A PLAY OF DUX MORAUD.

by Gail Frazer.

Maydyn so louely and komly of syte, I prey thee for loue thou wyl lystyn to me; To here my resun I prey thee wel tythe, Loue so deryn me most schewe to thee . . .

Anonymous, Dux Moraud.

Chapter 1.

The summons from Lord Lovell came while they were packing their goods away for the last time before taking to the road again. The playing had gone well. There was no reason for alarm, but out of long habit a quick, a.s.sessing look pa.s.sed among the five of them. Their small company had been Lord Lovell's players for hardly three months. For years before that they had been lordless, with no protection in their travels and work except other people's goodwill and their own wits.

So wariness still came readily, and before the servant was further than, "Lord Lovell has asked you come . . ." Ba.s.set, Ellis, and Joliffe were looking at each other, silently asking why, and Rose's face was gone very still, and even half-grown Piers had frozen out of his happy talk into watching his mother and the others as the servant finished, ". . . to him, Master Ba.s.set, if you please. And the one of you called Joliffe."

With lordly graciousness, no outward sign of alarm, and a slight bow of his head, Ba.s.set said, "It is our honor and pleasure to obey."

Rose immediately came to straighten the upright collar of his doublet and twitch the folds of his surcoat to hang better from his shoulders. She was the only woman in the company and keeper of all their clothing, both for their plays and otherwise. Not that there was much "otherwise" about them. They had been a poor, small playing company for a long while, with almost everything they earned spent to keep them barely going from village to village to sometimes a town, not on such things as new clothing or too much food. To come under Lord Lovell's patronage and protection had been their best stroke of luck. "Ever," Ba.s.set had said, and he would best know, having formed the company years before Joliffe had joined.

So when Lord Lovell had made them his company of players and bade them come to Minster Lovell at Michaelmas this year of G.o.d's grace 1434 to divert both his household and his officials come for the end-of-harvest reckoning, they had come and were just ending their week here. They were too small a company to have much choice of plays, and filling that much time with suitable ones had been difficult, but by eking it out with Rose's tumbling and Ellis' and Piers' juggling and Joliffe's skill with the lute, they thought they had done well, especially against the general gloom that had come with yet another year's bad harvest. The summer that had started bright and fair had gone to rain and cold by St. Mary Magdalen Day, first delaying the harvest, then rotting too much of it in the fields. Last year had been lean after a bad harvest. This year, with a second bad harvest to follow the other, would be leaner. The players lived only on what other people would give for their work, and when other people had little to give, the players tended to have nothing. Lord Lovell's patronagea"and the money that went with ita"had come just in time. As they had walked beside their cart toward Minster Lovell, with yet more rain pattering into the road's mud and the hedges and ruined fields around them, Ba.s.set had said what they all knew. "We'd not have made it through another year like last."

Now Lord Lovell wanted to see two of them, and while they all thought they had done well enough that he was pleased with them, "The last thing you ever take for certainty is anyone's goodwill," Ba.s.set had told Joliffe in his early days with the company. "You may have done everything you could and earned it ten times over and still not get it." Which Joliffe was remembering as he followed Ba.s.set away from the shed they had been sharing with their cart and horse. In the servant's wake, they crossed the manor's outer yard, went through the cobbled gateway into the smaller inner yard and across it not to the wide way into the great halla"tall and newly built with golden Cotswold stonea"but to a lesser door in the older wing of rooms directly across from the gateway. Word was that Lord Lovell would be having those rebuilt sometime soon, too.

"And pleasant it must be to have the money for putting up new when the old isn't falling down yet," Ellis had grumbled when Rose mentioned she had heard it. He had been st.i.tching a new patch onto their old tent at the time and not been happy at his work.

"Lord Lovell is doing well enough by us," Ba.s.set had said back. "Don't you complain about his money."

"Not so long as enough of it comes our way," Joliffe had added. But fear that an end of it might be coming their way was in him and undoubtedly in Ba.s.set, no matter how straight-backed and at seeming ease they went together into the low-beamed room where Lord Lovell awaited them, standing at a gla.s.sed window that looked out at an orchard.

He turned as they entered, a man of medium height with a long swoop of a nose and eyes set rather too near it, dressed in a floor-long houpelande of deep blue wool, its thick folds gathered low on his waist by a wide belt set with silver, its end hanging past his knees. Between the French war and his many lands across England, he was a wealthy man, whoa"from what Joliffe had seen herea"failed in no comforts for himself or his family. At a ready guess, the room was where he did business, with a wide table set to catch the best light from the window, a row of scrolls laid at one end of it with pens and inkpot beside them, and chests and a closed-door aumbry along one wall where other scrolls and doc.u.ments could be kept. There was a single chair beside the table, with a wide, curved seat and carven arms and back, and as Ba.s.set and Joliffe made their deep bows to him, marking the gulf between his high place in the world and their low one, Lord Lovell sat down and regarded them with a benevolence that somewhat eased Joliffe's mind. He did not look like a man about to unhire them.

Nor was he. Instead he smiled and said, "With one thing and another, I've had little chance to say how well pleased I've been with your company, Master Ba.s.set. That you could raise laughs so often after this glum harvest-time is tribute to your skill, besides that my lady wife was most particularly moved by your play of Cain and Abel."

Ba.s.set bowed again. "Our pleasure in pleasing you is twice-doubled by knowing she was pleased."

"My steward delivered your quarter's money to you?"

"He did, my lord. Thank you for this chance to thank you for it myself."

"I've noted, though, that you've added no one to your company. I thought by now you would have."

They did indeed need and want to have a larger company. With only three mena"with Joliffe usually playing the women's rolesa"and a small boy, the plays they might do were limited; but Ba.s.set said, "As yet we've had no place for someone else. Joliffe"a"Joliffe boweda""is reworking plays to that end, but until then another player would not earn his way, I fear."

Lord Lovell took several silver coins from the flat leather purse hung from his belt beside his dagger, laid them on the table, and pushed them toward Ba.s.set. "Would that help toward taking on another man? Or boy."

Ba.s.set glanced easily at the coins, as if they were not as much as the company might have earned in a very good month, and said smoothly, "Your lordship has someone in mind?"

Lord Lovell barked a pleased laugh. "Sharp, Master Ba.s.set. Very sharp. Yes, I've someone in mind. He's a younger son of one of my bailiffs. Thus far, he's not proved suited to anything his father has set him. After watching your company, he claims he wants to be a player. His father, for lack of anything else to do with him, has asked if I might place him with you."

Standing where he was, Joliffe could not see Ba.s.set's face but he kept his own carefully brightly interested in Lord Lovell's words, and probably Ba.s.set was doing the samea"hiding his sure dismay at the likelihood of being saddled with some moonstruck youngling of surely no skill and possibly few witsa"though Joliffe would willing grant that a certain degree of witlessness was necessary in anyone who became a player. Otherwise they'd not choose to be a player.

"In truth," Lord Lovell finished, "no one knows what else to do with him."

Whether Ba.s.set could do anything with him was beside the point, since there was no wise way to turn down what Lord Lovell asked of them; and putting the best front to it that he could, Ba.s.set bowed and said with apparent willingness, "I'll be pleased to give him a chance."

Lord Lovell nodded, satisfied. "I can have my clerk draw up a formal contract of apprenticeship while the boy packs."

Quickly Ba.s.set said, "By your leave, my lord, no contract."

"No?" Lord Lovell asked, surprised. A successful lord, like a successful merchant, knew the benefit of contracts.

So did Ba.s.set, but, "Someone is either a player or they're not, my lord. It would be shame to bind the lad and find he hates the life. Besides that, there are skills I can teach anyone, but there are other things that are either in a man or not, and only time and trying will tell. Binding with a contract will make no difference."

And if the boy proved impossible, being rid of him would be the easier if there were no contract. But Ba.s.set did not say that, and if Lord Lovell thought it, he let it go, too, simply said crisply, "Well enough. I'll have him sent to you as soon as we're done here. Now, there's another matter." One that he was less easy about: he paused to shift one of the scrolls lying on the table a little to one side and then back to where it had been before he looked up, not at Ba.s.set but past him, for the first time fully at Joliffe. "Last summer. That business at the Penteneys. You found your way through the tangle before anyone else did."

There was much to be said for a player's skill at keeping one thing on his face while his mind raced through any number of very other thoughts. Just now Joliffe held his face to a mild interest while in his mind he quickly shifted what he had supposed about the matter at the Penteneys. Yes, he had sorted out the tangle but those who knew that were few and he had not thought Lord Lovell was among them. Keeping his surprise to himself, he simply bowed, and said mildly, "Yes, my lord."

Lord Lovell shifted the scroll again, to one side and back again, and this time did not look up as he said, "That had much to do with my interest in taking on your company as my own. I wanted to be able to call on your wits if need be."

With the slightest twitch of their heads, Joliffe and Ba.s.set shared a glance. They were both shifting their thoughts, and by the smallest of nods Ba.s.set told Joliffe the game was his for now. Putting a careful edge of interest to his voice's mildness, Joliffe said, "And now there's need, my lord?"

Lord Lovell looked up at him. "Now there's need. As players, you can go unquestioned to places anyone else I might send would be suspect. You can be in the midst of a household, seeing things, without anyone wondering why you're there."

"Where would you have us go, my lord?" Joliffe asked, even-voiced, showing reasonable interest and keeping his instant wariness from sight.

"One of my feofees"a"holding land from Lord Lovell in return for service if called on for ita""Sir Edmund Deneby, is readying a marriage between his daughter and the nephew of another man I know and am friendly with. It's a reasonable marriage. I've encouraged it. The only thing is that the girl was betrothed before but the man died not long before the wedding."

"Suspiciously, I take it?" Joliffe asked, the guess not difficult.

"He fell ill of a flux that couldn't be stopped. Such things happen." Lord Lovell said it easily but was not at ease about it. He might be unable to say in clear and certain words why he was uneasy but nonetheless he was.

"No one else fell ill?" Joliffe asked. Since they were in this with no way out, he might as well know more. "He was a hale man but it came on suddenly and killed him too quickly?"

"You know about it?" Lord Lovell asked in quick return. "You've heard something of it?"

"No, my lord. Those simply seemed the most reasonable things to make you uneasy about what might otherwise seem straight-forward mischance."

Sitting back in his chair, Lord Lovell smiled and rapped his knuckles against the tabletop. "There! That's what I want. Sharp wits looking at this thing." He looked to Ba.s.set. "Master Ba.s.set, I'm sending your company to Sir Edmund as a sort of betrothal present. He and Master Breche are presently at Deneby Manor, working out final matters before the betrothal, settling the contract for Mariena and Amyas' marriage. Amyas. A fool name. What did they think he was going to be, some hero out of a French romance? Anyway, I've had dealings with Master Breche and I've backed this marriage, so no one will wonder if I send my players there for this while before the marriage."

"How long will we have?" Ba.s.set asked.

"As I understand it, they're in the last of the betrothal talks. Everything should be agreed within a few days, the betrothal will be made, the banns immediately given on the three following days, and the marriage held the day after the last of them."

That was a quick moving toward the marriage. The usual way was for the banns announcing it to be read at the church door for three Sundays in a row and the marriage to follow sometime soon after. It was possiblea"though rarea"to do it more quickly and, "Why the haste?" Joliffe asked. "Is that part of your suspicion?"

"No. Master Breche has merchant interests abroad. He's due to be in Calais by Martinmas. Amyas is his heir. He wants him settled before he goes."

"Is the girl Sir Edmund's heir?"

"There's a son. Much younger. So she's not the heir, but Sir Edmund is giving a good dowry with her and she'll have considerable lands from her mother when her mother dies."

And her brother might die. Then she would have everything, ifa""Is the estate entailed in the male line only?" Joliffe asked. Because that would mean the property could go only from male to male, never to a daughter, however sidewise that might take it, even to remote cousins.

"No," Lord Lovell said, with a level look at Joliffe that said he understood what lay behind the question. While a well-dowered knight's daughter was a very good thing, a daughter who was heir to all that knight's property was even better, and here was someone with only a younger brother in the way to that. But even without that, it was likely a good marriage just as it was, because by way of it, a merchant's heir would rise into the gentry and a knight's daughter acquire a wealthy husband.

Besides, it seemed that Lord Lovell feared for the bridegroom, not the brother.

Even as all that chased through his mind, Joliffe asked, enjoying this chance to question a lord, rather than merely obey. "Is there more you could tell us about what has you uneasy?"

"I would there were. As it is, the best I can offer is that you just go there, make of matters what you can, and let me know."

"How do we let you know, my lord?" Ba.s.set asked.

"My lady wife and I are coming to the wedding. We'll be there the day before and I'll make occasion to talk to you. If there's any reason not to go forward with the marriage, I can deal with it then."

Unless the bridegroom died sooner, Joliffe thought but did not say; but found Lord Lovell adding, level-voiced and looking straight at him as if reading his mind, "In the meantime, if you see need to keep anyone alive, please do so." He pulled a scroll toward him, dropping his gaze to it, dismissing them with, "I'll have Gil sent to you directly."

Joliffe followed Ba.s.set in deeply bowing and retreating from the room. A servant waiting outside went in as they left, probably to receive an order about this Gil with whom they were going to be saddled, but neither Ba.s.set nor Joliffe said anything until they were in the middle of the yard, away from anyone to hear Joliffe ask, "What do we tell the others?"

Without slowing or looking at him, Ba.s.set said, "What my lord told us. That he has a boy who wants to be a player and we're to take him on, and we're being sent as a betrothal gift to this Sir Edmund Deneby."

"And about the other?"

"Nothing."

The briefness of Ba.s.set's answer told how he felt about the business set on them.

"We've been asked to do worse," Joliffe pointed out.

"And when we refused, we lost our then-patron and have been living narrowly ever since," Ba.s.set pointed out in return.

"But this time we've accepted," Joliffe said cheerfully. "We'll do what we can, which probably won't be much, and there'll be an end of it. Although," he went on thoughtfully, "if my lord thinks I'm going to hurl my body in front of an a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger or suchlike to protect this Amyas Breche, he can think another thought about it."

"Watch what you don't wish for," Ba.s.set muttered. "You might get it. What we need to talk about is this thought Lord Lovell has that we can do his spying for him because of the Penteney business."

Because that matter had been much Joliffe's doing, he started somewhat uneasily, "Ia""

"Later," said Ba.s.set. "When there's time."

The others were waiting for them with all the hampers and baskets packed into the cart and the mare Tisbe hitched between the shafts. While Joliffe went to be sure of her harness' straps and buckles, Ba.s.set explained about this Gil that was to join them.

All in all, the others took it not so badly as they might. Ellis said, "He'll be the one who was all but falling into the playing area with staring at us, whatever we did here."

"If it is," Rose said encouragingly, "at least he's neither lame nor ugly."

Over Tisbe's back, Joliffe said, "A player can do with being ugly. Look at Ellis."

"I'll look at you with a stick the next time you're in reach," Ellis returned without heat. "That'll help your looks, anyway."

"It's what his voice is like and whether he's trainable," Ba.s.set said.

"Even Joliffe has been mostly trainable," Piers said from where he sat on the cart's tail, legs swinging.

"I get enough of that from Ellis," Joliffe said. "Don't you start."

"You give enough of that to Ellis," Rose said. "All of you stop it." She was Ba.s.set's daughter and Piers' mother and Ellis' love and often sounded as if she would willingly knock all their heads together if she had the chance. "Father, you haven't noted the cart."

"The cart? What's wrong with the cart?"

"Nothing's wrong," Rose said. "Look."

Piers helpfully pointed at the cart's curved canvas top. The high-sided cart carried all the properties needed for their work and what little else there was in their lives. St.u.r.dily made to begin with and carefully kept these many years, it rarely failed them, but it was the canvas cover over curved wooden struts that kept the weather off everything, and despite the best of mending, it was simply wearing out. Patched, blotched, and gray with use, it told all too well how low the players' fortunes had sunk these past few years. Except that instead of that cover there was another one nowa"crisp with newness, without patch, blotch, or mend to be seen, and brightly painted gold and red in the bold, curving, nebully lines of Lord Lovell's heraldic arms.

Both Ba.s.set and Joliffe must have very satisfactorily gaped at it because Rose and Ellis and Piers all burst into laughter together; and while Joliffe stood back to admire it and Ba.s.set circled the cart, staring, Ellis said, "The man who brought it said it was Lord Lovell's gift. He left a cask of paint, too, for us to paint the cart red to match when we've a chance."

Still staring, Ba.s.set breathed, "Blessed St. Genesius." The patron saint of actors.

"You really didn't see it?" Rose insisted.

Ba.s.set shook his head, picked up Piers from where he had fallen off the cart-tail with laughter, and said without taking his eyes from the splendor that had so suddenly overtaken them, "I never did. I was thinking about where we're going." He blinked and gathered his thoughts. "Do you know, I don't know the way to Deneby Manor. We'll have to ask."

"I know the way," said someone from the outer corner of the shed.

They all turned to look at the boy standing there with a long bundle clasped to him with both arms. The same boya"as Ellis had guesseda"who had been at everything they had performed at Minster Lovell this week. Until now there had never been reason to note more than that about him, but that had changed and Joliffe made a first, quick a.s.sessing of him. Older than Piers by a few years, he was pleasant-featured enough, with straw-brown hair and a well-limbed body, compact enough that it might never take him through a gawking, awkward time. All that, at least, was to the good. More, including his voice and whether he was trainable, would have to wait. Ba.s.set was saying, surely while making his own judgment, "You do? To Deneby? That will be a help. You're Gil, I take it?"

The boy ducked his head in awkward acknowledgment, thought better of that, and tried a slight bow from his waist instead, more awkward because of the bundle clutched to him. As he straightened, his gaze flickered to all of them looking back at him, and Joliffe remembered his own first moment of joining Ba.s.set's company. That had been before the disaster had come on them, so there were more people looking at hima"five men and Rose and another womana"but the feeling must be the same for this Gil as it had been for him: the lone outsider being judged by a close-grown group who knew each other, did not know him, and were unsure they wanted to. Ba.s.set had done then just as he did nowa"said with hearty goodwill, "Welcome, young mana"" and went on to make them all known to him. "Ellis Halowe, who does our villains and heroes, depending on which we need. Joliffe Ripon, who mostly plays our women's roles as well as anything else that's needed. My daughter Rose, who'll keep you clothed and teach you your share of the cooking. Her son Piers, who'll make trouble for you, just as he does for the rest of us."

Gil smiled and nodded at each of them. They smiled and nodded back.

"It's your last name we don't know," Ba.s.set said.

"Densell, if you please, sir," Gil said.

"Well, Gil Densell, it's time we were on our way. That's all your gear?" Ba.s.set asked. "Put it in the back of the cart. Show him where, Piers."

"There's a meat pie on the top," Gil said. "For all of . . . us." He offered that "us" uncertainly. "From my mother," he added, abashed.

"Then doubly welcome," Ba.s.set said heartily.

Young Gil would learn soon enough, thought Joliffe, that food from anyone for any reason was always welcome among them.

But even now, with Piers showing Gil where to stow his bag and no reason left not to be on their way, Rose said, "There's one more thing."