A Play of Isaac (30 page)

Joliffe, looking at it straight on, had to answer, “I don’t know.”

“Something did. It didn’t float into your mind like dandelion fluff on a gentle wind.”

Joliffe grimaced at the slight edge of scorn in Basset’s voice, went quickly through his thoughts, and said, “Kathryn and Lewis were to be betrothed today, and I’ll warrant the first banns would have been read in their church this Sunday. Now, just before too late, Lewis is dead and she’ll surely be married to Simon instead.”

“A far better match for her,” Basset said.

“Something any number of people could see. Kathryn herself, for one. Simon for another. They get on well together, and while they’ve both seemed ready to accept her marriage to Lewis, was one of them less ready than he seemed? Or she seemed? There was maybe more understanding on Simon’s part than on Kathryn’s of what she’d lose by marrying Lewis, but Kathryn’s no fool. When it came to the point, she maybe decided she could not face it. Or Simon did.”

“Or Mistress Penteney did. Joliffe, do you fully know what you’re saying?”

“That Lewis’s death was purposed. By Mistress Penteney or someone else. And that the tainted sweetmeats were no accident. That someone deliberately poisoned them.”

“Why? To make all those people sick in the hope Lewis would die?”

“Maybe I’m wrong about Lewis’s death being purposed. Maybe it was Lollards looking for revenge on Master Penteney for Hubert Leonard’s death.”

“Leonard’s death wasn’t Master Penteney’s doing,” Basset said.

“Lollards might think otherwise. Who knows? Whoever did it, maybe they didn’t mean for anyone to die, just badly disgrace the Penteneys by ruining the dinner and make trouble for them.”

“It has done that,” Basset said. “
If
it was deliberate poisoning at all, which is unproven.”

“But not impossible.”

“No, not impossible. But impossible enough. You think someone at the baker’s did it? Because there’s no way it could have been done at the Penteneys’. The sweetmeats went directly to Mistress Penteney’s keeping and from hers to the butler’s . . .” Basset stopped, weighing what he had said and not liking it. He glared at Joliffe. “So, yes, she could have done something to them, but so could the butler. Why not suspect him?”

“I would if I knew he had any reason for it.”

“What reason does Mistress Penteney have, you fool? Why would she want disaster at her feast and humiliation for her household?”

“So Lewis would die and Kathryn not have to marry him.”

“St. Vitus give me patience. That marriage has been set and certain for years. Why would she balk at it now?”

“Because something that’s bearable from a-far off is sometimes too painful to face as it comes near. Or because there was always the hope that Lewis would die before it came to the marriage. And now he has.”

“And you think she did it.”

“I think she could have. I can see
why
she would.”

“So she made everyone at the feast ill, in the hope Lewis would die,” Basset said, unconvinced. “Not a very efficient way of murder. Wait. No. You think she made everyone ill so she could poison Lewis afterwards and it would seem nothing more than his weak heart failing under the strain. God’s mercy, Joliffe, that’s twisted. Let go of it. It’s no concern of ours.”

“It is,” Joliffe said stubbornly, covering that he was somewhat desperate that Basset at least should understand. “Our concern, I mean. There have been two deaths here since we came to stay. One was undeniably murder, the other maybe. And there’s been a poisoning that would have made talk even without Lewis’s death, with talk of Lollards thrown in for worse measure. Master Barentyne may not be inclined to think us guilty of anything but that doesn’t mean other people won’t be. Talk against us will finish us as fast as anything. We won’t be able to come back to Oxford for years. And what if it follows us? What if the taint ‘Lollard’ goes with us? We’ll be finished within the year, one way or another.”

Basset was scowling ferociously but more with thought than anger now. “Nor will it be good for Penteney to have Lollard talk around him again.” His voice sharpened. “Nor good for him to have his wife found out for murder.”

“Or himself considered a murderer. That’s possible, too. It’s his bedchamber as much as Mistress Penteney’s, I assume. He would have had chance to taint the sweetmeats.”

“And then eat enough to make himself very ill and somehow poison Lewis along the way? Joliffe!”

“It’s possible,” Joliffe said stubbornly.

“So’s the chance that Judgment Day may come tomorrow but the likelihood is small to the point of invisibility. Suppose we come at it a different way. Suppose Mistress Penteney was right last night in her first suspicion—that it was Master Penteney who was supposed to die? It was probably no secret in the household that those sweetmeats are a favorite of his so he’d eat a great many. What better cover for murder than making a great many people ill and Master Penteney having the misfortune to die?”

“That’s possible, too,” Joliffe granted, “but as you said, not a very efficient way of murder. Seeing the sickness as cover for Lewis’s death works better.”

“Bringing us back to Mistress Penteney,” Basset said with disgust. “Why couldn’t whoever poisoned the sweetmeats have simply been hoping his weak heart would fail under the strain of the sickness and it did and there an end?”

“If that
was
going to be the end, maybe I could leave it lie as it is. But there’s going to be talk and I’ll lay you eggs to gold pieces that much of that talk is going to be against us.”

Basset had not left off frowning since they had begun to talk, nor did he now as he asked, “So, supposing this poisoning was deliberate and done by someone, do you think you have any chance whatever of finding out who and proving it?”

“Probably not. But I’ve no chance at all if I don’t try.”

Piers had left the cart, unnoticed until now he sidled to Joliffe’s side and said, very low, “Her right one.”

“What?” Joliffe asked, stooping to hear him better.

“Her right sleeve,” Piers all but whispered. “The packet Mistress Penteney showed the doctor last night. She took it from her right sleeve.”

“You’re certain?”

“After I thought about it, where she was standing and all, yes.”

“Did you see where she put the packet she emptied into Lewis’s wine?”

“No. But she took it out of her left sleeve and wouldn’t she most likely put it back there? It was in her right hand the last time I remember it.”

That was what Joliffe remembered, too; and Mistress Penteney was right-handed. How likely was she to have put the packet, left-handed, up her right sleeve? Not very, he thought.

“Piers, come away from him,” Ellis snapped, so sharply that Piers actually took a step backward.

But before he altogether went he whispered to his grandfather and Joliffe, “I like Mistress Penteney.”

“So do I,” Joliffe whispered back.

Piers hesitated, then said, “But if she killed Lewis, she shouldn’t have.”

“No,” Joliffe agreed. “She shouldn’t have.”

“Piers!” Ellis ordered and Piers went away to him, scuffling and ungracious.

Basset and Joliffe looked at each other—a long, assessing look, with neither of them very happy, until Basset finally said, tersely, “Why don’t you go for a walk, Joliffe?”

It was an order more than a question and Joliffe took it, because Basset was right: they would all be easier if he was somewhere else just now.

Once outside the barn, though, he realized that where else he could go was a problem. Not into town. He was not in the humour for holiday crowds. Nor hanging about the yard. He would rather not have people here thinking about the players if it could be helped, or have to talk to anyone here. With little other choice, he went out the back gate to the lane. If nothing else, he could see how Tisbe did.

It was a solitary walk, which suited him well. Summer was coming into its greenest glory and he had the lane to himself, everyone probably gone to holiday in town. Almost he could lose himself in the pleasure of the sun warm on his back, the sky blue-shining overhead, the flirt of birdsong around him in the hedgerows . . .

Almost, but not enough.

Tisbe was doing well, though, he saw when he came to lean on the gate to the horse pasture. Even from a distance, grazing among the other horses, she looked sleek-sided, and when he whistled and she threw up her head and came to him, it was with a certain jauntiness, her days of rest and plentiful food having plainly been good for her. She even eyed him to see if he were carrying halter or rope before she quite came in his reach, and he chided her, “Grown fond of laziness, have you, girl? You’ve a few more days of it, by the look of things.”

She put her forehead against his shoulder and shoved, telling him to make himself useful and scratch behind her ears. He obliged and they stood in silent, mutual satisfaction for a while, Joliffe letting himself ease into a quietmindedness that matched Tisbe’s half-closed eyes and the drowse of flies around them, until the sound of a door across the yard behind him brought him to look over his shoulder and see Master Glover coming his way.

So not everyone was gone to holiday in town, Joliffe thought regretfully. He was more regretful when Master Glover joined him at the gate with a brief greeting and asked, “What’s all this about trouble at Master Penteney’s feast last night? Is it true the idiot is dead?”

“He’s dead, yes,” Joliffe said, succeeding at keeping his voice easy. He didn’t know when he had stopped thinking of Lewis as anyone but Lewis, was surprised to find that he had, and more surprised by his flare of anger as Master Glover went on lightly, “Well, that’s God’s mercy on everyone, including the idiot. What happened at the feast anyway? Poison, I’ve heard.”

“You’ve heard as much as me,” Joliffe said. He was giving more heed to scratching the long hollow under Tisbe’s chin now than to Master Glover, hoping he would go away.

But Master Glover persisted, “I heard you players were there.”

Word spreads fast, Joliffe thought while answering, “The others were. I was in the garden, keeping the children busy.”

“Ah. I thought you looked over-well for someone who’d been poisoned. If you weren’t, that explains it.”

“I wasn’t,” Joliffe agreed. “Nobody was. Not of a purpose. It just seems to have been some food gone off.”

“Is that what they’re saying?”

“It’s what the crowner is saying, anyway.” Joliffe looked at him. “Why? What have you heard?”

Master Glover shrugged. “Lollards are what I’ve heard. Lollards taking revenge on Master Penteney for that Lollard found dead at his place the other day.”

“How did you come to hear that?”

“You know how it is. People talk.”

They surely did, but how had Master Glover heard so much, complete with flourishes and Lollards, all the way out here in the not over-long while since it all happened?

“You’ve been into town to the holidaying?” Joliffe asked.

“I’ve not, no. I don’t hold with . . .” He seemed to think better of what he had been going to say and said instead, “I’ve let my men go in but stayed here myself. Everyone being gone is what thieves count on at holiday time. Mind you, Deykus is going to hear about only Dav making it back here last night, leaving all the morning work to the two of us.”

“Dav is who told you about the trouble at the Penteneys.”

“He did.” Master Glover reached out and stroked Tisbe’s neck. “He’s courting one of the kitchenmaids, the poor fool. Was even helping at the feast, so knew about it all far better than he wanted to.”

“How did he come to hear it was being said Lollards did the poisoning?” Joliffe asked.

“She has a carrying voice, does Mistress Penteney.”

And of course there would have been servants listening as near the parlor’s door as they could get. Joliffe realized he should have thought of that.

“But like I said to Dav this morning,” Master Glover went on, “a man that has to do with Lollards, he should expect trouble from it, shouldn’t he?”

“Master Penteney doesn’t have to do with Lollards, does he?” Joliffe asked.

“He must. That Lollard was there to see him the other day and that wasn’t by chance, I’ll warrant you. His brother is a Lollard, you see. Master Penteney’s brother. One of the worst, I’ve heard tell. He’s off somewhere overseas with that arch-heretic Payne.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” Joliffe said, lying with encouraging interest.

“Oh, yes. It’s something everyone knows. They just don’t talk about it to Master Penteney’s face. Not that anyone thinks he’s a Lollard, mind you, and good luck for him that he isn’t, since everything his brother lost for being one Master Penteney gained, and every time Master Penteney gets richer, his brother is remembered.”

There was an undercurrent to Master Glover’s words, an edge that a satisfied man shouldn’t have towards his master, but as if he had not heard it, Joliffe asked, “Do you think Master Penteney has dealings with Lollards? Besides with the dead man, I mean.”

“Not likely, no. That fellow found dead at his place was probably just a useless troublemaker who ran into more trouble than he counted on in some back alley and only happened to be a Lollard.”

“And only happened to be dumped in Master Penteney’s yard?”

“Maybe. Or maybe somebody wanted to make trouble for Master Penteney.” Glover left off stroking Tisbe’s neck. “He didn’t get rich as he is without making some people unhappy at him, whether they can do anything about it or not.”

“So maybe one of them found a way to ruin his feast last night.”

“Could be. Could be. Ended by doing him a favor though, didn’t they? Killing off the idiot that way. I suppose they’ll marry the girl to that Simon now.”

“Very like,” Joliffe said. He gave Tisbe a final scratch between the eyes, made his farewell to Glover, and left, making it seem he went in no great haste despite how much he wanted to be away from the man. It seemed that, like too many people, other people’s trouble was meat and drink to Glover, and just now Joliffe was on a fast. Once away from the pasturage, though, he slowed his pace, matching it to the slow turn of his thoughts, and instead of returning to the barn, followed the lane past the Penteneys’ back gate, took a side alley that let him wend back to outside the North Gate with his mind made up to something. Joining the happy crowds, he went through the gateway into the town and purposefully by the shortest way to Queen’s Lane and St. Edmund Hall.