A Play of Isaac (21 page)

She did not mention Lewis, and for the first time Joliffe took note that, although he had glimpsed Kathryn at the high table during the play, she was not here. But Doctor Gascoigne, his mouth twisted with holding in whatever he had been about to say, pointedly turned away from Mistress Penteney’s rush of words to engage Lord Lovell, Master Penteney, and the merchant in talk; and Joliffe, relieved to be done with him, joined Basset and Ellis in courteous heed to Mistress Penteney, not doubting for a moment that she had known his debate with Doctor Gasciogne had been on the verge of heating past courtesy into outright argument and that she had interrupted on purpose to stop it. He was grateful to her and smiled with unfeigned warmth when she said to him, “You played the Devil again tonight. That’s twice I’ve seen you at that, Master Southwell.”

Joliffe place a hand over his heart and slightly bowed to her. “But tomorrow you’ll see me as the Angel at the right hand of God Omnipotent. I pray you, think of me that way, rather than this other.”

“The question,” John Thamys put in, having stayed courteously attendant to his hostess, “is whether he’s as convincing an angel as he is a devil.”

That drew laughter from the women and mercifully no comment from Ellis.

Meanwhile Rose had followed Piers to the tray of cakes on the table, probably to forestall him slipping whatever he might into his belt pouch, and now Mistress Penteney urged the ladies and players and Master Thamys the same way. They mostly went, but Joliffe hung back and aside with Thamys who said for only him to hear, “St. Catherine bless the woman for breaking up you and Gascoigne. That was one of the most disordered attempts at logical talk I’ve ever encountered. Do you know how many holes there were in your argument?”

“Not as many as in Gascoigne’s. Does he always go on like that?”

“Our grand Doctor Gascoigne loves nothing so well as the sound of his own voice demonstrating how uncommonly learned he is. Not that it helped that you goaded him. You didn’t think he’d take well to being challenged by a player, did you?”

“I doubt he takes well to being challenged by anybody,” Joliffe muttered. “And, yes, I know full well I should have let his windy opinions blow away on his own breath, but everything he had to say was old, dried, over-worked, and not even his own. I could name you the treatise they come from. It’s fifty years old if it’s a day, and there he was, pretending he was brilliant because he could trot out its arguments. He probably thinks that St. Jerome is still the greatest mind to touch theology in fifteen hundred years. He . . .”

“You,” said Thamys, smiling, “are very angry.”

Joliffe was and was not happy at himself for it, but he smiled, too, and made Thamys a little bow, as if conceding a point to him, saying, “I’d hoped it didn’t show.”

“I only knew it by the way your eyes narrowed when you smiled at our Doctor Gascoigne. When you narrowed your eyes that way, it used to mean you were furious and about to do your best to make someone very unhappy.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I saw you the time Maydenlove said something with which you did not agree and you, smiling all the while, chewed his argument to pieces with fifty quotations from Augustine, Jerome, Aquinas, and I don’t know whom else, then dumped a cup of wine over his head at the end of it.”

“I doubt it was more than twenty quotations and I don’t remember the wine.”

“I’ll warrant Maydenlove does. It was mulled and hot.”

Somewhat raising his voice, Joliffe said, “Master Barentyne,” both in greeting and for warning to Thamys as the crowner approached, having left Master Richard and Mistress Geva in talk with Lady Lovell.

“So you see,” said Thamys, shifting into a pedagogue’s clipped, condescending tone, “Doctor Thomas Gascoigne is hardly someone to offend as you were trying to do.”

Joliffe lifted his eyebrows at “trying,” being fairly certain he had succeeded, but Thamys turned from him to Master Barentyne, asking, “Isn’t that correct, sir?”

“Happily, you know Doctor Gascoigne far better than I do, Master . . . Thamys, is it?”

“It is, and I thank your courtesy in remembering, Master Barentyne. But if you’ll both pardon me, I should probably go be courteous to our chancellor. By your leave.”

He bent his head to them, Master Barentyne bent his in return and Joliffe bowed. Thamys withdrew and Joliffe said, “Apparently Doctor Gascoigne wields much influence.”

“He wields a strong tongue and a considerable amount of independent wealth. The wealth buys tolerance for the first,” Master Barentyne answered.

“And the chancellorship of the University? Did it buy that, too?”

“I don’t look at what the University is doing if I can help it. Come to that, I stay clear of the town’s in-fighting, too, and as far from whatever town-and-gown quarrels the two get going between them. At any rate, you’re safe from being asked to play at Oriel College anytime soon. That’s where he resides.”

“Is that who puts up with him? I shall avoid it like the stocks. Though I hope . . .” and this Joliffe meant unfeignedly, “. . . he doesn’t take against Master Penteney on my account. I presume he was invited because of what influence he might have on provision purchases at his college and maybe elsewhere in the university?”

“Very probably, but Master Penteney should be safe. He is too good at what he does to be set aside on account of a player’s ill manners.”

Master Barentyne looked uncomfortable saying that, as if it were ill-mannered to remind Joliffe of what he was. Joliffe, knowing perfectly well what he was and what was thought of him by most people because of it, knew also what he thought of Doctor Gascoigne and his kind, and that rather evened the score. Therefore he only smiled and said, “But to shift to something other than Gascoigne, have you been able to learn anything more about the dead man?”

“Such as?” Master Barentyne asked in return.

Joliffe acknowledged the adroit trade of question for question with a wider smile and suggested, “Such as where he was staying in Oxford. Where else he’d been in Oxford besides here. Where was he seen after he left here yesterday afternoon.”

“A very good set of questions,” Master Barentyne said and gave way to a small smile of his own before admitting, “I’ve had men asking all of those things but so far to very little purpose. He doesn’t seem to have stayed at any of the inns or other expected places. No one remembers him by name or description or is missing any guests. Nor does anyone remember if he was ever at any of the taverns around town where my men have asked. There are more taverns and alehouses to go to, though, so that run isn’t done yet, but with the crowds here for the holiday I’m not leaning heavily on our chances of him being remembered. I’ve also sent someone to Abingdon to ask about him there.”

“No one has been to the sheriff to say they’re missing someone who was visiting them here?”

“No one, but maybe it’s too soon for that. Or someone doesn’t want to admit to knowing him. If he was indeed a Lollard or working for them, I assuredly wouldn’t admit he was staying with me if I could help it.”

“You’ve found nothing that shows whether he was a Lollard or not?”

“There was nothing on him, no. As Master Sampson said, there was nothing at all to tell who he was or what his business might be. If ever he had anything that way, it went with his belt pouch, dagger, and money.”

Then maybe Master Penteney had made unnecessary trouble by identifying him at all. Except that he had had to admit knowing at least his name, since he was known to have talked with the man. And better to have brought out the suspicion of Lollardy and why the man was there, rather than make up a reason and risk having it found out. Always keep your lies as close to the truth as possible—that was a lesson Joliffe had
not
needed to be taught by Basset.

“Maybe he wasn’t staying in Oxford,” he offered. “Maybe yesterday he was just passing through. You’ve asked after his horse?”

“Supposing he had one and didn’t walk or come some other way. I’ve asked, yes, but none of the livery stables say anyone of his look was at any of them.”

“Maybe he didn’t look like himself when he was there.”

“Disguised?” Master Barentyne paused on that thought before asking, “But why then would he come undisguised to Master Penteney?”

“A well-taken point,” Joliffe granted. “I’ll try to think of a reason.”

“Why should you bother?”

“Because someone tried to make us suspected of murder and might try to make trouble for us again.”

“Why would someone want to do that?”

“I don’t know, but besides worrying that they may try again at making trouble, Master Penteney has been generous to us. It would be shame if trouble came on him and his household because of us.”

“Don’t you suppose that my being here shows Master Penteney is unsuspected in the matter?”

“Does it?” Joliffe returned.

Master Barentyne laughed. “Now, before you ask me, I’ll tell you I’ve had men questioning from house to house whether anyone heard anything along the back lane in the night. Voices. Quarreling. A cart. A horse or mule, for that matter, since the body could have been slung over a horse’s back for carrying here.”

“On Leonard’s own horse maybe, and then the murderer rode off on it, and that’s why there’s no horse and no murderer to be found.”

Master Barentyne made a wry face. “Very possibly. But since you’re so eager with questions, here’s something for you. When we stripped the body to see the wound better and find if there were any other marks on him . . .”

“Were there?”

“No. Just the stab wound, the bruised chin and knuckles, and the slight bump on his head. But his shirt was torn. The right sleeve. It looked to have caught on something and a small, ragged piece been ripped out of it. About this long and not so wide.” He pointed at half his little finger’s length. “It looked to be a fresh tear and the kind of thing easily done and overlooked in dark and haste to move and be rid of a body.”

Bright and mocking, Joliffe said, “So all you need do is find a tiny torn bit of his shirt clinging to someone or a cart or a horse’s saddle or whatever, and you’ll have your murderer.”

“Exactly,” Master Barentyne said, bright and mocking back at him. “Keep an eye out for it, why don’t you?”

They were interrupted by Master Penteney calling Master Barentyne to come tell Lord Lovell something, with a servant coming immediately thereafter to say the hall was cleared. While Master Penteney saw his guests back into the hall, the players took up their two hampers and were out the parlor door immediately behind the last guest, going down the hall along the wall to be noticed as little as possible, and out through the screens passage into the lantern-lighted yard.

They left the torchlight behind as they crossed the yard toward the barn, but the cool night darkness was clear and starlighted. Rose went ahead with the key, to unlock the barn doors and open them wide for the sake of thinning the darkness inside, rather than go to the trouble of lighting their lantern. Tired now the day was finished, they said little among themselves, doing by feel as much as by sight what little they had to do before lying down—Piers with a tired whimper, Basset with a weary groan that Joliffe could just about have matched as he dropped his own head onto his straw-stuffed pillow.

Unfortunately, along with his weariness, he took to bed with him remembrance that Master Barentyne had never answered whether his being here tonight meant he no long suspected Master Penteney of the murder. Joliffe had asked him—but Master Barentyne had never answered. Unless avoiding an answer was answer enough.

Chapter 13

Because Corpus Christi Day’s business and pleasures so much depended on good weather, the morning might well have been expected to be, at the least, threatened with rain. Instead when Rose set one of the barn doors open to the day, the light of a shining dawn flooded in, promising a day as fair as hope.

“No corpse?” Ellis asked, still facedown in his pillow.

“No corpse,” Rose confirmed. “You’re safe to get up.”

“I laugh,” Ellis said, still into his pillow.

Piers rolled over, blinking his way to wakefulness, then cheered, “Play today!”, bounded up and flung himself on Ellis. “Come on! We get to do
Isaac and Abraham
today!”

“
Abraham
and Isaac,”
Ellis growled and twisted onto his back to pull Piers down for a solid tickling. Laughing, Piers squirmed free, leaped up and ran out.

The rest of them went at the day more slowly. Basset, Ellis, Joliffe, and—under protest—Piers washed thoroughly with the clean water Rose had fetched in the bucket yesterday afternoon so it would not be cold from the well this morning since they lacked a fire at which to heat it. That meant the washing was not so bad; it was the shaving afterwards that was unpleasant. Not until they were dressing did Joliffe bring himself to say, unsure why no one else had spoken of it first, “About last night. I shouldn’t have started all that with Gascoigne. If trouble comes of it, I’ll take it on myself.”

“You didn’t start it,” Ellis said, tying up his hosen. “He did. The old bastard had been planning his little speeches the whole time we were playing. You just gave him back better than he was trying to give us.”

“Still,” Basset said, shrugging into his doublet, “you’re old enough to know better by now. Gascoigne’s kind never hear any argument but their own. Since they’re always right, why should they?”

“So don’t do it again,” Ellis grumbled, slipping his shirt over his head.

It was a grumble more for form than actual irk, and to cover how Ellis’s unexpected support warmed him, Joliffe muttered like Piers in a pout, “I’m never supposed to have fun.”

“You have too much fun,” Ellis snapped, and they were back to where they usually were with each other.

At breakfast in the hall, more than a few of the household met them with smiles and talk about last night’s play, but neither they nor anyone else was lingering over either food or talk. Church bells were ringing from all of Oxford’s churches, reminding people of the worship proper to the day, but today was holiday as well as holy day, and everyone who was going to be free of their duties today was eager to be away to Mass and then into the streets for everything that would be happening. Quickly though they ate, the players were not among the first to leave and, “Briskly,” Basset said as they headed back across the yard. “The men from St. Michael’s will be here soon as Mass is done and I want to check the hamper again.”