Ba.s.set bowed to him again. "That would be most good of you, my master."

"Until tomorrow," the boy said lordliwise and rode on with his servant.

By then all but the most curious of the villagers had dispersed and now the few left went away, leaving the players alone to pack away their goods, giving Ellis chance to ask while he and Rose were folding the hanging small and tight to go back in its hamper, "Why the night in the village? Why not go on to the manor tonight and save the cost of a night's lodging?"

Ba.s.set, standing by to take the wooden pegs as Joliffe and Gil knocked them out of the wooden frame and Piers held it steady until it could all come down, said, "We're going to be here a week or more. I want to know more about Sir Edmund and his people before we're in the middle of it all. An evening in the village alehouse should tell us all we need to know." He cast an eye at the sky. "Besides, I think the rain is done for a while. We can set up our tent, and maybe only have to pay for supper."

Leaving them to finish packing up, he went to ask in the alehouse about supper and where they might set up their tent for the night and was a.s.sured they were welcome to use of the common land lying at the village's end. Common land was kept untilled, with every villager having right to graze a set number of livestock there. The village pound was set there, too, where strayed animals were kept until their owners paid the fine to have them back. A milch cow presently imprisoned there lowed mournfully while they set up their tent, but as they finished, a girl came with stool and pail and set to milking it. Done with his share of tasks, Ellis strolled over to lean on the fence and talk with her. Joliffe, circling the tent to be sure all the tie-downs were securea"Gil tied firm knots, he founda"saw Rose cast a long look after Ellis. Hurt and longing and anger were so mixed in her face that Joliffe momentarily felt an answering anger at Ellis, but in truth he would have been hard put to say for which of them he felt the more sorry. There was love between Rose and Ellis, deep enough it had kept Ellis with her when he could have been long gone to a less desperate band of players than they'd become until Lord Lovell took them on. The trouble was that, so far as anyone knew, Rose's long-vanished husband, Piers's father, still lived, meaning she could not freely give her love and herself to Ellis in the way they both wanted.

Sometimes she did give way, did give herself completely to him, let him give himself completely to her, and those were good days. Mostly, though, she held out against her desires and his, and sometimes in those times his need went wandering and he found elsewhere what he could not have from her. Then she was hurt and did not always hide it, and the rest of them had to live with that.

Joliffe, on the whole, wished her husband would happen into their way sometime. Then they could kill him and settle matters once and for all.

The girl went away with her pail of milk, and Ellis came back to say, "She says there was a new brew of ale made just yesterday and that generally the ale is good."

"I suppose you told her you were good, too," Rose snapped.

"I told her we'd be in to try the ale this evening," Ellis said, sounding somewhat startled. He always seemed startled by Rose's ill-humour at him. How he could be after all these years Joliffe did not know, unless it was by a willful forgettinga"which did not better the matter in the slightest.

Leaving Gil to guard the cart and Tisbe staked out to graze nearby, the rest of them went back to the alehouse in the gathering shadows of early evening. The supper of pottage of late season vegetables was filling if not grand and afterward they sent Piers back with a bowl of it to Gil for his supper and Rose's order for Piers to go to bed when he got there. He wouldn't, but he'd take care to be in bed by the time she returned and that would serve well enough. Then the players settled down to finding out what they could about the household at the manor.

It helped that the ale was all the milkmaid had promised. Good ale made for good talk, and after Ellis and Ba.s.set did a brief juggling of bright leather b.a.l.l.s between them, the villagers' first wariness eased, letting Ellis and Ba.s.set fall into talk with them. Joliffe and Rose kept somewhat aside from them, listening to other talk but joining in little, so that all together they might find out as much as might be of how folk thought about the Denebys, because it would be a different way of looking than Lord Lovell's. Lord Lovell was lord over Sir Edmund, but here Sir Edmund held sway over much of these people's lives. Even those who had already bought their freedom from serfdom and no longer owed him service still lived on land he owned, worked fields that were his, came before his manor-court when there were troubles. A bad lord made for a sad, ill-humoured village, and that would be warning to the players of how much harder their task in pleasing him might be.

The crowd this afternoon had been pleasant enough, though, and talk in the alehouse tonight was easy, neither full of complaints nor sullenly afraid to make such as there were. One man grumbled over a fine lately put on him in the manor-court for taking fish from a stream, but his friends told him, friendliwise, to shut up, he'd had no business taking them from that part of the stream and he'd known it, and Sir Edmund had been easier on him than he could have been.

The heaviest talk was of the poor harvest, but that was eased by other talk of hoped-for feasting at the wedding.

"Not but what he'll want to take some of it out of our stores," the man who'd been fined over fish grumbled, "and leave us with less when we've not much anyway."

"Shut your mouth, Jem," one of his friends said, still friendliwise. "You don't know aught. He's sent to Oxford and Cirencester both, they're saying, for what's to be bought there, rather than having anything off us."

"We're to have our own feast here for the marriage and at his cost," a woman said loudly. "So give over your complaining, Jem. It's not Sir Edmund's fault you're bad at thieving and were caught."

While everyone, except Jem, was laughing at that, a round young man in a priest's black gown appeared in the outer doorway and was greeted with a general raising of cups and bowls and welcoming calls of, "Father Morice!" and "Where've you been?" and "Come in out of the chill," with various folk shifting on benches to make place for him. He stood smiling and nodding to one and all, familiar and friendly, while he looked over the company and then, with smiling words and slaps on the shoulders of folk as he pa.s.sed, made his way to where Ba.s.set and Ellis sat with a few other men.

Ba.s.set and Ellis both rose to their feet and made him respectful bows, to which he returned a slight bow of his head and said in a clear, easy voice, knowing perfectly well he was listened to by everyone, "You're the players, yes? May I join you?"

Ba.s.set bowed again and Ellis and the men shoved sideways, clearing a place beside Ba.s.set. Both priest and Ba.s.set sat, the alehouse talk rose up again and closed over whatever their talk might be, and Joliffe and Rose raised eyebrows to each other. The Church had never quite settled how it felt about players. Their craft could be used the same way that paintings on church walls were used: to tell G.o.dly stories and show the error of sinful ways, but against that was set the lingering suspiciona"and sometimes outright certaintya"that the ways of wandering, lordless, land-less men were likely to be as sinful as anything their plays might claim to be against.

So it was much each churchman's choice how well or ill he regarded players and happily this Father Morice seemed among the happier-minded sort. Joliffe couldn't watch how things went between him and Ba.s.set for long, though, because a village fellow was inching somewhat too close along the bench to Rose on her other side, with an interested look and his hands beginning to stray her way. A fight being among the last things the players wanted, Joliffe gave the man no apparent heed but draped an arm over Rose's shoulders with seemingly absent-minded affection. Understanding what he was at, she leaned against him in return and held up her bowl of ale for him to drink from it. The village fellow eased away and turned his heed to the woman on his other side, whose lowering stare at Rose turned to smiles at him.

Instead, it was Ellis' hard stare across the alehouse Joliffe met, but Rose saw it, too, and twitched her head slightly sideways, meaning Ellis to understand there was reason for Joliffe's arm around her. Ellis flicked a glance at the now disinterested village fellow, slightly nodded back at Rose, and returned to his deep talk with the woman who had lately crowded onto the bench between him and the next man, all their hips against each other but her eyes for Ellis.

Under her breath, disgustedly, Rose said, "Men."

"Hai," Joliffe protested.

"You, too," Rose said and shifted, without making show of it, from under his arm as she turned to the woman formerly glowering at her and struck up talk across the man between them.

The last Joliffe heard was Rose asking if anyone in the village might be willing to do laundry for pay. "Just keeping these men mended takes all my time," she saida"unfairly, Joliffe thought; but the other woman nodded with full understanding and started a friendly answer, while the man between them began to look uncomfortable. Leaving Rose to it, Joliffe rejoined the talk of the other men around him.

Ba.s.set made to leave not long thereafter when Father Morice did, the two of them talking together all the way to the door and out, Father Morice giving wordless, good-humoured waves and nods to all the farewells called out to him. Joliffe, Rose, and Ellis broke off their own various talk and followed them, finding them still talking outside in the spread of yellow light from the lantern hung beside the alehouse door. Beyond the light's reach, the over-clouded darkness was like a black wall, save for another lantern hanging beside a door across and farther along the street. As the players joined Ba.s.set, Father Morice was pointing that way and saying, "There's my door. Might I offer you a light to see you on your way?"

"My thanks," Ba.s.set said, "but I think my daughter has provided for us."

Used to the deep country darkness that came with nightfall, Rose had indeed brought their own lantern with its panes of thin-cut horn. It had been between her feet in the alehouse and now she handed it from under her cloak to Ellis, who lighted its candle-stub at the alehouse lantern's while Ba.s.set made them known, each by name, to Father Morice, who said how much he looked forward to seeing them play. Then he and Ba.s.set made their cordial farewells and he went homeward with confidence through the familiar darkness between the alehouse and his own doorstep.

With less confidence, the players headed back toward the common, enclosed in their own yellow circle of lantern-light, fretted with their shadows so the ground was uncertain underfoot. Nor did they talk until they were as sure as they might be in the dark that they were alone, when Ellis, holding the lantern high but his other arm around Rose's waist, said, "The priest came in knowing all about us, but did I hear right that he'd been at the manor all day, dealing over this marriage business?"

"He was and didn't much want to talk about it," Ba.s.set said. "Tired of it, I suppose. But, yes, everyone has heard we're here and will be there tomorrow because, as we well guessed, the young man who wanted us to play again is Will Deneby, Sir Edmund's heir. He's also Father Morice's student, though presently unlessoned while Father Morice helps with the marriage talks, and Father Morice speaks of him with affection and some praise as an estimable and worthy young man."

"You drank too much," Rose said. Observing, not accusing. An over-flourish of words was always sign that Ba.s.set had gone somewhat beyond sober limits.

"I did, but the last several cups were paid for by our good Father Morice . . ."

"Which ensures him being *good Father Morice' for some time to come," said Joliffe.

". . . and while you younglings indulged in idle listening to all and sundry, I plied our priest for information at length about Sir Edmund and his family."

"Did you learn anything?" Ellis demanded.

"That Sir Edmund is a generous lord, who sits his own manor-court," when that task was often left to a manor's steward or bailiff or reeve, "and against whom there are no great complaints."

"But . . . ?" asked Joliffe, not of what Ba.s.set had said, but of the shadow faintly behind the words.

"But," Ba.s.set echoed. "Yes. But. I don't know the but. Nor am I sure it's against Sir Edmund. And of Lady Benedicta, the wife, Father Morice would not talk at all beyond granting her to be a gracious lady, a good lady, aa""

"A lady he'd best not say anything bad about?" Joliffe suggested.

Although Joliffe could not see Ba.s.set's face in the shadows, there was a thoughtful frown in his voice as he answered, "Maybe that. Or maybe she's a lady about whom nothing can be said at all, she is so slight a being, of naught but gowns and gauds, of little wit and lessa""

"What about this marriage?" Ellis asked. "Are we going to be playing to people who are glad about it or unglad?" Because there were few things more disheartening than playing to folk set into a determined dark humour, not only unready to be diverted but sometimes ready to be angry at anyone who tried it.

"Ah, the marriage," Ba.s.set said in the mellow tones that told he was about to wax eloquent.

Rose, as able as anyone to see it coming, said briskly, "Hush. We'll be waking Piers. Tell us tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Ba.s.set said. "The other day that haunts our dreams and hopes for evermore. The day thata""

"The marriage," Ellis whispered fiercely, not willing to wait for tomorrow.

"Happiness all around," Ba.s.set whispered back, "and everyone in haste to have it happen."

Which left only the matter of why Lord Lovell had set them to spy here, Joliffe thought.

Chapter 4.

The manor of Deneby was set in a wide valley among low, sheep-cropped hills thickly banded along their foot by a stretch of forest. The village with its squat-towered church sat near the valley's lower end, the hedge-bordered great fields spread out around it, with Sir Edmund's manor house farther on, marked by a round tower above a tight cl.u.s.ter of slate-roofed great hall and thatch-roofed lesser buildings, all surrounded by a tall stone wall and a wide moat fed by the stream.

Moats could be stinking things, stagnant and foul, but the stream's flow had this one running clear. Joliffe could see the green ripple of water plants and the shadowy movement of fish in its depths as the company crossed over the wooden bridge from road to manor gateway. Ahead of him Ba.s.set and Ellis were juggling bright fountains of b.a.l.l.s and behind them Piers and Gil were deeply bowing and sweeping their hats to either side as if already being applauded by the folk just beginning to gather into the yard to see them arrive. Joliffe came playing his lute behind them, dancing a little to his own lively music, while Rose brought up the rear with Tisbe and the cart. Over breakfast Ba.s.set had talked of getting yellow and red ribbons for Tisbe's harness, to match the cart's hood now it was so grand, but presently Tisbe was her plain self, while the rest of them had put on their best street-garba"parti-colored tunics and hosen, gaudy-dyed shoes, over-large hats for Ba.s.set, Ellis, and Joliffe, a parti-colored gown for Rose. Piers had been outgrowing the tabard that usually served over his daily clothing at these timesa""He grows too much from one day to the next to bother the cost of making him better just yet," Ba.s.set had grumbled months agoa"but still had his cap with a green popinjay feather and today along with the men and his mother was wearing the proud Lovell tabard.

To Gil, because there had been neither time nor any chance to do better for him, was left Piers' old tabard, laughably too short on him but the best they could do at present. All the way to the manor he had been pulling down on its lower edge as if somehow he could make it cover more of his other clothing; but now that there were people to see hima"servants and other household folk gathering into the manor yarda"he'd begun to use the tabard's shortness, bringing laughter at himself with a flaunt of hip here, a b.u.t.tock-revealing bow there, a sudden feigned shyness and renewed tugging at the tabard when he caught a girl's gaze on him.

Joliffe had started the day heavy with wondering what they would find once they were at the manor hall. For all that everything had seemed well enough in talk in the village, Lord Lovell was no fool, to be seeing trouble where there wasn't any, and to that had been added worry at how Gil would be. Because no one else had been showing their probably like-worry, he had kept his own to himself, but nowa"watching Gil caper and play to the lookers-ona"his own spirits rose past pretended merriment into true. If Gil proved to be anything like so good as he so far seemed to be, they would owe Lord Lovell far more than they already did, whatever bother there might be with Denebys in the meanwhile.

Supposing Gil was what he seemed and not a spy set on them by Lord Lovell.

That was a thought Joliffe wished his mind had not bothered to have.

Their little band of merriment drew up in the middle of the yard beyond the gatehouse. Perhaps fifty yards from end to end and almost as wide, the yard was surrounded on three sides by various byres and sheds and stables, while directly across from the gateway was the high-roofed, tall-windowed great hall, not so new as Lord Lovell's lately built at Minster Lovell but fine enough to tell the Denebys were no slight family. The round, stone-built tower seen from down the valley, standing at the hall's right end, was older than the hall, with stark, plain lines and narrow windows, its one outer door a full story above the ground, all for better defense when defense was more an everyday matter in England than it presently was. The door was reached by worn stone stairs sheltered by a penticed roof slanted out from the stone wall of the tower, with a stone porch at the top that had originally been small, to keep enough men from gathering there for any strong a.s.sault on the door. With a.s.sault no longer a likelihood, a wider porch had been made of wood and extended past the tower into a covered walkway to the roofed upper gallery running the whole length of a long, new building along the yard beyond it. By the line of doors both along the gallery above and at ground level below, Joliffe guessed there was a whole wing of rooms there, more comfortable than whatever had been in the old stone tower.

By all that, Sir Edmund looked to be a prospering knight with a firm hand on matters around him, making him well worth Lord Lovell taking trouble over his business, since much of a lord's worth and reputation depended on the worth and reputation of the men allied to him and Sir Edmund looked to be an ally worth the having.

Ba.s.set tossed his juggling b.a.l.l.s to Ellis, shifted his manner to dignified, and strode forward alone to meet the man coming toward them from the hall doorway, servants clearing a way for him. He was a hollow-chested fellow with the drawn-in face of a man not in the best of health. Joliffe judged by his simple over-gown that he was not Sir Edmund, was probably the household's steward, and to him but likewise for all to hear, Ba.s.set boldly announced that he and his company were come at Lord Lovell's bidding as a gift to give sport and merriment and goodly plays for the delight of Sir Edmund Deneby, his household, and guests this happy time until his daughter's wedding.

"And afterward, too," Ba.s.set finished with a low bow and sweep of his hat, "if it should be Sir Edmund's gracious pleasure."

The steward replied in kind, with thanks both to Ba.s.set and Lord Lovell, adding a.s.surance of Sir Edmund's grateful pleasure at their being here. That, Joliffe thought, was the kind of welcome being a lord's players got you and far better than many they'd had over the years.

Ba.s.set and the steward fell into quieter talk thena"the steward apologizing that with the guests and their people already here and those expected later, the players must be given somewhere less to stay than otherwise they might. Ba.s.set replied that so long as it was somewhere they could be private to ready themselves for Sir Edmund's pleasure and keep the goods of their craft safe and secret, they would be well satisfied. It ended with a deep bow from Ba.s.set and a lesser bow from the steward before he called one of the servants to him, directing they might have use of the cartshed beyond the carpentry shop, since the great cart was gone to Oxforda""To fetch the wine for all the feasting to come," he saida"leaving plenteous s.p.a.ce for their own.

Ba.s.set smiled his respect, stepped back with another bow, and turned to follow the waiting servant. The rest of the players followed them both, Ellis making a high display with the bright b.a.l.l.s and Piers leading Gil in a mad-footed dance to match Joliffe's merry strumming on his lute while Rose and Tisbe were content with simply following them.

The carpentry shop sat at the far end of the yard, with a cart-wide gap between it and the stables that led into a small yard wide enough to bring out and turn the several carts lined side by side in an open-sided, earth-floored shed backed against the manor's outer wall. As Ellis rounded the corner into the cart-yard, he let fall the b.a.l.l.s, catching them all into his arms. Piers likewise ceased dancing the moment he was beyond sight of the main yard and Joliffe ceased to play and dropped a hand on Gil's shoulder to let him know he could stop, too, saying, "Save yourself for when there's someone to pay for it."

"There's where you can be," their guide said, pointing toward an empty place at the farther end of the shed.

"What of our horse?" Ba.s.set asked. "Will there be stabling for her? Or grazing?"

"Master Henney didn't say. Doubt there's room in stable anyway. Maybe best you keep her here?" the fellow ventured.

Ba.s.set thanked him and slipped a farthing into his hand in farewell. It wasn't much, but the man beamed at him and went away, leaving the players looking at each other, smiles slowly spreading across all their faces.

"This," said Ba.s.set for all of them, "is shaping very well."

It was. An honorable reception, a private and dry place to stay, steady work for a week or more, their meals a.s.sured. Even Ellis, who was given to seeing the darker possibilities in anything, was whistling as they set to their settling in. While Joliffe unhitched Tisbe, Ba.s.set and the others debated how best to put the cart into the shed. Fit was no trouble. The "great cart" must be much the size of their own, and the shed was high-eaved enough there was not even need to remove their tilt. Whether to put it in forward or back was the question and finally they decided on back, because it was through the back their hampers of all their goods could easiest be got at, and when they were not here, the cart could be shoved against the rear wall, making everything harder to reach for anyone who shouldn't be there. Not that a determined thief could be stopped by the tilt's canvas or crawling over the forward seat and through the tied curtains behind it, but the idly curious would be kept at bay and there was small likelihood of theft here, because any thief could be too easily found out in the guarded bounds of the manor. But "Better safe to start with than sorry afterwards," Ba.s.set said.

"And the shoving the cart back and pulling it forward whenever we go and come will keep you fit," Joliffe said cheerfully, waiting aside with Tisbe while Ba.s.set, Ellis, Piers, and Gil began to shift the cart.

Rose came to him, took Tisbe's reins from him, and said in her best mother-voice, "Go and help."

Grinning, Joliffe obeyed.

With the cart in shelter, they changed into their plainer clothing before doing more, not that there was much more to do. With neither room between their cart and the nexta"nor need under the close-thatched roofa"to set up their tent, they only put up the poles with a cloth hung between them that gave Rose a place of her own against the shed's back wall to sleep and dress. For the rest of them, they pulled their bedding out of the cart and stacked it underneath, to be laid out later, both under their cart and between it and the one beside it. "Which happily is not a dung cart," Ba.s.set observed.

"Can we have a fire here, do you think?" Rose asked. An open-sided cartshed would not keep as warm around their firepot as a full barn did.

"A very small one should be well enough," Ba.s.set said. "In a pit and covered when we're not here."

"Joliffe can collect the wood for it when he takes Tisbe to graze," said Ellis.

Joliffe did not bother to quarrel at that. They would probably be allowed some hay while here but taking Tisbe to graze, too, would both let her fatten a little during her time off from hauling the cart and give him a chance to be somewhat alone while with her. He was not as given to company as his fellow players, and they knew as well as he did how sharp-humoured he could become if he did not sometimes get away. For him to take Tisbe to graze suited everyone.

"The question will be when you can take her," Ba.s.set said. "We've somewhat of work ahead of us. My thought is to set young Gil to it as soon as might be. What do you say to trying The Steward and the Devil tonight? That's good to start with, I think."

He looked around for their a.s.sent. Though there were memories that went with playing The Steward and the Devil, they all nodded. Gil, having seen it at Minster Lovell, knew it and asked, "I'll be a demon?"

"You will," Ba.s.set said. "We still have the large tabard for it?" he asked Rose.

"The tail, too," she said.

"After dinner, then, we'll rehea.r.s.e you," Ba.s.set told Gil, as from the hall someone began to ring a handbell, calling people to the mid-day meal.

The Steward and the Devil was a straight-forward play and one they often did, with Ba.s.set playing three parts, Ellis the Steward, Joliffe the Devil, and Piers as a small but lively demon who came on at the end to drive the Steward off to h.e.l.l. As another demon, Gil would only have to copy what Piers dida"something they had done before when they'd briefly had to include someone else in the play. Before this morning, Joliffe would have looked on it as a way to find out how Gil would do before an audience, because to think of being a player was one thing, to find a group of strangers staring at every move you made was another, and more than one would-be player had found himself brought to a mind-blanked halt at his first moment of it. But coming into the yard this morning, Gil had carried on as well as any of them, making it likely he'd do well enough as a leaping demon following Piers' lead. What would happen when he was given words to say could be another matter, but as Ba.s.set too often said, "The moment's troubles usually suffice for the moment," and Joliffe put all else aside to ready for his first sight of Sir Edmund's family and guests, among whom there mighta"or might nota"be a murderer, who mighta"or might nota"be going to kill again, depending on how right Lord Lovell's suspicion was.

Or wasn't.

The wide doorway into Deneby's great hall sat at yard-level rather than over a cellar or undercroft and up any stairs. When the players came from behind the carpentry shop, people already crossing the yard toward it turned curious looks their way, and there were some exclaims and pointing from a small flurry of women hurrying along the gallery above the yard, but the only person who spoke to them was a small man who stepped forward to meet them as they neared the hall. Subdued in manner, gowned in a plain, brown, ankle-length surcoat and with ink on his fingers, he looked to be a clerka"the steward's clerk, Joliffe guessed as the man said, "Master Henney said I should see you to your places in the hall, and ask your names, asking your pardon not to have had them earlier."

He spoke stiffly, very much on his dignity in dealing with them. Other people's dignity at their expense being something to which the players were well-used, Ba.s.set merely thanked him graciously and gave their names but at the end asked in return, "And you are?"

That briefly discomposed the man. Servants did not ask such questions back. But that was partly why Ba.s.set had done it. Where players fit in the world was never clear, but, whatever they were, they were not anyone's servants. Even Lord Lovell was their patron, not their master. Respectful acceptance of someone's higher place was one thing. Being servile was another. Lacking servants' advantages of set wages and certainty of food and shelter, Ba.s.set did not see reason to accept any servants' disadvantages that he could avoid. "If we're going to pay the cost of being players," he had once said, "we might as well have the profit of it, too."

"Even if that and a penny will buy maybe a loaf of bread," Joliffe had said back and been lightly clouted along his head and told that that was not the point and to mind his tongue.

But besides all that, it would be helpful to have the clerk's name, and after an uncertain moment, the man gave way to Ba.s.set's polite waiting and said, "I'm William Duffeld, clerk of accounts to Master Henney, Sir Edmund's steward here, whom you have met."

"A fine man," Ba.s.set said. "Now, Master Duffeld, would you know if he would permit us to have a small and careful fire where we're staying?"

Duffeld hesitated. "It's the cartshed you're in."

He sounded as if his concern was more for the wooden carts and thatch roof, but Ba.s.set readily, cheerily agreed, "It is indeed the cartshed, and therefore a small fire, kept well-covered when we're not there, will do no harm to anyone and be a comfort to us, the nights drawing in chill and damp this time of year. In truth, as you can see, it would be more than a comfort to us. Our taking a rheum will do our playing no good, and if we do not play, we do not serve Lord Lovell's purpose in having sent us here."

Joliffe did not doubt it was the use of Lord Lovell's name that made the difference. Duffeld hemmed a little but then agreed they might have a small fire.

"And wood for it," Ba.s.set said, smiling. "Or allowance for us to gather some for ourselves when we graze our horse. If we may do so."

That was well-done, too. No one would know better than the steward's clerk, whose duties included writing down each day's tally of food and wood used in the household not only by its members but for all guests, the cost of hay and wood. Having already granted them a fire, he was now offered an easy way not only away from wood for it but less hay for their horse, too. The man's calculation was quick. He shortly nodded and said, "I must needs ask Master Henney for a certainty. I'll tell you later what he says, but likely that will serve well. Now if I may see you to your place?"

Ba.s.set graciously allowed that he might and they followed him inside, into the low-ceilinged screens pa.s.sage, its wooden wall shielding the hall from drafts from the outer door. On the left were the butlery and pantry, separated by a pa.s.sageway to the kitchen. Opposite, a wide doorway through the screen wall opened into the great hall. Wide and long and open to the high rafters, the hall had a low-rimmed long hearth in its middle, flanked by two lines of trestle tables facing each other, running the hall's length to the low dais at the far end and the high table where Sir Edmund, his family, and best guests would sit. They were not come in yet but such of the household as dined in the hall were taking their places along the benches on the outer side of the long tables. Being Lord Lovell's players got Ba.s.set and the rest of them a little higher than the very end of one of the tables, only a few of the household's lowest put below them, but since there had been times when they had been denied any place at table at all, they valued the difference.