Ba.s.set sat highest, next to an older maidservant with whom he was soon in talk. Joliffe sat next to him, although Ellis had been in the company longer and should have sat there; but Ellis preferred to sit beside Rose, who by rights could have sat above Joliffe, too, but she thought it best to sit beside Piers, and they alla"except Piersa"agreed he should be at the bottom for the sake of his humility. Not that Piers had ever shown a shadow of anything even distantly resembling humility. That he presently held back from too openly showing his pleasure at being seated above Gil along the table was as near to grace as he was likely to come, to Joliffe's mind.

Joliffe, who didn't much care where he sat so long as it was not at the high table or in the midden, was merely glad to have Rose and Ellis occupied with each other and Ba.s.set immediately in talk with the maid, because that left him free to look well around the hall and household. Those who dined here would be the household officers and clerks and better servants, not stablehands and kitchen help and suchlike. These were the people closest to the Denebys and how they behaved would tell much about Sir Edmund and Lady Benedicta. A careless, ill-mannered master tended to have careless, ill-mannered servants. A master with a heavy hand and foul humour had, at best, sullen, wary folk around him or, at worst, people as foul-humoured as himself.

Here, Joliffe was eased to see, folk were well-kept, with easy talk among them and their looks at the players only curious, not wary or worried. All that boded well, and so did the signs of Sir Edmund's prosperity around the hall. The well-plastered walls were freshly painted a rich earth-red. The wall-hanging behind the high table, painted with men and women in a flowery meadow, hawks on hand and hounds among them, was not only large but of good quality and likely London-made. There were open shelves standing at one wall, displaying a fine array of silver platters and goblets and plates against a green damask cloth draped shelf to shelf from top to bottom. The rushes covering the floor were fresh, the wooden tabletop in front of him scrubbed clean, and the high table covered by a shiningly white cloth. Everything told that Sir Edmund not only prospered but used his prosperity well, both for his own comfort and to impress his guests. A man so well-given to outward seeming as Sir Edmund looked to be would probably not be behind-hand in well-rewarding the players, too, the more especially because they were here at Lord Lovell's behest.

All that was left to see were Sir Edmund and his family and guests, and they were entering now through the doorway behind the high table, at the dais' end. First were two older men who had to be Sir Edmund and the wealthy Master Breche in what looked like friendly talk together as they went to the two tall-backed chairs at the middle of the table. Joliffe watched as they delayed sitting down while each urged the othera"to judge by their gesturesa"to be seated first. Then they laughed and the man whom Joliffe guessed to be Master Breche sat first, a stout-waisted man in an amply cut, long, loose gown of grey wool thickly furred in black at throat and wrists. He had a merchant's look to him, while the other man was younger than Joliffe had expected Sir Edmund to be, in perhaps his late thirties, with a calf-long, deep crimson gown belted low on his lean waist and dark hair sleekly cut, his manner graceful as he turned to seat a woman on the bench to his right while a servant ushered the others to their places along the table.

Ba.s.set had been making use of his talk with the maidservant. He leaned away from her to say low-voiced to Joliffe, "That's Sir Edmund in the red and his lady wife with him."

Joliffe's first thought about Lady Benedicta was that she was beautiful. There were women on whom their beauty came young and did not last, and women on whom beauty came only with the fullness of years, and women on whom beauty, in the world's sense, never came. However she had been when young, Lady Benedicta was undeniably beautiful now. Her wide-cauled headdress draped with a short veil hid her hair but even the length of the hall Joliffe could see the fine line of her high-arched dark brows above wide-set eyes and fine cheekbones in the perfectly proportioned oval of her face. Her trailing gown was of a red brighter than her husband's, the standing collar closed high under her chin showing off her long throat the way the long lines of the gown's thick folds from the green-dyed leather belt just below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s showed off her slender form before she sat gracefully down.

"That's their daughter, Mariena, on the other side of Master Breche," Ba.s.set said. He c.o.c.ked his head briefly toward the maid's whisper, then added, "And her betrothed-to-be beside her."

Joliffe switched his admiring consideration from Lady Benedicta to them. The young man bowing the girl to the place beside his uncle before sitting down on her other side had looks that were nothing beyond the ordinary, but with youth to recommend them, he was comely enough. The girl, though . . .

Like her mother, Mariena held the eye. Whether her beauty was the kind that would last there was no telling, but at present she had it in plenty, with the same arched brows and pleasingly proportioned face of her mother, but as pale and rose as a maiden's was supposed to be. In token of her maidenhood, her haira"dark like her father'sa"was uncovered, and although from where he sat Joliffe could not tell how long it was, he would have wagered it went to her waist and more. And a slender waist it was, shown off by a pale green gown loosely fitted but boldly cut and curved to leave the sides open far enough down to reveal a summer-blue undergown close-fitted over b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips.

Young Amyas Breche would be getting a very comely bride.

Chapter 5.

Beside Joliffe, Ellis was looking the same way with openly much the same thought because he said, "There's someone worth their looking at."

Joliffe returned, "If she does anything like so lovely as she is . . ."

Ellis started to laugh but Rose pushed an elbow subtly but firmly into his ribs, silencing him and Joliffe both with a dark look.

They were diverted then by servants coming with the first remove, carrying the first dishes up the hall to the high table with some ceremony. With less ceremony, other servants brought in and set out large bowls of mutton, turnips, and squares of cheese in a thick gravy along the lower tables, one to every two people, for them to spoon onto the thick-cut rounds of day-old bread that served in place of plates at each place. With hunger's first edge eased, Joliffe leaned his head toward Ba.s.set and said, "So that's Father Morice beside Amyas Breche, and young Will at the other end of the table. But who's the couple between Will and Lady Benedicta?" A young man and woman with "married couple" all but blazoned on them, well-dressed in sober dark blues with no enriching fur.

"They're the Wyots," Ba.s.set said. "Harry was Sir Edmund's ward. Sir Edmund set up his marriage with a merchant who wanted to marry his daughter into the landed gentry." He lowered his voice and leaned a little nearer Joliffe to add, "And that's all Bess here would say about them."

His tone suggested that the way she had said no more had told more than what she'd said. An unhappy marriage then? Forced on an unwilling young man who might have preferred to marry Mariena but instead been given to the merchant's daughter? The merchant's daughter was not ill to look at but she was, to put it at the best, plain, and with her married woman's wimple and veil encircling her wide-cheeked face and covering her hair she looked the plainer, contrasted to Mariena. How much did Harry Wyot resent being married to her when he might have had Mariena for his wife?

Come to that, if he was worth a wealthy merchant having him for son-in-law, why hadn't he been worth Sir Edmund marrying him to Mariena? There were questions to be asked there.

Another question was why were he and his wife here now?

With disgust, Joliffe realized he was settling easily to the work Lord Lovell has asked of him. It did make everything more interesting, though, and through the meala"and a good meal it was, too, with cod seethed in spiced milk and a frumenty of barley in broth coming nexta"Joliffe watched, not too openly, the folk at the high table. Sir Edmund and Master Breche kept mostly in what looked to be good-humoured talk with each other, though Sir Edmund occasionally, briefly, spoke to his wife, while Master Breche exchanged a few comments with Mariena. She was mostly in talk with Amyas on her other side, and very close-headed talk it was. From where he sat, Joliffe could not be sure, but he thought that whenever Amyas pa.s.sed the goblet they shared, she touched his hand, a not altogether unsuitable gesture since they were about to be betrothed but bold enough that Joliffe began to think she did not object to the match being made for her. a.s.suredly the young man did not. His attentions to her only faltered when he had to turn and serve Father Morice on his other side for courtesy's sake.

For his part, the priest who had been so ready with talk last night in the tavern today ate with firm heed to his meal and little to the two young people beside him. At the other end of the table Will had it somewhat better. He could have been as odd-man-out as Father Morice, but young Harry Wyot was much in talk with Lady Benedicta, serving her from the dishes set between them and sharing a goblet, so that serving his wife and sharing a goblet with her fell to Will. Being so young, he had to stand to slice the meat and lift it onto her plate and spoon the vegetables and sauces that went with it, all of it better than the plainer stuff served along the lower tables. He did his duty with steady solemnity and in return Mistress Wyot received his courtesy with solemn courtesy of her own and talked with him when she might have ignored him or scorned him for no more than a half-grown boy.

Joliffe found himself liking the boy for his effort and the woman for her kindness, but it was still Lady Benedicta's loveliness and Mariena's beauty that most often drew his eyes, so that only gradually did he become aware of someone's eyes on him. Set at the bottom of the hall, the players and the household folk at the facing table were served by lesser servants whose duty was to get the food on the tables with no bother of ceremony about it. That suited Joliffe well enough, but he finally began to note that the woman serving them tended to linger a little longer over the business than necessary; and when she asked him if she should bring more bread and he looked full at her, he found her fullness of breast leaning toward him more than need be, delaying the lift of his eyes to her face. That did not repel him either. In fact, her smile was very welcoming and he swallowed before saying he needed no more bread. "Thank you anyway," he added.

"You've but to ask for what you want," she said, still smiling as she straightened and headed away with a pleasant swing to her hips.

Down the table, Ellis snorted on a badly smothered laugh. Rose preferred to pretend she had seen nothing but did it in a silence that told what she was thinking. Piers, typically, was more interested in his food, but Gil was leaned forward to stare along the table at Joliffe in open-eyed wonder. Joliffe kept his dignity, refusing to know about anything but the food in front of him until Ba.s.set hastily put down his spoon and began to rise to his feet.

Looking up then, Joliffe found one of the servants from the hall's upper end was standing across the table, holding out a small pewter dish with a fine, thick slice of chicken breast in a white sauce on it. "From Sir Edmund," the man announced for the hall to hear. "In token of his pleasure at your presence and that of your company, with thanks to his right well-honored lord, Lord Lovell."

He set the plate down in front of Ba.s.set, and as the rest of the players rose to their feet, Ba.s.set bowed toward the high table and said in a carrying voice, "My thanks and that of my company to Sir Edmund, with our hope that we may please him tonight at supper with a play."

Sir Edmund lifted a hand and bent his head in acceptance. Ba.s.set and all the players bowed to him in return and sat again and the meal went on. Sir Edmund might be only a knight but he knew high manners and the grace of ceremony. Their stay here was looking better at every turn.

At the meal's end, while the rest of the players returned to the cartshed, Ba.s.set lingered to talk with Master Henney about their supper being had early, so they would be ready to perform during supper or at supper's end, whichever Sir Edmund preferred. Happily, there was no need for them to rehea.r.s.e tonight's play. All of them but Gil could probably have done it sleeping, and a few moments of work showed him how to do what little he would do at the end. That left them an easy time then for Rose to get out the garments for The Steward and the Devil and the rest of them to talk a little about what else they would do while here before going on with more of Gil's training.

Joliffe, supposing that Ba.s.set and Ellis could see to Gil, asked if he could spend this uncommon leisure time writing over Dux Moraud, an old play among the ones they hadn't used for a time, while he had the chance.

"Are you still set on trying to make that thing work?" Ellis said. "It's ugly."

"People will love it," Joliffe returned.

"It's sickening."

"You'll play the duke."

Ellis glowered. Whatever he thought about the rest of the play, the duke's role was too good for him even to pretend he would not savor it. Their argument over the play always went this way, but this time he said, "So you're thinking Gil would play the daughter and you'd be the wife?"

"Yes."

"Then," said Ellis with great satisfaction, "I could at least play from the heart the part where I order your death."

Piers laughed. Joliffe feigned a clout along side of his head, and grinning, got out the small, slant-topped box where he kept ink and quills and what paper they could afford. With that and a cushion, he was about to go to the cartshed's corner beyond their cart and set himself to work when the boy Will came around the corner of the carpentry shop. The look he gave over his shoulder as he came betrayed he was supposed to be somewhere else, and Ba.s.set asked him, friendly enough and much as he would have Piers, "In flight from lessons, young master?"

"From my mother. She said I should spend the afternoon with the women. I told her Father Morice wanted me. He'll tell her later he didn't, but by then I won't have been with the women all afternoon."

"Surely your Father Morice wouldn't betray you," Ba.s.set said.

"He's not my Father Morice," Will said with an edge of scorn. "He's Mother's. She chose him. St. Augustine's is her church, see."

"Her church?" Ba.s.set asked, all mild and encouraging interest, not for the mere sake of talk but because the more they understood about the family, the less likely they were to set a foot wrong. "The manor came to your father by marriage, then?"

"Oh, no." Will was brightening under Ba.s.set's easy attention to him. "The manor was his all along, but Mother's family held the church and half the village. The families had meant to marry together for years, because Father's family held the mill by Mother's family's manor. If they married, they could trade properties, you see, and it would all suit better. They kept having all sons, though. Both families. Until Mother. So that's why they married, but she kept the right to choose the priest here as part of the marriage agreement and she chose Father Morice." Will dropped his voice as if to impart a secret, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "Father says Father Morice is a waggle-tongued old woman."

Ba.s.set chuckled appreciatively. "So you don't mind giving up your tutor for this week or so?"

"No!" Will was triumphant about it.

Openly musing, Ba.s.set led on, "It's a long while they're at this marriage talk."

"It's all the dealing they're doing. Who gets what and gives what. Mother says Master Breche is too much the merchant." Will put scorn into the word. "He'll give up no more than he must and as little as may be and yet still have the marriage."

Joliffe held back from pointing out that Sir Edmund must be "merchanting" just as hard if the dealing was going on this long. Instead, he offered, "Still, Father Morice must be well-witted enough, if Sir Edmund wants his help with it all."

Will laughed. "Father says he finds more fiddling small points to be talked out than a mouse finds wheat kernels in a granary."

So the priest was talkative but sharp enough that he was valued by Sir Edmund. And he liked plays. Ba.s.set had done well to gain his good will last night. A priest who took against players and could put his case well would have been a bother, if not an outright problem.

Probably thinking they had had enough out of Will for now, Ba.s.set said, "But you didn't come to talk, Master William. You came to see what we're doing, and what we're doing is teaching young Gil here how to be a player. Do you want to watch?"

Will did and went willingly where Ba.s.set pointed him, to sit on the ground with his back against a cartwheel, out of the way. Joliffe went beyond the cart to the corner he'd chosen, put down the cushion, and sat himself down cross-legged to his work. By long practice, he could shut out what the others were doing when need be and did so now, only distantly aware of Ba.s.set and Ellis showing Gil the different stances a player might strike, depending on what sort of person he was playing. In time, if Gil lasted as a player, he would take the needed stance with hardly thinking about it, but for now it would be all dull and driven work for him.

Joliffe had decided yet again that whoever had first written Dux Moraud had little interest in people, only in preaching, and was trying to give the daughter something better to say than "Your will be mine in this, my lord and father" when ordered to kill the baby she'd had by him, when Piers gave a whoop of laughter on the other side of the cart and cried out, "You look like you've split something in your gut!"

Bending over with his head almost to the ground to look under the cart, Joliffe saw Gil in a straddle-legged stance probably meant to be heroic but closer to what Piers had said. Surely stung by Piers' laughter, he jerked his feet together, but Ba.s.set said sternly at Piers, "You hold your tongue. I'd rather work at pulling someone back from overdoing than at trying to make some stiff-sinewed log of a fellow move at all. It's easier to trim than add on, as your mother will tell you about sewing. Gil, give Piers no more heed than you would a cricket chirping. Ellis, show him again."

Ba.s.set somewhat overstated the case for over-playing, but this was not the time to damage Gil's confidence. That, Joliffe well knew from his own young days of Ba.s.set's training, would come later when Gil started to be too c.o.c.k-sure of himself. He'd then hear far worse about himself from Ba.s.set than what Piers had just said.

Ellis was just taking a heroic stand again for Gil's benefit when a manservanta"Joliffe thought the one who had been with Will yesterday in the villagea"came into the cart-yard. Will was scrambling to his feet even before the man started firmly at him, "You've been missed, Master Will. Best you come before your lady mother begins to worry."

"Well enough, yes, I'm coming, Deykus," Will agreed hurriedly, but he paused in his leaving long enough to tell Ba.s.set, "Thank you for letting me watch."

"Our pleasure and honor, sir," Ba.s.set said with a bow that Ellis and Piers and Gil copied.

Will almost bowed back but remembered in time they were only players and settled for raising a hand in farewell as he left.

Joliffe sat up straight again and put himself back to work, but shortly Ba.s.set said, "Skirts now, I think," and called, "Joliffe, time to take your turn at this."

"Coming," Joliffe agreed, and while he stoppered the inkpot and cleaned the quill's point and stored everything back in his box, Rose got out two of their damsel-skirts from a hamper, was fastening one around Gil's waist when Joliffe stowed the box back into the cart.

Piers, a little more cautious after his grandfather's warning, ventured, albeit grinning, "Gil's blushing."

"At least he's not whining his head off," Joliffe said, starting to put on the other skirt. "The way you do whenever you have to play Griselda's daughter. You'd swear," he added, mock-confidingly to Gil, whose face was indeed trying to reach the rich color of beets, "that he was being gelded instead of girled."

"It's just as bad," Piers muttered.

"You get over pretending to be a girl a lot faster than you'd get over being gelded," Ellis pointed out darkly, though he was no fonder of playing a woman than Piers was.

Still distracting Gil from his embarra.s.sment, Joliffe went on, "Besides, you'll be surprised how women take to a man despite of it. Or," he added thoughtfully, "maybe because of it. They maybe want to find out how much a man he is after seeing him in skirts."

"And St. Genesius knows you're more than willing to show them," said Ellis.

"Children," Ba.s.set said in his schoolmaster-in-cla.s.sroom voice. "Behave. May we begin?"

Despite his unwillingness at the start, Gil did well at his lessoning. By the end of it, he might not have had a girlish swing to his hips yet but he could drop a creditable curtsy. He did tread on his skirt's hem much, but he fell over only once, and when they had finished, Ba.s.set allowed it was a promising beginning.

"Better than Joliffe," Ellis said, sitting aside to watch. "Didn't he turn an ankle, almost break it, while he was learning?"

"No," Joliffe protested strongly.

"I remember mending his hems a great many times," Rose offered. "He kept tearing them out with his big feet."

"Everyone picks on me," Joliffe complained.

"It's because it's such fun," Ellis returned.

Lessons finished, Piers and Gil were sent off to fetch water and some hay for Tisbe. Rose took the afternoon's pause to lie down for a rest, and Ellis set to sc.r.a.ping out a firepit in the packed earth floor. Joliffe, before taking a rest himself, went to check Tisbe, tied to the cartshed's end wall and taking life easy. While he was feeling down her legs and seeing that her hooves were clean, Ba.s.set joined him, which was reasonablea"Tisbe's well-being was their well-beinga"but Joliffe supposed that Ba.s.set had more than Tisbe on his mind, and straightening from her last hoof, said to him, too quietly for anyone else to hear, "You hauled a good bucketful of information out of Will. We know more than we did."

"Not that any of it seems any particular use," Ba.s.set answered, stroking the mare's neck. "But then we couldn't expect that anything even the boy knows would be all that secret. And maybe we'll be fortunate and there won't be any secrets to find out here after all."

"We can only hope," said Joliffe.

Chapter 6.

That evening, the play, done in the great hall by torchlight after supper when the household was at ease and ready to be diverted, went well. Gil joined in the deviling with Piers without stumble or fault. "Almost as if you knew what you were doing," Ellis said, slapping him on the back as they made their way back to the cartshed by lantern-light through a soft rain.

"Now if we can just teach him to talk, he may make a player," Joliffe said.

Gil, too happy to mistake their jibing for anything but the friendliness it was, kept saying, "I did it, didn't I? I did it."

"You did indeed do it," Ba.s.set a.s.sured him.

"Wait until you've done it fifty times and see how you feel about it," Ellis muttered.

"Don't listen to him," Ba.s.set said. "Every set of lookers-on and every place we play is different and that makes it a different play every time."

"Not different enough," said Ellis. Rose poked him none too gently in his arm to shut him up.

At the cartshed they changed out of their playing garb, and while Rose put it all away, Ba.s.set started a small fire in the firepit and the others laid out the bedding around it. Joliffe saw Ellis whisper in Rose's ear, but she shook her head to whatever he said or asked and turned her back on him, her eyes downcast. Suddenly deeply glum, Ellis kicked his bedding before lying down.

Gil was already into his own bedding and looked to be gone into instant, exhausted sleep as soon as he was under his blanket. The rest of them took hardly longer at it, with Joliffe maybe the last to go into sleep. He was aware of everyone else's evened breathing around him, anyway, as he lay watching the small firelight's orange flickering among the shadows of the cartshed's rafters and roof, thinking, but not much, until he slept, too.

Morning came as damp and drizzling as last night had been, with no comfort from the burned-out fire and only Piers and Gil seeming ready to take on the day cheerfully despite of all. Joliffe had a wary eye for Ellis, who was gone from yesterday's good humour to sullenness, while Ba.s.set groaned when he shoved aside his blanket and moved only slowly and with what looked like pain as he made to climb to his feet. Rose, turning over the fire's ashes to find if any embers remained, looked quickly to him. "Your arthritics?" she asked.

"Not my arthritics," Ba.s.set said firmly. "I never invited or paid them to come and wouldn't keep company with them if I had a choice." Groaning, he used the near cartwheel to pull himself upright, his back and knees straightening unwillingly, before he went on, still firmly, "Not my arthritics. Given chance to choose, I'd reject them utterly."

"I'll get your medicine," said Rose. "Ellis, see to these embers, if you will."

Ellis muttered something about the embers being the only warm thing around here, but Rose gave no sign she heard him as she went in at the rear of the cart to fetch her box of simples. Doctors, like so much else in their lives, cost too much to be indulged in lightly; Rose kept various herbs and other remedies to hand, treating the company's slight hurts and ailments herself when there was need. When Ba.s.set's joints flared into pain they were a little helped by an ointment of mallow and sheep's tallow. It did not cure but usually at least eased the pain. This morning, though, it hardly did even that if Ba.s.set's hobble when they set out toward the hall to break their fast was anything by which to judge. But his stiffness seemed to ease as he walked so that he was barely limping by the time they crossed the yard. Only someone who knew him, watching carefully, would see he moved in pain.

As was usual in great houses, breakfast was laid out on a long table in the halla"warm, new bread; cheese; cold meat from last night's supper; alea"for folk to help themselves, eat standing, and get on with the day, with the steward's clerk Duffeld standing by to see that no one ate more than their share or lingered when they should be to work. He kept as sharp an eye on the players as on everyone else and said to Ba.s.set when he pa.s.sed close to him, "You had hay for your horse yesterday. You'll be taking it out to graze today?"

"We will, sir," Ba.s.set a.s.sured him heartily, as if appreciating a fine thought generously offered instead of a near-complaint curtly given, and moved on before the man could say more.