only a half-pace behind, and by the time Mistress Thorncoffyn was on her feet, they were side by side again, both bowing to her. Whatever it was that had them here, Joliffe did not think either looked guilty, only very grimly determined as the older man said, “My lady, it’s about the harvest we’ve come and it’s not a thing that could wait.” He pointed a finger at Master Aylton behind her. “Your steward there, he’s told me I’m to lie in my Michaelmas accounting, so that you don’t get your full count of oats and barley. He has a man out of Peterborough will buy them, he says, with him to have the money and a little to me to sweeten my thieving.”

Master Aylton took an angry step forward. “You’re a lying cur, Cawdry! Shut your mouth!”

“He said if I didn’t do it,” Cawdry stubbornly went on, “he’d see to it my rent on my holding went up, or that I lost it altogether, and assuredly I’d never be reeve again.”

Master Aylton started, “My lady, this man . . .”

“Deserves a hearing,” Mistress Thorncoffyn said, staring at Cawdry angrily. “If only to learn why he’s lying about you.”

“I don’t lie, my lady,” Cawdry protested. “Wyke here will tell the same. Master Aylton threatened him the same as me, only at Crofte, if he didn’t write his accounts false.”

Wyke nodded strongly in agreement. “He did, my lady. Nor I wouldn’t have dared come if I hadn’t happened to meet Dick Cawdry on last market day in St. Neots, and we fell into talk. Over the ale, like, we found out each other’s trouble. There being two of us to say it, and minded we’d heard you were here and not likely to be nearer, we decided to come and lay our charge against Master Aylton.”

“Liars and surely thieves!” Master Aylton said angrily. “Trying to cover your thievery by throwing it on me!”

Her look still fixed on Cawdry and ignoring Aylton, Mistress Thorncoffyn said, “Geoffrey, you were with Aylton the while he was at those manors. What do you know of this?”

Geoffrey paused so long at answering that his grandmother finally took her gaze from Cawdry, turning her glare on him instead. Joliffe could not tell if the red flooding Geoffrey’s face was embarrassment or guilt as Geoffrey gave way and muttered, “I, uh, I was not with him those days. Not just then.”

His grandmother’s gimlet stare demanded to know why not. Fumbling more, he ventured, “There was a place—a woman—some women—there’s a place . . .”

“A brothel. You were brotheling instead of seeing to my business.”

Geoffrey hung his head and admitted with deep guilt, “Yes, grandmother.”

It was a quite passable copy of what Piers did when pretending to be sorrowful for something he had been caught at. Joliffe, Basset, Ellis, and Gil never believed he was sorrowful over anything except being caught; Rose believed him only in her most forgiving moments. Mistress Thorncoffyn must have been having one of those or else was completely besotted where her grandson was concerned, because she turned her wrathful look from him to Master Aylton. He, able to see which way things were going, said, angry and maybe somewhat desperate, “My lady, you won’t take these men’s word against mine, surely. I probably spoke sharply to one and the other about something I don’t even remember now. They’re here for nothing more than revenge on me for it.”